"Disdainful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nobility went forward to meet Alva, to render him the accustomed honors, and endeavor thus early to gain his good graces. Among them was the infatuated Egmont, who made a present to Alva of two superb horses, which the latter received with a disdainful air of condescension. Alva's first care was the distribution of his troops—several thousands of whom were placed in Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns, and the remainder reserved under his own immediate orders at Brussels. His approach was ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... who composed such music, one knew, had been born on some sort of human height, in some cooler, brighter atmosphere than that of the crowded valleys. For in this music there beat a faster pulse, moved a lighter, fierier, prouder body, sounded a more ironic and disdainful laughter, breathed a rarer air than had beat and moved and sounded and breathed in music. It made drunken with pleasant sound, with full rich harmonies, with exuberant dance and waltz movements. It seemed to adumbrate the arrival of a new sort of ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... herself, "you are so young, so frank and fearless, so talented, so impatient of imbecility, so disdainful of vulgarity, you need a lesson; here it is then: far more is to be done in this world by dexterity than by strength; but, perhaps, you knew that before, for there is delicacy as well as power in your character—policy, as ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... with the bears of the Pyrenees; others have killed lions and tigers by dozens; one has crossed the Nile on a crocodile, another vows he waltzed with a dying hippopotamus, and several have bagged camelopards and elephants by scores. In short, they have trodden with a bold disdainful step all the high-roads and by-roads of our wondrous planet, displaying, in every quarter of the compass, the daring and devil-may-care spirit of their youth and the spleen of their mature age, as well as the yellow guineas from ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... to Cressy, who was still stirring the contents of the box with a disdainful forefinger, "this little man ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... soul makes us share in some repentance or some joy. He whom the mourning of his widow taught to drink the sweet wormwood of pain, tells us of Nella praying in her lonely bed, and we learn from the mouth of Buonconte how a single tear may save a dying sinner from the fiend. Sordello, that noble and disdainful Lombard, eyes us from afar like a couchant lion. When he learns that Virgil is one of Mantua's citizens, he falls upon his neck, and when he learns that he is the singer of Rome he falls before his feet. In that valley whose grass and flowers are fairer than cleft emerald and ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... any part in the great work of renovating the life of humanity. A dry, anti-critical, barren, and petty orthodoxy, of the St. Sulpice type; a hollow and superficial imitation full of affectation and exaggeration, like Neo-Catholicism; and an arid and heartless philosophy, crabbed and disdainful, like the University, make up the sum of French culture. Jesus Christ is nowhere to be found. I have been inclined to think that He would come to us from Germany; not that I suppose He would be an individual, but a spirit. And when we use the word Jesus Christ we mean, no doubt, a certain ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... was I again to suffer martyrdom in this ignominious manner, in the knowledge, and even before the very eyes of this most beautiful, but most disdainful of fair ones? All my long-smothered wrath broke out at once; the dormant feelings of the gentleman arose within me; stung to the quick by intolerable mortification, I sprang on my feet in an instant; leaped upon Harlequin like a young tiger; tore ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... hair, And offered as a dower his burning throne, Where she should sit for men to gaze upon. The outside of her garments were of lawn, The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, Where Venus in her naked glory strove To please the careless and disdainful eyes Of proud Adonis, that before her lies. Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath, From whence her veil reached to the ground ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... two travelers arrived in a superb castle. The hermit entreated a hospitable reception for himself and the young man who accompanied him. The porter, whom one might have easily mistaken for a great lord, introduced them with a kind of disdainful civility. He presented them to a principal domestic, who showed them his master's magnificent apartments. They were admitted to the lower end of the table, without being honored with the least mark of regard by the lord of the castle; but they were served, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... excellent sermon— really admirable, as my father repeated. Our party had been scarcely in time, and had been disposed of in seats close to the door, where Clarence was quite out of sight of the disdainful young lady and her squire, of whom Emily ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended of itself. Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at heart; I wanted to exercise unbounded sway over him; I tried to instil into him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hysterics. He was a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I began to hate him immediately and repulsed him—as though all I needed him for was ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... horse under the its guidance of the celebrated John Gilpin, the disdainful steed now in the management of Sir Felix, "wondered what thing he'd got upon his back," we are not competent to decide; but he certainly in his progress "o'er the stones" manifested frequent impatience of restraint. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... priest had risen to devote The mystic wafer, from the band that stood About the altar came a sudden note Of sweetness over my disdainful mood; A voice that, speaking from the brazen throat Of warlike trumpets, came like the subdued Moan of a people bound in sore distress, And thinking ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... account for the variety of passions excited within him by the mere difference of the spacing, time, or rhythm of music? In my new condition of living I notice that the soul throws out with most disdainful impatience music that was formerly beautiful to my mind and heart (or my creature); and certain types of flowing cadences (very rarely to be found), sustained in high, flowing, delicate, and soaring continuity will produce in her conditions akin to a madness ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... Ramparts and towers, Maidens disdainful In Beauty's array, Both shall be ours! Bold is the venture, Splendid the pay! Lads, let the trumpets For us be suing,— Calling to pleasure, Calling to ruin. Stormy our life is; Such is its boon! Maidens and castles Capitulate soon. ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... note directed to me; wait till I see who it is from," and Dexie picked a tiny roll of paper from among the blossoms. One hasty glance over the written lines, and Dexie curled her lip in a disdainful smile. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... with his arms my neck Encircling, kiss'd my cheek, and spake: "O soul Justly disdainful! blest was she in whom Thou was conceiv'd! He in the world was one For arrogance noted; to his memory No virtue lends its lustre; even so Here is his shadow furious. There above How many now hold themselves mighty kings Who here like swine shall wallow in the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... carry home a basket of provisions for the evening meal, and that Joe should come over in the morning with a larger supply, bringing at the same time the yellow hen who was desirous of assuming the cares of a family. During the discussion of these practical matters, Rosetta Muriel had maintained a disdainful silence. But when Mrs. Cole went to pack a basket, the daughter, for the first time, took an active part ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... post restante) that she would let me know how she was getting on. I would have made my servant write to me but that he was unable to manage a pen. It struck me there was a kind of scorn in Miss Tita's silence (little disdainful as she had ever been), so that I was uncomfortable and sore. I had scruples about going back and yet I had others about not doing so, for I wanted to put myself on a better footing. The end of it was that I did return to Venice on the twelfth day; and as ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... your father suffer? Could I say to my father, who perhaps would have pardoned you—could I say I was his daughter? Nothing remained but to suffer, to guard my secret, and die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story of your poor Maria, have you still for her that disdainful smile?" ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, "the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve me from ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... his volubility had begun to desert him, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka's John-Willy into conversation—a difficult matter, since, though he had been placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's benefit, he felt the watchful eye of his mother, who was waiting at table, too frequently ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... quick, disdainful glance at the powerful figure of the parson's progeny, and went on in his own ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... but there was something in his attitude that silenced me. He had turned half from me, and stood now, hand on hip, his great head thrown back and tilted towards his shoulder, his expression one of freezing and disdainful wonder. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... in my car. You will perhaps say that it was not wise, but I could not have stood the subway. My nerves are all rotten." Jocelyn Thew's tone and gesture were smoothly disdainful. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a 'matsouri', a fete, a procession passing through the quarter which is not so virtuous as our own, so our mousmes tell us, with a disdainful toss of the head. Nevertheless, from the heights on which we dwell, seen thus in a bird's-eye view, by the uncertain light of the stars, this district has a singularly chaste air, and the concert going on therein, purified in its ascent from the depths of the abyss to our lofty altitudes, reaches ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... and though the girl laughed a little as she glanced at the wondering group, her voice was icily disdainful. ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... stale mystification which the emperor of Russia received as it deserved. Napoleon had given him some lessons in politics, and lessons in war, abandoning himself in the first to the quackery of vice, and in the second to the pleasure of exhibiting a disdainful carelessness. He was deceived in the Emperor Alexander; he had mistaken the nobleness of his character for dupery; he had not been able to perceive that if the emperor of Russia had allowed himself to go too far in his enthusiasm for him, it was ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... private liberty by emptying the prisons of Paris, certain agents of Marat made a notable effort in behalf of the 'moral unity of France.' To this effort the melodramatic historians of the French Revolution have done scant justice. Mr. Carlyle, for example, alludes to it only in a casual half-disdainful way, which would be almost comical were the theme less ghastly. 'At Reims,' he observes, 'about eight persons were killed—and two were afterwards hanged for doing it.' The contest of this curious passage plainly shows that he imagined these 'eight persons' (more or less) to have ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... spoken it. There had never been many words between her and her own family as to the inheritance. As she had been reticent to her father so had he to her. The idea in the attorney's house at Hereford was that she was stubborn, conceited, and disdainful. It may be that in regard to her stepmother there was something of this, but, let that be as it might, there had been but little confidence between them as to matters at Llanfeare. It was, no doubt, supposed by her father that she was to be her ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... gaping tourist nostrils accustomed to inhalation of prairie winds, but enough for perspective, from those marginal sands, trident-scraped, we are to fancy, by a helmeted Dame Abstract familiarly profiled on discs of current bronze—price of a loaf for humbler maws disdainful of Gallic side-dishes for the titillation of choicer palates—stands Clashthought Park, a house of some pretension, mentioned at Runnymede, with the spreading exception of wings given to it in later times by Daedalean masters ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... frantically to remember the speech I had so carefully prepared—the greeting which was to have explained my conduct and disarmed her resentment at the very outset. But rack my brain as I would, I could think of nothing but the reproach in her eyes—her disdainful mouth and chin—and ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... securely than the rest. She moved through game and dance with a slow yet free grace; she spoke seldom, and in a low, bell-like monotone, containing no hint of any possible emotional development, and for the rest, her shadow of a disdainful smile seemed to stand her in good stead. Clearly as she stood out from among her companions from the first, at the close of the evening she ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and Sister Mary John together, excluding Veronica a little. This exclusion was more imaginary than real. But some jealousy of Sister Mary John had entered her mind; and Evelyn had noticed, though Sister Mary John had failed to notice, that Veronica had, for some time past, treated them with little disdainful airs. And now, when she opened the door, she did not answer Evelyn at once, though Evelyn welcomed her with a pretty smile, asking her whom she was seeking. There was an accent of concentrated dislike in Veronica's voice when Evelyn said she was ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... group of fishes stared at her solemnly. Then one of the remarked in a disdainful manner, "Come, my dear, let us leave these ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... round a pair of half-filled saddle-bags. The slighter and smaller of the two figures I had seen stood beside the table, wearing a mask and riding cloak; and by her silent manner of gazing at me, as well as by a cold, disdainful bearing, which neither her mask nor cloak could hide, did more to chill and discomfit me than even my own knowledge that I had lost the pass-key which should have admitted me ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... medley of old styles, some foreign, some native, all inappropriate. Take the case of Mayfair. Mayfair has for some years been in a state of transition. The old Mayfair, grim and sombre, with its air of selfish privacy and hauteur and leisure, its plain bricked facades, so disdainful of show—was it not redolent of the century in which it came to being? Its wide pavements and narrow roads between—could not one see in them the time when by day gentlemen and ladies went out afoot, needing no vehicle to whisk them to a destination, and walked to ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Though pride look disdainful on thee, Scorning scenes so mean as thine, Although fortune frown upon thee, Lovely blossom, ne'er repine: Health unbought is ever with thee, Which their wealth can never gain; Innocence doth garments give thee, Such ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... hovering in the air, And then down stooping with an hundred gyres:[196] His feet he fixed on Mount Cephalon;[197] From whence he flew and lighted on that plain, And with disdainful steps soon glided thither: Whither arrived, he suddenly unfolds A gorgeous robe and glittering ornament, And lays them all upon that hillock: This done, he wafts his wand, took wing again, And in a moment vanish'd out of sight. With that mine eyes 'gan ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000 feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp and lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the symbol of a woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate and disdainful. The physical attributes of the mountain are ascribed to her, its spells of frosty coldness, its gloom and distance, its fickleness of weather, the repellant hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes the central swamp—these things are described as symbols of her temper, character, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... excellent poet, philosopher, and rhetorician; perfect, as well in composing and versifying as in haranguing; a most noble speaker.... This Dante, on account of his learning, was a little haughty, and shy, and disdainful, and like a philosopher almost ungracious, knew not well how to deal with unlettered folk." Benvenuto da Imola tells us that he was very abstracted, as we may well believe of a man who carried the Commedia in his brain. Boccaccio paints him in this ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... fulfilment of his task, arose from, and could have arisen from nothing else than, his conscious ignorance of Greek in connection with the solemn responsibilities he had assumed in the face of a great nation. Nay, even countries as presumptuously disdainful of tramontane literature as Italy took an interest in this memorable undertaking. Bishop Berkeley found Salvini reading it at Florence; and Madame Dacier even, who read little but Greek, and certainly no English until then, condescended ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful, Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... spurred hobby through its every pace, 139 Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted, And, with each inch of person and of vesture, Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... They bear great fatigue and hunger without complaint, as well as heat and cold, singing and dancing under the most adverse circumstances. They are much prone to drink to excess; they are very proud and disdainful to strangers, and have no respect for the lives of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... with a disdainful little sniff. "You'd better get Daddy to steer your boat. He doesn't mind fog. Are there many people on board?" she added, with an air ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... at pictures, and saw the state dining room where they feed 50 diplomats at a time on mud turtle and champagne, and a boy about my size looked sort of disdainful at me, and I told him it he would come outside I would mash his jaw, and he said I could try it right there if I was in a hurry to go, and I was starting to give him a swift punch when a detective took hold of my arm and said they couldn't have ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... however, the Countess had her revenge. At a party in Cavendish Square she was walking along a corridor with Samuel Rogers when she saw the Regent coming towards them. As he approached he drew himself to his full height, and passed with an insolent and disdainful stare, which Lady Jersey returned with a look even more cold and contemptuous. Then, with a toss of her proud head, she turned to Rogers and laughingly said, "I did that well, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... doubt you will find it," and the gentleman gave a disdainful shrug to his shoulders. "Out in the backwoods attending a hallelujah meeting! I ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... and laughed; a cold laugh, disdainful, yet not bitter. "You wanted that before, my lord; yet you neglected the opportunity my folly gave you. I thank you—you, after God—for that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... him a look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living," she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk as those ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... for Juliet wants to be Queen, Molly would make faces, and the others are too big or too light," pronounced Jill, pointing to Merry, who looked pleased, while Mabel's face darkened, and Susy gave a disdainful sniff. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... counterpart to his manner of mind and conversation may be found in the circle of whom we read in the Diary of Fanny Burney. We can conceive Lord Cromer leaning against the Committee Box in earnest conversation with Mr. Windham and Mr. Burke at Warren Hastings' trial. We can restore the half-disdainful gesture with which he would drop an epigram ("from the Greek") into the Bath Easton Vase. His politeness and precision, his classical quotations, his humour, his predilections in literature and art, were those of the inner circle of Whigs nearly a century ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... to gulp it down. The scene is truly magnificent, and the struggle not slight. For more than twenty miles, the transparent blue waters of the Ohio are crowded along the Tennessee coast; but the Mississippi, swollen by its summer flood, as if disdainful of its rural and peace-like properties, gains the mastery before reaching Memphis, and carries its characteristic of turbid geologic power for a thousand miles more, until its final exit ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... much for thy service!" with a disdainful gesture of his fingers. "A strapping lad like thee would be the ruin of my trade. I might as well give up ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... winter. The memories and the methods of one season were tided over to another. Gertrude was still "gay"—perhaps gayer—and a little more openly impatient with her husband, and a little more openly disdainful of him. Young men swarmed and fluttered, and those who had "never tried it on" before seemed inclined to ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... whatever of heroism, of devotion, self-sacrifice, and moral nobleness there was among them; surely there were nothing better for a wise man than to make the best of his time, and to crowd what enjoyment he can find into it, sheltering himself in a very disdainful Pyrrhonism from all care for mankind or for their opinions. For what better test of truth have we than the ablest men's acceptance of it? and if the ablest men eighteen centuries ago deliberately accepted what is now too absurd to reason upon, what right have we to hope that with ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... stars, disdainful of them. How small they were, how unimportant in the scheme of things, so much less able to give significance to the universe, than the presence of integrity ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... a-plenty—laughing girls, grouped together, ready for any frolic; housewives on way to market; and occasionally a dainty dame, with high-heeled shoe and flounced petticoat, picking her way through the throng, disdainful of the glances of those about. Everywhere there was a new face, a strange costume, a ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Pike foremost of all things, for lofty angling-disdainful of worm and even minnow—Providence, I say, at this adjuration, pronounced that Pike must catch that trout. Not many anglers are heaven-born; and for one to drop off the hook halfway through his teens would be infinitely worse than to slay ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... me at our parting, With a malicious and disdainful smile: 'Tis true, he said not, in broad words, you feared; But in well-mannered terms 'twas so agreed, Achilles should ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... discouraged by the disdainful demeanor and grudging disposition of the Supreme Council, and irritated by the arbitrariness of its decrees and the indefensible way in which it applied principles that were propounded as sacred. Before restoring the diminutive cantons ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... marked quality of Coriolanus. His pride was equally great. He was a noble of the nobles, so haughty in demeanor and so disdainful of the commons that they grew to hate him bitterly. At length came a time of great scarcity of food. The people were on the verge of famine, to relieve which shiploads of corn were sent from Sicily to Rome. The senate resolved to distribute ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... seen him, I can well understand why [S']akoontala should pine after such a man, in spite of his disdainful rejection ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... before folk with anything like intimacy in his manner. He was her good friend, granted, and she liked him in a way and respected him in a way, though he was still too much after the pattern of her former slave and dog to gain her best esteem. She was one of those women who are arbitrary and disdainful to masculine weakness, and require to be absolutely dominated by men if they are to respect them as men like to be respected by women, and as—pace the Shriekers—the true woman likes to respect men. And Alick, though he had her in his hands and might destroy her at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... reluctance always withheld him from seeking any such sign in the short intervals when he could have tried to go beneath the surface. On the other hand, this apparent indifference piqued her pride, and made her stiff, cold, and almost disdainful whenever there was any approach between them. Her vanity might be flattered by the knowledge that she was beyond his reach; but it would have been still more gratified could she have discovered any symptoms of pining and languishing after her. She might peep at him ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through. It was a mysterious business and should have told me to expect no good to come of it. I asked him how he would know when I had finished with the book, and I shall never forget that evil smile and disdainful shrug ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... Letty gathered her wraps upon her arm in a disdainful silence, warding him off with a gesture. As he opened the door for her she ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... face close to Lucilla's disdainful one as, with an insolent emphasis, she made the quotation, then ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... judge of the quality and merits of those acts. There is no question of division of honors between him and any other respecting any of his important operations. It is not meant by this that he was disdainful of the advice or opinions of others. On the contrary, although naturally impulsive and self-reliant, his acquired habit was to study carefully and consult freely with his subordinate commanders respecting all important movements. Yet discussion resulted ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... he is what is generally called an ill-tempered person; for he never puts himself into passions, nor does he seem to mind many things that make others very angry. But he is sometimes dreadfully disdainful and haughty when any one offends him, and especially when Hamilton seems to like anybody as well as himself. Only last Saturday he was so much affronted because Hamilton had asked leave for me to go into Bristol with him. When he found I was coming, he wouldn't go with us. I think he is very ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... not," would he exclaim, "that disdainful Apollo. Thus cold, callous, and triumphing in the work of destruction, must be the angel of death, who winged the shaft ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... pleasantry, and Mary should not have allowed it to bring the color to her cheek, and that peculiar, half-disdainful look to her eye ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... wish to show him that she was equal to the common surface of living,—a comrade to do her part? Or, rather, was the act symbolical,—woman serving joyfully where she yields real mastery? The woman, so often capricious and disdainful, was submissive, as if she would say: "This man is my mate. I am forever his. It is my best joy to be ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... as remote as China,) Swan resumed many of the habits and feelings therewith connected. With the flowing flowered robe he cast off forever the world to which it belonged, and his pulse beat rapidly and joyfully as the sails filled with the breeze that bore him away. He gazed with a disdainful pleasure at the receding shore, and closed his eyes,—to turn his back fairly and forever on the Chew-Sins and the Wu-Wangs,—to let the Hang dynasty go hang,—to shut out from all but future fireside-tales the thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, of the poor slaves, sleeping beside them, might see the graves of those they loved trampled upon and browsed over, desecrated and defiled, from morning till night. There is something intolerably cruel in this disdainful denial of a common humanity pursuing these wretches even when they are ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... claimed by their representatives. The contributions made by Philosophy to the general improvement of human life were and are obscure, difficult to trace, easily missed or forgotten. It came about that the philosopher was misconceived as one indifferent to ordinary human interests and disdainful of the more obvious advantages secured by others, pressing and urging forward and upward into a cloudland where the light was too dim for the eyes of man and the paths too uncertain for his feet. Unsatisfied with the region where Man had learned by the slow and painful ...
— Progress and History • Various
... of which the tranquil depths had not as yet been ruffled by the faintest breath of passion. His mother possessed almost unbounded influence over him; and he ever listened with a smile, a languid, half-disdainful one, to her eager speculations upon the numerous eligible matches that would present themselves the instant the "season" and their new establishment in Mayfair—of which the decoration and furnishing engaged all her available time and attention—enabled them to open the campaign ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... must have been a few friends and lovers of His in that disdainful and ignorant crowd; for He passed through the midst of them unharmed, and went His way to the home of Peter and Andrew and John and Philip, beside the Sea of Galilee, never ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... she was, maintained an air of reserve which raised a barrier beyond which none of the curious might penetrate; and as if insolently disdainful of the attention she attracted, her face remained veiled; not too thickly, but effectively enough to set at naught these ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... man devotes himself to study, and becomes learned, yet is disdainful with those less educated than himself, and is not particular in his dealings with his fellows, then the people say of him, "Woe to the father who allowed him to study God's law; woe to those who instructed him; how censurable is ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... and carried it out under protest. Though not ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degree contemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despising her. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful curtness in such intercourse as they had—it was fortunately little. Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an unsympathetic woman, who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... with so violent a blow that the casket fell to the ground, she seized it, flung it into the middle of the fire, and stood with her back to the chimney in a threatening attitude before either of the agents recovered from their surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... pentameters, hexameters, or alexandrines. But the student can for himself push his observation beyond, and come to the poetry of the higher imagination, where he can be forgetful of the mere form and disdainful of the merely logical relations, where his spirit can as it were see face to face the truth beyond the seeming. This is the poetry of the spirit, and ought to come as a revelation to the searcher. He may first find it in some pure lyric such as Shelley's "Skylark," or in ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... chair and began to pull over the things. Broken games and animals, dolls' dresses painfully tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,—sorry relics of past pleasures,—one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on the coals, and ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... some mightier one. But Varus! thou shalt suffer yet! Thou shalt re-seek these longing arms, And ne'er from me re-alienate Thy mind, enthrall'd by Marsan charms. A cup more powerful I for thee Will soon prepare, disdainful wretch! Ere shall the sky sink 'neath the sea, And that shall o'er the earth out-stretch, Than with my love thou shalt not burn, Like pitch, which in these flames I throw." Not with mild words their bosoms stern To melt, as erst, the boy sought now; But madly reckless he began ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... Mme. Rey, who played the Queen in "Ruy Blas" in 1840; it was this one who represented Venus. She was admirably shaped. Another was more than pretty: she was handsome and superb. Nothing more magnificent could be seen than her black, sad eyes, her disdainful mouth, her smile at once bewitching and haughty. She was called Maria, I believe. In a tableau which represented "A Slave Market," she displayed the imperial despair and the stoical dejection of a nude queen offered for sale to the first bidder. Her tights, which were torn at the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... could not bear to be near her in church, but however far away she might place herself, she was more conscious than she liked to be of Louie's conspicuous figure and hat thrown out against a particular pillar which the girl affected. The sharp uplifted profile with its disdainful expression drew her eyes against their will. She was also constantly aware of the impression Louie made upon the crowd, of the way in which she was stared at and remarked upon. Whenever she passed in or out of the church, people turned, and the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not do, that did Madame de Permont. She gave to the weeping young girl the twelve francs she needed to take a part in the festivity, and Marianne, less proud and less disdainful than her brother, accepted gladly, without opposition and without the need of a falsehood, the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... waist very long, he appeared to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it. He took pleasure already in the part of embarrassing people by saying disagreeable things: an art which he has since made a system ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... opposite sympathies. She uttered a disdainful sniff. "To be sure he takes his army with him, otherwise the Constitutionalistas would kill him. Wait until Pancho Gomez meets this army of Longorio's. Ha! You will see ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... felt pretty sure that none of the sixth form or other study boys would particularly sympathise with his late associates. Since the previous evening he had been cool with Duncan, and the rest had long rather despised him as a boy who'd do anything to be popular; so he sat there silent, looking as disdainful as he could, and not touching the tea, for which he felt disinclined after the recent potations. But the contemptuous exterior hid a self-reproving heart, and he felt how far more noble Owen and Montagu were than he. How gladly ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... expected his opponent to pay his flippant gibe the honor of repartee, he was disappointed. To be sure, Hobart, admirably erect in his slender grace, was moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it evidenced scarcely the appreciation that anybody less impervious to criticism than Ridgway ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode. Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admired— Admired, not feared (God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he nor shunned), And with disdainful look thus first began:— "Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape, That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass, That be assured, without leave asked of thee. Retire; or taste thy folly, and learn ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... know that any of us were so charmed with him as one might be led to suppose from your remark, Edith," said Isabel Mainwaring, with a disdainful glance towards the attorney, who had seated himself beside Miss Carleton; "but here, almost any one will answer for a diversion, and he ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... writing a criticism, making a speech, studying the law."[9] These innocent looking definitions are probably not without an ironic sting. It requires no great stretch of the imagination, for example, to catch in Hazlitt's eye a sly wink at Lamb or a disdainful glance toward Leigh Hunt as he gives the reader his idea of cleverness ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the flame of her beauty and charm, only to complain that it froze and did not burn. Longarine is discreetly unhappy for her dead husband, but appears decidedly consolable; Ennasuite is a haughty damsel, disdainful of poor folk, and Nomerfide is a pure madcap, a Catherine Seyton of the generation before Catherine herself, the feminine Dioneo of the party, and, if a little too free-spoken for prudish modern taste, a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... early nineteenth century, officers of the Armada, with short whiskers, curls over their foreheads, high collars with anchors embroidered in gold, and black stocks, men who had fought off Cape Saint Vincent and Trafalgar; and after them Jaime's great grandfather, an old man with large eyes and disdainful mouth, who, when Ferdinand VII returned from his captivity in France, had sailed for Valencia to prostrate himself at his feet, beseeching, along with other great hidalgos, that he reestablish the ancient customs and crush the growing scourge of liberalism. He was a prolific patriarch, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the second mate, shortly. There was contempt in his voice, and I knew, when I looked at his grim, disdainful face, that he had had no hand in the affair. Bucko Lynch might kill a man in what he considered the line of duty, but snapping men off a yardarm was not his style. But I also knew that he was an officer of an American ship, and would consider it his duty to back up his captain no matter ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... one of these rough followers of the criminal? All hanging hereabout to gather how he's going to bear Examination in the hall." She flung disdainful glances on The shabby figure standing at the fire with others there, Who warmed ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... Disdainful of outside attractions, the adjutant came stalking out to the front as the strain ceased, and his shrill voice was heard turning over the parade to his commander. Then the surging group seemed to ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... possessing her for fourteen hours. That beauty's name was Saint Hilaire; and under that name she became famous in England, where she followed a rich lord the year after. At first, vexed because I had not remarked her before, she was proud and disdainful; but I soon proved to her that it was fortunate that my first or second choice had not fallen on her, as she would now remain longer with me. She then began to laugh, and shewed herself ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... young woman, as her companion joined her. The light from the corner disclosed the speaker's wrathful features, disdainful lips, palpitating nostrils, eyes darting terrible glances. "Nan! Do you think, ruffian, that ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost immediately; and remember'—— What else she said was delivered in a quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were: 'Pas ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... bounced out with a reflection of Ardessa's disdainful expression on his face. Saturday afternoon was always a half-holiday, to be sure, but since she had weeks of freedom when he ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... clothes (which you would have to mend) just when you had got things into good order? I can see you doing it!" Hugh Chesyl's speech went into his easy, high-bred laugh. "You of all people—the dainty and disdainful Miss Elliot, for whom no ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... to let any cause remove her from Northwold, until after an event which it was hoped would render James less disdainful of his inheritance. But—'Was there ever anything more contrary?' exclaimed Jane, as she prepared to set out the table for a grand tea. 'There's Master James as pleased and proud of that there little brown girl, as if she was as fine a boy as Master Henry ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cruelty of the old Danes, and with the unexpected tenderness of a sentimental time. The characters of the great Texan and Californian drama are like our hackneyed friends, the Vikings, with a touch, if we may use the term, of spooniness. Their humour is often nothing more than a disdainful trifling with death; they seize the comic side of manslaughter very promptly, and enjoy all the mirth that can be got out of revolvers and grizzly bears. In Mr. Bret Harte's poems of "The Spelling Bee" ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... disdainful glance. "How much brains do you think it takes to find that out, Bob Parker? Of course ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... accurately fasten them upon some object, such are by their inclinations very malicious, vain-glorious, slothful, unfaithful, envious, false and contentious. They whose eyes are addicted to blood-shot, are naturally proud, disdainful, cruel, without shame, perfidious and much inclined to superstition. But he whose eyes are neither too little nor too big, and inclined to black, do signify a man mild, peaceable, honest, witty, and of a good understanding; and one that, when ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... for any favor, however small; masterful, courageous, impassive, shrewd, resolute, fluent of speech; profoundly religious, even superstitious; hot-tempered, inscrutable, mendacious, revengeful sometimes and ofttimes forgiving, disdainful of woman and her charms; above all, boastful, conceited, and with a passion for glory. His pride and his imagination were to be barbaric in their immensity, his clannishness was to be that of the most primitive civilization. In all these points he was to be Corsican; other characteristics ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... president Dumas, who asked him the customary questions as to his name, his age, his residence: "I am Danton, tolerably well known in the revolution; I am thirty-five years old. My residence will soon be nothing. My name will live in the Pantheon of history." His disdainful or indignant replies, the cold and measured answers of Lacroix, the austere dignity of Philippeaux, the vigour of Desmoulins, were beginning to move the people. But the accused were silenced, under the pretext ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... With a disdainful motion she kicked off a heavily clumsy slipper—her instep arched narrowly to a delicate ankle, the small heel was sharply cut. "In silk," she said, "and a little brocaded slipper, you would see." She replaced the inadequate thing of leather. The animation died from her ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... itself, however, is not of much importance, for I believe he really likes you. But, after that, he told me of his love for me. Perhaps I was a little too insolent, too disdainful. I do not know exactly how far I went; but I found myself in such a perplexing, such a painful, such an extraordinary situation, that I ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... changed my mind," said Romola Borria with a disdainful toss of her pretty head. "Besides, I think the Herr Captain would have a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... impatient with all facts and arguments which obstruct the full sweep of his theory, he has an offensive habit of escaping from objections he will not pause to answer, by the calling of names and the introduction of Providence. He is most petulantly disdainful of others when he has nothing but paradoxes with which to oppose their truisms. He has a trick of adopting the manner and expressions of Carlyle, in speaking of incidents and characters to which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... daughter vnto Offa king of Mercia (as before ye haue heard) and he maried hir in the fourth yere of his reigne. She is noted by writers to haue bin a verie euill woman, proud, and high-minded as Lucifer, and therewith disdainful. She bare [Sidenote: Ethelburga hir conditions and wicked nature.] hir the more statelie, by reason of hir fathers great fame and magnificence: whome she hated she would accuse to hir husband, and so put them in danger of their liues. And if she might ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... with a smile intended to be disdainful, but which was gratified, and moved across, with the newspaper in his hand, to lean ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hope for many more such quiet walks with his fair companion. She would soon have more efficient chaperons than the children, who often made a pretence of accompanying them, but invariably dashed off, disdainful of the sober pace of their elders. Before long—next day probably—he would be handed over to the tender mercies of Jack, who had constantly lamented the occupations that prevented his paying proper attention to his guest. The heir of Lisnahoe had promised to show ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... laughing. "You see, I am frank with you. We marry for money, yes, but we do not make a god of it. It is our servant. You make it, and we enjoy it. Yes, and you, Mademoiselle—you, too, were made to enjoy. You do not belong here," he said, with a disdainful sweep of the arm. "Ah, I have solved you. You have in you the germ of the Riviera. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with all his romantic qualities, lacked any perception of the noble and beautiful in life, and it could be positively asserted that his estimate of Mrs. Maldon was chiefly disdainful. But of Mrs. Maldon's secret opinion about John Batchgrew nothing could be affirmed with certainty. Nobody knew it or ever would know it. I doubt whether Mrs. Maldon had whispered it even to herself. In youth he had been the very intimate friend of her husband. Which fact ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... is naturally roused to be his own protector; and having nothing to abate his esteem of himself, he, consequently, aspires to the esteem of others. Thus every man that crowds our streets is a man of honour, disdainful of obligation, impatient of reproach, and desirous of extending his reputation among those of his own rank; and, as courage is in most frequent use, the fame of courage is most eagerly pursued. From this neglect of subordination, I do not deny, that some inconveniencies ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... most lucid intellects. Nothing is indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... of her own attractions, and was as imperious and overbearing as any American beauty, stamping her tiny foot in rage at our photographer's lack of haste in taking her picture, and once walking away from the camera with a disdainful toss of her head. When, after much persuasion, she was finally induced to return, it was only to scowl sullenly at everybody with the most bewitching ill temper, poised so lightly that the very wind seemed ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... wave of mingled scent and cigar smoke struck my nostrils. The first thing I noticed over Davies's shoulder, as he preceded me into the room, was a woman - the source of the perfume I decided—turning round from the piano as he passed it and staring him up and down with a disdainful familiarity that I at once hotly resented. She was in evening dress, pronounced in cut and colour; had a certain exuberant beauty, not wholly ascribable to nature, and a notable lack of breeding. Another glance ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... body moving a little way in front of her. She hated his sullen bull's face, his mouth close to hers, half open, puffing. From the walls Mr. Sutcliffe's ancestors looked at you as you shambled round, tied tight in your Indian scarf, like a funny lady in the bazaars. Raised eyebrows. Quiet, disdainful faces. She was glad when Norman Waugh ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... cause of these many errors as wilfulness and presumption? The same thing happens also in religious inquiries. When I see a person hasty and violent, harsh and high-minded, careless of what others feel, and disdainful of what they think,—when I see such a one proceeding to inquire into religious subjects, I am sure beforehand he cannot go right—he will not be led into all the truth—it is contrary to the nature of ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... dark grey, not brilliant, but soft; the light, fine hair is cropped close to the shapely head. He is a lad that one likes at the first glance; and although one sees, all too plainly, that those chiselled lips can take a disdainful curl sometimes, one knows instinctively that they may always be trusted to tell the simple truth. Anything mean, anything sneaky, could not live in the steady light of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various |
