"Scornful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good and wet swimming in," says she, still scornful, "and you would have got pounded to pieces against the sea wall; that's what would have happened to you. Some folks," says she, "ain't fit ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... prayer and fast. Then rich in hope, with faith sincere, With sighs, and hands in anguish press'd, The end of that sore plague, with many a tear, From heaven's dread Lord, I sought to wrest. The crowd's applause assumes a scornful tone. Oh, could'st thou in my inner being read, How little either sire or son, Of such renown deserves the meed! My sire, of good repute, and sombre mood, O'er nature's powers and every mystic zone, With honest zeal, but methods of his own, With toil fantastic loved ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Swinburne has said with tact, precision, and finality all that need ever be said on the subject. He records, with a touch of not unkindly humour, his own 'deep diversion of collating and comparing the variously inaccurate verdicts of the scornful or mournful censors who insisted on regarding all the studies of passion or sensation attempted or achieved in it as either confessions of positive fact or excursions of absolute fancy.' And, admitting that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... a scornful reply to Teeny-bits' challenge and let escape the remark that he wasn't a "baby-killer" ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know what Doctor Shaw told you about that sort ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ashamed of your own opinions, are you?" she demanded, with a hint in her voice that she was ready to be scornful. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and indignant. "But let me hurry on with my wretched tale. In proportion as the Emperor's affection became more marked, Helladius, hitherto so buoyant and serene, became a visible prey to despondency. Some scornful beauty, I deemed, was inflicting on him the tortures he had previously inflicted upon me, and, cured of my unhappy attachment, and entirely devoted to my Imperial lover, I did all in my power to encourage ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... rash and over-zealous. Many a ball cracked off a player's knee or wrist, and more than once Ken saw a bloody finger. It was cold in the cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: "I can't see the fun ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... still have some conscience," replied Bosio, trying to be bold under her scornful eyes. "I would not let Taquisara think that you and Gregorio had lied, and ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... faced him, pale and scornful. "What right have you to ask where I've been or what I've done? I am not your servant—nor one of your poor relatives. You seem to forget that. I will not be your guest another day! I'd leave this house this instant if I could. I came here against ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... home. He concluded to build a boat like his friend's, but Parotpot, when he talked, ended every third or fourth word with "pot," (pronounced po) the ending of his name: This word has a scornful meaning. When the boat was finished, he began to talk to it as follows: "My boat, pot, you may go, pot, to find me a wife, pot, prettier than my friend's wife, pot." The boat sailed away, and reached a large river, just as some men were looking ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... royalty. But this was no longer true. It was Dick who always had money; it was Anthony who entertained within limitations—always excepting occasional wild, wine-inspired, check-cashing parties—and it was Anthony who was solemn about it next morning and told the scornful and disgusted Gloria that they'd have to ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... overflow, Proud in spirit I might grow, Thee deny with scornful word, Asking who is God and Lord? For the heart with pride doth swell, Often knows not when 'tis well, How ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both had our gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When she finally did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned—it must have been triumphantly—upon ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... less absolute passiveness, save when strong shudders of grief, memory, remorse or roused passion shook him with sudden force like a storm blast shaking some melancholy cypress whose roots are in the grave. He mused on Lysia's scornful words with a perplexed pain. Was he then so selfish? "The one great absolute 'I' scrawled on the face of Nature!" Could that apply to him? Surely not! since in his present state of mind he could hardly lay claim to any distinct ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... arms, while a chaste salute was planted full on his mouth. As he emerged a second later, disgusted and furious, from this tender embrace, the clang of the elevator twenty feet away caught his ear and, turning, his eyes met the astonished gaze of two young girls and their scornful, frowning father. At that moment the door of the Strongs' apartment opened, there was a vision of the elder Mr. Strong's distracted face, the yellow gleam of the last telegram in ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... we found the road again. We were only a few miles wrong, and in two hours we were in Oklahoma City. The first thing we saw was a big restaurant sign, and we piled into there in a hurry. Here I finds myself sitting with Mame at table, with knives and forks and plates between us, and she not scornful, but smiling with ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... intention Helene Churchill laughed. She did not often laugh. Just for an instant her eyes and Zillah Forsyth's clashed together in the irremediable antagonism of caste,—the Plebeian's scornful impatience with the Aristocrat, equaled only by the Aristocrat's condescending ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts,—Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... canvassed. The wine flowed freely as it always did in those Flemish festivities—the brains of the proud and reckless cavaliers became hot with excitement, while still the odious ecclesiastic was the topic of their conversation, the object alternately of fierce invective or of scornful mirth. The pompous display which he affected in his equipages, liveries, and all the appurtenances of his household, had frequently excited their derision, and now afforded fresh matter for their ridicule. The customs of Germany, the simple habiliments in which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Duke of Bellarmine, then her protector, had one evening entered her splendid apartment on the Rue Jonteur—furnished, of course, by himself—and had found his divinity entertaining one Jules Chavot, a young and beautiful poet. Whereupon he had launched forth into the most bitter reproaches and scornful denunciations. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... but must needs entice us for'ard, one man at a time, upon the pretence that fire had broken out in the hold. Ugh! I don't envy Bainbridge his crew of bold buccaneers—not a little bit!" and with a scornful laugh he swaggered out on deck, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... scornful laughter followed him out of the igloo, but his jaw was set and he went his way, looking neither to right ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... professor entered, and there was a general stir and a cessation of chatter, I remember throwing a scornful glance at him, as also that he began his discourse with a sentence which I thought devoid of meaning. I had expected the lecture to be, from first to last, so clever that not a word ought to be taken from or added to it. Disappointed in this, I at once ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... sons in a great family. The pathetic story of that heroic youth, as told by Jonathan Edwards, was a classic at that time in almost every country parsonage; but its influence was especially felt in the colleges, now no longer, as a few years earlier, the seats of the scornful, but the homes of serious and religious learning which they were meant ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and saddle, Scornful still of jar and jolt, He'll come back sometime a-straddle Of a bald-faced thunderbolt; And the thin-skinned generation Of that dim and distant day Sure will stare with admiration When they hear old Boastful say: "I was first, as old raw-hiders ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... at all the common sort of ugliness that comes from over-eating and automobiles. He isn't one of the fat horrors. He has one of those rigid, horselike faces that never tell anything; a long nose, flattened as if it had been tied down; a scornful chin; long, white teeth; flat cheeks, yellow as a Mongolian's; tiny, black eyes, with puffy lids and no lashes; dingy, dead-looking hair—looks as if ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... them all in a lump—so far as he took them at all. Treated them all exactly alike; Hortense was quite scornful when she brought up my lunch-tray. Of course that's no way for a man ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... scornful emphasis, "now commandant of Louisbourg, once equerry to the Count de Laborde, you never knew me but at a distance, and as your superior. But Florian, here, remembers me, and can testify to my truth. To this court I have only to say that I fled to this country from the result of a ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... Bayne," she flung at me, her red lips scornful. "But then, most men wouldn't have come, of course. And all you will accomplish is to make me dine up here in this—this wretched, stuffy room." Before I could lift a hand in protest, she had turned, mounted the stairs again, and vanished. The ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... scornful tone. "You can pose rather cleverly—you tricked me into trusting you, but your ability is limited, after all. When the strain comes, you break down. Could anything have been feebler than ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... present occasion, he did not heed the piteous pleadings of the disappointed boatmen, nor Sobrina's explanations, nor Can Grande's arguments. But when the whole five of us fixed upon him our mild and scornful eyes, something within him gave way. He felt a little bit of the moral pressure of Boston, and feebly broke down, saying, "You better do as you like, then," and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... mandates of the Tyrant of the North, Poland's sad genius kneels, absorbed in tears, Bound, vanquished, pallid with her fears— Alas! the crucifix is all that's left To her, of freedom and her sons bereft; And on her royal robe foul marks are seen Where Russian hectors' scornful feet have been. Anon she hears the clank of murd'rous arms,— The swordsmen come once more to spread alarms! And while she weeps against the prison walls, And waves her bleeding arm until it falls, To France she hopeless turns her glazing eyes, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... flew, Leaving again before my view That [Errata: The] hollow scene, the scornful crowd, To which that heart had never bow'd, Whose tenderness I hourly fed; While thus I to ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of the world leaves us unstirred, if we draw no lessons from it, if there is no fiery stirring of will in Ireland to make it a better place to live in, then indeed we may lose hope for our country. Let us remember the most scornful condemnation in Scripture was not given to the evil but to the indifferent: "Because thou art neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth." Let us not be the Laodiceans of Europe, listless and ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... just tell James Piper I'll have none o' his money. The very impudence o' him to offer it! It's to help the children and Miss Sophia, an' not fer any consideration o' that sour-faced dragon, that I go," Nancy flung back her reply in a somewhat scornful manner. ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... one or two difficulties which may have been vanquished. Your uncle will bear me out in this," answered Geoffrey, who would have spoken more freely had he not feared the girl's keenness. Helen's face, which was at first scornful, grew anxious ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... from Aaron, the High Priest, gave him a longer genealogy than Queen Victoria's. He was a meek sexagenarian, with a threadbare black coat and a child-like smile. All the pride of the family seemed to be monopolized by his daughter Miriam, a girl whose very nose Heaven had fashioned scornful. Miriam had accompanied him out of contemptuous curiosity. She wore a stylish feather in her hat, and a boa round her throat, and earned thirty shillings a week, all told, as a school teacher. (Esther Ansell was in her class just now.) Probably her toilette ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... him with a sort of scornful pity. "Yes, Miramon: for I am Manuel, and I follow after my own thinking and my own desire. Of course it is very fine of me to be renouncing so much wealth and power for the sake of my wonderful dear Niafer: but she is worth the sacrifice, and, besides, she is witnessing all this magnanimity, and ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... walked sadly away. Here is a picture of us. Of course I can not make him look quite as ashamed as he did, nor me quite as scornful. ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Ye do—do you? 'Tis a wish bone instead of a back bone the likes of you have; and it was too steep to see?" Matthews megaphoned a laugh that echoed loud and long and scornful from the rocks. "I saw a man who was no sheriff climb both up an' down that place too steep for the likes o' you to see; and he climbed to do more than see! 'Twas half an hour y' fought them th' first version? ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... were many scornful looks sent in Sylvia's direction that afternoon, which Miss Patten noticed and easily understood. Before school was dismissed she said that she had ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... "The photographs and maps of The Veiled Mariposa are all, all gone. They have been taken." He shot the words at her as from a rapid-fire gun, watching keenly from narrowed and scornful eyes the effect ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... was becoming electric. Philip could see the exchange of glances all around him, some of surprise, some of consternation, some—or he was deceived—of triumph and scornful satisfaction. He fancied that he saw Mr. Thurston shoot toward Mr. Strathmore a flash of gratification, but the face of the latter remained unmoved and inscrutable. Ashe, full of uneasiness as to the result of the speech, was greatly ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... then!" cried his companion, with a scornful, though nervous, laugh. "Find the marriage certificate—find the witnesses who saw them married, the clergyman who performed the ceremony, the church register where their names are recorded, ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... menacingly, and there seemed danger, for one rested upon a knife in his belt, but only for it to be beaten furiously in the other. Quick angry words, delivered with the greatest volubility, followed; and then, turning and looking round in the most scornful manner, the man seemed to fire a volley of words at the whole party ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... I ain't a swell like you," he replied, casting, what he meant for a scornful look at the other boy's clean outing shirt and decent suit. Theodore had reached the point now where he had at least one clean shirt ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... Helen to him, in her scornful, bantering voice; "how strange that we should all have gone out for solitary rambles, and all meet in the same place; and there was Miss Nevill out in the vicarage garden, ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... into his pockets and surveyed Ravenslee with scornful eyes—his lounging figure and stooping shoulders, his long, white ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... taint of black blood was the unpardonable sin, from the unmerited penalty of which there was no escape except by concealment. If there be a dainty reader of this tale who scorns a lie, and who writes the story of his life upon his sleeve for all the world to read, let him uncurl his scornful lip and come down from the pedestal of superior morality, to which assured position and wide opportunity have lifted him, and put himself in the place of Rena and her brother, upon whom God had lavished his ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... curiosity, but curiosity conquered. Turning to his followers, who had all drawn in to the landing, he gave some sharp commands in his own language. They stepped ashore with evident reluctance and there was considerable murmuring amongst them. The chief looked them over with a scornful eye. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... approaches), for five years. He storms, swears, and is laughed at; somebody sends him a wedding present of sugar-plums—everybody calls him a boy, and makes merry at his expense—the wife treats him with contempt, and plays the scornful. The hobble-de-hoy husband, fired with indignation, determines to prove himself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... this you'll reply, I'll again do my best, yes, surely I'll try; The fair one who brings it ought sure to inspire Some poetical lay from Genius' sweet lyre. But Genius repels me, she "turns a deaf ear," And frowns on me scornful, the year after year; Perhaps if I sue, in the "sere yellow leaf," She'll open her heart, and yield me relief. But wayward my pen, I must now bid adieu, My friendship, dear madam, I offer to you, And beg with your friends, you'll please ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... glad ef I didn't come no more," he said, with a half smile. "I reckon it kinder rankles you for to see old Tuck Peevy a-hangin' roun' when the t'other feller's in sight." Babe's only reply was a scornful ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... at length by all this, Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him. ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... turned toward him with a scornful smile, appreciating, I think, the gentle sarcasm of my words. But I doubt if Roger did, for ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... with joyous spiritedness. However modern, Cecily, it was clear, had caught nothing of the disease of pococurantism. Into whatever pleased her or enlisted her sympathies, she threw all the glad energies of her being. The scornful remark on the Royal Academy was, one could see, not so much a mere echo of advanced opinion, as a piece of championship in a friend's cause. The respect with which she mentioned the name of the French critic, her exultation in his dictum, were notes of a youthful ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of all Marcia herself. It had not, apparently, turned her head, though those who knew her best were aware of a vein of natural arrogance in her character. But in manner she remained nonchalant and dreamy as before, with just those occasional leaps to the surface of passionate, or scornful, or chivalrous feeling which made her interesting. Her devotion to her mother was plain. She espoused all her mother's opinions with vehemence, and would defend her actions, in the family or out of it, through thick and thin. But there were those who wondered how ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... so, too," said Hubert. "At least he is a socialist of a very virulent type. He has come as a critic, I suppose. He professes to study religionists, and writes scornful letters about them to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... our pleasure; we will have it so. Lan. Your grace doth well to place him by your side, For nowhere else the new earl is so safe. E. Mor. What man of noble birth can brook this sight? Quam male conveniunt!— See, what a scornful look the peasant casts! Pem. Can kingly lions fawn on creeping ants? War. Ignoble vassal, that, like Phaeton, Aspir'st unto the guidance of the sun! Y. Mor. Their downfall is at hand, their forces down: We will not thus be fac'd and over-peer'd. K. Edw. Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer! ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... de coals on de hearth en if us belly sets up a growlin twixt meals, us just rakes a 'tatoe out de ashes en breaks it open en makes out on dat. My God, child, I think bout how I been bless dat I ain' never been noways scornful bout eatin chitlins. Yes, mam, when I helps up dere to de house wid hog killin, Mr. Moses, he does always say for me to carry de chitlin home to make me en Koota a nice pot ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... written by an Irish clergyman named Jonathan Swift. He was a strange man. Some people said he was a genius, and some said he had always been a little insane. When he wrote, he often seemed to care for nothing but to say the most cutting, scornful things that he could. There was one class of persons, however, who loved him from the bottom of their hearts, and they were the poor people about his home in Ireland. It is true that he sometimes scolded them, but they saw straight through his grumbling and understood that he really cared ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... said," put in the Idiot, with a scornful glance at the School-master. "And I literally heard the pool tournament. I was dining in a room off the billiard-hall, and every shot that was made, with the exception of the one I spoke of, was distinctly audible. ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... imperceptible shrug. He was disappointed but not surprised: there was in Hyde a vein of hard selfishness— not a weakness, for the egoism which openly says "I will consult my own convenience first" is too scornful of public opinion to be called weak, but an acquired defensive quality on which argument would have been thrown away. Val's arm dropped inert, he was tired, not in body alone, but by the strain of contact with another mind, hostile, and pitiless, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... called to power. The history of this statesman, who for the next eight years directed the war-policy of Austria, and filled a part in Europe subordinate only to those of Pitt and Bonaparte, has until a recent date been drawn chiefly from the representations of his enemies. Humbly born, scornful and inaccessible, Thugut was detested by the Viennese aristocracy; the French emigrants hated and maligned him on account of his indifference to their cause; the public opinion of Austria held him responsible for unparalleled military disasters; Prussian ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... wonder if you did. Your present prospects look very much like it," was Eugenia's scornful reply, which Dora scarcely heard, for her thoughts ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... more strenuously than he did on the present occasion. And such, at length, was the effect which that exquisitely skilful advocate produced, in his address to the jury, that he began to bring about a change in the feelings of most around him; even the eye of scornful beauty began to direct fewer glances of indignation and disgust upon Titmouse, as Mr. Subtle's irresistible rhetoric drew upon their sympathies in that young gentleman's behalf. "My learned friend, the Attorney-General, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... of the room, with a scornful look of triumph in her eyes. The next day, as I afterward learned, she sent word to our colonel that her house had been unexpectedly attacked by a large party of the rebels, and that we had been taken ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... Mrs. Chatterton, paying scant attention to the rest of the information. Then she gave a scornful cackle. "Haven't you gotten over that nonsense ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... who, true To his great theme, the Life of Homer drew. I, therefore, though a stranger youth, who come Chill'd by rude blasts that freeze my Northern home, Thee dear to Clio confident proclaim, And Thine, for Phoebus' sake, a deathless name. Nor Thou, so kind, wilt view with scornful eye A Muse scarce rear'd beneath our sullen sky, Who fears not, indiscrete as she is young, To seek in Latium hearers of her song. 30 We too, where Thames with his unsullied waves The tresses of the blue-hair'd Ocean ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... envied and admired in Scott; with all that immensity of work and study, his mind kept flexible, glancing to all points of natural interest. But the lean hot spirits, such as mine, become hypnotised with their bit occupations - if I may use Scotch to you - it is so far more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can't help being a skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... aloft were flung 795 Margaret on Roderick's mantle hung, And Malcolm heard his Ellen's scream, As faltered through terrific dream. Then Roderick plunged in sheath his sword And veiled his wrath in scornful word: 800 "Rest safe till morning; pity 'twere Such cheek should feel the midnight air! Then mayest thou to James Stuart tell, Roderick will keep the lake and fell, Nor lackey, with his freeborn clan, 805 The pageant pomp of earthly man. More would he of Clan-Alpine know, Thou canst our strength ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... taunted him defiantly. "How is any man to know the harm he can do by a wrong belief? No; I don't mean the harm you may have done to yourself. That is superficial. You can cure it easily; there are dozens of mental plasters that you can apply." Her voice grew yet more scornful on the phrase. "But what about the harm to other people? What about the harm to me from all your theological shilly-shally? The only wonder of it all is that I was given the strength to come out of it and ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... him a look of scornful incredulity, "you have said all this before. I suppose you had something else to ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... petulancy, ambition, or pride." Examining Swift's writings on behalf of Ireland by the criterion provided in this statement, we must acquit him entirely of misusing any of these qualities. If he were bitter or scornful, he was certainly not petulant. No one has written with more justice or coolness; the temper is hot but it is the heat of a conscious and collected indignation. If he wrote or spoke in a manner somewhat overbearing, it was not ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... that to his arm, during the melee which had ended in his capture. The stranger made Jacques conscious of his presence by a sigh, which was almost a groan. All three prisoners looked round at the sound. Clement's face expressed little but scornful indifference; but Virginie's face froze into stony hate. Jacques said he never saw such a look, and hoped that he never should again. Yet after that first revelation of feeling, her look was steady and fixed in another direction ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... jewel-box. "Ha!" he cried; "she has been stolen from me, and her jewels, too!" and he immediately ran to inform her parents of the misfortune. But when he came near the house, to his great surprise he saw on the balcony above the door all three sisters, his wives, who were looking down on him with scornful laughter. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... Dolly composed eleven scornful answers, but finally decided that no answer at all ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... and sometimes "Ruler," "Absolute Governess," and he "Your devoted obedient Husband," "Your faithful, tender Husband." Many of the letters are about money troubles. We gather from them that Dick Steele loved his wife, but as he was a gay and careless spendthrift and she was a proud beauty, a "scornful lady," for neither of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... her white feet, and rosy smile, and rainbow colors, from the wings of Iris, glittering all around her. Ida knew by the crystal vase she bore, that Hebe was to serve the immortals, and she longed to peep in and see how they would receive her; but she feared the haughty gaze of Juno, and the scornful glance of Apollo; so, burying her face in her hands, she remained weeping on the step. After a long while she heard a light motion beside her, and looking up, saw the beautiful eyes of Psyche, ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... longer with her hands still clenched and slightly raised, as if she were going to strike a blow—myself, or her own breast. Then she let them fall limp, and, lifting her shoulders with a superb little scornful motion, "Ah, I thought you were only a fool," she said. "I ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... was still, but the dark cloud remained, and she heard a mocking laugh and the accents of a clear, scornful voice (she recognised the voice, it was the voice of Albrecht), and the voice said: 'Thou hast conquered, Apollo, and cruelly hast thou used thy victory; and cruelly has thou punished me for daring to challenge thy divine skill. It was mad indeed to compete with a god; and yet shall ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Man in a red Coat who does not tell me, with a full Stare, he's a bold Man: I see several swear inwardly at me, without any Offence of mine, but the Oddness of my Person: I meet Contempt in every Street, express'd in different Manners, by the scornful Look, the elevated Eye-brow, and the swelling Nostrils of the Proud and Prosperous. The Prentice speaks his Disrespect by an extended Finger, and the Porter by stealing out his Tongue. If a Country Gentleman appears a little curious in observing the Edifices, Signs, Clocks, Coaches, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... in regard to wealth, a brute who had got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and had disgraced the House by being drunk there,—and, of course, he will not be saved by a verdict of insanity from the cross roads, or whatever scornful grave may be allowed to those who have killed themselves with their wits about them. Just at this moment there was a very strong feeling against Melmotte, owing perhaps as much to his having tumbled over poor Mr Beauchamp in the House of Commons as ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... should with greater severity punish malice under a mild and gentle aspect. It seems as if there were some lucky and some unlucky faces; and I believe there is some art in distinguishing affable from merely simple faces, severe from rugged, malicious from pensive, scornful from melancholic, and such other bordering qualities. There are beauties which are not only haughty, but sour, and others that are not only gentle, but more than that, insipid; to prognosticate from them future events is a matter that ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... nature! And without any resource save myself—it is impossible! What could he do without me? Oh! without me he would be utterly destroyed. Yet who knows—let destiny be fulfilled—condemned he was, let him remain so then! Good or evil spirit—gloomy and scornful power, whom men call the Genius of man, thou art a power more restlessly uncertain, more baselessly useless, than the wild wind in the mountains; Chance thou term'st thyself, but thou art nothing; thou inflamest everything with thy breath, crumblest mountains at ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... all-shamed, hating the life He gave me, meaning to be rid of it. And all the penance the Queen laid upon me Was but to rest awhile within her court; Where first as sullen as a beast new-caged, And waiting to be treated like a wolf, Because I knew my deeds were known, I found, Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn, Such fine reserve and noble reticence, Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace Of tenderest courtesy, that I began To glance behind me at my former life, And find that it had been ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... conclusion of Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Scornful Lady," Morecraft, an usurer, turns a cutter, or, as we now say, a buck. Dryden seems to allude to Ravenscroft's play of "The Citizen turned Gentleman," a transmigration somewhat resembling that of cutting Morecraft. This play was now acting by the Duke's company in Dorset Gardens, which, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... becomes clouded, and muttering a meditative 'Ja so!' he remembers that a peremptory engagement compels him to leave her. He seeks out the man who has sought to rob him of his mistress, and reproaches him with his perfidy. This rival replies by a cold, scornful 'Ja so!' and a meeting is agreed upon. The next day they exchange shots, and I fully believe that the man who is killed sighs out with his last breath 'Ja so!' His horror-stricken antagonist exclaims 'Ja so!' and flies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... His face was coarse, and in parts of it heavy. But he had a most commanding presence, and he was withal a picturesque—if it be not more accurate to say a statuesque—figure. Some of the features, too, were good. He had a very keen and intelligent blue eye, a mass of iron grey hair, lips, the scornful curl of which was terrible, and with all this a voice stentorian in its power, and yet flexible, with a flow of language rapid and abundant as the flow of a great river, and as unstemmable—the very beau-ideal of a ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... was less an evil than an amusement, after all. It was rather a serious matter to hear the poet's denunciation of the railway, and to read his well-known sonnets on the desecration of the Lake region by the unhallowed presence of commonplace strangers; and it was truly painful to observe how the scornful and grudging mood spread among the young, who thought they were agreeing with Wordsworth in claiming the vales and lakes as a natural property for their enlightened selves. But it was so unlike Mrs. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... doubtless going to add, "vagrant rogues," but she stopped short and looked at Florent. The scornful pout of her lips and the expression of her bright eyes plainly signified that in her belief only villains made such prolonged fasts. It seemed to her that a man able to remain without food for three days ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... kissed her. She laid her head against his shoulder, then she suddenly pushed him from her with a low cry, and Dartmouth, following her gaze, turned his head in time to meet the scornful eyes of Miss Penrhyn as she dropped the portiere from her hand. Dartmouth kicked aside a footstool with an exclamation of anger. He was acutely conscious of having been caught in a ridiculous position, and moreover, he would not ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hang-dog crowd that gathered there, quailing under the scornful lashing of Garry Cockrell. He spared no one, he omitted no names. Dink, listening, lowered his eyes, ashamed to look upon the face of the team. One or two ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... village as had not run away, just now kept close in their houses, not daring to venture abroad. A number of unfeeling Frenchmen stood about gazing at the fire, without moving a finger towards extinguishing it. I called out to them to lend a hand to check the progress of the conflagration. A scornful burst of laughter was the only reply: the scoundrels would not stir, and absolutely could not contain their joy whenever the flames burned more furiously than usual. At the same time I witnessed proceedings, of which the wildest savage would not have been guilty. I saw these same wretches, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... discouraged by the "great house," and their potency was well established among the blacks and the poorer whites. Education, however, has thrown the ban of disrepute upon witchcraft and conjuration. The stern frown of the preacher, who looks upon superstition as the ally of the Evil One; the scornful sneer of the teacher, who sees in it a part of the livery of bondage, have driven this quaint combination of ancestral traditions to the remote chimney corners of old black aunties, from which it is difficult ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the age of twenty-nine. From the very first his voice was heard. He made a speech in favor of raising ten thousand additional men to our army to resist the encroachments of Great Britain and prepare for hostilities should the country drift into war. It was an able speech for a young man, and its scornful repudiation of reckoning the costs of war against insult and violated rights had a chivalric ring about it: "Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against a low and calculating avarice entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit for shops and counting-houses.... It is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to receive his reward, he demanded the valuable drinking-cups, whereupon with scornful and mocking words the lady who was the leader of the band fixed on his breast the hump she had taken from Friedel. Immediately the clock struck one, and all disappeared. The poor man's rage was boundless, for he found himself now saddled ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... 77th Division of our soldier boys on their return home from the battle-fields of Europe. Glowing descriptions of the celebration appeared in nearly all the papers of the Metropolis. A contemptible account, however, was published the next day in "The Call," showing the scornful spirit of the Socialists toward the millions of American troops who made so many sacrifices for their country in the late war. The article in ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... wretch guard it very carefully: it never from that day forth left her; it was her title of nobility,—her pass to rank, wealth, happiness. She began to look down on her neighbours; her manner to her husband grew more than ordinarily scornful; the poor vain wretch longed to tell her secret, and to take her place openly in the world. She a Countess, and Tom a Count's son! She felt that she should royally ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had been as stringent as circumstances allowed. Each postulant was obliged to go to confession to a specially authorised priest, who examined sharply into motives and sincerity, and only one-third of the applicants had been accepted. This, the authorities pointed out to the scornful, was not an excessive proportion; for it was to be remembered that most of those who had presented themselves had already undergone a sifting fierce as fire. Of the three millions in Rome, two ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... supposed that there were not many of the Protestant clergy in Ireland who utterly disapproved of the tithe system. One Protestant clergyman in England, from whom we have just quoted, the Rev. Sydney Smith, had denounced the system over and over again in language the most indignant and the most scornful that even his scathing humor could command. But there were numbers of Protestant clergymen in Ireland who saw and proclaimed its injustice and its futility. The Archbishop of Dublin declared that no Government could ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... mortal care, Whilst we that pine in Life's disease, Uncertain blest, less happy are. (2.) Couch'd in the dark and silent Grave, No ills of Fate thou now canst fear; No more shall Tyrant Power inslave, Or scornful Beauty be severe. (3.) Wars, that do fatal storms disperse, Far from thy happy Mansion keep; Earthquakes, that shake the Universe, Can't rock thee into sounder sleep. (4.) With all the Charms of Peace possest, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... not the least idea that she would take me at my word. Her eyes flashed with a horrible light. 'You dare not do it!' she replied, with a scornful ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... often scorned to take their bridal-bearing hands? Or shall I, following Ilian ships, bear uttermost commands Of Teucrian men, because my help their lightened hearts makes kind; Because the thank for deed I did lies ever on their mind? But if I would, who giveth leave, or takes on scornful keel 540 The hated thing? Thou knowest not, lost wretch, thou may'st not feel, What treason of Laomedon that folk for ever bears. What then? and shall I follow lone the joyous mariners? Or, hedged with all my Tyrian host, upon them shall I bear, Driving ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... it may, the bereft and humiliated George favoured his mother and sister with innumerable half-hours in which they had to contend with scornful and exceedingly bitter opinions on the iniquity of marriage as it is practised among the elect. He fairly bawled his disapproval of the sale of Anne to the decrepit Mr. Thorpe, and there was not a day in the week that did not contain at least one unhappy hour for the women in his home, for just ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... abolition of slavery was actually decreed, he saw President Johnson follow a policy which, in his view, threatened to undo the great work. His scornful anger at Andrew Johnson was equaled only by his contempt for the Republicans who sided with the President. He was bound to defeat this reactionary attempt and to see slavery thoroughly killed beyond the possibility of resurrection, at any cost. As to the means to be employed, he scrupled little. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Mondamin," said they, 105 "From the grave where he is buried, Spite of all the magic circles Laughing Water draws around it, Spite of all the sacred footprints Minnehaha stamps upon it!" 110 But the wary Hiawatha, Ever thoughtful, careful, watchful, Had o'erheard the scornful laughter When they mocked him from the tree-tops. "Kaw!" he said, "my friends the ravens! 115 Kahgahgee, my King of Ravens! I will teach you all a lesson That shall not be soon forgotten!" He had risen before the daybreak, He had spread o'er ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... yours; not a sou comes to the widow and children of the nephew. It is preposterous. It is the most monstrous injustice. If it is law, an act of Parliament ought to be passed to—to do away with it. Fancy your having everything, and me, my boys and myself, dependent on you!"—scornful emphasis ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... such a situation, while Yancey was anxious to force one. The former conceived felicity as the joy of playing politics on the biggest stage, and he therefore bent all his strength to preserving the so-called national parties; the latter, scornful of all such union, was for a separate ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Chung, the plump Christian merchant, slowly trudging toward the darkest of human courts, to answer for the death of the cormorant-fisher. The squad passed by. Rudolph saw again the lighted shop, the tumbled figure retching on the floor; and with these came a memory of that cold and scornful face, thinking so cruelly among the unthinking rabble. The Sword-Pen had ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... some time or other, looked with terror at Nostromo's revolver poked very close at his face, or been otherwise daunted by Nostromo's resolution. He was "much of a man," their Capataz was, they said, too scornful in his temper ever to utter abuse, a tireless taskmaster, and the more to be feared because of his aloofness. And behold! there he was that day, at their head, condescending to make jocular remarks to this man ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... former bosses in collecting ruthlessly for the brains—in the case of Jones—and the neurotic idiosyncrasies—in the case of Dabney—of other men. The gesture by which he had become independent was not quite the splendid, scornful one he'd have liked. The fact that this sort of gesture worked, and nothing else would have, did not make him ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... ALAR. Indeed, sweet lady, Thou lookest on a man as bruised in spirit, As broken-hearted, and subdued in soul, As any breathing wretch that deems the day Can bring no darker morrow. Pity me! And if kind words may not subdue those lips So scornful in their beauty, be they touched At least by Mercy's accents! Was't a crime, I could not dare believe that royal heart Retained an exile's image? that forlorn, Harassed, worn out, surrounded by strange aspects And stranger manners, in those formal ties Custom points out, I sought some ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... still frowning, but a half frightened expression had replaced the one of scornful raillery. For he, too, knew that his eccentric brother-in-law was likely to propose any preposterous thing, and then carry it out in spite of all opposition. But to take Patsy to Europe would be like pulling the Major's eye teeth or amputating his good right arm. Worse; ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne |
