"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentlemen—which could not have increased their good humour, though Tupman assisted him from within to stand up and address the mob. We are told that "all Mr. Tupman's entreaties to have the lid of the vehicle closed" were unattended to. He felt the ridicule of his position—a sedan chair carried along, and a stout man speaking. This must have produced friction. Then there was the sense of injustice in being charged with aiding and abetting his leader, which Mr. Pickwick did not attempt to clear him from. When Mr. Pickwick fell through ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... untried conditions of town life trammeled and constrained her. She had a certain pride, and she feared she continually offended against the canons of metropolitan taste. In every passing face she saw surprise, and she fancied contempt. In every casual laugh she heard ridicule. Her brain was a turmoil of conflicting anxieties, hopes, resolutions, and in addition these external demands upon her attention served to intensify her absorbing emotions and to irritate her nerves rather than to divert or soothe them. She had escaped ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... "Qu'as-tu?" il rpondait en sanglotant: "Je n'ai rien." Et, le plus curieux, c'est qu'il n'avait rien. Il pleurait comme on se mouche, plus souvent, voila tout. Quelquefois M. Eyssette, exaspr, disait ma mre: "Cet enfant est ridicule, regardez-le!... c'est un fleuve." A quoi Mme Eyssette rpondait de sa voix douce: "Que veux-tu, mon ami? cela passera en grandissant; son ge, j'tais comme lui." En attendant, Jacques grandissait; il grandissait beaucoup mme, et cela ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... musicians and the great painters live in their work in a singularly vivid sense. Music and painting are more direct in popular appeal than great poetry. Yet none can ridicule the sentiment which is embodied in the statue of Beethoven at Bonn, or in that of Paolo Veronese at Verona. To accept literally the youthful judgment of Milton and his imitators is to condemn sentiments and practices which are in universal vogue among civilised peoples. It is to deny to the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... meaning is so universal that no one can miss it. Most of us have, in all likelihood, at some time pretended to know what we do not know or to be what we are not in order to save our face, to avoid the censure or ridicule of others. "There is much concerning which people dare not speak the truth, through cowardice, through fear of acting otherwise than 'all the world,' through anxiety lest they should appear stupid. And the story is eternally new ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... would meet your approbation. I found it strongly the sentiment of West, Copely, Trumbull, and Brown, in London; after which it would be ridiculous to add, that it was my own. I think a modern in an antique dress, as just an object of ridicule, as a Hercules or Marius with ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... his friend out of the restaurant; and as they walked home together he listened to his grave and dignified admonitions, and though John could not touch Mike's conscience, he always moved his sympathies. It is the shallow and the insincere that inspire ridicule and contempt, and even in the dissipations of the Temple, where he had come to live, he had not failed to enforce respect for ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... you for violating the five precepts, how hath he raised up the Franks who ridicule them? If he governeth the earth by the Koran, by what did he govern it before the days of the prophet, when it was covered with so many nations who drank wine, ate pork, and went not to Mecca, whom he nevertheless permitted to raise powerful ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... were all the fashion and to be expected; yet they stung authors almost to madness, as in the case of the review of Byron's early poetry. Literary courtesy did not exist. Justice gave place generally to ridicule or sarcasm. The Edinburgh Review was a terror to all pretenders, and often to men of real merit. But it was published when most judges were cruel and severe, even in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... a loss to understand, sir, how you can have no more tact than to speak to a near connection of a family whom you tried to brand with shame and ridicule by a trick which no one but an artist could devise. Understand this, sir, that from to-day we must be complete strangers to each other. Mme. la Comtesse Popinot, like every one else, feels indignant at your behavior ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... noble the instincts, the more able its victim is to say—'See: I feel what I ought, I say what I ought, I do what I ought: and what more would you have? Why do you Philistines persist in regarding me with distrust and ridicule? What is this common honesty, and what is this "single eye," which you suspect me of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... civilian, and to return another sixteen, smarting, from a fool's errand, is (one must admit) excusably trying to the military temper. Smellie, to be sure, and Smellie alone, had been discomfited. Smellie's discomfiture had been so signally personal as to divert all ridicule from the Dragoons. Smellie, moreover, had made himself ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... language, and the extravagance of their notions, exposed them to ridicule; their zeal for reform, by interfering with the interests of several different bodies at the same time, multiplied their enemies; and, before the dissolution of the house, they had earned, justly or unjustly, the hatred ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... being thrown on to the horse's neck. The power which controls and disciplines sensational experience is, in modern literature, daily denied; the counterpart of this power which envisages the ideal in the conduct of one's own or the nation's affairs and unfalteringly pursues it is held up to ridicule. Opportunism in politics has its complement in opportunism in poetry. Mr Lloyd George's moods are reflected in Mr ——'s. And, beneath these heights, we have the queer spectacle of a whole race of very young poets who somehow expect to attain poetic intensity by the physical ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... seeks to create that interest and engross attention by fostering thoughts that appeal to the passions with no uncertain voice. Even when such works do not openly attack faith or the sanctity of morals, they seek to convey the subtle poison of unbelief or corruption by covert insinuation, by ridicule, by ignoring religious truth and supernatural motives as unworthy of consideration, more effectually and fatally, than they would have done by open ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... men agreed that the danger would take. That prelate was on the point, indeed, of complying with their request, and would have done so, but that some members of the Academy explained to him that by so doing he would excite ridicule. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... place admits of it may stretch out a helping hand, or lift an admonitory voice, or proffer a little encouragement to strengthen the things that remain, and which are ready to die: if so, both the helper and the helped will be marked out for ridicule and reviling, if for ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... herself, had taught her to feel in some degree for others, the capricious love of rule, which nature had planted and habit had nourished in her heart, was not subdued. She could not now deny herself the gratification of tyrannizing over the innocent and helpless Emily, by attempting to ridicule the taste she could ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... first appearance of Wiseman's pastoral letter, that the whole scheme was so ridiculous, the affectation of power so contemptible, the change of Vicars Apostolic into Bishops and Archbishops, so impotent for evil to Protestants, while it might possibly be of use to Roman Catholics, that ridicule and contempt were the only fit arms for the occasion. But when he came to consider the chief cause of the measure—that is, the great and growing evil of Tractarianism—of an established clergy becoming ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... subject, and offered an amendment to the civil appropriation bill to appropriate $100,000 for a suitable building for the department of agriculture on the reservation mentioned. There was a disposition in the Senate to ridicule Newton and his seeds, and Mr. Fessenden opposed the appropriation as one for an object not within the constitutional power of Congress. The amendment, however, was adopted on the 28th day of February, 1867. Newton died on the 19th of June of that year, but on the 22nd of August, John ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of the Prophesy of Nereus. Horace, Book I. Ode XV.—This was written about the year 1715, and intended as a ridicule upon the enterprize of the earl of Marr; which he prophesies will be crushed by the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... be supposed from this little sketch of a characteristic scene that I wish to ridicule any form of religion. I saw precisely what I state, and am in no way responsible for it. If people imagine this sort of thing does them any good, they are quite welcome to enjoy it; but they must not expect every body else to be impressed with the profound sensations of solemnity ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... regular meetings is earnestly solicited, yet it is not meant that Freemasonry should interfere with your necessary vocations, for these are on no account to be neglected; neither are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it. ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... greatest generals in France began their careers of conquest. He had neither eloquence nor imagination; but substituted in their stead a miserable, affected, bombastic style, which, until other circumstances gave him consequence, drew on him general ridicule. Yet against so poor an orator, all the eloquence of the philosophical Girondists, all the terrible powers of his associate Danton, employed in a popular assembly, could not enable them to make an effectual resistance. It may seem trifling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... back as 1906, the Daily Mail had offered a prize of L10,000 to the first aviator who should accomplish this journey, and, for a long time, the offer was regarded as a perfectly safe one for any person or paper to make—it brought forth far more ridicule than belief. Punch offered a similar sum to the first man who should swim the Atlantic and also for the first flight to Mars and back within a week, but in the spring of 1910 Claude Grahame White and Paulhan, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... usual habits, and I was kept back from fear of what my companions would say. How miserable and contemptible is such a feeling! We are not afraid of displeasing our all-beneficent Creator, or appearing ungrateful for His mercies, and we are afraid of the ridicule of our fellow-men, or even of a sneer from the lips of those we despise the most. I dare say, if the truth were known, that McAllister, Bambrick, and others felt exactly as I did, and yet we were positively afraid of showing ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... means you will benefit the state, and improve the morals of society. The most wholesome truths may be told with pleasantry. Satire, to be severe, needs not to be scurrilous. The approval of the judicious will always follow the ridicule which is directed against error, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was in giving a pleasant bodily, sensation by rubbing each other on the breast, abdomen, and limbs, or by a hug. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to which it prevails in the United States is a subject of ridicule by foreigners. The Chinese, with a higher conception of politeness, shake their own hands. The account of a recent observer of the meeting of two polite Celestials is: "Each placed the fingers of one hand over the fist of the other, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... age, is making experiments with adults, seeing through them, with marvellous shrewdness making his own valuations and reacting sensitively to each impression. The slightest mistrust, the smallest unkindness, the least act of injustice or contemptuous ridicule, leave wounds that last for life in the finely strung soul of the child. While on the other side unexpected friendliness, kind advances, just indignation, make quite as deep an impression on those senses which people term as soft as wax but ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... inquiries he gave the answer that he was about to die, and must prepare for it. In vain they tried to persuade him that his health was as good as ever, that he was only the subject of a nervous fancy. The physician arrived, and laughed at his fears, but he heeded neither ridicule nor entreaties. Death was not a thing to be laughed or entreated away, and to death he was doomed. What did it signify what the world said about it? He must make ready for it. His solicitor was called in, and his worldly affairs settled. Wife and children ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... necessities? But, in the mean while—to proceed—his circumstances were becoming utterly desperate. He continued to endure great suffering at Mr. Tag-rag's during the day—the constant butt of the ridicule and insult of his amiable companions, and the victim of his employer's vile and vulgar spirit of hatred and oppression. His spirit, (such as it was,) in short, was very nearly broken. Though he seized every opportunity ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... their false custom, Immoral ditties are their delight; Vain and tasteless praise they recite; Falsehood at all times do they utter; The innocent persons they ridicule; Married women they destroy, Innocent virgins of Mary they corrupt; As they pass their lives away in vanity, Poor innocent persons they ridicule; At night they get drunk, they sleep the day; In idleness without work they feed themselves; The Church they ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... amorous of corruption; not Poe was more spellbound by the scent of graveyard earth. So Beddoes has written a new Dance of Death, in poetry; has become the chronicler of the praise and ridicule of Death. 'Tired of being merely human,' he has peopled a play with confessed phantoms. It is natural that these eloquent speakers should pass us by with their words, that they should fail to move us by their sorrows or their hates: ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... good effect of the feeling he had previously displayed for his uncle was lost, and Lord Erymanth observed, in his most dry and solemn manner, "There are some people who can see nothing but food for senseless ridicule in the dangers ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... secured, and but one of these received any benefit from the tutor; and this benefit came, according to the scholar, from the master's supplying an excellent object for ridicule. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... deeds of knight-errantry. These tales of frontier life are, however, as a rule, characterized by such wildness of fancy and such extravagancy of language that we have often wondered why another Cervantes did not ridicule our border romances by describing a second Don Quixote's adventures on the prairies. We are pleased to notice, that in the new series of Frontier Tales, by Lee & Shepard, there is an agreeable absence of sensational writing, of that maudlin sentimentality which ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... reputations, but to inflict a serious injury upon religion. (See "A Just and Modest Reproof of a pamphlet called The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence," pp. 36, 38. Edin. 1693.)—No one is more perseveringly held up to ridicule in it than the Rev. James Kirkton, whose character as a man of talents, and possessing a sound judgment, has been since sufficiently vindicated by the publication of his "Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland." Kirkton takes notice of the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, and informs ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... punish him, I can see!" His eyes, looking down into hers, were soft and shining, and held that little twinkle of tender ridicule which he seemed to reserve for her. She no longer resented it, however. She knew the loyalty that tempered it. She said in the same ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... is interesting to me,' said Ida, with a look that told him she was not one of those young ladies who enjoy a little good-natured ridicule of their nearest and dearest. 'Is it long since ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... You ridicule my enthusiasm, my dear Temple, without considering there is no exertion of the human mind, no effort of the understanding, imagination, or heart, without a ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... luggage. As she slowly came upstairs she heard her husband go into the drawing-room. Was he waiting for her there? or did he wish to avoid her? When she reached the broad landing she hesitated. She was half inclined to go in audaciously, to laugh in his face; turn his fury into ridicule, tell him she was the sort of woman who is born to do as she likes, to live as she chooses, to think of nothing but her own will, consult nothing but her whims of the moment. But she went on and ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... assemblies at Washington, and must here, after a second visit, and so much experience as my opportunities afforded, enter my protest against the sweeping ridicule it has pleased some writers to cast upon these doings here; since I saw none of those outrageously unpresentable women, or coarsely habited and ungainly men, so amusingly arrayed by some of my more observant predecessors. I can only account for it by referring to the rapid changes ever ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... others, however, with a serene face, showing no trace of the emotion which welled up strongly from his heart. Nell glanced shyly at him; Kate playfully voiced her admiration; Jim met him with a brotherly ridicule which bespoke his affection as well as his amusement; but Colonel Zane, having once yielded to the same burning, riotous craving for freedom which now stirred in the boy's heart, understood, and felt warmly drawn toward the lad. He said nothing, though as he watched Joe his eyes were grave ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... "I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken, but though I expect ridicule and censure, I do not fear them. A few years hence the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest, but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity, long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... its impracticability, and proceeded to condemn it with more than his ordinary irritability and brusquerie. Finding, however, that the emperor was not to be argued out of the idea of holding a labor conference, he proceeded to ridicule it, and what was worse, to cause it to be scoffed at and treated with derision as the vaporings of an inexperienced and altogether too generous-minded youth, in German as well as foreign papers, which William knew derived their inspiration from the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... endeavour to conceal it by all possible means. If he is ambitious, he must feign great contempt for dignities; if he seeks employment, he must not appear to want any; if his features are handsome, he must be careless of his physical appearance; he must dress badly, wear nothing in good taste, ridicule every foreign importation, make his bow without grace, be careless in his manner; care nothing for the fine arts, conceal his good breeding, have no foreign cook, wear an uncombed wig, and look rather dirty. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... It is surely to be regretted that this was the case; and, effective as his sketch of the Custom House is, one feels that Hawthorne stooped in taking his literary revenge on his humble associates by holding them up to personal ridicule. The tone of pleasantry veils ill feeling, which is expressed without cover in a letter he wrote to Bridge a day or two before ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... now permitted, from Christian charity. Such characters as these, reckless of every thing sacred, do not hesitate to make a jest of the missionaries, whose extraordinary plans and regulations offer many weak points to the shafts of ridicule. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... was observed by some reviewer, that Hume himself, had he been alive, would doubtless have highly enjoyed the joke! But even those who have the greatest delight in ridicule, do not relish jokes at their own expense. Hume may have inwardly laughed, while mystifying his readers with arguments which he himself perceived to be futile. But he did not mean the readers to perceive this. And it is not likely that he would have been amused at seeing his own fallacies ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... odd laugh. "Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU?" She put the question with such a fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... interest in them. He would have liked to have left them behind altogether, and even tried to laugh Beth out of what he called her sentimental attachment to odds and ends; but as most of the things had belonged to Aunt Victoria, she took his ridicule so ill that he wisely let the subject drop. He had been somewhat hasty in his estimation of the value of the contents of the boxes, however, for there were some handsome curios, a few miniatures and pictures of great artistic merit, some rare ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... him, as to the manner of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, &c., and their surprise at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule, which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant, and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if there were, or any servant to wait, or any ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... advice given to him by Audley Egerton. "Never let the dandies call you a prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails through life, because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken could make his claqueurs, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are, avoid the fault of most reading men: in a word, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was requisite, when framing a device, lest any part of it could be turned into ridicule by a witty or spiteful enemy. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, bore a flint and steel, with the motto, Ante ferit quam flamma micet (As he strikes, the fire flashes); and when defeated, and slain at the battle of Nancy, the day being cold, with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... dependent upon scientific investigation for evidence that the dead still live. Hundreds of people are sufficiently sensitive to have some personal knowledge of the matter. The number is far beyond what it appears to be for two reasons. One is that the average person fears ridicule and keeps his own counsel about his occult experience. The other is the feeling that communications from departed relatives are too sacred and personal for public discussion. Tens of thousands of people have seen demonstrations ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... I soon reached my destination. I was now in less agitation than on the day before. My mind was made up; I came to give what she asked. Wetter should have his Embassy. More than this, I came no longer in trepidation, no longer fearing her ridicule even while I sought her love, no more oppressed with the sense that in truth she might be laughing while she seemed to encourage. There was the dawning of triumph in my heart, an assurance of victory, and the fierce delight in a determination come to at great cost and to be held, it may ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... superstition is only struck when we have not only proved that men have been deceived, but shown besides how they came to be deceived; when science has explained the optical delusion, and shown the physiological state in which such apparitions become visible. Ridicule will not do it. Disproof will not do it. So long as men feel that there is a spirit-world, and so long as to some the impression is vivid that they have seen it, you spend your rhetoric in vain. You must show the truth that lies below ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... nor, as far as I can learn, ever reached the hands of the illustrious German. It is written in the poet's most whimsical and mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule compels me to deprive the reader of some of its ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... bedding. There was scarcely any crockery, pewter and tin being its substitutes; and as for chairs there was only one, and that had rockers: a practice of New England that has gradually diffused itself over the whole country, looking down ridicule, the drilling of boarding-schools, the comments of elderly ladies of the old school, the sneers of nurses, and, in a word, all that venerable ideas of decorum could suggest, until this appliance of domestic ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... in any or all of the foregoing points, it should be easy to disprove his assertions. It would be better to do this than to ridicule or ignore them, and it would even be better than to issue reports, signed by authorities, which commend the ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... flowing freely and that all are partaking of it. She feels that she can never consent to drink. It is something she has never done in her life. Yet she dares not refuse, for all the others are drinking, and she knows that to refuse would bring upon herself the ridicule ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. He seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at his face, Kuzmitchov ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Ridicule is a weak weapon, when levelled at a strong mind; But common men are cowards, and dread an empty laugh. 1513 TUPPER: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... endured," wrote Lincoln not long before his death, "a great deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of kindness not quite free from ridicule." On Easter Day, 1865, the world knew how little this ridicule, how much this kindness, had really signified. Thereafter, Lincoln the man became Lincoln ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Russia—what would foreigners think of it? The liberal elements, however, the critical Belinsky among them, welcomed it as a revelation, as an omen of a freer future. Gogol, who had meant to do a service to Russia and not to heap ridicule upon her, took the criticisms of the Slavophiles to heart; and he palliated his critics by promising to bring about in the succeeding parts of his novel the redemption of Chichikov and the other "knaves and blockheads." But the "Westerner" Belinsky and others of the liberal camp ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to say, "No, they shall not all be in vain," when he heard the fellows on the walk outside. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead, as he considered the consequences should he refuse to go with them. Strong as he was, he had a fear of ridicule. To be laughed at, to be ostracized by the set he admired, was more than he could endure. Like many another brave fellow, fearless in every respect but one, he was an arrant coward before that one overpowering fear of being ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fear of the rope was less than his dread of the ridicule of the men, for Bannon saw him preparing to come down after the next load. He took a long time getting ready, but at last they started him. He was the color of a handful of waste when he reached the ground, and he staggered as he walked with Bannon over to the office. He dropped into ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... of them is that of a friend to me now. We'll shake again. Good-by;" and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the "new-fangled truck." I managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a rough diamond is better than a smooth paste ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... judgment. Upon examining the proofs which seem to establish, and the arguments which combat, the existence of God, some persons have doubted and withheld their assent. But this uncertainty arises from not having sufficiently examined. Is it possible to doubt any thing evident? Sensible people ridicule an absolute scepticism, and think it even impossible. A man, who doubted his own existence, or that of the sun, would appear ridiculous. Is this more extravagant than to doubt the non-existence of an evidently impossible being? Is it more absurd to doubt one's own ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... ancestral attitude—in the splendid pose which they had handed down like an heirloom through the centuries. Among them he saw the comely, high-coloured features of that gallant cynic, Bolivar, the man who had stamped his beauty upon threegenerations, and his gaze lingered with a gentle ridicule on the blithe candour in the eyes and the characteristic touch of brutality about the mouth. Then he passed to his father, portly, impressive, a high liver, a generous young blood, and then to the classic Saint—Memin profile of Aunt Susannah, limned ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... often happens. These jokes and ridicule are quite usual occurrences. I expect he is still here. But we may ask. ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... Corsican was not improved by the teasing he frequently experienced from his comrades, who were fond of ridiculing him about his Christian name Napoleon and his country. He often said to me, "I will do these French all the mischief I can;" and when I tried to pacify him he would say, "But you do not ridicule me; ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... touching the well-meant attempts to entertain the Governor and his lady in the provincial town of Halifax,—a disposition to turn, in short, upon the demonstrations of loyal worship the faint light of ridicule. There were those upon the boat who were journeying to Halifax to take part in the civic ball about to be given to their excellencies, and as we were going in the same direction, we shared in the feeling of satisfaction which proximity ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... eventual beauty of the effect, but only the blind instinct of self-expression. Hence an untrained and not naturally sensitive mind cannot distinguish or produce anything good. This critical incapacity has always been a cause of failure and a just ground for ridicule; but it remained for some thinkers of our time — a time of little art and much undisciplined production — to erect this abuse into a principle and declare that the essence of beauty is to express ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... services, he has given me a warrant to go straight to Paradise, without tarrying one moment in Purgatory." At these words the king and all the haggard train gave a ghastly grin, to escape from laughing outright; but the other full of wrath at their ridicule, commanded them aloud to show him the way. "Peace, thou lost fool!" cried Death, "Purgatory lies behind you, on the other side of the wall, for you ought to purify yourself during your life; and on the right hand, on the ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... this, that through her Woman's Voice from out the Tumult there breathes the common sense of the French people, which has shaken off the sophisms of ideology and rhetoric. This free vision, living, thrilling, never deceived, is sensitive to every hint of suffering or ridicule. For in the sightless epic which racks the nations of Europe, every type of experience abounds: great exploits and great crimes, sublime acts of devotion and sordid interests, heroes and grotesques. If to laugh be permissible, if it be French to laugh amid the worst trials, how ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... antiquity of the Scottish Terrier is a thing which means that he who tries it must be prepared to meet all sorts of abuse, ridicule, and criticism. One man will tell you there never was any such thing as the present-day Scottish Terrier, that the mere fact of his having prick ears shows he is a mongrel; another, that he is merely an offshoot of the Skye or the Dandie; ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the doctrine may be, and however unnecessary the interpretation on which it is pretended. I confess, had I been in Luther's place, I would not have rested so much of my quarrel with the Papists on this point; nor can I agree with our Arminian divines in their ridicule of Transubstantiation. The most rational doctrine is perhaps, for some purposes, at least, the 'rem credimus, modum nescimus'; next to that, the doctrine of the Sacramentaries, that it is 'signum sub rei nomine', as when we call a portrait of Caius, Caius. But of all the remainder, Impanation, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mad!" exclaims the King. And all the courtiers exhibited by their countenances and expressions, marks of surprise, or ridicule, or ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laugh when misery and danger are over, and it would be easy to turn this matter into ridicule, but from that hour to this the wooden cross which turned the flood of my feelings then into a saving channel has never left me. I keep it, not indeed for what it was, but ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... belonged to a large group of provincial Taira who were at once discontented because their claims to promotion had been ignored, and deeply resentful of indignities and ridicule to which their rustic manners and customs had exposed them at the hands of their upstart kinsmen in Kyoto. Moreover, it is not extravagant to suppose, in view of the extraordinary abilities subsequently shown by Tokimasa, that he presaged the instability of the Taira edifice long before any ominous ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you'll soon be dry and warm," Dick called backward over his shoulder. The four who had been badly wet ran heavily now, yet afraid of ridicule if they fell out. They were having their first taste of High School sports, which made no allowance ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... their device by many nations for serious practical use. But it would be unjust to claim for them entire priority in the field of the glider and the heavier-than-air machine. Professor Langley preceded them with an airplane which, dismissed with ridicule as a failure in his day, was long after his death equipped with a lighter motor and flown by Glenn Curtis, who declared that the scientist had solved the problem, had only the explosive engine been perfected in ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... hereditary succession; and as the first is a lessening of ourselves, so the second might put posterity under the government of a rogue or a fool. Nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule. England since the Conquest hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones." "In short, monarchy and succession have laid not England only, but the world, in blood and ashes." (Bancroft's ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... or a whole octave. In these extreme modes the wave frequently is given a wider interval in the second movement than in the first, and its effect intensified by the appropriate use of stress, and (for the expression of such emotions as scorn, contempt, irony, ridicule, and so on) of the impure qualities of voice. When used with intervals of the second, the characteristics of direct and inverted forms lose some of their distinctness; but in this degree the wave is effectively used to put into relief ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... general too hasty and morbidly impressionable. He would put his whole soul into some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on its result. This was the subject of some ridicule in the legal world, for just by this characteristic our prosecutor had gained a wider notoriety than could have been expected from his modest position. People laughed particularly at his passion for psychology. In my opinion, they were wrong, and our prosecutor ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... respond for words spoken in debate, and recommended the gentlemen who had indulged in such preposterous threats "to study a little the first principles of civil liberty," excoriating them until they actually arose and tried to explain away their own language. He cast infinite ridicule upon the unhappy expression of Dromgoole, "giving color to an idea." Referring to the difficulty which he encountered by reason of the variety and disorder of the resolutions and charges against him with which "gentlemen ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... spiritual director. It is, however, true, that her intimacy with this monk gave room for some suspicion that her privacies with him were not all employed about the care of her soul. Afterward, to ridicule her yet more, King Albert sent her a hone to sharpen her needles, and swore not to put on his nightcap until she had yielded to him. But under perilous circumstances Margaret was never at a loss how to act. She acted here with the utmost prudence, trying ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... into Dennison's throat; a murderous fury boiled up in him; but he remembered in time what these volcanic outbursts had cost him in the past. So he did not rush to the chart house. Cunningham would lash him with ridicule or be forced to shoot him. But his rage carried him as far as the wireless room. He could hear the smack of the spark, but that was all. He tried the door—locked. He tried the shutters—latched. Cunningham's man was either calling or answering somebody. Ten minutes inside that room and there ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... time for jesting, Kate," said my aunt with a frown. "I cannot congratulate you on your good taste in turning so important a subject into ridicule. Mr. Haycock has proposed to you; you have accepted him. Whilst poor Deborah is so ill I am your natural guardian, and he has with great propriety requested my consent; although, in the agitation very natural to a man so circumstanced," added my aunt, smothering ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... are an older man than I am, a man of much experience. I beg you to reflect. The feelings which prompt you towards this action are unworthy. If you attempt to send me to Coventry, you will simply bring ridicule upon a Party which should be ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... out, brave as he was: "It is enough, O Lord; take away my life." I thought I could understand it. To be all alone; to have no sympathy in what is dearest to you; to face opposition and scorn and ridicule and contumely while trying to do people good and bring them to good; to have only God on your side, with the bitter consciousness that those whom you love best are arrayed against him; your family and country; - I suppose ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... him for the loss of a leg by telling him of the lives of men who became celebrated under even greater adversities; "The Wonderful Instrument," which turned out to be the eye; "Metaphysics," a ludicrous description of a colonial salt-box in affected terms of exactness designed to ridicule some forms of reasoning. Those who used this edition of the third reader will surely remember some of ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... one must then ridicule these objections, recognizing the narrow bounds of the human mind.' And I think, on the other hand, that one must recognize the signs of the force of the human mind, which causes it to penetrate into the heart of things. These are new openings and, as it were, rays of the dawn which promises ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... all night with me, and I'll read you every word. And by gad, old chap, if they give me a call the first night, and want a speech—and I see you sitting in your stall, like a blessed old fool as you are—by gad, sir, I'll hold up you and your judgment to the ridicule of the house, so help ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... physicians have sadly neglected the proper inspection of the urine, because they were afraid of being classed with the illiterate "uroscopian" doctors, or fanatical enthusiasts, who ignorantly pretend to diagnose correctly all diseases in this manner, thus subjecting themselves and their claims to ridicule. Nothing should deter one from giving to this excretion the attention ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... progress in the business than because either was satisfied. Fitz had been to see the attorney recommended by the distinguished orator—a young fellow, whose practice was mostly confined to the police court, and who was so weak and silly as to be an object of ridicule to his professional brethren. This gentleman was willing to look into the case. He went to the registry of probate, and read the will. So far Fitz was justified. The next morning the lawyer called on Mr. Checkynshaw. It was very unprofessional, ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... girl said roguishly, "you are a 'tenderfoot.' It is always the privilege of 'old hands' to ridicule newcomers. In your world there is little for you to learn. In ours you must be ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the tone in ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... it possible for a duel intended to be conducted on such savage terms to be matter of notoriety, the very horror of the thing would create a feeling of grotesqueness, and the antagonists in such a proposed encounter would simply incur an immense amount of ridicule and obloquy. But here nobody is astonished and nobody ashamed of such preliminaries to a mortal combat between two gentlemen, who propose firing at marks over each other's hearts, and cutting off each other's heads; and though this agreeable party of pleasure has not come off yet, there seems to ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... does me! Just think: for more than five years I have been fighting Fantomas! For more than five years I have believed in his existence, in spite of all ridicule and sarcasm! For more than five years I have been working for this wretch's death, for death is the only thing that can put a stop to his crimes!" Juve paused a moment, but Fandor made no comment. "And I am rather sick and sorry, too: because, although ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch upon his shoulder; delivered his carefully prepared, sententious burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic ears; found himself a prisoner, the butt of small wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world —yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham—and still schemed and planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President of France at last! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... weapon with which John Glumm was assailable, and that was ridicule: with all his self-sufficiency he stood in terror of it—and the more covert the ridicule, so long as he suspected it, the more he resented as well as dreaded it. He stepped into the street, and taking a hand from a pocket, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... and bristling with pungent satire, this is an epitome of Artemus Ward's most genial humour and of his keenly sarcastic truth. The doings of the Fenians have hitherto been sufficiently ludicrous to merit the ridicule which Artemus has added to the stock they have liberally provided for themselves. To use the periphrasis of Senator Sumner, they have hitherto been "the muscipular abortion of the parturient mountain," whatever their folly may yet lead them to effect of a more serious nature in time to come. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... officiates. In virtue of being Muhammadans they abstain from pork and liquor. Dr. Buchanan [424] quaintly described them as "Impudent fellows, who make long faces, squeak like pigs, bark like dogs, and perform many other ludicrous feats. They also dance and sing, mimicking and turning into ridicule the dancing boys and girls, on whom they likewise pass many jokes, and are employed on great occasions." The Bhand, in fact, seems to correspond very nearly to the court ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... time La Bruyere lived in the House of Conde, everybody was always making fun of him." Possibly the fear of appearing pedantic among all these people of fashion and these tinselled flunkeys made him lend himself to ridicule. They all teased and mocked him, I suppose, but not, I think, so as seriously to hurt him, and now, with his book in our hands, the laugh is on his side. For when we examine carefully we see that his position in the House of Conde improved as time ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... comes a whisper of doubt, hesitation, or disbelief to mar the perfect harmony in which the Spurious Sportsmen live amongst themselves. Yet, when they have separated, they never fail to hold one another up to ridicule and contempt. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... Mortimer under prosperity; a state in which it is much more difficult to be watchful, than in that of adversity. When he first came to school, his struggle was to be consistent in maintaining his principles against ridicule and fear of his fellow-creatures' judgment. In that he nearly failed; and then came the hard trial we have related, the furnace from whose fires he came so bright: and another trial awaited ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... was now fairly in progress, but the barriers of prejudice were not to be lightly overthrown. Non-commissioned officers and men of the right stamp, and able to pass the examination requisite, were scarce articles. Ten had the hardihood or moral courage to face the screaming, riotous ridicule of their late associates in the white regiments. We remember one very striking instance in point, which we shall give as ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... class was a body of theoretical philosophers—Stoics, Platonics, Pythagoreans, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Cynics, who amused themselves in striking out plans—exposing the errors of those in operation—caricaturing—and turning the whole proceedings into ridicule. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... grown to be greatly respected in Erisaig. The audacity of four 'wastrel laddies' setting up to be fishermen on their own account had at first amused the neighbours; but their success and their conduct generally, soon raised them above ridicule; and the women especially were warm in their commendation. They saw how Rob gradually improved the appearance of his brothers and cousin. All of them had boots and stockings now. Not only that, but they ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... angry with every one, with myself, with the captain, and, above all, with little Pye. In the universal surprise that came of the discovery of Mr. Morland's identity, my shame, so to speak, was covered, but I felt myself the mark of ridicule, from Holgate's cynical smile to the captain's open neglect of me. I turned on the lawyer's clerk in my fury, and gave him some home truths about solicitors and their ways; to which, however, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... strangely assorted trio reached the apartment in which the Sepoy had but a short time before disported himself, so to speak, with such waspish reprisal, and delivered such a farrago of ridicule and cynicism upon the defenseless head of the silent ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us, it is the last ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... at which several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many peevish wrinkles as the beaux at the Bow Street Coffee-house, near Covent Garden, did when the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst them, with his oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... attack of Roman fever and, under these dire circumstances, Mr. Willis represents himself as her attendant, and in this capacity refuses to condone the peculiarities of the poor old lady's sick-room. His patience in gratifying her morbid fancies is graphically described in a vein of ridicule and he tells how by the hour he threaded what he terms her "imaginary locks." He also dwells at length upon her conversational powers and likens her tongue to the elasticity of an eel's tail, which would ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... expresses rapture by the phrase "not half-bad" where the foreigner piles superlative on superlative of gush. It is our quality and our defect that we have a strange shyness, which prevents the exhibition of emotion for fear of ridicule. On our stage, as in our real life, the beloved son comes home from a long voyage, and, meeting his father, shakes hands a little warmly and says, "Hallo, governor!" or something poetic like that; whilst abroad the two men kiss one another ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... that common foible, vanity! And yet it is the light feather that wings many a poisoned dart; it is the harlequin leader of a vile crew of evils. Generally, vanity is looked upon as merely a harmless weakness, whose only penalty is ridicule; but examine its true character, and you will find it to be one of the most dangerous, and at the same time one of the most contemptible failings of humanity. There is not a vice with which it has not been, time and again, connected; there is not a virtue that has not been ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to do the thing you crave to do and that craves the doing. Free to live in that higher realm where none is fit to criticise save one's self. Free to scorn ridicule, to face contempt, to brave remorse. Free to give life to the one human soul that can demand and grant ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... connected with the sound of liberty, and, by an eccentricity which such dispositions do not easily avoid, a lover of contradiction, and no friend to any thing established. He adopted Shaftesbury's foolish assertion of the efficacy of ridicule for the discovery of truth. For this he was attacked by Warburton, and defended by Dyson: Warburton afterwards reprinted his remarks at the end of his dedication to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... naturally do not mean public speaking, nor yet the rhetorical writing too often associated with the word. Rhetoric is the dressing-up of conventional sentiment, eloquence the fearless expression of real emotion. And this gift of the fearless expression of emotion—fearless, that is, of ridicule, or of indifference in the hearer—has been an inestimable strength to France. It is a sign of the high average of French intelligence that feeling well-worded can stir and uplift it; that "words" are not half shamefacedly regarded as something separate from, and extraneous to, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... colleague and brother-in-law, Licinius, he became sole head of the whole Roman empire. To strengthen his position, Licinius had gradually placed himself at the head of the heathen party, still very numerous, and had vexed the Christians first with wanton ridicule, then with exclusion from civil and military office, with banishment, and in some instances perhaps even with bloody persecution. This gave the political strife for the monarchy between himself and Constantine the character also of a war of religions; and the defeat of Licinius in the battle ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... haunted with the belief that the last day was approaching; and considering himself called upon to announce to his acquaintance and neighbours that this "terrible judgment of God was at hand," he got but contempt and ridicule for his pains:—more than that, indeed, for those raising the cry that he was a madman, they procured the poor man's expulsion from his situation. Under all these discouraging circumstances, he maintained his firm conviction of the approaching end of time: so strongly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... pay to the object of your devotion should not make you rude or uncivil to other women. Every woman is her sister, and should be treated with becoming respect and attention. Your special attentions to her in society should not be such as to make her or you the subject of ridicule. Make no ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... his mastery over himself, he had some difficulty in concealing his chagrin at the result of the interview. He now began to adopt a different course, and entering into long discussions with Amabel, strove by every effort of wit and ridicule, to shake and subvert her moral and religious principles. But here again he failed; and once more shifting his ground, affected to be convinced by her arguments. He entirely altered his demeanour, and though Amabel could not put ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... difference of disposition and ways of thinking and should judge principally from the intention. Above all things he should be strict in his honour and integrity, for a man who forfeits either cannot be independent or brave at all times; and he should not be afraid to be singular, for, if he is, the ridicule of the vicious would beat him out of his rectitude as well as out of his attention to his duty. I do not speak this from my fear of him, but from my anxiety to see him the shining character which I am sure he is capable ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Academy to remain open till after the King's funeral, that he might see the exhibition, and said Peel should attend him when he went. This Peel thinks very foolish, and his disposition seems to be to turn the King into ridicule, and to throw the suspicion of insanity upon all his acts. This is the tactique of the Whigs. The King takes the Sacrament on Sunday, and has desired the two English and one Irish archbishop to attend. This they call ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... had never before conversed with so fine a lady as herself, she commenced quizzing him in a manner excessively provoking to one of his excitable temperament. Lifting up first one foot, and then the other, he felt his patience fast giving way, and at last, as her ridicule became more and more marked, he could endure it no longer, but returned it with a kind of sarcasm far more scathing than anything she could say. Deeply chagrined, and feeling that she had been beaten with her own weapons, she was about to leave the "old bear" as she mentally styled him, when ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... hostile to us, and I have become a laughing-stock and butt of ridicule on account of you. Now why do you flaunt your power against us in the mountains? If, indeed, you trust your forces, come down to us in the plain, and there let us try the matter together, because with me is the power of ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... upon playing hookey at afternoon session, and disgusted that Monty was so little excited by their grimacing pantomime, as they demonstrated how they would escape to the woods and invited his company. Then they tried ridicule, calling "girl-boy, girl-boy," as loudly as they dared, with Katharine's scornful glances upon them. Monty grew fiery red and tossed his blond head as if shaking an obnoxious insect from it, but did not cease to scratch it for ideas, which he whispered to ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... a prisoner,' he replied, and seeing Ammiani coming, 'Net him, my sling-stone! my serpent!' he signalled to his wife, who threw herself right round Ammiani in a tortuous twist hard as wire-rope. Stung with irritation, and a sense of disgrace and ridicule and pitifulness in one, Ammiani, after a struggle, ceased the attempt to disentwine her arms, and dragged her clinging to him. He was much struck by hearing her count deliberately, in her desperation, numbers from somewhere about twenty to one hundred. One hundred was evidently the number she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Gray very much despised such offices as that of the poet-laureate, or that held by Elkanah Settle, the last of the city poets whose name is held up to ridicule by Pope in the "Dunciad." In a letter to the Rev. Wm. Mason,[166] he puts ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... should his opponents have been betrayed into criticisms of his military and civil life. The Democrats were unwise enough to raise an issue upon his military career, and the result was greatly to their loss. His frontier life in a log cabin was also the subject of ridicule at the opening of the campaign. The Whigs accepted the issue, built log cabins on wheels and drew them over the country from one mass meeting to another. The unfortunate remark was made by a writer or speaker that if Harrison had a log cabin and plenty ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... wildest credulity, and by an abject subservience to external religious rites in propitiation of an incensed deity. It was thus at Rome when the eloquence of Cicero, and afterwards the indignant satire of Juvenal or the calm ridicule of the philosophic Lucian,[22] attempted to assert the 'proper authority of reason.' To speak the truth, says Cicero, superstition has spread like a torrent over the entire globe, oppressing the minds and intellects of almost all men and seizing upon the weakness of human nature.[23] The ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... He had feared the man's ridicule. He had expected to see his lean shoulders go up in silent contempt. And then, he knew, would have followed a storm of sarcasm and "jollying" from Sandy and the others. With quick wit he seized his opportunity, bent on using Bill's influence ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... with him. When he should desire to be "off," he could not plead that the kissing had been all her doing. A man in Mr. Prosper's position has difficulties among which he must be very wary. And then the ridicule of the world is so strong a weapon, and is always used on the side of the women! He gave a little start, but he did not at once shake her off. "What's the objection ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... have become loving friends towards the end of their lives. At the beginning, Flaubert might have been looked upon by George Sand as a furious enemy. Emma [Madame Bovary] is George Sand's heroine with all the poetry turned into ridicule. Flaubert seems to say in every page of his work: 'Do you want to know what is the real Valentine, the real Indiana, the real Lelia? Here she is, it is Emma Roualt.' 'And do you want to know what becomes of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will wear peacocks' feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks; in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks, and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the absurdity ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hour he kept the chutes open and filled his interested auditor with all the latest brands of misrepresentation and ridicule. He explained why it was that the farmers' effort was nothing but a joke and how foolish it would be for any farmer to send business to it. He was a good salesman, this traveller, and he was sure he had "sold" this rather intelligent hayseed when he got to the end of his talk and his ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... acknowledging the Divine and living an evil life are opposites. When such in the other life enter into the state of their interiors, and are heard speaking and seen acting, they appear foolish; for from their evil lusts they burst forth into all sorts of abominations, into contempt of others, ridicule and blasphemy, hatred and revenge; they plot intrigues, some with a cunning and malice that can scarcely be believed to be possible in any man. For they are then in a state of freedom to act in harmony with the thoughts of their will, since they are separated from the ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... forward to going to school with about equal measures of delight and dread; my pride and ambition longed for this first step in life, but Rupert had filled me with a wholesome awe of its stringent etiquette, its withering ridicule, and unsparing severities. However, in his anxiety to make me modest and circumspect, I think he rather over-painted the picture, and when I got through the first day without being bullied, and made such creditable friends on the ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... certain unfortunate and meritorious women and men, and added insult to injury by publishing bogus portraits of beautiful ladies whose misfortunes should have provoked respectful sympathy rather than coarse insinuation and vulgar ridicule. Because these women were prominent in what has been termed the Divorce Colony of Sioux Falls, either from social rank in their former spheres, or by reason of the legal peculiarities enmeshing their cases, they are legitimate ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... however I may be amused by the waltzing of the Parisian belles, I feel too much regard for my fair country-women to wish to see them adopt a dance, which, by throwing them off their guard, lays them completely open to the shafts of ridicule and malice. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... drawing closer to where the logs were lying. This looked serious, and he believed that it was there for no good purpose. He waited a few moments, however, to be sure. He did not wish to give a false alarm, and thus bring upon himself the ridicule of ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... books of the later chivalry. Who, then, was the man—the original of Don Quixote? Against whom was the satire levelled? Of course nothing was then known to the world outside of poor Don Rodrigo de Pacheco, the Argamasillan hidalgo. Some great man Cervantes must have intended to ridicule. It was Charles V, said some. It was his son Philip, cried others—ignoring the absurdity of the Prudent one losing his wits through excessive reading of romances. It was the Duke of Lerma—or the Duke of Osuna—or some other great man, or Cervantes' wife's cousin, who opposed his marriage ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... quarrelsome he was rather shrewd than otherwise, and could do some pretty strokes of satire. He was both liked and abused by the girls who knew him, and though they were pleased by his attentions, they never failed to ridicule him behind his back. In his cups (he knew those vessels, though only twenty-three) he first became noisy, then excessively friendly, and then invariably nagging. During childhood he had made himself renowned for his pleasant habit of pouncing ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... mother still opposed her Unto Lemminkainen's journey, 80 To the mighty race of Saari, To the clan of vast possessions. "There the maidens all will scorn you, And the women ridicule you." ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... especially to chivalry. The Crusades, of Geoffrey's century and of the one following, gave much opportunity for its growth and practice; but in the fifteenth century chivalrous fashions and fancies began to seem absurd, and later, perhaps partly through the ridicule of that old-time book "Don Quixote," chivalry was finally laughed quite out ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... said of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the suppressed churches. This is their alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... friends are morbidly sensitive as to the strictures of strangers. They hate the whole tribe of Travellers and Tourists, Roamers and Ramblers, Peepers and Proclaimers, and affect to ridicule the idea of men who merely pass through the country, presuming to give opinions on things which it is alleged so cursory a view cannot qualify them fully to understand. Our cousins have, doubtless, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... went off immediately laughing very heartily, and saying that it would be so much milk saved. Some neighbours, who I believe were moved to pity me, by my sobbing, came to carry me away from the lifeless body. They offered me some milk, though at the same time they turned my distress into ridicule. "Why," said I to them, "do you condemn the tears which I shed for my friend? I have seen you in similar cases, roll upon the sand and stones. I have seen your eyes bathed in tears. Do you suppose ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... execute. He called at the rooms of the clergyman, a bachelor and a curate, whose dog and person had suffered from the assaults of Miss Blowser's Siamese favourite. He expected difficulties, for a good deal of ridicule, including Merton's article, Christianos ad Leones, had been heaped on this martyr. Logan looked forward to finding him crusty, but, after seeming a little puzzled, the holy man exclaimed, 'Why, you must be Logan ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang |
