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More "Parvenu" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... avait ete rejoint par l'officier que Napoleon lui avait expedie la veille a dix heures du soir, toute question eut disparu. Mais cet officier n'etait point parvenu a sa destination, ainsi que le marechal n'a cesse de l'affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l'en croire, car autrement il n'aurait eu aucune raison pour hesiter. Cet officier avait-il ete pris? avait-il passe a l'ennemi? C'est ce qu'on a ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... she replied: "It does not please at all. The furniture is very costly, and reminds one of the parvenu. Every thing recalls the riches ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... a woman of another order. All her life she had been used to the elegancy that a wealthy parentage gave, and to which her husband had been, until within a few years, an entire stranger. She was "to the manner born," he a parvenu with a restless ambition to outshine. Familiarity with things luxurious and costly had lessened their value in her eyes, and true culture had lifted her above the weakness of resting in or caring much about them, while their newness and novelty ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... putting man back in his place, and, if need be, of doing without him. The moment has come to think less, to aim less high, to look more closely, to observe better, to paint as well but differently. This is the painting of the crowd, of the townsman, the workman, the parvenu, the man in the street; done wholly for him, done from him. It is a question of becoming humble before humble things, small before small things, subtle before subtle things; of gathering them all together without omission and without disdain, ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... to the bumptious and "efficient" and smug. Time after time I have watched him serving some furred and jewelled customer who was not fit to exchange words with him; I have seen him jostled in a crowded aisle by some parvenu ignoramus who knew not that this quiet little man was one of the immortal spirits of gentleness and breeding who associate in quiet hours with the unburied dead of English letters. That corner of the store, near the front door, can never be ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... literary court to maintain intellectual unity and protest against innovation. Bonaparte, aware of all this, had thought of re-establishing its ancient privileges; but it had in his eyes one fatal defect—esprit. Kings of France could condone a witticism even against themselves, a parvenu could ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... altar of mammon. He can be a living protest against the tyranny and lust of money, which are eating away the heart and destroying the soul of Christendom. He can stand for the sane and rational ideas and habits of life, without which society but personifies the unscrupulous and vulgar parvenu. And in religion he can accept the teaching and obey the commands of Christ without any overwhelming temptation to escape them behind some exegetical device or the plea of expediency. He can devote the rose bloom of his years ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... Parvenu! But there, don't cry, my dear. We have much to be thankful for—we have ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... in order to escape the cacoethes loquendi of case lawyers and presuming juniors. Legal lore was builded up like the massive stone and hard grained mortar of the edifices of that olden time—slowly, carefully, but lastingly; not as are builded now the brick and stuccoed mansions of the snob and parvenu. Not that abounding treatises and familiarizing digests forbid the idea of the perfect lawyer now-a-days: only that to-day the law student in the midst of a large library stands more in need (when thinking of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... attention to the fact of his humble birth, and to let it be known that, had he to begin life anew, he was so far from desiring a better ancestry that he would, like Andrew Marvell, have made "his destiny his choice." Nor is this done with the pretentious affectation of the parvenu, eager to bring under notice the contrast between what he is and what he has been, and to insinuate his personal deserts, while pretending to disclaim them. Horace has no such false humility. He was proud, and he makes no secret ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... GOING NAP.—It now appears that the words descriptive of NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE used by the German Emperor, and to which the French took so strong an exception, were not "Le parvenu Corse," but "Le conquerant Corse," which, of course, makes all the difference. At this banquet it would have been better had each course been omitted from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... her annual visit, sits in her carriage and sends in her card with the lower right hand corner turned down, which signifies that she has "called in person;" Mrs. B: sends down word that she is "engaged" or "wishes to be excused"—or if she is a Parvenu and low-bred, she perhaps sends word that she is "not at home." Very good; Mrs. A. drives, on happy and content. If Mrs. A.'s daughter marries, or a child is born to the family, Mrs. B. calls, sends in ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... audience saw the joke—nothing more than that it was a druckfehler (printer's error). The rehearsals were in my salon, and we had great amusement over them. The second ballet was more pretentious, and was danced in one of the largest theaters in Berlin. It was called the "Enchanted Castle." A parvenu buys an ancestral castle, and on his arrival there falls asleep in the great hall, filled with the portraits of ancestors and knights in armor. The ladies, in their old-fashioned dresses, step out from their frames, and with the knights in armor move ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... chandeliers, even the plate displayed on the sideboards, even the servants who served the breakfast. It was the perfect type of the establishment improvised, immediately upon alighting from the railway train, by a parvenu of colossal wealth, in great haste to enjoy himself. Although there was no sign of a woman's dress about the table, no bit of light and airy material to enliven the scene, it was by no means monotonous, thanks to the incongruity, the nondescript character of the guests, gathered ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... it would be impossible, to find exact equivalents in English or in German, or probably in any language: 'aplomb,' 'badinage,' 'borne,' 'chic,' 'chicane,' 'cossu,' 'coterie,' 'egarement,' 'elan,' 'espieglerie,' 'etourderie,' 'friponnerie,' 'gentil,' 'ingenue,' 'liaison,' 'malice,' 'parvenu,' 'persiflage,' 'prevenant,' 'ruse,' 'tournure,' 'tracasserie,' 'verve.' It is evident that the words just named have to do with shades of thought which are to a great extent unfamiliar to us; for which, at any rate, we have not found a name, have hardly felt that they needed one. ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... new. And the manner in which this difference is viewed reveals two characteristic attitudes of mind, the blending of which is apparent throughout the Eskimo culture of to-day. There is the attitude of condescension, the arrogant tolerance of the proselyte and the parvenu: "So our forefathers used to do, for they were ignorant folk." At times, however, it is with precisely opposite view, mourning the present degeneration from earlier days, "when men were yet skilful rowers ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... and his party to the Saut Ste. Marie, where "les Jesuites les congedierent." It then proceeds as follows: "Cependant Mr. de la Salle continua son chemin par une riviere qui va de l'est a l'ouest; et passe a Onontaque (Onondaga), puis a six ou sept lieues au-dessous du Lac Erie; et estant parvenu jusqu'au 280me ou 83me degre de longitude, et jusqu'au 4lme degre de latitude, trouva un sault qui tombe vers l'ouest dans un pays has, marescageux, tout couvert de vielles souches, don't il y en a quelquesunes qui sont encore sur pied. Il fut done contraint de prendre terre, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... sonorously that, "It is the Ko-to-yah Congo." "It is the river of Congo-land." Alas for our classic dreams! Alas for Crophi and Mophi, the fabled fountains of Herodotus! Alas for the banks of the river where Moses was found by the daughter of Pharaoh! This is the parvenu Congo! Then we glided on and on past strange nations and cannibals—not past those nations which have their heads under their arms—for 1,100 miles, until we arrived at the circular extension of the river and my ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... centuries has served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest upon them ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... We have a right to call OUR Privy Councillors Right Honorable, our Lords' sons Honorable, and so forth; but for a nation as numerous, well educated, strong, rich, civilized, free as our own, to dare to give its distinguished citizens titles of honor—monstrous assumption of low-bred arrogance and parvenu vanity! Our titles are respectable, but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of London, a Chancellor's son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly Honorable, and entitled to be Lord Jones at his noble father's decease: but Mr. Brown, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or as he is better known, Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d'Holbach, was born in January, 1723, in the little village of Heidelsheim (N.W. of Carlsruhe) in the Palatinate. Of his parentage and youth nothing is known except that his father, a rich parvenu, according to Rousseau, [5:5] brought him to Paris at the age of twelve, where he received the greater part of his education. His father died when Holbach was still a young man. It may be doubted if young Holbach ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he let the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in the shadows at the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... servants, people who knew their proper place, and retainers generally, with legitimate claims to her consideration, she was all kindly courtesy, and they were devoted to her; but she met the aspiring parvenu, seeking her acquaintance on false pretences of equality, with that disdainful civility which is more exasperating than positive rudeness because a lady is only ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... tyranny and lust of money, which are eating away the heart and destroying the soul of Christendom. He can stand for the sane and rational ideas and habits of life, without which society but personifies the unscrupulous and vulgar parvenu. And in religion he can accept the teaching and obey the commands of Christ without any overwhelming temptation to escape them behind some exegetical device or the plea of expediency. He can devote the rose bloom of his years to great principles, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... and Crozat. Crozat the parvenu—Marquis du Chatel, forsooth, with his scissors and yardstick ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... fresh-lighted. But I would not have Gladstone's fame for the boon of rest eternal, from fear that his retrospect of inconsistency and apostacy would be its accompaniment, its deeper shadow. Yet who shall blame Gladstone? He was the executor and administrator of the policy of a parvenu Jew, one of the very bad men of ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... whipped and bleeding Hungary, a groan from gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from downtrodden but scowling Italy, "Confound the revolutionary canaille, why can't it be quiet!" in a word, putting one in mind of the parvenu in the "Walpurgis Nacht." The writer is no admirer of Gothe, but the idea of that parvenu was certainly a good one. Yes, putting one in mind of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... for liberty and well-being of the people, it has long ceased to be. Therefore lamentations come too late. True, the American Republic has not given birth to an aristocracy. It has produced the power of the parvenu, not less brutal than European aristocracy, only narrower in vision and not less ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... perfectly expresses a pure taste and a wholly unstudied refinement. Nothing there offends the eye or oppresses the mind. It is the dignified habitation of a poor gentleman, breathing a charm not to be found in the house of a rich parvenu. He has avoided without effort the conscious artistry of Chelsea and the indifference to art of the unaesthetic vulgarian. As to the manner of his life, it is reduced to an extreme of simplicity, but his asceticism is not made the excuse for domestic carelessness. A sense of order distinguishes ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Empire, the richest prize that the world has ever displayed, spread out its treasures before the envious eyes of militant nations, practically undefended, save for its slender ring of circling ships. There it lay, a constant and irresistible lure, especially to that parvenu and predatory Germanic Power which had appeared upon the European scene, as the offspring of treachery and violence, in 1871. Thus those politicians—they were to be found in all parties—who refused to face the new conditions, ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... necessary, and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse; and unless a matter can hold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual demonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not lose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own trumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error in process of detection, for if evidence concerning any opinion has long been deemed superfluous, and ever after this comes to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... batches of bought peerages. But let the dead bury their dead. There was now a new lord in Minchampstead; and every country Caliban was finding, to his disgust, that he had 'got a new master,' and must perforce 'be a new man.' Oh! how the squires swore and the farmers chuckled, when the 'Parvenu' sold the Minchampstead hounds, and celebrated his 1st of September by exterminating every hare and pheasant on the estate! How the farmers swore and the labourers chuckled when he took all the cottages into his own hands and rebuilt them, set up a first-rate industrial ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... profession as a Dublin attorney, he found himself neglected and shunned by the gentry of his neighbourhood. To grow richer than those who thus insulted him, to blazon abroad reports of his wealth, and to watch opportunities of using it to their injury, became the means of revenge adopted by the parvenu. His legitimate income not promising a rapid accomplishment of this plan, he ventured, using precautions that seemingly set suspicion at defiance, to engage in smuggling-adventures on a large scale, for ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... discreet without losing its intensity in order to attract public notice. The painting of Mme. Henriette Browne is at an equal distance from grandeur and insipidity, from power and affectation, and gathers from the just balance of her nature some effects of taste and charm of which a parvenu in art ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... excuse the reminder that the sense in which we (almost exclusively) use this word, and which it had gained in French itself by the time of Talleyrand's famous double-edged sarcasm on person and world (Il n'est pas parvenu: il est arrive), was not quite original. The parvenu was simply a person who had "got on": the disobliging slur of implication on his former position, and perhaps on his means of freeing himself from it, came later. It is doubtful whether there is much, if indeed there is any, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... certain self-conceit and perkiness that called for physical correction. But even in our admonishment we were on his side; and as we distrustfully eyed these new arrivals, old Saturn himself seemed something of a parvenu. Even strangers, however, we may develop into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after all, were of the right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness and his wonderful sandals, was not long in winging his way to our hearts; Apollo knocked ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... property, and augmenting her resources, the Countess thought she might trust herself again in Paris, though a parvenu filled the throne which, in her view, was justly the property of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, but it always angers me to hear of a case like this where some ancient church is pulled down and a grand new one raised in its place to the honour and glory of some rich parvenu with or ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... think I've been chumming with? Sir Luke Griffin—the great Sir Luke. He's asked me down to his place in Leicestershire, and I think I shall go. He's really a very nice fellow. I always imagined him loud, vulgar, the typical parvenu. Nothing of the kind—no one would guess that he began life in a grocer's shop. Why, he can talk quite decently about pictures, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... roll out sonorously that, "It is the Ko-to-yah Congo." "It is the river of Congo-land." Alas for our classic dreams! Alas for Crophi and Mophi, the fabled fountains of Herodotus! Alas for the banks of the river where Moses was found by the daughter of Pharaoh! This is the parvenu Congo! Then we glided on and on past strange nations and cannibals—not past those nations which have their heads under their arms—for 1,100 miles, until we arrived at the circular extension of the river and my last remaining companion called it the Stanley ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... still living and some of them are even now extremely active. Thirty-five years ago steel manufacture was regarded, even in this country, as an almost exclusively British industry. In 1870 the American steel maker was the parvenu of the trade. American railroads purchased their first steel rails in England, and the early American steel makers went to Sheffield for their expert workmen. Yet, in little more than ten years, American mills were selling agricultural machinery in that same English ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... hither from Rimini by the ridiculously old-fashioned father to expiate his sins—his gambling debts, his multifarious and costly love-adventures, and the manslaughter of a carpenter whom he ran over in his car. [6] My favourite is a fat creature with a glorious fleshy face, the face of some Neronian parvenu—a memorable face, full of the brutal prosperity of Trimalchio's Banquet. He told me, yesterday, a long story about a local saint in one of their villages—a saint of yesterday who, curing diseases ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... son of the revolution should ally himself with a branch of the "corporation of tyrants." His marriage, in a word, was universally admitted to be a capital error in his political career. Mignet says:—"Napoleon quitted his position and part as a parvenu and revolutionary monarch, who had been acting in Europe against the ancient courts, as the republic had acted against the ancient governments; he placed himself in a bad situation with respect to Austria, which he ought to have crushed after ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
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