"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Iemon could flatter himself on the efficacy of the divine interposition. The public mind was quieted. Nothing more was heard of O'Iwa San. Only the daily summons, on one pretext or another, to the ward office troubled him. The yakunin also made a practice of taking in Tamiya en route to performance of their various ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Lotys suddenly; "Who speaks of them—who needs them? Rich friends expect you to toady to them; to lick the ground under their feet; to fawn and flatter and lie, and be anything but honest men! The rich are the vulgar of this world;—no one who has heart, or soul, or sense, would condescend to seek friendships among those whose only claim to precedence is the possession of a little more yellow ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... masses. The leaf patterns (Nos. 6 and 7, p. 169[f093]) consist simply of the repetition and reversal of a single element. An emphatic effect is obtained by bringing the leaves out black upon a white ground (as in No. 6), while a flatter and softer effect is the result of throwing them upon a plane of half-tint expressed by horizontal lines, with a similar effect of relief to that which would be given by the warp, ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... When he changed the trade-mark the Germans bought them as fast as he could supply them—not because they were short of food at that time, but through the magic of a name. To-day all that is changed. Norwegians no longer have to flatter the Germans, who are anxious to buy anything in the way of food. They flood Germany now with impunity with sardines whose merits are extolled in the hated English language, sardines which had originally been intended for Britain or ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... there is no need to fear aught by reason of any dream that is contrary thereto, or on that account to give up any just design; and as for crooked and sinister enterprises, however dreams may seem to favour them, and flatter the hopes of the dreamer with auspicious omens, none should trust them: rather should all give full credence to such as run counter thereto. But come we ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Architect. Thereafter he sat thoughtfully in his britchka—plunged in meditation on the subject of whom else it might be well to visit. However, not a single magnate had been neglected, and in conversation with his hosts he had contrived to flatter each separate one. For instance to the Governor he had hinted that a stranger, on arriving in his, the Governor's province, would conceive that he had reached Paradise, so velvety were the roads. "Governors who appoint capable subordinates," ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... My dear Sir, you flatter yourself. You have lied over the reason. Pip, remember that I know you as you don't know yourself. You have been everything to me, though you are—(Fan-guard.) Oh, what a contemptible Thing it is! And so you are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... when she brings the knee close to the flap of the saddle; and it will be more inconvenient to alter the length of the leather, when the lady is mounted, than if the buckle or hook was low down. The hook (Fig. 14) is better than a buckle, because it lies flatter and is ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... give my own character, I must be excused to give it as impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and the sequel will lead you to judge whether I flatter myself or no. ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... of small criticism and fault-finding. Mr. Mann replied that Webster was wrong in his Latin, and the words Captatores Verborum meant toad- eaters, or men who hang on the words of great men to praise and flatter them, of which he found some conspicuous modern examples among Webster's supporters. Professor Felton, the Greek professor, who was a staunch friend of Webster, attacked Mann and charged him with ignorance of Latin. But Dr. Beck came to the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... I flatter myself that's not a bad signature, nor would be easily forged. One can not be too careful over— What's that? a ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... does not appear to flatter humanity its effect is of that character. He would make his readers believe that they are pure, great, and capable beings like those deified by him. The adulation being too great for many who peruse his pages, large numbers of readers are led into dangerous vagaries. "The influence of Carlyle's ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... booty from the island of our enemies, by means of tobacco, a weed the cause of much deceit; for how much deceit is practiced in carrying it about, in mixing it, and in weighing it: a weed which entices some people to bib ale; others to curse, swear, and to flatter in order to obtain it, and others to tell lies in denying that they use it: a weed productive of maladies in various bodies, the excess of which is injurious to every man's body, without speaking of his soul: a weed, moreover, by which we get multitudes of the poor, whom we should never get, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... a lady, I translate for you, 'go now and say, that angels cannot die.' But you must not read this to her, for she will absurdly say 'tis flattery, as if I could have any motive to flatter her. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... here, and you told me she hated her husband; therefore, without too much vanity, I may flatter myself she will give me the ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... above mentioned, from private business, I flatter'd myself that, by the sufficient tho' moderate fortune I had acquir'd, I had secured leisure during the rest of my life for philosophical studies and amusements. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus, who had come from England to lecture here, and I proceeded ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... any occasion to consider him. We have neither the right, the capacity, nor the data by which to sit in judgment; but it is hardly honest to withhold reports, that seem to be well founded, because they do not flatter the youthful career of a great man. In his own "Henry IV." and "Henry V." Shakespeare shows how the recklessness of youth is not incompatible with sound living and a high standard of morality and common sense ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... dun-colored ridges or sharply outlined crests of remote mountain range, in lifeless desolation the landscape lay outspread to the view. Southward, streaked with white fringe of alkali, the flat monotone of sand and ashes blended with the flatter, flawless surface of a wide-spreading, ash-colored inland lake, its shores dotted at intervals with the bleaching bones of cattle and ridged with ancient wagon-tracks unwashed by not so much as a single drop from the cloudless heavens since their first ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... again a report was received from aloft that all was clear ahead, and the explorers began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the polar sea. Several headlands were passed, and wide openings to the north and south. With a strong breeze from the eastward, running on until midnight, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... he, "yes, that would flatter me very much; but I should not have time enough to enjoy the distinction. During our expedition to Bethune the husband of my duchess died; so, my dear, the coffer of the defunct holding out its arms to me, I shall marry the widow. Look here! I was trying on my wedding ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it would,' she said, nodding confidently at him. 'You must not flatter yourself, because Mr. Wentworth told me everything about it, that you wouldn't have done just the same, if I had had to find it out from you. All men are pretty much alike where ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... certain that it is not to be proved, and therefore we had better take it as we find it (viz.) for one single Act; but suppose it was so, 'tis still certain that Noah's Preaching was sadly interrupted, the Energy of his Words flatter'd, and the Force of his Persuasions enervated and abated, by this shameful Fall; that he was effectually silenc'd for an Instructor ever after, and this was as much as the Devil had Occasion for; and therefore indeed we read little more of him, except that he lived three ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... is pleased to flatter," she returned, drooping her eyes at him with a purposefully artificial effect. From the time when she was a child of four she had carried on a violent and highly appreciated flirtation with "Cousin Billy," being the only person in the world who employed the diminutive ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... London contain all the famous men of France and England, and anybody who jokes about them is sure of having the whole public for an audience; while the best New York joke falls flat in Boston or Philadelphia, and flatter still in Cincinnati or Chicago, owing to want of acquaintance with the materials of ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... request of my friend, Lord Byron, I consider it my duty to offer you some considerations relative to the proposed journey to Geneva, so as to give you an idea of the undesirable results likely to follow. I flatter myself that you will accept this request of his, together with the motives leading me to acquiesce, as an excuse for the liberty taken by a total stranger. In acting thus, the sole object I have in view is my friend's peace of mind, and that of those in whom he is so deeply interested. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... "You flatter me, Mr. Chadron, and the uniform of the United States army," returned King, with barely covered contempt. "Suppose we allow events to shape themselves in regard to Miss Chadron. She'll hardly be entertaining marriage ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... letters to my sister two descriptions of nature for my stories. It is curious that you have quite a masculine way of writing. In every line (except when dealing with children) you are a man! This, of course, ought to flatter your vanity, for speaking generally, men are a thousand times better than women, and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... General C.C. Pinckney yesterday, and he told me, in his laughing, humorous way, that he had requested you to draw his brother Thomas twenty years younger than he really was, so as to be a companion to his own when he was twenty years younger than at this time, and to flatter him as he had directed Stuart to do so ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... aunt is addicted to snuff, tracts, and the distribution of flannel, and before August, the fair Dorothea will be yearning for a sight of her adorer. You can easily gammon Anthony Whaup into a loan of that yacht of his which he makes such a boast of; and if you go prudently about it, and flatter him on the score of his steering, I haven't the least doubt that he will victual his hooker and give you a cruise in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her head positively. "Old American. As old and as good as her name. You wouldn't flatter her by guessing her to be anything else. I dare say she would consider the average British aristocrat ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... The two started on the return to the village. On the road Bakahenzie sought to flatter MYalu by pretending to take him into his confidence, adjuring him to secrecy and informing him that he would cause it to be known that MYalu, the son of MBusa, would bring back the Bride of the Banana. MYalu assented ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... no compromise," Engleton answered fiercely. "There is nothing which you could offer which could repay me for the horror of the nights you have left me to shiver here in this d—d vault. Don't flatter yourself that I shall ever forget it. I stay on because I cannot escape, but I would sooner stay here for ever than beg for mercy from ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... invite us," said the exchange editor, "but then I suppose the affair is to be a very quiet one, and we can't take offence at that. The old man's not a bad lot, by any means. Let's do something to please him and to flatter his bride. What do you say to raising a fund to buy them a present, in the name ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the plague's going off without reaching them, that they took no care either to fly into the country or shut themselves up: nay, so far were they from stirring, that they rather received their friends and relations ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... replied I, modestly, "I had begun to flatter myself that our little innocent gayety had inspired you with the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... their using different weights and different divisions of them in different parts of that empire. It is therefore a very desirable thing to have these difficulties removed, and to get all philosophers to use pounds divided in the same manner, and I flatter myself that may be accomplished if you, Dr. Priestley, and a few of the French experimenters will agree to it; for the utility is so evident, that every thinking person must immediately be ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... tempt all the rogues in Yorkshire, and there's a lot of them. But now I've seen it, I'll go home with these bits of paper. I shall be a very important woman to-night. Them two lads won't know how to fleech and flatter me enough. I'll be waited on hand and foot. And Nicholas will get a bit of a set-down. He was bragging about Miss Ethel bringing his invitation to his hand and promising to dance with him. I wouldn't do it if I were Miss Ethel. She'll find out, if she does, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... Highness! (Curtseying profoundly.) JULIA (sneering at her). Old frump! BAR. Humph! A recent creation, probably? LUD. We were married only half an hour ago. BAR. Exactly. I thought she seemed new to the position. JULIA. Ma'am, I don't know who you are, but I flatter myself I can do justice to any part on the very shortest notice. BAR. My dear, under the circumstances you are doing admirably—and you'll improve with practice. It's so difficult to be a lady when one isn't born to it. JULIA (in a rage, to LUDWIG). Am I to stand this? Am ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Thou wrong'st me, cruel Prince! At first, in truth, I might not have been won, Save through the weakness of a flatter'd pride; But now,—oh! trust me,—couldst thou fall from ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Possible of it, and it Carried us out about a 1/4 of a Mile from the breakers; but it was too Narrow for us to keep in long. However, what with the help of this Ebb, and our Boats, we by Noon had got an Offing of 1 1/2 or 2 Miles, yet we could hardly flatter ourselves with hopes of getting Clear, even if a breeze should Spring up, as we were by this time embay'd by the Reef, and the Ship, in Spite of our Endeavours, driving before the Sea into the bight. The Ebb had been in our favour, and we had reason to Suppose the flood which was now made would ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... will perhaps be astonished to find, that the Doctor as supposed to flatter himself with the hope that his attentions were not altogether unacceptable to a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... grave and sometimes comic, but never-failing. He describes solicitors (or suitors) at Court, all pushing their fortune. "Some singis, some dancis, some tells storyis." Some try to make friends by their devotion, some have their private advocates in the King's chamber, some flatter, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... and persistency in the people of Italy, and was perhaps as much for their good as the dangerous boon of independence would have been. All such prejudices will be removed by a candid perusal of this memoir. Cavour himself, as a statesman and a man, was of exactly that stamp which we flatter ourselves to be the exclusive growth of America and England. He was nothing of a visionary, nothing of a political pedant, nothing of a doctrinaire. Franklin himself had not a more practical understanding, or more of large, plain, roundabout sense. He had, too, Franklin's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... are plenty of people in the same box that you are," I said. "Don't flatter yourself that you are the only one who has taken money; but perhaps they will now go through the books, and, discovering the ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... so insipid, so contemptible—what I hear is so small. A strong, highly spiced word, even if it is sharp, refreshes me—When you have finished a picture, do you like to hear nothing but how well your friends can flatter?" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dear, do you say?' and he turned with practised insolence to a pot-girl in a red shawl who could not have uttered an audible word to save her soul, but who blushed and giggled with pleasure at this mark of attention. 'Ah! you flatter, fair maiden! I look more than twenty, but I think I may say that I do not look thirty. Does any lady or gentleman think I look thirty? No! As a matter of fact, I was twenty-nine years of age when, in ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... state of our knowledge we may flatter ourselves with having thrown some light on the extraordinary effects of electric fishes, yet a vast number of physical and physiological researches still remain to be made. The brilliant results which chemistry ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the whole people of Paris and that it is dangerous to insult him at this moment, and if this priest wished it, in an hour you would be without a crown? Come, then, on another occasion you can be firm and strong; but to-day is not the proper time; to-day, flatter and caress, or you are ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Not flatter vice. We curse vice only behind its back, and that's like making a long nose at it round a corner. I am a zoologist or a sociologist, which is the same thing; you are a doctor; society believes in us; we ought to point out the terrible harm which threatens it and the next generation ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... added, that democracy would have very little to say to it, on one side or on the other. The lower order of voters, the small farmers and tradesmen, would no doubt range themselves on the side of the duke, and would endeavour to flatter themselves that they were thereby furthering the views of the Liberal side; but they would in fact be led to the poll by an old-fashioned, time-honoured adherence to the will of their great Llama; ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... to me that you could not breathe easily while this world held Carleton Barker living. You may now draw an easy breath, and many of them, for the Barker episode is over. Barker is dead, and I flatter myself that I am doing very well myself to live sanely after the ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... had betrayed her. She would go away with these monstrous captors, endure them, even flatter them, until she and they were far removed from the island. And then—she would kill herself. In her innocence she imagined that self-destruction, under such circumstances, was a pardonable offence. She only gave a life to save a life, and greater love than this is ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... course, I must now proceed to my dinner at Sir Charles Stuart's. I was shewn into a room where I found three or four Englishmen gaping at one another. Before many more had assembled, in came Sir C., and I believe, or rather I am willing to flatter myself, he made a sort of half bow towards us, and then we stood and gaped again; a few more words between him and one or two who were to go to Court the day after, but to me and some others not a syllable of any description was uttered, and when some more English were shewn in who were, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... the stations I have occasion to visit from time to time. On one a good lady played and sang Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance to me from dewy eve to dawn. I'm bound to say I sang some of it at sight myself; and I flatter myself it helped to pass an embarrassing night rather pleasantly for all concerned. We had all hands on the place for our audience, and when I left I was formally presented with both scores; for I had ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... repulsion—"She declares we are in the pay of her aunt and Lord Roxmouth. So we are, more or less! And what does it matter! Money must be had—and whatever way there is of getting it should be taken. I laughed at her, and told her quite frankly that I would do anything for money,—flatter a millionaire one day and cut him the next, if I could get cheques for doing both. How in the world should I get on without money?—or you either! But she is an incorrigible little idiot—talks about honour and principle exactly like some mediaeval story-book. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... will soon be charged with sums sufficient for the ransom; and if this avail not, not one of them will grudge their silver flagons and vessels to melt down to make the total required. But we must not flatter ourselves that he will obtain his liberty so soon as the money is raised. Prince John has long been yearning for sovereignty. He has long exercised the real, if not the nominal, power, and he has been intriguing with the pope and Philip of France for their support for his seizing the crown. He ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... Minister will not remove the Court to some other place? Is it possible to have that Communication with our Constituents, or to be benefited by the Reasonings of the people without Doors here, as at Boston? We cannot but flatter ourselves, that every judicious and impartial Person will allow, that the holding the General Court at Cambridge, is inconvenient and hurtful to the Province; Nor has your Honor ever yet attempted to show a single Instance, in which the province can be benefited by it: No good purpose which ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... govern at Rome when I cease to reign at Milan? No, Holy Father! the pontiff who placed the crown on my head, should it be shaken, will fall to rise no more." If what Cardinal Caprara said can be depended upon, Bonaparte frequently used to intimidate or flatter ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... You've no idea! she's so jealous that life is not only a burden, it's a weight that's smashing me flatter every day. I'm getting a gray hair and a wrinkle, and all because of her. And ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... fare; a little goes a long way; I respect Bancroft, but I do not love him; he has moments when he feels himself inspired to open up his improvisations upon universal history and the designs of God; but I flatter myself I am more nearly acquainted with the latter than Mr. Bancroft. A man, in the words of my Plymouth Brother, "who knows the Lord," must needs, from time to time, write less emphatically. It is a fetter ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is no doubt from following this standard of beauty that even the Aztec people, who never disfigured the heads of their children, have represented their heroes and principal divinities with heads much flatter than any of the Caribs I saw on the Lower Orinoco."—Humboldt's Researches on the Ancient Inhabitants ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... What are you trying to say? I remember, in the spring You pretended you could sing; But your voice is now still queerer, And as yet you've come no nearer To a song. In fact, to sum the matter, I never heard a flatter Failure than your doleful clatter. Don't you think it's wrong? It was sweet to hear your note, I'll not deny, When April set pale clouds afloat O'er the blue tides of sky, And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums You, in your white ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... truer explanation of Frank's failures. Had he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater compliment, because Mr. Scott would have been a friend worth making. Dand, on the other hand, he did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while he tried to flatter. Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is! He who goes fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your letter of three sheets: I began to flatter myself that the storm was blown over, but I tremble to think of the danger you are in! a danger, in which even the protection of the great friend you have lost could have been of no service to you. How ridiculous it seems for me to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... to in a note from a correspondent at Albany, in which we find the following sentences: 'If received, I hope it was not amenable to the censure in a late number of the KNICKERBOCKER, of certain correspondence, for having been written 'too carefully.' Now I do flatter myself upon so writing, that compositors can have no excuse for blunders, though I am well aware that to be esteemed a Genious, one's chirography should very nearly approach unintelligibility. If this be true, the patience and good nature of an Editor must be ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... then thirty years old; Louise of Savoy was forty-five, but she was still beautiful, attractive, and puissant; she had given the constable unmistakable proofs of her inclination for him and of the influence which his inclinations exercised over her: she might well flatter herself that he would be attracted by the prospect of becoming the king's step-father and almost a sharer in the kingly power, whilst retaining that of the great feudal lord. The chancellor, Duprat, full of ability ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fates will, and not to worry one's self beforehand about times and connections. But the American was in a fever of impatience, desirous, if possible, to get on that night. I knew he was from the Land of the Free by a phrase I heard him use in the cars: he said, "I'll bet a dollar." Yet I must flatter myself that Americans do not always thus betray themselves. I happened, on the Isle of Wight, to hear a bland landlord "blow up" his glib-tongued son because the latter had not driven a stiffer bargain with us for the hire of a carriage round ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... need of his assistance, I tried to flatter his tastes, and he was so pleased with me that he immediately wished to show me how his trained boxers fought, and he led the way into a kind of arena situated ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... myself. They press me to bring our union to a conclusion, they threaten me also with a rival, who without doubt deserves her more than I. How can I, miserable wretch that I am, how can I ward off the blow which threatens me? I flatter myself, at least, to have succeeded in my endeavours to conceal the vice of a heart which, although entirely her own, can never exterminate the miserable passion which possesses it. The time approaches with rapid strides when I must make up my mind. Good ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... manner suggested a charming frankness and innocence, took Peter by the arm. "Which of the three Graces do you mean to devote yourself to this afternoon, Peter? You shall not flatter us ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... yet was he to me the moste shrew;* *cruel, ill-tempered That feel I on my ribbes all *by rew,* *in a row And ever shall, until mine ending day. But in our bed he was so fresh and gay, And therewithal so well he could me glose,* *flatter When that he woulde have my belle chose, Though he had beaten me on every bone, Yet could he win again my love anon. I trow, I lov'd him better, for that he Was of his love so dangerous* to me. *sparing, difficult We women have, if that I shall not lie, In this ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that produces conviction; and, I flatter myself, that, being gifted with some little sense and skill, my efforts may be ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... yet exempt me not from your revenge. Thus by your pleasures being set aloft, Straight by your furies I should quickly fall. No, citizens, who readeth Sylla's mind, Must form my titles in another kind: Either let Sylla be dictator ever, Or flatter Sylla with these ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... James, had much prospered in wealth and even in comfort. Ayala might flatter in some degree, but he attests the great increase in comfort and ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... for yourselves," called Dennis. "We're level with the gun," and, trying to squeeze themselves flatter, if such a performance had been humanly possible, they heard the rhythmical tac-tac abreast of them and the weird whistle of the deadly stream of bullets a few feet above ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... say, sometimes (as I think) they may; but they being naturally ignorant, understand not that such convictions tend to their good; and therefore they do desperately seek to stifle them, and presumptuously continue to flatter themselves in the way of ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... thoughts; and flatter not too soon. Just in the place you named, where three ways met. And near that time, five persons I encountered; One was too like, (heaven grant it prove not him!) Whom you describe for Laius: insolent, And fierce ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the French socialists, and that Rights-of-labour-knot of vagabonds who meet at Geneva. Your boy is not too wise to keep himself out of these scrapes, and he is just, by name and station, of consequence enough to make these fellows make up to and flatter him. Give him a sound fright, then, and when he is thoroughly alarmed about his failure, send him abroad for a short tour, let him go study at Halle or Heidelberg—anything, in short, that will take him away from Ireland, and break off his intimacy with this Atlee and his ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... aloof from the theatre, nor from actors and actresses—heavies and juveniles, and emotionals and soubrettes. He must know them, and more intimately; and at first he must be subject to them, however he mastered them at last; he must flatter their oddities and indulge their caprices. His experience with Godolphin had taught him that, and his experience with Godolphin in the construction of his play could be nothing to what he must undergo at rehearsals and in the effort to adapt his work to ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... same principle which makes the young harlot an old saint makes the repentant rake a believer in sexual anesthesia. Most of the medical men who believe, or claim to believe, that sexual anesthesia is so prevalent do so either to flatter their hysterical patients or because they have the mentality of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Sparrow," cried she. "I have been looking forward with much pleasure to seeing you." And then she tried to flatter it ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... is possible you can arrange for yourselves!" She shot a bright, quizzical look from one to the other. "I know you would wish me to stay and measure out the milk and sugar, and it would flatter me to do so, but, unhappily, I have a dish of some importance upon my own fire, and it is necessary that one is domestic when one is only a woman—is it not so, Monsieur Max?" She wrinkled her pretty face into a grimace of mischief, and nodded as ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... you can bring a tomahawk and do the criticism, and I shall try to have my courage ready for it—Oh, you will do me so much good—and Mr. Kenyon calls me 'docile' sometimes I assure you; when he wants to flatter me out of being obstinate—and in good earnest, I believe I shall do everything you tell me. The 'Prometheus' is done—but the monodrama is where it was—and the novel, not at all. But I think of some half promises half given, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... landsman, there is some sort of a Cape Horn for all. Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time. Gray-beards! thank God it is passed. And ye lucky livers, to whom, by some rare fatality, your Cape Horns are placid as Lake Lemans, flatter not yourselves that good luck is judgment and discretion; for all the yolk in your eggs, you might have foundered and gone down, had the Spirit of the Cape ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... tell you," said their host putting his finger to his nose. "If information is wanted in this part of the world, I flatter myself—Come, Master Gerard, here's a table; what shall I call for? glass of the Mowbray slap-bang? No better; the receipt has been in our family these fifty years. Mr Morley I know won't join us. Did you say a cup of tea, Mr Morley? Water, only water; well, that's strange. Boy alive there, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... are equal, either of them is by one Eighth more sharp than the former Sound, neither are they distinguished from one another; but if they prove to be unequally divided, then two distinct Sounds are made at the same time, whereof one is flatter than the ether, and this is commonly called a broken Voice: But why our Voice should fail us, when we endeavour to make it more sharp, or more flat than it ought to be, the reason is, because we strive either so to contract the Cleft of the Wind-pipe, ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... a surgical operation may be healthful for the individual body. Next to the Jew, the Dutchman is the most stubbornly tenacious of human creatures. He is a fighting man into the bargain. Iglesias could not flatter himself that the campaign would result in an easy walk-over for so much of the British army as a supine and annoyed Government condescended to place in the field. The whole affair lay heavy on his soul. It lay there all the heavier that ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... for the execution, and is delighted to wear his unearned laurels while the thing is barely talked of. The chance of success relieves the uneasiness of his apprehensions; so that he makes use of the interval only to flatter his favourite infirmity again. Would you wean a man from sensual excesses by the inevitable consequences to which they lead?—What holds more antipathy to pleasure than pain? The mind given up to self-indulgence revolts at suffering, and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the monumental style. Look grave as we will, there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to no purpose that our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter. Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Mendez, and the canoe he had recently purchased, presented itself to the mind of Columbus. He knew the ardor and intrepidity of Mendez, and his love of distinction by any hazardous exploit. Taking him aside, therefore, he addressed him in a manner calculated both to stimulate his zeal, and flatter his self-love. Mendez himself gives an artless account of this interesting conversation, which is full ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... husband must be attentive to the signs of sexual desire in his wife. "Women," he says, "when sexual desire arises within them are accustomed to ask their husbands questions on matters of love; they flatter and caress them; they allow some part of their body to be uncovered as if by accident; their breasts appear to swell; they show unusual alacrity; they blush; their eyes are bright; and if they experience unusual ardor they stammer, talk beside the mark, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of one or two princely mansions, and some few inferior ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The architecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in this country; but for any other architecture, it is in a barbarous state, and what is worse, in ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... at a venture, and both examiners rubbed their hands and murmured, "Very good, indeed!" at which Tom's hair began to lie a little flatter, and he ceased to feel as if he were in a ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... our missionaries in their enterprise had indeed run smooth, and they had begun to flatter themselves that they had over-estimated the trials and dangers of the life they had chosen; but sad reverses awaited them. They had been in Serampore but ten days, when Messrs. Judson and Newell were summoned to Calcutta, where an order from government was read to ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... said the Duchess, who took it for granted that Mr. Finn knew all that his wife knew. "Has it answered?" Phineas was silent for a moment. "Of course you will tell me the truth. You won't be so bad as to flatter me now that I am so much in earnest." "I almost think," said Phineas, "that the time has gone by for what one may call drawing-room influences. They used to be very great. Old Lord Brock used them extensively, though by no means as your Grace has done. But the spirit of the world has changed ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... something to go on. We are not absolutely in the dark. Who knows? If the goddess of luck sits upon our shoulders, I myself may know the place well—may recognize it instantly! For years I have ridden these hills and I flatter myself that no one knows their hidden nooks and byways better than I. Even if I should not know the exact spot, it may be that I can tell by the general features its approximate locality, and thus limit our search to a ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you don't answer my question—what think you of Vaudemont? Few are ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... told him to give it to them with all the power he had; and as some of them were present, I told them I would be very much obliged if they would give it to him in about the same way. I take it he has now vastly improved upon the attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice on this subject. All I can say now is to re-commend to him and to them what I then commended,—to prosecute the war against one another in the most vigorous manner. I say to them again: "Go it, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... impression of Paris brilliancy, and see us in our own sphere, you pay court to us, if only as a pastime. And you, who are famous for your past passions, will be the object of attentions which will flatter you. Then take care!" cried Dinah, with a coquettish gesture, raising herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau's irony by her own sarcastic speech. "When a poor little country-bred woman has an eccentric passion ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... there is a kind of physiognomy in the title of a book by which a skilful observer will know as well what to expect from its contents as one does reading the lines. I flatter myself this claim will be disproved in ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... all. One of the suite overheard, and I got round him. There was much more, which I did not learn. But they are going to soothe and flatter the unfortunate King and Queen by asking ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... commented the immaculate Waldron. "Well, much as I'd like to flatter your astuteness, Flint, I'm bound to say you're barking up a false trail, this time! Beef, yes. Steel, yes. Railroads, steamships, coal, iron, wheat, yes. All tangible, all concrete, all susceptible of being weighed, measured, put in figures, fenced ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... over, depend upon it. There are boys and men of all sorts, Miss R.—There are selfish sneaks who hoard until the store they daren't use grows mouldy—there are spendthrifts who fling away, parasites who flatter and lick its shoes, and snarling curs who hate ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... How many a maid Has been betroth'd and then betray'd; And has repented after! Yet still he flatter'd her aside, And from the linden, far and wide, Juchhe! Juchhe! Juchheisa! Heisa! He! Rang fiddle-bow ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... with success you yourself shall judge. Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn, William Latimer, Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of yours as well as of mine, thought highly of them; you know yourself that they are too learned to be deceived in their judgement, and too sincere to want to flatter a friend—unless their affection for me has somewhat blinded them; the Italians to whom I have so far shown my attempt do not condemn it. It has been printed by Badius, successfully as far as he is concerned, so he ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... has found safety inside its opal globe. Safety? Ah, but what an unfortunate expression I have used! Is there any one in the world who can flatter himself that he has escaped ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... "Don't you flatter yourself on that point," said the engineer. "Let her once get a square look at you, and she will know you all right enough. She had an uneasy suspicion when she went past, that she had seen the distinguished gentleman with his back to her somewhere. ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... strong lights and shadows on buttresses and pointed windows; and the brown fields faintly sheened with green, which gave place to the deep maroon of the turned earth of vineyards, and the shining silver where the wind ruffled the olive-orchards; and beyond, the rolling hills that grew gradually flatter until they sank into the yellowish plain of Castile. As he made the gesture his fingers were stretched wide as if to grasp all this land he was showing. His flaccid cheeks were flushed as he turned to us; but we should see it in May, he was saying, in May when the wheat was thick ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... "Don't flatter yourself that I am afraid of you," she said. "I would say to your face what these people only dare think. Indeed, I was just going to look ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... him. It was inconceivable that he should compare himself with any of his fellow-creatures, and it was inconceivable that any honour they might have lavished upon him would have given him one moment's pleasure. He was entirely alone among aliens who were unable to comprehend him, aliens who could not flatter him, whose opinions were valueless to him. He had no more common ground on which to air his knowledge, no more grounds for comparison by which to achieve self-conceit than a man might have in a world tenanted only by sheep. From what I have heard ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... in books that whoso will flatter the lion, beguileth him, for that he is lightly duped by fair words and glorieth in praise; so he began and said, 'O lion of the forest and the waste! O unconquerable warrior! O father of heroes and Sultan of wild beasts! Behold, I ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... from those who are cast away in ships or boats; but the people who come here, have never returned. The difficulty of leaving the island is very great: and we flatter ourselves, that few who have remained any time with us, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not kill her?" cried Hortebise. "Had she not all his letters, and taunted him with the production of them? Ah, my dear friends, do not let us flatter ourselves that we have the sole monopoly of blackmailing. The high-born Countess plunged her hand into the Duke's coffers just as if she had been a mere adventuress. It is only ten days ago that she borrowed—you ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... the generals and addressed them: "Xenias and 8 Pasion," he said, "have taken leave of us; but they need not flatter themselves that in so doing they have stolen into hiding. I know where they are gone; nor will they owe their escape to speed; I have men-of-war to capture their craft, if I like. But heaven help me! if I mean to pursue them: never shall it be said of me, ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... As Strangers flatter'd with deceitful Snow, Fall in a Deadly Pit they do not know, So was I hamper'd in a Marriage Noose, In Marrying one that did frequent the Stews, As well as Cuckold me at Home; but she Transacting Whoredom with great Secresie Like other Neighbours, to avoid ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... full dear for all the pleasures of sin, that have carried away his heart from closing with, and following the Lord in the day of his prosperity. Ungodly men, because they feel no changes now, they fear none hereafter, but flatter themselves with dying as the godly, though their life is consumed in wickedness, and their strength in providing for and satisfying the lusts of the flesh. But as it fared with wicked Balaam, so shall it fare with these, and their vain hopes will prove a feeding upon ashes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Don't flatter me. I am vain enough already. The time may come when I may ask your good offices with Miss Linden. What I was about to ask was: Is Miss Linden also entitled to a share ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... York. I flatter myself I've loosened them while we've been away," the girl went on. "They won't find in Utica the same charm; that was my idea. I want a big place, and of course Utica—!" She broke off ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... flatter you" said Mrs. Gary, one evening "but that child has very elegant manners! Really, I think they are very nearly perfect. I don't believe there is an English court beauty who ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... amongst them, and that they were entirely submissive to their saintly founder. Admiring all these things, they said to each other: "This shows that the way to heaven is narrow, and that it is very difficult for the rich to enter into the Kingdom of God. We flatter ourselves that we shall eke out our salvation in the enjoyment of all the comforts of life, having our ease in all things, while these people, to save their souls, deprive themselves of everything, mortify their bodies, and are notwithstanding not ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... depot of prisoners at Verdun, the Marquis's interest with the Emperor prevailed, and I was allowed to remain at Paris, the happiest of prisoners, at the Colonel's hotel at the Place Vendome. I here had the opportunity (an opportunity not lost, I flatter myself, on a young fellow with the accomplishments of Philip Fogarty, Esq.) of mixing with the elite of French society, and meeting with many of the great, the beautiful, and the brave. Talleyrand was a frequent guest of the Marquis's. His ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... territories there are no mines either of gold or silver, and this young nation, just recovering from the waste and desolation of a long war, has not as yet had time to acquire riches by agriculture and commerce. But our soil is bountiful and our people industrious, and we have reason to flatter ourselves that we shall gradually ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... thing, of course; but I'm sanguine enough," declared my employer. "That little girl is a perfect brick. She's entirely unsuspicious. Flatter and court a woman, and if she falls in love with you she'll go any length ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... purpose. It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of atheism are found. If any one were to say to them "A lofty spirituality is beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely moral man"—it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say so. I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality itself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it is a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the "merely moral" man, after they have been acquired singly through long training and practice, perhaps ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... print! The reader will say, "Oh, how disagreeable they must have been, those two, that every one should have deserted them!" but this would be a mistake, for we flatter ourselves that we really are rather nice, and only "adverse circumstances" deprived us of our friends one ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... the walls are hung with portraits taken at different periods of his life. Mine host said that visitors from every land were as much interested in this room as in Shakespeare's birth-place. The remark may have been intensified to flatter an American visitor, but there are few names dearer to the Anglo-Saxon race than that on the plain headstone in the burial-yard of Sleepy Hollow. Sunnyside is scarcely visible to the Day Line tourist. A little gleam of color here and there amid the trees, close ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... life! He was London born and bred, and goes up every year to visit his friends there. He's getting old now, as I am myself; but though he speaks sharp, he's as easy to be managed as a baby. Any one can twist him round with their little finger, so long as they just flatter ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... "Fields" between the jail and the Almshouse, to see me on the gallows. If such thoughts do not assail the brave—if restless nights, wakeful dawns, dull days are not their portion—I must own that all these were mine, not often, perhaps, but too frequent to flatter self-esteem. And, fight them as I might, it was useless; for such moments came without warning—often when I had been merry with friends, at times when, lulled by long-continued security, I had nigh forgotten ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... suppose I should have listened to opinions as much to the purpose as the tinkle of broken glass or the interpretation of dreams. By Hercules, you are much more deserving of censure than I, you who will flatter a poet so as to get an invitation to dinner!" Then we laughed ourselves out of a most disgraceful quarrel, and approached more peaceably whatever remained to be done. But the remembrance of that injury recurred to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter |
