"Arrant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these wary guides entangled my affections was generally neither more nor less than a net of silken flattery. Your good guide, your dear guide, your pet guide, whom Neighbor So-and-so, going abroad, must look up immediately on his arrival, this invaluable creature, depend upon it, is an arrant flatterer. He does not go out of his way for you; he does not tell it you to your face; but, somehow or other, (if he knows his vocation,) he makes you believe, that, of all the travellers he ever escorted, (and he has been a travellers' escort from his infancy,) you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... individual capable of rendering it services so varied as he was capable of. He made power his game, and to the end of extending universal liberty to vagabonds, he had at his command the services of no less than four hundred and forty as arrant knaves as ever did bloodletting at elections, or managed the rascality necessary to the success of their candidate. They had given up the business of stealing; and being much in need of money and clean raiment, had taken to the more profitable occupation of president-making, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... with the wry, dazed look of a man who suddenly finds himself guilty of arrant stupidity, watching the cars whiz past on their way to the open country. Just ahead was the breach in the wall through which all trains entered or left the city. Into that breach shot the train, going faster and faster as it saw the straight, clear track beyond. He waited until the tail ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... call it—of being arrant asses," retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable—though of course it's only an opinion—that ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... needed but one quality to be perfect. He should have been an arrant coward. He was a blustering braggart, always boasting of the men he had slain, and the odds he had contended against; filled with stories of his own valour, but alas! he shot straight, and rarely missed his mark, unless he was ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... their chagrin at the events of the Exodus and the difference of their religious ideas."[1] Josephus deals with Manetho's description of the going-out from Egypt, and undertakes to demonstrate that "he trifles and tells arrant lies." He dissects the charge that the Hebrews were a pack of lepers exiled from the country, and insists upon its absurdity and the lack of consistency in the details. He offers ingenuously as a proof of the falsity of the allegation that Moses was a leper ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... Mr. Sumner, "Burke, Canning and Brougham, at successive periods unite in declaring, from the experience of the British West Indies, that whatever the slave-masters undertook to do for their slaves was always arrant trifling; that whatever might be its plausible form it always wanted the executive principle. More recently the Emperor of Russia, in ordering the emancipation of the serfs, declared that all previous efforts had failed because they had been left to the spontaneous initiative of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... carried in as she spoke, and she rose to seat herself at the table, giving a friendly smile at the trim maid who had replaced the arrant "housekeeper." ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... says Adam, crossing his arms, "here's the truth on't. I found a poor wretch bent on vengeance, murder, and a rogue's death, which was pure folly. I offered you riches, the which you refused, and this was arrant folly. I took you for comrade, brought you aboard ship with offer of honest employ which you likewise refused and here was more folly. Your conduct on board ship was all folly. So, despite yourself, I set you on a fair island with the right noble and handsome lady that you, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... fallen from his hand. Both arms wildly sawing the air, Ike shivered and shrank like the arrant craven he ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... nothing more to say one way or another. But you will surely think of asking a few likely young fellows over to the house, occasionally? We are not badly off for eldest sons in the neighbourhood; Molly, who is as arrant a little flirt, they tell me, as she is pretty, will be grateful to you for the attention, on the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... expressly, deliberately. But at the moment when head and body were severed, and fell into the trough, I groaned, and apprehended, not with my mind, but with my heart and my whole being, that all the arguments which I had heard anent the death-penalty were arrant nonsense; that, no matter how many people might assemble in order to perpetrate a murder, no matter what they might call themselves, murder is murder, the vilest sin in the world, and that that crime had been committed ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... her a line of Horace which she did not understand. "Don't let it take too much time from your other work," he warned her. "It's sure, you know, to be an arrant imitation of somebody, while in your other things you have never been anybody but yourself." He looked at her in a way that disarmed his words, and went back to ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... Arrant thieves as foxes are, with regard to their domestic virtues they eminently shine. Both parents take the greatest interest in rearing and educating their offspring. They provide, in their burrow, a comfortable nest, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... to our own imaginations nor according to abstract ideas of right; by no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Denzil, fostered by an arrant demagogue!" exclaimed Masaroon, with a contemptuous shake of his shoulder ribbons. "You hate the King because he ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... my felicity in their faces? Wait till I get used to it a trifle. I have done them a palpable wrong, but I can at least forbear to add insult to injury. I may be an arrant fool, but, for the moment, I have taken it into my head to be prodigiously pleased. I should n't be able to conceal it; my pleasure would offend them; so I lock myself ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... eavesdropped in silence. Tudie was full of scorn. Amelie's arguments were piffle or worse to her, and her willingness to undergo "martyrdom" for them was the most arrant pigheadedness, as the martyrdom of alien ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... look upon. And some were red against the sky, And some with colors true were gay, And some in shame were born to die, For Flags of hate must pass away. Such symbols fall as men depart, Brief is the reign of arrant might; The vicious and the vile at heart Give way in time ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... occurred. At length they bethought them of employing the court fool to communicate the disastrous intelligence. Accordingly, that dignified individual took an opportunity of remarking to the king that he considered the English arrant cowards. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... preacher is Jack, standing erect in his particolored pulpit with a sounding-board over his head; but he is a gay deceiver, a wolf in sheep's clothing,, literally a "brother to dragons," an arrant upstart, an ingrate, a murderer of innocent benefactors! "Female botanizing classes pounce upon it as they would upon a pious young clergyman," complains Mr. Ellwanger. A poor relation of the stately calla lily one knows Jack to be at a glance, her lovely white robe ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... a word can you get for your pains, Hervey," said a gentleman of his acquaintance, who joined the party at this instant. "Why didn't you stick to t'other muse, who, to do her justice, is as arrant a flirt as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... All of 'em looked a bit nervous. So there they stood talking, and at last I heard the Dean say, 'Well, I've no time to waste, Palmer. If you think this'll satisfy Southminster people, I'll permit it to be done; but I must say this, that never in the whole course of my life have I heard such arrant nonsense from a practical man as I have from you. Don't you agree with me, Henslow?' As far as I could hear Mr. Henslow said something like 'Oh! well we're told, aren't we, Mr. Dean, not to judge others?' and the Dean he gave a kind of sniff, and walked ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... is an arrant ass Who pays to ride up Kirkstone Pass, For he will find, in spite of talking, He'll have to walk and pay ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... a man of wit; To all things fitted, though for nothing fit; Scourge of the world, yet crouching for a name, And honour bartering for the breath of fame: Born to command, and yet an arrant slave; Through too much honesty a seeming knave; At all things grasping, though on nothing bent, And ease pursuing e'en with discontent; Through Nature, Arts, and Sciences he flies, And gathers truth to ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... teeth the nickname 'Buskin,' as descriptive of an endeavour on my part to fit both parties. But what of the man who pleases neither? What in heaven's name are we to call him? Yes! you—Critias? Under the democracy you were looked upon as the most arrant hater of the people, and under the aristocracy you have proved yourself the bitterest foe of everything respectable. Yes! Critias, I am, and ever have been, a foe of those who think that a democracy cannot reach perfection until slaves and those who, from poverty, would sell ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... windows thus prolong your shames, And to such arrant nonsense sign your names, The diamond quit—with me the pencil take, So shall your shame but short duration make; For lo, the housemaid comes, in dreadful pet, With red right hand, and with a dishclout wet, Dashes out all, nor leaves a wreck to tell Who 't was that wrote ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... later she married a shoemaker, by name Pigozzo—a base, arrant knave who beggared and ill-treated her to such an extent that her brother had to take her home and to provide for her. Fifteen years afterwards, having been appointed arch-priest at Saint-George de la Vallee, he took her there with him, and when I went to pay him a visit eighteen ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sir? Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker? Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but they've set me now to turning it into something else. Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-meddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... tongue-strings evidently loosened by the strange recurrence after so many years of those familiar English sounds, "Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!" opened his mouth again in a loud chuckle of delight, and cried, with persistent shrillness, "God save the king! A fig for all arrant knaves and roundheads!" ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... across the line, but they will never venture so far inland as Stockbridge for fear of being cut off, and if they do our militia is quite able for them. What mischief they can do safely they will do, but nothing else for they are arrant ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... smoking on the steps of the "Union Jack Club," with half a dozen other "young rakes of the fourth or fifth order." Two of Thackeray's own drawings in the "Book of Snobs"—in chapters three and nine—show men, one civil the other military, smoking cigars out of doors; but as these were no doubt arrant snobs, the drawings may be accepted as proof ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... artist. "The arrant hypocrite. She gives you tobacco, does she? Did you understand what we were ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... was highly necessary to afford an example to traitors and satisfaction to the people. And the people were thoroughly satisfied, according to the governor, and only expressed their regret that three or four members of the States-General could not have their heads cut off as well, being as arrant knaves as Henlart; "and so I think they be," ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this quarter, from men who are of no party, but well disposed to the present administration. How should it be otherwise, when no stone has been left unturned that could impress on the minds of the people the most arrant misrepresentation of facts; that their rights have not only been neglected, but absolutely sold; that there are no reciprocal advantages in the treaty; that the benefits are all on the side of Great Britain; ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... for greater security. Behind her a cherry-tree was dropping its snowy blossoms, and two or three had fallen unheeded upon her wavy brown hair, making a charming frame for the young eyes and tender lips whose smiling harmony seemed to sing with arrant roguishness. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Pointz be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... however, more than compensated by his wicked anticipation of the pretty perplexity of his fair friend when HE should appear at dinner with the flower in his own buttonhole. It would serve her right, the arrant flirt! But here he was interrupted by the entrance of a tall housemaid with ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... an extent monopolized the therapeutic use of water, and so much arrant nonsense has been talked in that pure element's name, that we are in danger of overlooking its wonderful value as a curative means. It is one of the most powerful agents at the command of the practitioner, and should no more he trifled with than arsenic or opium. Used ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... sudden impulse to gratify an abnormal passion, but these wretches planned weeks ahead to 'do up' Smith, yet such cowards were they, they dared not strike the blow, but hired the Marlboro tool to do it for them. Jenne, Howarth and Wilson, you are arrant cowards, and your weakness is only exceeded by the devilishness of ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... create difficulties in Freeland? Particularly he wished to know if Communism and Nihilism, which were ever raising their heads threateningly in Europe, gave no trouble here. 'In the eyes of a genuine Communist,' he cried, 'you are here nothing but arrant aristocrats! There is not a trace of absolute equality among you! What value can your boasted equality of rights have in the eyes of people who act upon the principle that every mouthful more of bread enjoyed by one than is enjoyed by another is theft; and who ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... is a good horse in the stable, but may make an arrant jade on the journey"—to paraphrase Goldsmith—and the only way in which these irreconcilable differences could be settled was by bullet and bayonet, which ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... (The), Simon Simkin, an arrant thief. Two scholars undertook to see that a sack of corn was ground for "Solar Hill College," without being tampered with; so one stood at the hopper, and the other at the trough below. In the mean time, Simon Simkin let loose the scholars' horse; and while ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to him. "O good dear sir!" cried he, "for pity's sake, hinder my master from falling upon those lions by all means, or we shall all be torn a-pieces."—"Why," said the gentleman, "is your master so arrant a madman, then, that you should fear he would set upon such furious beasts?"—"Ah, sir!" said Sancho, "he is not mad, but venturesome."—"Well," replied the gentleman, "I will take care of that;" and with that advancing up to Don Quixote, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... as a great philosophical principle, would be a mystery, if we did not know how infidelity perverts men's understandings, and, while puffing them up with infinite conceit of their own wisdom, transforms them into the most arrant and outrageous fools. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Ireland, driving them from their native shores, impoverishing the landlords without any perceptible benefit to the tenants, who appear to be no better off than ever. What surprised him most was the arrant nonsense talked by the English Gladstonians, and the blindness and apathy of the English people generally, who in his opinion were being gradually led to the brink of a frightful abyss, which threatened to swallow up the prestige and prosperity ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... doing, it was making a speech in English. He was considered quite clever at playing the organ in the little village church, singing the mass, teaching school, and a hundred other things, but at speaking English he was known as an arrant failure. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... can produce soups from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it carefully; and if we examine only a very little, and do not allow ourselves to be misled, we shall be able to see that the whole thing is the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community. What is the matter of popular sovereignty? The first thing, in order to understand it, is to get a good definition of what it is, and after that to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... heart he was an arrant coward, and the being met by a stranger, alone, close to nightfall and in the forest, filled him with the greatest terror. The words of ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... he loved—and her fifteen thousand pounds—by the very man who had robbed him of his ancestral fields? He dwelt on the double grievance till it nearly frenzied him. But he could do nothing: it was his fate. His only hope was that Sir Charles, the arrant flirt, would desert this beauty after a time, as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the testimony of Aubrey, who was at Stratford probably about the year 1680. He was an arrant and inveterate hunter after anecdotes, and seems to have caught up, without sifting, whatever quaint or curious matter came in his way. So that no great reliance can attach to what he says, unless it is sustained by other authority. But in this ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... to the islands, notably provisions and lumber. This mutual intercourse and dependence promoted a sympathy which was scarcely disguised in the West Indies during the War of Independence; indeed, Nelson wrote that many of the inhabitants were as arrant rebels as those who had renounced their allegiance. Under these conditions, when peace was restored, the old relations were readily resumed; and as there had really been considerable inconvenience and loss to the islanders ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... intentions were. An interview with him under such peculiar circumstances might have been painful had she been less courageous or less self-possessed; but to one with such lofty pride as hers, and filled as she was with such scorn of Leon, and convinced as she was that he was at heart an arrant coward, such an interview had nothing in it to deter her. Suspense was worse. She wished ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... a very jolly time, though I suppose I was an ingredient in your troubles. Yes, we brought ourselves up; but I maintain that it was better alternative than being drilled so hard as never to think of anything but arrant idling out of lesson-time.' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not wait to receive the dog. He was an arrant coward, and, more than that, he stood as much in fear of Marmion as if he had been a bear or panther. Uttering a cry of terror, he dropped the bridle, and, with one bound, disappeared in the bushes. Marmion ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... consanguinity. We would do well to analyze the causes which lead to our feelings of dislike, and I fear we should often find that wounded self-esteem was the root of the evil. And, after all, what a great matter a little fire kindleth! Let us quench the spark before it ignites. It is arrant folly, not to mention wickedness, to make enemies for the little while we are here. There is an incurable heartache which comes from such mistakes. Owen Meredith describes it in a poem, every verse of which throbs with hopeless ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and to be very polite to the ladies of the house, especially if they are very well-dressed and ignorant and vulgar. All women are like me in this respect; and all men more or less like you. That is, after all, the text of my sermon. Compared with us, it has always seemed to me that you are arrant cowards,—that we alone are brave. To be sociable, you must have a great deal of pluck. You are too fine a gentleman. Go and teach school, or open a corner grocery, or sit in a law-office all day, waiting for clients: then you will be sociable. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Ay, that is the name of the girl. An arrant flirt the little hussy is; but very pretty. Ay, Mary Barton is ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... heart and soul, the doings of the Anti-Colonization Meeting of colored freemen. From that time forth, the colored people generally have had no sympathy with the colonization scheme, nor confidence in its leaders, looking upon them all, as arrant hypocrites, seeking every opportunity to deceive them. In a word, the monster was crippled in its infancy, and has never as yet recovered from the stroke. It is true, that like its ancient sire, that was "more ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... in this place the glorious liberty of a republic, or more properly, an aristocracy, the common people being here as arrant slaves as the French; but the old nobles pay little respect to the doge, who is but two years in his office, and whose wife, at that very time, assumes no rank above another noble lady. 'Tis true, the family of Andrea Doria (that great man, who restored them ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... dashing officers, for the express purpose of hunting Morgan. It was completely disorganized and shattered by this defeat. A great deal of censure was cast at the time upon these men, and they were accused of arrant cowardice by the Northern press. Nothing could have been more unjust, and many who joined in denouncing them, afterward behaved much more badly. They attacked with spirit and without hesitation, and were unable to close with us on account of their ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... stigmatized as arrant cowards, who run away at the slightest provocation, their first thought being for the safety of their own skins. No doubt Chinese soldiers do run away—sometimes; at other times they fight to the death, as has been amply proved over and over ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... wrote to his children, 'Abhor the arrant whore of Rome.' John Brown writes to his children to abhor with undying hatred also the 'sum ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... fair in the cradle, Foul in the fable, 'Tis either too cold or too hot; An arrant liar, Fed by desire, It is ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... very early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... believe that you were such an arrant coward. You shall soon see where I go. It is seldom that man is seen or heard in this region, and the strange creatures marvel. That was one of the large night-hawks which so terrified your weak senses. Do ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... had not been in existence on the date impressed on the envelope, then the fraud would be quite apparent. And if there had been such fraud, then would the testimony of all those four witnesses be crushed into arrant perjury. They had produced the fraudulent document, and by it would be thoroughly condemned. There could be no necessity for ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... talking! You have such a reckless way. A warrant-officer, an arrant criminal! And your father, Sir Duncan Yordas, that very strange gentleman, who could never get warm! Oh, Robin, you always did talk nonsense, when—whenever I would let you. But you should not try to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... on this spot or that; hinting that here there was a weakness, and there . . . something worse. Every advanced thinker, and the majority of theorists, could count on finding a sympathetic listener in him: and not infrequently they found in him an advocate also; such an arrant anti-optimist was the pestilent fellow. As if Civilization, after thousands of years of travail, had produced nothing better than a clumsy abortion with the claws of an animal and the tastes of Jack-an-ape! Why, the ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... she ever allowed those qualities full expression. But she did not tell Beth that. The girl was so accustomed to despise herself and so suspicious of any creditable impulses that at times unexpectedly obtruded themselves, that she would have dismissed such a suggestion as arrant flattery, and Louise was clever enough not to wish to arouse her cousin to a full ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... wares) Its price, as well as conscience, bears. 120 Then marriage (as of late profess'd) Is but a money-job at best. Consent, compliance may be sold: But love's beyond the price of gold. Smugglers there are, who by retail, Expose what they call love, to sale, Such bargains are an arrant cheat: You purchase flattery and deceit. Those who true love have ever tried, (The common cares of life supplied,) 130 No wants endure, no wishes make, But every real joy partake, All comfort on themselves depends; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... his mates and thrashings from the teachers. On the one occasion when public opinion had driven him to put up his fists, he had been saved from disgrace only because the bully against whom he had turned proved to be an arrant craven. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighbouring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that the had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... was once more a cloak, and nothing more—I drew a long breath. "Ah, it is gone at last, thank God!"—and then aware of the strange effect my unaccountable incoherence must have had on the skipper, I thought to brazen it out by trying the free and easy line, which was neither more nor less than arrant impertinence in our relative positions. "Why, I have been heated a little, and amusing myself with sundry vain imaginings, but allow me to take wine with you, Captain," filling a tumbler with vinde—grave ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... path of your own, and you will be sure to attain success—far more so than if you attempt to follow in another's footsteps. Fracasse, as you represent him, loves and admires courage, and would fain be able to manifest it—he is angry with himself for being such an arrant coward. When free from danger, he dreams of nothing but heroic exploits and superhuman enterprises; but when any actual peril threatens him, his too vivid imagination conjures up such terrible visions of ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... is at Alton! What think you of that, Sir? Come to seek through copse and brake for the arrant deer-stealer and ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ann Arrant, in 1898 dat was, and us have three chillen but dey all dead. Us git sep'rate in 1917 and I marries Mary Durham in 1921, and us still livin' together. Us have no chillen. Mammy have ten chillen but I'm de only one what am livin' now, 'cause ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... if he did, so much the worser, or rather so much the better," retorted Madeleine. "He is an arrant skinflint." ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... How shamefully your guardian neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly the foolish young wife wept and implored their pity, the more pleasantly they smiled at her; ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... than I'll believe; and, to speak my mind plainly, I believe that you are an arrant, bamboozling hum-bug!" cried Tom. "No offence, though. ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... myself, "farewell to life; these accursed, arrant sorcerers will bear me to some nobleman's larder or cellar and leave me there to pay penalty by my neck for their robbery, or peradventure they will leave me stark-naked and benumbed on Chester Marsh or some other bleak and remote place." But on considering that those ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... of Prophesying [22] Taylor turns this way into mere ridicule. I love thee, Jeremy! but an arrant theological barrister that thou wast, though thy only fees were thy desires of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... meaning, to put themselves in connexion with what they call the invisible world, nay fancy, though they deem it an object of terrour, that they can master it thereby. In fact the greater part of mankind are crazed, without choosing to confess it: nay, the very wisdom of thousands is arrant madness." ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... were in prime condition; the meat was like really excellent beef, with a smack of venison. A troop of hungry, howling hyenas also thought the savour tempting, as they hung round the camp at night, anxious to partake of the feast. They are, fortunately, arrant cowards, and never attack either men or beasts except they can catch them asleep, sick, or at some other disadvantage. With a bright fire at our feet their presence excites no uneasiness. A piece of meat hung on a tree, high enough to make him jump to reach it, and a short spear, with its handle ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... people got out of his way as from a blast, and glad they could prove their two last years' conversation. The very breath of him was pestilential, and if it brought not imprisonment or death over such on whom it fell, it surely poisoned reputation, and left good Protestants arrant papists, and something worse than that, in danger of being put in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... part of the joke is that, while I was studying him, Bavois, without knowing it, restored my mind to its original state, and I was ashamed of myself when I realized that I had been the dupe of a Jesuit who was an arrant hypocrite, in spite of the character of holiness which he assumed, and which he could play with such marvellous ability. From that moment I fell again into all my former practices. But let us return to De ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he has two Companions, John and Jodocus, that match him to a Hair. And as for John, indeed I can't say he is an ill Man, for he has nothing at all of a Man about him but his Beard, not a Grain of Learning in him, and not much more common Prudence. And Jodocus he's so arrant a Sot, that if he were not ty'd up to the Habit of his Order, he would walk the Streets in a Fool's Cap with Ears ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... said; "but I hope to enjoy next year." And then I took half an hour to tell her that, in spite of the fact that she was the most arrant, deceitful, unreliable, two-faced and scuttling politician in the world, she was almost incredibly nice. She listened quite patiently, and at the end she held up her fingers. They'd ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... munition men are slackers, And some who store our food. While they dream of higher profits And of interest accrued. We condemn the youthful shirker And we say his heart's not right, But there's many an arrant slacker Not ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... young men stood rigid and silent, expectant of the fateful words which might bring their careers to a close. They knew that wild appeals for mercy and loud protestation would be of no avail, but would be looked upon as arrant cowardice; and as the moments went on, heavy and leaden winged, a strange feeling of rebellion against the cruelty of fate raised a sense of anger, and stubborn determination ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... strong, sound, passing, heavy, plenary, deep, high; signal, at its height, in the zenith. world-wide, widespread, far-famed, extensive; wholesale; many &c. 102. goodly, noble, precious, mighty; sad, grave, heavy, serious; far gone, arrant, downright; utter, uttermost; crass, gross, arch, profound, intense, consummate; rank, uninitiated, red-hot, desperate; glaring, flagrant, stark staring; thorough-paced, thoroughgoing; roaring, thumping; extraordinary.; important &c. 642; unsurpassed &c. (supreme) 33; complete &c. 52. august, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... He used to insist that as much was to be inferred from the handwriting as from the face. I showed him a letter from a man of great fame, and he saw genius in every stroke. I then produced a letter from an arrant blockhead and great knave, but so like the other as not to be distinguished, at least by my unphysiognomical discernment. He acknowledged that there was resemblance to an ignorant eye; but, said he, triumphantly, this (latter) could never have made that scratch, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... three should walk from the one end of London to the other, dine at Dolly's, & be in the Theatre at night; & as the Play would probably be bad, and as Mr. David Malloch, the Author, who has changed his name to David Mallet, Esq., was an arrant Puppy, we determined to exert ourselves ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... lives and dies without giving any sign whether he be an arrant coward, or a true-hearted, brave hero! One would have said of this man, a year since, that he was brave enough. He would stand up before a bench of judges, with the bar of England round him, and shout forth, with brazen trumpet, things that were true, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... arrant scoundrel," declared the young man angrily. "No gentleman would subject an ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... but an arrant humbug to affect to despise the honor that the world seems disposed to bestow upon us. I say us, for I cannot and will not take it all to myself. I may have been the originator of the idea, but I could have done nothing without your co-operation, dear friends. But this is very unprofitable ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... was that she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, asking that "this arrant foe of France, this churl, conspirator, and reviler of the Sacraments, be rendered unto our hands for well-deserved punishment as warning to all such evil-doers." She told Elizabeth of De la Foret's arrival in Jersey, disguised as a priest of the Church ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this affair from beginning to end appears to me like a case of arrant flirtation, to say the least of it—such a case as you would find it rather inconvenient to have blazoned through the world: especially with the additions and exaggerations of your female rivals, who would be too glad ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... has written a book, is above the unwriting average, and, as such, should be ranked mentally above them: no light research, and tact, and industry, and head-and-hand labour, are sufficient for a volume; even certain stolid performances in print do not shake my judgment; for arrant blockheads as sundry authors undoubtedly are, the average (mark, not all men, but the average) unwriting man is an author's intellectual inferior. All men, however well capable, have not perchance the appetite, nor the industry, nor the opportunity to fabricate ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... you are talking arrant nonsense," Dudley replied frigidly. "I don't know where in the world you get all your queer ideas. Woman's sphere is most decidedly the home; you seem to -" but a small hand was clapped vigorously over his mouth, and eyes of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... speaking of the man who acted as mate in the Laughing Lass. The journalist who—good heavens! What arrant stupidity! I have to beg your pardon, Mr. Darrow. It has just occurred to me. He called himself Eagen ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... even with Italian. There is a wider gap, and one implying greater boorishness, between ministerium and metier, or sapiens and sachant, than between druv and drove or agin and against, which last is plainly an arrant superlative. Our rustic coverlid is nearer its French original than the diminutive coverlet, into which it has been ignorantly corrupted in politer speech. I obtained from three cultivated Englishmen at different times three diverse ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... man without title! Lord Ronsdale told himself Miss Jocelyn Wray was no better than an arrant coquette, but the next moment questioned this conclusion. Had she not really been a little taken by the fellow? Certainly she seemed not averse to his company; when she willed, and she willed often, she summoned him to ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... common gossip be not an arrant jade. Her portrait had been taken by that same limner who, they say, has been taught in the devil's school, and can despatch a likeness with the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... river. There for three days he remained, subsisting on wild oranges, and then swam across again on a raft of sticks, in spite of the alligators and many fierce fish which abound in Paraguay. He got well, and, though lame, was, when I knew him, as arrant a little scrivening knave as you could hope ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... world is so censorious!" And Rufa, with her combs of lead, Whispers that Sappho's hair is red: Aura, whose tongue you hear a mile hence, Talks half a day in praise of silence; And Sylvia, full of inward guilt, Calls Amoret an arrant jilt. Now voices over voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies: They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak, and none to hearken, They set the very lap-dog barking; Their chattering makes a louder din Than fishwives o'er ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... vex me with your babblement; I am like to think you dote in your old age. Is it not arrant folly to pretend That gods would have a thought for this dead man? Did they forsooth award him special grace, And as some benefactor bury him, Who came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries, To sack their shrines, to desolate their land, And scout their ordinances? Or perchance The ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... consciousness that he was simply an irresponsible and thoughtless fool! He was without sense. Such was her brilliant and godlike husband, the man who had given her the right to call herself a married woman! He was a fool. With all her ignorance of the world she could see that nobody but an arrant imbecile could have brought her to the present pass. Her native sagacity revolted. Gusts of feeling came over her in which she could have thrashed him into ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... quasi venenum; Wine is poison to a sick body. A sick body is no sound body; ergo, wine is a pure thing, and is poison to all corruption. Try-lill! the hunters whoop to you. I'll stand to it: Alexander was a brave man, and yet an arrant drunkard. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... acts like an arrant scamp, And aids the contractor to rob the camp; Both of them serving the South in its sin, And all of them helping the devil ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Men! wiser Coxcombs. What, they wou'd have me train my Nephew up, a hopeful Youth, to keep a Merchant's Book, or send him to chop Logick in an University, and have him returned an arrant learned Ass, to simper, and look demure, and start at Oaths and Wenches, whilst I fell his Woods, and grant Leases: And lastly, to make good what I have cozen'd him of, force him to marry Mrs. Crump, the ill-favour'd Daughter of some Right Worshipful.—A ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... dead," said Basha, in a grim tone, "and mind you, we'll see trouble from this." Basha was an arrant rebel, and hated the very sight of a red coat. "What are you doing here," she continued, addressing him, "killin' honest folks, when you'd better 've staid cross seas in ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... 'Yes, I can divide your ballad, and make a distinction in it, and so prove at the least sedition in it.'—'Yea,' I said, 'you men of law will make of a matter what ye list.'—'Lo!' said Sir Richard Southwell, 'how he can give a taunt! You maintain the Queen's title with the help of an arrant heretic, Tyndale.'—'You speak of Papists there, sir,' said Mr Mason. 'I pray you, how define you a Papist?'—'Why,' said I, 'it is not long since you could define a Papist better than I.' With that some of them secretly smiled, as the Lord of ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and that thy love hath inspired me to write this sarcastical panegyric on thee; but thou art deceived: I value thee not of a farthing; nor will it give me any pain if thou shouldst prevail on the reader to censure this digression as arrant nonsense; for know, to thy confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other purpose than to lengthen out a short chapter, and so I ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... out of a suspected inn or alehouse, buys a horse in Smithfield, and hires a servant in Paul's, as the diverb is, shall likely have a jade to his horse, a knave for his man, an arrant honest woman to his wife. Filia praesumitur, esse matri similis, saith [6272]Nevisanus? "Such [6273]a mother, such a daughter;" mali corvi malum ovum., cat to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... are an arrant ring-maker and a horse-breaker; you'll make a hempen ring to break your own neck of a ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... his pupil gained the means of making what he pleased of himself; for his father having died, was not long survived by his eldest son, an arrant fisher and fowler, who departed this life, in consequence of a cold caught in his vocation, while shooting ducks in the swamp called Kittlefittingmoss, notwithstanding his having drunk a bottle of brandy that very night to keep the cold ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... snarling in a half-frightened, half-furious manner. But Baptiste was not to be daunted. Lifting his axe on high, he shouted at them in his choicest French, and charged upon the pack as though they had been simply a flock of marauding sheep. Wolves are arrant cowards, and without pausing to take into consideration the disparity of numbers, for they stood twelve to one, they fled ignominiously before the plucky Frenchman, not halting until they had put fifty yards between themselves and him. Whereupon Baptiste seized upon the ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... when drunk; and often excessively pious when recovering sobriety,—Steele reeled his way through life, and died with the reputation of being an orthodox Christian and a (nearly) habitual drunkard; the most affectionate and most faithless of husbands; a brave soldier, and in many points an arrant fool; a violent politician, and the best natured of men; a writer extremely lively, for this, among other reasons, that he wrote generally on his legs, flying or meditating flight from his creditors; and who embodied in himself the titles ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... exclaimed, as the other ended; "and a thousand pities is it that so honest a fellow should be so arrant a knave. But, Harry, we can never let him go at large after all, our loyalty and our religion forbid it. We must tack ship, and stand after him; if fair words won't bring him to reason, I see no other remedy ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... gathered over this brilliant prospect. The partner, whose persuasive tongue and brilliant imagination had induced Mr. Andrews to join him with his four thousand pounds, proved to be an arrant cheat and swindler; and Mr. Andrews's application to us for legal help and redress was just too late to prevent the accomplished dealer in moonshine and delusion from embarking at Liverpool for America, with every penny of the partnership funds in ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... declares; yea, with a design to bespatter the Presbyterian church of Scotland, a most scurrilous pamphlet was published at London, not only reflecting on our excellent reformers from popery, publishing arrant lies anent Mr. Alexander Henderson, abusing Mr. David Dickson, and breaking jests upon the remonstrators and presbyterians (as they called them), but also, in a most malicious and groundless kind of rhapsody, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... who know nothing of House to make things unpleasant for AKERS-DOUGLAS, because House Counted Out last Friday. Said he has been wigged; assume he will retire. All arrant nonsense. Everybody in House, Conservative, Liberal, Dissentient, Irish, whatever we be, all know AKERS-DOUGLAS as one of best Whips of present generation. Assiduous, persuasive, courteous, yet firm; always at his post, never fussy, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... says, speaking the words most softly, as if they greatly pleased him, and replacing with carefullest fingers a stray and arrant lock that has wandered from its fellows into my left eye. "What has come to you? Had I forgotten what you were like? How pretty you ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... A common fire, with a family meat pot hanging above, occupied the centre of the lodge. In one of these lodges the two brothers and their men were quartered. The summer passed feasting with the Mandans and smoking the calumet of peace; but all was in vain. The Missouri Indians were arrant cowards in the matter of war. The terror of their existence was the Sioux. The Mandans would not venture through Sioux territory to accompany the brothers in the search for the Western Sea. At last two guides were obtained, who promised to conduct the French to a neighboring tribe that ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... pass unchecked. It is certainly of great service to a public man, and it largely increases the estimation in which he is held, to establish such a character. It is no small detriment to Brougham that he is accounted an arrant coward; and it is remarkable that Peel never was known to deal in the insolence, and bullying, and offensive personalities in which the other has so copiously indulged, both in Parliament and at ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... lay rather with the common people than with the Irish aristocracy, who, he thought, were arrant "grafters." Of one in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... consequence of a threatening oracle, committed the government of his kingdom into the hands of a nobleman Philanax, and retired into a rural 'desert' along with his wife Gynecia and his daughters Philoclea and Pamela. Here they live in company with the 'most arrant dotish clowne' Dametas, his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, rustic characters which supply a coarsely farcical element in the plot, certainly no less out of place and inharmonious in the play than in the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... displayed rare military genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of Florence. Had he commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained inside the city, it is just possible that the fate of the war might have been less disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the Commander-in-Chief, turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret correspondence with Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who finally sold Florence to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... and with abuses; but so offended a wight as sir Amorous, did I never see, or read of. For taking away his guests, sir, to-day, that's the cause: and he declares it behind your back with such threatenings and contempts—He said to Dauphine, you were the arrant'st ass— ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... Greek stage, and of the palace in its rear which was its permanent set of scenery, so dwarfed the figures of the actors that buskins and padding were used in order to make the persons of the players more in keeping with their surroundings. With submission, I hold that this theory is arrant nonsense. Even on stilts ten feet high the actors still would have been, in one way, out of proportion with the background. If used at all in tragedy, buskins and pads probably were used to make the heroic characters of the drama ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... whimsical inclinations. In spite of her dreamy, girlish face she was imbued with a nature of silent firmness, a spirit of independence which prompted her to live apart; she never took things as other people did, but would one day evince perfect fairness, and the next day arrant injustice. She would sometimes throw the market into confusion by suddenly increasing or lowering the prices at her stall, without anyone being able to guess her reason for doing so. She herself would refuse to explain her motive. By the time she reached her thirtieth year, her ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... boat," says the narrative, "we found more than seven hundred natives, who had assembled from all directions. They began by demanding stuffs and iron in exchange for their wares, and soon some of them proved themselves arrant thieves. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... it would be arrant folly to send her there. How do we know she has any more talent for ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... yourselves arrant knaves, I doubt not," answered the baron; "but, villains, you shall be more grievously bruised by me than ever was the sheriff by my daughter (a pretty tale truly!), if you do not forthwith ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... doctor," he said heartily. "I value that sort of compliment. But I didn't want to go away from here and leave you to think me an arrant coward. The truth is, I shouldn't have been of much use to Mac or to myself. I'm not swimming, this summer, for I was unlucky enough to break my arm, last June, and it's not at ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Sinclair passed out of the door, he heard the company laugh long and loud at the supposed imposition he had attempted to practise upon Mr. Grump, the 'worthy host.' Now be it known that this Mr. Grump was one of the most arrant scoundrels that ever went unhung. Low-bred and vulgar, he had made a fortune by petty knavery and small rascalities. He was a master printer; one of those miserable whelps who fatten on the unpaid labor of those ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... a case of arrant cruelty to a man of my temper," said the Prince. "To be expected to behave like an ordinary creature, with grins and smiles and decent paces, when I have just heard what I have longed to hear for years. But I will revenge myself by making a noise ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... this war the monstrous theories of divine right propounded by the House of Hohenzollern will be relegated to the lumber-room of a vanished past. But the sooner references to St. Helena as a residence for deposed emperors are dismissed as arrant nonsense, the better. The future of German dynasties, as of German Unity, rests with the German people itself; and those who challenge this statement repudiate ipso facto the two principles of Nationality and International Law, which we have officially adopted ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... stupid she was, how stupid! Why shout it at the master if he hadn't noticed anything? Ay, now she had told him plainly enough—"I hate you!" And he, poor man (may God console him!), what did he do? Was it a laughing or a crying matter? Marianna ['S]roka did not know if she should think "Oh, you arrant fool!" or if she should wish, "If only he were my husband, or, at least, my lover." For the gospodarz was good, thoroughly good; he wouldn't stint, her—her and her two little ones. That woman was really too nasty. She didn't deserve such ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... nor uttered a word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and said, "I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world remove it, or make me think otherwise—and he would be a blockhead who would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master Elisabad ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sighed again, so that it was piteous to hear him. He was certainly an arrant puppy, and an egregious ass into the bargain; but then, it must be remembered in his favour that he was only twenty-one, and that much had been done to spoil him. Miss Dunstable did remember this, and therefore ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... she has offended him. And the man of the London slum is a very natural beast who expresses himself in a very natural manner. He has never heard of Hero and Leander, and the comparison of the missus' eyes to the stars would to him be arrant bosh. The gentle, tender, considerate male is an artificial product. And so is the romantic lover, who is fashioned by the love traditions which come down to him and by the erotic literature to which ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... Francis Bacon mainly indebted for his elevation from one legal rank to another, until he reached the seat of the Lord Chancellor. A man whom Villers declared, "of excellent parts, but withal of a base and ungrateful temper, and an arrant knave, yet a fit instrument for the purposes of the government." He did not receive his appointment for that vast, hard-working genius which makes his name the ornament of many an age, but only for his sycophantic devotion to the royal will. Sir Edward ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... a faint, and when I attacked Bulan he dropped you to defend himself. I had expected a bitter fight from him after the wild tales the natives have been telling of his ferocity, but it was soon evident that he is an arrant coward, for I did not even have to fire my revolver—a few thumps with the butt of it upon his brainless skull sent him howling into the jungle with his pack at ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Person wearing the Feather, tho our Friend took him for an Officer in the Guards, has proved to be [an arrant Linnen-Draper. [1]] ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
