"Vanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our language with at least one word. There is a fair at Ely founded in connexion with the abbey built by St. Etheldreda, and at this fair a famous "fairing" was "St. Audrey's laces." St. Audrey, or Etheldreda, in the days of her youthful vanity was very fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. "St. Audrey's laces" became corrupted into "Tawdry laces"; hence the adjective has come to be applied to all cheap and showy pieces ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... round of contradictions, birth and death, peace and war, the former state annihilated by the latter; and by reason of the fixity of these contradictions and the certainty of that annihilation, all human effort is vain, iii. 9. It is all alike vanity—not only the meaner struggles for food and drink and pleasure (ii.) but even the nobler ambitions of the soul, such as its yearning for wisdom and knowledge. Whether we turn to the physical or the moral ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... lesson thou dost teach me! The life which is, and that which is to come, Suspended hang in such nice equipoise A breath disturbs the balance; and that scale In which we throw our hearts preponderates, And the other, like an empty one, flies up, And is accounted vanity and air! To me the thought of death is terrible, Having such hold on life. To thee it is not So much even as the lifting of a latch; Only a step into the open air Out of a tent already luminous With light that shines through its transparent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the counsels of fear—of a tame and cowardly spirit. I may rebut that imputation without vanity, by referring to the siege of Ctesiphon and the reduction of Egypt. The generous Zabdas will do me justice—nay, you all will—why am I apprehensive? Bear with me a moment more'—'Say on, say on, noble Otho,' said the Queen, and many ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... before them, Aunt Sally," said her mistress in a tone of gentle reproof, "their young hearts are only too ready to be puffed up with vanity and pride. Now what is ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... like the wind, or crawl in the grass, and knew how to strike, quickly and unexpectedly, as the first streak of dawn came into the East. Like Napoleon, he knew the value of time, and, in fact, he had somewhat of the dash and daring, not to mention the vanity, of the Corsican. His men believed in him and loved him, for he marched them to victory, and with odds of five to one ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... really was—more profane, more intemperate, more licentious. It is equally true that this tendency, added to the fact that he was a handsome peer, had much to do with the immediate popularity of his poems. There was also a paradoxical vanity, which does not seem easily reconcilable with his misanthropy, that thus led him to reproduce himself in a new dress in his dramas and tales. He paraded himself as if, after all, he did value ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... example, that our admired Haller, who unmasked in so manly a spirit the sickly nothingness of vain honors; a man whose philosophical greatness I so highly appreciated, that he was not great enough to despise the still greater vanity of an order of knighthood, which conferred an injury on his greatness. I am convinced that in the happy moment of their ideal conceptions, the artist, the philosopher, and the poet are really the great and good man whose image ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that defeat and surrender—surrender so early, so immediate—should have to ensue. It was not indeed that he thought of that disaster as, at the worst, a direct sacrifice of their possibilities: he imaged—it which was enough as some proved vanity, some exposed fatuity, in the idea of bringing Mrs. Lowder round. When, shortly afterwards, in this lady's vast drawing-room—the apartments at Lancaster Gate had struck him from the first as of prodigious extent—he awaited ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... Chauvinism—this last as effective an instrument as the oppressor can wield. Divide et impera is a maxim of despotic state-craft, old as despotism itself; "flatter and rule" is a method equally sure, and such Santa Anna practised to its full. He let pass no opportunity of flattering the national vanity, which brought the Mexican nation to shame, with much humiliation—as the French at a later period, and as it must every people that aims at no higher standard of honour than what may be derived ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... be chosen to flatter. The quality we should prize is that rectitude which will shrink from no truth. Intimacies, which increase vanity, destroy friendship. ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... reverse of this. In the present work of men, meanness, aimlessness, unsightliness: thin-walled, lath-divided, narrow-garreted houses of clay; booths of a darksome Vanity Fair, busily base. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... mirror in his bedroom, that gave on Horridge's Hotel, and surveyed himself thoughtfully. He was looking at the only man he trusted, for it was not vanity, but a love of agreeable company that explained the passion for mirrors which was the ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... burden which no sane man will wish to bear."[1218] "As soon as high purpose, intense human attachments, are the springs of action and resolve, discipline will come into our movement to crush out base selfishness, vanity, and personal ambition,"[1219] This is very nice, but how are "high purpose" and "intense human attachment" to be made the "springs of action"? Unfortunately the writer keeps the secret ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... them, descriptive and significant, even the last, which strangers mispronounced Pudding Point. Even in old New York there were once such names rich in historical association as Long Acre Square, now reduced to Times Square to please the vanity or cupidity of a newspaper. But, save the Indians, no body of people on this continent, not even the old-time cowboys and prospectors with their Bright Angel Trail, have ever rivaled the southern highlanders, the mountain folk of the Blue Ridge, the Great Smokies and the Cumberlands, in ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... pathway which leads to the glorious mountain-top than to follow an easier path to some lower summit. If we truly feel that, we do well to take the path, for we have a right to forget ourselves for the sake of our aim. But if we ask for success after all, it is mere blind vanity which makes us so ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... own words may not pronounce my condemnation; and that what I have here ventured to say in regard to imitation, may be understood as it is meant, in a general sense, and not be imputed to an opinion of my own originality, which I have not the vanity, the folly, or the blindness, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... not hurt me. There was a time in which I owned to myself that it would be very bitter, and then I told myself, that I hoped,—that I hoped that you would wait. But now, I have acknowledged to myself the vanity and selfishness of such a wish. If I really love you am I not bound to want what may ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... or no prince, that is not how one man should conduct himself with another. What! You'll ride with me incog. and set me talking! But if I know you, you'll preshede me, if you please! Spy!" And the fellow, crimson with drink and injured vanity, almost spat the word into the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lawrence stood slackly, with his back to her, and behind him Walters walked across the trunk. His step was firm and agile, his figure well-proportioned and athletic, and it was somehow obvious that he relished the opportunity of showing his powers. Afterwards, she hated him for his vanity. ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... judgment would most condemn, and endeavour to extirpate.—Man is a stranger to nothing, more than to himself;—the recesses of his own heart, are no less impenetrable to him, than the worlds beyond the moon;—he is blinded by vanity, and agitated by desires he knows not he is ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... from the table and crossed his legs comfortably. For him all the chill had gone out of the air. Suppose that there was something in this? An old, old devil of vanity came back to the aged husband's heart. He recalled that he had been somewhat of a beau before he learned the joy of loving Angy. More than one Long Island lassie had thrown herself at his head. Of course Blossy would "get over" this; and Angy knew that ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... to pause before he put the next question. He could scarcely explain why he hesitated, but he called to mind the Paradise cafe and the red-faced Englishman. He was ready enough to sacrifice his wife if by so doing money might be gained, but he felt somehow hurt in his vanity at the idea of this ugly, slow-witted Northerner usurping his place. With an effort, however, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... attention to the arrangement of the animals in Plate VI, where economy of space, and a desire to display each detail to advantage, are the leading motives. I give it as the readiest example to hand, and because it fairly illustrates the principle in question. You must excuse the apparent vanity in making choice of one of my own works to exemplify a canon of art. The sheep at the top is supposed to be scampering over rocks; the ram below may be any distance from the sheep that you choose to imagine—the only indication of relative position is separation, by means of a ridge ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... countless impulses to look at the flower-face of the royal auditor. They were surreptitious and sidelong peeps, it is true, but they served him well. He caught her gaze bent upon him more than once, and he detected an interest in her look that pleased his vanity ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... drift that the devil whipped St. Jerome in a lenten dream, for reading Cicero; or else it was a phantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him. For had an angel been his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading, not the vanity, it had been plainly partial; first to correct him for grave Cicero, and not for scurril Plautus, whom he confesses to have been reading, not long before; next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient fathers ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... hole of the pistol shot. He died clutching my hands, swearing that he loved me and that he had killed himself for me ... a tiresome, horrible scene.... And nevertheless I am sure that he was deceiving himself, that he did not love me. He killed himself through wounded vanity on seeing that I would have nothing to do with him,—just for stubbornness, for theatrical effect, influenced by his readings.... He was a Roumanian tenor. That was in Russia.... I have been an actress a part of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... lamentable matter for any writer to find himself compelled to sketch, however briefly, the early years of Benjamin Franklin. That autobiography, in which the story of those years is so inimitably told, by its vividness, its simplicity, even by its straightforward vanity, and by the quaint charm of its old-fashioned but well-nigh faultless style, stands among the few masterpieces of English prose. It ought to have served for the perpetual protection of its subject as a copyright more sacred than any which rests upon mere statutory law. Such, however, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... becomes loquacious. But he has a certain stern impassibility of feature—a coldness of manner—which have been mistaken for dignity. His immobility of countenance, however, may be the effect of sluggish sensibilities, or even of dull perceptions;[40] and the same savage vanity, which leads him to make a display of strength or agility before friend or enemy, prevents his acknowledging ignorance, by betraying surprise.[41] We have been in company with Indians from the Far West, while they saw a railroad ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... atmosphere of combined temporal and spiritual dignity such as his soul loved. Very agreeable indeed to him was the honour shown to him at this time. Deep down in his heart there was a secret nerve of pride and vanity which throughout his life hitherto had been continually mortified and wounded; but he was able now to indulge his appetite for outward pomp and honour as much as he pleased. When King Ferdinand went ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... extreme simplicity of his manners. He drives only six horses. Besides, he is known as a man of learning and piety;—has his private chapel, and private clergyman, who always preaches against the vanity of worldly riches. He has also a private secretary, whose sole duty is to smoke to him, that he may enjoy the aroma of Spanish cigars, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the twilight I wandered by the old home place, and I saw it lie in wreck; all was vanity and despair. I sought for the things that belonged to my childhood days, but none of them ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... stairs, was wearing an immensely long and wide ermine stole, and carrying a huge muff to match. Before she touched the electric bell she pulled her large hat forward a little over her face, and adjusted the thick veil, which had a pattern like a spider's web. Then she opened a gold vanity box suspended from her wrist by a chain, and looked at herself in the small mirror it contained. Her face was so shadowed by the hat and disguised by the veil that at a little distance it might be difficult for any one not very familiar with ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to be most relieved to be let out before Miss Maitland caught you," retorted Honor. "What an opportunity to point a moral on the fatal consequences of vanity!" Then, as Flossie flounced angrily away: "You've never thanked me for unlocking this door yet. I thought we were supposed to cultivate manners at St. Chad's. If Vivian asks where you've been, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... his poverty which held him back, then she might make the advances. She might put aside her pride, and go halfway to meet him, and to remove his difficulties and embarrassments. If, after that, he still did not ask her, I think his scruples would have become mere vanity,—I think it would show that he cared more for his mere vanity ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... anything for some time. Vanity ain't like a mill-store about my neck; but at the same time, whenever any one plugs me in the face with an aged cabbage, I allus like to make a some little acknowledgment. Of course I knew that she was handin' me one for my fool break; but she did it in cold blood, an' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... I? O vanity, We are not what we deem, The sins that hold my heart in thrall, They are more real ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves, and not from an accident. Any aggrandizement the nineteenth century may have can not boast of Waterloo as its fountainhead; for only barbarous nations grow suddenly after a victory—it is the transient vanity of torrents swollen by a storm. Civilized nations, especially at the present day, are not elevated or debased by the good or evil fortune of a captain, and their specific weight in the human family results from something more than a battle. Their honor, dignity, enlightenment, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... visit. Would she, womanlike, at the last moment contradict herself and withhold the full surrender of life? It was impossible, and yet he felt a vague fear. At any rate, he had burned the bridges behind. His way was clear. He would bring to bear every power he possessed to win her, and in the vanity of his powerful manhood he laughed with ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... that, all men have their weak side. There isn't one, trust me, who can withstand the brilliant attractions of the belle of the ball room, such as, pardon my vanity, I hope to be on next Tuesday evening. I have seen a little of the world in my time, and have always observed, that whoever can eclipse all her fair compeers at one of these brilliant assemblages, possesses, for the time, a power that may be used to advantage. All the ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... the table to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as he spoke. "Thrice I have had my chance—thrice! If ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in, out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This time I will stay... I swore it, and when the time came—I ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... playful vanity he gave vent to a torrent of self-appreciation. He then named all the "other notables present"—a poet, a cartoonist, a budding playwright, a distinguished Russian revolutionist, an editor, and another newspaper man—maligning and deriding some of them and grudgingly praising the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Infanta of Castilla, but as Isabel his wife not at all. During her early years, she had sought rest and comfort in the world. She plunged wildly into every manner of dissipation and pleasure; like Solomon, she withheld not her heart from any good; and like Solomon's, her verdict at the close was "Vanity and vexation of spirit." And then—just when she had arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing upon earth worth living for—when she had "come to the end of everything, and cared for nothing," she met with an old ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... was point-de-vice of prime quality over black velvet. My uncle's welcome was more than a vain lad could stomach; and what youth of his first teens hath not a vanity hidden about ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... and was very fond of nice furniture, china and dainty things, but I have lost all taste for these, and stopped making fashionable calls, for I have seen the vanity and wickedness in fashionable society and costly dressing. I educated myself to look at things as I thought God would, and this change came about after that transaction between my soul and God, at the Methodist church, which I know ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... And if any one wished especially to flatter him he would best accomplish his purpose by asking him to sing one of his own songs. Those who knew him were well aware of this, and often enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of his vanity. This accounts for the clamorous call he received to give them a song of his ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... Versailles had, for its own ends, pretended. To the Nuncio the King said that the designs of Lewis were palpable and should be frustrated. This officious protection was at once an insult and a snare. "My good brother," said James, "has excellent qualities; but flattery and vanity have turned his head." [471] Adda, who was much more anxious about Cologne than about England, encouraged this strange delusion. Albeville, who had now returned to his post, was commanded to give friendly assurances to the States General, and to add some high ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an odious, clever woman?' She sat down and hated herself. All the passing vanity that had been stirred in her by Sir Henry's compliments, all the natural pleasure she had taken in the success of her great adventure as a business woman, in the ease with which she, the Squire's paid secretary, had lately begun to lead the patriotic effort of an English county—how ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... creation to vanity, in the hope that the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For this double deliverance—from corruption and the consequent subjection to vanity, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... lurked an expression of undisguised curiosity. Rose, for that was her name, was something of a coax, and all her life long she had managed to get her own way; she was an only child, and had been not a little spoiled; but in spite of many faults she was lovable, and beneath her outer shell of vanity and self-satisfaction there ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... with me, I have betaken myself to the Stoics, and not all in vain. Marcus Aurelius has often been one of my bedside books; I have read him in the night watches, when I could not sleep for misery, and when assuredly I could have read nothing else. He did not remove my burden; his proofs of the vanity of earthly troubles availed me nothing; but there was a soothing harmony in his thought which partly lulled my mind, and the mere wish that I could find strength to emulate that high example (though I knew that I never should) was in itself a safeguard against the ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... It is vain;— Of mirth I said: What profits it?— Therefore I found a book, and writ Therein, how ease and also pain, How health and sickness, every one Is vanity beneath the sun. ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... a glance at yourself in the glass! Oh Jane, Jane, the best of us and the freest from imperfection is not without a little pride and vanity; but don't be too confident, my saucy beauty; consider that you complained to William yesterday, about the unusual length of time that has elapsed since you received his last letter, and yet he could, write to his fa—— What, ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... not vanity—it is only love visible in a different aspect, and not the least amiable either, ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the paltry sneer, but at the prophecy relating to Godolphin: "he had never distinguished himself in anything—he never would." Rank, wealth, power, Constance felt these she wanted not, these she could command of herself; but she felt also that a nobler vanity of her nature required that the man of her mature and second choice should not be one, in repute, of that mere herd, above whom, in reality, his genius so eminently exalted him. She deemed it essential to her future happiness that Godolphin's ambition should be ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of His grace, and in the profusion with which He gives it, is to bring them nearer to Himself; but they make use of it for an utterly different end: they rest in it, reflect upon it, look at it, and appropriate it; and hence arise vanity, complaisance, self-esteem, the preference of themselves to others, and often the destruction of religious life. These people are admirable, in themselves considered; and sometimes by a special grace ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... eyes had smarted, and oh, what answers she had made! That dreadful tight panic had clutched at her throat whenever the Superintendent had looked at her, and she had disgraced herself ten times over. She went hot and cold to think of it, and felt quite sick with hurt vanity. She who did so well every day and was so much looked up to by her classmates, what MUST they be thinking of her! To tell the truth, she had been crying as she walked along through the woods, because she was so sorry for herself. Her eyes were all ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... established on the English throne; and the confederacy, though not successful in every instance, accomplished their great aim of putting a stop to the encroachments of the French monarch. They mortified his vanity, they humbled his pride and arrogance, and compelled him to disgorge the acquisitions which, like a robber, he had made in violation of public faith, justice, and humanity. Had the allies been true to one ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... are not worthless; and by commending, as our Lord repeatedly did, those who have done well, they, by that principle of our nature of which we are here speaking, are strongly excited to do better. To feed vanity, is to commend vanities; and they who prize and commend beauty, or fashion, or dress, or frivolous accomplishments, may be guilty of this folly; but not the parent or the person who commends in a child those things which are really commendable, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... always being FIRST, while little Auntie" (the general nickname for Lubov Sergievna) "is innocent enough to admire him, and at the same time devoid of the tact to conceal her admiration. Consequently she flatters his vanity—not ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... she brought every power of her mind into action; she was gracious in the extreme; she overcame her proud nature, and assumed a winning gentleness; in short, she flattered the ambassador with such delicate refinement, that he swallowed the magical food offered to his vanity, without ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... father's greatest vanity was his secret pride in his ability to put over the biggest generosity of the year without its being traceable to him. One day a girl acquaintance of her asked her if she knew that her father spent $25,000 every year for Christmas. Marion laughed; ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... and the glittering of the myriad stars flung a light over his room and shone on the little bracket of books above his bed (a Bible, an "Arabian Nights," and tattered copies of "David Copperfield," "Vanity Fair," "Peregrine Pickle," "Tom Jones," and "Harry Lorrequer"), on the little washing stand, a chest of drawers, a cane-bottomed chair, and the little bed. There were no pictures on the walls because of the sloping roof, but there were two china vases on the mantelpiece, and ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... undoubtedly preserve their neutrality, provided it were respected, and avoid any interference with the politics of Europe.... On the other hand, they would not suffer others to interfere against the emancipation of America." With characteristic vanity Canning said that it was he himself who "called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." Yet precisely this had already for a long while been a cardinal point of the policy ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... recals an interesting period in the history of the earldom, was originally a royal residence. It was erected in the middle of the fourteenth century by Jane of France, who, with a very pardonable vanity, directed her new palace to be called Navarre, that her Norman subjects might never forget that she was herself a queen, and that she had brought a kingdom as a marriage portion to her husband. ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... narrative, he jumped up quickly and left the room with strong rapid strides. The friends followed him with their eyes, silently and very much astonished; then they went to take another look at the picture. The old Doge again looked down upon them with a smirk, in his ridiculous finery and foppish vanity; but when they carefully looked into the Dogess's face they perceived quite plainly that the shadow of some unknown pain—a pain of which she only had a foreboding—was throned upon her lily brow, and that dreamy ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... supported on the knuckles of her clasped hands, her elbows resting upon her knees. "Oh, Daddy—and you aren't due at the party till seven. Four hours. Four valuable hours sitting around in your dandy new suit of evening clothes. Vanity. Pure vanity. We're all the same, men who don't need—fixing, and women who do. Only you men won't admit it. Women do. They surely do. Any woman's ready to admit she'd rather look nicer than any other woman than ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... sceptre, the Pontifical dignity, and the power of the temporal prince, are covered over with a funeral shroud,—every object that strikes the eye, and every sound that vibrates on the ear, is an awful memento which reminds us of our approaching dissolution, points out the vanity and nothingness of all earthly grandeur, and convinces, us that in holiness of life, which unites us to God and secures an immortal crown in the enjoyment of the sovereign good, consists the greatness as well as the happiness of man. An awful truth exemplified ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Tostig was remorseless as the tiger, as treacherous and as fierce. With less intellectual capacities than any of his brothers, he had more personal ambition than all put together. A kind of effeminate vanity, not uncommon with daring natures (for the bravest races and the bravest soldiers are usually the vainest; the desire to shine is as visible in the fop as in the hero), made him restless both for ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... self-love and most active vanity were disturbed; but above that rose another passion that had of late years grown strong within her—avarice. She recognized the sure ring of gold in those notes, and ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... because I dance so pretty, with my little toes. Will you call me Cherrytoe always, mamma?" asked 'Toinette, with such a complacent delight in her own accomplishments, that her mother's smile was sad as it was tender. But she felt that this was not the time or place to reprove the vanity so rankly springing in the child's ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... introduced to a foreign officer that I did not fear him, with his weak eyes, his affected mannerisms, his studied rudeness, not to me, but to the country I represented. How I made some of them dance! Not for vanity's sake; rather the inborn patriotism of my race. I had only to think of my father, his honorable scars, his contempt for little things, his courage, his steadfastness, his love for his country, which has so honored him with its trust. Oh! I am a patriot; ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... return; but this we did not quite swallow. After a day or two they went into Paris again, and I then began to suspect that they were essaying the role of mediators, and that Count Bismarck was feeding their vanity with permits, and receiving his equivalent by learning the state of affairs within ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... asked her; but I wanted no more of her kisses, although I had found them so sweet. I seemed to have suddenly grown stronger and wiser where she was concerned; yet I suppose the poor truth of the matter was, that she had stung my vanity keenly, and said little to endear herself to me in our recent interview. Her words, instead of harming me, had roused all the resentment of the strong vital force within me. I felt curiously stirred, almost elated, in remembering what she had said, and contrasting her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... did not see that Archibald Wickersham was left standing alone a moment in the middle of the lawn. But Miriam Burrell saw and understood the black rage that shadowed his face. Long before then she had penetrated to the layer of vanity beneath his air of boredom. More than once she had used that knowledge maliciously, to stir him. And she knew how unending could be his hatred for anyone who had ever ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... had been blowing all night, so that the waves were shouldering the rocks with huge assault. Now Fergus's sermon, which he meant to use as a spade for the casting of the first turf of the first parallel in the siege of the pulpit of the North parish, was upon the vanity of human ambition, his text being the grand verse—And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy; there was no small amount of fine writing in the manuscript he had thrust into his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... him so often from his distant home to the city, and supposed it must be some legal business which engaged him; but gradually a different solution dawned upon her mind. She rejected it as the prompting of vanity, but again and again the supposition recurred. The imperturbable gravity and repose of his manner often disconcerted her. It was in vain that she resorted to sarcasm, and irony; he was incorrigibly unruffled; in vain she was cold, repellent, haughty; his quiet smile remained unaltered. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... principles, but by the conjunction of other qualities. This distinction I cannot at present justify or explain any farther. I can only observe in general, that under the indirect passions I comprehend pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity, with their dependants. And under the direct passions, desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair and security. I shall ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... the lesson is not complete when the grave slams the book. A few plumb the depths of their ignorance before death: these are able to speak—and these are the teachers of men. We get here one reason why giants are fewer in our day: with the growth of man's imaginings and his inventions there is more vanity to be forced through; the truths of life lie deeper hid; more phantasms arise to lure us from the quest of realities; the task ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Simonides, who was celebrated for his piety, introduced into his poem the exploits of Castor and Pollux. Such digressions were not unusual with the poets on similar occasions, and one might suppose an ordinary mortal might have been content to share the praises of the sons of Leda. But vanity is exacting; and as Scopas sat at his festal board among his courtiers and sycophants, he grudged every verse that did not rehearse his own praises. When Simonides approached to receive the promised reward Scopas bestowed but half the expected ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... do not differ much from the asavas for they are but the specific passions in forms ordinarily familiar to us, such as covetousness (lobha), anger or hatred (dosa), infatuation (moha), arrogance, pride or vanity (mana), heresy (di@t@thi), doubt or uncertainty (vicikiccha), idleness (thina), boastfulness (udhacca), shamelessness (ahirika) and hardness of heart anottapa); these kilesas proceed directly ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... which she lay off Havre, the "Repudiator" had brought more prizes into that port than had ever before been seen in the astonished French waters. Her actions with the "Dettingen" and the "Elector" frigates form part of our country's history; their defence—it may be said without prejudice to national vanity—was worthy of Britons and of the audacious foe they had to encounter; and it must be owned, that but for a happy fortune which presided on that day over the destinies of our country, the chance of the combat might ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dizzy watching him foil villains in five reels a week. He inherited some money—quite a lot, I believe, and suddenly vanished from the screen, turning up as Brown-Smith here last year. But he simply could not resist the call of his vanity to come back once more as the dashing hero of the film. He had planned to step into this picture, turn the tables in the fight with Mr. Scanlan, who he thought was an actor and not a pugilist, and thus come back to the movies in a blaze of ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... following pages in manuscript, and to make many useful suggestions, and Mr. Frank Sidgwick, to whose careful revision alike of manuscript and proof and to whose kind and candid criticism I am indebted perhaps more than an author's vanity may readily allow me to acknowledge. Lastly, it would argue worse than ingratitude to pass over my obligation to the admirable readers of the Clarendon Press, whose marvellous accuracy in the most diverse fields and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... a pompous professional air, and appeared to be waiting for the entire party to be ceremoniously introduced to him. Nothing unwilling to humor the vanity of the eccentric little man, Servadac proceeded to go ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... she recognised that with most people avoidance of the trivial and the hope of something extraordinary and unprecedented were dictated either by idleness and incompetence, or by morbid self-love and vanity. ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... my mind with animation and excitement, which shut out thoughts of Margaret. Could I have looked with clairvoyant vision, and beheld her then, locked in her chamber, should I have been so happy? Oh, what fools vanity and pride make of us! Even then, with my heart high-strung with hope and courage, had I known the truth, I should have abandoned my friends, the voyage, and Europe, and returned in the pilot's boat, to find something more precious than all the continents ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240 His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... "And now you see You should not listen to flattery. Vanity, Sir is a horrid vice— I'm sure the ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... of part of the young wife's head the day after her marriage is a custom to prevent young married women from being tempted by vanity to show off their hair, which is generally in Palestine very beautiful. The poor things cover up the part so well that there is no fear of any of it ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... frequently mentioned in their letters as being sure to have much sympathy in their work. A late biographer of the Earl wrote: "She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be lightly esteemed in London society." Her "bull-dog" she used playfully to call him. She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes: "She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the playfulness ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... Cadenus by transposition of the letters), took pleasure in directing and interesting till, from being proud of his praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift was then about forty-seven, at the age when vanity is strongly excited by the amorous attention ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... hours a day of actual travel. This in a hot climate is as much as a man can accomplish without being oppressed; and we always tried to make our progress more a pleasure than a toil. To hurry over the ground, abuse, and look ferocious at one's native companions, merely for the foolish vanity of boasting how quickly a distance was accomplished, is a combination of silliness with absurdity quite odious; while kindly consideration for the feelings of even blacks, the pleasure of observing scenery and ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... says 'gentlemen don't grow any better on one soil than another,' but are 'indigenous to the whole United States,' though Mr. Winters is a Marylander himself." Then she naively added in explanation, and in a little vanity about her botanical lore: "'Indigenous' means, maybe you don't know, a plant that belongs to, is a native of, some particular region. Mr. Seth taught me and Father John. They both know lots about botany, though father hasn't ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... of mine proved unpopular with them, for it stabbed their vanity, and neither my prestige nor the novelty of the idea was sufficient salve. These Hans for centuries had believed and taught their children that they were a super-race, a race of destiny. Destined to Whom, for What, was not so clear to them; but nevertheless ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... soft and white, and the care with which it was arranged indicated a certain harmless vanity in it. There was something a little conscious, too, about her dress—an effect difficult to describe without exaggeration. It was not bizarre nor "artistic," but you would have understood at once that its departures from the prevailing mode were made on principle. If you took it in connection ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sounded as if his inside were lined with cotton wool; "got a knife in my ribs six months back; never got well; and I've been drinking all the time "—and then, with a silly smile of childish vanity, "all over her. She's my new girl—wot d'ye think of ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... quoth the Pardoner, opening his wallet, "now in the matter of sinning, messire, an thou hast some pet and peculiar vice— some little, pretty vanity, some secret, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... which seeks to prevent the experiment. In fact opposition seems sometimes to enhance the virtue of a novelty in the minds of those who propose or advocate its adoption. Many reformers suffer from this form of vanity. ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... Father," the President. Their costumes were a mingling of the picturesque with the grotesque; of tawdriness with magnificence; of artificial tinsel and glitter with the regal spoils of the chase; of childlike vanity with barbaric pride. Yet before these the glittering orders and ribbons of the diplomats became dull and meaningless, the uniforms of the officers mere servile livery. Their painted, immobile faces and plumed heads towered with grave ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... What vanity is envy! for I find I have been rich in dross of thought, and poor In that I was a fool, and lastly blind For never ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... that it was no other than the Sage Munaton, a great enemy of his, whose vanity could not tolerate the prophecies that Don Quixote was about to conquer in battle a certain ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of Reuchlin, studied Cabbalism mainly as a magical science. He was nominally a Catholic, but attacked Rome and scholasticism quite in the spirit of Luther. His three chief works are, On the Threefold Way of Knowing God, On the Vanity of Arts and Sciences (a ferocious attack on most of the professions), and On Occult Philosophy (treating of natural, celestial, and religious magic). The "magician," he says, "must study three sciences—physics, mathematics, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... illustrating the progress of the human family in the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the earth has no cause for humiliation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization. It has not accomplished everything; far from it. It has simply done its best, and without vanity or boastfulness, and recognizing the manifold achievements of others it invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in advancing the highest and best interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... not guessed she was thus acutely sensitive concerning her plumpness. Instantly, he was all contrition over his unwitting offense inflicted on her womanly vanity. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... to my vanity. I felt not a little indignant at being so easily cajoled, played upon, and almost kidnapped by this unprincipled scoundrel. It was a valuable lesson, however; for experience is a ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... pair of white kid gloves, a little trinket known as a "vanity case," containing a tiny mirror and a tinier powder puff; a couple of small hair-pins, a newspaper clipping, and a few silver coins were all ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... before them. This curious faculty was possessed by Rasputin to a very marked degree—a faculty which has puzzled scientists through all the ages, a faculty which usually runs side by side with an overweening vanity and an amazing self-consciousness. Sometimes the possessor of that most astounding and mysterious intuition is also possessed of a humble and retiring disposition. But ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... she has made some conquests to-night, that cream-white satin with her diamonds and these old fashioned gold bands, suit her to perfection. She enjoys wielding the sceptre and she does it with such seeming unconsciousness, and absence of vanity that is very charming, never boasting of her conquests even to me." But where can she be all this time, I wonder, and with whom? so breaking in upon Lionel's reverie, she repeated her question of, "Where and with whom is Vaura? she has missed ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Imagination came down to the Corner of a Venison Pasty, and brought her once even upon her Knees to gnaw off the Ears of a Pig from the Spit. The Gratifications of her Palate were easily preferred to those of her Vanity; and sometimes a Partridge or a Quail, a Wheat-Ear or the Pestle of a Lark, were chearfully purchased; nay, I could be contented tho I were to feed her with green Pease in April, or Cherries in May. But with the Babe she now goes, she ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... cried the Queen, when she first saw me. I may repeat it without vanity, for I suppose it was true. Anyway it is exactly what everybody said the moment they set eyes on me. People always praise dolls to their faces, and that is what makes us look so conceited. Even when we are old, and battered, ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... and a few minutes later stopped as he passed the one big mirror in the ranch, and surveyed himself critically for a moment with a dispassionate interest that was removed from vanity. Then he ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own decrees! You may see some of such levity and such vanity, that it would have been better for them to have been ignorant; some covetous of money, some others eager for glory, many slaves to their lusts; so that their discourses and their actions are most strangely ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... saw a little figure come, and pause, and pass into it. Something very light and white, nimble, smooth, and elegant, gone almost before I knew that any one had been there. And yet my heart came to my ribs, and all my blood was in my face, and pride within me fought with shame, and vanity with self-contempt; for though seven years were gone, and I from my boyhood come to manhood, and all must have forgotten me, and I had half-forgotten; at that moment, once for all, I felt that I was face to face with fate (however poor it might be), weal ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... his servants. He had told the Jesuit missionaries that they thought more of selling beaver-skins than of saving souls. He had insulted those about him, sulked, threatened, foamed at the mouth in rage, revealed a childish vanity in regard to his dignity, and a hunger insatiable for marks of honor from the King—"more grateful," he once said, "than anything else to a heart shaped after ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... it, I would know nothing of it now. She does not know half that I do about it; they tell me I play much better than she; yet they let her play on it in company before me, and I cannot pretend to play after. Why is it? It is not vanity, or I would play, confident of excelling her. It is not jealousy, for I love to see her show her talents. It is not selfishness; I love her too much to be selfish to her. What is it then? "Simply lack of self-esteem" I would say if there was no phrenologist near to correct ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... achievement flowed again in me. I crossed to the piano to assemble the finished sheets, answering him with one of those expressions of thanks artists use to cloak modestly their sleek inward vanity. I was really grateful for this first criticism that soothed me back to the reality ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of fun," remarked Miss Pennington in a supercilious tone, as she looked in the small mirror of her vanity box to see what effect the sun and dust were having on her brilliant complexion. For it was dusty, with the thousands of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... his hand the arch rebel, who was yet to pay the penalty of his inordinate vanity and scheming with his life, dismissed the prisoner and her captors. He instructed an Irish renegade and member of his cabinet, called Nolin, to see to it that the prisoner was kept under close arrest until her fate was decided upon—which would probably be before morning. Nolin told some ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... at the astonishing memory of this country lad: and the applause that greeted the reciter might well be calculated to awaken his latent vanity. It was like being called before the curtain after the first act by a young actor on his first appearance. And I believe every one understood the meaning of the verses, which seemed to imply that the hungry prodigal, famishing for food, was fed with husks instead of grain. ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... cause of that spirited disaster, the intervention of England on behalf of the new Hohenzollern throne, was due, of course, to the national policy of the first William Pitt. He was the kind of man whose vanity and simplicity are too easily overwhelmed by the obvious. He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs, sceptical ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... remedies of infirmities; as, for instance, let them avoid the society of women, shun idleness, macerate the flesh by fasting and vigils, keep the outward senses, especially sight and hearing, from things forbidden, turn away their eyes from beholding vanity, and finally dash their little ones—i.e. their carnal thoughts—upon a rock (and Christ is the Rock), suppress their passions, and frequently and devoutly resort to God in prayer. These are undoubtedly the most effectual remedies for incontinence in ecclesiastics ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... Lincoln's dead, and Zach Taylor's dead—and so the world goes. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' the Bible says. My father used to read it to us boys, when I was your age. It's true, my boy. Have as little to do with the world as you can, except to get an honest living out of it—a living anyway. Don't ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Berenger's life was needful till Eutacie should be in their power so as to prevent such a marriage as that! To Diane, the very suggestion became certainty: she already saw Eutacie's shallow little heart consoled and her vanity excited by these magnificent prospects, and she looked forward to the triumph of her own constancy, when Berenger should find the image so long enshrined in his heart crumble in its ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more likely than that a portion of the Knights Templars were initiated in the mysteries of such Oriental sects as those of the House of Wisdom of Al Hakem, the seventh and last degree of which at first 'inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions which are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or hereafter.' At a later age, when the doctrines of this society had permeated all Islam, it seems to have labored very zealously to teach both women and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... He was always anxious, he said, to be generous, but Nanny would not let him assist a starving child. They had really not a penny beyond what Nanny earned at the loom, and now we know how Sanders shook her if she did not earn enough. His vanity was responsible for the story about her wealth, and she would not have us ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... no mood to regard this vanity complacently, went up on deck and declined to have anything to do with the matter. He maintained this attitude of immovable virtue until tea-time, by which time Flower's entreaties had so won upon him that he was reluctantly compelled to admit that it seemed to be the only thing possible in ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... Caesar Moreno as premier called forth the protest of the representatives of three great Powers, and such an uprising of the people that he had to give way. Adroit politicians were not wanting to flatter his vanity, defend his follies, and show him how to violate the spirit and intent of the Constitution, while keeping within the letter of the law. The Legislatures were packed with subservient office-holders, while every artifice was used to debauch the native electorate ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... I was received with open-handed graciousness. Nothing can be more charming than the unconscious generosity of simple folk. To this family I applied the word simple and cut myself with a cool smile at my own vanity. Was I not a countryman and as rustic-minded as they? But I had come from another community, had crossed a state line and the lines of several counties, and besides I took to myself the credit of having read many a cunning book, and therefore these people were surely more simple than I. Traveling ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... fair sister!" said the Prioress, with an air of superiority. "We have no temptations in our blessed retreat. Our rule saveth us, and our seclusion from the vanity of the world—and I pray you, what other evil can assail a ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... informed that you have been engaged in a fight," he continued, in a tone a little less sharp than that with which he had pronounced my name; and I had the vanity to believe that the square tone in which I had uttered the single word I had been called upon to speak had produced ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... RETURNED, 4a3b4c3b4d3e4f3e, 6: The vanity of human wishes: a feeble lad kissing his mother good-bye as he sets sail to seek health in a foreign climate; a gallant seaman kissing his wife good-bye as he sets sail to seek their fortune across the seas—but the ship ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... (psychical) faculties; and, personally, my own firm conviction is that there is nothing dangerous in mediumship. The mere dabbling in mediumship, as either the means of a new sensation, or for the gratification of personal vanity, is to be thoroughly deprecated, as a perversion of some of the most wonderful possibilities of our natures; while the prosecution of mediumship, or anything else, to the detriment of mind, nerves, or health, in any direction, is a sin against oneself, and will inevitably ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... that is definitely known of Lewis's family and early life. It is not much; but it suffices to show that he came of fine, fearless stock, mettlesome and reliant,—the sort of stock that brings forth men of action. The invertebrate vanity of blood is kept out of this story, in accord with the democratic belief of the time that a strong man's ancestors are what he himself makes them. They may have done their part well, but it remains for him to put the finishing touches to their reputation. Given a few sturdy ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... girl listened to her father's words, in tears. Throwing herself at his feet she thanked him for his mercy and promised to love him more fondly than ever. She told him that her vanity had not been flattered by what most girls might have thought an honour, that she would rather have the love of one good man like her father, than share with others the affections ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... pride of position, vanity in regard to the new suit, glee at being fairly at sea and doing for himself, and a certain humorous perception that he was ridiculously small—little Billy presented a very remarkable appearance as he stood that day on the deck of his father's vessel, with his ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... are appraised at advanced rates. It is the extreme of French fashion which comes to Luchon. Eaux Bonnes and Cauterets are close rivals, but Luchon is the queenliest of the triplet. As a consequence, the place shows a touch of caprice, of vanity, even of arrogance; prosperity is a powerful tonic, but sometimes its iron enters ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... This vanity of a drunken man illustrates the truth of an old proverb, "When the wine is in, the wit is out." Josephus says that all the court heard his command; hence, while he was showing the glory of his court, he also showed that he had a wife who ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... seemed to see him urge his faded faculties to take their cue and perform. The poor fellow tried to do himself credit more seriously than ever in his old best days. With Miss Searle, credulous passive and pitying, he had finally flung aside all vanity and propriety and shown the bottom of his fantastic heart. But with our host there might be no talking of nonsense nor taking of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a consummate conservative, breathing the fumes of hereditary privilege and security. ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... I am going to do with my fortune," said I. I was holding out my vanity at arm's length and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... is after all only a sign and sample of the prevailing growth and extent of fashionable luxury. Nowhere in the world, I suppose, is this more conspicuous than in Paris, the very Vanity Fair of mundane pleasure. The hostesses of dinners, dances and fetes vie with one another in seeking bizarre and extravagant effects. Here is a good example of it taken from actual life the other day. It is an account of an "oriental fete" given at a ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... to prove to itself its superiority over that of the vulgar. I make a parenthesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, and I bring together all the evidence which my knowledge ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... uncertain, and for ever running out of the beaten track. Why go to look at the flowers, and take delight in their beauty? When you return home, you will see the vanity of your pleasure. Why purchase fleeting joys of loose women? How long do you retain the delicious taste of the dainties you feast upon? For ever wishing to do this, wishing to see that, wishing to eat rare dishes, wishing to wear fine clothes, you pass a lifetime ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... parent learn, before he resolves to educate his son, the importance of ascertaining whether his son was ever designed for professional life. The weak vanity of a parent has frequently ruined his son, and brought down his own gray hairs with sorrow to ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... the fashion when she first came out; I had the character of being a great rake, and was a great dandy—both of which young ladies like. She married me from vanity, and the hope of reforming and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron |
