"Boast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... places—Rhodesia. No capital. Not a penny coming to him. No chance of his income increasing for at least four years. As for looks and all that sort of thing, he was completely out of the running. He couldn't even boast of top-hole health, for the East Africa business had knocked him out so thoroughly that he'd had to take six months' leave. He was still fearfully pale—worse even than usual this afternoon, he thought, bending forward and peering into the mirror. Good heavens! ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... broke in the vibrant voice of a gentleman who sat at the left of the speaker, concealed in the shadow cast by the heavy window drapings, "what is our concern over that? It is our boast that this is a free country. As for England, we have taken her measure, once in full, a second time at least in part; and as for Austria or Russia, what have we to do with their territorial designs? Did they force ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... room; and, sooth to say, the great Mountmeadow was much too enamoured of his own self-importance to be by any means a patron of close courts and private hearings; but then, though he loved his power to be witnessed, he was equally desirous that his person should be reverenced. It was his boast that he could keep a court of quarter sessions as quiet as a church; and now, when the crowd rushed in with all those sounds of tumult incidental to such a movement, it required only Mountmeadow slowly to rise, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... good rider, and there are none better even in Arabia. He is apt to tell big stories about his little horse, intimating its descent direct from the Kochlani, or King Solomon's breed, and to endow it with marvelous qualities of speed and endurance. The Montero is never heard to boast of his wife, his children, or any other possession, but he ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... will venture to affirm, we shall have in our academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as they have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... another gift, of all gifts the most Prized by our fatherland, we boast— The might of the horse, the might of the sea; Our fame, Poseidon, we owe to thee, Son of Kronos, our king divine, Who in these highways first didst fit For the mouth of horses the iron bit; Thou too hast taught us to fashion meet For the arm of the rower the oar-blade fleet, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... battle, and slay many of their enemies, they shall live for ever, after death, in beautiful hunting-grounds, enjoying the pleasures of the chase continually. You know that we, as Christians, are enjoined to forgive our enemies; but untutored Indians delight in revenge: they love to boast, and to shed blood; but we are taught, by God's holy word, to be humble and merciful. There is one thing that mingles much with the Indian character; and that is, medicine, or mystery. I must try to ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... regarded as a signal error of Conde in this campaign. But it would certainly appear hazardous to adopt this conclusion in the face of the most skilful strategists of the age. It has already been seen that Francois de la Noue, one of the ablest generals of whom the Huguenots could ever boast, regarded the idea of capturing Paris at the beginning of the struggle, with the comparatively insignificant forces which the prince could bring to the undertaking, as the most chimerical that could be entertained. Was it less absurd now, when, if the Protestant army had received ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... fingers were all thumbs. Some at least of the others I possessed; and finding much entertainment in our commerce, I did not suffer my advantages to rust. I have never despised the social arts, in which it is a national boast that every Frenchman should excel. For the approach of particular sorts of visitors, I had a particular manner of address, and even of appearance, which I could readily assume and change on the occasion rising. I never lost an opportunity ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quite a poetic allegory of winter and spring, personified by an old and a young man, who came from opposite points of the world, to pass a night together and boast of their respective powers. Winter blew his breath, and the streams were covered with ice. Spring blew his breath, and the land was covered with flowers. The old man is finally conquered, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... daughter, who had no equal in her time for beauty and loveliness and symmetrical stature and grace, brilliancy, amorous lace and the art of ravishing the wits of the masculine race and her name was Al-Datma. She used to boast, "Indeed there is none like me in this age." Nor was there one more accomplished than she in horsemanship and martial exercises and all that behoveth a cavalier. So all the Kings' sons sought her to wife; but she would take none of them, saying, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... stylish Mrs. Graystone, who could boast of the most aristocratic descent, and whose haughty family had considered it quite a condescension when she married the self-made merchant—if the little lady had sinned very deeply in wishing to secure for her only child a husband in every way suitable, in her ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... long as I live will I boast of my digging," declared Johnny Chuck admiringly. From the point where Miner had entered the ground a little ridge was being pushed up, and they watched it grow surprisingly fast as the little worker under the sod pushed his tunnel along in the direction of his old tunnels. ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... star-dotted sky, she saw the figure of a horseman. Instantly it disappeared where the trail dipped into a coulee, and with a thrill of wild exhilaration she realized that her horse had run away from the pursuers, and not only that, he was actually closing up on the Texan despite the boast of Ike Stork that his animal could run ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... had driven the enemy from the field, in panic and with great loss. They were in possession of five hundred prisoners, nearly all of whom they retained. They had taken two out of the five pieces of artillery which the British had brought into the action; and, something more to boast, considering the proverbial renown of the British with this weapon, it was at the point of the bayonet that they had swept the enemy from the ground. The British took shelter in a fortress from which the Americans were repulsed. It is of no consequence to assert that the latter might have ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... for sport. Sport, being a mental impulse or appetite, is insatiable, and therefore far more deadly than hunger.... A boast is made that ninety millions of rabbits are reared for the consumption of our nation. Ninety million rabbits sent out at large to nibble the young shoots of the growing crops—each of whom destroys and wastes ten times what a tame rabbit would eat in a hutch—are boasted of as an ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... are nothing in themselves, into scenes of such transcendental loveliness that the mere casual contemplation of them sends a thrill of pleasure coursing through the system. There is no city of the same size (180,000) in England or America, but can boast of buildings infinitely superior to anything in Teheran; what trees there are in and about the city are nothing compared to what we are used to having about us; and although the gates with their short minars and their gaudy ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... declared vehemently. "It's all my doing—everything! Wholly my idea from the start!" The impulse to boast, to vaunt his cleverness, was not to be resisted. "I told Van Buren the game had only begun! ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... geography. Though he had not himself ventured to brave the discomforts of foreign travel, he wished to show that he knew as much about Canaan as those who had actually been there. A tour there was after all not much to boast of; it had become so common that the geography of Canaan was as well known as that of Egypt itself, and the stay-at-home scribe had consequently no difficulty in compiling a ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... coronet of antique towers, her Gothic churches and Renaissance buildings or brown riverside houses dipping into the mud-colored Pegnitz, she rejoices in treasures of art and architecture and in the possession of a splendid history such as Rothenburg can not boast. To those who know something of her story Nuremberg brings the subtle charm of association. While appealing to our memories by the grandeur of her historic past, and to our imaginations by the work and tradition of her mighty dead, she appeals ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched, despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable, I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... together. There were honest differences here, in this chamber. But when the war began, you put your partisanship aside and supported our troops. This is still a time for pride, but this is no time to boast. For problems face us, and we must stand together once again and solve them—and not let ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a prayer: no boast Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth; Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost, A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth; And dusk spreads ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... the American way, we've organized cheese-eating. There's an annual cheese week, and a cheese month (October). We even boast a mail-order Cheese-of-the-Month Club. We haven't yet reached the point of sophistication, however, attained by a Paris cheese club that meets regularly. To qualify for membership you have to identify two hundred basic cheeses, and you ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... to be found at their homes reading the accounts of their grandsons' deeds in the war, went out on scouting duty and scaled hills with almost as much alacrity as the burghers only half their age. Men who could boast of being grandfathers were innumerable, and in almost any laager there could be seen father, sons, and grandsons, all fighting with equal vigour and enthusiasm. Paul Kruger is seventy-five years old, but there were many of his burghers several years older than ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... the old story,—alas! too common in these times,—the story of a Southern family reduced to poverty by the ravages of war. Six years before, all had been different. Then the fighting was not begun, and the Southern Confederacy was a thing to boast over and make speeches about. The gray uniforms were smart and new then; the volunteers eager and full of zeal. All things went smoothly in the stately old house known to Charleston people as the "Pickens Mansion." The cotton was regularly harvested ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back—that he would win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck before this coming Christmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. "I have lost my bet," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she longed for the delight of seeing the noble shire-hall—the boast of the county—and of catching glimpses of the dancers, and hearing the band; much as she longed for some variety to the dull, monotonous life she was leading, she could not feel happy to accept a privilege, granted, as she believed, in ignorance of the real state ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... had not much to boast of, even in contrast with that wicked line. They had produced their madmen and villains, too; and there had been frequent intermarriages—not very often happy. There had been many lawsuits, frequent disinheritings, and even worse doings. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... proof of that genuine freedom, which is the boast of this age and country, than the power of discussing and examining, with decency and respect, the limits of the king's prerogative. A topic, that in some former ages was thought too delicate and sacred to be profaned by the pen of a subject. It was ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... Company died during the six years, which is certainly very remarkable," you will be not utterly incredulous; for you will know how it came about. Still, when one comes to reflect, it does seem an odd boast ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much company. As a young lawyer in Kentucky, he was addicted to playing those games of mere chance which alone at that day were styled gambling. He played high and often, as was the custom then all over the world. It was his boast, even in those wild days, that he never played at home, and never had a pack of cards in his house; but when the lawyers and judges were assembled during court sessions, there was much high play among them at the tavern after the day's work was ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... good beginning and to encourage others who can do it better, I have myself, with some others, put together a few hymns, in order to bring into full play the blessed Gospel, which by God's grace hath again risen: that we may boast, as Moses doth in his song (Exodus xv.) that Christ is become our praise and our song, and that, whether we sing or speak, we may not know anything save Christ our Saviour, as St. Paul saith ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... contempt. But I am of the disposition that, whenever I see an obstacle of whatever kind, I can not restrain myself from trying to jump it. Here was an obstacle—a dislike. To clear it was of the smallest importance in the world, was a silly waste of time. Yet I felt I could not maintain with myself my boast that there were no obstacles I couldn't get over, if I turned aside ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... guard to each party, and remained perfectly stationary for half an hour, when, a particular cluck being given, another sentinel immediately took his place, and relieved him with as much regularity as any garrison could boast. It became a matter of further curiosity to observe how they would meet the extra duty occasioned by the havoc of the cook. For this also a remedy was found, and the gentleman remarked with admiration that, as their number decreased, ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... man who wishes to retain his own respect and to merit the respect of others would think of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or shout itself hoarse in the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... could but think and speak, surely it would never complain of being touched and re-touched by the brush, nor would it feel envious thereof, knowing that all its beauty is due to the artist alone. So, too, the brush itself could not boast of the masterpiece it had helped to produce, for it must know that an artist is never at a loss; that difficulties do but stimulate him; and that at times it pleases him to make use of instruments ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... strange pathos seems to me to accompany all our Indian story! Besides that official history which fills Gazettes, and embroiders banners with names of victory; which gives moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; and enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour—besides the splendour and conquest, the wealth and glory, the crowned ambition, the conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood freely shed in winning it—should not one remember the tears, too? ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Englishman who re-enters London after long residence abroad without a pulse that beats quick and a heart that heaves high. The public buildings are few, and, for the most part, mean; the monuments of antiquity not comparable to those which the pettiest town in Italy can boast of; the palaces are sad rubbish; the houses of our peers and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick. But what of all this? the spirit of London is in her thoroughfares—her population! What wealth—what cleanliness—what order—what ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boast of Canadians that as the nineteenth century was the century of growth and development of the United States, so the twentieth is to be the century of Canada; and the outstanding feature of Canadian development in {432} the last decade of the nineteenth century and the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... messengers began to speak and boast among themselves. "It was well," said one, "that Dawra granted us the Bull willingly, otherwise we had taken ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... woman climber as the repetition of prominent names, the owners of which she must have struggled to know. Otherwise, why so eagerly boast of the achievement? Nobody cares whom she knows—nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good ledge above and away from the social ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... hinted something about the corrective qualities of mathematics; but I was too happy to heed her or care. I was stronger and better, I believe, from that day; though I had not much to boast of. A true tonic had been administered to me; my fainting energies ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... that one cannot but stand aghast at this terrible misuse of the powerful engine of the press. It is idle to contend that the newspaper, as a business undertaking, must supply this sort of thing to meet the demand for it. It is (or ought to be) the proud boast of the press that it leads and moulds public opinion, and undoubtedly journalism (like the theatre) is at least as much the cause as the effect of the depravity of public taste. Enterprising stage-managers ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... the redeeming grace of that city.—Stockholm "not being able to boast any considerable place or square, nor indeed any street wider than an English lane; the exterior of the houses is dirty, the architecture shabby, and all strikes as very low and confined. Yet the palace must be excepted; and that is commanding, and in a grand and simple taste." Such is the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... habit of stern self-control and long forbearance. Ahmed's complete power over the frightened piece of humanity before him brought upon him the necessity practically of surrender; for the Turk possesses one of the noblest and gentle natures the human race can boast of. Ahmed remained silent for a few seconds, and the girl gazed upon him with dilated, fascinated eyes. She noted in a dazed way how the dark blue robe parted on his breast and showed beneath a vest of gold silk, fastened a little to the side ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... to which she is liable. And yet I have no just reason to complain; for though she has shown me little maternal tenderness, and repelled all exhibition of affection on my part, she has treated me very differently from her other children, and with much greater consideration. I can make slight boast of education, but the best the village could afford has been given me; and I have derived much religious culture from good Doctor Ormerod. The kind ladies of the vicarage proposed, as you have done, that I should live with them, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Cheseldine's will, but mostly upon Poggin the gunman. This in itself was a warning to Duane. He felt terrible forces at work within him. There was the stern and indomitable resolve to make MacNelly's boast good to the governor of the state—to break up Cheseldine's gang. Yet this was not in Duane's mind before a strange grim and deadly instinct—which he had to drive away for fear he would find in it a passion to kill Poggin, not for the state, nor for his word to MacNelly, but for himself. Had ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the Prince Kaou and liveth," he said insolently. "Give me instant test of thy boast, or the wooden collar(1) in the palace torture-house, ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... necessary, and put them in the field, so as to have them ready for the spring campaign, even if it resulted in the freedom of those thus organized. Will I not employ them to fight the negro force of the enemy? Aye, the Yankees themselves, who already boast that they have 200,000 of our slaves in arms against us. Can we hesitate, can we doubt, when the question is, whether the enemy shall use our slaves against us or we use them against him; when the question may be between ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the good of travelling so far, if one has not something to boast of when one returns? If I say I have hunted and killed the rhinoceros and elephant, they may reply to me, 'So have we;' but if I add the giraffe, that will silence them; don't you observe, Swinton, I then remain master of the field? But here come the Hottentots ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sole survivor, as he believed and reported, of the seventeen thousand fugitives. The Afghan chiefs had boasted that they would allow only one man to live, to warn the British to meddle no more with Afghanistan. Their boast seemed literally fulfilled. Only one man had traversed in safety that "valley of the shadow ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... nothing else with him from Italy? Is it possible that the story of the green stockings, upon which he has founded his suspicions, should have imposed upon you, accompanied as it is with such pitiful circumstances? Since he has made you his confidant, why did not he boast of breaking in pieces my poor harmless guitar? This exploit, perhaps, might have convinced you more than all the rest; recollect yourself, and if you are really in love with me, thank fortune for a groundless jealousy, which diverts to another quarter ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... two generations of Hankin thumbs. He also possessed the works of John Stuart Mill, not excepting the Logic, which he had mastered, even as to the abstruser portions, with a thoroughness such as few professors of the science could boast at the present day. Mill, indeed, was his prophet; and the principle of the Greatest Happiness was his guiding star. Hankin was well abreast of current political questions, and to every one of them he applied his principle and managed by means of it to take a definite side. As he worked ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... job," said the Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General at length. "I'm getting rather fed up with casualty lists and strength returns. I'm like the man who boasted that his chief literary recreation was reading Bradshaw, except that I don't boast of it and it isn't a recreation—it's damned hard work. I have to read the Army List for about ten hours every day, for if I get an officer's initials wrong there's the devil to pay. And I spent half an hour between the telephone and the Army List to-day trying to find out who 'Teddy' ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... go into the streets of any great city in England to see how we, with all our boast of civilisation, are yet but one step removed from barbarism. Is that a hard word? Only there are the barbarians round us at every street corner—grown barbarians, it may be, now all but past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet save, for God wishes us to save ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... one—so long as those peaceful, social elements, yet waited the spark that was wanting to unite them—so long 'the laws of England' might be, indeed, at a Falstaff's or a Nym's or a Bardolph's 'commandment,' for the Poet has but put into 'honest Jack's' mouth, a boast that worse men than he, made good in his time—so long, the faith, the lives, the liberties, the dearest earthly hopes, of England's proudest subjects, her noblest, her bravest, her best, her most learned, her most accomplished, her most inspired, might be at the mercy ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... justice of which we boast as the underlying principle of our institutions should not be confined to the relations of our citizens to each other. The Government itself is under bond to the American people that in the exercise of its functions and powers it will deal ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... homeliness, also soft and lazy constitutions. No one disputes the brute homeliness of the Abdallah horse, and in this the old and trite saying of "Like begets like" is exemplified in descendants, with which our country is flooded. The speed element of which we boast was left in our mares of Arabian blood through Clay and Morgan, but was so limited in numbers as to be an apology for our present time standard in the breeding of fancy horses. Knowing that Abdallah blood produced no speed, and being largely ignorant as to the breeding of our mares, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... a fortune equal in capital to his own," said Solonet, "we certainly cannot give it to him. We do not possess three millions and a half; nothing can be more evident. While you can boast of your three overwhelming millions, we can only produce our poor one million,—a mere nothing in your eyes, though three times the dowry of an archduchess of Austria. Bonaparte received only two hundred and fifty thousand ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... your beard is white, your head is flowery, you are growing childish. You love your silly nephew, Roland, too well. He is only hunting among the mountains. He would blow his horn all day for a single hare, and then he would boast before you of his valor. Ride on. Your own France ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... before he could set foot in his native land. The Locrian Ajax perished on the Gyraean rock. Though exposed to a terrible storm, he had already reached this place of safety, when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in defiance of the gods. No sooner did Poseidon hear this language than he struck with his trident the rock which Ajax was grasping and precipitated both into the sea. Calchas, the soothsayer, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... everywhere as belonging only to felons in jails. In an American state prison or house of correction, I found it difficult at first to persuade myself that I was really in a jail: a place of ignominious punishment and endurance. And to this hour I very much question whether the humane boast that it is not like one, has its root in the true wisdom or philosophy ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... makes the angels glad and even to their subtle minds can bring a certain awe of profound marvelling." He has given to her such a glorious exaltation that after Rachel and Eve she of all women is enthroned in the glowing Rose of Heaven next to the Virgin Mother, "our tainted nature's solitary boast," and so enthroned, Beatrice is at once his beloved and the symbol of revelation, the heavenly light that discloses to mankind both the true end of our being and ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... this fane to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. 30 On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: But still for living ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule even of his inferiors with contempt—too young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in the same ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... beaet my manhood, if you can. You'll be a man if you can teaeke All steaetes that household life do meaeke. The love-toss'd child, a-croodlen loud, The bwoy a-screamen wild in play, The tall grown youth a-steppen proud, The father staid, the house's stay. No; I can boast if others can, I'm vull ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the hated employer. The state and the order of the world is confounded with the capitalist. Before the war the popular so-called socialist press reeked with the cant of rebellion, the cant of any sort of rebellion. "I'm a rebel," was the silly boast of the young disciple. "Spoil something, set fire to something," was held to be the proper text for any girl or lad of spirit. And this blind discontent carried on into the war. While on the one hand a great rush of men poured into the army ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... to do with clever men, ceased to boast, and turning to Lord Evandale, he said to him, "Well, my lord, does the price ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... peculiar how one's environments will influence his actions in after years. Bill Brown continues to send cut glass goblets to his friends. He boasts that his friends drink only out of cut glass. This boast does not arouse Alfred's envy as he has friends in Brownsville who can drink out of the bung ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... God revealed many things to Moses and the prophets, which were contained under the covert of the words of the law, which were not to be communicated to the profane vulgar: so for this art, which the Jews so much boast of, which I have with great labour and diligence searched into, I must acknowledge it to be a mere rhapsody of superstition, and nothing but a kind of theurgic magic before spoken of. For if, as the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... monsieur, how hopeless it is!" said the Count despairfully. "One dare not rebel: one dare not lift a finger, or the woman speaks and his Majesty's ruin falls. Oh, the madness of that boast of yours! Only another twenty-four hours—only another day—and then God help ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... cry nor a smile that day, though Barney yearned to hear either one of these baby sounds. The little brown captive clung as always to his tiny shirt, and watched Barney's face with big, brown, questioning eyes. The cook had forgotten his boast. To hold the wee bit of babyhood against his heart, to coax him to eat, to yearn over him, love him, fondle him—these were his passions. A fierce parental jealousy ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... last discovery of the human intellect, the last good news for man? That the soundest thinkers—they who have the truest and clearest notion of the universe are the savage who knows nothing but what his five senses teach him, and the ungodly who makes boast of his own desire, and speaks good of the covetous whom God abhorreth, while he says, "Tush, God hath forgotten. He hideth away his face, and God will never ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... morning Star, Dayes harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose. Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth, and warm desire, Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing, Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early Song, And welcom thee, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour— The paths of glory lead but to ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... and a half will put one on the top, but he ought to take eight. I have no fondness for men who come to the Alps to see how quickly they can do the ascents. They simply proclaim that their object is not to see and enjoy, but to boast. We go up the lateral moraine, a huge ridge fifty feet high, with rocks in it ten feet square turned by the mighty plow of ice below. We scramble up the rocks of the mountain. Hour after hour we toil upward. At length we come to the snow-slopes, and are all four ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... which, in all probability, was not displeasing to Philip, who was now resolved to make trial of a milder administration. In December 1573 the much-oppressed country was relieved from the presence of the duke of Alva, who, returning home accompanied by his son, made the infamous boast that during the course of six years, besides the multitudes destroyed in battle and massacred after victory, he had consigned 18,000 persons to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... known; but they are only changed outwardly. Their nature, their habits of life, their mental make-up, does not change; or, if it changes to the automatic action by which they become part of a war machine they lose that individual freedom that is the boast of the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... and 'glory.' The latter is a better rendering than the former, because the original expression designates not only the emotion of joy, but the expression of it, especially in words. So it is frequently rendered in the New Testament by the word 'boast,' which, of course, has unpleasant associations, which scarcely fit it for use here. So then you see Paul regards it as possible for, and more than possibly characteristic of, a Christian, that the very same emotion should he excited by that great bright future hope, and by the blackness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... stupid fellow, with no brains to boast about, can jump overboard to save any one or do anything of that kind. I want to see you act like a brave fellow who is ready to make a bit of sacrifice of his own feelings, and behave in a manly way. Come, ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... honourably and as became a Spartan? they greatly extolled his merit, and said there was not such a man left in Sparta; whereupon she replied, "Say not so, my friends; for Brasidas was indeed a man of honour, but Lacedaemon can boast of many better men ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Welty boast of being the object of this Emily's infatuation, Barry McGettigan deflected his mind from the contemplation of murders, infanticides, fires, and other matters of general interest, and gave his best thoughts and skill to investigating this ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in North Britain, one of the Commons in Parliament and Commander of an Army and Fleet Employed on an Expedition from Canada!' My friends, such is the pride that goeth before a fall. We are an humble, hard-working people. No man among us can boast of a name so lavishly adorned. Our names need only the simple but glorious adornments of firmness, courage and devotion. With those, I verily believe, we shall have an Ally greater than any this world can offer. Let us all kneel where we stand ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... His bald head could boast only a few hairs dyed black. His eyelids fell like rags over eyes still smiling; his cheeks hung in loose folds, and one divined that his body was equally withered. She thought, "And even he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "They've half-hanged me three times already. The last time was only yesterday, an' at any moment they may come to give me another turn. It's the uncertainty o' the thing that tries my narves. I used to boast that I hadn't got none once, but the Arabs know how to take the boastin' out of a fellow. If they'd only take me out to be hanged right off an' done with it, I wouldn't mind it so much, but it's the constant tenter-hooks of uncertainty that floors me. Hows'ever, I ain't quite floored ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... not boast that I do change; Thy pyramids, built up with newer might, To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... made Daddy Longlegs quite peevish. He had come to Rusty's house in order to boast. And of course he was disappointed when he found that Rusty Wren did not think him ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... lord, how that can be," said Allan Redmain scornfully, "for the kingdom of which you boast is but a barren rock in the mid sea, and methinks your beasts of the chase are but ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... qualified that he found a way for them to objects of interest that had at first denied themselves in anticipation of the visit from the queens; when they all sat down at lunch in the restaurant which he found for them, he could justifiably boast that he would get them into the Town Hall, which they had been told was barred for the day against anything but sovereign curiosity. He was now on the best term with Boyne, who seemed to have lost all diffidence of him, and treated him with an easy familiarity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... women, as folk prattle, Are sweetly spoken and subtle enough: German girls are good at tattle, And Prussians make their boast thereof; Take Egypt for the next remove, Or that waste land the Tartar harries, Spain or Greece, for the matter of love, There's no good girl's ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... millions of native born Americans dwell, many of whom are ashamed of the fact that they were born here and which shame is entirely mutual between the Goddess of Liberty and themselves, we have a style of pie that no other land can boast of. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... psychological, spiritual perceptions by "physical processes," is to describe them as materialists. As to the concluding fling at the fire-philosophers, it rebounds from them upon some of the most eminent leaders of modern science; those in whose mouths the Rev. James Martineau places the following boast: "Matter is all we want; give us atoms alone, and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... require to think of my own honor. Those who do not acknowledge their Master, can not afford to forget it. But if they do not learn to obey Him, they will find by the time they have got through what they call life, they have left themselves little honor to boast of." ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... all the good of the first philosophy, and which may be called the summit of the whole theory, you will be deprived of the most perfect knowledge of beings, unless you are so much infatuated as to boast on account of fabulous fictions, though an analysis of things of this kind abounds with much of the probable, but not of the demonstrative. Besides, things of this kind are only delivered adventitiously in the Platonic dialogues; as the fable in the Protagoras, which is inserted for the sake ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... knavish devil; but I will not go with thee nor shalt thou come with me, save upon condition of a wager which is this. If the lover thou lovest and of whom thou boastest so bravely, prove handsomer than mine whom I mentioned and whom I love and of whom I boast, the bet shall be shine against me; but if my beloved prove the handsomer the bet shall be mine against thee." Quoth Dahnash the Ifrit, "O my lady, I accept this thy wager and am satisfied thereat; so come with me to the Islands." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... watch, and went below for a salt shower, and after that the evening meal, which was never much to boast about. He went up to the bridge again to investigate Aden from the best standpoint. The evening lights were colouring splendidly the rocky heights of the range above the port. The anchored fleet spread far across the bay, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... conditions of atmosphere of which most of the European observatories cannot boast. It is to the honour of Schiaparelli, of Milan, that under comparatively unfavourable conditions and with a small instrument, he so far outstripped his contemporaries in the observation of the features of Mars that those contemporaries ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... attained by any man appears to be a poor thing to boast of, since there is no condition or situation in which he may be placed without feeling or perceiving that there is something or other which he knows little or nothing about. A man can scarcely open his eyes or turn his head without being able to convince himself of this truth. And yet, without ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... alluring him to fight. The Celtic villages that had remained faithful to the Romans were cruelly laid waste, and, when this brought on a conflict between the cavalry, Hannibal allowed his opponents to boast of the victory. Soon thereafter on a raw rainy day a general engagement came on, unlocked for by the Romans. From the earliest hour of the morning the Roman light troops had been skirmishing with the light cavalry of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the glory which scintillated from the favourite horse flew in his direction. But he was on this occasion unlike himself, and though the horse was to be run in his name had very little to say in the matter. Not a boast came out of his mouth during dinner or after dinner. He was so moody that his partner, who was generally anxious to keep him quiet, more than once endeavoured to encourage him. But he was unable to rouse himself. It was still within his power to run straight; to be on the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Yet can I boast, though Phoebus were uniust, This shift did serve to barre him from his lust. But who are these alone? I cannot chuse But blush for shame that anyone should see Eurymine in ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... to be known as scientific skeptics and unbelievers often boast that the above-mentioned books are more worthy of respect than the books of the Bible. For the benefit of all who may not have access to those books, the following, from Duff's India, credited to the Shasters, may be of service in ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... heard upon the cellar-steps, and the three men previously sent below staggered from the doorway, bearing a huge safe which nearly broke them down. Somerset knew that his father's box, or boxes, could boast of no such dimensions, and he was not surprised to see the chest deposited in front of Miss Power. When the immense accumulation of dust had been cleared off the lid, and the chest conveniently placed for her, Somerset was ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... book-collectors has been preserved in the libraries established from ancient times in several of the Italian cities. There are two at Padua, of which the University Library may claim to have had the longer existence: but the 'Capitolina' can claim Petrarch as one of its founders, and may boast of the books on antiquities gathered by Pignoria, the learned commentator upon the remains of Rome and the historian of his native city of Padua. It may be worth noticing that there were several smaller collections in the churches, due ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... will take place at the moment, in which the last man, who is willing to make a living out of art is gone and gone forever. In the history of this youthful world the best product that human-beings can boast of is probably, Beethoven—but, maybe, even his art is as nothing in comparison with the future product of some coal-miner's soul in the forty-first century. And the same man who is ever asking about the most musical nation, is ever discovering the most musical man of the most musical nation. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... the laird to red the cumber,[150] Which would not be for all his boast;— What could we doe with sic a number? Fyve thousand men into a host. Then Henry Purdie proved his cost,[151] And very narrowlie had mischiefed him, And there we had our warden lost, Wert not the grit ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... He seemed to be looking down upon me so, in spite of my being an officer; but I could not boast of my strength, and remained silent for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... her a little curiously. It was no child's boast. Her face was quiet, her eye steady; so had her tone been. It was most unlike Daisy to make protestations of feeling; just now she was speaking to the one person in the world who could help her, ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... me, Kenkenes, thou durst not boast thyself an embroiler of nations," he said to himself. "The Hebrew prince is a zealot, and zealots have no fear for their lives. Truly those Israelites are an uncommon and a proud people. But, by Besa, is she ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... morally timid than he was physically a coward, but he looked round with some anxiety as the boy uttered his outrageous boast. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... Taji. It will not answer to give thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. Be not a ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... replied Mrs Hurtle. 'I will not boast that I did. I do not want to tell you fibs at our last meeting. I said nothing good of you. What could I say of good? But I told her what was quite as serviceable to you as though I had sung your virtues by the hour without ceasing. I explained to her how very badly you had behaved ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... wherefore those blemishes are here meant, which, to avoid disgrace, are buried in silence by the other married partner. Besides these, in some cases there are contingent crimes, which, if made public, are subject to heavy penalties; not to mention a deficiency of that ability which the men usually boast of. That excuses of such blemishes, in order to avoid disgrace, are the causes of counterfeit love and friendship with a married partner, is too evident ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... limits lay modern England, France, Spain, Portugal, the southern part of Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, the Turkish Empire both in Europe and Asia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. For a time they also ruled north of the Danube, and the Rumanians boast that they are descended from Roman colonists. The peoples in southern Russia were influenced by the Greeks and by the Romans, although the Romans did not try to bring ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... busybodies captained by licensed blackmailers who of late years have made England their unhappy hunting-ground.[FN446] Despite, however, the "Stead Defence Fund" liberally supplied by Methody; despite the criminal's Pecksniffan tone, his self-glorification of the part he had taken, his effronte boast of pure and lofty motives and his passionate enthusiasm for sexual morality, the trial emphasised the fact that no individual may break the law of the land in order that good may come therefrom. It also proved ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... course of studies, the whip became an object of careful solicitude; and after some private tuition, he first exhibited his prowess about twice a week, on the box of a Windsor stage, tipping coachy a crown for the indulgence and improvement it afforded. Few could boast of being more fortunate during a noviciate: two overturns only occurred in the whole course of practice, and except the trifling accident of an old lady being killed, a shoulder or two dislocated, and about half a dozen ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... was their rather ambiguous motto, which suggested that it might have been started in self-defence, if not as a boast; and it (the name, not the motto) had been thoughtfully sandwiched in between my Lys and my d'Angely by my sponsors in baptism, that if necessary I might ever have an excuse at hand for any dark deed ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... meal and corn An hundred times more than beforn. For theretofore he stole but courteously, But now he was a thief outrageously. For which the warden chid and made fare*, *fuss But thereof *set the miller not a tare*; *he cared not a rush* He *crack'd his boast,* and swore it was not ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... checked their haughty boast, Hard upon that flying host Presses, with avenging spear Flashing on their scattered rear: Nor can hills of slaughter tire The pursuer's burning ire; Still along the hills are poured Shouts of ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie |
