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More "Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you shall have your beer because you like it. The whisky was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll get up ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... old lady Chia, "every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... at once, the motive of this gathering on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully adjusted and noted, and their consultations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... will go straight to the city. I would send this by him if he did. I am afraid he will loiter about and be taken—do make them go on fast—he has left. I could not hear much he said—some who did don't like him at all—think him an impostor—a great brag—said he was a dentist ten years. He was asked where he came from, but would not tell till he looked at the letter that lay on the table and that he had just brought back. I don't feel much confidence in him—don't believe ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Johnson, unmollified. "If you want to brag about your ancestors, do it. Leave mine alone. Stick to your ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... you, who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,— For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Twopenny Post Bag; * * * * But now to my letter—to yours 'tis an answer— To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on (According to compact) the wit in the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... tell you a dog story—only now, since I've mentioned him, I must tell you a circumstance about Cees. He was a middlin' size broot, with fox ears and yaller spots over his eyes, and could out bark and out brag all creation when he was inside the yard. If another dog was goin' along he'd run up and down the palins and bark and take on like he'd give the world if that fence wasent there. So one day when ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... read without difficulty. It is swollen horrible; so how I shall look as Orsino, God knows! I have my fine clothes tho'. Henley's sonnets have been taken for the Cornhill. He is out of hospital now, and dressed, but still not too much to brag of in health, poor fellow, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... about thet boy. 'Is father 'ad a barrer, thet were what 'is father did for a livelihood, an' 'is mother were up afore the beaks for poppin' shirts what she'd took in to wash. Well, I ain't one to brag, but my father were a 'air-dresser's assistant in Pimlico. Pretty well up, too, 'e was. The way 'e'd shive yer were sutthin' to see. Shivin'? Yer couldn't call it shivin'; it were gen'us, thet's what it were. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... brag when you are three to one," he cried fiercely. "But wait, that's all. My father would be a free man if it wasn't for you. Wait, and see what ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... the Paladin; "girls can brag, but that's all they are good for. Let a thousand of them come face to face with a handful of soldiers once, if you want to see what running is like. Here's little Joan—next she'll be threatening to go for ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... great storms is seldom heralded by any striking or unusual phenomenon. The real weather gods are free from brag and bluster; but the sham gods fill the sky with portentous signs and omens. I recall one 5th of March as a day that would have filled the ancient observers with dreadful forebodings. At ten o'clock the sun was attended ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... blew out on the sidewalk, the store was full of smoke, the old man rushed out the back door with his whiskers singed and yelled "Fire!" while the bad boy fell out the front door his eye winkers gone, and his hair singed, the cat got out with no hair to brag on, and before they could breathe twice the fire department came clattering up to a hydrant and soon turned the hose inside the grocery. There was not very much fire, and after tipping over every barrel and box that had not been blown ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... have been seduced by some one, and Mr. Lebyadkin has, it seems, for many years received a yearly grant from the seducer by way of compensation for the wound to his honour, so it would seem at least from his chatter, though I believe it's only drunken talk. It's simply his brag. Besides, that sort of thing is done much cheaper. But that he has a sum of money is perfectly certain. Ten days ago he was walking barefoot, and now I've seen hundreds in his hands. His sister has fits of some sort ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... could catch his temper. I'd trash enough to have cloyed his eyes withal, (His covetous eyes,) such as I scorn to tread on, Richer than e'er he saw yet, and more tempting; Had I known he'd stoop'd at that, I'd saved mine honor— I had been happy still! But let him take it. And let him brag how poorly I'm rewarded; Let him go conquer still weak wretched ladies; Love has his angry quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest— I am a fool to fret thus for ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... were in a maze. Had they been served with a mess of brag, or was the fellow really capable? One thing was clear—the interest in the race had taken a rise perceptible in the judge's stand not less than on the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... fair Lesley, Return to Caledonie! That we may brag we hae a lass There's nane again ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... of mean little houses,—the kind of thing, and not a dull house of faded gentry, which perhaps the neighborhood requires. The house was dull, and so were we, its last inhabitants; and the furniture was faded, even a little dingy,—nothing to brag of. I do not, however, intend to convey a suggestion that we were faded gentry, for that was not the case. My father, indeed, was rich, and had no need to spare any expense in making his life and his house bright if he pleased; but he did not please, and I ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... this subject men are less inclined to be fussy, and by the same token more inclined, on having accomplished a cure, to take a justifiable pride in it and to brag publicly about it. As I stated a moment ago, I claim Mr. Blythe viewed the matter in a proper and commendable light when he took pen in hand to describe more or less at length his reduction processes. So, too, did that other notable of the literary world, Mr. Vance Thompson. ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... shall be most happy to come and hear your favourite preacher.'[759] Horace Walpole (who, however, is not always to be trusted when he is writing on religious matters) wrote to Sir Horace Mann, March 23, 1749: 'Methodism is more fashionable than anything but brag; the women play very deep at both—as deep, it is much suspected, as the Roman matrons did at the mysteries of Bona Dea. If gracious Anne were alive she would make an admirable defendress of the new faith, and would build fifty more churches for female proselytes.'[760] ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the heart of heaven Went down with all hands, roaring into the dark. Hardly five rounds of shot were left to Drake! Gun after gun fell silent, as the night Deepened—"Yet we must follow them to the North," He cried, "or they'll return yet to shake hands With Parma! Come, we'll put a brag upon it, And hunt them onward as we lacked for nought!" So, when across the swinging smoking seas, Grey and splendid and terrible broke the day Once more, the flying Invincible fleet beheld Upon their weather-beam, and dogging them ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... years, I should say, than either Von Heeringen or Von Zwehl; too young, I judged, to have got his training in the blood- and-iron school of Bismarck and Von Moltke of which the other two must have been brag-scholars. Both of them, I think, were Prussians, but this general was a Saxon from the South. Indeed, as I now recall, he said his home in peace times was in Dresden. He seemed less simple of manner than they; they in turn lacked a certain ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... of the proas, all hands of us began to brag. Even the captain was a little seized with this mania; and as for Marble, he was taken so badly, that, had I not known he behaved well in the emergency, I certainly should have set him down as a Bobadil. Rupert manifested this feeling, too, though I heard he did his duty that night. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... mean to lift them again! I mean to go in for big things; that 's my notion of my art. I mean to do things that will be simple and vast and infinite. You 'll see if they won't be infinite! Excuse me if I brag a little; all those Italian fellows in the Renaissance used to brag. There was a sensation once common, I am sure, in the human breast—a kind of religious awe in the presence of a marble image newly created and expressing the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... for him!—He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... "is but idle boasting—a brag of what you would have done had you not found it convenient to do otherwise. You received my glove, and my champion, if a creature so desolate can find one, must encounter your lance in the lists—yet you would assume the air ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... "O, you can brag; but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's all I've got ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities—alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale—you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Have you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... of destruction and a sense, Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs Predestined; while,—like monsters in the glooms,— Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense, The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.— Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization? Its brag of Christianity?—In vain We seek to see them in the dread eclipse Of hell and horror, all the devastation Of Death triumphant on his hills ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... save his noble grace And grant him a place Endlesse to dwell, With the deuyll of hell, For and he were there We nede neuer feere, Of the fendys blake; For I vndertake He wolde so brag and crake, That he wolde then make The deuyls to quake, To shudder ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... replied quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other aunt ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you'll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You'll fight with the best of them, sir. And 'tain't brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of them. Old ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... the bottom with the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... are not much to brag of," broke in Michael, as he tossed them aside. "I think we had better not trust her with any more cloth roundabouts. She has botched the button-holes awfully; and the jackets are not more than half pressed. Just look how she has held on the back seam of this ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... there ever a greater appearance of prosperity? a greater face of plenty? Is not the city enlarged? Are not the streets better paved, houses repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid with counters? An old square new vamped up! a fountain! an aqueduct! are these acquisitions to brag of? Cast your eye upon the magistrate under whose ministry you boast these precious improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once from dirt to opulence; from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have not some of these upstarts built private ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... to be so big,—not that I believe half you say, Lion. You've been over in America so long, and grown such a Yankee, that you swallow everything they choose to tell you. I've always heard about American brag—" ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... Admiral, after the election was over, "Do you know, I had a mind to have stood myself; if I had, what would you have said?"—"That it was all a game of brag, and that, as you had the shuffling of the pack, there was no knowing what knave ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that spruce was the apple of his eye. If I've heard him brag that tree up once, I've heard him brag it up fifty times. He never gave away anything in his life before. What's come over ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... doe speake English When I'de move pittie; when dissemble, Irish; Dutch when I reele; and tho I feed on scalions If I should brag Gentility I'de gabble Welch.' ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... before I got his letter. . . . 'Twas a good letter, Sam, a mighty good letter. Some time I'll read it to you. Not a complaint in it, just cheerfulness, you know, and—and grit and confidence, but no brag." ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he cannot "mince" it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as "easy" to conquer kingdoms as to speak French; can "vault into his saddle with his armour on his back"; he is no carpet-soldier; he never "looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there," and to make the likeness ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Irish, and worn red coats, and ate blood-puddings, and drank ale, and hurrahed for King George forevermore. This is the truth, fellow-citizens, for I cannot tell a lie,—you know I cannot tell a lie. But I don't want to brag over you, and if you will still be good Yankee Christians, brave and industrious, I will still be the father of your country, world without end, Amen! Band, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... to brag of anyhow," replied Miss Polly with that careful penetration which never sees below the surface of things. "To tell the truth I've always had a sort of leanin' toward geraniums myself—especially rose geraniums. I don't know why on earth," she concluded ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are nice girls, and it is ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... humour did you find him?—in none that was very favourable, I dare say, for you have a baffled and perplexed look, that confesses a losing game—I have often warned you how your hang-dog look betrays you at brag—And then, when you would fain brush up your courage, and put a good face on a bad game, your bold looks always remind me of a standard hoisted only half-mast high, and betraying melancholy and dejection, instead of triumph ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... with an expression at which Evelyn might have laughed if she had not felt so disturbed. "The boy turned out to be our next neighbour here. They've made another appointment for to-night. He thinks it a great lark—probably will brag about it to all the boys. He's got to eat his little dish of humble pie, too. Evelyn, I've a plan. Will you trust me to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... Tom, I do think that a clean conscience must be a very comfortable thing for a man to have. But I can't brag much of mine now-a-days; it gives me ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... told him, "I'm going to brag that I was the very first girl in all the world ever to be kissed ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... liquors might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are closed, I can tell you, for these people are enough to make one sick. The way they talk and brag sets my fingers itching, and I want to ask them to step into the back room, take off their coats, those uniforms they are so proud of, and stand up for a friendly round or two just to try ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... like all egomaniacs before him. He wants to brag. We get into a Subterro Jetjeep and drive about twenty miles through the underground countryside to the entrance to a cave guarded by some extra tall Subterrors. Hitler the Third leads us into the spelunker's nightmare and we finally come to a big metal door about eighty feet long ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... those of choicer nostrils. What do you call this house? Is this your palace? did not the judge style it A house of penitent whores? who sent me to it? To this incontinent college? is 't not you? Is 't not your high preferment? go, go, brag How many ladies you have undone, like me. Fare you well, sir; let me hear no more of you! I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer, But I have cut it off; and now I 'll go Weeping to heaven on crutches. For your gifts, I will ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... girls, and twice with my hostess; then I let Ryder and the two young business-men do the rest. Randolph danced once with Mrs. Phillips, and that ended it for him. My own dancing, as you know, is nothing to brag of: I think the young ladies were quite satisfied with the little I did. I'm sure I was. You also know my views on round dances. Why dancing should be done exclusively by couples arranged strictly on ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if there's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... sons in general, I suppose,' returned Jonas, looking up and down once more. 'I don't brag to have been any better than other sons; but I haven't been ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, for ever ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... boy, None but cowherds regard him, His dart is a toy, Great opinion hath marred him: The fear of the wag Hath made him so brag; Chide him, he'll flie thee And not come nigh thee. Little boy, pretty knave, shoot not at random, For if you hit me, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... replies, "The Danes have nothing to brag of over us Northmen; for many a place have we laid in ashes ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... red-letter day, when the last sod was dropped into place on the roof, and Garth carried Natalie inside. Strictly considered, the house was not very much to brag about, perhaps; for it slanted this way and that like the first pothooks in a child's copybook; but Garth, fired by Natalie's enthusiastic praises, could not have been prouder if he had completed ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... manifest ambition: for adding manie things by way of flatterie to content Neros mind, he wished to haue liued but two yeeres longer, in which space he might haue subdued prouinces vnto his dominion, meaning therby the whole Ile of Britaine. But this was a Romans brag, sauouring rather of ambition than of ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Foster, the British Minister in 1805 he notes the balls in Georgetown "Cards for everybody, loo for the girls—brag for the men." ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... a disloyal, hypocritical, canting Puritan could brag to my face that he carries one drop of our loyal ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... better order them off," she suggested. "You have my permission. Now's your chance to make good the lordly brag of helping the Three Bar out of the hole." She instantly regretted having said it. A dozen times of late she had wondered if she were turning bitter and waspish, if she would ever again be the even-tempered Billie Warren with a good word and a ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... "You can brag by yourselves," he said, "of your wonderful cricket. I am not going to put up with you any longer. I am sick of you all. I must say it is awfully hard on a fellow to come home and find that not one of his brothers or sisters ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... directions after secondary ideals. The artist is either a poet or a scallawag: as poet, he cannot see, as the prosaic man does, that chivalry is at bottom only romantic suicide: as scallawag, he cannot see that it does not pay to spunge and beg and lie and brag and neglect his person. Therefore do not misunderstand my plain statement of the fundamental constitution of London society as an Irishman's reproach to your nation. From the day I first set foot on this foreign soil I knew the value of the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... read Paine's Tracts against the Old Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the objections which were contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's Essays; and perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave my Father to understand; but perhaps it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French verses, perhaps Voltaire's, in denial of the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself something like ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account—une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got back ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... Success in battle resulteth from the method in which it is fought. A battle is never gained by bragging. If, O Dhananjaya, acts in this world succeeded in consequence of vauntings, all persons would then have succeeded in their objects, for who is there that is not competent to brag? I know that thou hast Vasudeva for thy ally. I know that thy Gandiva is full six cubits long. I know that there is no warrior equal to thee. Knowing all this, I retain thy kingdom yet! A man never winneth success ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... determination to maintain that right, in dock and in jail as on the platform, rang out with no uncertain sound. Truly, as the orator said: 'The bold words I have spoken from this place would be nothing but the emptiest brag and the coward's boast, if I flinched now in the day of battle'. Every word of praise of the fighters of old would fall in disgrace on the head of him who spoke it, if when the time came to share in their peril he shrunk back from ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... as well as your master, who is? Am I in the habit of keeping any of my harmless fellow-creatures at a distance? I despise the cant of modern Liberalism; but it's not the less true that I have, all my life, protested against the inhuman separation of classes in England. We are, in that respect, brag as we may of our national virtue, the most unchristian ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... had no king in Holland, being only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him—to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order. Sully, I don't want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner district. Don't you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage of a country like that? Why, with the dough the General's willing to turn loose I could put two more coats of Japan varnish ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entree; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... pilots who were attired in the blue and gold of naval officers had recently returned from successful endeavours in their hazardous life in the North Sea and on the Belgian Coast. And here they were in old England chatting about their experiences without brag or boast—just telling modestly what ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... British opinion that we are a nation of braggarts. On the other hand, in London, we had Admiral Sims, another American, a splendid antidote. He corrected the Secretary's brag. What is the moral? Look out how you generalize. Since we entered the war that tribe of English has increased who judge us with an open mind, discriminate between us, draw close to a just appraisal ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in the failure of the plant-setting machine factory. The money was not invested in stock of any factory but lay in the bank. Still he was not happy. All day Jim Gibson, whom Joe had never dared tell the tales of his triumph as a workman and to whom he did not brag as he had formerly done to his apprentices, talked of his ability to get the best of customers. He had, he declared, managed, in the last place he had worked before he came to Bidwell, to sell a good many sets of harness as handmade that were in reality made in a factory. ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... poachers, who fish in others' ponds, are proud of their achievements. They will talk. They brag in their cups and strut and ogle ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... shoot another bird except hawks after chickens, and I won't brag about this one. It was so tame, and trusted me, I was very mean to ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... Dicky's propensity to brag, amusing as it was to others, was continually getting him into scrapes. We had an old mate, Adam Stallman by name, who was proportionably as tall, grave, and silent, as Dicky was ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... tongue, Mr. Boswell,' said the old schoolmaster. 'I had no right to brag of my Greek to the gentleman, and he has answered me ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... McMicken by that, and that she might not get him after all—for a good many thought they would never make a match, their dispositions were so contrary. William was of a dreadful quiet turn, and a great home body; and as for being rich, he had nothing to brag of, though he was high larnt and followed the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you? Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it to brag about you at his club. He wants to compromise ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... earlier, and which conferred no great honour, though some profit, and a little snatching up of a few loose trifles such as the Society Islands, which we had, according to our custom, carelessly or benevolently left to gleaners), French arms, despite a great deal of brag and swagger, obtained little glory, while French diplomacy let itself wallow in one of the foulest sloughs in history, the matter of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... distinguished by modesty. Never boast or brag, when you are likely to be disbelieved; and do not contradict your superiors—that is to say, when you are in the presence of people who are richer than yourselves, never express an opinion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... is now the phoenix nest, And the turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest. Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she: ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... under the law as a Covenant of Works who are open profane, and ungodly wretches, such as delight not only in sin, but also make their boast of the same, and brag at the thoughts of committing of it. Now, as for such as these are, there is a Scripture in the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy Chapter 1, verses 9, 10, which is a notable one to this purpose, "The law," saith he, "is not made for a righteous man," not as it is a Covenant of Works, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 'You needn't brag about it,' returned Fledgeby, disappointed in his desire to heighten the contrast between his bed and the streets. 'But you're always bragging about something. Got the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... had spoiled the day for Happy Jack. He knew that if Tommy Tit said that he had done a thing, he had, for Tommy always tells the truth and nothing but the truth. So Happy Jack hadn't been so dreadfully bold, after all, and had nothing to brag about. It made him feel quite put out. He actually tried to make himself feel that it was all the fault of Tommy Tit, and that he wanted to get even with him. He thought about it all the rest of the day, and just before he fell asleep that night ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter haeredes non dividi. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her bounds; but Impudence ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... selection will have its way: the shiftless and the lazy must go to the wall. If you could kill them off, now, that might do some good. The class that needs help is not like us—not that we are anything to brag of: they've not had our chance. It's very well to say, give 'em a chance; but that's no use unless they take it, which they won't. 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.' If they wouldn't, you are bound to respect their right of choice. ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... Office hours, 10 till 4." A medical student thought he occupied my mother's boudoir. He was a dull dog, full of tiresome talk. But I made acquaintanceship with him; and often of an evening would smoke my pipe there in silence while pretending to be listening to his monotonous brag. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... good tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... for exaltation in the minds of descendants also has a certain influence — young men in quarrels sometimes brag of the number of heads taken by their ancestors, and the prowess or success of an ancestor seems to redound to the courage of the descendants; and it is an affront to purposely and seriously belittle the head-hunting results ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... Dakota is so justly celebrated. He thinks this one has been even more so that any of the others. He wishes he was back here at Blue Ruin, where a man can go out doors for half an hour without getting ostracized by the elements. He says they brag a good deal on their ozone there, but he allows that it can be overdone. He states that when the ozone in Dakota is feeling pretty well and humping itself and curling up sheet-iron roofs and blowing trains of the track, a man has to tie a clothes-line to himself, with ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... by enallage for participles, a reference of them to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"—Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,—"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, we may ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the time that this was all bravado and brag; but the boy was in earnest, and sure enough he got into the Legislature, became Lieutenant-Governor, and by the death of the Governor he slipped into the gubernatorial chair, and at last crawled into ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... Dubois did not fail, though, to give him an abridged recital of it, loaded with comments and reflections. He was more his own master than on the preceding day, having had time to recover himself, we cherishing hopes that the Marechal would be sent to the right about. It was here that I heard of the brag of the Marechal de Villeroy concerning the struggle he had had with Dubois, and of the challenges and insults he had uttered with a confidence which rendered his arrest ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... may be the reason for it, my experience in life is that it is never wise to brag about anything. At any rate, on a hunting trip, to come to a particular instance, wait until you are safe at home till you begin to do so. Of the truth of this ancient adage I was now destined to experience a particularly fine and ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... him!—He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... succeed in the North, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. I say "No," and that however mad and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... that easily enough, but you'll never live to brag about it. If the officers don't hang you, Hank Hazletine will make daylight shine through your hide! He is only ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1 1/5 column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown, [1]— For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Twopenny ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... cards, so apparently the dog finds even an unsuccessful chase to be the second best joy he knows. Look at him, tense and motionless with excitement, as he watches the noisy chatterer overhead! No doubt the squirrel will brag to all his acquaintances of how he openly defied and triumphed ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... many years received a yearly grant from the seducer by way of compensation for the wound to his honour, so it would seem at least from his chatter, though I believe it's only drunken talk. It's simply his brag. Besides, that sort of thing is done much cheaper. But that he has a sum of money is perfectly certain. Ten days ago he was walking barefoot, and now I've seen hundreds in his hands. His sister has fits of some sort every day, she shrieks and he 'keeps her ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... first kilt than a gentleman of education and travel and some repute for sobriety. I noticed I was opposite the house of a poor old woman they called Black Kate, whose door was ever the target in my young days for every lad that could brag of a boot-toe, and I saw that the shutter, hanging ajee on one hinge, was thrown open against the harled wall of the house. In my doublet-pocket there were some carabeen bullets, and taking one out, I let bang at the old woman's little lozens. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... that theft is entirely within human scope. The king is barbarously murdered. In Hamlet the graceless usurping uncle declares that "such divinity doth hedge a king," that treason cannot endanger his life. But the speaker is run through the body very soon after the brag escapes ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... all egomaniacs before him. He wants to brag. We get into a Subterro Jetjeep and drive about twenty miles through the underground countryside to the entrance to a cave guarded by some extra tall Subterrors. Hitler the Third leads us into the spelunker's nightmare and we finally come ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"—Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,—"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, we may suppose the pronoun I ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... including his neighbours' nerves; he has no mercy or pity or consideration for anyone serving him, and yet he's the kindest heart towards children and animals, and the good he does to them is about the only thing he don't brag about." ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... most, and they were those pretty little upstarts who talk at random, and brag about their vice, and whom one could soon not leave a leg to stand upon, were one to take the trouble, have related their impressions to me with ironical complaisance, and I found nothing in what they told me that reassured me, nor could I discover anything ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... lots of time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn't want ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Her easy rest of love and peace, I was the latest who awoke. I sighed at passion's mad increase. I strained the traitors to my heart. I said, 'We vex them; let us cease.' I would not play the common part. Tamely I heard the Southrons' brag: I said, 'Their wrongs have made them smart.' At length they struck our ancient flag,— Their flag as ours, the traitors damned!— And braved it with their patchwork-rag. I rose, when other men had calmed Their anger in the marching throng; I rose, as might a corpse embalmed, Who hears God's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... taken the mare and come over here this morning, the rascally police with their search-warrant might have been down upon Mr. Kearney without a warning. They were all stiff and cold enough at first: they are nothing to brag of in the way of cordiality even yet—Dick especially—but they have asked me to stay and dine, and, I take it, it is the right thing to do. Send me over some things to dress with—and believe me your ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... to the group of sailors, "you were precious full of your brag about climbing, and saying I couldn't. But I did, and now let's see ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... is n't a matter of geography. There's not a village in the United States that does n't have its classes. The more loudly they brag of their democracy, the greater the distance from ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... her peculiar institutions; as Kilo took the ever-joking Toole seriously, so she took the ever serious doctor good-naturedly, but not too seriously. He was "jist Doc Weaver," and Kilo reserved the right to laugh at him in private, and to brag about him to strangers, and they were apt to "joke" him about his beliefs. As he was sensitive and dreaded the rough raillery of his neighbors, he kept his enthusiasms to himself. He was like an overcharged ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... no telling what a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, for it speaks ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... little valiant, great in villainy! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou fortune's champion, thou dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by To teach thee safety! Thou art perjured too, And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou, A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and sweat, Upon my party! ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... have found the cheerful southern city, with its Parliament and its colleges, and all the teeming life and restless energies of the Gascon race, not unlike a kind of warmer and more brilliant Scotland, full of national brag and gallantry, a congenial sphere. He had been for a long time shedding complimentary verses, sonnets, dedications, about him after the manner of the time, serving out to everybody who was kind to him a little immortality in the shape of classic thanks or compliment: ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... stenographer in a factory that made tin cans. She liked that work. She could make her fingers dance along the keys. When she read a book at home she didn't think the writer amounted to much if he made mistakes about punctuation. Her boss was so proud of her that he would brag of her work to visitors and sometimes would go off fishing leaving the running of the business ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... much to brag on, but I could see she understood, though she only shook her head and wouldn't speak. But great Moses, she was ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... recommendation that Governor Lincoln appointed the Chief Justice—a suggestion which Governor Lincoln used to repel with great indignation. The Governor was also a good farmer, especially proud of his cattle. Each of them liked to brag of their crops and especially of the produce of their respective dairies. Governor Lincoln was once discoursing to Devens and me, in our office, of a wonderful cow of his which, beside raising an enormous calf, had produced the cream for a great quantity of butter. Mr. Devens said: ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... then tie ribbons around it, and hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. That man"—Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... have commenced their old game of brag, by puffing their ticket as a national and conservative ticket, the very thing they denied. Now let us look into the soundness and nationality of the HEAD of the ticket. We have before us a copy of a work published in 1839, by Robert Mayo, M. D., entitled, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... day, when the last sod was dropped into place on the roof, and Garth carried Natalie inside. Strictly considered, the house was not very much to brag about, perhaps; for it slanted this way and that like the first pothooks in a child's copybook; but Garth, fired by Natalie's enthusiastic praises, could not have been prouder if he had completed ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... her rival's picture at six hundred miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was only one thousand ducats—a much greater proof of his economy than his passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his letters ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... sofas, divans, ottomans; occupying them are clusters of men, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spotted with diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist, cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among the marble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few, who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep their hands in their pockets. These may be the philosophes. But here and there, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark fellow Merik talked together and took no notice of him at all, behaving exactly as though he were not in the room. And he wanted to talk to them, to brag, to drink, to have a good meal, and if possible to have a little fun with Lyubka, who sat down near him half a dozen times while they were at supper, and, as though by accident, brushed against him with her handsome shoulders and passed her hands over her broad hips. She was a healthy, active ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of those who have them brag about them," said Jimmy. "And I know that the men who work for him, from the superintendent down to the yard boy, believe in them and say so, and would tear to pieces a man who says they aren't the best. That's good enough for me. Know anything about cars? Um-m-m-mh! I reckon I don't ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that "if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may seem a contradiction ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... I was weak enough to be angry at such Events, I took care, that my Ill-humour, shou'd be as useful to the Publick, as my good cou'd have been. I ever despised undeserved Grandeur, and misapplied Power, and therefore few People in high Posts, or even Kings or Queens, or Ministers, cou'd ever brag much of my Condescension, in speaking a good Word for them to Posterity, or endeavouring to blind the Eyes of the present Times, by Printing either lies or Truths in their Favour. 'Tis true, I almost as seldom gave them any Proofs of my Spite; partly ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... not their profession. Haply some hapless man hath conscience, And for his conscience lives in beggary. They say we are a scatter'd nation: I cannot tell; but we have scambled [25] up More wealth by far than those that brag of faith: There's Kirriah Jairim, the great Jew of Greece, Obed in Bairseth, Nones in Portugal, Myself in Malta, some in Italy, Many in France, and wealthy every one; Ay, wealthier far than any Christian. I must confess we ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... done. Seymour and the Thames squadron were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From every attainable source food and powder were collected for the rest—far short in both ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, 'we were resolved to put on a brag and go on as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral and he were again off ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... Major Partridge! He will talk all day if he can coax some one to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have done or ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... born weak? These people who behaved themselves and got on, he sneered, were calm, commonplace temperaments who found no difficulty in controlling their baser instincts. They did right simply because they found it easier than to do wrong. Their virtue was nothing to brag about. It was easy to be good when not exposed to temptation. But for those born with the devil in them it came hard. It was all a matter of heredity and influence. One's vices as well as one's virtues are handed down to us ready made. He had ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Morrison o' the Morrisons had only to reach his hand to her and say, 'Coom, lass!' But noo that she is back wi' head high and notions alaft, he'd no accept her! She's nowt but a draft signed by Sham o' Shoddy and sent through the Bank o' Brag and Blaw! No! He'd no' accept her! And now back wi' ye to yer tickety-tack! I hae my orders, and the Queen o' Sheba might yammer and ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... anything whatever; he may be wholly useless and a cumberer of the earth; he may even be known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after all, for we restrict when we ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... want to see the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about it over there. Ah, there's Bess beckoning! Be sure and join ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... does not brag much, ye see, I kin offer him small wages," said Dan'l, with a wink. "It's kinder takin' him at his ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... like fun on a morning like this. There were plenty of big worms, too, in the old watering-pot, tough as worms should be after a good scouring in a heap of wet moss. Just another five minutes and he'd get up, and when he met Adela at breakfast he could brag about what a good one he was at early rising, and show her all ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... the devil do I care about his opinions? let him preach and stick to his controversy with Father Tom—from whom he hadn't so much to brag of—but as for you, Fergus, you are, to spake plainly, a thorough ass. What d—d stuff you have been letting out of you! Go and find, if you can, some purer world for yourself to live in, for, let me tell you, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... these it is immature—and incidentally, untrue—for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter haeredes non dividi. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... began to drive her the very first week she was here. Gilbert is my sister Julia's son, and a fine young fellow he is. It ain't good manners to brag of your own relations, but I'm always forgetting and doing it. Gil was a great pet of mine. He was so bright and nice-mannered everybody liked him. Him and Anne were a fine-looking couple, Nora May. Not but what they had their shortcomings. Anne's nose was ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to bear the brunt, And check the German Kaiser's stunt, We still can brag, and wave the flag, But send the British ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... at billiards as well as most men. Look here now! Daly's dead. We can't bring him to life again, can we? If you shoot me, you'll be nothing to the good, and have every spare man in the three colonies at your heels. This is a game of brag, though the stakes are high. I'll play a card. Listen. You shall have a hundred fivers—500 Pounds in notes—by to-morrow at four o'clock, if you'll let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor ride to Bathurst for the money. What do ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... ruffled pork-butcher. 'Our best men never got it out of books. Now, you tell me—you've got a spiflicating style of talk about you—no brag, you tell me—course, the best man wins, if you mean that: now, if I was one of 'em, and I fetches you a bit of a flick, how then? Would you be ready to step ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my nineteenth year," said Simeon. "I'm no' big for my age, I ken; but I can throw ony man that I get grups on, and haud ony beast whatsomever. I can ploo wi' the best an' maw—Weel, I'm no' gaun to brag, but ye can ask Maister Golder—that is an elder o' your ain, an' comes at least twa Sabbaths afore every Communion ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... reform a man from without. Natural selection will have its way: the shiftless and the lazy must go to the wall. If you could kill them off, now, that might do some good. The class that needs help is not like us—not that we are anything to brag of: they've not had our chance. It's very well to say, give 'em a chance; but that's no use unless they take it, which they won't. 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.' If they wouldn't, you are bound to respect their right of choice. ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... the medal of Congress," replied Hal warmly. "A soldier who wears that doesn't need to brag." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... evacuation, took over all the equipment and installations the Fenris Company had abandoned, and tried to make a living out of the planet. At least, they stayed alive. There are now twenty-odd thousand of us, and while we are still very poor, we are very tough, and we brag ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... as at Pignerol, were cut off from all communication with each other. Says Saint-Mars, 'Since receiving your letter I have warded the pair as strictly and exactly as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who cannot brag that he sent out or received any intelligence. Night and day two sentinels watch their tower; and my own windows command a view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks to my captives but myself, my lieutenant, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... heard of an old saying at my home," I replied, "which ran something like this, 'Brag is a good dog, but ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... Phocion, who did not speak at all, was a great deal nearer hitting the mark than Demosthenes. (Laughter.) He used to tell the Athenians—"You can't fight Philip. You have not the slightest chance with him. He is a man who holds his tongue; he has great disciplined armies; he can brag anybody you like in your cities here; and he is going on steadily with an unvarying aim towards his object: and he will infallibly beat any kind of men such as you, going on raging from shore to shore with all that rampant nonsense." Demosthenes ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... and said the same in fewer words, and so I bid them good-morning. I told them, too, that if some of those people who made so much noise didn't look out, they would get turned off the place, just as Venus and her gang got turned off last year. The fact is, they are trying to play brag, as such people often will; but they will all go to work in a few days, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... tell Allee and when we go to bed we'll just remind the angels that we don't need so much looking after now that we're living here. I'll never forget how s'prised Hec Abbott was when he found out that we'd all been 'dopted together. I wonder what Hec is doing about now? He can't brag any more about the good times they have at his house. We are just—what in the world is that coming ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... TO BOUNCE. To brag or hector; also to tell an improbable story. To bully a man out of any thing. The kiddey bounced the swell of the blowen; the lad bullied the gentleman ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the little lad. "Not much to brag of, however. Merely bobbish, pretty bobbish. In answer to your second question, I take pleasure in informing you," he added, "that I ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... Christian humility to his fellow townspeople, had yet so much human heat and pride glowing like embers in his old heart as to feel strong within him a bitter jealousy and sense of wrong toward whatever young upstarts should intrude themselves, and venture to brag of a love for his flesh and blood which might claim precedence over his own. Doubtless the feeling was unworthy of him, and he would, when the time came, play his part generously and well; but, so long as the matter ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... which they borrow from one another, and the use to which they put them. Thus the French, borrowing 'hablar' from the Spaniards, with whom it means simply to speak, give it in 'habler' the sense of to brag; the Spaniards paying them off in exactly their own coin, for of 'parler' which in like manner is but to speak in French, they make 'parlar,' which means to prate, to chat. [Footnote: See Darmesteter, The Life of ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... in Canada, the land beloved of God; We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood: And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag That we were born in ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... the tense wait for "Fritz's master stroke." You seldom hear them talk of their "bad luck," And suffering has not spoiled their ready wit, And oh! you'd hardly doubt their fighting pluck, When each new operation shows their grit; Who never brag of blows for England struck, But only yearn to "get ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... Theodore Hook much nowadays? Does the generation which loves to follow the trail with Allan Quatermain, and to ride with a Splendid Spur, does it call at all for the humours of the days of the Regency? Do those who have laughed over "The Wrong Box," ever laugh over Jack Brag? Do the students of Mr. Rudyard Kipling know anything of "Gilbert Gurney?" Somebody started the theory some time ago, that this was not a laughter-loving generation, that it lacked high spirits. It has been maintained that if a writer appeared now, with the rollicking ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... of a mind that's a sewer; Well, 'e knows what it is, for I'll lay 'e's bin there. And you'd make a 'orse into cat'smeat on skewer. My eye, but just ain't you a nice-spoken pair! I ain't goin' to foller you two like a shadder, Your 'eads is a darned sight too swelled up with brag. If you don't want to bust and go pop like a bladder, Why you'd best take my tip—put 'em both in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... out of the room which Betty and I share, after putting away my things, nurse opened the nursery door and beckoned me in: "Miss Nannie," she said impressively, "I'm kinder worried 'bout your pa. He's never had no appetite to brag of; but for a week past he's been eatin' like a bird. Mornin' after mornin' he ain't touched nothin' but his tea, an' I'm afraid something's wrong. I don't want to frighten you, my dear, but I thought by ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... it ain't no more but fair that he should be allowed to speak for himself. Now if I say that accordin' to the best o' my knowledge and belief, what I offer you is the right kind o' help, you won't think it's brag or bluster, I hope?' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... for he had all along believed that a fellow who could lift his hand to strike a small girl must be a coward at heart, no matter how much he might bluster and brag. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... road to be looked to: the woods beyond the blacksmith's shop that uster be; the fringe of alder and buckeye by the crossing below your house—p'ints where they kin fetch you without a show. Thar's two ways o' meetin' them thar. One way ez to pull up and trust to luck and brag. The other way is to whip up and yell, and send the whole six ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... said the brown rat. "It's awful the way you people out here in the country brag about relationship. ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway. Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said, "Tell us ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... man; "I aint no brag Bible scholar." He put on a look of droll modesty. "I used to could say the ten commandments of the decalogue, oncet, and I still tries to keep 'em, in ginerally. There's another burnt house. That's the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... when he runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him—when he had nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him! He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The savage ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... is the weak people who bluster like the northwind, and storm and brag. Strong people are usually quiet. There is an old saying that "if you are right you can afford to keep your temper, and if you are wrong you cannot afford to lose it." Be gentle. You will win more that way than ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... on March 2, 1682, the two valets, who had hitherto occupied one chamber at Exiles as at Pignerol, were cut off from all communication with each other. Says Saint-Mars, "Since receiving your letter I have warded the pair as strictly and exactly as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who cannot brag that he sent or received any intelligence. Night and day two sentinels watch their tower; and my own windows command a view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks to my captives but myself, my lieutenant, their confessor, and the doctor, who lives eighteen ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... five hundred knights own him lord." "I will encounter him," said Sir Gareth; "for if he be good knight and true as ye say, he will scarce set on me with all his following; and man to man, I fear him not." "Fie!" said the damsel, "for a dirty knave, ye brag loud. And even if ye overcome him, his might is as nothing to that of the Red Knight who besieges my lady sister. So get ye gone while ye may." "Damsel," said Sir Gareth, "ye are but ungentle so to rebuke me; for, knight or knave, I have done you good service, nor will ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... fair Leslie, Return to Caledonie! That we may brag we hae a lass There's nane again ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... got any more like him?" mused Mr. Clodd. "Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want to say about him, then? Merely to brag ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... lady. And I must say, you can keep on slicing off nice little carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons for an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time. And innumerable asses can collect themselves nice little heaps of golden carrot-slices, and then lift up their heads and brag over them with fairly pan-demoniac yells of gratification. Of course I don't see any green in your eye, dear Libertas, unless it is the smallest glint from the carrot-tips. The gleam in your eye ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... gold and silver, man and woman, For things that's raided, made, dug, or human, 'Meriky's the coming nation; She's-bound to conquer all creation! Per'aps you call this brag and bluster; No, 'taint nuther, for we muster The best of brain, the mighty dollar; We'll lead on, let ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... natives whom he did not appreciate. Rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for Brother Jonathan as Brother Jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. He was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and expectorations. So when Dickens gets to "Niagara ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... responded Baldy, cheerfully. "I don't blame him a mite. I brag on the spunk of him. Him an' me'll git on ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times bigger and better than here—the apples are the size of pumpkins, and the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... hers, and his touch renewed the sense of marvelling exultation which the deliberate survey of their adventure always roused in her.... It was characteristic that she merely added, in her steady laughing tone: "Or, not counting the flat—for I hate to brag—just consider the others: Violet Melrose's place at Versailles, your aunt's villa ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... but a tale of outside scribes, to explain the taking off between night and morning of a perfectly well man (or divinity)—not sanctified with official and Tokugawal benediction; and no wonder. The tale and the event was not one to brag of. And the lady ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... pour soft speeches into another's ear; and the Sarpent has keen senses. He knows I love him, and that I speak well of him behind his back; but a Delaware has modesty in his inmost natur', though he will brag like a sinner when ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Brag no more, Old England; consider you are but an island! Order back your broken battalions! home, and repent in ashes! Long enough have your hired tories across the sea forgotten the Lord their God, and bowed down to Howe ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... the Old Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the objections which were contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's Essays; and perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave my Father to understand; but perhaps it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French verses, perhaps Voltaire's, in denial of the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself something like "How ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... are foolish people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was carried down in the rush, he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of, but doe not, for it is meate, drinke, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the operation. His Shop is the Randenvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... 'ad laid one," he replied. "And it began to brag so much about it that I couldn't stand it, so I took the egg, and it looked so lonely all by itself in my 'and that I took the others to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... of his valor. As soon as she had praised my handful of flowers, my pocketful of nuts, or little string of fish they palled upon me and I began immediately to feel an uneasy sense of disappointment, of disillusion, knowing I had miserably failed. The bombastic brag to my mother and her praise were a kind of mockery and falsehood. Illusion followed illusion, defeat followed defeat, yet the morrow was ever to be their healer and compensation. How often have I been soothed by the waveless waters of the Charles river, its whispering ripples scarcely ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... big guns under a mattress of boughs, or a painted canvas made to represent the earth, so that flying scouts above can't see where the battery is located. Well, perhaps now Harmony, in making all this brag is only trying to hide their gap. Camaflouge they call it, I believe. But we'll proceed to see what Parsons has got up his sleeve. You watch me get him to guessing. If he gets in the way of the cannonball I shoot ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... down there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... as your master, who is? Am I in the habit of keeping any of my harmless fellow-creatures at a distance? I despise the cant of modern Liberalism; but it's not the less true that I have, all my life, protested against the inhuman separation of classes in England. We are, in that respect, brag as we may of our national virtue, the most unchristian people ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... little better, even if it's nothing to brag about," he told her. "Sit over there at one side so that the men can crawl in past you. I'll need ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... relief to have some one admit that Chicago is in the East," he laughed. "No, I don't brag about the West. It's a good country, and it will be better when we have approximated more to Eastern conditions. We are undeveloped as ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the river as fast as they can," said Willet, "but they'll do no more business with us. I don't want to brag, but you can't find three better paddlers in the wilderness than we are, and with a mile start we ought soon to leave behind any number of warriors who have to run through the woods and follow the windings ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... have your beer because you like it. The whisky was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll get up ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... it bein' my opinion that where a man's a born gentleman he's got a heap of reason fo' to be grateful but none to brag," said Cavendish. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... India and Japan, drunk camel's milk under the tents of the Kirgheez, and eaten dates with the Kabyles, and narrated with a sort of appetizing irony, love adventures which might have seemed romantic brag, if it were not that he lessened their improbability by his raillery. He was a kind of belated Byron, who might have been cured of his romantic tastes by the wounds and contact ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know? The poor little street-bred people, that vapour, and fume, and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness, to yelp at the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... little, I think, and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination was good enough. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... home by six. On Alexander Murray's(475) affair, I believe, by five—on the militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but then they were only among themselves, no heat, no noise, no roaring. It was half an hour after seven this morning before I was at home. Think of that, and then brag of your French parliaments!(476) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... infinitives relate to the same object, the word to should be used before the first verb and omitted before the others; as, "He taught me to read, write, and cipher." "The most accomplished way of using books at present is to serve them as some do lords— learn their titles and then brag of ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... said Kilsip, with a curious light in his queer eyes. "Why, Gorby does nothing but brag about it, and his smartness in catching ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... dolly's jacket!" cried Susie, dancing around and hugging it in glee. "It will, mamma! A real live baby! Now Tilde needn't brag of theirs. We will take it home, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... suspected these injuries to his pride. They were delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but he had a simple admiration for ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... don't brag about things you can't perform. What has Ossep done to you that you want revenge? How can Ossep help it if your daughter is as dumb as straw and has a mouth three ells long? And what have Micho's ears to do with it? You should simply have given ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... want to brag," remarked Thad. "Perhaps the shoe would be on the other foot, and he might kick the lot of us out of his territory. But all the same, let's hope our trail won't cross ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... I've had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... painter, she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was only one thousand ducats—a much greater proof of his economy than his passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his letters contained, "there was one in which he desired the queen to contrive, if she ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... one—how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all this must ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... profit, and a little snatching up of a few loose trifles such as the Society Islands, which we had, according to our custom, carelessly or benevolently left to gleaners), French arms, despite a great deal of brag and swagger, obtained little glory, while French diplomacy let itself wallow in one of the foulest sloughs in history, the matter of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... have grandchildren," she told him, "I'm going to brag that I was the very first girl in all the world ever to be kissed ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... more den I is ever think bout would come to me. Yes, mam, I done raise over 20 head of white chillun. Dat de God truth. I been in de white folks kitchen all my days en if I feel right, I think dey ought to take of me in my old age. I don' brag on myself, but if I could work like I used to, I wouldn' ax nothin from nobody. I had a family of white people to send for me de other week to come en live wid dem en dey would take care of me, but I never had nobody to trust aun' Sallie wid. You see, child, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... clean ration bags, towels, and shirts which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered together and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members of the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny brag without waiting for "just one more hand," an unprecedented thing. The makers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of the mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition, and rushed off to get their marching order together. At 4.10 every ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are closed, I can tell you, for these people are enough to make one sick. The way they talk and brag sets my fingers itching, and I want to ask them to step into the back room, take off their coats, those uniforms they are so proud of, and stand up for a friendly round or two just to try what they are ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... think of it," he urged impatiently. "I hate to brag, mother; but do you take in all he meant: that he saw no reason, if I kept on, that I should not make a ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still herded with ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists of another age be ashamed of their confrere could they hear him brag of a rudimentary and long since dishonoured finesse? But the mere fact that M. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof that the New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... catch mice, but it is not known to attack squirrels. He certainly could not have strangled the chipmunk, and I am curious to know what would have been the result had he overtaken him. Probably it was only a kind of brag on the part of the bird,—a bold dash where no risk was run. He simulated the hawk, the squirrel's real enemy, and no doubt ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... command the young men to help and assist them in any work or business that they may have occasion to use them in. And they look upon it so far distant from a disgrace, that they will among their consorts brag of it, that they have the young men thus ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the word. Nor is it difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of the greatest literary ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... by myself. I was a green boy then and didn't know any better, but I am on to the little old town now, all right! They all know me up there. As soon as I get off the ferry, perfect strangers come up, call me by name, shake hands, and slip me a card. I don't mean to brag, but I know the location of every poolroom in the city! I have a friend in New York who writes the dramatic criticisms for the moving-picture shows; he puts me in touch with the theatrical and newspaper element, and I have seen some high old times up there, I tell you! One night—but, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... attired in the blue and gold of naval officers had recently returned from successful endeavours in their hazardous life in the North Sea and on the Belgian Coast. And here they were in old England chatting about their experiences without brag or boast—just telling ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives 'genus' a better discerning. Let them brag of their heathenish gods, 5 Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians: Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods, They're all but a parcel of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... fo' style, it bein' my opinion that where a man's a born gentleman he's got a heap of reason fo' to be grateful but none to brag," said Cavendish. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... was often a visitor at our home. He was a great brag and not noted for truth telling. He was very fond of telling how he shot the renegade Inkpadutah. This was all imagination. He had an old flint lock musket with the flint gone and would illustrate his story by crawling ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Broad River in de Dutch Fork of Newberry County. I was a slave of Cage Suber. He was a fair master, but nothing to brag about. I was small at slavery time and had to work in de white folks' house or around the house until I was big enough to go to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... to death of doctor; such a terrible amount of brag and big talk, always about himself; always dread his calls; can never get so far as to return; a ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... Resolution burned; but, as they say, most of her [crew] and commander saved. This is all, only we keep the sea, which denotes a victory, or at least that we are not beaten; but no great matters to brag of, God knows. So home to supper and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... improbable," O'Reilly smiled, "but ask Rosa or Jacket—the boy is bursting to tell some one. He nearly died because he couldn't brag about it to Captain Morin, and there won't be any holding him now. I'm afraid he'll tip off the news about that treasure in spite of all my warnings. Those jewels are a temptation; I won't rest easy until they're safely locked up in some good vault. Now then, I've told ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... you don't know much 'bout painters, either, youngster. Brag's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller's farm, I met up with Blacksmith ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... custom, there was no firing across the stream. That was considered the boundary. It mattered not how large or small the stream, pickets rarely fired at each other. We would stand on each bank, and laugh and talk and brag across the stream. ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... of these our times that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant Now boldly brag with us that are men old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... those spirits which, though silent, On the heights, in depths, are working. Oh ye rude and clumsy mortals! Shut up proudly in your houses, You are groaning with hard labour. In the hot-house of your noddles Are some plants called art and science, And you even brag of such weeds. By the lime-spar and rock-crystal! You have much to learn, I tell you, Ere the truth you ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... hear men talk about how fine war is, and how they hope this country will have one some time soon, you can make up your mind that they are boasters and bullies, and that if a war really came they'd stay home and let someone else do the fighting. It isn't the people who talk the most and brag the loudest who step to the front when there's something really hard to be done. They leave ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... Horace that's he that pens and purges humours.' When you bid all your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities—alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale—you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... see, I've been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the sides ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lad. "Not much to brag of, however. Merely bobbish, pretty bobbish. In answer to your second question, I take pleasure in informing you," he added, "that I ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... services through many years to come. I replied to his Majesty that the moment I left off working I should fall ill; also that my art itself would suffer, and not attain the mark I aimed at for his Majesty. Thinking that I spoke thus only to brag, and not because it was the truth, he made the Cardinal of Lorraine repeat what he had said; but I explained my reasons so fully and clearly, that the Cardinal perceived my drift; he then advised the King to let me labour as much or little as ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... so', answered Gudbrand; 'not much to brag of. When I got to the town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I swopped it ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the greatest ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... conversation. Ten thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1-1/5 column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed to show it you. However, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... is seldom heralded by any striking or unusual phenomenon. The real weather gods are free from brag and bluster; but the sham gods fill the sky with portentous signs and omens. I recall one 5th of March as a day that would have filled the ancient observers with dreadful forebodings. At ten o'clock the sun was attended ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... and gambled a few. And then, we got into trouble of one or two kinds; and I reckon that got us on a better understandable basis than anything else did, unless it was the fact that we never had much personal use for each other's ways. George is the vainest man I ever see, and the biggest brag. He could blow the biggest geyser in the Yosemite valley back into its hole with one whisper. I am a quiet man, and fond of studiousness and thought. The more we used to see each other, personally, the less we seemed to like to be together. If he ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the most poignantly exciting, the most thrillingly wild is the chase when he is weaponless, when he runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him—when he had nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him! He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The savage lived in ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... with a face of horror. "Oh me, oh my! Don't you think of that ever again, Miss Rosanna! If anything in the world happened to your hair, well, I don't want to think what your grandmother would do to me. Your hair is her pride and glory. It is the only thing I ever heard her brag about. 'You can tell Rosanna in a crowd as far as you can see her,' says she, 'by her hair; just that dark color full of streaks of gold like, and curls at that.' No, Miss Rosanna, you can learn to sew and cook and take care of yourself, and not much harm done for her to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and made him ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... to oversee his hands on the lower place? Jim, you know, in consideration of his elevation, was granted several privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then it was he would stalk and brag among those he ruled while they looked at him in awe and reverence. But he had the touch of the philosopher in him and would finally say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come, feel me—I'm nothin' but a common man, although I ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... years, it will be impossible for his successors ever to take a backward course. Our nation is of a genius so vivacious,—we are unhappy, but not stupid, we Italians,—we can learn as much in two months as other nations in twenty years." This seemed to me no brag when I returned to Tuscany and saw the great development and diffusion of thought that had taken place during my brief absence. The Grand Duke, a well-intentioned, though dull man, had dared, to declare himself "an ITALIAN prince" and the heart of Tuscany had bounded with hope. It ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... in general, I suppose,' returned Jonas, looking up and down once more. 'I don't brag to have been any better than other sons; but I haven't been any ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... It wasn't altogether undiluted brag on the part of this sturdy fellow—mere boasting of what he would do under particular conditions which were never likely to arise. A glance at him, indeed, rather helped to support his statements, for Stuart, though ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... all aback. Well, sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this whale. Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these two met. Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up and told how he had struck a right whale in the Pacific, and she ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond the precincts of the university—if a university has precincts. He told me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that was merely Renny's brag." ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... only rather wild. They are older than our fellows, but they like Prince, he's such a jolly boy; sings so well, dances jigs and breakdowns, you know, and plays any game that's going. He beat Morse at billiards, and that's something to brag of, for Morse thinks he knows everything. I saw the match, and it was ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... was talking! What empty brag it was! Suppose, just for the sake of the joke, I did put my hand in his, and did wish, right out, what it was plain he knew. If I wished, what harm would it do! It would be the purest jest. Out of his own mouth he would be confounded, for it was certain that nothing would come of it. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... accord—said she jest couldn't git back to sleep. She loves children, Mr. Mostyn, an' she seems to think as much o' Robby as if he was her own. I ketched 'er cryin' last night when she was settin' waitin' in the dark for 'im to git to sleep. La, la, folks brag powerful on Miss Dolly, but they don't know half o' the good she does on the quiet. She tries to keep 'em from findin' out what she does. I know I'm grateful to 'er. If the Lord don't give me a chance to repay 'er for her kindness to me an' mine I'll ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who would purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him; while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spit upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the way, 'ARRY ain't one to brag of bong four tunes; but wot I wos wanting to say Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our sort. Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... this case could not tell from Harry's story exactly how much encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag" appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now and then in a comical imitation ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... what you'd get if you didn't stop hootin' at people who was passin'," remarked Mrs. Nitschkan, knocking the ashes from her pipe out on the hearth and then carefully refilling it. "But you're none so good now that you need brag. I don't know that playin' monkey tricks to frighten folks ain't just as good a way to put in the time as sittin' 'round holdin' hands ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... his listener. "You could brag some about a political safe-blowing, but we all have to turn to and hush up this ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... on the air below the cliffs; and on the pebbles an owl skipped and danced, showing off in the beautiful evening sunlight. This was a daily performance, Thornhill told me. It had been General Peebles' birthday, and the brag about the cake was splendidly justified. ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... "Not much to brag of. When I came to town no one would buy the cow, so I changed it ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter, seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left them drinking and gambling ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... fell with as little weight upon the mind of the Commissioner as it would if we, on the other hand, had said, as is the fact, that we have a large amount of evidence that might yet be presented in behalf of Mr. Davis. This is not a game of brag! It is not upon evidence that is not here, but upon evidence that is here, that this case is to be decided. Here has been mortified pride, here has been fear, here has been the dread spectre of Executive power, ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... like these it is immature—and incidentally, untrue—for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... so proud she will not petition for freedom; she may even brag 'tis to her liking to ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... over the Yabase in the province of Omi. There was among the passengers a Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer the enemy, but I do it in order not to be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school of swordsmanship do you belong to?' Well, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... had "learned her different." His sure, almost careless, touch abashed her, and the occasional fragments of autobiography which he let fall, showed her that she was a limited and ignorant recluse compared to this boy of twenty-five. In matters of money and achievement she might brag, but in matters of love she was strangely subservient to him, because in such matters he ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... beginning, this brag attempt to laugh his reputation down, with the jail door scarce closed behind him. "Folks are not going to like that," said Lin, as we walked across the bridge again to the hotel. Yet the sister, left alone here after an hour at ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... You can't help being an ass, but don't swagger or brag about it. Go easy—and, by the way, whatever you do, forget you're an exhibitioner. It's not your fault, I know, but it's a sort of thing to be lived down up here. Be nobody, that's the rule! then you'll ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... patriots ought to unite in redeeming the land from the imputation that such books are regarded as casting honor upon the section. God forbid we should really be brought so low as that we must perforce brag of such works; and God be merciful to that man (he is an Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thousand of these books had been sold in the South! This last damning fact ought to have been concealed ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... your torture begins, before you brag!" this to Miriam. Then turning to some of the soldiers, he cried: "Strip her, don't leave a rag upon her, and treat her from top to toe with that ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... die, boy, I may let you off the birching which your impertinence merits. You have all the old brag of ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... and arguers "Oh now just see me believe!" We are like boys taking turns jumping in the Great Vacant Lot, seeing which can believe the furthest. We need to be reminded that a man cannot simply bring a little brag to God, about His world, and make a religion out of it. I do not doubt in the least, as a matter of theory, that I have the wrong spirit—sometimes—toward the scientific man who lives around the corner of my mind. ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... a good one, Mr. Horsley," he said as he returned the livery man's brag team, "but it has two drawbacks." "Oh, indeed; and may I inquire ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... chose up and spelled down, and the next Friday afternoon we spoke pieces. Doubtless this accounts for our being a nation of orators. I am far from implying or seeming to imply that this is anything to brag of. Anybody that can be influenced by a man with a big mouth, a loud voice, and a rush of words to the face—well, I've got my opinion ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... not be seene. But when as they perceiued the ships to be gone, they would not only shew themselues standing vpon high cliffes, and call vs to come ouer vnto them: but also would come in their Botes very neere to vs, as it were to brag at vs: whereof our Generall hauing aduertisement, sent for the Captaines and Gentlemen of the ships, to accompany and attend vpon him, with the Captaine also of the Anne Francis, who was but the night before come vnto vs. For they, and the Fleebote hauing lost vs the 26. day in the great ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... yours. You know that as well as I do. You know upon whom the brunt here falls. I do not complain. The one who has the best strength should bear the burden, and I have the strength, such as it is. None of us Carrolls need brag of strength, God knows. But I want to know how you came by that money. Yes, I suspect, and I am not ashamed. I have a right to suspect. How did you get ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... built it scarcely cared to tell you he did so; nor do the historians brag of him. Any quantity of heraldries of knaves and faineants you may find in what they call their 'history': but this is probably the first time you ever read the name of Robert of Luzarches. I say he 'scarcely cared'—we are not sure ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... Roots, I know of none in England either for Pleasure or Use, but what are very common there, and thrive as well or better in that Soil and Climate than this for the generality; for though they cannot brag of Gooseberries and Currants, yet they may of Cherries, Strawberries, &c. in which they excel: Besides they have the Advantage of several from other Parts of America, there being Heat and Cold sufficient for any; except such as require a continual Heat, as Lemons and Oranges, Pine-Apples, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... and wore a very flashy cravat. Furthermore, he bragged a good deal about what he would do with the money. Also that he would write a letter to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat exonerating the messenger. Well, a man who will brag like that, and wears flashy articles of neck-wear, is just the man that will talk too much, or make some bad break. If he writes that letter, he's a goner. There will be something in it that will give me a hold. The paper, the ink, the hand-writing, the place and time ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... waved his hand. "Blair and I, and you too, Mr. Fullerton, not to mention Roche, are all business men, and we don't brag about money. But you know that if I fitted out and endowed ten steamers, I should still be a fairly comfortable man. If you can't keep a steamer going with L4,000 a year, you don't deserve to have one, and if I choose to put down one hundred thousand, and you satisfy me as ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... from the fight," said she; "would that you had fallen rather by the hand of that brave man who was my husband. You used to brag that you were a better man with hands and spear than Menelaus. Go, then, and challenge him again—but I should advise you not to do so, for if you are foolish enough to meet him in single combat, you will soon ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the group of sailors, "you were precious full of your brag about climbing, and saying I couldn't. But I did, and now let's see ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... hundred knights own him lord." "I will encounter him," said Sir Gareth; "for if he be good knight and true as ye say, he will scarce set on me with all his following; and man to man, I fear him not." "Fie!" said the damsel, "for a dirty knave, ye brag loud. And even if ye overcome him, his might is as nothing to that of the Red Knight who besieges my lady sister. So get ye gone while ye may." "Damsel," said Sir Gareth, "ye are but ungentle so to rebuke me; for, knight or knave, ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... about the same date to Mason the poet, he again alludes to his fondness of Tonton, but adds—"I have no occasion to brag ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... old saying at my home," I replied, "which ran something like this, 'Brag is a good dog, but ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... and as against me, of course, against all of us, at sight of me; so that if Eliza has bragged at Eastridge about New York, she has at least bragged in New York about Eastridge. I didn't clearly, for Mrs. Chataway, come up to the brag—or perhaps rather didn't come down to it: since I dare say the poor lady's consternation meant simply that my aunt has confessed to me but as an unconsidered trifle, a gifted child at the most; or as young and handsome and dashing at the most, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... work," Rick explained. He hated to brag about an idea and then have it turn out to be a dud. Consequently, he seldom mentioned that he was working on anything until he knew it would ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... bad luck for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if there's any weakness in the victualling department, I shall ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... bit of brag, which was perhaps pardonable tinder the circumstances, Douglas reminded the Senate of his efforts to secure the admission of California and of his prediction that the people of that country would form ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... while the service of trains and cars is so excellent and so simply arranged that it costs much less thought, effort, and worry to "get about" in Manhattan than in Middlesex. In saying this I may perhaps offend American susceptibilities. There is nothing we moderns are more apt to brag of than the nervous overstrain of our life. But sincerity comes before courtesy, and I must gently but firmly decline to allow New York a monopoly of neurasthenia, or of the conditions ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Egan, but her name Andy could not discover. His own name he heard more than once, and voluptuous raptures poured forth about lovely lips and hips and ankles from the herculean knight of the blunderbuss, amidst the maudlin admiration and hiccups of Larry, who continued to brag of his power, and profess his readiness to stand by his friend in carrying ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... a lot of burros—and gettin' nowhere. But Jim Waring's out after that bunch that got Pat. If I wasn't so hefty, I'd 'a' gone with him. I tell you the man that got Pat ain't goin' to live long to brag ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... order them off," she suggested. "You have my permission. Now's your chance to make good the lordly brag of helping the Three Bar out of the hole." She instantly regretted having said it. A dozen times of late she had wondered if she were turning bitter and waspish, if she would ever again be the even-tempered Billie Warren with a good word and a smile ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... adherents, followed close. A little way behind the group came the other boys, their still half-dazed leader in their midst. Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, when his sympathy and interest were found to be ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... they are under the law as a Covenant of Works who are open profane, and ungodly wretches, such as delight not only in sin, but also make their boast of the same, and brag at the thoughts of committing of it. Now, as for such as these are, there is a Scripture in the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy Chapter 1, verses 9, 10, which is a notable one to this purpose, "The law," saith he, "is not made for a righteous man," not as it is a Covenant of Works, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ross in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about it, ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... everything he handles, including his neighbours' nerves; he has no mercy or pity or consideration for anyone serving him, and yet he's the kindest heart towards children and animals, and the good he does to them is about the only thing he don't brag about." ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... are less inclined to be fussy, and by the same token more inclined, on having accomplished a cure, to take a justifiable pride in it and to brag publicly about it. As I stated a moment ago, I claim Mr. Blythe viewed the matter in a proper and commendable light when he took pen in hand to describe more or less at length his reduction processes. So, too, did that other notable of the literary world, Mr. ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... announced, with a triumphant smile. "I had a lot of apples in the fall, not big enough to peddle,—you know our apples ain't anything to brag of,—and I just rigged up a kind of hand-press in the back yard, and now and then I press out a pitcher of cider for Sunday. I never let it get the least bit hard; not that I don't like a little tang to it myself, but mother belongs to the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... "Some day she'll brag of having been educated here, though Mount Morris doesn't set out to furnish teachers, but the training of young ladies. Mother likes it because there was no opportunity of making undesirable acquaintances," and Louie gave her ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the matter of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so thoroughly and seriously brave ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... brings money like potatoes or beer. If there's dishonour one way and inconvenience the other, it certainly is comfortable, but it as certainly isn't glorious to have escaped them. People of delicacy don't brag either about their probity or about their luck. Success be hanged!—I want to sell. It's a question of life and death. I must study the way. I've studied too much the other way—I know the other way now, every inch of it. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Kirsty; '—and I'll do what I brag o'!' she added, throwing her stocking on the patch of green sward about the stone, and starting to her feet with a laugh. 'Is't ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of 'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that showed his approval of this ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... nonsense. Now, you've got a splendid start in the right direction, Prince. You've got American blood in your veins and that means a good deal. Take my advice and increase the proportion. In a couple of generations you'll have something to brag about. Take Tullis as your example. Beget sons that will think and act as he is capable of doing. Weed out the thin blood and give the crown of Grasstick something that is thick and red. It will be the making ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... housekeeping experiment was a great success; she and 'Manda Grier had two rooms now, and they lived better than ever they had, for less money. Of course, Statira said, it was not up to the St. Albans, which Lemuel had told them of at first a little braggingly. In fact she liked to have him brag of it, and of the splendours of his position and surroundings. She was very curious, but not envious of anything, and it became a joke with her and 'Manda Grier, who pretended ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... of age, who never wore one in his life. Sick regiments invalided to our garrison recover their health and vigour immediately, and yellow fever patients coming home from the West Indies walk about in a few days.' 'Boys,' he said on one occasion to a Nova Scotia audience, 'brag of your country. When I'm abroad I brag of everything that Nova Scotia is, has, or can produce; and when they beat me at everything else, I {3} turn round on them and say, "How high does your tide rise?"' He always had them there—no other ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... crossed the Countess of Walpole, who lies there to-night on her way to England. But I concluded she had no curiosity about me-and I could not brag of more about her-and so we had no intercourse. I am wobegone to find my Lord F -* * * in the same hotel. He is as starched as an old-fashioned plaited neckcloth, and come to suck wisdom from this curious school of philosophy. He reveres me because I was acquainted with his father; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... her, and she told me where the hooks were hidden in the house. Then she wandered from her course to brag a little about the size of the sheets of transparent ice that formed the windows of the mansion, and asked me if I had ever seen their like at home, and I came right out frankly and confessed that I hadn't, which pleased her more than she could find words to dress her gratification ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the southern temperament, the faults that accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist. Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery. The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... heard Mr. Bickford's voice, which, being of a peculiar nasal character, he instantly recognized. He felt that the meeting was an awkward one, and he would willingly have avoided it. He decided to bluff Joshua off if possible, and, as the best way of doing it, to continue his game of brag. ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... bagbytynge, y the rede; ley flateryng{e} vndyr thy foote, loke; Deme the beste of eu{er}y dede Tyll{e} trowth haue serchyd truly e roote; 36 Rrefrayne malyce cruell{e} & hoote; Dyscretly and wysly speende thy spelle; Boost ne brag{e} ys worth A Ioote; Whate eu{er} thow sey, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... talking about it. I don't want to brag about carrying a wounded man on my back with a pack of Boers on horseback chivvying me. Besides, I'm a bit misty over what did happen. An upset like that takes it out of a fellow. Since I've been lying here this ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... mashed on yours truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the way, 'ARRY ain't one to brag of bong four tunes; but wot I wos wanting to say Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our sort. Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... his comrades in the field. There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,—for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,—boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... blindly plastering it with absurd praises, I think all true patriots ought to unite in redeeming the land from the imputation that such books are regarded as casting honor upon the section. God forbid we should really be brought so low as that we must perforce brag of such works; and God be merciful to that man (he is an Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thousand of these books had been sold in the South! This last damning fact ought to have been concealed at ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Mrs. Deer, an old tidy wench, of fifty, pretty well bent by rheumatism, and so square in the lower half of her figure, and so spare in the upper, that she appeared to have been carved out of her own hips: "why, as to dat, he ain't good-looking to brag on, but I don't think he looks quite ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... ain't got no love to speak of for him. Well, I was in the room next to this just now, and as I was leanin' against the partition I happened to overhear what you chaps was sayin' in here. From what I heard, I judged you didn't love this Merriwell none to brag about, and I says to myself, 'Mike, if you want to get even, them is the boys to hitch fast to.' Then I got right up and came in here without bein' invited. I hope you'll excuse me, gents, but I couldn't ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... after they had given him two guineas, he said to them that he had often travelled that road with five hundred pounds about him, and never had been stopped. To which Doyle replied, that half the highwaymen who frequented the road were but mere old women, otherwise he would never have had that to brag of, and then parted. Doyle says that the honest man at Smithfield had poundage of him as well as from the grazier, so that he acted ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Well, you see, I've been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the sides ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... visitor at our home. He was a great brag and not noted for truth telling. He was very fond of telling how he shot the renegade Inkpadutah. This was all imagination. He had an old flint lock musket with the flint gone and would illustrate his story by ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... doddering. Let's never git doddering and brag about our diseases. It seems that that's all some men have to brag about when they git old, how much rheumatiz they can hold, as if it's a ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... have heerd a school come out, of little boys? Lord, it's no touch to it. Or a flock of geese at it? They are no more a match for 'em than a pony is for a coach-horse. But when they are at work, all's as still as sleep and no snoring. I guess we have a right to brag o' that invention—we trained the dear critters, so they don't think of striking the minutes and ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... pieces the characters of the members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still herded ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... work for an obscure little camp belonging to a greenhorn. Loyalty to and pride in the firm for which he works is a strong characteristic of the lumber-jack. He will fight at the drop of a hat on behalf of his "Old Fellows"; brag loud and long of the season's cut, the big loads, the smart methods of his camps; and even after he has been discharged for some flagrant debauch, he cherishes no rancor, but speaks with a soft reminiscence to the end of his days concerning "that winter ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the half. Luck with one—how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not brag, old dear. I had the ace, and this morning I played it—wherefore in my heart there is that peace that passeth understanding—particularly since I have just had a telegram informing me that my ace took ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... of the other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for any write-up ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... his successors ever to take a backward course. Our nation is of a genius so vivacious,—we are unhappy, but not stupid, we Italians,—we can learn as much in two months as other nations in twenty years." This seemed to me no brag when I returned to Tuscany and saw the great development and diffusion of thought that had taken place during my brief absence. The Grand Duke, a well-intentioned, though dull man, had dared, to declare himself "an ITALIAN prince" and the heart of Tuscany had bounded ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to think that a disloyal, hypocritical, canting Puritan could brag to my face that he carries one drop of our loyal blood in ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... West, madam," said Dave. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. "Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... what a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should call you ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... oversee his hands on the lower place? Jim, you know, in consideration of his elevation, was granted several privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then it was he would stalk and brag among those he ruled while they looked at him in awe and reverence. But he had the touch of the philosopher in him and would finally say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come, feel me—I'm nothin' but a common man, although I appear ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... of an old saying at my home," I replied, "which ran something like this, 'Brag is a good dog, ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... mamma, you are the one always likes to brag when the girls and fellows like Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester and—and all come up to the house. It's the biggest feather in your cap the way on account of papa the big names got to come running when you ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... not which way: except a very fewe, to whom peraduenture blood and happie parentage, may perchance purchace a long standing vpon the stage. The which felicitie, because it commeth by others procuring, not by their owne deseruinge, and stand by other mens feete, and not by their own, what owtward brag so euer is borne by them, is in deed, of it selfe, and in wise mens eyes, of no great estimation. Some wittes, moderate enough by nature, be many tymes Som sci- // marde by ouer moch studie and vse of some ences hurt // sciences, namelie, Musicke, Arithmetick, and mens wits, // Geometrie. ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... 'He ketched an ol' socker the fast thing. I went off by myself 'n got a good sized fish, but 'twant s' big 's hisn. So I tuk 'n opened his mouth n poured in a lot o' fine shot. When I come back Ab he looked at my fish 'n begun t' brag. When we weighed 'em mine was ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... "I wouldn't brag about that kind of political power, when you can use it to make notaries out of jailbirds. That must be a nice bunch you have up ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... shou'd be as useful to the Publick, as my good cou'd have been. I ever despised undeserved Grandeur, and misapplied Power, and therefore few People in high Posts, or even Kings or Queens, or Ministers, cou'd ever brag much of my Condescension, in speaking a good Word for them to Posterity, or endeavouring to blind the Eyes of the present Times, by Printing either lies or Truths in their Favour. 'Tis true, I ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... recoiled, wringing his hand to relieve the tingling of his knuckles, and terrified by the thought that he had committed murder. But Wilson presently moved and dispelled that misgiving. Some of Cashel's fury returned as he shook his fist at his prostrate adversary, and, exclaiming, "YOU won't brag much of having seen me cry," wrenched the jacket from him with unnecessary violence, and darted away at ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... of War, With shouts of 'la Republique' and 'la Gloire,' The Vengeur's crew, 'twas said, with flying flag And broadside blazing level with the wave Went down erect, defiant, to their grave Beneath the sea.—'Twas but a Frenchman's brag, Yet Europe rang with it for many a year. Now we recount no fable; Europe, hear! And when they tell thee 'England is a fen Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay, Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey For the first comer,' tell how the other day A crew of half a thousand Englishmen Went down ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... man! never fleer and jest at me; I speak not like a dotard nor a fool; As under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy heed, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me, That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by, And with gray hairs and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... Ackerman, Brag, Comet, Craig, Holder, Petoka, Carey, Baroka, Barcelona, Bawdin, Firstoka (Gellatly No. 1). These have made a good showing, as the majority of the trees or bushes under 4 to 6 inch crown diameter of these varieties, are ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... that way. That same day he went to work building him a new shack; and he swears that the next man who gets near enough to set it afire won't live to get away and brag about it. Two days afterward Hallock showed up again, and the old fellow ran him off ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... is a thing never done before, to make a hammer of that weight make 300 blows per minute; and, in fact, it is more a matter to brag of than for any other use, as the rate wanted is from 90 to 100 blows, being as quick as the workmen can manage the iron ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... "The Danes have nothing to brag of over us Northmen; for many a place have we laid ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... swollen HORRIBLE; so how I shall look as Orsino, God knows! I have my fine clothes tho'. Henley's sonnets have been taken for the CORNHILL. He is out of hospital now, and dressed, but still not too much to brag of in health, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, not a few; Unknown as yet what they could do; And all the hacks ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the polish that those Eastern fellows put on, or that is put on them, but out here in the mountains I amount to somebody—you must let me brag a little, Sylvia—and if a man doesn't bow pretty low to Mrs. William Plummer, I'll have to get out my old six-shooter—I haven't carried one now for ten years—and shoot all the hair off the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... (a retired Indian officer, given to ancient recollections and gloomy views of life): Yes, and very little to brag about either. A brace and half of trout on this river in the mayfly week is a very pitiable sight. When I was a boy nobody had a basket of less than eight brace. Even the trout seem under the curse of this ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,—[25] For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... of these gentlemen is struck in the second chapter, where all three of them writing lies home—Davis and Herrick, sentimental equivocations, Huish the strongest of brag with nobody to send it to. In a burst of weakness Davis tells Herrick what a villain he has been, through rum, and how he can not let his daughter, "little Adar," know it. "Yes, there was a woman on board," he said, describing the ship he had scuttled. "Guess I sent ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... to spend the morning indoors. He was not vain of his brains, but he was of his cricket, and though wild horses would not have dragged from him the confession that he read Greek for pleasure long after he ought to have been asleep, he would brag of his batting averages to any ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... say the horse was Huggins' own, Would only be a brag; His neighbour Fig and he went halves, Like Centaurs, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... cold-water scare, we believe, is to be found in the boasting of the veterans. When, with protruding chest and chin in air, they brag to the newcomers or to their friends about their heroism and the coolness with which they allow the cold-water hose to be turned on them, the listener shudders and exclaims: "This cold water may be all right for you, but it ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... I brag of bear and beaver while the batteries are roaring, And the fellows on the firing steps are blazing at the foe; And I yarn of fur and feather when the 'marmites' are a-soaring, And they listen to my stories, ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... went by myself. I was a green boy then and didn't know any better, but I am on to the little old town now, all right! They all know me up there. As soon as I get off the ferry, perfect strangers come up, call me by name, shake hands, and slip me a card. I don't mean to brag, but I know the location of every poolroom in the city! I have a friend in New York who writes the dramatic criticisms for the moving-picture shows; he puts me in touch with the theatrical and newspaper element, and I ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... short and stumpy, but with shoulders like an ape, was standing on a table boasting about his strength. He was stripped to the waist and Tom could see the powerful arms and chest beneath the black hair that covered his body. As he continued to brag, the prisoners laughed and jeered, calling him Monkey. The man's face reddened and he offered to fight anyone in the room. A short, thin man with a hawk nose sitting next to Tom yelled, "Monkey," and then darted behind a bunk. The man turned ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' we may never have another chance. Bart is a good ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... captain of the trained bands latterly," said the little constable. "Fellow," he cried to Mr. Garth, who rode along moodily enough in front of them, "did this Ray ever brag to you of what he did as ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... ever prophesies. For the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the prophet. If he is right, he can brag the rest of his days of his seer-like vision. If he is wrong, no one takes the trouble to reproach or ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... think so, stooard?" replied the cook, who was a huge good-natured young man. "Well, I'll tell 'ee. I was standin' close to the fore hatch at the time, a-talkin' to Jim Brag, an' the father o' the babby, poor feller, he was standin' by the foretops'l halyards holdin' on to a belayin'-pin, an' lookin' as white as a sheet—for I got a glance at 'im two or three times doorin' the flashes o' lightnin'. Well, stooard, there was lightnin' playin' round the mizzen truck, ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... has called for a million of men! This makes many of our croaking people despondent; others think it only a game of brag. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... kind of thing, and not a dull house of faded gentry, which perhaps the neighborhood requires. The house was dull, and so were we, its last inhabitants; and the furniture was faded, even a little dingy,—nothing to brag of. I do not, however, intend to convey a suggestion that we were faded gentry, for that was not the case. My father, indeed, was rich, and had no need to spare any expense in making his life and his house bright if he pleased; but he did not please, and I had not been long enough ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... too, off a tree," answered my cousin, not to be outdone, for boys are wont to brag of their honourable scars, "and it hurt a great deal, but I mean falling from higher still. One of the sailors I talked to on board ship had fallen from a mast, and he told me that he went over and over; the first time he went ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... selfish Tommy. "You forgets about repenting, and if I let yer bite him, you would brag about it. It's ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... that this party must be used up, except such as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been acting terrible mean ever since we wouldn't sell them anything. If we let them go on now, they been making their brag that they'll raise a force in California and come back and wipe us out—and Johnston's army already marching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what we got in Missouri and in Illinois? No! Everybody is agreed about ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... They are older than our fellows, but they like Prince, he's such a jolly boy; sings so well, dances jigs and breakdowns, you know, and plays any game that's going. He beat Morse at billiards, and that's something to brag of, for Morse thinks he knows everything. I saw the match, and it ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... to tell you a dog story—only now, since I've mentioned him, I must tell you a circumstance about Cees. He was a middlin' size broot, with fox ears and yaller spots over his eyes, and could out bark and out brag all creation when he was inside the yard. If another dog was goin' along he'd run up and down the palins and bark and take on like he'd give the world if that fence wasent there. So one day when he was showin' off in that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... who were attired in the blue and gold of naval officers had recently returned from successful endeavours in their hazardous life in the North Sea and on the Belgian Coast. And here they were in old England chatting about their experiences without brag or boast—just telling ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... like thirty miles, I should say, Elmer, and it takes that boy Johnny a day and a night to get to our place with his load, all down-grade, too. You remember that Hen Condit never was anything to brag of in the line of a ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... ribbons around it, and hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... separated by long intervals; the best can hardly be put too strongly. Places like the Yosemite Valley (of which Mr. Emerson said that it was the only scenery he ever saw where "the reality came up to the brag"), the Yellowstone Park, Niagara, and the stupendous Canon of the Colorado River amply make good their worldwide reputation; but there are innumerable other places less known in Europe, such as the primeval woods and countless lakes of the Adirondacks, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... speake English When I'de move pittie; when dissemble, Irish; Dutch when I reele; and tho I feed on scalions If I should brag Gentility ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... did his duty modestly, though he had become the most important person of the party for the time being. There was not a particle of the "brag" and pretension which had caused me to distrust everything he said. As we walked from place to place he kept at a respectful distance from the passengers, and never intruded himself upon them, though he was always ready to answer any questions. After a three-hours' run ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... if thou be what I wad hae thee, [would have] An' tak the counsel I shall gie thee, I'll never rue my trouble wi' thee— The cost nor shame o't— But be a loving father to thee, And brag ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact that people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag about their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to be said, that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods may become very dangerous if there happens to be some great national vice or national temptation ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... twenty times, That Phoebus helped me in my rhymes, Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic licence. And when I brag of aid divine, Think Eusden's right as good ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... he said, "in fighting a fellow who is altogether out of condition, and has a very small amount of pluck to make up for it. I was convinced when we first met that he had nothing behind his brag, though I certainly did not expect to beat him as easily as I did. Well, I hope we shall be good friends in future. I have no enmity against him, and there is no reason why we should not get on well ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... any c'lection for?" sarcastically retorted Peace, exasperated at the little sister's stupidity. "What does Henderson Meadows use his c'lection of stamps for? Just to brag about and see how many more kinds he can get than the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... was a favorite from the first; offered in a fortnight, was accepted, and got married within the month. Ten days afterward, the supplies were stopped for want of funds, and the butcher failed. It seems HE, too, was only taking a hand in the great game of brag that most of the country had sat ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... to dispose of you," Rockford finished. "I know all about it, and I know that Narf took time last night to spend an hour with his favorite girl friend and brag even to her that he was going to marry Lyla today before your dead body had time to ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... flowers, my pocketful of nuts, or little string of fish they palled upon me and I began immediately to feel an uneasy sense of disappointment, of disillusion, knowing I had miserably failed. The bombastic brag to my mother and her praise were a kind of mockery and falsehood. Illusion followed illusion, defeat followed defeat, yet the morrow was ever to be their healer and compensation. How often have I been soothed by the waveless waters of the Charles river, its whispering ripples scarcely reaching ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... though thou hast to brag for't," said the first speaker tauntingly—an old customer of the house, and a compiler of leathern extremities for the good burghers ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... restoration to life, after being supposed dead so long. Several of the hands, though, persisted that they knew of the deception all along, and had not been taken in by the ghost business; but this was all brag on their part, for I am sure they thoroughly believed in it at the time, just the same as Morris Jones and Hiram and I did—only Tom being in the secret from ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to the journal a note to the effect that Americans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell big stories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the West they ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Rebecca, "is but idle boasting—a brag of what you would have done had you not found it convenient to do otherwise. You received my glove, and my champion, if a creature so desolate can find one, must encounter your lance in the lists—yet you would assume the air of my friend ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... allotted to her share. Young Seamour is killed, the only captain slain. The Resolution burned; but, as they say, most of her [crew] and commander saved. This is all, only we keep the sea, which denotes a victory, or at least that we are not beaten; but no great matters to brag of, God knows. So home to supper and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... hoped it would have. Lucy, Nancy, are perpetually calling upon me to tell them something of Sir Charles Grandison; and when I begin, I know not how to leave off. My uncle rallies me, laughs at me, sometimes reminds me of what he calls my former brags. I did not brag, my dear: I only hoped, that respecting as I did every man according to his merit, I should never be greatly taken with any one, before duty added force to the inclination. Methinks the company of the friends I am with, does not satisfy me; yet they ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... retired, mainly to sit dismounted in close circle, for a confab. Occasionally a young brave, a vidette, exuberantly galloped for us, dared us, shook hand and weapon at us, no doubt spat at us, and gained nothing by his brag. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him the money from the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... raillery of the Chief Trader. "Oh, ho," he began, "me freebooter, me captain av the looters av the North!" The Trader snarled at him. "What d'ye mean, by such talk to me, sir? I've had enough— we've all had enough—of your brag and bounce; for you're all sweat and swill-pipe, and I give you this for your chewing, that though by the Company's rules I can't go out and fight you, you may have your pick of my men for it. I'll take my pay for your insults in pounded ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... best you can," said he. "Only, you really must not brag and swagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... billion billion solar systems & go pouring, a tossing flood of shining globes, through the viewless arteries of space are the blood-corpuscles in the veins of God; & the nations are the microbes that swarm and wiggle & brag in each, & think God can tell them apart at that distance & has nothing better to do than try. This—the entertainment of an eternity. Who so poor in his ambitions as to consent to be God on those terms? ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... on behalf of my own. My jealousy is for justice and for a large historical understanding of this great passage in history. My own country won glory enough in that and other fields to make it quite unnecessary for any sane Englishman to shut his eyes to Europe in order to brag about England. . . . I have not the faintest doubt what Thomas Jefferson would have said, if he had been told that a few financial oligarchs who happen to live in New York, were beating down the French wealth; and had then seen pass before him that awful panorama of the wrecks of the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Bracy; "and when we are in camp to-night and at dinner he'll be in the highest of glee, and do nothing but brag about how he made the ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... relating an adventure which took place in their house, when Reform was passing a sponge over it, and making them all saints, as before stated. At that time, there was in the episcopal chair of Paris a veritable saint, who did not brag about what he did, and cared for naught but the poor and suffering, whom the dear old Bishop lodged in his heart, neglecting his own interests for theirs, and seeking out misery in order that he might heal it with words, with ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... god is a boy, None but cowherds regard him, His dart is a toy, Great opinion hath marred him: The fear of the wag Hath made him so brag; Chide him, he'll flie thee And not come nigh thee. Little boy, pretty knave, shoot not at random, For if you hit me, slave, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Cornhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good company. That story of the "Fox"* was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I have read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... will hear much about it," Chris said. "You may be sure the Boers will not say much; they make a big brag over every success, but they won't care to publish such a thing as this. Probably their papers will only say: 'An explosion of a trifling nature occurred on the Portuguese side of Komati-poort. Some barrels of powder exploded; it is unknown whether it was the result ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... man," he said; "I must know you. I knew your father well, man, and I have broke a lance and crossed a blade with him; and it is to my credit that I am living to brag of it. He was king's-man and I was queen's-man during the Douglas wars—young fellows both, that feared neither fire nor steel; and we had some old feudal quarrels besides, that had come down from father to son, with our seal-rings, two-harided broad-swords, and plate-coats, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was only one thousand ducats—a much greater proof of his economy than his passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his letters contained, "there was one in which he desired the queen to contrive, if she could, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... fathers and mothers of whom we justly brag. These were the people whose children we are. What are inherited titles and ancient names many times since dishonored, compared with the heritage of uncomplaining suffering and heroism which we boast of to-day because those ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... parding, Colonel; I was that flustered I done forgot my manners altogether," said Ware apologetically. "I hev got a drap of apple that they say is right good for this region, and a trifle of corn that ain't nothing to brag on, though it does ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... chamber at Exiles as at Pignerol, were cut off from all communication with each other. Says Saint-Mars, "Since receiving your letter I have warded the pair as strictly and exactly as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who cannot brag that he sent or received any intelligence. Night and day two sentinels watch their tower; and my own windows command a view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks to my captives but myself, my lieutenant, their confessor, and the doctor, who lives eighteen miles away, and only ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... G—? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,' said the tinker, 'I'll knock your ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. ...
— Abraham Lincoln. - An Horatian Ode. • Richard Henry Stoddard
... much crowing; Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is better," went on a third, and each man had his remark upon Colleton's seeming timidity. Scorn and indignation were in all faces around him; and Forrester, at length awakened from his ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... dry, I travelled to the city Coventry. There Master Doctor Holland[9] caused me stay The day of Saturn and the Sabbath day. Most friendly welcome, he me did afford, I was so entertained at bed and board, Which as I dare not brag how much it was, I dare not be ingrate and let it pass, But with thanks many I remember it, (Instead of his good deeds) in words and writ, He used me like his son, more than a friend, And he on Monday his commends did send ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... hev got thair suits, Thay brag to one another, To th' first campaign thay'l tak th' ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... pity for him!—He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the greatest ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... a hidden conviction, expressed privately in clubs and by women over their knitting, that the French soldiers were poor fellows as fighting men, filled with sentimentality, full of brag, with fine words on their lips, but with no strength of courage or endurance. British soldiers coming back wounded from the first battles and a three weeks' rearguard action, spread abroad the tale that ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... in the province of Omi. There was among the passengers a Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer the enemy, but I do it in order not to be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school of swordsmanship ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... picture of the candidate festooned with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was unknown to anybody, and Marion's New England conscience shrank from obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence—the first ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... bought in Texas on his way out to Mexico, her owner having died on the march out. She was with him during the entire campaign, and was shot seven times; at least, as a little fellow I used to brag about that number of bullets being in her, and since I could point out the scars of each one, I presume it was so. My father was very much attached to and proud of her, always petting her and talking to her in a loving way, when he rode her or went to see her in her stall. Of her ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about it over there. Ah, there's Bess beckoning! ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... lives, nor by the number that were already slain, as thinking it better to suffer whatever came upon them, at their very altars, than to omit any thing that their laws required of them. And that this is not a mere brag, or an encomium to manifest a degree of our piety that was false, but is the real truth, I appeal to those that have written of the acts of Pompey; and, among them, to Strabo and Nicolaus [of Damascus]; and besides these two, Titus Livius, the writer ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... my trade is words, a barren burst of rhyme, Rubbed by a hundred rhymesters, battered a thousand times, Take them, you, that smile on strings, those nobler sounds than mine, The words that never lie, or brag, or flatter, or malign. ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... because they lived on your side of the border and not on ours. Would you ask one Boer to fight against another Boer simply because he lived on one side of a river and his blood relation lived on the other? You Britishers brag of your pride of blood, and draw your fighting stock from all parts of the world in war time, but you have no generosity; you won't allow other people to be proud of their ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... fact is that there is no spot in the world where the Germans govern another race and are not hated. They know this, and are disquieted; they meet with coldness on all hands, and their remedy for the coldness is self-assertion and brag. The Russian statesman was right who remarked that modern Germany has been too early admitted into the comity of European nations. Her behaviour, in her new international relations, is like the behaviour ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... "and it may be one of that crowd; but somehow I doubt it. In the first place I don't believe they were smart enough to fetch even a lantern along. You know they brag about how they can go into the woods with only a hatchet and a few cooking things, and enjoy life. But we didn't come up here to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... he must have a sneaking sympathy for one whose science and wood-craft often baffle his own; and, therefore, though he fights against him sturdily and conscientiously, and, as a rule, triumphs over him, he does not generally, being what I have described him, brag of these victories, nor, indeed, does he care to talk about them. "There, but for the grace of God, goes Velveteens," must be the mental exclamation of many a good keeper when he hears his enemy sentenced to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... misfortune, "and it's a long lane that has no turning. Anyhow, we didn't make any big brag about what we were goin' to do when we set out; so you see nobody's going to be disappointed even if we get left. I'm enjoyin' every minute of the time; and that's more'n some fellers could say," with a meaning look in the direction of poor fat ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... great country was heard boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists of another age be ashamed of their confrere could they hear him brag of a rudimentary and long since dishonoured finesse? But the mere fact that M. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof that the New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. The congresses of old were gay and secret. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... sake, Alexander, don't belittle me ner mek light of me ternight. I kain't endure hit. Heven't ye got no idee how master much I loves ye? Don't ye see thet ther two of us war made fer each other? I don't aim ter brag none—but ye knows I'm ther only man hyar-abouts thet understands ye—thet ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... that time when payment I shall make to thee twice o'er For all that thou deserves". The twain turned back once more. Don Pero there bore witness to Ferrando's brag and lie. The Cid and all his vassals were ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... peeled off, and then tie ribbons around it, and hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... think me a vagabond, or something quite as bad if not worse. Well, I'm not. My family history is nothing to brag about, but the record is clean. If you'll be seated I'll be glad to furnish you with such bits as may be of interest to you. It isn't so difficult to hold one's temper ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... retract my words in order to please and pacify Sarudine," he began, speaking seriously, "the more so as I attach not the slightest importance to them. But, in the first place, Sarudine, being a fool, would not understand my motive, and, instead of holding his tongue, would brag about it. In the second place, I thoroughly dislike Sarudine, so that, under these circumstances, I don't see that there is ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... I like not thy brag," cried the other angrily. "Know, Master Stafford, that I was not punished. So soon as the keepers found who and what I was they made apology for treating me in such an unmannerly fashion, and brought me the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... subject men are less inclined to be fussy, and by the same token more inclined, on having accomplished a cure, to take a justifiable pride in it and to brag publicly about it. As I stated a moment ago, I claim Mr. Blythe viewed the matter in a proper and commendable light when he took pen in hand to describe more or less at length his reduction processes. So, too, did that ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... kick you to death first, so that there will be one Afghan less in the world, but every hobble shall come off every camel every day." This Coogee was a most amusing though lazy, indolent beggar. He never ceased to brag of what he could make camels do; he wished to ingratiate himself with me in the hope I would take him with me, but I had already determined to have only one of his countrymen. He said if he came with me he could make the camels go 200, 300, 400 or 500 miles with heavy loads ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... running from the roof to the area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed pavement of our backyard—so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... a bit when I heard people talking about England in the way that awful stockbroker in the hotel talks about it," Gilbert was saying, "and I loathe the Kipling flag-flapper, all bounce and brag and bloodies ... but I feel fond of England to-day, Quinny, and nothing else seems to matter much. And anyhow fighting's such a filthy job that it ought to be shared by everybody that can take a hand in it at all. It doesn't seem right somehow to do your fighting by ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... would shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... girl, we're off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... me long as you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... out of the wood, Dandy Mrs. Kit has jilted two men, and may a third, so you'd better not brag of your wisdom too soon, for she may make a fool of you yet," said Charlie, cynically, his views of life being ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Charlie Cochran Was the sprout of an aik; Bonnie and bloomin' And straught was its make: The sun took delight To shine for its sake, And it will be the brag O' the forest yet. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I have read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... bitterness. "It's what I do know that isn't worth knowing. All the seamy side of things, all the secret reasons and rotten motives and bribery and blackmail they call politics. I needn't be so proud of having been down all these sewers that I should brag about it to the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... matter of glory to all of us that you are doing so nobly. Keep it up and give us something to brag about in our obscurity. Don't worry. We are happy enough in the dark. We have our batlike sports and our owllike prides, and the full sun would blind us ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of these gov'ment schools and got my eyes so weak I can't hardly see to thread a needle. I'se crazy bout it I'm tellin' you. I sit up here till God knows how long. They give me a copy to practice and they'd brag on me and that turned me foolish. I jus' thought I was the teacher herself almos'. That's ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters, With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of 'Came, and saw, and overcame'; with shame— The first that ever touched him—he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping— Poor ignorant baubles!—on our terrible seas, Like ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... yours truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the way, 'ARRY ain't one to brag of bong four tunes; but wot I wos wanting to say Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our sort. Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... ready to discuss almost any question, yet always respectful and attentive. Although never officious, he managed to make himself indispensable. He was fonder of life in the bush than in town, yet as ready to amuse himself when there as any of his friends; rather inclined to brag of his doings and sayings, and able to tell the best story in camp, whoever ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... movement of brag, bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. And ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... mob all the liquors might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are closed, I can tell you, for these people are enough to make one sick. The way they talk and brag sets my fingers itching, and I want to ask them to step into the back room, take off their coats, those uniforms they are so proud of, and stand up for a friendly round or two just to try what they ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of the greatest literary excellences of the Essays ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... business, and don't talk so much," said Falkenberg. "I don't see what you've got to brag ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... am not," answered Svidrigailov laughing. "However, I won't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly interesting—I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I've drunk that half-glass of champagne ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... It never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... let the belted spwortsmen brag When they've a-won a neaeme, so's, That they do vind, or they do bag, Zoo many head o' geaeme, so's; Vor when our cwein is woonce a-won, By heads o' sundry sizes, Why, who can slight what we've a-done? We've all a-won ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... authenticity in the story which sent the whole parish into a gaping admiration. The tale was that the pork butcher had gone money-hunting on the afternoon of that eventful day which made a hero of him. He had gathered, so the local story ran, something like two hundred pounds, and he made an incautious brag of this fact in the bar-room of the old "Blue Posts," at Smethwick. Midway up Roebuck Lane, which was then without a house from end to end, three men sprang out upon him from the shadows of the bridge then ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... not a little amused and astonished by this prosperity, and bore his new honours pretty well. He had been bred at home to think too well of himself, and his present good fortune no doubt tended to confirm his self-satisfaction. But he was not too much elated. He did not brag about his victories or give himself any particular airs. In engaging in play with the gentlemen who challenged him, he had acted up to his queer code of honour. He felt as if he was bound to meet them when they summoned ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... year," said Simeon. "I'm no' big for my age, I ken; but I can throw ony man that I get grups on, and haud ony beast whatsomever. I can ploo wi' the best an' maw—Weel, I'm no' gaun to brag, but ye can ask Maister Golder—that is an elder o' your ain, an' comes at least twa Sabbaths afore every Communion to ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... General Grant's exact words, sir," said the flag-officer. "Of course it is nothing but their brag." ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... mate—no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in steam, which might lead to anything—the whole tale was told her in terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. And how interested she was! How well she understood his case—that it was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your own exertions, and splendid ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Now I've took to drink, and I'll drink! And I fear no man! 'Cos I don't lie; but just as ... Why should one mind them—such muck as they are! "Here you are," I say; that's me. A priest told me, the devil's the biggest bragger! "As soon," says he, "as you begin to brag, you get frightened; and as soon as you fear men, then the hoofed one just collars you and pushes you where he likes!" But as I don't fear men, I'm easy! I can spit in the devil's beard, and at the sow his mother! He can't do me no harm! There, ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... by George, like a man who had come through it himself. I've been there, and I know how it is. When I first struck New York I hadn't even a ragged dollar bill to my back. Of course every successful man will tell you the same of himself, but it is mostly brag, and in half the instances it isn't true at all; but in my case—well, I wasn't subscribing to the heathen in those days. I made up my mind that poverty didn't pay, and I have succeeded in remedying ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... most religious, and most moral people in the world, I would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... friendly and affectionate that I ventured to consult him; when, on hearing whom I was seeking, he became warmly interested, and gave me just the information I wanted. He said he had little doubt that Funny Frank was a clown called Brag, with whom he had had words some years back for misusing the children. He said he did not hold with harshness to the little ones in teaching them to do the feats, which certainly were wonderful. If they were frightened, they were nervous and met with accidents; but make much of ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enough, but you'll never live to brag about it. If the officers don't hang you, Hank Hazletine will make daylight shine through your hide! He is ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... he urged impatiently. "I hate to brag, mother; but do you take in all he meant: that he saw no reason, if I kept on, that I should not make a record as ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... without fig-leaves, declares the style wonderfully idiomatic and graphic, adding: "In his frenzy, in the fire of his inspiration, are fused and poured out together elements hitherto considered antagonistic in poetry—passion, arrogance, animality, philosophy, brag, humility, rowdyism, spirituality, laughter, tears, together with the most ardent and tender love, the most comprehensive human sympathy which ever radiated its divine glow through ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... the opposite seas. The Indian, according to the Castilian accounts, listened with awe to this strain of glorification from the Spanish commander. Yet it is possible that the envoy was a better diplomatist than they imagined; and that he understood it was only the game of brag at which he was playing with his more ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Gudbrand; 'not much to brag of. When I got to the town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I swopped ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Young Seamour is killed, the only captain slain. The Resolution burned; but, as they say, most of her [crew] and commander saved. This is all, only we keep the sea, which denotes a victory, or at least that we are not beaten; but no great matters to brag of, God knows. So home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... settle young, A man will ne'er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue. The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd, and prospects fair, Learn of the language, 'How d'ye do,' And go and brag they have been there. The most for leave to trade apply, For once, at Empire's seat, her heart, Then get what knowledge ear and eye Glean chancewise in the life-long mart. And certain others, few and fit, Attach them to the Court, and see The Country's best, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... in months after, and brag that I meant to thrash the man, and then didn't? And why? Because my father had made a bigger ass of himself than I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other from her that he himself sought her: the major did not take to Vavasor. There was a natural repulsion between them. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, full of brag and vulgarity, and the major thought Vavasor a supercilious idiot. It is curious how differently a man's character will be read by two people in the same company, but it is not hard to explain, seeing his ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... of education and travel and some repute for sobriety. I noticed I was opposite the house of a poor old woman they called Black Kate, whose door was ever the target in my young days for every lad that could brag of a boot-toe, and I saw that the shutter, hanging ajee on one hinge, was thrown open against the harled wall of the house. In my doublet-pocket there were some carabeen bullets, and taking one out, I let bang at the old woman's little lozens. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... stupid Barleymow," said Dunghill; "You talk about your heart and wrung-ill: Where would you be, I'd like to know, Had I not fed and made you grow? You of October brew brag—pshaw! You would have been a husk of straw. And now, instead of gratitude, You ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... the other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for any write-up ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... said to the Admiral, after the election was over, "Do you know, I had a mind to have stood myself; if I had, what would you have said?"—"That it was all a game of brag, and that, as you had the shuffling of the pack, there was no knowing what knave ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and its flags and its sham enthusiasms. I am bored by London and its life, by its smart life and by its servile life alike. I am bored by theatres and by books and by every sort of thing that people call pleasure. I am bored by the brag of people and the claims of people and the feelings of people. Damn people! I am bored by profiteers and by the snatching they call business enterprise. Damn every business man! I am bored by politics and the universal mismanagement of everything. ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... not steal," in the same breath referring to the white man's crime (when it finds them out) as "getting into trouble over some shooting affair with blacks." Truly we British-born have reason to brag of our "inborn ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... discontent, or ill health, or angry passion, has gone to their making. The iridescence of a bird's plumage, we are told, is not something extraneous; it is a prismatic effect. So the color in my books is not paint; it is health. It is probably nothing to brag of; much greater books have been the work of confirmed invalids. All I can say is that the minds of these inspired invalids have not seemed to sustain so close a relation to their bodies as my mind does to my body. Their powers seem to have been ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... modestly, though he had become the most important person of the party for the time being. There was not a particle of the "brag" and pretension which had caused me to distrust everything he said. As we walked from place to place he kept at a respectful distance from the passengers, and never intruded himself upon them, though he was always ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... that, whatever his qualities might be, his personal appearance was against him. One of his fore legs was shaped like the handle of our punch-ladle, and the remaining three legs, about the fetlock, were slightly bunchy. Besides, he had no tail to brag of; and his back had a very hollow sweep from his high haunches to his low shoulder-blades. I was much pleased, however, with the fondness and pride manifested by his owner, as he held up, by both ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... half gentry, or mock gentry, seemed to consider it as the most indisputable privilege of a gentleman not to pay his debts. They were ever ready to meet civil law with military brag of war. Whenever a swaggering debtor of this species was pressed for payment, he began by protesting or confessing that 'he considered himself used in an ungentlemanlike manner;' and ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, 'the satisfaction of a gentleman, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... and lots of other great sailors were born in Devonshire," Johnson said. He certainly did brag; but he spoke so slowly and quietly, that it did not sound as like bragging as it would have done if he had talked ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... cousins!" said the brown rat. "It's awful the way you people out here in the country brag about relationship. What's become ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... likes to make good, though. He never makes a brag; but he boxes up that old shootin' iron and drops out of sight. 'Way up in the woods somewhere he digs up an old b'gosh artist that was brought up with one of them guns in his hand, and he takes a private course. After he's used up a keg of powder ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... foolish people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... that some of those who have them brag about them," said Jimmy. "And I know that the men who work for him, from the superintendent down to the yard boy, believe in them and say so, and would tear to pieces a man who says they aren't the best. That's good enough for me. Know anything about cars? Um-m-m-mh! ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... love, 'twill chafe my ghost in Hades' realm, where heroes shine, Should I hear the shepherd boasting To his Argive concubine? Let him boast, the girlish victor, Let him brag; not thus, I trow, Were the laurels torn from Hector, Not so very ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... said Rebecca, "is but idle boasting—a brag of what you would have done had you not found it convenient to do otherwise. You received my glove, and my champion, if a creature so desolate can find one, must encounter your lance in the lists—yet you would assume the air ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the neighbourhood to ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... quite a good one, Mr. Horsley," he said as he returned the livery man's brag team, "but it has two drawbacks." "Oh, indeed; and may I inquire what ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... buffaloes, and our ponies were fresh. It was not long before we left the shooting behind. Once we thought we heard it break out again in a different direction, but we were full of our own affairs, and anxious to get back to the camp and brag about them. As we crossed the creek Suh-tai made a line and said the words that made it Medicine. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... Well, sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this whale. Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these two met. Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up and told how he had struck ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Bates insisted; "I want them learnt to do without—" ("They'll learn that," Mis' Abby Winslow said; "they'll learn....") "Happening as it does to most every one of us not to have no Christmas, they won't be no distinctions drawn. None of the children can brag—and children is limbs of Satan for bragging," she added. (She was remembering a brief conversation overheard that day between Gussie and Pep, ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But, finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic license; And when I brag of aid divine, Think Eusden's[1] right as good as mine. Nor do I ask for Stella's sake; 'Tis my own credit lies at stake: And Stella will be sung, while I Can only be a stander by. Apollo, having thought a little, Return'd this answer to a tittle. Though ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... good and gracious, not because he spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be as pitiless and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... to die, boy, I may let you off the birching which your impertinence merits. You have all the old brag of your father." ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... little lad. "Not much to brag of, however. Merely bobbish, pretty bobbish. In answer to your second question, I take pleasure in informing you," he added, "that I am ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... ever been the custom, there was no firing across the stream. That was considered the boundary. It mattered not how large or small the stream, pickets rarely fired at each other. We would stand on each bank, and laugh and talk and brag across the stream. ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... little to brag of as against the manual worker. He, too, is only moderately efficient in doing his particular job. There are brilliant exceptions—bookkeepers who add columns of figures with great speed and precision, students who know just how to put in two ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... tobacco seller is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of, but doe not, for it is meate, drinke, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the operation. His Shop is the Randenvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... she told him, "I'm going to brag that I was the very first girl in all the world ever to be kissed in a ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... 'Manda Grier had two rooms now, and they lived better than ever they had, for less money. Of course, Statira said, it was not up to the St. Albans, which Lemuel had told them of at first a little braggingly. In fact she liked to have him brag of it, and of the splendours of his position and surroundings. She was very curious, but not envious of anything, and it became a joke with her and 'Manda Grier, who pretended ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... I had trash enough to have cloy'd his eyes withal, His covetous eyes; such as I scorn to tread on: Richer than e're he saw yet, and more tempting; Had I known he had stoop'd at that, I had sav'd mine honour, I had been happy still: but let him take it, And let him brag how poorly I am rewarded: Let him goe conquer still weak wretched Ladies: Love has his angry Quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest: I am a fool to fret thus, for a fool: An old blind fool too: I lose my health? I will not: I will ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... greater appearance of prosperity? a greater face of plenty? Is not the city enlarged? Are not the streets better paved, houses repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid with counters? An old square new vamped up! a fountain! an aqueduct! are these acquisitions to brag of? Cast your eye upon the magistrate under whose ministry you boast these precious improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once from dirt to opulence; from the lowest obscurity ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... rather wild. They are older than our fellows, but they like Prince, he's such a jolly boy; sings so well, dances jigs and breakdowns, you know, and plays any game that's going. He beat Morse at billiards, and that's something to brag of, for Morse thinks he knows everything. I saw the match, and it ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... before-hand what such a Doctor would prescribe, and hence it is they have nick-named some Physicians of no mean practice, by the Medicines they frequently use, which names in respect to the persons, I shall conceal; and of such Physicians, they brag they can prescribe as well as they. But if a Physician advise things unknown to them, or out of the common tract, then they say the Doctor ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... worship and devotion. Then too, with me your honour runs no risk; With me you need not fear a public scandal. These court gallants, that women are so fond of, Are boastful of their acts, and vain in speech; They always brag in public of their progress; Soon as a favour's granted, they'll divulge it; Their tattling tongues, if you but trust to them, Will foul the altar where their hearts have worshipped. But men like me are ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... away from Scott for a while and visit his comrades in the field. There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,—for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,—boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until cross-questioned ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... persons flying to the country a day or two before the threatened event; and they were all unmercifully ridiculed when the day passed over quietly. Walpole in one of his amusing letters speaks of a party who went "to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish!" Jokers who were out late amused themselves by bawling in the watchmen's voice, "Past four o'clock, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. I say "No," and that however mad and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... said the youth, "and he that has taken a falcon's nest in the Scaurs of Polmoodie, has done something to brag of, my fair sister.—But that is all over now—a murrain on the nest, and the eyases and their food, washed or unwashed, for it was all anon of cramming these worthless kites that I was sent upon my present travels. Save that I have met with you, pretty sister, I could eat my dagger-hilt for vexation ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... it extremely difficult to find out much about Merriwell, as he persistently avoided talking about himself. If he had been one of the kind of fellows who go around and brag about themselves and what they have done he would not have aroused so much interest; but the very fact that he would not talk of himself made the students curious to ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... I've always remember'd it at leisure. I don't want to brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you wonder he don't run away from ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... Canada, the land beloved of God; We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood: And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag That we were born in Canada beneath the ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... and cars is so excellent and so simply arranged that it costs much less thought, effort, and worry to "get about" in Manhattan than in Middlesex. In saying this I may perhaps offend American susceptibilities. There is nothing we moderns are more apt to brag of than the nervous overstrain of our life. But sincerity comes before courtesy, and I must gently but firmly decline to allow New York a monopoly of neurasthenia, or of ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... neither "the world forgetting," nor, we imagine, "by the world forgot." The inhabitants of the "Mecca of civilization" are still, like Sister Anne, looking out for some one to come to their assistance. I am utterly sick and tired of the eternal brag and bombast around me. Let the Parisians gain some success, and then celebrate it as loudly as they please: but why, in the name of common sense, will they rejoice over victories yet to come? "We are preserving," they say, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... a buck. Wal, he was one of 'em—that buck was. The horns on his head were like an old-fashioned round-posted chair, and if they hadn't a dozen prongs on 'em, you may skin me! He wasn't as big as an ox, but a two-year-old that could match him, could brag of a pretty rapid growth. I crept up behind a little clump of bushes to about fifteen rods of where he stood on the sandy beach, and sighting carefully at his head, let drive. My gun hung fire a little, owin' to the night-dews, but that buck went down, and after kickin' a moment, laid ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,—so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious—minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity—have ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... are come from the fight," said she; "would that you had fallen rather by the hand of that brave man who was my husband. You used to brag that you were a better man with hands and spear than Menelaus. Go, then, and challenge him again—but I should advise you not to do so, for if you are foolish enough to meet him in single combat, you will soon ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... you," said Wildeve. "But I—well, I will speak frankly—I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... no use talkin' hours about the Deef Woman's music. It only lasts a week; even if Wolfville does brag of ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... will talk all day if he can coax some one to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have done or are going ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... woke to find the fog absent, and I rose and prepared to take my customary cold bath. I am much given to taking a cold bath in the morning and speaking of it afterward. People who take a cold bath every day always like to brag about it, whether ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... class of American," she said—"your class. Many year' ago we have another class which Europe didn' like. That was when the American was ter-ri-ble! He was the—what is that you call?—oh, yes; he 'make himself,' you say: that is it. My frien', he was abominable! He brag'; he talk' through the nose; yes, and he was niggardly, rich as he was! But you, you yo'ng men of the new generation, you are gentlemen of the idleness; you are aristocrats, with polish an' with culture. An' yet you ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... too, that, long before the waste lands are full, the very street-constable, on these poor terms, will have become impossible: without the waste lands, as here in our Europe, I do not see how he could continue possible many weeks. Cease to brag to me of America, and its model institutions and constitutions. To men in their sleep there is nothing granted in this world: nothing, or as good as nothing, to men that sit idly caucusing and ballot-boxing on the graves of their heroic ancestors, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... from us some expression of that satisfaction which one rival tradesman has in the downfall of another. "Here you are with all your boasting," is what we say. "You were going to whip all creation the other day; and it has come to this! Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Pray remember that, if ever you find yourselves on your legs again." That little advice about the two dogs is very well, and was not altogether inapplicable. But this is not the time in which it should be given. Putting aside slight asperities, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, not ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... will fit my dolly's jacket!" cried Susie, dancing around and hugging it in glee. "It will, mamma! A real live baby! Now Tilde needn't brag of theirs. We will take it home, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... you say; "it is all very well for a writer to affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag as ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of course, the lob-worm had the opportunity of opening out in a very magnificent bit of brag, and did ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... such flagrant nonsense, for surely he could not reasonably object to resembling Cousin Augustus. The Candy Man was a well-enough looking young fellow in his white jacket and cap, but nothing to brag of, that he need be haughty about a likeness to one so far above him in the social scale, whom in ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he played it "to the limit," ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... going on in the mother country, and were threatening to assume the proportions of a revolution. The unparalleled prosperity of the States caused the Americans—never backward in blowing their own trumpet—to assume an attitude of overweening confidence in themselves, and to brag offensively of what they considered to be their duty to mankind, namely, to convert all the world—by force if necessary—to republican principles. Such was the commencement of the great crisis in the history of the young Canadian nation—a crisis through which, ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... day. This hero, drawing tobacco from his pocket, declares that it is all that is left of seven pounds which he had bought only "yesterday was seven-night." A consumption of seven pounds of tobacco in eight days is a pretty "tall order"! Then he goes on to brag of its quality—your right Trinidado—and to assert that he had been in the Indies, where the herb grows, and where he himself and a dozen other gentlemen had for the space of one-and-twenty weeks known no other nutriment than the fume of tobacco. ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... literary event of any magnitude in Jerrold's life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper." This journal, which before his connection with it had no position to brag of, rose under his hands to great circulation and celebrity. Every week, there you traced his hand at its old work of embroidering with queer and fanciful sarcasm some bit of what he thought timely and necessary truth. Against all tyrants, all big-wigged impostors, black, white, or gray, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... yet he will not refuse or close his door against great riches, if they are the gift of fortune and the product of virtue: what reason has he for grudging them good quarters: let them come and be his guests: he will neither brag of them nor hide them away: the one is the part of a silly, the other of a cowardly and paltry spirit, which, as it were, muffles up a good thing in its lap. As he is capable of performing a journey upon his own feet, but yet would prefer to mount a carriage, just so he will be ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... even go so far as to brag at his own table, while champagne from his cellars was flowing and his guests smoked his fragrant Havanas, of the prowess to be shown by him at the prospective duel. He applied names like "Daemelsack"[18] to Kahle, of whom he vowed to "make short work." ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... fact in your brag about the political graves. Only this isn't a spade; it's a steam shovel. Do I understand you are giving me this stuff to ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... their adventure to relate, and Frank had his amusing story to tell, and Tucket could brag how near he had come to being shot for one of Buckley's gobblers, and all were merry but Jack, who had brought from the field nothing but a counterfeit lameness and dishonor, and who accordingly lagged behind ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... those who were still fighting for their lives they were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen under the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, "My friends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after having done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors unsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your spears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by killing him. When he has fallen we need not be ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... faithful, sir," said the carpenter. "I'm not going to brag, but I'm a handy man, sir. You might get a hole in the boat, and I didn't bring no clothes, but I brought my tools, and I'm at home over a job like that. You might want a hut knocked up, or your guns mended. I'd do anything, sir, and I don't ask for pay. It might come to your wanting help ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. That man"—Wrinkle swallowed as ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, because advice was all ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. "Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these square-built, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... before noted whittlers to save the furniture. The Down-Easters, as the yankees are termed generally, whittle when they are making a bargain, as it fills up the pauses, gives them time for reflection, and moreover, prevents any examination of the countenance—for in bargaining, like in the game of brag, the countenance is carefully watched, as an index to the wishes. I was once witness to a bargain made between two respectable yankees, who wished to agree about a farm, and in which whittling was ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... horn after horn of mead and ale. Each time their mighty valor grew until there was no limit set to their attainments. It is possible that their boastful pledges may have given rise to the term, to brag. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... once; Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons, Confederates all thus to dishonour me. Was there none else in Rome to make a stale But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus, Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine That said'st I begg'd the empire at ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times bigger and better than here—the apples are the size of pumpkins, and the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the objections which were contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's Essays; and perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave my Father to understand; but perhaps it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French verses, perhaps Voltaire's, in denial of the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself something like ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... into the dark. Hardly five rounds of shot were left to Drake! Gun after gun fell silent, as the night Deepened—"Yet we must follow them to the North," He cried, "or they'll return yet to shake hands With Parma! Come, we'll put a brag upon it, And hunt them onward as we lacked for nought!" So, when across the swinging smoking seas, Grey and splendid and terrible broke the day Once more, the flying Invincible fleet beheld Upon their weather-beam, and dogging them Like their own shadow, the dark ships of Drake, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... dog finds even an unsuccessful chase to be the second best joy he knows. Look at him, tense and motionless with excitement, as he watches the noisy chatterer overhead! No doubt the squirrel will brag to all his acquaintances of how he openly defied and triumphed over his ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... Deschartres [Footnote: Deschartres: the tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and the explorations did ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... sent for me. It's true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an' blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm goin' to do my best to live up to his brag." ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... And atoms justly poised; nor should you wonder More at the strength of body than of mind; 'Tis equally the same to see me plunge Headlong into the Seine, all over armed, And plow against the torrent to my point, As 'twas to hear my judgment on the Germans, This to another man would be a brag; Or at the court among my enemies, To be, as I am here, quite off my guard, Would make me such another thing as Grillon, A blunt, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... always distinguished by modesty. Never boast or brag, when you are likely to be disbelieved; and do not contradict your superiors—that is to say, when you are in the presence of people who are richer than yourselves, never express an opinion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... career I can do a whole lot of things fairly well and none of them well enough to brag about." ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... sum of twenty-one dollars,—enough to purchase as handsome a dressing-bureau as I would ask. So you see. Mr. Jones, that our cheap furniture is not going to turn out so cheap after all. And as for looks, why no one can say there is much to brag of." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... out of one of the hedges: and tug at it, though it may come easy: this, if she turn back, will look terrible, and account for your not following us faster. Then, returning with it, shouldered, to brag to the family what you would have done, could you have overtaken us, rather than your young lady should be carried off by such a ——— And you may call me names, and curse me. And these airs will make you look valiant, and in earnest. You see, honest Joseph, I am always contriving ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... "your memory is so short that you cannot recollect. But try and bear this in mind, Mr Howlett. Don't vapour and don't brag. These things are not becoming to ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all this ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a small present, though they made a mighty brag about it. Neither do they spare bragging of their king, as they called Prince Maurice, whom at every word in those parts they styled Raia Hollanda. Many quarrels took place between their men and ours, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... don't know how to go about it, Mr. Bully Brag, and I doesn't care half a farden for you—you go for to say ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... haven't the polish that those Eastern fellows put on, or that is put on them, but out here in the mountains I amount to somebody—you must let me brag a little, Sylvia—and if a man doesn't bow pretty low to Mrs. William Plummer, I'll have to get out my old six-shooter—I haven't carried one now for ten years—and shoot all the hair off the top ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... masculine foible, and this sort of brag is the natural recreation of a young man ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... right," Jack returned, proudly. "And while we are on the subject, and not to brag, of course, I might say that some of the other girls are in the same class. First few years they came out to the woods I used to be rather doubtful, but now we often find that the maids can take care of the masters; don't we, Wallie? More of that odor, please. I wonder why bacon turns all to odor ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... in playing. I danced—once— with each of the three girls, and twice with my hostess; then I let Ryder and the two young business-men do the rest. Randolph danced once with Mrs. Phillips, and that ended it for him. My own dancing, as you know, is nothing to brag of: I think the young ladies were quite satisfied with the little I did. I'm sure I was. You also know my views on round dances. Why dancing should be done exclusively by couples arranged strictly on the basis ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... critter—more like a man than a woman, God knows—an' how she ever got a girl like you I don't fairly understand. I reckon you must be what the breedin' men call 'a throw-back,' for yore pa wa'n't much to brag of, 'ceptin' for looks—he certainly was good-lookin'. He used to sober down when he got where you was; but my—good God!—weren't they a pair to draw to? I've heard 'Lando tell tales of yore ma's doin's that would 'fright ye. Not that ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... rapid glance. She did not understand him and did not want to understand him. It seemed to her impertinent that he should compare himself to Nejdanov. "Let him brag!" she thought, though he was not bragging at all, but rather depreciating himself, according ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... youth, "and he that has taken a falcon's nest in the Scaurs of Polmoodie, has done something to brag of, my fair sister.—But that is all over now—a murrain on the nest, and the eyases and their food, washed or unwashed, for it was all anon of cramming these worthless kites that I was sent upon my present travels. Save that I have met with you, pretty sister, I could eat my dagger-hilt for vexation ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... and truly, with the philosopher, "OMNIA MEA MECUM PORTO," for it was a long time before he could brag of more than he carried at his back; and when he got on the winning side, it was his commendation that he took pains for it, and underwent many various adventures for his after-perfection, and before he came into the public note of the world; ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... mother's boudoir. He was a dull dog, full of tiresome talk. But I made acquaintanceship with him; and often of an evening would smoke my pipe there in silence while pretending to be listening to his monotonous brag. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered together and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members of the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny brag without waiting for "just one more hand," an unprecedented thing. The makers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of the mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition, ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... "I didn't brag of it, my dear," I said, meekly enough. "I'm sorry for him, but I can't help him. He must provide for ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... for your purpose. Of course we all know very positively that the McLeods sprang from the best and most honorable clan of old Scotland. We have improved some in manners, for we no longer drive our foes into caves, and smoke them to death. (We only wish we could.) We no longer brag that we were not beholden to Noah, but had boats of our own—that would relate us too nearly to Lillith— but still we are proud of ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full pursuit ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... To see them, who had tried in their patronizing way to get us to give up our home and go into apartments, selling up and letting apartments themselves! Them! They hadn't a tenth of the fight in them my little colonial mother had, for all their big bosoms and tall brag about their independence and the fine offers they had when they were single. Some of the men too were in misfortune after a while. Some disaster sent up a big wave which washed them off their little rafts. I used to wonder what became of them. One I know died of heart-trouble. He was never ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... ever pay you, O sweet miracle, An unexampled worship and devotion. Then too, with me your honour runs no risk; With me you need not fear a public scandal. These court gallants, that women are so fond of, Are boastful of their acts, and vain in speech; They always brag in public of their progress; Soon as a favour's granted, they'll divulge it; Their tattling tongues, if you but trust to them, Will foul the altar where their hearts have worshipped. But men like me are so discreet ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... and commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... must all remember that our Caius not only never boasts but is absurdly reticent about anything he has done of such a kind that most men would brag of it. Towards his chums and cronies he is open-hearted and as unreserved as a friend could be about everything else, but especially close with them about such matters. So I know nothing of his powers ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... finished pickin' to pieces the characters of the members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... new-issue quality ready an' a-waitin' to pull an' haul at 'im,' says I. Not that I begrudge the vittles—not by no means; I hope I hain't got to that yit. But somehow er 'nother folks what hain't got no great shakes to brag 'bout gener'ly feels sorter skittish when strange folks draps in on 'em. Goodness knows I hain't come to that pass wher' I begrudges the vittles that folks eats, bekaze anybody betweenst this an' Clinton, Jones ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... stream—these energetic and swarthy sons of the Incas could by no means find 'Tonio, or one of his tribe, when given the chance to lead and the backing of armed troopers. 'Tonio, well or wounded, was far too wary for them and, after hours of brag and bluster, not a vestige of him did they discover beyond a few scattered footprints and that one revolver, concerning which, it seems, Munoz told sensational tales. He declared he had found it glinting ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... harm in being respected in this world, as I have found out," said Thackeray, "and if you don't brag a little for yourself, depend on it there is no person of your acquaintance who will tell the world of your merits, and take the trouble ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... half-dazed leader in their midst. Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... another, as it embodies itself in many shapes, so it finds vent in the words which they borrow from one another, and the use to which they put them. Thus the French, borrowing 'hablar' from the Spaniards, with whom it means simply to speak, give it in 'habler' the sense of to brag; the Spaniards paying them off in exactly their own coin, for of 'parler' which in like manner is but to speak in French, they make 'parlar,' which means to prate, to chat. [Footnote: See Darmesteter, The Life of Words, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... thine and thee! For both thy younger brethren have gone down Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; Art thou not old?' 'Old, damsel, old and hard, Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.' Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! But that same strength which threw the Morning Star ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... had never separated a true Mercury from any Metal; nor had ever seen it really done by any man else. And though Gold is, of all Metalls, That, whose Mercury Chymists have most endeavoured to extract, and which they do the most brag they have extracted; yet the Experienced Angelus Sala, in his Spagyrical account of the seven Terrestrial Planets (that is the seven metalls) affords us this memorable Testimony, to, our present purpose; Quanquam (saies he) &c. experientia tamen (quam stultorum Magistrum [Errata: ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... "If you want to serve God you must earn your own remission of sins and everlasting life, and in addition help others to obtain salvation by giving them the benefit of your extra work-holiness." Monks, friars, and all the rest of them brag that besides the ordinary requirements common to all Christians, they do the works of supererogation, i.e., the performance of more than is required. This ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... Englishmen has to serve once more. The points at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the greatest trouble ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... befitting a prince and a bowman in particular, "Strike me, O hero. We desire to witness thy manliness. Having achieved some feats in battle, O brave warrior, thou shouldst then boast. O sire, they that are heroes fight in battle to the best of their powers, without indulging in brag. Fight now with me to the best of thy might. I will quell thy pride." Having said these words the Suta's son quickly struck the son of Pandu and pierced him, in that encounter, with three and seventy shafts. Then Nakula, O Bharata, thus pierced by the Suta's son, pierced ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... machine factory. The money was not invested in stock of any factory but lay in the bank. Still he was not happy. All day Jim Gibson, whom Joe had never dared tell the tales of his triumph as a workman and to whom he did not brag as he had formerly done to his apprentices, talked of his ability to get the best of customers. He had, he declared, managed, in the last place he had worked before he came to Bidwell, to sell a good many sets of harness as handmade that were in ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... it," declared the maid, with conviction. "Oi'm not superstitious, but Oi nivver brag about mesilf thot Oi don't touch wood. Mark me worruds, whin a person boasts and fergits to touch wood, something happens to thot person. I ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... brother?—the cruise it was o'er, But ah, for death's grip that welcomed him ashore! Where's Sid, the cadet, so frank in his brag, Whose toast was audacious—"Here's Sid, and Sid's flag!" Like holiday-craft that have sunk unknown, May a lark of a lad go lonely down? Who takes the census under the sea? Can others like old ensigns be, Bunting I hoisted to flutter at the gaff— Rags in ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Earth's blackest sin Can dim. All beauty emanates from soul, And all deformity. The piteous straw Where sickness writhes in suffering and want— The cold, bleak dwelling where the winds have will To brag o'er man's debasement, if possess'd In fortitude and patience, with the heart Clear in its honour, stedfast in its faith, Is to the eye of angels, beautiful as day; And this fair spot with all its waken'd charms Is purgatorial torture to the wretch Whose life ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... smatch of self-love to each country and nation. Upon this account it is that the English challenge the prerogative of having the most handsome women, of the being most accomplished in the skill of music, and of keeping the best tables: the Scotch brag of their gentility, and pretend the genius of their native soil inclines them to be good disputants: the French think themselves remarkable for complaisance and good breeding: the Sorbonists of Paris pretend before any others to have made the greatest proficiency in polemic divinity: ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... actors appears in the Cambridge "Parnassus" plays of c. 1600-2. In the mouth of Will Kempe, who acted Dogberry in Shakespeare's company, and was in favour, says Heywood, with Queen Elizabeth, the Cambridge authors put this brag: "For Londoners, who of more report than Dick Burbage and Will Kempe? He is not counted a gentleman that knows not Dick Burbage and Will Kempe." It is not my opinion that Shakespeare was, as Ben Jonson came to be, as much "in Society" as is possible for a mere literary man. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... the driver was! And often he would brag That they could pull a heavier load and never balk or flag; If all the road was ankle-deep in miry, sticky mud, That was the time his team would show its ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... out and kills a man before breakfast, he absolves himself by showing that the man richly deserved his fate. The braggart and bully are really cowards at the last. A man who is wholly brave would not think to brag of it. He would be as brave in his calm moments as in moments of frenzy—take old John Brown, for instance. But when Cellini had a job on hand he first worked himself into a torrent of righteous wrath. He poses as the injured ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Northern Fury, And they mangled up the air, Till a native of Missouri Would have owned his brag was fair. Though the plunges kep' him reelin' And the wind it flapped his shirt, Loud above the hawse's squealin' We could hear ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... low-minded we esteeme that man Who cannot swagger well, or (if he can) Who doth not with implacable desire, Follow revenge with a consuming fire. Extortious rascals, when they are alone, Bethinke how closely they have pick'd each bone, Nay, with a frolicke humour, they will brag, How blancke they left their empty client's bag. Which dealings if they did not giue delight, Or not refresh their meetings in despight, They would accounted be both weake, vnwise, And, like a timorous ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... still fighting for their lives they were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen under the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, "My friends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after having done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors unsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your spears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by killing him. When he has fallen we need not be uneasy about ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... Omi. There was among the passengers a Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer the enemy, but I do it in order not to be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... he tries, readily learn to do a great many such little things and his wife will brag on him to other ladies, and they will make invidious comparisons between their husbands who can't do anything of that kind whatever, and you ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Lorrainer, and I, there are no others to be named with us at the culverin," he would brag. "We two against an army, give us good cover, and powder and leaden balls enough. Hey! Master John and I must shoot a match yet, against English targets, and of them there are plenty under Orleans. But if I make ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... injuries to his pride. They were delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but he had a simple admiration for money, power, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the learned Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures to the ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... maintains that the conscription will succeed in the North, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. I say "No," and that however mad and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I don't believe ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... countermarching of countless battalions, and all the pomp of war and parade of martial bombast with which the fertile mind of General Smyth hoped to terrify the apparently defenceless Canadians; to which he added a flaming proclamation, not excelled in pomposity and brag by that of General Hull issued to Canadians three months before. We give this proclamation, as we have done that of General ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... as I listened, I was dangerously near admiring him. He was certainly exaggerating; but it couldn't all be brag. The life of this spy of the first water, of international fame, must be rather marvelous; to defy one's enemies with success, to journey calmly through their capitals, to stroll undetected among their agents ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... so would you be if you knew him as well as I do. I have heard him talk that way to dozens of men and then brag how he'd 'covered his tracks,' as he used to ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of so much crowing; Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is better," went on a third, and each man had his remark upon Colleton's seeming timidity. Scorn and indignation were in all faces around him; and Forrester, at length awakened from his stupor by the tide of fierce comment setting in upon his ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... declares the style wonderfully idiomatic and graphic, adding: "In his frenzy, in the fire of his inspiration, are fused and poured out together elements hitherto considered antagonistic in poetry—passion, arrogance, animality, philosophy, brag, humility, rowdyism, spirituality, laughter, tears, together with the most ardent and tender love, the most comprehensive human sympathy which ever radiated its divine glow through the ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... takes on the voice and nature of buried Hotspur. He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he cannot "mince" it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as "easy" to conquer kingdoms as to speak French; can "vault into his saddle with his armour on his back"; he is no carpet-soldier; he never "looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there," and to make the likeness ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... I don't mean by this that I want you to be one of those fellows who swell out like a ready-made shirt and brag that they "never borrow and never lend." They always think that this shows that they are sound, conservative business men, but, as a matter of fact, it simply stamps them as mighty mean little cusses. It's very superior, I know, to ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... barking dogs. He is all the time boasting of the great things he is able to do. Nobody ever saw him do any such things. Still he keeps on boasting, right in the midst of the young people who know him through and through, a great deal better than he knows himself. It is strange that he should brag at that rate where everybody knows him. But he has fallen into the habit of bragging, and I suppose he hardly thinks of the absurd and foolish language he is using. According to his account of himself, ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... notice, mamma, you are the one always likes to brag when the girls and fellows like Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester and—and all come up to the house. It's the biggest feather in your cap the way on account of papa the big names got to come running ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... to sit dismounted in close circle, for a confab. Occasionally a young brave, a vidette, exuberantly galloped for us, dared us, shook hand and weapon at us, no doubt spat at us, and gained nothing by his brag. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... here," he said. "What an untidy chap he is with his togs, and how he gets them mixed! Don't want to brag; but I believe I could get anything out of my drawers with my eyes shut. Well, I suppose it was because of dad. He always used to say that a soldier's traps should be neatly packed together in the smallest space. Perhaps it's in ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... old game of brag, by puffing their ticket as a national and conservative ticket, the very thing they denied. Now let us look into the soundness and nationality of the HEAD of the ticket. We have before us a copy of ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... to tell me so, I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well; For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there; But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm, I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er. You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag. His insolence draws folly from my lips; But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... and now is that wealthy Americans as a class feel no genuine interest in art or literature. They do not form a true aristocracy, but a plutocracy, and are for the most part very poorly educated. It was formerly the brag of the Winthrops and Otises that they could go through college and learn their lessons in the recitation-room. Now they go to row, and play foot-ball, and after they graduate, they leave the best portion of their lives behind them. Then if they have a talent for business they become ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... flamed. "Oh, you hound!" she hissed, "you hound!" and then she laughed softly, hysterically. "That is the gentleman for you! The seed of kings, no less! What a brag it was! That is the gentleman for you!—to put the blame on me. No, Sim; no, Sim; I will not betray you to Miss Mim-mou', you need not be feared of that; I'll let her find you out for herself and then it will be too late. And, oh! I hate her! ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... to die for, and to wonder at, When, on the shuddering edge Of some great storm, it waves its woven joy, Which no man shall destroy, In shine or shower, in peace or battle-time. Up with the flag! The winds are wild to toss it, and to brag Of England's high renown,— And of the throne where Chivalry has sat Acclaimed in bower and town For England's high renown!— And of these happy isles where men are free And masters of the sea, The million-mouthed sea, That calls to us from shore to furthest shore— That fought ...
— The Song of the Flag - A National Ode • Eric Mackay
... cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would in getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansas crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that all the time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front of street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under a safe that's being hoisted into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker does loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the ice jam in ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... The inhabitants of Gascony (Gascogne) a province in the south-west of France, are proverbial not only for their impetuosity and courage, but for their willingness to brag of the possession of these qualities. Excellent examples of the typical Gascon in literature are D'Artagnan in Dumas's Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Cyrano in Rostand's splendid ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... returned the captain, who roused himself with the occasion. "God bless them all! say I, in echo; and if this gracious queen of ours ends as famously as she has begun, 'twill be such a family of princes as no other army of Europe can brag ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... answers, "Madam, I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... give his left hand for leisure. You that have it given to you by the mercy of gentle birth, regard it as a trust; make noble use of it. Many great men waste half their energies in the struggle for that which you regard, poor fools, as your right, as something to brag of. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... Yes, Pen used to brag and talk in his impetuous way to Warrington. "I was in love so fiercely in my youth, that I have burned out that flame forever, I think, and if ever I marry, it will be a marriage of reason that I will make, with a well-bred, good-tempered, good-looking ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fashion; but why should the captain begin to swagger as well as his men? and why did the Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early? or why, if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official journals brag of them afterwards as ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... of bagbytynge, y the rede; ley flateryng{e} vndyr thy foote, loke; Deme the beste of eu{er}y dede Tyll{e} trowth haue serchyd truly e roote; 36 Rrefrayne malyce cruell{e} & hoote; Dyscretly and wysly speende thy spelle; Boost ne brag{e} ys worth A Ioote; Whate eu{er} thow sey, A-vyse the ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... don't lie; but just as.... Why should one mind them—such muck as they are! "Here you are," I say; that's me. A priest told me, the devil's the biggest bragger! "As soon," says he, "as you begin to brag, you get frightened; and as soon as you fear men then the hoofed one just collars you and pushes you where he likes!" But as I don't fear men, I'm easy! I can spit in the devil's beard, and at the sow his mother! He can't ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... of the diplomats here is intrinsically hostile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for small effect. All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason they would have been glad to greet Breckinridge ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... evening. Must have been losing," answered Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come back in a rage. Will ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... also out of a sweet tooth'd liquorish appetite, long to see what is prepared for them. And I beleeve that although the Kings Cook had drest it, yet there will be one or another of them that will be discommending something, and brag that she could have made it much delicater, if there be then any one that seems not fully to beleeve her, immediately she cites two or three Ladies for her witnesses, who have given her the greatest praise and commendations for her dressing of such dishes above all ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... she influence her brother to abandon the attempt. Ignatius Nikiforovitch said that it was the height of inconsistency, foolhardiness and pride; that such an act could only be explained, if at all, by a desire to be odd, to have something to brag about, and to make people talk about ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... ginger-pop. We should all have been British, or Irish, and worn red coats, and ate blood-puddings, and drank ale, and hurrahed for King George forevermore. This is the truth, fellow-citizens, for I cannot tell a lie,—you know I cannot tell a lie. But I don't want to brag over you, and if you will still be good Yankee Christians, brave and industrious, I will still be the father of your country, world without end, Amen! Band, please strike ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... and most moral people in the world, I would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or less peopled ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that "if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... nauseated him. The advertisements of "Psychics," "World-famous Mediums," "Palmists," "Horologists," and only the devil himself knows what else, filled him with disgust, added to his already poor opinion of sick humanity. Of these Viola now formed a part—as an actress shares the envy, the brag, the selfish, blatant struggle for success which is reflected in the advertising columns of dramatic journals. He ran down each column of "display ads" of The World of Spirit, timorously, almost expecting to see a notice of "the marvellous psychic Miss Viola Lambert, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... * "A kind of conquest Csar made here; but made not here his brag Of 'came' and 'saw' ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... the somewhat vulgar word which heads this paper. At least he did not know it as a noun, but gives "swagger: v.n., to bluster, bully, brag;" but the Slang Dictionary admits it as a word, springing indeed from the thieves' vocabulary: "one who carries a swag." Neither of these books however give the least idea of the true meaning of the expression, which is as fully recognised as an honest word in both Australia ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... "Not he. It's all brag, depend on it. But why on earth doesn't the young 'un go and make a clean breast to the doctor, before he gets to know of it ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... seene. But when as they perceiued the ships to be gone, they would not only shew themselues standing vpon high cliffes, and call vs to come ouer vnto them: but also would come in their Botes very neere to vs, as it were to brag at vs: whereof our Generall hauing aduertisement, sent for the Captaines and Gentlemen of the ships, to accompany and attend vpon him, with the Captaine also of the Anne Francis, who was but the night before come vnto ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... led the way into the stables, where he lingered to slap his mare on the back and brag about her, and then Mark had to be introduced to the pig. 'What I call a 'andsome pig, yer know,' he remarked; 'a perfect picture, he is' (a picture that needed cleaning, Mark thought)—'you come down to me in another ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller's farm, ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... the poet they call "unser Shakespeare," said: "Come the four quarters of the world in arms and we shall shock them," it was, from the romantic militarist point of view, fine. What Junker-led men could do they have since done to make that thrasonical brag good. But there is no getting over the fact that, in Tommy Atkins's phrase, they had asked for it. Their Junkers, like ours, had drunk to The Day; and they should not have let us choose it after riling us for so many years. And that is why Sir Edward ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Doubtless it was in part to keep the other from her that he himself sought her: the major did not take to Vavasor. There was a natural repulsion between them. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, full of brag and vulgarity, and the major thought Vavasor a supercilious idiot. It is curious how differently a man's character will be read by two people in the same company, but it is not hard to explain, seeing his carriage to the individual affects only the man who is the object ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... manner for half a mile, and I began to think that Guert was about to triumph—for, to me, it did really seem that our course was as straight as it had been at any time that day. Guert now began to brag of his success, talking to me, and at the Indian, who was between us over ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... lay 'e's bin there. And you'd make a 'orse into cat'smeat on skewer. My eye, but just ain't you a nice-spoken pair! I ain't goin' to foller you two like a shadder, Your 'eads is a darned sight too swelled up with brag. If you don't want to bust and go pop like a bladder, Why you'd best take my tip—put 'em both ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... door. "You're quite right about yourselves—you War souvenirs. You've done. You can still brag a bit, but that's all. You're out of it. Whereas I—I'm in it still. I can make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... found it extremely difficult to find out much about Merriwell, as he persistently avoided talking about himself. If he had been one of the kind of fellows who go around and brag about themselves and what they have done he would not have aroused so much interest; but the very fact that he would not talk of himself made the students curious to ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour—a sort of little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows' ears, and wouldn't know how to brag if she ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... too, and most of us who heard you brag knew it was; but that didn't make very much difference, because we were old and could stand it, and as for you—the less said ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... a great success. Even Mr. Starr realized that. The millionaire's son remained in Mount Mark four days, the cynosure of all eyes, for as Carol said, "What's the use of bothering with a millionaire's son if you can't brag ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... yards away across a dead field was another wall of sandbags. The distance is important. It is always stated in all descriptions. One hundred and fifty yards is not much. Only when you get within forty or fifty yards have you something to brag about. Yet three hundred yards may be more dangerous than fifteen, if ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,—so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious—minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity—have ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... the Rector with eyes half closed and a vertical line knit between his eyebrows. "Be d—— d, be d—— d! Of course! Not a bad idea at all, not at all!" That's the way he liked people—with some gumption! And he seized the occasion to brag of his own biography as a fool successful in getting rich, telling how he had left the navy without a cent in his pocket, and, to get out of the rut his father and grandfather had been in as fishermen, had started off ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... most of you (this is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You've the gait and the manners of runaway slaves; Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it; And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... alone with his brother, Charles dropped his egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he played it "to the limit," as Bertha would ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got to ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... (this is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You've the gait and the manners of runaway slaves; Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it; And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Here's, and hair floating free, And full ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in Holland, being only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and made ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... at all," he said. "There has never been so zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard him tell of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... were never cut down; For granny relates with amazement, A witch bore 'em over the town, And hung them on Thorowgood's casement, The neighbours, I've heard the folks say, The miracle noisily brag on; And the shop is, to this very day, The sign of the George and ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... faggots on the ground, In neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around; And the vile conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire, Pile and burn them all together in one vast and righteous pyre: Fling with our own hands Lycon's wife to fry in the thickest fire. By Demeter, they'll get no brag while I've a vein to beat! Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in sore defeat. His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent. Out, stripped of all his arms, he went: A pigmy cloak that would not stretch To hide ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... fishin' with Ab Thomas,' said Uncle Eb. 'He ketched an ol' socker the fast thing. I went off by myself 'n got a good sized fish, but 'twant s' big 's hisn. So I tuk 'n opened his mouth n poured in a lot o' fine shot. When I come back Ab he looked at my fish 'n begun t' brag. When we weighed 'em ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... one of the other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for any write-up in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up; Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup; Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine, It's rolling down upon her neck and gathered in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... exhausted that edifying subject for the moment, he presently began to brag of his ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... the cochineal, sarsaparilla, log-wood, annatto, hemp, and all other dye-woods and pure food adulteration concessions cornered. He had five-sixths of the Boca de Thingama-jiggers working for him on shares. It was a beautiful graft. We used to brag about Morgan and E. H. and others of our wisest when I was in the provinces—but now no more. That peninsula has got our little country turned into a submarine without even the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... other replied with a sigh of relief, "I don't know how to tell you about it. It had me scared to death. That's so. Even McDowell shirked it. He told me Steve had to get the whole yarn before he got into Reindeer. That's the sort of folk we are. And it's not a thing to brag about." ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it: brag of the images which I break at the shooting gallery, and pass among my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of neither man nor dragon. Ah me! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the heads of my friends looking ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... upward and downward stretch of the river, so simple and quiet and empty above, so busy and noisy and thronged with shipping below. I suppose there are lovelier rivers than that—we ourselves are known to brag of our Pharpar and Abana—but I cannot think of anything more nobly beautiful than the Guadalquivir resting at peace in her bed, where she has had so many bad dreams of Carthaginian and Roman and Gothic and Arab and Norman invasion. Now her waters redden, for the time ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... it," said Marmaduke, emphatically. "It was a mean thing for Douglas to do, with all his brag about ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... {242} His words to the jury on that occasion were these. 'Demosthenes intends to defend Timarchus, and to denounce my acts as ambassador. And then, when he has led you off the point by his speech, he will brag of it, and go about saying, "Well? what do you think?[2] Why I led the jury right away from the point, and stole the case triumphantly out of their hands."' Then you at least must not act thus, but must make your defence with reference to the real points of your case, though, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still herded ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so it is worse for me than for you." Then he added, looking curiously at his friend, "Tell me honestly, Frank, did you enjoy having cigarette smoke puffed in your face, being called 'Cully,' and hearing silly brag about 'mashes,' and how they 'worked' some other fellow? Did it occur to you that those same rouge-finished queens of the ballet would describe us, and how they 'worked' us for a wine supper, to other jays, and that no doubt they have done so to one ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... necessaries, who took no pains to get those things whose use they approved not. For it was not worth the while of a man who esteemed turnips a most delicate food, and who boiled them himself, whilst his wife made bread, to brag so often of a halfpenny, and write a book to show how a man may soonest grow rich; the very good of being contented with little is because it cuts off at once the desire and the anxiety for superfluities. Hence Aristides, it is told, said, on the trial ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... characteristic of his attitude to Crashaw, and the rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-boy's tendency to brag, and made the amende honorable. He even overdid his magnanimity and came too near subservience—so lasting is the influence ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... to serve God you must earn your own remission of sins and everlasting life, and in addition help others to obtain salvation by giving them the benefit of your extra work-holiness." Monks, friars, and all the rest of them brag that besides the ordinary requirements common to all Christians, they do the works of supererogation, i.e., the performance of more than is required. This is certainly a ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... those in the Army seats were wild with enthusiasm. The band crashed out joyously, a dozen measures, while the cadets sang one of their songs of jubilant brag. Then all was suddenly still for ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... us, Lahoma, which it ain't according to the big outside world, and yet I hope it won't never be changed. We are mighty glad we've got what we've got. And to be glad of what you've got is a sure way to multiply your property. Every time you brag on that window, it shines like two windows ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Bill climbed the Northern fury An' they mangled up the air Till a native of Missouri Would have owned the brag was fair. Though the plunges kept him reelin' An' the wind it flapped his shirt, Loud above the hoss's squealin' We could hear our friend assert: "I'm the one to take such rockin's as a joke; Someone hand me up the makin's of a smoke. If you ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... the world, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know? The poor little street-bred people, that vapour, and fume, and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness, to ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... at most, and they were those pretty little upstarts who talk at random, and brag about their vice, and whom one could soon not leave a leg to stand upon, were one to take the trouble, have related their impressions to me with ironical complaisance, and I found nothing in what they told me that reassured me, nor could I discover anything ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so thoroughly and seriously brave ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... me as James's bride. We both cried a little, I think, and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination was good enough. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... enjoyed the whole thing amazingly, and none the less because, as they had expressed it to each other as they came along, "Young Huntingdon would be none the worse fellow for getting a little of the shine and brag taken out of him"—were on the spot in good time, with several like-minded companions. These all gathered round Walter as he came on to the ground, and wished him good success, assuring him that no doubt ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... suffers now more den I is ever think bout would come to me. Yes, mam, I done raise over 20 head of white chillun. Dat de God truth. I been in de white folks kitchen all my days en if I feel right, I think dey ought to take of me in my old age. I don' brag on myself, but if I could work like I used to, I wouldn' ax nothin from nobody. I had a family of white people to send for me de other week to come en live wid dem en dey would take care of me, but I never had nobody to trust aun' Sallie wid. You see, child, she such a helpless, poor ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... don't meet me," I thought, "how astonished they will be when I walk in! It will be something to brag of for many a day, to have walked fifteen miles ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... changes which were going on in the mother country, and were threatening to assume the proportions of a revolution. The unparalleled prosperity of the States caused the Americans—never backward in blowing their own trumpet—to assume an attitude of overweening confidence in themselves, and to brag offensively of what they considered to be their duty to mankind, namely, to convert all the world—by force if necessary—to republican principles. Such was the commencement of the great crisis in the history of the young Canadian nation—a crisis through which, if our sturdy forefathers ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... very numerous, with their Auxiliaries the Hobblers and the Skippers, by which Means the Time is so much wasted, that unless we break all Rules of Government, it must redound to the utter Subversion of the Brag-Table, the discreet Members of which value Time as Fribble's Wife does her Pin-Money. We are pretty well assured that your Indulgence to Trot was only in relation to Country-Dances; however we have deferred the issuing ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... country and nation. Upon this account it is that the English challenge the prerogative of having the most handsome women, of the being most accomplished in the skill of music, and of keeping the best tables: the Scotch brag of their gentility, and pretend the genius of their native soil inclines them to be good disputants: the French think themselves remarkable for complaisance and good breeding: the Sorbonists of Paris pretend before any others ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... chuckle. "The leading lady was scared to death of horses, and yet she had to do a little riding. The man who was having the pictures taken wanted her to smile while she was cantering along. But that smile, believe me, wasn't anything to brag about. They ought to have brought along some leading lady who liked horses ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Bear that in mind, will you?" repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. "Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... "inapplicable to the context." Here the context demands encouragement for heroes who shun a challenge. Nestor mentions an "applicable" and apposite instance of similar want of courage, and, as his character demands, he is the hero of his own story. His brag, or gabe, about "he was the tallest and strongest of all the men I ever slew," is deliciously in keeping, and reminds us of the college don who said of the Czar, "he is the nicest emperor I ever met." The poet is sketching an innocent vanity; ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... lonely here, Minister," said Mr. Slick. "It's a place we have a right to boast of is Liverpool; we built it, and I'll tell you what it is, to build two such cities as New York and Liverpool in the short time we did, is sunthin' to brag of. If there had been no New York, there would have been no Liverpool; but if there had been no Liverpool, there would have been a New York though. They couldn't do nothin' without us. We had to build them elegant ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... there for which Dakota is so justly celebrated. He thinks this one has been even more so that any of the others. He wishes he was back here at Blue Ruin, where a man can go out doors for half an hour without getting ostracized by the elements. He says they brag a good deal on their ozone there, but he allows that it can be overdone. He states that when the ozone in Dakota is feeling pretty well and humping itself and curling up sheet-iron roofs and blowing trains of the track, a man has ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... I with tongue and pen justify your authority and regiment as the Holy Ghost hath justified the same in Debora that blessed mother in Israel. But if the premisses (as God forbid) neglected, ye shall begin to brag of your birth and to build your authority and regiment upon your own law, flatter you who so list your felicity shall be short. Interpret my rude words in the best part as written by him who is ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... both thy younger brethren have gone down Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; Art thou not old?' 'Old, damsel, old and hard, Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.' Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! But that same strength which threw the Morning Star Can ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... manner the learned Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... replyin' to them vessels that whistle us they're goin' to pass to port or starboard, as the case may be. Of course when they whistle, we know what they're goin' to do, but the trouble is they don't know what we're goin' to do. Dan Hicks an' Jack Flaherty's been makin' a quiet brag that one o' these days or nights they'll take advantage o' this well-known peculiarity of ourn to collide with the Maggie an' sink us, and in that case we wouldn't have no defense an' no come-back in a court of law. Me, I don't ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... that cultured people do not employ such a literary style. Or when you say that the Belgians were so ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren't, we only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being believed when you aren't. Thus, for instance, when you brag about burning Venice to express your contempt for "tourists," we cannot think much of the culture, as culture, which supposes St. Mark's to be a thing for tourists instead of historians. This, however, would be the least part of our unfavourable judgment. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... Shock-headed blackfellow, Boy (on a pony). Snowflakes are falling So gentle and slow, Youngster says, 'Frying Pan, What makes it snow?' Frying Pan confident Makes the reply — 'Shake 'em big flour bag Up in the sky!' 'What! when there's miles of it! Sur'ly that's brag. Who is there strong enough Shake such a bag?' 'What parson tellin' you, Ole Mister Dodd, Tell you in Sunday-school? Big feller God! He drive His bullock dray, Then thunder go, He shake His flour bag ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... you did?" inquired the woman with some show of spirit. "Hit ain't sech a beauty that you kin brag on it. An' who made your two han's? You made 'em, I reckon, an' nobody else could ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... laid one," he replied. "And it began to brag so much about it that I couldn't stand it, so I took the egg, and it looked so lonely all by itself in my 'and that I took the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Brussels or Axminster carpeted reception-room would stand on the hustings and publish a fear that he might be boring his audience. One familiar with the trade of electioneering, as it has always been conducted by men, would strut and shout and brag, never for a moment worrying whether or not he came anywhere near the truth or feeling the slightest qualm, though he deafened his hearers with his trumpeting or bored them to complete extinction, and would refuse to be silenced even by "eggs of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... our times that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant Now boldly brag with us that are men old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth we saw an ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... when I heard people talking about England in the way that awful stockbroker in the hotel talks about it," Gilbert was saying, "and I loathe the Kipling flag-flapper, all bounce and brag and bloodies ... but I feel fond of England to-day, Quinny, and nothing else seems to matter much. And anyhow fighting's such a filthy job that it ought to be shared by everybody that can take a hand in it at all. It doesn't seem right somehow ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "They brag of the rebel cavalry—they say that we have none. I should like to try them, if not more ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... allow to escape from us some expression of that satisfaction which one rival tradesman has in the downfall of another. "Here you are with all your boasting," is what we say. "You were going to whip all creation the other day; and it has come to this! Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Pray remember that, if ever you find yourselves on your legs again." That little advice about the two dogs is very well, and was not altogether inapplicable. But this is not the time in which it should be given. Putting ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the crew was armed in this fierce fashion; but why should the captain begin to swagger as well as his men? and why did the Prince de Joinville lug out sword and pistol so early? or why, if he thought fit to make preparations, should the official journals brag of them afterwards as proofs of his ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... any magnitude in Jerrold's life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper." This journal, which before his connection with it had no position to brag of, rose under his hands to great circulation and celebrity. Every week, there you traced his hand at its old work of embroidering with queer and fanciful sarcasm some bit of what he thought timely and necessary truth. Against all tyrants, all big-wigged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his life, what was the life of any man, of a million of men, compared with defeat? At that moment he would have flung himself into the fire to secure victory for his side. I do not wish to make him out an exceptional hero, and he was not a fellow to brag, but it is certain that at that crisis he felt no fear whatever, no more than when having got hold of the ball in a football match at ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... because it has kept thee from a belief of thy need of repentance, and because it has emboldened thee to thrust thyself audaciously into the presence of God, and made thee even before his holy eyes, which are so pure, that they cannot look on iniquity (Hab. i. 13), to vaunt, boast, and brag of thyself; and of thy tottering, ragged, stinking uncleanness; for all our righteousnesses are as menstruous rags, because they flow from a thing, a heart, a man, that is ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... of brag, which was perhaps pardonable tinder the circumstances, Douglas reminded the Senate of his efforts to secure the admission of California and of his prediction that the people of that country would form a free State constitution. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... out and Big Ben had boomed the hour which marked the rejection of the ultimatum, Bates was full of fire. He had bought a penny flag, and in a spirit of grim determination had walked the streets, processing with the processionists. There was no brag or bounce about him, no hideousness of noise or mafficking, no hatred of foreigners or cruelty of uncharity, but a grim steadfastness of determination which meant that, so far as he might, Bates would do ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities—alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale—you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... said Griggs, without a shadow of brag in his way of speaking. "I wouldn't speak out as I do if I ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... "Nawthin' to brag about," came the reply from the old skipper. "I reckons that it'll pay me nigh as well to go back to whalin' agin; and there needn't be sech risks of havin' your ship and cargo confiscated by revenue vessels, as this seal huntin' in Hudson Bay ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... sprained and spavined and Lord knows what. It's full of bugs and ants and spiders and dust and passe corncobs and it's architecturally incorrect, but if you and the marshal will hike off somewhere else and brag about his badge, I'll buy ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... them; tho' there it is likewise very conspicuous. I only desire you to compare the Things he is indulg'd in, and which, if he pleases, he may brag of, with what he is taught to be ashamed of, the grand Offence, which, if once committed, is never to be pardon'd. If he has but Courage, and knows how to please his Officers, he may get drunk Two or Three Times a Week, have a fresh Whore every Day, and swear an Oath at every Word he speaks, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Sir Gainus, nigh cousin to the emperor, said, Lo, how these Britons be full of pride and boast, and they brag as though they bare up all the world. Then Sir Gawaine was sore grieved with these words, and pulled out his sword and smote off his head. And therewith turned their horses and rode over waters and through woods till they came to their bushment, whereas Sir Lionel and ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, not a few; Unknown as yet what they could do; And all the hacks that know ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... course, the lob-worm had the opportunity of opening out in a very magnificent bit of brag, and did not fail to ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... called on the Bey of Biscay. Found him in amiable temper—not a bit rough. Lisbon delightful. Chatsworth not in it with the smallest flower-and-kitchen garden here. Dined at the "Brag"—short for Braganza. Suddenly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... game called "Brag" is also popular. Using a casino deck, the dealer deals each player three cards. It is similar to our poker, except for the fact that you only use three cards and cannot draw. The deck is never shuffled ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... you, man," he said; "I must know you. I knew your father well, man, and I have broke a lance and crossed a blade with him; and it is to my credit that I am living to brag of it. He was king's-man and I was queen's-man during the Douglas wars—young fellows both, that feared neither fire nor steel; and we had some old feudal quarrels besides, that had come down from father to son, with our seal-rings, two-harided ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... truer to say that NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural herself—fat and vulgar and bouncing—it would be all right; but as soon as she meets ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... any thing I wanted. They offered me the title of Baron Atramonte. That knocked me, I tell you. Says I, I'm your man. So now you see me Baron Atramonte, captain in the Papal Zouaves, ready to go where glory waits me—but fonder than ever of little Min. Oh, I tell you what, I ain't a bit of a brag, but I'm some here. The men think I'm a little the tallest lot in the shape of a commander they ever did see. When I'm in Rome I do as the Romans do, and so I let fly at them a speech every now and then. Why, I've gone through nearly the whole 'National Speaker' ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... not surprised, for he had all along believed that a fellow who could lift his hand to strike a small girl must be a coward at heart, no matter how much he might bluster and brag. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... opposite was Bismarck. Over the low door was an unframed portrait of "unser Kaiser," while Hindenburg completed the collection. Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege, Maubeuge, and Antwerp, recalled the days when German hearts were light and German tongues were full of brag. ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Northland. If I let my work be cluttered up by all the little rules made by little men for other little ones, my plans would come to a standstill. I am a practical man, but I keep sight of the vision. No need for me to brag. What I have done speaks for me as a guidepost to ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... Essen, and Friedrichshaven. But if we take German official reports we must be convinced that the damage done was negligible in its relation to the progress of the war. In their turn the Germans brag mightily of the deeds of their Zeppelins over London, and smaller British towns. But the sum and substance of their accomplishment, according to the British reports, has been the slaughter and mutilation of a number of civilians—mostly women and ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the then minister of militia for Canada. We had about three miles of continuous rifle range; and good ranges they were, considering they were got together in less than two weeks. I will admit that the roads leading to the ranges were nothing to brag about, yet, taking it all in all, even they ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... thou wilt brag thy shame! Thou speakest Of wife and Jewess in one breath! Wilt make Thy princely name a stench in ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... STOCK GEILL, AND DISCONFITUR OF BAALIS PREASTIS.] But that was provided and prevented by the irne nailles, as we have said; and so, begane one to cry "Doun with the idole; doun with it;" and so without delay it was pulled doun. Some brag maid the Preastis patrons at the first; but when thei saw the febilness of thare god, (for one took him by the heillis, and dadding his head to the calsay, left Dagon without head or handis, and said, "Fye upon thee, thow ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... expect me, I suppose, to approve of the miserable, undignified, unconscientious doings in England on the conspiracy question?[58] No, indeed. I would rather we had lost ten battles than stultified ourselves in the House of Commons with Brummagem brag and Derby intrigues before the eyes of Europe and America. It seems to me utterly pitiful. I hold that the most susceptible of nations should not reasonably have been irritated by the Walewski despatch, which was absolutely true in its statement ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... mine was very proud of his running, and used to brag that in a foot race he could beat anything that lived between the Wide Grass Lands and the edge of the world. He used to talk about it to almost everybody that came along, and one day when he met one of the Turtle family ...
— How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... foreign tongues let scholars brag, With fifteen names for a pudding-bag: Two tongues I know ne'er told a lie; And their wearers be, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... have an industry and a type of manhood which we may well imitate. We find them settling now in South America, and in fact they are heading you Yankees off in the South American trade. It won't do to sit down here and brag. You must go forth and settle up new lands for you and your children, as your fathers did. That is what has been going on since Plymouth Rock, and will to the end. The end is not yet, but that it will come and that this highest ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond." And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... loo, cribbage, besique[obs3], euchre, drole[obs3], ecarte[Fr], picquet[obs3], allfours[obs3], quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston[obs3]; blackjack, twenty-one, vingtun[Fr]; quinze[Fr], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino[obs3], lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren[obs3], lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, bridge whist; lotto, monte, three-card monte, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... never moves, poor beast. The hot winds sough through the branches, and my men murmer away to each other under a neighbouring tree, possibly about the Sahib, who is such a poor shot, and, as our language is limited, I can't brag about swagger shots in other days. One needs a friend to shoot with, alone you lose half the charm. If you get hipped with a miss you can then growl out loud to a sympathetic ear, and blow smoke over the day together. There's only the pariah dog to talk to here, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool; As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old: Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me, That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by; And, with grey hairs, and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man. I say, thou hast ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... exaltation in the minds of descendants also has a certain influence — young men in quarrels sometimes brag of the number of heads taken by their ancestors, and the prowess or success of an ancestor seems to redound to the courage of the descendants; and it is an affront to purposely and seriously belittle the head-hunting results ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... shall be to-morrow, before our men, that fight we shall by ourselves, and fall the worst of us! And whether (which) of us that goeth aback, and this fight will forsake, be he in each land proclaimed for a recreant! Then may men sing of one such king, that his brag (or threat) hath made, and ...
— Brut • Layamon
... the way into the stables, where he lingered to slap his mare on the back and brag about her, and then Mark had to be introduced to the pig. 'What I call a 'andsome pig, yer know,' he remarked; 'a perfect picture, he is' (a picture that needed cleaning, Mark thought)—'you come down to me in another three weeks or so, and we'll ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... half round the compass to a lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in the spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's three children—oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll deserve it if ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... them at a glance or from the mere intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that they ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... The sight of all these growing millions simply minding their business, is impressive to me,—more so than all the gilt buttons and padded chests of the Old World; and there is a certain powerful type of "practical" American (you'll find him chiefly in the West) who doesn't brag as I do (I'm not practical), but who quietly feels that he has the Future in his vitals—a type that strikes me more than any I met in your favourite countries. Of course you'll come back to the cathedrals and Titians, but there's a thought that helps ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... he does manage to grow up and reach man's estate he's got something to brag of. Only he doesn't do it; because the first thing that people learn who have to live very intimately together is that bore and boaster are synonymous terms. So he never brags of what he has accomplished in the way of deeds and experiences until he is married. And then only ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... "Several reasons. I couldn't brag much about licking anybody I outweigh by eighty-two pounds. I can't figure out your logic—if any—but I'm pretty sure now it wouldn't do either of us any good. Just ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... ball an' chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. That ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not; for it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the approbation. His shop is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and their communication is smoke.[47] It is the place ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... smiling faces and said the same in fewer words, and so I bid them good-morning. I told them, too, that if some of those people who made so much noise didn't look out, they would get turned off the place, just as Venus and her gang got turned off last year. The fact is, they are trying to play brag, as such people often will; but they will all go to work in a few ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... Graindorge. His real name was Vries. He was a negro from the Dutch West Indies, a veritable bull, with a huge body and a black, bald physiognomy, made to stand outside a tent at a fair, and be his own crier to the public. His conversation was one incessant brag, in atrocious French. Although he had lived seventeen years in France, he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... knew before-hand what such a Doctor would prescribe, and hence it is they have nick-named some Physicians of no mean practice, by the Medicines they frequently use, which names in respect to the persons, I shall conceal; and of such Physicians, they brag they can prescribe as well as they. But if a Physician advise things unknown to them, or out of the common tract, then they say the Doctor ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... going to advocate the disuse of boots and shoes, or the abandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... could, could you?" returned BELINDA in high disdain. "Perhaps you'd better try it on, with them freckles and that mole. I don't think your husband, whoever he is, can brag much of his taste in the female line. I'm sure I don't want to see him, so you can keep him locked up, you jealous thing. It's some old rowdy, I s'pose, that nobody else would look at. I hate you, and always did. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... whole region, buying land of those who wished to sell, and employing all those who desired to work. If he was impatient for the verification of these promises by Northwick, he was too polite to urge it; and did nothing worse than brag to him as he bragged about him. He probably had his own opinion of Northwick's reasons for the silence he maintained concerning himself in all respects; he knew from the tag fastened to the bag Northwick had bought in ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... ground. 'Cease now!' cried St Cuthman, 'vain is your toil! Come forth from the dyke! Leave your pick in the soil! You agreed to work 'tween sunset and morn, And lo! the glimmer of day is born! In vain was your fag, And your senseless brag.' Dizzy and dazed with sulphureous vapour, Old Nick was deceived by St Ursula's taper. 'The dawn!' yelled the Devil, 'in vain was my boast, That I'd have your soul, for I've lost it, I've lost!' 'Away!' cried St Cuthman, 'Foul fiend! away! See yonder approaches ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... and burned the skin off; the fellows dared him to let them see it, but he would not; and then they mocked him. They all said there had never been such a Fourth of July in the Boy's Town before; and Frank and Jake let them brag as much as they wanted to, and when the fellows got tired, and asked them what they had done at Pawpaw Bottom, and they said, "Oh, nothing much; just helped Dave Black haul rails," they set up a jeer that you ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... could ever have asked you to come to me with such an incredible assertion? Surely, you must know how preposterous the very idea is! I do not boast or brag, but it is common knowledge that my father was the richest man in the city, in this entire part of the country, in fact. The thought of such a thing is absurd. Who could have attempted to perpetrate such a senseless hoax, a ridiculous insult to your ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Purser, the Captain nor the crew dared oppose its opinions or wishes; in fact, the Alley thought of running down to Zanzibar and taking a whack at the lions before "Bwana Tumbo" even saw them. We don't like to brag, but one of our members could, with one eye shut, hit any button on the metal man's coat in the shooting gallery, and with both shut could bring down a wildebeeste. The mission of the Alley and its fate now lie in the "womb ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... coward garrison, and not one who did not tremble—on the other side a strong, determined set of men accustomed to war, good shots, with two field-pieces. I would have liked to hear what you would all have said then. I do not say this in brag, for God knows ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... company care to have a man reeling drunk among them? Or to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery? No; those who practice, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of good company; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasures observes decency: at least neither borrows nor affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... sometimes put by enallage for participles, a reference of them to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"—Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,—"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, we may suppose the pronoun I to be understood, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Fisher, with a very unusual abruptness, and even bitterness. "It's what I do know that isn't worth knowing. All the seamy side of things, all the secret reasons and rotten motives and bribery and blackmail they call politics. I needn't be so proud of having been down all these sewers that I should brag about it to the little boys ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... flatter yourself, Monsieur, that it is your doing. I laugh at your threats. 'Twere sport to me to clap you behind bars, to say to your king, to the mob you brag of, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the decks for action," as he called it, which meant putting away the tea, butter, sugar, and bread in a cupboard, and folding up the table cloth. Poor George! he had no false pride to forbid such menial offices; he had not the brag about him which would have led another to stand on the staircase and howl "Gyp" till every one far and near should be made aware that he had had a meal which required clearing away. No; he was only a gamekeeper's son, in a hurry to get at his books; and to him it was far more natural to ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... talk about for a year," Madge said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... thrift might follow fawning. It was the era of Martin Chuzzlewit, a malicious caricature,—founded on fact. This time of humiliation, when there was no free speech, no literature, little manliness, no reality, no simplicity, no accomplishment, was the era of American brag. We flattered the foreigner and we boasted of ourselves. We were over-sensitive, insolent, and cringing. As late as 1845, G.P. Putnam, a most sensible and modest man, published a book to show what the country had done in the field of culture. The book is ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... do these busy little lads Delight to toil and fag, And swagger like a pair of cads, And boast and crow and brag. (Exeunt with their noses in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... once, the motive of this gathering on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and protracted, to admit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... a long ways," summed up Sam to Sandy after Westlake had turned in and Mormon had yawned himself off to bed. "He sure knows a heap, he don't brag, he's on the square an' ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... as a heavy cannonade was in progress it gave me an opportunity of watching it. We have had no heavy shells at W. Beach (now known as Lancashire Landing in honour of the brilliant work by that battalion on April 25) so far, but we must not brag, they may give us a visit to-day yet. Shrapnel we have had—but we do not care twopence ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... report it at once to Mr Colles at Durban. I added that before making my report I would beat him within an inch of his degraded life. After a time he apologized, but I could see that thenceforth he regarded me with deadly hatred. There was another thing I noticed about Mr Japp. He might brag about his knowledge of how to deal with natives, but to my mind his methods were a disgrace to a white man. Zeeta came in for oaths and blows, but there were other Kaffirs whom he treated with a sort of cringing friendliness. A ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... in to criticise other towns or brag about my own, Trufant," he snorted, "I'd move over into some place where citizens like you, that's been dead ten years and ought to be buried, ain't walkin' round because there ain't soil enough left in town to bury 'em in." This was biting reference ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Neither the Purser, the Captain nor the crew dared oppose its opinions or wishes; in fact, the Alley thought of running down to Zanzibar and taking a whack at the lions before "Bwana Tumbo" even saw them. We don't like to brag, but one of our members could, with one eye shut, hit any button on the metal man's coat in the shooting gallery, and with both shut could bring down a wildebeeste. The mission of the Alley and its fate now lie in the "womb of time," ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... sidewalk, the store was full of smoke, the old man rushed out the back door with his whiskers singed and yelled "Fire!" while the bad boy fell out the front door his eye winkers gone, and his hair singed, the cat got out with no hair to brag on, and before they could breathe twice the fire department came clattering up to a hydrant and soon turned the hose inside the grocery. There was not very much fire, and after tipping over every barrel and box that had not been blown skyhigh ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... wave them; tho' there it is likewise very conspicuous. I only desire you to compare the Things he is indulg'd in, and which, if he pleases, he may brag of, with what he is taught to be ashamed of, the grand Offence, which, if once committed, is never to be pardon'd. If he has but Courage, and knows how to please his Officers, he may get drunk Two ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... your arms? It was an awful blow to my pride—considering that heretofore I've certainly had my fair share of attention, and even a little more than that—to have to do all the love-making, and I'm certainly not going to go brag about it—' This time the conversation really did get interrupted, for Austin would not for one instant submit to such a "garbling of statistics" and took the quickest means in his power to put an ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... patriotism is a long cry, yet I think Paine has not wasted his abilities on his "Song of Promise," written for the Cincinnati May Festival of 1888. Though the poem by Mr. George E. Woodberry is the very apotheosis of American brag, it has a redeeming technic. The music, for soprano solo, mixed chorus, and orchestra, reaches the very peaks of inspiration. I doubt if any living composer or many dead masters could grow so epic, as most of this. In a way it is academic. It shows a little of the influence of Wagner,—as ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... comb maker will furnish you forth as good as new; those grinders you brag of are not your own, Gelid, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Sawbones, and a single designing relative? Then he drew a strong picture of this free-born British citizen skulking and hiding at this moment from a gang of rogues and conspirators, who in France and other civilised countries that brag less of liberty than we do, would be themselves flying as criminals from the officers of justice; and he wound up with a warm appeal to the press to cast its shield over the victim of bad laws and foul practices. "In England," ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... fellers never can brag enough about their lieutenant, sir, and though we don't belong to 'D' Troop, it hasn't taken this to tell us why. If ever the time comes when me or Quinlan here can do the lieutenant a good turn ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... part in this matter was very brief. Blinky lasted just long enough to make a great discovery, to brag about it as was Blinky's way, and then pass on to find his reward in whatever hereafter is set apart for weak-minded crooks whose heads are not hard enough to withstand the crushing impact of a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... death of doctor; such a terrible amount of brag and big talk, always about himself; always dread his calls; can never get so far as to return; a regular thorn in ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... the dark, and I didn't want to brag beforehand," he explained. "I wrestled it out Saturday night when I was tramping the hills after Doc Williams had brought mother around. One member of the purchasing committee was ready to dodge; he gave me a pointer before I left Louisville. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... merely smiled, and played with his watch chain. "I should hate to brag," he said, but anyone could see from the absence of a diamond ring on his little finger that he was a person of ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... you whispering to one another that I am not small of stature; but when you come to Giant Town you will see greater folk still. So do not brag too much of your own powers, for the Giant folk will not put up with the boasting of such insignificant little ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... citizens, and when a fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller's farm, I met up with Blacksmith George Towry, a jovial, good-natured man, ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... his hand on hers, and his touch renewed the sense of marvelling exultation which the deliberate survey of their adventure always roused in her.... It was characteristic that she merely added, in her steady laughing tone: "Or, not counting the flat—for I hate to brag—just consider the others: Violet Melrose's place at Versailles, your aunt's villa at Monte ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... So I brag of bear and beaver while the batteries are roaring, And the fellows on the firing steps are blazing at the foe; And I yarn of fur and feather when the 'marmites' are a-soaring, And they listen to my stories, seven 'poilus' in a row, Seven lean and lousy ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... much hope," he replied dryly. "I've been riding around this eternal grass for nigh a week. God knows where I haven't been during that time. Nobody ever did brag about the ideas I've got in my head, not even my mother, and any I have got have just been chewed right up to death till there isn't a blamed thing left to chew. For the past ten miles I've been reviewing the attractions ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... word, I am not," answered Svidrigailov laughing. "However, I won't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly interesting—I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I've drunk that half-glass of champagne ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... because it has emboldened thee to thrust thyself audaciously into the presence of God, and made thee even before his holy eyes, which are so pure, that they cannot look on iniquity (Hab. i. 13), to vaunt, boast, and brag of thyself; and of thy tottering, ragged, stinking uncleanness; for all our righteousnesses are as menstruous rags, because they flow from a thing, a heart, a man, that ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... could not tell from Harry's story exactly how much encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag" appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now and then in a comical imitation ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You've the gait and the manners of runaway slaves; Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it; And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Here's, and hair floating free, And full of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... you. Men's airs and gaits are as various and peculiar as their faces. Pluck a stake out of one of the hedges: and tug at it, though it may come easy: this, if she turn back, will look terrible, and account for your not following us faster. Then, returning with it, shouldered, to brag to the family what you would have done, could you have overtaken us, rather than your young lady should be carried off by such a ——— And you may call me names, and curse me. And these airs will make you look valiant, and in earnest. You see, honest Joseph, I am always contriving to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... "it is all very well for a writer to affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag as if you ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... devil do I care about his opinions? let him preach and stick to his controversy with Father Tom—from whom he hadn't so much to brag of—but as for you, Fergus, you are, to spake plainly, a thorough ass. What d—d stuff you have been letting out of you! Go and find, if you can, some purer world for yourself to live in, for, let me tell you, you are not fit for this. There ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the phoenix rest, And the turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest. Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she: Truth and beauty ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... shot was well nigh spent," said the Lord-Admiral, "we put on a brag countenance and gave them chase, as though we had wanted nothing." And the brag countenance was successful, for that "one day's service had much appalled the enemy" as Drake observed; and still the Spaniards fled with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,—so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious—minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity—have I anywhere ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... reeling drunk among them? Or to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery? No; those who practice, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of good company; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasures observes decency: at least neither borrows nor affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... so far as to brag at his own table, while champagne from his cellars was flowing and his guests smoked his fragrant Havanas, of the prowess to be shown by him at the prospective duel. He applied names like "Daemelsack"[18] to Kahle, of whom he vowed to "make short work." In that way he not ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... don't believe in luck," Nelson mumbled. "And the Avenger isn't enough of a well to brag about." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... that a disloyal, hypocritical, canting Puritan could brag to my face that he carries one drop of our loyal blood in his ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... has been times, sech ez when my wife's mother took the phthisic an' I had the asthma, thet I was obligated to write to the doctor about it, thet I was thankful for my experience in the blue-back speller. Them was our brag-words, phthisic and asthma was. They's a few other words I've always hoped to have a chance to spell in the reg'lar co'se of life, sech ez y-a-c-h-t, yacht, but I suppose, livin' in a little inland town, which a yacht is a boat, a person ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but that his shorten'd Thread of life, gives me no line ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... He will talk all day if he can coax some one to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have done or are going ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Mother! What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, Thou lustingly engender'st, To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? From nightly towers He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, And yet is he successive unto nothing But patrimony of a little mould, And entail of four planks. Thou ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... tongue, Miss!" said her mother; "you are, very expensive to us, that you are, and need not brag about the work you do, and if your sisters and me starve to keep you, and some other folks" (looking fiercely at Mr. Gann), "I presume you are bound ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' we may never have another chance. Bart is a good boy an' we made up our minds ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... a thing never done before, to make a hammer of that weight make 300 blows per minute; and, in fact, it is more a matter to brag of than for any other use, as the rate wanted is from 90 to 100 blows, being as quick as the workmen can manage the ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... French brag," ordered the soberest of the Hudson's Bay men, catching Louis by the scruff of his coat and spinning him out of the way. "There'll be neither fighting nor running away. It is to Fort Douglas we'll ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... dark. Hardly five rounds of shot were left to Drake! Gun after gun fell silent, as the night Deepened—"Yet we must follow them to the North," He cried, "or they'll return yet to shake hands With Parma! Come, we'll put a brag upon it, And hunt them onward as we lacked for nought!" So, when across the swinging smoking seas, Grey and splendid and terrible broke the day Once more, the flying Invincible fleet beheld Upon their weather-beam, and dogging them Like their own shadow, the dark ships of Drake, Unswerving ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... prima-donna, and is part owner. He seems very respectable, and was so friendly and affectionate that I ventured to consult him; when, on hearing whom I was seeking, he became warmly interested, and gave me just the information I wanted. He said he had little doubt that Funny Frank was a clown called Brag, with whom he had had words some years back for misusing the children. He said he did not hold with harshness to the little ones in teaching them to do the feats, which certainly were wonderful. If they were frightened, they were nervous and met with ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were dancing with delight. Only Max was a little quiet. Teddie Gowan did everything a little better than he, Max, could do; it would be insupportable if Teddie were able soon to brag that he whooped louder ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Cochrane reminded himself with conscious justice, of course there was the very great value of moon-mail cachets to devotees of philately. There was the value of the tourist facilities to anybody who could spend that much money for something to brag about afterward. There were the solar-heat mines—running at a slight loss—and various other fine achievements. There was even a nightclub in Lunar City where one highball cost the equivalent of—say—a week's pay for a secretary like ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "Nothin' to brag on," said Nance, still smarting at his indifference. But as she turned the corner of the building, she stole a last look through the window to where Dan was standing at his fiery post, his strong, serious face and broad, bare chest lighted up by the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... purpose. Of course we all know very positively that the McLeods sprang from the best and most honorable clan of old Scotland. We have improved some in manners, for we no longer drive our foes into caves, and smoke them to death. (We only wish we could.) We no longer brag that we were not beholden to Noah, but had boats of our own—that would relate us too nearly to Lillith— but still we are ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... buying land of those who wished to sell, and employing all those who desired to work. If he was impatient for the verification of these promises by Northwick, he was too polite to urge it; and did nothing worse than brag to him as he bragged about him. He probably had his own opinion of Northwick's reasons for the silence he maintained concerning himself in all respects; he knew from the tag fastened to the bag Northwick had bought in Quebec that his name was Warwick, and he knew from ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,—healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not betrayed his master many times since last ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Contest, and obliged to give up all he had to his Creditors; which effectually answered the Purpose of Sir Timothy, who erected those Nuisances in the Farmer's Orchard with that Intention only. Ah, my dear Reader, we brag of Liberty, and boast of our Laws: but the Blessings of the one, and the Protection of the other, seldom fall to the Lot of the Poor; and especially when a rich Man is their Adversary. How, in the Name of Goodness, can a poor Wretch obtain Redress, when thirty Pounds are insufficient to ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... said Red Hannigan. "I heard you brag about being Barlow's stool, and I heard everything else you bragged about to Joe Ellison's girl. I'd bump you off right now if I had my gat with me and if I had any chance at a get-away. But I'll be looking after you, and the gang will be looking after you, till you ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Johnny Chuck really thought that old Whitetail was afraid of him. The more he thought about it, the more tickled he felt and the more puffed up he felt. He began to talk to himself and to brag. Yes, Sir, Johnny Chuck ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the outer walls had not been built around the castle; only the great central tower existed; so that he had not the same enormous difficulty that I met with in escaping; moreover, he had been imprisoned justly, and I against all equity. What he wanted was to brag before the Governor of having in his youth been spirited and brave; and it did not occur to him that he was calling attention to his own huge rogueries. He said then: "Go and tell him to reveal his accomplice without ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... had a walk round so as to be able to say I'd seen the other things, and brag about them when they turned up in Virgil or Livy, and set old Crabtree right when he came a cropper over them, presuming on our knowing less than he did. There was too much for a fellow to do for him to waste time over such ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures to the ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... Holland, being only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... nothingness, I'll ever pay you, O sweet miracle, An unexampled worship and devotion. Then too, with me your honour runs no risk; With me you need not fear a public scandal. These court gallants, that women are so fond of, Are boastful of their acts, and vain in speech; They always brag in public of their progress; Soon as a favour's granted, they'll divulge it; Their tattling tongues, if you but trust to them, Will foul the altar where their hearts have worshipped. But men like me are so discreet in love, That ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... haven't gone five miles yet, according to Verny's map, and there is still that walk home, so don't brag too much, Julie," ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... these unpleasant visions of trouble, which he conjured up, Bigley and I still laughed, for, boy-like, the danger passed, its memory did not trouble us much. We had escaped: we were safe; Bob was making himself ridiculously comic by his hectoring brag, and all we wanted ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... cut down; For granny relates with amazement, A witch bore 'em over the town, And hung them on Thorowgood's casement, The neighbours, I've heard the folks say, The miracle noisily brag on; And the shop is, to this very day, The sign of the George and the Dragon, Rum ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons for an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time. And innumerable asses can collect themselves nice little heaps of golden carrot-slices, and then lift up their heads and brag over them with fairly pan-demoniac yells of gratification. Of course I don't see any green in your eye, dear Libertas, unless it is the smallest glint from the carrot-tips. The gleam in your eye is ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... the proportions of a revolution. The unparalleled prosperity of the States caused the Americans—never backward in blowing their own trumpet—to assume an attitude of overweening confidence in themselves, and to brag offensively of what they considered to be their duty to mankind, namely, to convert all the world—by force if necessary—to republican principles. Such was the commencement of the great crisis ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... "Well, I wouldn't brag too much," the Doctor laughed. "You'll find you are pretty shaky. Sister Francesca has a little room fixed for you and some clean clothes; how ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,—[25] For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that they had ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... on the tables. People don't just eat in them, they dine. They take their guests there. Our cafeterias have galleries with rocking chairs and stationery. They have distinctive architecture. We take visitors to see them. We brag about them, and when we wish to be especially smart ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... doctor. You see, yore ma has always been a reckless kind of a critter—more like a man than a woman, God knows—an' how she ever got a girl like you I don't fairly understand. I reckon you must be what the breedin' men call 'a throw-back,' for yore pa wa'n't much to brag of, 'ceptin' for looks—he certainly was good-lookin'. He used to sober down when he got where you was; but my—good God!—weren't they a pair to draw to? I've heard 'Lando tell tales of yore ma's doin's that would ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... chap in the town—Bill Budlong—who took a heap of pride in being the simon pure cuss. Bill was always the last man to come up to the mourners' bench at the camp-meeting and the first one to backslide when it was over. Used to brag around about what a hold Satan had on him and how his sin was the original brand, direct from Adam, put up in cans to keep, and the can-opener lost. Doc Hoover would get the whole town safe in the fold and then have to hold extra meetings for ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him the money from the first British ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... I went fishin' with Ab Thomas,' said Uncle Eb. 'He ketched an ol' socker the fast thing. I went off by myself 'n got a good sized fish, but 'twant s' big 's hisn. So I tuk 'n opened his mouth n poured in a lot o' fine shot. When I come back Ab he looked at my fish 'n begun t' brag. When we weighed 'em mine was ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... recital of it, loaded with comments and reflections. He was more his own master than on the preceding day, having had time to recover himself, we cherishing hopes that the Marechal would be sent to the right about. It was here that I heard of the brag of the Marechal de Villeroy concerning the struggle he had had with Dubois, and of the challenges and insults he had uttered with a confidence which rendered his arrest ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse; and unless a matter can hold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual demonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not lose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own trumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error in process of detection, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... there's a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg'lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you'll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You'll fight with the best of them, sir. And 'tain't brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... Something to brag about in your wine-cellar and forget in a birth-day book The boast of an old vintage, the bug a boo ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... Language, which proceed from the Horny or Ivory Port, will be sentenced according to the Humour and Interest of several Parties who in spite of our Teeth will be our judges. Where I have been satyrical, 'tis without Malice or Revenge; and though I brag not of my Talent therein, I could have said much worse, of some Enemies to our Jewish Heroe. He that will lash others, ought not to be angry if the like be returned to himself: Lex talionis is a general and natural Law. ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... which, though there he settle young, A man will ne'er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue. The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd, and prospects fair, Learn of the language, 'How d'ye do,' And go and brag they have been there. The most for leave to trade apply, For once, at Empire's seat, her heart, Then get what knowledge ear and eye Glean chancewise in the life-long mart. And certain others, few and fit, Attach ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... belted spwortsmen brag When they've a-won a neaeme, so's, That they do vind, or they do bag, Zoo many head o' geaeme, so's; Vor when our cwein is woonce a-won, By heads o' sundry sizes, Why, who can slight what we've a-done? We've all ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should call you a ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... which were the saloons and dance-halls of better days, to foregather around the huge stove in the rear of Hod Burrage's general store, which was decrepit Hilarity's sole remaining enterprise, and there to brag and maunder over the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... is an art in itself, and although there are many who undertake to do this work, there are but few who can pivot a staff in such a manner that it will bear close inspection under the glass. We often hear watchmakers brag of the secrets they possess for hardening pivot drills, but I fancy they would be somewhat surprised if they traveled around a little, to find how many watchmakers harden their drills in exactly the same way that they ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... bigger. I don't see the inevitable, I suppose, because I am so close to it that it is like facing the wall of a precipice all the time. We have to stop here. The woman's daughter is coming down with a fever, which will not kill her, and she will have it to brag of all her life. She will date all earthly events ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he played it "to the limit," as ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... have cloy'd his eyes withal, His covetous eyes; such as I scorn to tread on: Richer than e're he saw yet, and more tempting; Had I known he had stoop'd at that, I had sav'd mine honour, I had been happy still: but let him take it, And let him brag how poorly I am rewarded: Let him goe conquer still weak wretched Ladies: Love has his angry Quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest: I am a fool to fret thus, for a fool: An old blind fool too: I lose my health? ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and stumpy, but with shoulders like an ape, was standing on a table boasting about his strength. He was stripped to the waist and Tom could see the powerful arms and chest beneath the black hair that covered his body. As he continued to brag, the prisoners laughed and jeered, calling him Monkey. The man's face reddened and he offered to fight anyone in the room. A short, thin man with a hawk nose sitting next to Tom yelled, "Monkey," and then darted behind a bunk. The man turned and ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... Andrew, pulling up his pony, "is this ye? I canna tell ye hoo glad I am to see ye, for I've dune naething but thocht o' ye ever since yesterday, when I saw ye tak the brag oot o' Meikle Robin, just as easily as I would bend a willy-wand. Now, I hope, sir, although ye are a stranger, ye no think ill ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... faithfully until he died. The trustees would not accept my resignation (indeed, they refused to consider it at all), and the congregation, when it had thought things over, apparently decided that there might be worse things in the pulpit than "the gal." It was even known to brag of what it called my "spunk," and perhaps it was this quality, rather than any other, which I most needed in that particular parish at that time. As for me, when the fight was over I dropped it from my mind, and it had not entered my thoughts for years, until I began to ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... often wished I might tell you all about my Clyde, but have not because of two things. One is I could not even begin without telling you what a good man he is, and I didn't want you to think I could do nothing but brag. The other reason is the haste I married in. I am ashamed of that. I am afraid you will think me a Becky Sharp of a person. But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent. That is very fortunate because I have never had one bit of leisure ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... offered to point out their positions on the chart, spread on the cabin table. Lund talked well, for all his limited and at times luridly inclined vocabulary, whenever he talked of the sea and of his own adventures, stating them without brag, but bringing up striking pictures of action, full of the color and savor of life in the raw. From that time on Peggy Simms came to the table and talked freely with Lund, ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... good example," said Dorg Seay. "Under a white foreman, I'll bet that's a good lot of darkies. They were just about the right shade—old shiny black. As good cowhands as ever I saw were nigs, but they need a white man to blow and brag on them. But it always ruins one to ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Augustus Foster, the British Minister in 1805 he notes the balls in Georgetown "Cards for everybody, loo for the girls—brag for the men." ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... and we will have the sum of twenty-one dollars,—enough to purchase as handsome a dressing-bureau as I would ask. So you see. Mr. Jones, that our cheap furniture is not going to turn out so cheap after all. And as for looks, why no one can say there is much to brag of." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... world and know how to play a losing game at billiards as well as most men. Look here now! Daly's dead. We can't bring him to life again, can we? If you shoot me, you'll be nothing to the good, and have every spare man in the three colonies at your heels. This is a game of brag, though the stakes are high. I'll play a card. Listen. You shall have a hundred fivers—500 Pounds in notes—by to-morrow at four o'clock, if you'll let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor ride to Bathurst for the money. What do ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... into a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a man who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practised, and he is not? Yes, but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has power to kill me. Speak the truth, then, unhappy man, and do not brag, nor claim to be a philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters, but so long as you present this handle in your body, follow every man who is stronger than yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... grandfather, and lots of other great sailors were born in Devonshire," Johnson said. He certainly did brag; but he spoke so slowly and quietly, that it did not sound as like bragging as it would have done if he had talked faster, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... not thy brag," cried the other angrily. "Know, Master Stafford, that I was not punished. So soon as the keepers found who and what I was they made apology for treating me in such an unmannerly fashion, and brought me the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... an' chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. That man"—Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... literary style. Or when you say that the Belgians were so ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren't, we only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being believed when you aren't. Thus, for instance, when you brag about burning Venice to express your contempt for "tourists," we cannot think much of the culture, as culture, which supposes St. Mark's to be a thing for tourists instead of historians. This, however, would be the least part ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. (I will it, I command it; my will is reason enough) For we are not going to become students and followers of the papists. Rather we will become their judge and master. We, too, are going to be proud and brag with these blockheads; and just as St. Paul brags against his madly raving saints, I will brag over these asses of mine! They are doctors? Me too. They are scholars? I am as well. They are philosophers? And I. They are dialecticians? I am too. They are lecturers? ...
— An Open Letter on Translating • Gary Mann
... has brought down upon us the whole Body of the Trots, which are very numerous, with their Auxiliaries the Hobblers and the Skippers, by which Means the Time is so much wasted, that unless we break all Rules of Government, it must redound to the utter Subversion of the Brag-Table, the discreet Members of which value Time as Fribble's Wife does her Pin-Money. We are pretty well assured that your Indulgence to Trot was only in relation to Country-Dances; however we have deferred the issuing ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... always follow, That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But, finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic license; And when I brag of aid divine, Think Eusden's[1] right as good as mine. Nor do I ask for Stella's sake; 'Tis my own credit lies at stake: And Stella will be sung, while I Can only be a stander by. Apollo, having thought a little, Return'd this answer to a tittle. Though you should ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... always remember'd it at leisure. I don't want to brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you wonder he don't run away from ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... didn't have no weddin'; jus' got married. My old 'oman had on a calico dress—I disremembers what color. She looked good to me though. Us had 16 chilluns in all; four died. I got 22 grandchillun and one great grandchild. None of 'em has jobs to brag 'bout; one of 'em ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... he took one. His hand shook, but he took it out'n the box. If she had of looked like that at me mebby I would of took one myself. Fur Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't know whether I would of or not. When she makes that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor. What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin: "Mebby I better jump in now and stop this thing." And then I thinks agin: "No, it is between them three and Providence." Besides, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... to Victoria's Court, when he made his brag speech to the great agricultural dinner at Gloucester last year, didn't intend that for the British, but for us. So in Congress no man in either house can speak or read an oration more than an hour long, but he can send the whole lockrum, includin' what he didn't say, to the papers. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... on the famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, not a few; Unknown as yet what they could do; And all the hacks ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... good-natured look. The younger brother was a servant, a great while, to my fair neighbour, but could not be received; and in earnest I could not blame her. I was his confidante and heard him make his addresses; not that I brag of the favour he did me, for anybody might have been so that had been as often there, and he was less scrupulous in that point than one would have been that had had less reason. But in my life I never heard a man ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... great earnestness and plausibility, as if it were something to brag of, that we have the blood of Oliver Cromwell in us; and one, at least, who has gone a-field into heraldry, and strengthens every position with armorial bearings—which only goes to show the unprofitableness of all such labor, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... pickin' to pieces the characters of the members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still herded ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is," said Sol, "an' that's why I sent the message. I don't want to brag, Henry, but we've done a big thing or two before, an' maybe we kin do a ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... exhibition hall of a large picture of the candidate festooned with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was unknown to anybody, and Marion's New England conscience shrank from obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence—the first she ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the two fleets crept slowly up Channel, the English some six miles astern of the Armada. Once they closed up, and a few shots were exchanged with the galleasses in Recalde's rearguard. But Howard did not want to fight. He was only "putting on a brag countenance," for he was woefully short of ammunition, and writing urgently for much-needed supplies. The wind had fallen, and in the afternoon some of the galleons were drifting along, heeled over by shifting guns and stores to enable the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... because you convert the consumer into a victim, against whom every kind of cheat is pardonable, and then you lay by farthing by farthing, refusing yourselves not only all the enjoyments of life, but even the most necessary comforts.... You brag of your threadbare clothes; but surely this extreme parsimony is a thousand times more blamable than the opposite prodigality of those of your comrades who spend their time among gipsies, and their money in feasting. You boast of your ignorance, because you do not know what ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... mizzen, and jib all aback. Well, sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this whale. Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these two met. Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up and told how he had struck a ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... pretence of dignity, the craven brag of a schoolboy who says, "I could lick you if I wanted to, but I don't happen to want to." I watched him as he walked back towards the avenue with a deliberation that was so artificial, I could swear that when he reached the turn he would break into ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... life, mihi et musis in the University, as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, ad senectam fere to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study. For I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing college of Europe, [30]augustissimo collegio, and can brag with [31]Jovius, almost, in ea luce domicilii Vacicani, totius orbis celeberrimi, per 37 annos multa opportunaque didici; for thirty years I have continued (having the use of as good [32]libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loath, either by living as a drone, to be ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that they have asked the Drayman what was the matter: He to act in his Master's Interest tells them a Lye, and says it is the goodness of the Malt that causes that sweetish mawkish taste, and then would brag at Home how cleverly he came off. I have had it also in the Country more than once, and that by the idleness and ignorance of my Servant, who when a Tub has been rinced out only with fair Water, has set it by for a clean one but this won't do with a careful Master for I oblige him to ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... alone for novelties sake, but also out of a sweet tooth'd liquorish appetite, long to see what is prepared for them. And I beleeve that although the Kings Cook had drest it, yet there will be one or another of them that will be discommending something, and brag that she could have made it much delicater, if there be then any one that seems not fully to beleeve her, immediately she cites two or three Ladies for her witnesses, who have given her the greatest praise and commendations for her dressing of such dishes above ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... bottom with the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, because ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... to envy you, but I do," she said, softly. "You'll both come in simply glittering, and I'll have to brag that you're my near relatives. I'm such an ostentatious beast that I'd have to ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... share. Young Seamour is killed, the only captain slain. The Resolution burned; but, as they say, most of her [crew] and commander saved. This is all, only we keep the sea, which denotes a victory, or at least that we are not beaten; but no great matters to brag of, God knows. So home to supper ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... playing. I danced—once— with each of the three girls, and twice with my hostess; then I let Ryder and the two young business-men do the rest. Randolph danced once with Mrs. Phillips, and that ended it for him. My own dancing, as you know, is nothing to brag of: I think the young ladies were quite satisfied with the little I did. I'm sure I was. You also know my views on round dances. Why dancing should be done exclusively by couples arranged strictly on the basis of contrasted sexes...! I think of the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... will encounter him," said Sir Gareth; "for if he be good knight and true as ye say, he will scarce set on me with all his following; and man to man, I fear him not." "Fie!" said the damsel, "for a dirty knave, ye brag loud. And even if ye overcome him, his might is as nothing to that of the Red Knight who besieges my lady sister. So get ye gone while ye may." "Damsel," said Sir Gareth, "ye are but ungentle so to rebuke me; for, knight or knave, I have done you good service, nor will ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
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