"Scoffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I much fear; And virtue's not always victorious, that's clear: At least, not at first: for it must be confessed Poor Blackbird lost many a stick from his nest; And his unkind grand neighbors with scoffing caw-caws, In his voice and his character found many flaws, And jeered him and mocked him; but when they'd all done, He flew to his tree ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... great sorrow that we mothers and fathers see our boys and girls, especially those who return from abroad, neglecting and scoffing at our modes of education that have endured and done such noble work for centuries past. I know it is necessary to study things modern to keep up with the demands of the times; but they can do this and still reserve some hours for the reading of the classics. Instead of always quoting Byron, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... is the king who is preparing a wedding feast for his son.' Thus did they turn into ridicule those eternal truths which he had taught under the from of parables to those whom he came from heaven to save; and whilst repeating these scoffing words, they continued to strike him with their fists and sticks, and to spit in his face. Next they put a crown of reeds upon his head, took off his robe and scapular, and then threw an old torn mantle, which scarcely reached ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... but he was cowed. Between agony and shame, he had no heart to resist. Martyrdom, which looked so splendid when consummated selon les regles on Tower Hill or Tyburn, before pitying, or (still better) scoffing multitudes, looked a confused, dirty, ugly business there in the dark forest; and as he lay, a stream of moonlight bathed his mighty cousin's broad clear forehead, and his long golden locks, and his white terrible blade, till he seemed, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... gave them bad preeminence in sin. Their scoff acknowledged that He had 'saved others,' and their hate had so blinded their eyes that they could not see how manifestly His refusal to use His power to save Himself proved Him the Son of God. He could not save Himself, just because He would save these scoffing Rabbis and all the world. The rough soldiers knew little about Him, but they followed suit, and thought it an excellent jest to bring the 'vinegar,' provided in kindness, to Jesus with a mockery of reverence as to a king. The gibe was double-barrelled, like the inscription over the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... those, spoken with such animation from a child of only eight years, might have provoked a smile in light, scoffing auditors, but they were understood and appreciated by the grave Scotch, who admired the courage of this young disciple, already armed for the battle. Even Paganel was stirred to the depths of his heart, and felt his warmer sympathy awakened for the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... of this ancient and very dignified newspaper, George felt a sense of disappointment. He had little esteem for journalists, whom Mr. Enwright was continually scoffing at, and whom he imagined to be all poor. He had conceived Mr. Ingram as perhaps a rich cosmopolitan financier, or a rich idler—but at any rate rich, whatever he ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... this little, I pray you, And't shall be aside, then after, as you please. You appear the Uncle, Sir, to her I love More than mine eyes; and I have heard your scorns With so much scoffing, and so much shame, As each strive which is greater: But, believe me, I suck'd not in this patience with my milk. Do not presume, because you see me young, Or cast despights on my profession For the civility and tameness of it. A good man bears a contumely ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... there had been, from time immemorial, a stag-horn fixed into the wall, and an equally immemorial belief among the Jews that whoso touched it died on the spot. A score of stories in proof were hurled at the scoffing Maimon. And so, passing the stag-horn one day, he cried to his companions: "You Posen fools, do you think that any one who touches this horn dies on the spot? See, I dare to ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... majestic sage with ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard nobly stained with nicotine, whose utterances will be heeded with shuddering respect. All minor colyumists will wear robes and sandals; they will be an order of scoffing friars; people will run to them on crowded streets to lay before them the sorrows and absurdities of men. ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... see some estimable man who subscribes to the Bible Society, and takes what he calls 'a warm interest' in the heathen, chuckling over some scoffing article in a newspaper—say about a Church Congress—and never perceiving, so unaccustomed is he to examine directions, that he is all the time laughing at his own folly! Aunt Nesbit, in 'Dred,' considered Gibbon a very pious writer. 'I am sure,' ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... excitement chased themselves all over the girls in a highly disconcerting manner, and even scoffing Phil leaned forward in his chair to miss not one word of this ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... proclamation, and talking very well for two hours about his plan of action. He had arguments which should have appeared solid enough if we, members of old, stable political and national organizations, were not startled by the mere idea of a new State evolved like this out of the head of a scoffing young man fleeing for his life, with a proclamation in his pocket, to a rough, jeering, half-bred swashbuckler, who in this part of the world is called a general. It sounds like a comic fairy tale—and behold, it may come off; because it is true to the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Boat within a coffin: Pray, gentlefolks, forbear your scoffing. A Boat a judge! yes; where's the blunder? A wooden judge is no such wonder. And in his robes you must agree, No boat was better deckt than he. 'Tis needless to describe him fuller; In short, he ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think. They are slaves who dare not be In the right with ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... "how relish ye your entertainment at Torquilstone?—Are ye yet aware what your 'surquedy' and 'outrecuidance' [31] merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the House of Anjou?—Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited hospitality of the royal John? By God and St Dennis, an ye pay not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these windows, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... scoffing of this stranger (though all the time I felt that he was none), I answered that the scribe Ana was striving to mend his luck by the pursuit of the goddess of learning ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... later period I read something in Neander, Lange, and others on the life of Christ. Still later I read Young's Christ of History, with Renan and Ecce Homo. Renan tried me very much. He seemed to write in the scoffing spirit of Voltaire, and I laid the book aside before I got to the end. Ecce Homo delighted me exceedingly. I read it a dozen times. I studied it, and it did me a great deal of good. It both strengthened my faith in Christ, and increased my love to Him. Still later I read ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... of, my lot. And the more I mixed with Doubleday and his set, the more I felt this. They all had the appearance of such well-to-do fellows, to whom expense seemed no object. They talked in such a scoffing way of the "poor beggars" who couldn't "stand" the luxuries they indulged in, or dress in the fashionable style ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... presence. Hiketes and his son were put to death as despots and traitors; nor did Euthymus meet with compassion, though he was a man of renown in athletic contest, and of great personal bravery, because of a scoffing speech of which he was accused against the Corinthians. The story goes that he was addressing the people of Leontini on the subject of the Corinthian invasion, and told them that there was nothing ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... erect ears, and in his boisterous position had suffered a loss of hair, wearing nothing save an impudent scalp-lock. A very grotesque personage. Was he the guardian imp, the legendary Eft of Katahdin, scoffing already at us as verdant, and warning that he would make us unhappy, if we essayed to appear in demon realms and on Brocken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... A scoffing blacksmith seeing him jogging up to a house near the smithy on his pony, which was halting, said to him, "Mr. Brown, ye're in the Scripture line the day—'the legs o' the lame are not equal.'" "So is a parable in the mouth ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... his teeth, and his half-closed eyes gazing up contentedly through the green of overhead branches, their peace was broken by a guffaw of derisive laughter. They looked up, to find at their backs a semi-circle of scoffing humanity. Lescott's impulse was to laugh, for only the comedy of the situation at the moment struck him. A stage director, setting a comedy scene with that most ancient of jests, the gawking of boobs at ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... Scoffing at what is beautiful, is not necessarily a sign of evil; it may only indicate stupidity or undevelopment: the beauty is not perceived. But blame is often present in prolonged undevelopment. Surely no one habitually obeying his conscience would long be left without ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... slab's above him, which reminds me that only a month before he took to his bed he was smoking his pipe on the porch, when his glance fell upon the lifting-stone. Suddenly he strode towards it, bent his back and raised it a full two inches. 'So much for age!' said he, scoffing-like. But age heard him and now he lies with a stone on him he can not lift, while you, sir"—to his listener, deferentially—"are sole heir to the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... cold coquette, who can't say "No." And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow, Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing. Don Juan, Canto XII. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... I wasn't able to tell you that. You had begun by saying that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded to scoff at it. While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a terribly good reason for NOT scoffing; and in a flash I saw the terribly good reason; I had the whole story—at least I had the broad ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the priests, who all declared that the omens were not in favour of the marriage. Upon this Helge assembled his people to hear the word which the messengers were to carry to their master, but unfortunately King Halfdan gave way to his waggish humour, and made scoffing reference to the advanced age of the royal suitor. These impolitic words were reported to King Ring, and so offended him that he immediately collected an army and prepared to march against the Kings of Sogn to avenge the insult with his sword. When the rumour ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... gently myself. I had been so much absorbed in the coming experiment that I passed the ruins in going to meet him, almost without thought, if you can understand that. I had my lantern; and he showed me a coil of taper which he had ready for use. "There is nothing like light," he said, in his scoffing tone. It was a very still night, scarcely a sound, but not so dark. We could keep the path without difficulty as we went along. As we approached the spot we could hear a low moaning, broken occasionally by a bitter cry. "Perhaps that is your voice," ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... denied that he did it himself, and indeed the indictment set forth that it was in company with one John Mason, then deceased, that the said conspiracy was formed. Under sentence of death, he behaved himself very sillily, laughing and scoffing at his approaching end, and saying to one of his companions, as the keeper went downstairs before them, Let us knock him down and take his keys from him. If one leads to heaven, and the other to hell, we shall at least have a chance to get the right! Yet when ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... up in the chamber of his wife, and he took no delight in anything besides, insomuch that he gave up the friendship of his nobles, together with his hunting and his amusements, and lost the hearts of all the host in his Court; and there was murmuring and scoffing concerning him among the inhabitants of the palace, on account of his relinquishing so completely their companionship for the love of his wife. And these tidings came to Erbin. And when Erbin had heard these things, he spoke unto Enid, and enquired of her whether ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... ambitious, incessant, and restless mental activity. Mansfield in those respects is qualified for the character, and out of his professional resources he was able to supply the other elements that are requisite to its constitution and fulfilment. He presented as Richard a sardonic, scoffing demon, who nevertheless, somewhere in his complex nature, retains an element of humanity. He embodied a character that is tragic in its ultimate effect, but his method was that of the comedian. His portrayal of Richard, except at those moments when it is veiled with craft and dissimulation, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... the most pleasant impressions possible; somehow it always strikes me that one imagines the people within to be so much holier, indeed more spiritual, than they really are. But all this looks either like preaching or scoffing, and it is neither. It is really the result of a desire to push myself into the home life you good people are still leading, somehow or other. An excusable offence after all, my Masters! Having re-cursed the tail of the convoy, it at last moved forward, and ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Mrs. Luna broke again into articulate scoffing. "It is very odd that at your age you should be so little a man of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... or two hisses and several scoffing laughs, but these were instantly drowned by vigorous hand-clapping. The next moment the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... free. The thought made him tremble; but admiring his own cleverness in pursuing his infernal schemes, and putting away his sad looks, he smiled again with an expression of indefinable pride. The madman at this moment was scoffing at the justice of God. But Lello of Aquila, who was waiting at the table, bent down, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the brazen craft And dash with which he sneaks a bit of road And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed, Back-answers of the newest he'll explode; He reins his horses with an air; he treats With scoffing calm whatever powers there be; He gets it straight, puts a bit on, and meets His losses with both lip and pounds s. d.; He arrogates a special taste in short; Is loftily grateful for a flagrant smoke; At all the smarter housemaids winks his court, And taps them for half-crowns; ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... prick with your pin the wrong man. But the poor child from Domremy, shrinking under the gaze of a dazzling court—not because dazzling (for in visions she had seen those that were more so), but because some of them wore a scoffing smile on their features—how should she throw her line into so deep a river to angle for a king, where many a gay creature was sporting that masqueraded as kings in dress! Nay, even more than any true king would have done: for, in Southey's version of ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... love to contemplate emphatic gestures, scandalous advances, Rabelaisian foolings, clownish tricks; those who love to watch the mad hurly-burly of life and see the resplendent fire-works go bang; those who love all huge jests, vituperative cursings, moonlit philanderings, scoffing mockeries, honest scurrilities, great rolling barrels of vulgarity, tuns and vats of ribaldry, and lovely, tender, gondola-songs ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... BLASPHEMIES AND ENTHUSIASMS.—The very air of England, it seemed, was full of such. There had broken loose a spirit of inquiry, a spirit of profanity and scoffing, and a spirit of religious ecstasy and dreaming; and the three spirits together were producing a perfect Babel of strange sayings, fancies, and speculations. From a catalogue of no fewer than 176 miscellaneous "errors, heresies, and blasphemies" collected by Edwards, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... himself, in a note which it was once his intention to affix to these stanzas, "Let it be remembered that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not sneering, scepticism,"—a distinction never to be lost sight of; as, however hopeless may be the conversion of the scoffing infidel, he who feels pain in doubting has still alive within ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... out in front. Before her parting lips uttered a line she had thoroughly mastered them, the innate purity of her perfected womanhood, the evident innocence of her purpose, shielding her against all indecency and insult. The ribald scoffing, the insolent shuffling of feet, the half-drunken uneasiness, ceased as if by magic; and as her simple act proceeded, the stillness out in front became positively solemn, the startled faces picturing an awakening to higher things. It was a triumph far exceeding the noisy outburst that greeted ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... that name has been heard in this vessel, Lady, except to aid in that miserable scoffing and profanity which simpler language made too dull, But what is He, that unknown Deity, more than what man, in his ingenuity, has seen fit to ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... instigations of cupidity, take the life of a fellow-creature, he shall be—not a spectator at such an exhibition—but that solitary crawling wretch who, after having spent his days and nights in agony and fear, is thrust forward, bound and pinioned, to be hanged up there like a dog before the scoffing or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... in scoffing, this has writ, Friend, that's your folly which you think your wit; This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, Meaning an other, when ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... struggled for clearer light and for purer air the unquiet soul. In manner, in thought, and in person as yet almost an infant, deep in her heart lay yet one woman's secret, known scarcely to herself, but which taught her, more powerfully than Hilda's proud and scoffing tongue, to shudder at the thought of the barren cloister ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice thrilled him, her eyes dazzled him, her smile made him forget everything else—yet just at the moment when he had reached out for the money the memory of the prophecy had come back to him. And so he had refused, turning a deaf ear to her entreaties, and scoffing at her easy-going father; and she had gone off down the trail without once looking back, promising Bunker she would ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... is a vale-bred swain, of refined and elegant manners, skilled, nevertheless, in all manly sports and exercises; Cleon, no less a master in physical prowess, was nurtured by a hind in the mountains; the contrast between their manners is admirably sustained: Cleon is rough, inclined to be rude and scoffing, totally without tact, even where his mistress is concerned. Lalus remembers her upbringing and her tastes; he makes no unnecessary or ostentatious display of wealth; his gifts are simple and charming, while Cleon's are so grotesquely ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... thereof, scoffing Scurrility And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept, Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry, Without Regard or due Decorum kept; Each idle Wit at will presumes to make, And doth the Learned's Task upon ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... society,—a time for not liking tamed people,—a time for not dancing quadrilles,—a time for pretending that Milton, and Shelley, and all sorts of mere dead people are greater in death than the first living lord of the treasury,—a time, in short, for scoffing and railing, for speaking lightly of the opera, and all our most cherished institutions. A little while you are free and unlabelled, like the ground you compass; but civilization is coming, and coming; you and your much-loved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown rather than to rush around in a continuous brainstorm after every new idea. Skepticism, if by that we mean ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... Thus ran Effi's scoffing remarks and there was no mistaking the fact that she was not troubling herself any too much about the pre-nuptial exercises and the wedding day. Mrs. von Briest had her own ideas on the subject, but did not permit herself to worry about it, as Effi's mind was, to a ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... that the vagrant boy should know so much; and, without one hour of romance, one step of childish innocence and imagination, should have gone clear through "the world" which so many boast that they understand—the knave's world, the libertine's world, the world of the skeptical, scoffing, Ishmaelitish spirit? And yet he has so little real knowledge—there is such a cloud of ignorance and moral stupor resting upon his brain and heart! So much of him is merely animal, foxy, wolfish, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... laughing in a scoffing manner; "why, if it wasn't a waste of good time, we'd have made it a month. But we've got other fish to fry, and don't want to spend all our vacation on that ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... all enjoyment for her. She forced herself to eat and to appear unconcerned, but she was quivering inwardly with a burning sense of resentment. She was firmly determined that she would never be alone with him again. He had managed by those few scoffing words of his to arouse in her all the bitterness of which she was capable. If she had feared him before, she hated him now with the ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Hefty, still scoffing, turned away to his work. "Well, then, I guess it's as good as over. Give old Willie a swipe for me, ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... been averse to parading before the eyes of the careless, scoffing world the sufferings of the victims of abuse or excess, even when by doing so we might profit largely by such a course. We have a large number of letters from persons who have been cured by this treatment constantly on file in our office, and any sufferer really in earnest will be gladly ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... imperfections any more than she tried to deceive herself about herself. Witty and clever, she had a keen eye for discovering at a glance the weakness, and ridiculous side, of any person; she took great pleasure in it, without ever being the least malicious, for she was as indulgent as she was scoffing, and while she laughed at people she loved to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the dead party to be made, and to be placed here: and we in remembrance of him doe reuerence thereunto. Then I replyed: you doe these things onely for the friendship and flatterie of men. Noe (said they) but for their memory. Then they demanded of me, as it were in scoffing wise: Where is God? To whom I answered: where is your soule? They said, in our bodies. Then saide I, is it not in euery part of your bodie, ruling and guiding the whole bodie, and yet notwithstanding is not seene or perceiued? Euen so God is euery where and ruleth all things, and yet is he inuisible, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... she an angry groan that she had sped Her shafts in vain; and now with scoffing speech To her in turn the son of Peleus spake: "Woman, with what vain vauntings triumphing Hast thou come forth against us, all athirst To battle with us, who be mightier far Than earthborn heroes? We from Cronos' Son, The Thunder-roller, boast our ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... insult. Moran led the charge, roaring like a goaded bullock, the two parties clashed over the logs, and in an instant comparative silence fell upon the men. The yelling, the derisive voices, and scoffing laughter ceased, and nothing was heard but the sharp rattle of the strokes. The fight was fierce, earnest, and bloody; all thoughts of the absurdity of the cause of contention had long since been forgotten, and the battle was as remorseless as if it ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... revivals, is to come on a certain day. Books are thrown on one side, study is abandoned, and ten days perhaps are spent in religious exercises of the most violent and exciting character. It is a scene of strange confusion, some praying, some pretending to pray, some scoffing. Day after day it is carried on, until the excitement is at its height, as the exhortations and the denunciations of the preacher are poured into their ears. A young American who was at one of the colleges, and gave me a full detail of what had occurred, told me ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... quoted the striking passage, 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come!' From this he seems to derive his authority. Let me learn from this man to be in earnest for the truth, and to despise the scoffing of ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... the truth I'd hide from mine own eyes; My heart is his—irrevocably his. To be his wife—oh rapture, heavenly bliss! Yet I must spurn his love. I will not bear All China's cold contempt; man's scoffing sneer. What glory would be mine could I but tame This bragging conqueror. Pronounce his name In high divan, and chase him from our city, Abashed and in despair. But yet, with pity My heart would surely break. Come, virgin pride ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... up my mind that I would kiss you, my dear, the first chance I had. God bless you, my child! You have given your testimony as a woman should, in these days of scoffing ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... down, and, tapping his cane on the floor, seemed to be seeking for a way of entering on his subject; he appeared anxious, and Marcel noticed that he no longer had his decisive scoffing manner. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... sight of them, tossed angrily on his bed, railing aloud, in his thin, querulous voice, and scoffing at any power of theirs to comfort, until, in spite of himself, a strange calm seemed to move about him and encircle him. He listened to the chanted words, and the splendid invocations, spoken in a tongue older than the very ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill, scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable names, and many applauded ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... day; when we deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and impudence. It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another, who did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy and alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall into such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and least sure), and yet, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the Mothers Breasts, and then dasht out the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into Rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call'd upon their Bodies when falling with derision, the true testimony of their Cruelty, to come to them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords, together with the Mothers that ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... duck and fish, and other articles of food. Parta's own apartment led from the back of the dais. That of Beric was next to it, its separate use having been granted to him on his return from Camalodunum, not without some scoffing remarks upon his effeminacy in requiring a separate apartment, instead of sleeping as usual on the dais; while the followers and attendants stretched themselves on the floor of ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... went on prospering. Nor was all the scoffing of city people of any avail in shaking the confidence reposed in him by that flock of rustics, who feared him as they feared the Law itself and believed in him as they ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... through the far Steppes gallop, His horse can scarcely stand at all— His stamping hoofs in vain seek foothold, The rider dreading lest he fall! So then remain within thy paling, Read thou in Pradt or Walter Scott, Compare thy varying editions, Drink, and thy scoffing mood spare not! As the long evenings drag away So doth ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... into the lighted arena. The dancing center fire shines bright into her handsome face, intensifying the night in her dark eyes. It breaks into myriad points upon her beaded dress. Unmindful of the surging throng jostling her at either side, she glares in upon the hateful, scoffing men. Suddenly she turns her head. Tittering maids whisper ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... being ignorant of, scoffed at those Thy holy servants and prophets. And what gained I by scoffing at them, but to be scoffed at by Thee, being insensibly and step by step drawn on to those follies, as to believe that a fig-tree wept when it was plucked, and the tree, its mother, shed milky tears? Which fig notwithstanding (plucked ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... comments, censures, frowns, cavillings and remarks of every man in his county, who happened to be long to the political party that just at that moment was in power. As to the minority, he was as brave as a lion, could snap his fingers at them, and was foremost in deriding and scoffing at all they said and did. This, however, was in connexion with politics only; for, the instant party-drill ceased to be of value, Steadfast's valour oozed out of his composition, and in all other things he dutifully consulted every public opinion ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... to renew itself as an insult. The subject of it reads this libel, perhaps, in solitude; and, by a great exertion of self-command, resolves to bear it with fortitude and in silence. Some days after, in a public room, he sees strangers reading it also: he hears them scoffing and laughing loudly: in the midst of all this, he sees himself pointed out to their notice by some one of the party who happens to be acquainted with his person; and, possibly, if the libel take that particular ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood their silent commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for their forbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in her manner which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was above their triumph and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and courageously; so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire her. We, who watched her after her disaster, could not but respect the indomitable ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... becomes the foul and poisonous medium through which the folly, the vice, and all the moral deformities of humanity, are spread abroad through the world, and handed down through the ages. The same medium that serves as a vehicle for heavenly truth is the tool of the scoffing infidel; it is formed into prayer by the saint, and into blasphemy by the sinner. Alternately, it serves the purest and holiest uses, or the vilest and most atrocious abuses; now formed to the sweet breathings ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... seen the flashes of fire dart through the heavens, struck by the hoofs of the giants' huge beasts? Ah! She knew! If Martha would only listen to her, she could show her some of these true things and stop her scoffing. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... he in London-town been bred, And polish'd too his wit; But he poor soul, thought all was well And great should be his fame, When he had left his wife in hell And birds, and beasts could tame. Yet venturing then with scoffing rhimes The women to incense, Resenting heroines of those times Soon punished his offence. And as the Hebrus roll'd his skull, And Harp besmeared with blood, They clashing as the waves grew full Still harmoniz'd the flood. But you our follies gently treat, And spin so fine the thread, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Mohammedanism, the Holy Rollers or anything else that promised some answer to the perplexing problems. But you have been able to go into the Holy of Holies and sit down on the same bench of belief with most of the saints—this is miraculous good fortune. I mean it. I am not scoffing or jeering. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... so far as she could do so without exposing her weak side. She understood admirably how to attract the great men to her house, to whose houses she herself very seldom went; and as long as the appearance of fashionable infidelity and of scoffing, which was then the mode in the higher circles, was necessary to this object, she carefully concealed her real ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column[487] with the buried base! What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow? Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, Titus or Trajan's? No—'tis that of Time: Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace[oi] Scoffing; and apostolic statues[488] climb To crush the imperial urn, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the war. The commonalty began then to be alarmed, and not without reason, having the Indians daily in their houses. The murderers were frequently demanded, either living or dead, even with a promise of reward; they always returned a scoffing answer laughing at us. Finally, the commonalty, very much displeased with the Director, upbraided him for conniving with the Indians, and [declared] that an attempt was making to sell Christian blood;(5) yea, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... proved themselves of great value for their superior marksmanship, and the British, who began by scoffing at them, ended by fearing and hating them as they feared and hated no other troops. The many accounts of the skill of these riflemen are interesting, and some of them shall be ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... uncharitable—religious but not fanatical—he surveys society, its actors and its crimes, with the eve of enlightened philanthropy, experienced reason, and Christian charity. He is neither a fierce, imperious Romish bigot like Bossuet, nor a relentless Calvinistic theologian like D'Aubigne, nor a scoffing infidel like Voltaire. Deeply impressed with the vital importance of religion to the temporal and eternal welfare of mankind, he is yet enlightened enough to see that all systems of religious belief have much to recommend them, and rejects the monstrous doctrine that salvation can be obtained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... scoffing, young gentleman!" cried the old man: "so you too are one of their super-clever new-fangled wiseacres. But if you were once to see what I have seen, when all alone far down underground, cut off from the heavens and the ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... saw such touching loyalty anywhere! Those scoffing neighbors of Noah who kept denying on there was going to be any flood right up to the moment when they went down for the third time were rank amateurs alongside a seasoned resident of Los Angeles. I was newly arrived, however, and I hadn't acquired the ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... and laughed at as a fool, for imagining that he could persuade mankind to live and die without religion. Suppose he had proved to the world's satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it are liars, how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Mrs. Titus is a perfectly reasonable woman, father. I am sure you would think so, if you could hear her talk. I heard her questioned the other day on that very point of susceptibility to cold. Some one asked—and asked in a scoffing spirit, father: 'Supposing you were to go out-doors, Mrs. Titus, with nothing on, when the thermometer was below zero, should you feel cold?' Her answer was: 'I fear I should, though I ought not to. It is possible that ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... like this might never again occur in Perry's life! Here were gathered not only the people of the village, but of the valley. His words would fall not alone on the ears of a few choice spirits of the store forum, or the scoffing pedants of the literary society, for crowded into that little room were old men whose years would give weight to the declaration that it was the greatest talking they had ever heard; were young children, who in after years, when a neglected gravestone was toppling over all that was ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... another side to Villiers' temperament. It was piercing and acute in an altogether different sense—a side of forbidding pleasantry and fierce raillery. No longer was it the paradoxical mystifications of Poe, but a scoffing that had in it the lugubrious and savage comedy which Swift possessed. A series of sketches, les Demoiselles de Bienfilatre, l'Affichage celeste, la Machine a gloire, and le Plus beau diner du monde, betrayed ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... conjury over ignorant baron and cowardly hind Scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack Scepticism, which delights in reversing the judgment of centuries Schism which existed in the general Reformed Church Science of reigning was the science of lying Scoffing at the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church Secret drowning was substituted for public burning Sent them word by carrier pigeons Sentimentality that seems highly apocryphal Seven Spaniards were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of these instructions, and every day was wont to cause false alarms, scoffing at her custodians and their lack of care. Thus one day, on leaving her lodging, she fell in with a Grey Friar on horseback, with whom, being herself on her palfrey, she talked on the road the whole time from the dinner to the supper hour. ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... pious small talk. This result was not pleasant either to Harry or to Euphra. Euphra, with her life threatening to go to ruin about her, was crying out for him who made the soul of man, "who loved us into being,"2 and who alone can renew the life of his children; and in such words as those a scoffing demon seemed to mock at her needs. Harry had the natural dislike of all childlike natures to everything formal, exclusive, and unjust. But, having received nothing of what is commonly called a religious training, this ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... country—against anything, in fact, rather than allow their inmost thoughts to assume control. He himself, already initiated by the awful vigil with terror, was beyond both of them in this respect. He had reached the stage where he was immune. But these two, the scoffing, analytical doctor, and the honest, dogged backwoodsman, each sat trembling in the ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... not his clothing or his European features, guiltless of beard or mustache, but his fiery red face, from which he got the nickname by which he was known, Camaroncocido. [46] He was a curious character belonging to a prominent Spanish family, but he lived like a vagabond and a beggar, scoffing at the prestige which he flouted indifferently with his rags. He was reputed to be a kind of reporter, and in fact his gray goggle-eyes, so cold and thoughtful, always showed up where anything publishable was happening. His manner ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... this anecdote, was himself an unbeliever; yet the scoffing tone adopted by Sir Robert seems to have shocked ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the battle of Maus, where, in the thick of the fight, a shell struck him in the breast. It is necessary to say that on the evening before he had noticed that the little medallion which had been given to him by Fanny Dorville, worn from its chain by friction, had disappeared from his neck. Scoffing comrades smiled at the coincidence; the ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... never met a man like Mr. Arthurs. His life had been passed in Dublin, among people who thought and talked and speculated, but seldom did; and he had been habituated to scoffing talk at Belfast men ... "money-grubbers" ... mitigated, now and then, by a grudging tribute to their grit and great energy and resource. Mr. Arthurs had none of the money-grubbing spirit in him; his devotion to his work of shipbuilding was as ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... pale-faced brother has told us the wondrous tale, that, in his own land beyond the Great Waters, the mighty animal which is called the King of Beasts is, save only when he lacks food, as mild as the dove or the song-sparrow. And thus it was with the Great Spirit, as regarded the scoffing and wickedness of the Andirondacks. Long he resisted the importunities of the subordinate Manitous, that the haughty tribe might be punished for their insolence; long he waited with the hope that their eyes might be opened, and repentance seize their hearts, and amendment ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Eumaeus scoffing then with keen disdain: "There pass thy pleasing night, O gentle swain! On that soft pillow, from that envied height, First may'st thou see the springing dawn of light; So timely rise, when morning streaks the east, To drive thy victims ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... APOLLODORUS. Come: no scoffing, this is a noble scheme: in it Caesar is no longer merely the conquering soldier, but the creative poet-artist. Let us name the holy city, and consecrate it with Lesbian Wine—and Cleopatra ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... other companies, took a liberty to cast off that strictness of behaviour and discourse that is required in a Collegiate life. And when he took any liberty to be pleasant, his wit was never blemished with scoffing, or the utterance of any conceit that bordered upon, or might beget a thought of looseness in his hearers. Thus mild, thus innocent and exemplary was his behaviour in his College; and thus this good man continued till his death, still increasing in ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... of the subjects, which are yet, despite the seeming novelty and impressiveness, very cold, undramatic, and unimaginative. Thus, there is the fresco of Christ enthroned, blindfold, with alongside of Him a bodiless scoffing head, with hat raised, and in the act of spitting; buffeting hands, equally detached from any body, floating also on the blue background. There is a Christ standing at the foot of the cross, but with his ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... figure of the young man before him. During this prolonged examination the owl's cry rose again; but this time there was no difficulty whatever in recognizing a human voice. The commandant at once returned the papers to the young man, with a scoffing look. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... very natural for Twirling-stick Mike to repent him suddenly of his wanton cruelty. The scoffing words of the dwarf rang in his ears, and he felt by no means easy. To make what amends he might to the deceased, he had him sumptuously buried at his own expense, with funeral oration, psalms, prayer, and benediction; and what is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... principle most needed in their time. The noble men, the courageous women, who stood, calm and resolved, in the midst of the amphitheatre, with the heathen altar behind them, the hungry tiger before them, and a careless or scoffing multitude ranged all around—these were strong witnesses to the great principle of Faith—noble proofs of the power of living and dying for things unseen. This was their function. It was for others to show forth the humility and modesty in which, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... and in his Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823) he stoutly maintained the view that all the superficial deposits of the globe were the result of the Noachian deluge! He was indeed the great leader of the Catastrophists, and it is not surprising to find Lyell, while still under his influence, scoffing at ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... to extirpate monarchy'; that he had spent a great deal of his money, but had never been repaid the L2000 or L3000 he had been promised for his journey; he used to vilify monarchy, 'jocundarily scoffing at it, and would ordinarily quibble in this manner, saying "this Commonwealth will never be at peace till 150 be put down." I asked him what this 150 was, he told me the three L's, and afterwards interpreted the meaning to be the Lords, the Levites, and the Lawyers; with that, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... across the soul of Cassier; he struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly lapsed into the awful callousness which characterizes the relapses of confirmed guilt; he pretended to smile at his weakness, and found a sorry relief in cursing and scoffing at ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... ikon had been robbed, the glass of the case was broken, the grating was smashed and several stones and pearls (I don't know whether they were very precious ones) had been removed from the crown and the setting. But what was worse, besides the theft a senseless, scoffing sacrilege had been perpetrated. Behind the broken glass of the ikon they found in the morning, so it was said, a live mouse. Now, four months since, it has been established beyond doubt that the crime was committed by the convict Fedka, but for ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to think rightly—or at least more rightly and approximately rightly—of the position and age of man upon this earth. The Psalmist's ancient question of devout thankfulness is too often travestied to-day into a question of scoffing or of melancholy unbelief: 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy hands; what is man? Art Thou mindful of him?' This psalm comes to answer that. 'The Lord of hosts is with us.' True, we are but of yesterday, and know nothing. True, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the multitude. No sin, however heinous, could have fallen upon her with more crushing effect. The very maturity of age, which should have so far removed her from the romance of love, embittered her grief by a sense of self-ridicule. At times, she felt like reviling and scoffing at affections that up to this time had been hoarded away from her own thoughts. For a train of wrong feelings, unaccompanied by a single false act, save that of her marriage, she was suffering the most terrible humiliation before God and ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... liked a clever assault upon the priests as much as any one, recommended the new member of his household to resume the subject. It is supposed that the Grey Friars from their great lodgment so near the Court had found fault with the appointment of Buchanan and assailed himself as a profane and scoffing heretic. It was certainly strange that a man who had adopted the heresies of Luther should be appointed to the care of the son of a Catholic King, but Buchanan it is probable kept his religious opinions to himself, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... as nearly coming to a rough and tumble with the fellow for his cheek in scoffing our fly at the station constitutes an acquaintance. Gifford acted as peacemaker, and we put up with the fellow's company to the town. But neither of us imbibed a particularly high opinion of the sportsman, did ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... that the glory of Peary's achievement belongs to the world and is shared by all mankind. But we, his fellow-countrymen, who have known how he has struggled these many years against discouragement and scoffing and how he has persevered under financial burdens that would have crushed less stalwart shoulders, specially rejoice that he has "made good at last," and that an American has become the peer of ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... jeering crowd he past, One pitying look Old Hiram cast; "Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" Cried out unsentimental Dan; "A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" Budd Doble's scoffing ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a course of lying that is here rebuked, and the person or persons in this practice, as is said, were such as feared not God; a course of lying and the fear of God cannot stand together. This sin of lying is a common sin, and it walketh in the world in several guises. There is the profane scoffing liar, there is the cunning artificial liar, there is the hypocritical religious liar, with liars of other ranks and degrees. But none of them all have the fear of God, nor shall any of them, they not repenting, escape ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Abigail was not called on to redeem her boast. Claire returned with a small package of salt, folded up in brown paper, her courage having failed her when it came to the point of requesting the loan of a more useful article. Priscilla, having joined in the scoffing called out by this evidence of faint-heartedness, was on her guard against a similar display ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... at them with bitter words, and one of them, made mad by his scoffing, cast a heavy ballast-stone at him. It fell upon his shoulder and ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Reformed sect. Especially these discreditable internal dissensions were a cause of deep humiliation and of anxious concern to all loyal Lutherans. To the Romanists and Reformed, however, who united in predicting the impending collapse of Lutheranism, they were a source of malicious and triumphant scoffing and jeering. A prominent theologian reported that by 1566 matters had come to such a pass in Germany that the old Lutheran doctrine was publicly proclaimed only in relatively few places. In the Palatinate public thanks were rendered to God ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... melancholy than before; and then Hattersley is confounded, and knows not what to say, unless it be a timid suggestion that the clergyman might be sent for. But Arthur will never consent to that: he knows he has rejected the clergyman's well-meant admonitions with scoffing levity at other times, and cannot dream of turning to him ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... (or, rather, we should say, in the capital, for of that we speak,) are unaffectedly so, for they have no worldly benefit to hope for from their piety; the great majority have no religion at all, and do not scoff at the few, for scoffing is the minority's weapon, and is passed always to the weaker side, whatever that may be. Thus H. B. caricatures the Ministers: if by any accident that body of men should be dismissed from their situations, and be succeeded by H. B.'s friends, the Tories,—what must the poor artist do? He must pine ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with Hannah scoffing but noticeably on ahead with the lamp, they climbed the stairs and tore the room to pieces—to no avail. In a final burst of inspiration Hughie dragged the faded carpet from its tacks and filled the room with dust. Sneezing and coughing, they faced each other in the melee with looks of blank ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... and stung by a sense of my follies and demerit, I strove to throw the blame on others. We kept nightly orgies in Palazzo Carega. To sleepless, riotous nights, followed listless, supine mornings. At the Ave Maria we showed our dainty persons in the streets, scoffing at the sober citizens, casting insolent glances on the shrinking women. Juliet was not among them—no, no; if she had been there, shame would have driven me away, if love had not brought me to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... must be made, must be tested, and in all probability must be rejected, but our main duty at the present stage is the careful examination and record of facts. The working hypothesis most widely prevalent among the general public, whether for the purpose of scoffing or for a foundation of belief, is some crude form of the idea that the persistent intelligence of persons who have severed their connection with matter is willing, and occasionally even anxious, to take up temporarily the broken thread, and so to operate as to transmit, ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... opinion. It appears to me that if there is anybody more objectionable than the orthodox Bibliolater it is the heterodox Philistine, who can discover in a literature which, in some respects, has no superior, nothing but a subject for scoffing and an occasion for the display of his conceited ignorance of the debt he owes ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley |
