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More "High-flown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ceremonious Lisbon lover Lemos, the high-flown Castilian of fearful presence and a lion's heart, however threadbare his capa[128], the starving gentleman who makes a tost[a]o ( 5d.) last a month and dines off a turnip and a crust of bread, another—a sixteenth century Porthos—who imagines ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... slender henceforth at the best, is neglected and often entirely lost. The third book, the Legend of Chastity, is a repetition of the ideas of the latter part of the second, with a heroine, Britomart, in place of the Knight of the previous book, Sir Guyon, and with a special glorification of the high-flown and romantic sentiments about purity, which wore the poetic creed of the courtiers of Elizabeth, in flagrant and sometimes in tragic contrast to their practical conduct of life. The loose and ill-compacted ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Impatient of the high-flown Gaelic phrases, Scotty flew to Hamish, and his indulgent chum put aside the book and told him the story, and why the MacDonalds hated the name of Orange. Scotty went back to the fire, his cheeks aflame with excitement. ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... their religion, their institutions, their literature, and their art. Their virtues and their vices turned upon it. Hence the golden mean is eminently a Greek conception, a leading idea of the Hellenic race. The Greek hated a thing overdone, a gaudy ornament, a proud title, a fulsome compliment, a high-flown speech, a wordy peroration. Nothing too much was the inscription over the lintel of the national sanctuary at Delphi. It is the surpassing grace of Greek art of the best period, that in it there shines out the highest power, with nothing too much of straining after ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... face of an old friend. If you were then of an observant nature, you will understand how much of the effect of any composition upon the human mind depends upon the printing, upon the placing of the points, even upon the position of the sentences on the page. A grand, high-flown, and sentimental climax ought always to conclude at the bottom of a page. It will look ridiculous, if it ends four or five lines down from the top of the next page. Somehow there is a feeling as of the difference between the night before and the next morning. It is as though the crushed ball-dress ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... roars of laughter. For the place was the city of Glaston, the Company being once more in East Tennessee, and the lion spoke the old familiar mountain dialect so easily recognizable in this locality. Even a lapsus linguae, "you uns." was unmistakable amidst the high-flown periods. Although the ventriloquism was appreciated, the incongruity of this countrified jargon, held in great contempt by the townfolks, discounted Emperor's majesty and he ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... at the posthumous fame which his poetical talents have earned, he would probably dwell on the insufficiency of the highest mental endowments without conduct and self-command. He would also probably describe his passion as fostered by the pedantic and high-flown gallantry of the age, and the applauses bestowed on his verses; as increasing and strengthening, after the marriage of Laura had rendered it criminal, without any purpose which his better conscience dared avow, till his eyes at length opened themselves ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... 7th of May, a month after Danton's death, Robespierre delivered a long speech before the Convention, a speech that marks his apogee. It was a high-flown rhapsody on civic morality and purism. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists were bitterly attacked; Jean Jacques Rousseau was deified. The State should adopt his religious attitude, his universal church of nature. In that ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... emancipation. Outside the drama[317] it was about the first division of literature to proclaim boldly the refusal to consider anything human as alien from human literary interest. But, as nearly always happens, it had exaggerated its protests, and become sordid, merely in revolt from the high-flown non-sordidness of previous romance. Lesage took the principle and rejected the application. He dared, practically for the first time, to take the average man of unheroic stamp, the homme sensuel moyen of a later French phrase, for his ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... each other perfectly, and were not the least bit abashed at the presence of strangers. There was no polished veneer about the widow's hospitality. She did not pretend to be what she was not. She knew that she was poor and was not ashamed of it. She was perfectly natural, and indulged in no high-flown airs. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Extols in high-flown language the merits of the minister who in the early and troublous days of Theodoric's reign conciliated the wavering affections of the suspicious Sicilians[215], governed them so justly that not even they (addicted as ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... speech as this would be thought to savour of mockery, but gentlemen two hundred years since ordinarily addressed women in the language of high-flown compliment. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... the lot was as likely to have fallen to him as to his rival. He would have murdered Elizabeth with the forms of law or without, but Elizabeth was the hope of all that he most detested. He was no dreamer, no high-flown enthusiast, but he was a man of clear eye and hard heart, who had a purpose in his life which he pursued with unflagging energy. Living as he did in revolutionary times, his hand was never slow to strike when an enemy was in his power; yet in general ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... Fakrash. Yes, that incorrigibly grateful Jinnee, with his antiquated notions and his high-flown professions, had contrived to ruin him more disastrously than if he had been his bitterest foe! Ah! if he could be face to face with him once more—if only for five minutes—he would be restrained by no false delicacy: he would tell him fairly and plainly ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... bring them before the reader, and to make them speak for themselves. They are a half-civilised, unlettered people, proverbial for a species of knavish acuteness, which serves them in lieu of wisdom. To place in the mouth of such beings the high-flown sentiments of modern poetry would not answer our purpose, though several authors have not shrunk from such ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... word, you may put it down to my weak nerves or not, but I believe there is some deep political intrigue going on around me, and that for some reason that passes my understanding my life is aimed at by the conspirators. It sounds high-flown and absurd, but consider the facts! Why should a thief try to break in at a bedroom window, where there could be no hope of any plunder, and why should he come with a long knife in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... informed him that his position of Quartermaster General in the old army did not entitle him to a field command and that Lee's rank as field commander was higher, he replied in a letter which became the text of his champions. Its high-flown language and bombastic claims showed only too plainly that a consuming ambition had destroyed all sense of proportion in ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... littleness. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young women: but that—a little before he had commenced ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... endeavoured to convince me that I might lose more than I gained, even though I should get more money by going elsewhere. "It is for you," said he, "to think whether our names on your title-page are not worth more to you than the increased payment." This seemed to me to savour of that high-flown doctrine of the contempt of money which I have never admired. I did think much of Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the bottom ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... This letter seemed to have been gaining in importance the longer he carried it, and this opportunity of giving it to her came at the right moment. He remembered Larralde's words concerning the person to whom the missive was addressed, and the high-flown sentiments of that somewhat theatrical gentleman became in some degree justified. Julia Barenna was a woman who might well awaken a passionate love. Conyngham realised this, as from a distance, while Julia's mother spoke of some trivial matter of the moment to unheeding ears. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... the volunteers. They regarded as brutal tyranny the tax on tea, considered in England as a mild expedient for raising needed revenue for defense in the colonies. The men of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, meeting in September, 1774, had declared in high-flown terms that the proposed tax came from a parricide who held a dagger at their bosoms and that those who resisted him would earn praises to eternity. From nearly every colony came similar utterances, and flaming resentment at injustice ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... all meer ceremonies exist in form only, and have in them no substance at all; but, being imposed by the laws of custom, become essential to good-breeding, from those high-flown compliments paid to the Eastern monarchs, and which pass between Chinese mandarines, to those coarser ceremonials in use between ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... with old Russell[93], my father's clerk. He was a little man but possessed of a consequential manner sufficient for a giant. A shoemaker by trade, his real element was in the church. His conversation was embellished by high-flown grandiloquence, and he invariably walked upon the heels of his boots. This latter peculiarity, as may well be imagined, was the cause of a most comical effect whenever he had occasion to leave his seat and clatter down the aisle of the church. How often when a boy did ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... adventures. There is hardly an attempt at characterisation. The people are mere masqueraders, who amuse us by their costume and mannerisms, but reveal no individuality. The plot is a wild extravaganza, crammed with high-flown, mock-romantic episodes. Cherry Wilkinson, as the result of a surfeit of romances, perhaps including The Misanthropic Parent or The Guarded Secret (1807), by Miss Smith, deserts her real father—a worthy farmer—to look for more aristocratic parents. As he is not picturesque enough for a villain, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... fully explain our meaning: and we would seriously ask Mr. Cayley to reflect whether he has always borne his principle in mind, and avoided "writing fine;" whether he has not sometimes fallen into high-flown common-place of the most undisguised stamp, rendered, moreover, doubly inexcusable and out of place by being put into the mouth of one of the personages of the poem; It is Sir Reginald Mohun that speaks; and truly, though not thrust ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... teeth, or to yawn, or to gabble like the beggar whose tongue (as he says) was cut out by the Turks, or to affect deafness or blindness, or any other infirmity of the organs. But though the embroidery of his conversation was different, the groundwork was the same, and the high-flown and ornate compliments with which the gallant knight of the sixteenth century inter-larded his conversation, were as much the offspring of egotism and self-conceit, as the jargon of the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the five "studies," at least in its opening, is the school-story of "The Stolen Treasure," which, with a high-flown name, and a most melodramatic and commonplace ending, shows yet great power in the delineation and grouping of characters. The young school-girls are as real as those of Charlotte Bronte; and although the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when neither ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... and replied, "Oh, Mr. Coventry, this is too high-flown. Let us both return thanks to the Almighty, who has preserved us, and, in the next place, to Mr. Little: we should both be dead but for him." Then, before he could reply, she turned to Little, and said, beseechingly, "Mr. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... compelled so to do. At one o'clock in the morning their boat came alongside, when Paroissien solicited an interview, Spry remaining in the boat, having his own reasons for not wishing to attract my attention. Paroissien then addressed me with the most high-flown promises, assuring me of the Protector's wish, notwithstanding all that had occurred, to confer upon me the highest honours and rewards, amongst others the decoration of the newly-created order of "the Sun," and telling me how much ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... comedy of real life, as Jonson understood it, he has simply no capacity; and in his rare attempts at humour, succeeds only in being at once dull and dirty. His stage is generally occupied with dignified lords and ladies, professing the most chivalrous sentiments, which are occasionally too high-flown and overstrained to be thoroughly effective, but which are yet uttered with sufficient sincerity. They are not mere hollow pretences, consciously adopted to conceal base motives; but one feels the want of an ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the leaves of the play, after wading through the slime of the "Epistle," is to find amusing proof of the high-flown and at times bombastic expression which elicited such admiration from audiences of the old regime. (Do not laugh at it, reader; you tolerate an equal amount of absurdity in modern melodrama). The very first lines are charmingly suggestive of the starched and stately past. "Hail to the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... and has used all the power which he derives from having every friend and every dependant of his in every office from one end of that government to the other, he has not, in all those panegyrics, those fine high-flown Eastern encomiums, got one word of refutation or one word of evidence against any charge whatever which we produce against him. Every one knows, that, in the course of criminal trials, when no evidence of alibi can be brought, when all the arts of the Old ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fate, the paramount desire to find some sympathising sage—some guide, philosopher, and friend—was so strong and rooted in my father, that I observed, a few weeks ago, in a magazine, an original letter, written by him about this time to Dr. Vicesimus Knox, full of high-flown sentiments, reading indeed like a romance of Scudery, and entreating the learned critic to receive him in his family, and give him the advantage of his wisdom, his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... took place between Mr. Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels. As there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what are they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us, like yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot, and laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love me, and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my own, to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... money would not be useless. Lady Lufton, with all her high-flown ideas, was not an imprudent woman. She knew that her son had been extravagant, though she did not believe that he had been reckless; and she was well content to think that some balsam from the old bishop's coffers should be made to cure the slight wounds which his early imprudence ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... hear it put as baldly as that. The alien inhabitants of Tunisia are well hated by a certain type of Frenchmen. The country has been compared to a wine-bottle that bears some high-flown label indicative of fine stuff within—the French administration—but is filled, unfortunately, with a poisonous mixture from round the corner, the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... of Guli Springett, whom I have seen sundry times, and think high-flown, in spight of her levelling Principles and demure Carriage. The Youth is bewitched with her, I think; what has a Woman to do with Logique? My Belief is, he might as well hope to marry the Moon as to win Mistress Springett's ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... hopes were speedily dashed to the ground; when he finished reading the second act every actor but one had left the room, and Meyer thrust a dagger into the poet's heart by declaring that "Fiesco" was nothing but high-flown rubbish. Having, however, heard but two acts of the play, and probably stirred to compassion by Schiller's mournful countenance, the regisseur requested that the manuscript should be left with him; and the following morning the poet was compensated for the intervening ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... which Strategy uses are in fact so extremely simple, so well known by their constant repetition, that it only appears ridiculous to sound common sense when it hears critics so frequently speaking of them with high-flown emphasis. Turning a flank, which has been done a thousand times, is regarded here as a proof of the most brilliant genius, there as a proof of the most profound penetration, indeed even of the most comprehensive knowledge. Can there be in the ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... disagreeable; on which theory, laws must be confessed to have been in all ages somewhat of a failure. He seems to have been, like his master, an impudent light-hearted fellow, who took life easily enough, laughed at patriotism, and all other high-flown notions, boasted that the world was his country, and was no doubt excellent after-dinner company for the great king. Hegesias, his fellow Cyrenaic, was a man of a darker and more melancholic temperament; and while Theodorus ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... wont to think the only place unconscious beauties abounded was in high-flown, unreal novels; but here was one in real life, and that the exceedingly unvarnished existence of Noonoon. Not that I would have thought any the less of her had she been conscious of her physical loveliness, ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... she was speaking, and little Daisy admired her high-flown words, and fully believed ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... coming to tea with me. They will be indeed proud that I receive the god of the Turks. But mind you have a really good story ready, for my parents like them immensely. My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... campaign, was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable opportunity and resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... off sharply, being seized with an ugly fit of coughing, that forced him to halt and lean on his staff for a while. When he recovered we walked on together after the geese, he talking all the way in high-flown sentences that were Greek to me, and I stealing a look every now and then at his olive face, and half inclined to take ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them. Very true, Jabaster. But this Abidan and the company with whom he consorts are filled with high-flown notions, caught from old traditions, which, if acted on, would render government impracticable; in a word, they are ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... collection of plates, containing hideous representations of dreadful eruption, and sores covering all parts of the body, are submitted to the patient's horrified inspection. Frightened by the hideous pictures before him, and at the same time soothed and charmed by the high-flown encomiums which the quack pronounces on his particular "non-mercurial mode of treatment," the patient becomes anxious to submit himself to the process. The quack is equally ready to take the case in hand, and the only stumbling-block likely to be in the way, may be the patients' inability to pay ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... arm. The quarrel between them seemed past and they were talking merrily together. On the sight of her the Duke left me and ran forward. By an adroit movement he thrust Carford aside and began to ply the lady with most extravagant and high-flown compliments, displaying an excess of devotion which witnessed more admiration than respect. She had treated me as a boy, but she did not tell him that he was a boy, although he was younger than I; she listened with heightened colour and sparkling ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... making this kind, generous man flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible, but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in his own affairs to get ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... effusion to be extravagant, rhapsodical, high-flown, super-sentimental, but it did not read so to Lavinia. It was in the fashion of the times—indeed it approached nearer modern ideas than the majority of love letters of that day which generally began with "Madam" without any endearing prefix. Lavinia liked it none the less because ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... explanations, she held out a piece of paper to me. Her whole face was positively beaming at that instant with naive, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her from a medical student or someone of that sort—a very high-flown and flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. I don't recall the words now, but I remember well that through the high-flown phrases there was apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned. When I had ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... assisted his father in the butchering business; and that, being only a boy, he didn't have to do full-grown butchering, but only slaughtering calves. Also, that whenever he killed a calf he made a high-flown speech over it. This supposition rests upon the testimony of a man who wasn't there at the time; a man who got it from a man who could have been there, but did not say whether he was nor not; and neither of them thought to mention it for decades, and decades, and decades, and two ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were all smoking and exchanging compliments in the high-flown, stilted Samoan style, there entered the house a strapping young warrior, carrying a wickerwork cage, in which were two of the rare and famous Manu Mea (red-bird) of Samoa—the Didunculus or tooth-billed ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... not fare much better. The assemblage, roused now, jolly and merciless, was not disposed to give quarter; and his obtuseness in dawdling over such high-flown notions as that population, not property, formed the basis of representative government, reaped him a harvest of boos and groans. This was not what the diggers had come out to hear. And they were as direct as children in their demand for the ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... that is something like life, and I'll read it," he exclaimed impatiently; "but I can't swallow the high-flown prosings ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... disliked a Maronite Christian, so he went quietly and knifed him. Another Maronite resented that, and killed a Druse; and they were all at it, hell-for-leather. But it was passion and fanaticism, not high-flown words and docile armies and the tradesmen sneaking up behind.... ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Beadle's Rationalism, which, basing itself on the facts of life, was not to be crushed by high-flown German words, the master-shoemaker showed him marked favor and often invited him to stay on to supper. Although the Beadle felt this was but the due recognition of one intellect by another, if an inferior intellect, he was at times irrationally grateful for the privilege of a place to spend his ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fine talk," replied Dunphy, uneasily however, "and from the high-flown language you give me, I take you to be a lawyer; but if you were ten times a lawyer, and a judge to the back of that, a man can't tell what he ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... nothing to be said. The public gazes astonished: the hasty limners sketch her features, Charlotte not disapproving; the men of law proceed with their formalities. The doom is Death as a murderess. To her Advocate she gives thanks; in gentle phrase, in high-flown classical spirit. To the Priest they send her she gives thanks; but needs not any shriving, or ghostly or other aid ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... no sculptured monument marks thy resting-place! No eulogistic sermon, no high-flown panegyric was ever delivered, on thy life and death! Yet that silent tear of old Isaac's outspoke a thousand eulogies! It told of all thy kindness, charity, love, angelic purity of heart, and called thee "Guardian Angel" of the house ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... evening of the Sunday we have described. The farmer, in a sense, had "taken sanctuary" in his own room, that he might escape the maneuvering wiles of his tormenting housekeeper. If she would content herself with general topics he would try to endure her foolish, high-flown talk until the three months expired; but that she should speedily and openly take the initiative in matrimonial designs was proof of such an unbalanced mind that he was filled with nervous dread. "Hanged if one can ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... perfectly natural to Dan. This sister of his had always lent a hand when he needed it. Of course he would accept her help, and let the future, the glorious, inexhaustible future straighten out the account between them. He did not express himself even in his inmost thoughts in any such high-flown manner as this. He simply gave an Indian war-whoop, administered to Polly a portentous hug, and declared for the hundredth time, "Polly, you beat ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... domum profecturus sum. That's rather high-flown, but I understand it perfectly, though any other man might cudgel his brains over it. That means in Danish: There is come profecto a lot of ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... The Massachusetts legislature protested; the people of Connecticut meditated resistance. A convention was held at Middletown in December, at which two thirds of the towns in the state were represented, and the best method of overruling Congress was discussed. Much high-flown eloquence was wasted, but the convention broke up without deciding upon any course of action. The matter had become so serious that wise men changed their minds, and disapproved of proceedings calculated to throw ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... was one of Landor's favorite topics, and his ire was rarely more quickly excited than by placing before him a specimen of high-flown sentimentality. He would put on his spectacles, exclaim, "What is this?" and, having read a few lines, would throw the book down, saying, "I have not the patience to read such stuff. It may be very fine, but I cannot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... an unworthy passion for a rustic beauty. We tell the story—for it may not only afford us an illustration, but a hint also to other perplexed mammas, who may find themselves in the like predicament. She had argued, and of course in vain, against his high-flown admiration of the village belle. She was a goddess! She would become a throne! Apparently acquiescing in his matrimonial project, she now professed her willingness to receive his bride-elect. Accordingly, she sent her own milliner—mantua-maker—what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... could I pass the highway without relieving the distress or lightening the burden of a fellow-creature. And," continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, colouring while he spoke, and concluding in the high-flown gallantry of the day, "methinks it were sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church instead of one of its most valuable members, to receive the thanks of a lady whom I might reasonably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been piously taught that the Church is especially ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... daughter has grown extraordinarily romantic and strangely high-flown in her ideas. In spite of the pains I have taken to combat these tendencies ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... studious to let his ideas be presented in intelligible form, for he records that in 1535 he read through the whole of Cicero, for the sake of improving his Latin. His style, according to Naude, held a middle place between the high-flown and the pedestrian, and of all his books the De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda, which was begun in 1557, shows the nearest approach to elegance, but even this is not free from diffuseness, the fault which ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... passed pleasantly and profitably to both girls, and in September they were to part. No more was said about poetry; and Emily soon became so interested in the busy, practical life about her that her own high-flown dreams were quite forgotten, and she learned to enjoy the ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... bushel, not put one's talent in a napkin; not think small beer of oneself &c (vanity) 880. Adj. dignified; stately; proud, proud-crested; lordly, baronial; lofty- minded; highsouled, high-minded, high-mettled^, high-handed, high- plumed, high-flown, high-toned. haughty lofty, high, mighty, swollen, puffed up, flushed, blown; vainglorious; purse-proud, fine; proud as a peacock, proud as Lucifer; bloated with pride. supercilious, disdainful, bumptious, magisterial, imperious, high and mighty, overweening, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is meant to make us glad too, and he is but a very poor Christian who has not found that it is the joy and rejoicing of his heart. We need not put too much emphasis and stress upon that side of the truth; but we need not either suppress it or disregard it in our modern high-flown disinterestedness. There are joys worth calling so which only come from possessing this fountain of salvation. How shall I enumerate them? The best way, I think, will be to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... returned, when the time had come, into a country privacy of life. His powerful sense never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that his Edinburgh popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a day. He wrote a few letters in a high-flown, bombastic vein of gratitude; but in practice he suffered no man to intrude upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the acquaintance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was rather a success at that dinner. For one thing I could speak German, and so had a pull on Blenkiron. For another I was in a good temper, and really enjoyed putting my back into my part. They talked very high-flown stuff about what they had done and were going to do, and Enver was great on Gallipoli. I remember he said that he could have destroyed the whole British Army if it hadn't been for somebody's cold ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... blue coat and gold buttons—to which coat were attached several orders—had been seen hovering about from chair to chair through the rooms. He attached himself specially to elderly ladies, his contemporaries. To these he repeated the identical high-flown compliments he had addressed to them thirty years before, in the court circle of the Duke of Lucca—compliments such as elderly ladies love, though conscious all the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... doing, and did their utmost to dissuade him, but he was as infatuated as a young lover of two and twenty. Finding that these friends disapproved, he dropped away from them, and they, being bored with his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let him do so. Of course, he said nothing about his speculations—indeed, he hardly knew that anything done in so good a cause could be called speculation. At Battersby, when his father urged him to look out for a next presentation, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... on my way upstairs, Major. Three of the gentlemen you have never met before, but," he added suddenly breaking away from his high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when in earnest, "Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There ain't a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie learnt ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... keep their old customs, costumes, and pomps, their wig and mace, sceptre and crown. A severe decorum rules the court and the cottage. Pretension and vaporing are once for all distasteful. They hate nonsense, sentimentalism, and high-flown expressions; ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... would seem that you have somehow blundered through long years, preserving always the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of a child. I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I keep from smiling at your high-flown notions; and yet,—I envy ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Evelegh's dining-room, the old lady and I, behind the folding doors. At three precisely Dr. Fortescue-Langley walked in. I had difficulty in restraining Lady Georgina from falling upon him prematurely. He talked a lot of high-flown nonsense to Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie about the influences of the planets, and the seventy-five emanations, and the eternal wisdom of the East, and the medical efficacy of sub-conscious suggestion. Excellent patter, all of it—quite as good in its way as the diplomatic patter he had poured forth in ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... containing a detailed account of the battle of Gladsmuir, as the Highlanders chose to denominate their victory. It concluded with an account of the court afterwards held by the Chevalier at Pinkie House, which contained this among other high-flown ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the men whom you adopt as your friends; it is with them that you dine at la Rapee, so that the general of the national guard is obliged to gallop about for two hours to receive your orders before he can find you, and you seek in vain to conceal your embarrassment by high-flown phrases. You seek in vain to conceal this banquet given to assassins beneath the pretext of a banquet in honour of liberty. But these subterfuges are no longer available; the moment is urgent, and you ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hearing of this goodly maiden, found himself, after secretly beholding her, moved to the exploit of winning and wearing in his bosom so precious a gem, which many a high-flown gallant had essayed to appropriate. He began the siege by consulting the most approved oracles and authorities of the time for the construction of love-billets. The cut and fashion of the paper, too, were matters of deep and anxious ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... reckon not, his notions are so high-flown," the colonel admitted, with evident pride in the lofty bearing ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... pretended to be angry, and told him that he ought to have fought. Esther observed that he had shewn more true courage in listening to reason, and M. d'O—— said he was strongly of his daughter's opinion; however, Mdlle. Casanova, after airing her high-flown ideas, began to sulk ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the life, they reasoned that it "helped toughen a youngster, and make a man of him." To them, Sara's ideas were foolish and high-flown, their notion of a "gentleman" being too often associated with city "lubbers" who came down to spy out the land—and sea—in their ridiculous knickerbockers and helmets, and who did not know a jib from a spanker, ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... exhausting all the big words in the dictionary, with your high-flown language," warned Bandy-legs in mock severity. "But I get your meaning, all the same, and I also agree with your noble sentiments. Sure we're expecting to stand up for Obed and his pets; and we're likewise ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Stockton, however, claimed to hold supreme land command by instructions from Commodore Sloat already quoted. Through the internal evidence of Stockton's letters and proclamations, it seems he was a trifle inclined to be bombastic and high-flown, to usurp authority, and perhaps to consider himself and his operations of more importance than they actually were. However, he was an officer disciplined and trained to obedience, and his absurd contention ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... effectually kept his secret; the search is futile, in spite of all the "scholastic labour-lost" devoted to it. Equally tantalising are the fleeting symbolisms that suggest themselves now and then. The confession sometimes made by the poet, that high-flown compliment and not true despair is intended, prepares us to accept the symbolic application where it forces itself upon us, and to feel the presence here and there of platonic or spiritual shadowings. Those who ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... hand, she found a bit of her own blue ribbon between the faded leaves. A tremor ran through her limbs, and going to the window she placed the book upon the sill and read the words aloud in the fragrant stillness. Behind her in the dim room Dan seemed to rise as suddenly as a ghost—and that high-flown chivalry of his, which delighted in sounding phrases as in heroic virtues, was loosened from the leaves ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Vos are used for the 1st and 2nd person singular, respectively, in poetry and high-flown prose. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... was, in spite of his less orthodox opinions. So she made up her mind that she would not catch Christopher's eye on the present occasion, as she usually did when anything amused her, because it was cruel to laugh at the frustration of poor Alan's high-flown plans; and then naturally she looked straight at the spot where Chris was presiding over a table, and returned his smile of perfect comprehension. It was one of Elisabeth's peculiarities that she invariably did the thing which she had ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... to call this a nefarious bargain. To the careless seigneur it would probably be very much a matter of course. The ransom offered—six thousand francs—was as good as if she had been a prince. The ladies at home might be indignant, but what was their foolish fancy for a high-flown girl in comparison with these substantial crowns in his pocket; and to be free from the responsibility of guarding her would be an advantage too. And if her own party did not stir on her behalf, why should he? A most pertinent question. Cauchon, on the other hand, could assure all objectors ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... gent has been goin' about casooal, an' his air is a heap high-flown. He's been pesterin' an' irritatin' about the post-office for mighty like an hour, when all at once he crosses over to the Red Light an' squar's up to the bar. He don't invite none of us to licker—jest himse'f; which onp'liteness is shore ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... party threw themselves down beside the stream, upon a little grassy rise shadowed by a huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked by two spreading roots, was the Governor's chair of state, and Alce and Molly he must needs seat beside him. Not one of his gay company but seemed an adept in the high-flown compliment of the age; out of very idleness and the mirth born of that summer hour they followed his Excellency's lead, and plied the two simple women with all the wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the mythology of the ancients and the polite literature ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... He returned a high-flown phrase of thanks in a bitter, absent whisper. I knew well enough that the help he had given me was not for money, not for love—not even for loyalty to the Riegos. It was obedience to the last recommendation of Carlos. He ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... hundred years I t'ought it was, Or else it was sixteen— Yes; I'd shook hands wid Washington And likewise General Greene. I tole him all de generals' names Dar ebber was, I guess, From General Lee and La Fayette To General Distress. Den dar's dem high-flown ladies My old tings came to see; Wanted to buy dem some heirlooms Of real Aunt Tiquity. Says I, "Dat isn't dis chile's name, Dey calls me Auntie Scraggs," And den I axed dem, by de pound How much dey gabe for rags? De missionary had de mose Insurance of dem all; He tole me I was ole, and ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... wholly unfascinated. He was a dour business man of Scotch descent, who had made his money in palm-oil in the City of London; and having married Frida as a remarkably fine woman, with a splendid figure, to preside at his table, he had very small sympathy with what he considered her high-flown fads and nonsensical fancies. He had seen but little of the stranger, too, having come in from his weekly stroll, or tour of inspection, round the garden and stables, just as they were on the very point of starting for ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... reconcile the various conflicting authorities contesting for supremacy in his soul, Walter threw himself into a severe spell of blues. He was not conscious of the contrast between the world of his high-flown fancy and the earthy environment of his home-life. The sympathetic care which he should have received after his illness had not fallen to ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... as rich jewelry, broaches, ear-rings, necklaces set with diamonds, pearls, &c. sometimes made into a paper parcel, at others in a small neat red morocco case, in which is stuck a bill of parcels, giving a high-flown description of the articles, and with an extravagant price. Proceeding nearly in the same way as the money-droppers with the dupe, the finder proposes, as he is rather short of steeven,{1} to swap{2}his share for a ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... diseases and mutinies among his crew, forced him to abandon the colony and return home. His lieutenant, Luis Vaez de Torres, separated from him, discovered and passed the Torres Straits, a feat of excellent seamanship. Quiros returned to America. His high-flown descriptions of his discovery did not help him much, for the king simply ignored him, and his reports were buried in the archives. Quiros died in poverty and bitterness, and the only traces of his travels are the names Espiritu Santo, Bay San Iago and San Felipe, and Jordan, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... us that after her stepdaughter's return to Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various literary works, correcting some of her former MSS. for the press, and writing 'Madame de Fleury,' 'Emilie de Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when her genuine interest and unaffected glances shone with bright understanding sympathy upon her immediate surroundings. When we are told that 'Leonora' was written in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that the idea of what ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... their neighborhood. The elder Huntington said something of the rapid growth of New York, of its new high buildings. His English was curiously interspersed with a bookish phraseology that seemed to be traceable to the high-flown advertisements of his department in the newspapers. I veered the conversation from the architectural changes that had come over New York to changes ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... I cannot help referring, with some pain, to a speech delivered by an honourable and learned friend of mine (Sir J. Mackintosh), last night, in which he dwelt upon this subject in a manner totally unlike himself. He pronounced a high-flown eulogy upon M. Arguelles; he envied him, he said, for many things, but he envied him most for the magnanimity which he had shown in ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... programme, 'Master Browning' ascended a platform in the presence of assembled parents and friends, and, in best jacket, white gloves, and carefully curled hair, with a circular bow to the company and the then prescribed waving of alternate arms, delivered a high-flown rhymed ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a specific moral issue in which they led the attack. Wendell Phillips was the most polished, the most consummate in his air of informality, and his example did much to puncture the American tradition of high-flown oratory. He was an expert in virulent denunciation, passionately unfair beneath his mask of conversational decorum, an aristocratic demagogue. He is still distrusted and hated by the Brahmin class of his own city, still adored by the children and grandchildren ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... papers. I am glad to find that France possesses at least one man who tells the truth, and who can address his fellow-citizens in plain language. The credulity of the Parisians, and their love of high-flown bombast, amount to a disease, which, if this city is not to sink into a species of Baden Baden, must be stamped out. Mr. O'Sullivan recently published an account of his expedition to the Prussian headquarters in the Electeur Libre. Because he said that the Prussians ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... and hand in hand they walked toward the house, ceremonious beyond naturalness in acting out the spirit summoned by a woman steeped in the essences of high-flown books. "The trumpet," she said when they heard Margaret's dinner horn, and not even Tom, who could have recalled many a rakish bout of a Saturday night and many an unholy laugh in church of a Sunday, dared to smile at her. "You've caught me all right, auntie, and I'm ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... You must think we are slack! You talk too polite altogether; We've had quite enough of your high-flown stuff, And we know, you ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... arrow-swiftness they shot away when the great news came: all this he has already described at wearisome length, in his fantastic semi-fabulous way. [Bielfeld, i. 68-77; ib. 81.]' Friedrich himself seemed moderately glad to see Bielfeld; received his high-flown congratulations with a benevolent yet somewhat composed air; and gave him afterwards, in the course of weeks, an unexpectedly small appointment: To go to Hanover, under Truchsess von Waldburg, and announce our Accession. Which is but a simple, mostly formal service; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Dacre took up the tale. "I've considered myself free ever since we separated, after only six weeks together. Any man would. It was nothing but a passing fancy. Heaven knows why I was fool enough to marry her, except that I had high-flown ideas of honour in those days, and I got drawn in. She never regarded it as binding, so why in thunder should I?" He spoke indignantly, as one who ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... quick-springing tears. She smiled, and her face looked to Theo like the face of an angel; though he was impatient of the motive, he adored her for it. And she gave her head a little toss, as if to shake off this undue emotion. "I need not talk any high-flown nonsense about such a simple duty, need I?" she said, once more with a soft laugh. Instead of making the most of her pathetic position, she would always ignore the claims she had upon sympathy. Her simple ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... She was a thin little woman, with an unsteady head, physically and morally speaking; full of kindness of heart, sentimentality, high-flown principles, and other bygone ladylike commodities. Her small, eager face, of a ruddy and weather-worn complexion—as if she had, at some early period of her existence, been left out all night in an east wind—was puckered up with a sense of her ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... a specimen of a Gipsy poetic effusion, which my Gipsy admirers will not consider an extraordinarily high-flown production—the outcome of nearly one million Gipsies who have wandered up and down Europe for more than three hundred ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... fellow-citizens, which he was well aware embraced his own. And this principle is one of extensive application. For the very point respecting which your whole school, and yourself most especially, who are such a diligent investigator of ancient instances, are in the habit of vaunting yourself and using high-flown language, namely, the mention of brave and illustrious men, and the extolling of their actions, as proceeding not from any regard to advantage, but from pure principles of honour and a love of glory, is entirely upset, when once that rule in the choice of things ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... more high-flown she sometimes talked of sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... never had—apart from a few attempts in opera-comique—a recitative that exactly expressed our natural speech. Lully and Rameau took for their model the high-flown declamation of the tragedy stage of their time. And French opera for the past twenty years has chosen a more dangerous model still—the declamation of Wagner, with its vocal leaps and its resounding and heavy accentuation. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... address of welcome by some one else high in authority, and so on, during which the visitors are told of the many privileges they may enjoy, "the keys of the town" are handed over to them, and a good deal of high-flown oratory is indulged in. We suppose that the people in attendance at this meeting are so well acquainted with Washington that those preliminaries are unnecessary, and I have been informed by the members of the local committee that we can dispense with the frills in this case and proceed ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... de Cambrai for having composed the Telemaque," Madame de Maintenon would say. Fenelon's disgrace, begun by the Maximes des Saints touching absolute (pure) love, was confirmed by his ideal picture of kingly power. Chimerical in his theories of government, high-flown in his pious doctrines, Fenelon, in the conduct of his life as well as in his practical directions to his friends, showed a wisdom, a prudence, a tact which singularly belied the free speculations of his mind or his heart. He preserved silence amid the commendations and criticisms ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with her Mount Street relations. Eliza was a source of continual irritation, and the Westbrook family did its best, by interference and suggestion, to refrigerate the poet's feelings for his wife. On the other hand he found among the Boinville set exactly that high-flown, enthusiastic, sentimental atmosphere which suited his idealizing temper. Two extracts from a letter written to Hogg upon the 16th of March, 1814, speak more eloquently than any analysis, and will place before the reader the antagonism which had sprung up in Shelley's mind between ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... beautiful thing is mind!" and it went on in the same high-flown strain to no particular end. But the editor praised it, after having declined the verdict of the audience that she was its author; and I felt sufficiently ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... once before, the Senator broke in upon us with his cheery, charming voice, "Guess you two are talking like high-flown poet coons," he said, "and there is breakfast to be thought of, and happy things like that." And then as Nelson went in front he stepped back and put his kind hand under my chin, and raised it and looked ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... than the purest of pure air." Observe how this pompous and formal statement is framed so as to please the mother. The writer does not say much about himself; but he knows that his wife is longing to hear of her darlings, and he tells her the news in his high-flown manner. He was not often apart from the lady whom he loved so well; but I am glad that they were sometimes separated, since the separations give us the delicate and tender letters every phrase of which tells a long story of love and confidence and mutual ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Welzheim did not belong to him, although he held it in his possession; nine points of the law certainly, but not conferring ownership. He was directed to relinquish Welzheim to the new Duke's representatives. This he declined with many high-flown expressions, which, however, the legal gentlemen considered beside the point at issue; and Count Friedrich Graevenitz was lodged in his own palace in Stuttgart, under arrest and well guarded. He was tried for peculation, but the prosecution ceased when Friedrich ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... respected, and had occupied the position of councillor with considerable credit for two terms. The storekeeper had been hard at work for some time with no visible success, for the Farrington family with their high-flown ideas were much disliked by the quiet, humble-minded folk of Glendow. The idea, therefore, of him being Ifteir representative was at first abhorrent to most of the people. But this new ruse of Farrington's was proving most successful. The Fletchers drew with them all the loud-talking ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... up the tale. "I've considered myself free ever since we separated, after only six weeks together. Any man would. It was nothing but a passing fancy. Heaven knows why I was fool enough to marry her, except that I had high-flown ideas of honour in those days, and I got drawn in. She never regarded it as binding, so why in thunder should I?" He spoke indignantly, as one who ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honor of the crown maintained in ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... rhyming about Nature in the poet schools of Hamburg, Koenigsberg, and Nuremberg; but, for the most part, it was an idle tinkle of words without feeling, empty artificial stuff with high-flown titles, as in Philipp von Zesen's Pleasure of Spring, and Poetic Valley of Roses ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... in spite of his high-flown language, Mr. Mortimer gave the children an impression that he and his wife were honestly sorry to part with them. And when the supper—protracted by his various arts to the semblance of a banquet of many courses—came at length to an end, Mrs. Mortimer dropped a quite ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... engagement which are published in this morning's papers. I am glad to find that France possesses at least one man who tells the truth, and who can address his fellow-citizens in plain language. The credulity of the Parisians, and their love of high-flown bombast, amount to a disease, which, if this city is not to sink into a species of Baden Baden, must be stamped out. Mr. O'Sullivan recently published an account of his expedition to the Prussian headquarters in the Electeur Libre. Because he said that the Prussians were conducting themselves ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... easy," he commented. "Thar hain't a place ye can't git to, though why ye should want to git thar beats me. Mostly puts high-flown notions in the women-folks' heads, and ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Tollmidge." Judged by these specimens of his correspondence, Mr. Tollmidge must have possessed one great merit as a letter-writer—the merit of brevity. He will weary nobody's patience, if he is allowed to have a hearing. Let him, therefore, be permitted, in his own high-flown way, to speak ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... of the Grocers' arms), upon which were seated two negroes, Victory and Gladness attending; while in the centre or principal stage behind reigned Apollo, surrounded by Fame, Peace, Justice, Aurora, Flora, and Ceres. The god addressed the Mayor in a very high-flown strain of compliment, saying— ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... air, and into the ways of men. Unfathomable was the depth of his gravity. With head slightly tilted he would mince his carefully selected words in a deep voice. His literary diction would give food for merriment to our elders behind his back, some of his high-flown phrases finding a permanent place in our family repertoire of witticisms. But I doubt whether the expressions he used would sound as remarkable to-day; showing how the literary and spoken languages, which used ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... from London to urge Terry to marry me. When I told you that there was no one else in the world, you believed that I knew she was staying with you—that I was trying to persuade you to plead my cause. The anti-climax, after she'd surprised us, was the height of tragical absurdity. It reduced all my high-flown sentiments to farce. I wonder you were able to prevent yourself from laughing. Terry could afford such a scene; she's little more than a child. I can't. With four more years to my age I could pass for ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... lot just now," affirmed Mr. Harnden, soothingly. "Consider where the girl has been this evening, Tasper! Off elocuting dramatic stuff! Comes back full of high-flown nonsense. Gets off something that was running in her head. Torched on by that fly-by-night who'll be getting out of town and who'll be forgotten inside a week. Where's your optimism?" He reached up and slapped Britt's back ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Lottie: she had at any rate only partially understood what she was doing. The poor child had been bitterly humiliated by the discovery that he did not love her, and felt that she was disgraced for life by her ill-judged advance. The feeling was high-flown and exaggerated no doubt, but one hardly expects to find all the cool wisdom of Ecclesiastes in a brain of seventeen. Lottie, flying from Percival's scorn as she supposed, was ready for any desperate leap. What wonder that she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... highest welfare. Let us never neglect the example of the best life, the combination of action and thought, but keeping a clear vision of it before our minds, so far as our human nature will permit, let us liken ourselves to immortal God by word and deed."[158] High-flown this language may be, but what Philo wishes to mark is the spiritual value of the Sabbath. It is not merely a day of rest from workaday toil, but it is a day upon which we devote all our thoughts to God, and enter into closer communion with Him, [Hebrew: mnoht 'hba vndba], ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... these are the men whom you adopt as your friends; it is with them that you dine at la Rapee, so that the general of the national guard is obliged to gallop about for two hours to receive your orders before he can find you, and you seek in vain to conceal your embarrassment by high-flown phrases. You seek in vain to conceal this banquet given to assassins beneath the pretext of a banquet in honour of liberty. But these subterfuges are no longer available; the moment is urgent, and you will no longer deceive the sections, the army, or the eighty-three ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... city of Glaston, the Company being once more in East Tennessee, and the lion spoke the old familiar mountain dialect so easily recognizable in this locality. Even a lapsus linguae, "you uns." was unmistakable amidst the high-flown periods. Although the ventriloquism was appreciated, the incongruity of this countrified jargon, held in great contempt by the townfolks, discounted Emperor's majesty and ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... its presence, adds to their perplexity. She was silent, and Vavasor, whose experience was scarcely so valuable as her ignorance, judged he might venture a little farther. But with all his experience in the manufacture of compliments and in high-flown poetry, he was now at a loss; he had no fine theories of love to talk from! Love was with him, at its best, the something that preceded marriage—after which, whatever boys and girls might think, and although, of course, to a beautiful wife like Hester he could ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... country-people have got nothing to do," old goody Liu said, "a few of us too often come together and play this sort of game; but the answers we give are not so high-flown; yet, as I can't get out of it, I'll ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... kept her word; she played with power and genius. Words of passion and of pain flowed like a stream of lava from her lips; her oaths of faith and eternal constancy, her wild entreaties, her resignation, her despair, were not the high-flown, pompous phrases of the tragedian, but truth in its omnipotence. It was living passion, it was breathing agony; and, with fast-flowing tears, with the pallor of death, she told her tale of love; and in that vast saloon, glittering ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Quack! You must think we are slack! You talk too polite altogether; We've had quite enough of your high-flown stuff, And we know, you ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... and did their utmost to dissuade him, but he was as infatuated as a young lover of two and twenty. Finding that these friends disapproved, he dropped away from them, and they, being bored with his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let him do so. Of course, he said nothing about his speculations—indeed, he hardly knew that anything done in so good a cause could be called speculation. At Battersby, when ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... wrote except for money." The doctrine is, of course, perfectly outrageous, and specially calculated to shock people who like to keep it for their private use, instead of proclaiming it in public. But it is a good expression of that huge contempt for the foppery of high-flown sentiment which, as is not uncommon with Johnson, passes into something which would be cynical if it were not half-humorous. In this case it implies also the contempt of the professional for the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... taking the air upon the back-garden clothes-line, was all devoted to Mildred in Mildred's journal. In it Owen found a place. He was described as a blend between "Rochester" in "Jane Eyre" and "Bazarov" in Turgenev's "Fathers and Children." In one specially high-flown passage he was referred to as a grim granite rock, to which the delicate clematis-like nature of Mildred, clinging, was to envelop it with leaf and blossom. She read him the passage one day. Their faces were very close together as they ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... recollections are connected with old Russell[93], my father's clerk. He was a little man but possessed of a consequential manner sufficient for a giant. A shoemaker by trade, his real element was in the church. His conversation was embellished by high-flown grandiloquence, and he invariably walked upon the heels of his boots. This latter peculiarity, as may well be imagined, was the cause of a most comical effect whenever he had occasion to leave ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... a duke nor an archbishop, but a humble member of the lower automobiling classes, the high-flown title startled me. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... efforts to reconcile the various conflicting authorities contesting for supremacy in his soul, Walter threw himself into a severe spell of blues. He was not conscious of the contrast between the world of his high-flown fancy and the earthy environment of his home-life. The sympathetic care which he should have received after his illness had not fallen ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... Mary! no sculptured monument marks thy resting-place! No eulogistic sermon, no high-flown panegyric was ever delivered, on thy life and death! Yet that silent tear of old Isaac's outspoke a thousand eulogies! It told of all thy kindness, charity, love, angelic purity of heart, and called thee "Guardian Angel" ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... answer ready, but this remembrance pricked her own conscience and paved the way to a reconciliation. Nancy had no high-flown notions. She loved money, but it must be got without palpable dishonesty; per contra, she was not going to denounce her sweetheart, but then again she would not marry him so long as he differed with her about the meaning of ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... do wish to lunch with me, Doctor von Kammacher, you must not have high-flown notions, like Mr. Ritter," said Miss Burns halting in front of a tidy ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... we were all smoking and exchanging compliments in the high-flown, stilted Samoan style, there entered the house a strapping young warrior, carrying a wickerwork cage, in which were two of the rare and famous Manu Mea (red-bird) of Samoa—the Didunculus or tooth-billed pigeon. These were the property of the young chief commanding ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... Theo's been so troublesome! And he wants to take us down on the third of next month. He will explain to you the why of it all; perhaps you'll understand better than I could. Such high-flown notions don't appeal to me a bit. I think Theo is rather like that silly man in the Middle Ages who was always trying to fight windmills, or sheep, or something; and there really ought to be a law to prevent people who want ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... desire to find some sympathising sage—some guide, philosopher, and friend—was so strong and rooted in my father, that I observed, a few weeks ago, in a magazine, an original letter, written by him about this time to Dr. Vicesimus Knox, full of high-flown sentiments, reading indeed like a romance of Scudery, and entreating the learned critic to receive him in his family, and give him the advantage of his wisdom, his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Egyptian campaign, was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable opportunity and resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... descent, who had made his money in palm-oil in the City of London; and having married Frida as a remarkably fine woman, with a splendid figure, to preside at his table, he had very small sympathy with what he considered her high-flown fads and nonsensical fancies. He had seen but little of the stranger, too, having come in from his weekly stroll, or tour of inspection, round the garden and stables, just as they were on the very point of starting for St. Barnabas: and his opinion of the man was in no way enhanced ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... interpretation. In most cases the poet has effectually kept his secret; the search is futile, in spite of all the "scholastic labour-lost" devoted to it. Equally tantalising are the fleeting symbolisms that suggest themselves now and then. The confession sometimes made by the poet, that high-flown compliment and not true despair is intended, prepares us to accept the symbolic application where it forces itself upon us, and to feel the presence here and there of platonic or spiritual shadowings. Those ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... good naturedly informed him that his position of Quartermaster General in the old army did not entitle him to a field command and that Lee's rank as field commander was higher, he replied in a letter which became the text of his champions. Its high-flown language and bombastic claims showed only too plainly that a consuming ambition had destroyed all sense of ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... passion for a rustic beauty. We tell the story—for it may not only afford us an illustration, but a hint also to other perplexed mammas, who may find themselves in the like predicament. She had argued, and of course in vain, against his high-flown admiration of the village belle. She was a goddess! She would become a throne! Apparently acquiescing in his matrimonial project, she now professed her willingness to receive his bride-elect. Accordingly, she sent her own milliner—mantua-maker—what you will,—to array her in the complete ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... inspired many of the volunteers. They regarded as brutal tyranny the tax on tea, considered in England as a mild expedient for raising needed revenue for defense in the colonies. The men of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, meeting in September, 1774, had declared in high-flown terms that the proposed tax came from a parricide who held a dagger at their bosoms and that those who resisted him would earn praises to eternity. From nearly every colony came similar utterances, and flaming resentment at injustice filled the volunteer army. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... as this would be thought to savour of mockery, but gentlemen two hundred years since ordinarily addressed women in the language of high-flown compliment. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... gets tired after business, and you can't get the books. I have been to some extension lectures, of course, 'Lizabethan Dramatists,' it was, but it seemed a little high-flown, you know. And I went and did wood-carving at the same place. But it didn't seem leading nowhere, and I cut my thumb ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... please God, I cannot please him at all. Why then should I try, if my way of trying is of no use? Why should I try to be honest, sober, and useful, if that is not true religion?—if what God wants of me is not virtue, but a certain high-flown religiousness which I cannot feel or even understand?'—and so they grow weary in well-doing, and careless about the plain duties of morality. They become careless, likewise, about the plain duties of religion; and so they are demoralised, because they are told that justice and the holiness ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and diseases and mutinies among his crew, forced him to abandon the colony and return home. His lieutenant, Luis Vaez de Torres, separated from him, discovered and passed the Torres Straits, a feat of excellent seamanship. Quiros returned to America. His high-flown descriptions of his discovery did not help him much, for the king simply ignored him, and his reports were buried in the archives. Quiros died in poverty and bitterness, and the only traces of his travels are the names Espiritu Santo, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... There is hardly an attempt at characterisation. The people are mere masqueraders, who amuse us by their costume and mannerisms, but reveal no individuality. The plot is a wild extravaganza, crammed with high-flown, mock-romantic episodes. Cherry Wilkinson, as the result of a surfeit of romances, perhaps including The Misanthropic Parent or The Guarded Secret (1807), by Miss Smith, deserts her real father—a worthy farmer—to look ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... him; and he was no longer able to fill the figures of his creation with the old intellectual sublimity. His heroes and his heroines became mere mouthing puppets, pouring out an endless stream of elaborate, high-flown sentiments, wrapped up in a complicated jargon of argumentative verse. His later plays are miserable failures. Not only do they illustrate the inherent weaknesses of Corneille's dramatic method, but they are also full of the characteristic bad taste and affectations of the age. The vital ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... with quick-springing tears. She smiled, and her face looked to Theo like the face of an angel; though he was impatient of the motive, he adored her for it. And she gave her head a little toss, as if to shake off this undue emotion. "I need not talk any high-flown nonsense about such a simple duty, need I?" she said, once more with a soft laugh. Instead of making the most of her pathetic position, she would always ignore the claims she had upon sympathy. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... though the description undoubtedly partook of George's usual high-flown couleur-de-rose style, the manor being only a manor provided the owner sacrificed his interest in Swillingford by driving off its poachers, and the river being only a river when the tiny Swill was swollen into one, still Hanby House ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... revolting to the already half-aroused departments.[34124] The legislative machinery is not to be shattered, but made use of; it must be employed against itself to effect the required injury; in this way the operation at a distance will appear legal, and, garnished with the usual high-flown speeches, impose on the provincial mind.[34125] From the 3rd of April, Robespierre, in the Jacobin club, always circumspect and considerate, had limited and defined in advance the coming insurrection. "Let all good citizens," he says, "meet in their sections, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... protested; the people of Connecticut meditated resistance. A convention was held at Middletown in December, at which two thirds of the towns in the state were represented, and the best method of overruling Congress was discussed. Much high-flown eloquence was wasted, but the convention broke up without deciding upon any course of action. The matter had become so serious that wise men changed their minds, and disapproved of proceedings calculated to throw Congress into contempt. Samuel Adams, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... he showed us that men who wrote in Greek and Latin sometimes told lies; he showed us that ancient history might be related in such a manner as to furnish not only allusions to schoolboys, but important lessons to statesmen. From that love of theatrical effect and high-flown sentiment which had poisoned almost every other work on the same subject his book is perfectly free. But his passion for a theory as false, and far more ungenerous, led him substantially to violate truth in every page. Statements unfavourable ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Angela, he favoured her with a tender pressure of the fingers and an elaborate and high-flown speech of welcome, both of which were inexpressibly disagreeable to her. But here Lady Bellamy intervened, and skilfully forced him into a conversation with her, in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... opportunity for even a significant glance, and he had the added embarrassment of seeing that she exhibited no surprise nor seemed to attach the least importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserable indecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flown hospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an early dinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the voluble Dona Maria—electing him as the distinguished stranger above the resident Fletcher—monopolized him and attached him to ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... said stiffly, "is neither the rendezvous nor the time for high-flown sentiments, especially ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... came riding by awhile, A wealthy lover was he, whose smile Some maids would value greatly - A formal lover, who bowed and bent, With many a high-flown compliment, And cold demeanour stately, "You've still," said she to her suitor stern, "The 'prentice-work of your craft to learn, If thus you come a-cooing. I've time to lose and power to choose; 'T is not so much the gallant who woos, As the ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... to put a message like this into high-flown language, to swear absolute devotion and deathless consecration. In love and friendship, small, steady payments on a gold basis are better than immense promissory notes. Nor, indeed, is it always necessary to put the message into words at all, nor ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... in a high-flown style, and is fond of verbal substantives. "Now there is an invention of machinery for the alleviation of the peasants," he says; "there is no difficulty for them in that." When he is asked what he lives for, he replies, "To pass the time." ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... margin of my book, and asked, in brief stern phrase, how it happened that my compositions were always better than my translations? adding that the thing seemed to him inexplicable. The fact is, some weeks ago, in a high-flown humour, he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar in translating the most difficult English compositions into French. This makes the task rather arduous, and compels me every now and then to introduce an English ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... claimed to hold supreme land command by instructions from Commodore Sloat already quoted. Through the internal evidence of Stockton's letters and proclamations, it seems he was a trifle inclined to be bombastic and high-flown, to usurp authority, and perhaps to consider himself and his operations of more importance than they actually were. However, he was an officer disciplined and trained to obedience, and his absurd contention is not in character. It may be significant that he had promised ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... in my heart and brain, When Fancy had allured my soul Into a chase as vague and far As would be his who fixt his goal In the horizon or some star— Any bewilderment that brought More near to earth my high-flown thought— The faintest glimpse of joy, less pure, Less high and heavenly, but more sure, Came welcome—and was then to me What the first flowery isle must be To vagrant birds blown ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... actually begun to talk in high-flown, blank verse sort of a way. "Ere long!" that wus ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... report of the conversation which now took place between Mr. Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels. As there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... contours, that were most apparent, that seemed to thrust upon his consciousness the city's gigantic, self-centered indifference. Yet it was just that quality that he had loved most in London. She had let him alone. She had been—he recalled the high-flown phrase of his youth—the supremely indifferent friend! Perhaps, he thought to himself, when one is fifty, one cares less to be "let alone"; less for indifference as the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what are they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us, like yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot, and laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love me, and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my own, to cherish, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... all went well, and the President, who accompanied the commando in person, succeeded in reducing a mountain stronghold, which, in his high-flown way, he called a "glorious ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... noble and beautiful thing is mind!" and it went on in the same high-flown strain to no particular end. But the editor praised it, after having declined the verdict of the audience that she was its author; and I felt ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... is likely to be of great service both to the cause and to the Committee, and is publicly as well as personally a very valuable acquisition to our party on every account. He came up (as they all do who have not been in the country before) with some high-flown notions of the sixth form at Harrow or Eton, &c.; but Col. Napier and I set him to rights on those points, which is absolutely necessary to prevent disgust, or perhaps return; but now we can set our shoulders soberly to the wheel, without quarrelling ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... have the ceremonious Lisbon lover Lemos, the high-flown Castilian of fearful presence and a lion's heart, however threadbare his capa[128], the starving gentleman who makes a tost[a]o ( 5d.) last a month and dines off a turnip and a crust of bread, another—a sixteenth century Porthos—who imagines himself a grand seigneur and ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the subjects that would give great satisfaction to—a breast quite at ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... splenetive and rash,' he (Hamlet) yet has 'something dangerous' in him. (He means the daimon which so fatally impelled him against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.) Hamlet and Laertes wrestle, but they are parted by the attendants. Hamlet begins boasting, in high-flown language, of what great things he would be ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... the Wise One," answered the king, kindly overlooking—or perhaps not noticing—the rather lame and impotent conclusion of the induna's high-flown speech. "Yes; perhaps thou art right," (this rather regretfully). "But there is no reason why I should not at once show myself to my wives; and, by the bones of my royal father, I will! There be those among them who of late have shown a tendency to make ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... tired Of being admired, By ladies of gentle degree—degree, With flattery sated, High-flown and inflated, Away from the city we flee—we flee! From charms intramural To prettiness rural The sudden transition Is simply Elysian, So come, Amaryllis, Come, Chloe and Phyllis, Your slaves, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... have fought. Esther observed that he had shewn more true courage in listening to reason, and M. d'O—— said he was strongly of his daughter's opinion; however, Mdlle. Casanova, after airing her high-flown ideas, began to sulk with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Browning' ascended a platform in the presence of assembled parents and friends, and, in best jacket, white gloves, and carefully curled hair, with a circular bow to the company and the then prescribed waving of alternate arms, delivered a high-flown rhymed address ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... have truckled down, Like other brethren of his gown. For party he would scarce have bled: I say no more—because he's dead. What writings has he left behind? I hear, they're of a different kind; A few in verse; but most in prose— Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose;— All scribbled in the worst of times, To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes, To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her, As never fav'ring the Pretender; Or libels yet conceal'd from sight, Against the court to show his spite; Perhaps his travels, part the third; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... 'Come, Pancratius, this, I understand, is the last time we meet here; but I have a long score to demand payment of from you. You have loved to show your superiority in school over me and others older and better than yourself; I saw your supercilious looks at me as you spouted your high-flown declamation to-day; ay, and I caught expressions in it which you may live to rue, and that very soon. Before you leave us, I must have my revenge. If you are worthy of your name let us fairly contend in more manly strife than that of the style and tables. Wrestle with me, or try the cestus ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Eliza was a source of continual irritation, and the Westbrook family did its best, by interference and suggestion, to refrigerate the poet's feelings for his wife. On the other hand he found among the Boinville set exactly that high-flown, enthusiastic, sentimental atmosphere which suited his idealizing temper. Two extracts from a letter written to Hogg upon the 16th of March, 1814, speak more eloquently than any analysis, and will place before the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... disappearance, still less in his speedy arrival. Moreover, in the "officer's" first letter which had been shown to Mitya, the possibility of his new rival's visit was very vaguely suggested. The letter was very indefinite, high-flown, and full of sentimentality. It must be noted that Grushenka had concealed from him the last lines of the letter, in which his return was alluded to more definitely. He had, besides, noticed at ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... literature, and their art. Their virtues and their vices turned upon it. Hence the golden mean is eminently a Greek conception, a leading idea of the Hellenic race. The Greek hated a thing overdone, a gaudy ornament, a proud title, a fulsome compliment, a high-flown speech, a wordy peroration. Nothing too much was the inscription over the lintel of the national sanctuary at Delphi. It is the surpassing grace of Greek art of the best period, that in it there shines out the highest power, with nothing too much of straining ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... subjoin to this high-flown paragraph, that will at all keep pace with the majesty of it. I should have left to the Gazette to wish you joy, nor have begun a new letter without more materials, if I did not fear you would be still uneasy about your nephew. I hear he has, since his parenthesis, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... ancient statue. They saw in it a whole catalogue of fine qualities; and one writer went into such extreme ecstatics that he suddenly realized the fact, and ended by saying, "but this is rather too high-flown, so I had better conclude." As a matter of fact, the work was wretchedly defective in proportion and features; in every characteristic of sculpture it showed itself the work simply of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... hardness of the life, they reasoned that it "helped toughen a youngster, and make a man of him." To them, Sara's ideas were foolish and high-flown, their notion of a "gentleman" being too often associated with city "lubbers" who came down to spy out the land—and sea—in their ridiculous knickerbockers and helmets, and who did not know a jib from a spanker, ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Intelligence and goodness by no means stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. The sayings of Ovid, 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor,' 'Nitimur in velitum semper. cupimusque negata,' are a more correct expression of the facts of human consciousness and conduct than the high-flown praises of Confucius. 7. But Tsze-sze adopts the dicta of his grandfather without questioning them, and gives them forth in his own style at the commencement of the fourth part of his Treatise. 'When we have intelligence resulting from sincerity, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... making themselves disagreeable; on which theory, laws must be confessed to have been in all ages somewhat of a failure. He seems to have been, like his master, an impudent light-hearted fellow, who took life easily enough, laughed at patriotism, and all other high-flown notions, boasted that the world was his country, and was no doubt excellent after-dinner company for the great king. Hegesias, his fellow Cyrenaic, was a man of a darker and more melancholic temperament; and ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... As the high-flown language which he occasionally employed in addressing or discussing women, has originated a theory that the basis or essence of his character was romance, it may be as well to contrast what he said in soberer moods on love. He remarked to Dr. Maxwell, that "its violence and ill-effects ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... humble champion they left a mark wherever they struck. He didn't care for that round, smooth kind of preaching which always rolls off; he liked the word to strike, mark, and abide where it fell. He had no sympathy with high-flown sermons which shut out the Cross of Jesus and those good old Gospel truths associated with that dear emblem of God's love to the world. If such a discourse were delivered in his hearing he was sure ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... application. For the very point respecting which your whole school, and yourself most especially, who are such a diligent investigator of ancient instances, are in the habit of vaunting yourself and using high-flown language, namely, the mention of brave and illustrious men, and the extolling of their actions, as proceeding not from any regard to advantage, but from pure principles of honour and a love of glory, is entirely upset, when once that rule in the choice of things is established ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... my personal schemes and general affairs. I've nothing modern about me, in the sense of wanting to reconstruct the world generally and be a Joan of Arc to my retrenched compatriots. But when some of you talkers get up and express high-flown sentiments of brotherhood and union for the benefit of the public Press one moment, and swerve right down and wink at such sentiments as steamroller the English or the finances or the language question the next, it is time you had a little ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... groaning under the strokes of an autocratic tyranny, which the presentiment of its speedy end had driven into madness, the bewitching strains of the new Hebrew lyre resounded through Lithuania. They came from Micah Joseph Lebensohn, the son of "Adam" Lebensohn, author of high-flown Hebrew odes [1]—a contemplative Jewish youth, suffering from tuberculosis and Weltschmerz. He began his poetic career in 1840 by a Hebrew adaptation of the second book of Virgil's Aeneid [2] but soon turned to Jewish ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... little sympathy or patience for those who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi—who are always fishing for pretty complements—who are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance, and who can be allured by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in language, but poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by the intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the hidden, and the artful—no wonder she has sometimes folded ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Jeptha is spoken of as the son of an Harlot. Mechanic wares were disposed of at those stated gatherings, which combined popular games, chariot races for the nobles, and markets for the merchants. A Bard of the tenth or eleventh century, in a desperate effort to vary the usual high-flown descriptions of the country, calls it "Erin of the hundred fair greens,"—a very graphic, if not a very ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... which they hate to do, and to put aside what they hold most dear. Fancies unintelligible to practical people like women—thus Stella Croyle's thoughts ran—but to be taken note of very carefully. High-flown motives from a world of white angels, where no doubt they are very suitable. But men will use them as working motives here below, with the result that they wreck women's hearts and cause themselves a ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... a little laugh. "Oh, she was very ridiculous and high-flown, as you may imagine. But, as I told her, I am directly responsible to her mother for any friendships she may make out here, and I am not disposed to take any risks. We all know what Mrs. Bathurst can be like if she considers herself an ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... tea-time was conducted mainly between the professor and Miss Saville, and that young woman's friends listened with amazed admiration to the high-flown eloquence of her remarks. Who would have believed that Peggy was so well read, or able to conduct so learned a conversation? Even her old instructor was surprised at her knowledge, forgetting for the moment that education is by no means ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... changed, and we must change too, would we please him," said the baron; "such notions might have done in former days, but they are too high-flown for the present time, my good lord. I marvel they should have ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... back to dash the tears from her eyes. "Then remember them your way and I 'll remember them mine, and so our paths go east and west: (then turning to me,) I'm sure I ask your pardon, Ma'am, for what must appear so declamatory and high-flown. We Welsh folk, like all the other poor Celts, are allowed romantic flights sometimes to make sport for the sober English. Farewell, Miss Burney. My! best compliments ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... nevertheless a striking fact that Paul Jones, the desperate fighter, who was certainly as brave as any one, and was often placed in favorable situations for such settlements, never fought a duel. Add to this that his temper was quick and passionate, and that he had to the full the high-flown sentiments of honor of the time, and the fact seems all the more remarkable. The truth is that Jones was as cautious as he was brave. He acted sometimes impulsively, but reflection quickly came, and he never manifested a dare-devil desire to put his life unnecessarily in danger. When there was anything ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... goin' about casooal, an' his air is a heap high-flown. He's been pesterin' an' irritatin' about the post-office for mighty like an hour, when all at once he crosses over to the Red Light an' squar's up to the bar. He don't invite none of us to licker—jest himse'f; which onp'liteness is ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked by two spreading roots, was the Governor's chair of state, and Alce and Molly he must needs seat beside him. Not one of his gay company but seemed an adept in the high-flown compliment of the age; out of very idleness and the mirth born of that summer hour they followed his Excellency's lead, and plied the two simple women with all the wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Ordinance of God. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man, for the Lord's Sake, says the Apostle. Where (by the way) pray take notice, he calls them Ordinances of Man; and gives you the true Notion, how far any thing can be said to be Jure Divino: which is far short of what your high-flown Assertors of the Jus Divinum wou'd carry it, and proves as strongly for a Republican Government as a Monarchical; tho' in truth it affects neither, where the very ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... years I t'ought it was, Or else it was sixteen— Yes; I'd shook hands wid Washington And likewise General Greene. I tole him all de generals' names Dar ebber was, I guess, From General Lee and La Fayette To General Distress. Den dar's dem high-flown ladies My old tings came to see; Wanted to buy dem some heirlooms Of real Aunt Tiquity. Says I, "Dat isn't dis chile's name, Dey calls me Auntie Scraggs," And den I axed dem, by de pound How much dey gabe ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... of him after two months of almost daily association? She knew that no unworthy thought ever found utterance upon his lips; that no vulgar instinct ever showed itself in his conduct; that he was essentially to the very core of his heart a gentleman; that without any high-flown affectation of chivalry he was as chivalrous as Bayard; that without any languid airs and graces of the modern aesthetic school he was a man of the highest and broadest culture; and that—oh, rara avis among modern scholars and young laymen—he was honestly and unaffectedly ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... continents and islands, and great oceans in which no ship has sailed (to my belief) since a Man first lifted up his eyes and beheld the sun, and the stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath. You will think all this high-flown language, Clarke, but it is hard to be literal. And yet; I do not know whether what I am hinting at cannot be set forth in plain and homely terms. For instance, this world of ours is pretty well girded now with the telegraph wires and cables; thought, with something less than the speed ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... be serious," replied Michel quietly; "and instead of spelikans, let us put bones. This plain, would then be nothing but an immense cemetery, on which would repose the mortal remains of thousands of extinct generations. Do you prefer that high-flown comparison?" ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... degree than the new rulers of the English country. At the same time with their chivalrous literature, they had a mocking one. They did not wait for Cervantes to begin laughing; these variable and many-sided beings sneered at high-flown sentiments and experienced them too. They sang the Song of Roland, and read with delight a romance in which the great emperor is represented strutting about before his barons, his crown on his head and his sword in his hand, asking the queen if he is not ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... of the poet to provide a mystic background for his picture. I do not see why a young man, who happens to be afflicted with the sleep-walking malady, should not walk in his sleep even on the night before a battle, and why a young hero who has long been nursing the most high-flown thoughts concerning glory and immortality, should not, on such a night, make himself an oak-wreath. In the day time, to be sure, an occupation of that sort would not look very well, but night is the realm of phantasy and the wreath is the emblem of glory. Then, too, I find that this first scene—the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... of the play, after wading through the slime of the "Epistle," is to find amusing proof of the high-flown and at times bombastic expression which elicited such admiration from audiences of the old regime. (Do not laugh at it, reader; you tolerate an equal amount of absurdity in modern melodrama). The very first lines are charmingly suggestive of the starched and stately ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... succeeded the language of raillery. Men have almost forgotten how to bow. Doubtless the advanced female prefers the new manner, as may some of her less forward sisters, thinking it more sincere. It is not; our giddy grandfather talked high-flown nonsense because his heart had tangled his tongue. He treated his woman more civilly than we ours because he loved her better. He never had seen her on the "rostrum" and in the lobby, never had seen her in advocacy ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... do nothing more on the present occasion. Having heard so much of Trevelyan's debility, he had been astonished to hear the man speak with so much volubility and attempts at high-flown spirit. Before he had taken the wine he had almost sunk into his chair, but still he had continued to speak with the same fluent would-be cynicism. "I will come and see you again," said Hugh, getting up ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Outside the drama[317] it was about the first division of literature to proclaim boldly the refusal to consider anything human as alien from human literary interest. But, as nearly always happens, it had exaggerated its protests, and become sordid, merely in revolt from the high-flown non-sordidness of previous romance. Lesage took the principle and rejected the application. He dared, practically for the first time, to take the average man of unheroic stamp, the homme sensuel moyen of a later French phrase, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... it seems to have been a peaceful, idle, rather trivial time of sojourn among congenial people. He danced, he strolled, he wrote verses to little Miss Emily; in short, he enjoyed himself as a youngish man may, whether the muse is waiting for him, or some less high-flown customer. "I wish I could give you a good account of my literary labors," he wrote his sister after several months in Dresden, "but I have nothing to report. I am merely seeing, and hearing, and my mind seems in too crowded and confused a state to produce anything. I am getting ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... and, above all things, true in what he said to his audience of themselves. They who know America will understand how hard it is for a public man in the States to practice such truth in his addresses. Fluid compliments and high-flown national eulogium are expected. In this instance none were forthcoming. The North had risen with patriotism to make this effort, and it was now warned that in doing so it was simply doing its national ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the hostile ranks for the next weary two hours, till the very soldiers broke out into expressions of admiration, and the tribune of the cohort, who ad no great objection, but also no great wish, fight, paid them a high-flown compliment on their laudable endeavours to maintain public order, and received the somewhat ambiguous reply, that the 'weapons of their warfare were not carnal, that they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself a splendid position—yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent like you, and insure a home for me—you, forsooth, must needs favour me with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... sultana are coming to tea with me. They will be indeed proud that I receive the god of the Turks. But mind you have a really good story ready, for my parents like them immensely. My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something merry ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... you comferable an' all that," Brownie said, disparagingly. "But when it comes to a mate, we all know there ain't any one for you like Miss Norah—though I do say Master Jim's as handy in a sick-room as that high-flown nurse from Melbourne ever was—I'm glad to me bones she's gone!" ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... n't ask him in, neither. I stood fair 'n' square in the doorway, 'n' 'f he was 'xpectin' to see me look happy over havin' a compliment paid me, 't was one more time 's he did n't get what he 'xpected. That was what he called it,—'payin' me a compliment,'—'n' I mus' say 's it struck me 's pretty high-flown language f'r jus' simply wantin' to name a thirteenth baby after the richest woman in the c'mmunity. Seems to me thirteen was a good many to wait afore thinkin' o' me anyhow, 'n' I ain't noways sure 's I want a thirteenth baby named ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be quite high-flown enough herself ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... upon my appointment, in terms of rapture; his ecstacies are excited so readily, from the excessive warmth of his disposition, and its proneness to admire and wonder, that my new situation was a subject to awaken an enthusiasm the most high-flown. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... a very eloquent man, counted so even at the Irish Bar, where a certain high-flown loquacity is pretty prevalent, and had a great repute. He arrived at Cork once, and had to fight his way through a dense throng to get into court. On inquiring the reason of the crowd, he was told that everybody ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Mrs. Evelegh's dining-room, the old lady and I, behind the folding doors. At three precisely Dr. Fortescue-Langley walked in. I had difficulty in restraining Lady Georgina from falling upon him prematurely. He talked a lot of high-flown nonsense to Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie about the influences of the planets, and the seventy-five emanations, and the eternal wisdom of the East, and the medical efficacy of sub-conscious suggestion. Excellent patter, all of it—quite as good in its way as the diplomatic patter he had poured forth ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... the ablest of the five "studies," at least in its opening, is the school-story of "The Stolen Treasure," which, with a high-flown name, and a most melodramatic and commonplace ending, shows yet great power in the delineation and grouping of characters. The young school-girls are as real as those of Charlotte Bronte; and although the typical maidenly desperado is present,—lying and cheating with such hopeless obviousness that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... business and partly to visit a sister who lived in their neighborhood. The elder Huntington said something of the rapid growth of New York, of its new high buildings. His English was curiously interspersed with a bookish phraseology that seemed to be traceable to the high-flown advertisements of his department in the newspapers. I veered the conversation from the architectural changes that had come over New York to changes ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... little, that we rather enjoyed mildly tormenting poor Herbert Spencer. He tried so hard, and looked so scared, and was so unbelievably stupid! Almost always he had to pick his orders word by word from a vast amount of high-flown, unnecessary English. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... she said. "You have the most extraordinary high-flown notions, and I think they will lead you into trouble! However, I'll give you one more chance—if at the end of this year you would like to come to me, my offer to you still holds good. After that—well!—as you yourself said, you ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... dire intent lowering in his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he drew forth a volume of the Wild Irish Girl, and reading with his deep, emphatic voice one of the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with his fore finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said, 'Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all those damned hard words?' Thus taken by surprise, and smarting with my wounds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... little book is written with admirable good taste and judgment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea' and 'nay' of life. It is a graceful and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents," says ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... at the studied poetizations of traditional, aristocratic, high-flown themes brought him but scant recognition even in his day, and they have since been well-nigh forgotten. But when, one year before his death, he wrote an unpretentious love story taken from the life of simple people whom he met on his daily walks, he thereby assured himself of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... quick, and would not keep her countenance. She had better do the old countrywoman—the Cottager's wife; you had, indeed, Julia. Cottager's wife is a very pretty part, I assure you. The old lady relieves the high-flown benevolence of her husband with a good deal of spirit. You shall be ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... time was accustomed to the high-flown compliments of polite society, but she could not doubt the sincerity of this man, who had no place in a world where idle flattery was the small coin of talk. She blushed slightly and changed the subject, and as he talked, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... be said to justify the title it assumed, and in answer to a deputation which waited on the Governor, Sir George Lloyd expressed a legitimate desire for more information than was contained in its high-flown address as to the status of these unions, their method of formation, their constitution, their system of ballot and election, and the actual experience in the several trades of those who claimed to represent them. That information was not and could not be furnished, because the ninety-two Trades ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... became a complete arsenal of argument. His rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasiveness. In his immature days, he had pleased himself for a short period with that inflated, high-flown style which, among the uncultivated, passes for "beautiful speaking." His inborn truthfulness and his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration and revealed to him the noble beauty and strength of simplicity. He possessed an uncommon power of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... are not proper fields for the cultivation and display of Miss Gordon's amateur kid glove charity. I hope, at least, it was a species of exaggerated high-flown sentimentality, rather than mere feminine curiosity that tempted you to precincts revolting to the delicacy and refinement with which ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... poetical talents have earned, he would probably dwell on the insufficiency of the highest mental endowments without conduct and self-command. He would also probably describe his passion as fostered by the pedantic and high-flown gallantry of the age, and the applauses bestowed on his verses; as increasing and strengthening, after the marriage of Laura had rendered it criminal, without any purpose which his better conscience dared avow, till his eyes at length ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... conversations. Indian people talk much in the same way as ordinary folk in other parts of the world, except that unseemly allusions are freely admitted into general conversation in a way which would not be tolerated in a Christian country. The absurd, high-flown conversational rhapsodies in the average Anglo-Indian novel are purely imaginary. "Kim's" talk fairly represents the ordinary talk of the Indian, although he ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Settlement is, to use a high-flown expression, an oasis in the desert, and may be likened to a spot upon the moon or a solitary ship upon the ocean. In plain English, it is an isolated settlement on the borders of one of the vast prairies of North America. It is ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... newfangled trifles, and even forced some of them upon his host. It is further alleged that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of aguardiente, the Commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and behaved in a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting high-flown Spanish poetry, and even piping in a thin, high voice divers madrigals and heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion; chiefly in regard to a "little one" who was his, the Commander's, "soul"! These allegations, perhaps unworthy the notice of a serious chronicler, should ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... magazines, or in the letters of vividly imaginative correspondents, or—anywhere but among the Federal rank and file. Such a feeling is utterly foreign to the national character; nor have I seen a trace of it in any one of the many soldiers with whom I have spoken of the war. All the high-flown sentiment of the Times or Tribune will not prevent the Yankee private from looking at his duty in a hard, practical, business-like way; he is disposed to give his country its money's worth, and does so, as a rule, very fairly; but military ardor in the States is not exactly ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the faded leaves. A tremor ran through her limbs, and going to the window she placed the book upon the sill and read the words aloud in the fragrant stillness. Behind her in the dim room Dan seemed to rise as suddenly as a ghost—and that high-flown chivalry of his, which delighted in sounding phrases as in heroic virtues, was loosened from the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the Indemnity Company which insured The owners of the mine. I pulled the wires with judge and jury, And the upper courts, to beat the claims Of the crippled, the widow and orphan, And made a fortune thereat. The bar association sang my praises In a high-flown resolution. And the floral tributes were many— But the rats devoured my heart And a snake made a ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... proposal from his wife. He hesitated for a moment; but her large, clear, honest eyes were fixed full upon him, waiting for his reply. Could he refuse her request? Did he not owe everything to her, and to that very high-flown spirit of generosity which was not only a fault (if it were a fault) of Sybil, but a trait ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... to confess is my name. A pretty one and proper one enough when it was given to me: but, a good many years out of date now, and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical from his ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... in his preface that his province is to write an anglers' guide without embellishment. It would have been well if he had adhered to this plan. After some pages of high-flown periods he informs us that twenty-six years ago fly-fishing was in its infancy, being scarcely known in America, and but little practiced in England. If he had asserted that fly-fishing was scarcely known among his "green hills" at that period, and but little practiced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Don Jose's dagger plunged into my heart, not Carmen's. That sounds high-flown, but I mean it—a sudden, sick, cold sensation, as if everything was numb. Lady Ver turned round pettishly to Christopher. "What on earth is the matter ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... pretty and very high-flown," said the countess, with a contemptuous laugh; "but you will find a few thousand pounds a very comfortable matter in ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... again. Singularly enough, Grant's somewhat high-flown simile appeared to satisfy ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... When high-flown larks wer on the wing, A warm-air'd holiday in Spring, We stroll'd, 'ithout a ceaere or frown, Up roun' the down at Meldonley; An' where the hawthorn-tree did stand Alwone, but still wi' mwore at hand, We zot wi' sheaedes o' clouds on high ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
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