"Boaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... progress for the establishment in Philadelphia, of a printing house which would entirely overshadow his own. This secrecy which was practiced also prevented any one from informing Franklin of the Governor's real character, as a vain, unreliable, gasconading boaster. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... mountain-tide Back to the source, when tempest-chafed, to hie? Who, when Gascogne's vexed gulf is raging wide, Shall hush it as a nurse her infant's cry? His magic power let such vain boaster try, And when the torrent shall his voice obey, And Biscay's whirlwinds list his lullaby, Let him stand forth and bar mine eagles' way, And they shall heed his voice, and at ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... arguing and boasting that he knew many and various tricks. Another among the bystanders said: "I know how to play a trick which will make whomsoever I like pull off his breeches." The first man— the boaster—said: "You won't make me pull off mine, and I bet you a pair of hose on it." He who proposed the game, having accepted the offer, produced breeches and drew them across the face of him who bet the pair of hose and won ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... our Athenian ships. What other state in Hellas sends so many and sets better men within them? Athens still lives, though her Acropolis be wrapped in flames. 'Strong-hearted men and naught else are warp and woof of a city.' Do you forget Alcaeus's word so soon, O Boaster from Corinth? Yes, by Athena Promachos, Mistress of Battles, while those nine score ships ride on the deep, I have a city fairer, braver, than yours. And will you still deny me equal voice and vote with this noble trierarch from Siphinos with his one, or with his comrade ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... manner. From his conversation any body would have supposed that the mines of Peru were upon his plantation; and that in comparison with his the influence of the President of the United States was nothing. I was a full twelvemonth before I was convinced that he was a boaster and a fabulist; and I was another twelvemonth before I could persuade myself that he was one of the most selfish, indolent, and obstinate of human beings. He was delighted to have me always at his table to entertain him and his guests, but he had not the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... mocker," said Geburon, "that was not mocked, a deceiver that was not deceived, or a boaster that ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth, I did. Although Brandon had seen many an adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down here, he was as little of a boaster as any man I ever met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with Brandon's conversational ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... to see four or five of Captain Barclay's waggons going down Marischal Street. The houses shook, the inhabitants were alarmed, and nervous people thought the houses would tumble down. Captain Barclay could not tolerate a boaster or puppy in any shape. A few years before his death he happened to be in the coffee-room, Market Street, Aberdeen, one evening along with some of his friends. A fast young man took out L20 and boasted he would run a mile in a certain time: he was not aware that Captain ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... opening fierce, in accents bold, Like the rude ballad-monger's chaunt of old; "The fall of Priam, the great Trojan King! Of the right noble Trojan War, I sing!" Where ends this Boaster, who, with voice of thunder, Wakes Expectation, all agape with wonder? The mountains labour! hush'd are all the spheres! And, oh ridiculous! a mouse appears. How much more modestly begins HIS song, Who labours, or imagines, nothing wrong! "Say, Muse, the ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... A boaster is always to be suspected. His is a natural infirmity, which makes him forget what he is about, and run into a thousand extravagances that have no connection with the truth. With those who have a tolerable knowledge of the world, all his assertions, professions of friendship, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the "Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of nature, which can neither be exhausted nor prohibited? Such is the wise man of the stoicks; such is the divinity of the epicureans; and such is the flatterer of himself. Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyrick envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums. Infamy may hiss, or contempt may growl, the hirelings of the great may follow fortune, and the votaries of truth may attend on virtue; but his pleasures still remain the same; he can always listen with rapture to himself, and leave those who dare ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... square, or climbed to the house top, and thanked God that he was not like other men, to the humble attitude of that one who stood afar off and bowed his face in the dust, crying aloud, "O Lord! Be merciful unto me a sinner." How very much like this ancient boaster are thousands of the human family today. Sitting in high places, surrounded by wealth and power, they see nothing beyond the narrow circle in which they move. They are deaf to the low, sad wail of sorrow that comes from some breaking heart. Seated by their own comfortable fireside ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, and BOY.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no wit but ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... his own horn so frankly. The best men of her acquaintance—her father, Casey Dunne, Tom McHale, and others—seldom talked of themselves, never bragged, never mentioned their proficiency in anything. She had been brought up to regard a boaster and a bluff as synonymous. To her an egotist was also a bluff. His bad taste repelled her. And yet he did not seem to stress ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... other. "I don't know how it is, Frank; but it strikes me that I'd like to cut in on that boaster in this thing. If we managed to find out what makes that fearful booming in the mountain, and told about it before he got a chance to blow his horn, he'd feel cheap, ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... make, pointing to their own condition to prove their statements. I have heard of half a dozen men lying dead, or dying, at a street corner, victims to a single sword, yet was there never a corpse to be found in the morning. Your easy boaster is ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... you must not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... lucid crimson. One might fancy it A noble bird, that laves its graceful form, And bathes its rosy bosom in the light. Look! how it swells and rears its snowy crest With haughty grandeur; while the blue expanse, In smiling patience lets the boaster pass, And swell his train with all the lazy vapours That hover in the air: an easy prey To the gigantic phantom, whose curl'd wing, Sweeps in these worthless triflers of the sky, And wraps them in his bosom. ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... not? Why, then, all this ado about a bunch of empty threats cast at us by the Duke of Babbiano? If you were indeed the soldier you would have us think you, would you come here and say, 'I will not die this way, or that'? Confess yourself a boaster when you tell us that you are ready to die in ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... the shade of some live oaks, when a horseman came to the little village. He was a strange man, great in size, dressed in buckskin, very brown of countenance and with long hair, tied as the western Indians would wear it. He was something of a genial boaster, was this man, and he was known up and down the Texas border as the Ring Tailed Panther although his right name was Martin Palmer. But he had lived long among the Osage, Kiowa and Pawnee Indians, and he was renowned throughout all the Southwestern country for his bravery, skill ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the boys were tenderfeet: one from Tennessee called "Daisy Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... no blower and boaster like some that I could name. Come on!" And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than the woman? He does but follow the analogy of all nature. Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of nature from which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe them) we all sprang. Which is the boaster, the strutter, the bedizener of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox-tails and bears' claws,—the brave, or his poor little squaw? An Australian settler's wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off French bonnet; before she has gone a hundred yards, her husband snatches it ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... blush to be found swaggering so. I am sure if you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look at William of Cumberland, with his hat cocked over his eye, prancing behind Lord ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Cuchulain's valour, and charges his servant with taking a bribe from his enemy in order to frighten him. Ferdia boasts loudly of what he will do, Cuchulain apologises for his own confidence in the issue of the combat, and gently banters Fergus, who is a bit of a boaster himself, on the care he had taken to choose the time for the war when king Conor was away, with a modest implication that he himself was a poor substitute for the king. Cuchulain's first two stanzas in the opening dialogue between himself and ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... can lie the cause? Shall thy implement have blame, A boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame? Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault? Their eyes, or minds? or, finally, is this ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... to you, you boaster!" Siebenburg shouted contemptuously after the Swiss, and then turned to Biberli and the maid with a patronising question; but the former, without even opening his lips in reply, hastened to the door and, with a significant gesture, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Meadows! Your Green Meadows! Ho, ho, ho! Your Green Meadows!" The stranger laughed an unpleasant laugh. "How long since you owned the Green Meadows? I have just come down on to them from the Old Pasture, and I like the looks of them so well that I think I will stay. So run along, little boaster! There isn't room for both of us here, and the sooner you trot along the better." The stranger suddenly showed all his teeth and ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... against the fearful intruder. Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... flames were being kindled declared this Joan, who called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of Beauvais could not well hesitate ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... consists of black knee-breeches and white stockings, a very long, full-skirted black coat, and a three-cornered hat. His individual traits are displayed in all his characters, and he is ever a coward, a boaster, and a liar; a glutton and avaricious, but withal of an agreeable bonhomie that wins the heart. To tell the truth, I care little for the plays in which he has no part and I have learned to think a certain trick of his—lifting ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... of the Epistles, which were formerly felt to be so objectionable, are yet to be found here in all their unmitigated folly. Ignatius is still the same anti-evangelical formalist, the same puerile boaster, the same dreaming mystic, and the same crazy fanatic. These are weighty charges, and yet they can be substantiated. But we must enter into details, that we may fairly exhibit the spirit, and expose the falsehood of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... he is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!—and he affects to say that you can't choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,—that he can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... feigned, simulated, mock. faltar fail, be missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. farce, humbug. fascinar ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... to the bottom Sank the pike in great confusion, And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, To the bream, with scales of crimson, "Take the bait of this great boaster, Break the ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... "Dame Mouse," said this boaster, "whatever I do, I cannot, upon my word, chase away this cat that threatens you without some help. But let me call together all the rats hereabouts and I'll play him a sorry ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... in thine ear—while we lean our left shoulder on thine—our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood—ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling—tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent Auditress ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... stupid dreamer at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— That love of me ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... College gates—'D—n Dunborough! She is too good for him! For a very little—it would be mean, it would be low, it would be cursed low—but for two pence I would speak to her mother and cheat him. She is too good to be ruined by that coarse-tongued boaster! Though I suppose she fancies him. I suppose he is an Adonis to her! Faugh! Tommy, my lord, and Dunborough! ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Bourlamaque, Malartic, and La Pause, the last "un homme divin." Some of the Canadian officers, praised by Vaudreuil, he had tried and found wanting. "Don't forget," he wrote to Levis, "that Mercier is a feeble ignoramus, Saint Luc a prattling boaster, Montigny excellent but a drunkard. The others are not worth speaking of, including my first lieutenant-general Rigaud." This Rigaud was the brother of Vaudreuil. When the Governor wrote to the minister, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers is shown by Hamlet's remonstrance with the players: ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... blind and heedless, Minded not the laws and records, Gathered freely of the evil, Wandered on in lusts and vices, Wandered on to spoil and plunder, Wandered on to want and sorrow, Misery, and pain, and anguish. Strange his dealings were and hidden; Oft would take the greatest boaster, Mighty in his own beholding, Who in pomp and riches loitered, In high seats of veneration, And would draw him downward, downward, Rob him of his pomp and splendor, Of his riches and his glory, Set him by the homeless beggar, Holden in the ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... "The boaster made a jump without stopping to think and without taking the trouble to measure the gap. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... Vain boaster, said the youthful knight, I scorn thy threats and thee: I trust to force thy brazen gates, And set ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... war-path, ready to die for the right, and unwilling to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... my age, I may say without fear of being set down a boaster, that I have one gift, that of marksmanship, which, I suppose, I owe to some curious combination of judgment, quickness of eye, and steadiness of hand. I can declare honestly that in my best days I never knew a man who could beat me in shooting at a ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... have not had horses served with champagne in pails," the old boaster, Athanase Georgevitch, protested jealously. He was an advocate, well-known for his table-feats, who claimed the hardest drinking reputation of any man in the capital, and he regretted not to have ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... be afraid of?" asked another. "You are a little coward. Shut your eyes and go to sleep. See me! I am not afraid, if it is dark and gloomy. Oh, oh!" cried the boaster, for the owl had seized him and was carrying him away from ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... rugxigxi. Bluster fanfaroni. Boa boao. Boar porkviro. Board (food) nutrado—ajxo. Board (plank) tabulo. Board logxi. Boarder (house) logxanto. Boarder (school) edukato. Boarding school edukejo. Boarding-house logxantejo. Boast fanfaroni. Boast fanfarono. Boaster fanfaronulo. Boat boato. Boatman boatisto. Boat-hook hokstango. Boat-race sxipkurado. Boat (rowing) remboato. Bobbin bobeno. Body korpo. Bog marcxego. Bohemian Bohemo. Boil (blain) furunko. Boil boli. Boiler (saucepan) bolpoto. Boiler bolegilo. Boisterous perforta. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... very quiet during the two days of the trip, as though he were fully conscious of the heavy responsibility that rested upon his young shoulders. I had called him a boaster and it had cut him to ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... answered, giving ocular evidence that I was no idle boaster, making a complete gyration on my heels, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Pray, sir, what may your business be?"—"O," replied the boaster, "I am but a cork-cutter: but then it is in a very large way!"—"Indeed!" replied the other; "then I presume you are a cutter ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... cleanly boy of twenty, or thereabouts, active, loud-voiced, a boaster, and the cowardliest of the cowardly. He will steal at every opportunity. He clings to his gun most affectionately; is always excessively anxious if a screw gets loose, or if a flint will not strike ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of another sort (and much more excusable) is Gascon. The Gascons are the natives of Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in English we sometimes use the word Gascon to describe a great boaster, while gasconade is now a common term ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... warms; Though to his breast his spouse with transport flies, Torn from her breast, that hour, Ulysses dies. But hence retreating to your domes repair. To arm the vessel, Mentor! be thy care, And Halitherses! thine: be each his friend; Ye loved the father: go, the son attend. But yet, I trust, the boaster means to stay Safe in the court, nor ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises; for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be; save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... I am holier than thou. Thank God, I am not like this publican." While in God's sight, poor wretched boaster, thou art clothed in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Aiwohikupua, he said, "You are the greatest boaster in the crowd![26] I am the best man here, and yet you talk of three from this side; and what are you compared ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... distemper's rank and deadly venom Shoots like a burning arrow 'cross his bowels, And drinks his marrow up.—Heard you that groan? It was his last.—See how the great Goliath, Just like a child that brawl'd itself to rest, Lies still.—What mean'st thou then, O mighty boaster! 280 To vaunt of nerves of thine? What means the bull, Unconscious of his strength, to play the coward, And flee before a feeble thing like man, That, knowing well the slackness of his arm, Trusts only in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Every body was surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... talk of love with a vast deal of swagger and bravery, laughing it to scorn, as a landsman talks of seasickness, telling you it is nothing but an impression and a mere lack of courage, till one day the land-bred boaster puts to sea in a Channel steamer, and experiences a new sensation, and becomes a very sick man indeed before he is out of sight of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Prickly Porky would shake his thousand little spears and settle himself still more firmly against the opening in the hollow log. He certainly was enjoying himself. It tickled him almost to pieces to think how easily he had trapped smart Reddy Fox, the boaster. ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat that have we lost, and the glory of the Red Branch ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... 'Strik, strik, ye proud boaster, your honour is gone, Your lands we will plunder, ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a swordsman he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by their Vivacities; but indeed I cannot let ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... that I was both a coward and a boaster; but I have frequently remarked that the quality which we call cowardice in a child, is no more than implying a greater sense of danger, and consequently a superior intellect. We are all naturally cowards: education and observation ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... free the American Colonies, went to the block, and his enemy, Danton, a little later, did the same; Mirabeau, the boaster, had died peacefully in his bed; Robespierre, who signed the death-warrant of Paine, "to save his own head," died the death he had reserved for Paine; Marat, "the terrible dwarf," horribly honest, fearfully sincere, jealous and afraid of Paine, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... stinks; it would be more appropriate after my death than while I am alive. That boaster moreover has a peacock's plume on his helmet, and at the very outset I made a vow to obtain three of them and afterward as many fingers of ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... was once entertaining his friends at a grand dinner. He was a sad boaster, and was often guilty of describing deeds that he had done when an officer in the army, which those who knew him well felt sure were greatly exaggerated. He was in the midst of some such anecdote when the butler brought him word that a man wished ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and fellow-citizens, not only to abate their pride and make them more humble, but also when they are in fear and dejection to raise them up again and give them confidence. Thus Cyrus talked big in perils and on battle-fields, though at other times he was no boaster. And the second Antigonus, though he was on all other occasions modest and far from vanity, yet in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said to him, "See you not how many more ships the enemy have got than we have?" answered, "How many do you make me equal to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Love, Sweet Honeysuckle, Affection Hop, Injustice Horehound, Fire Hornbeam, Ornament Horse, Chestnut, Luxury Hortensia, You are Cold Houseleek, Vivacity Houstonia, Content Humble Plant, Despondency Hyacinth, Sport, Game, Play Hyacinth, Purple, Adversity Hyacinth, Blue, Constancy Hydrangea, A Boaster Hyssop, Cleanliness Iceland Moss, Health Ice Plant, You Freeze Me Imbricata, Uprightness Imperial Montague, Power Indian Cress, Warlike Trophy Indian Jasmine, Attachment Iris, Common, Message Iris, German, Flame Ivy, Marriage Jacob's Ladder, Come Down Jasmine, White, Amiability Jasmine, Cape, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... "Aha, boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We'll soon ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... was a bit of a boaster, had bragged, one evening at mess, of his swimming, which he said was famous in his school days; 'twas a lie, but Puddock believed ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "Ha, Loki, you boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my brother, who would scorn to serve you, is the best ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... as the day wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war." What will this boaster produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he, who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... a boaster," said I. "You would have got indifferently on with the lobster, if I had not come up; and have you forgotten the slap on the cheek which compelled you to release him? Besides, he only defended himself with his natural arms; but you ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism both in his prefaces and in his ordinary conversation, and the same holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, and of his great namesake Giordano Bruno. The more decorous manners of the present age have attached a disproportionate ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... you with the fierce words of a boaster and a bully? Test me, by looking back a little, and discovering what I have abstained from for the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... home to your daughter," said the King, "and bid her hatch them out for me. If she succeeds she shall have a bag of money for her pains, but if she fails you shall be beaten as a vain boaster." ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... the burgomaster and the judge who condemned you would believe you a boaster, or out of your mind did they hear you say this, for it is ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... according to his cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has a wizard in his body. Be on thy guard, old Hans, this is no serving-man for thee." ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... old chief mightily; for the Indian is nothing if not a boaster. At once Black Cat would have broken out in loud tirade on his friendship for me and contempt for the Sioux, but I cut him short and moved towards the hill, that overlooked the enemy's territory. A great cloud of dust whirled up ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... with the redoubted Montluc; he is tall and powerful; he wears a sabre, a uniform, and has a cockade in his cap; he is as upright as a dart; well made; bold, with a generous heart, but fiery and proud. Presuming and intrusive—caring little to be invited, but ready to claim whatever he pleases; a boaster, sportive but dangerous, like a caterpillar. Marcel doating on Franconnette, flirts with all, endeavours to rouse her jealousy, and has tales to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of honor. One day he got into a fight at a tavern with a noisy braggart. He managed to throw the man into a chair and bind him with a rope. Then he knotted the man's beard and moustache together so that his mouth was sealed. The rest of the tavern applauded him for his neat manner of silencing the boaster. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... half-caste, drawing his knife from its sheath, flashed it before the assembled natives; "nay, no liar am I, neither a boaster; and by the gods of my mother's land I shall make this Parma give me more grog to drink before the night comes, else shall this knife eat into his heart. Come ye all, ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... soon discovered that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and slily ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... wake up! Don't sleep all day! Here we are at the Tower, man! I have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What do ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... leather, and when I come to the river the whole thing was roaring and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' 'It's not the daring, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... will be Bauldy the boaster Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' auld and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... wind. The governor heard of it, and asked Captain Delmar about it. The consequence was, that I received another invitation from the governor, and Captain Delmar again informed me that I might tell my own story, which I did, modestly as before. I say modestly, for I never was a boaster at any time; and I really believe that I thought much less of the circumstances than those did to whom I narrated them. I had at that time but one wish, which was to find favour in the sight of Captain Delmar. I felt that all ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... country is destined to play in the great drama of life, will beget a noble, self-relying national pride, the very opposite pole to that senseless, loud-mouthed self-laudation which has too much characterized us in the days gone by. The boaster betrays the consciousness of the very weakness he wishes to conceal; while 'still waters run deep,' and the man of true courage and strength is the man of few words and great deeds. So that arrant bragging which has hitherto ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... speech. It was my first field, sir, and I am wont to speak of it too boastingly. I shall become more modest, I hope, when I shall have a better right to be a boaster." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... bureaucrats. The quartermaster was not without courage and a certain juvenile generosity, sentiments which many men give up as they grow older, by dint of reasoning or calculating. Variable as the beauty of a fair woman, Diard was a great boaster and a great talker, talking of everything. He said he was artistic, and he made prizes (like two celebrated generals) of works of art, solely, he declared, to preserve them for posterity. His military comrades would have been puzzled ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... convenient the latchstring was out. A guest was never permitted to pay for anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals were as free as air. The question of money, nowadays impertinently thrust forth, was never hinted at in the olden time. It was considered bad form, and the luckless boaster of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared at as a boor as well as ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... with his own intended purpose, and had sworn that he would turn the household out of bed without regard to pretty protests or formality of warrant. He would raise the question forthwith, in jest and earnest, and worry Nell about the boaster. ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... art son of a god? A shameless boaster and a liar art thou! Hast ever spoken to thy divine sire? Give us some proof of thy sonship! No more child of the glorious Apollo art thou than are the vermin his children, that the sun breeds in the dust ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... honest people. Now, it is impossible that after nineteen years of work and resignation, now when you grow old, with two beautiful children, you should dream of remaining at the mercy of an avaricious monk or a year of frost. In listening to you, an idea has come to me. If I was the boaster of old, I should say that it was an idea from above; but I wholly believe that it is a fortunate idea. What has become of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "I have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking dog that ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... heard, what must be true, that he had great executive skill, a clear method, and a just attention to all the details of the task in hand. Plainly he was no boaster or pretender, but a man for up-hill work, a soldier to bide the brunt; a man whom disasters, which dishearten other men, only stimulated to new ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... rook and a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the "jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet, devoted to a wholesale condemnation of the coffee-house, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the haunted ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... had been taught so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow grew tired ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... misinterpreted by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the high-spirited girl with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened libertine," she thought—"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... puppy!" I said to myself. Then he told me of how his father thought he was dead, and asked if I had heard of his rallying twenty men at Manassas, and charging a Federal regiment, which instantly broke? I honestly told him, "No." "Iagoo, the great boaster," I decided. Abruptly he said there were very few nice young ladies in Baton Rouge. "Probably so, in his circle," I thought, while I dryly remarked, "Indeed?" "Oh, yes!" and still more abruptly he said, "Ain't you the youngest?—Yes! I thought so! I remember you when ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... I am no boaster of my love, Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour, And will partake your fortunes. You may live To find one slave more true than subject myriads: But this the Gods avert! I am content To be beloved on trust for what I feel, Rather than prove it to you in your griefs[u], ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Gudruna, in Laxdaela, threatened one of her three husbands with much the same treatment, and would have put her threat into execution if he had not behaved as she commanded him. In our Saga, too, the gudewife of Bjorn the boaster threatens him with a separation if he does not stand faithfully by Kari; and in another Saga of equal age and truthfulness, we hear of one great lady who parted from her husband, because, in playfully throwing a pillow of down at her, he unwittingly struck her with his finger. In point of fact, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... all they who come lie in the dust before me. Now, therefore, I pray you rebuke me no more till you see me beaten or a recreant, and then bid me go from you." "There shall soon meet thee a knight who shall repay thee all thy deeds, thou boaster," answered she, "for, save King Arthur, he is the man of most worship in the world." "It will be the greater honour to ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... my services, I'm happy to obey. Of late your Brother Delights in hind'ring my advancement, And ev'ry boaster's rais'd above my merit, Barzaphernes alone commands his ear, ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... lady-love of Gryphon, brother of Aquilant; but the faithless fair one took up with Mart[a]no, a most impudent boaster and a coward. Being at Damascus during a tournament in which Gryphon was the victor, Martano stole the armor of Gryphon, arrayed himself in it, took the prizes, and then decamped with the lady. Aquilant happened to see them, bound them, and took them back to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... jerk, a twist, and a sudden thrust, which landed the redoubtable boaster in the middle of his cell. "You can die inside if you want to," he said, and turned the key on him. "My responsibility ends ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... said, however, Jim was a great boaster and blusterer, glorying in the marvelous and dangerous. Had he lived in the heroic age, I have no doubt he would have regaled the ears of his listeners with blood curdling stories of his battles with giants, his fights with dragons and winged serpents. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... want to take it away fr'm him. Whin he's sober his bluff is on th' outside. Whin he's dhrunk he makes th' bluff to his own heart. Dhrink turns him inside out as well as upside down, an' while he's congratulatin' himsilf on th' fine man he is, th' neighbors know him f'r a boaster, a cow'rd, an' something iv a liar. That th' ladies see an' hate. They do not know that there is wan thing an' on'y wan thing to be said in favor iv dhrink, an' that is that it has caused manny a lady to be loved ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... boldly," the Lion sneered. "If you think you can take us with you that far then why not to Jerusalem? The words of a boaster are a mask of doubt. Hah! Take ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... long mile away, rounding up their pony herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding themselves with knives, while the warriors, singing the death-song, were painting themselves for battle. In vain ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the company. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, you see that my suit prospers. The poor hunchback was no boaster." ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... largely training. Starling's quiet might mean instinctive imitation, but I feared it was something more sinister. While mine—— But I had no composure. I swaggered and shrugged and played harlequin and boaster. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... will ye, Callum!" cried his father more sternly. "The lad will be jist like yerself, too ready with his fists, whatever. A brave man will never be a boaster, Scotty, man." ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... tea among the squaws, and tell lies, as long as the Saskatchewan river, about all the battles he fought when he was a young man, and how terrible was his name over all the plains. Poundmaker has always been successful as a boaster, and there is hardly a squaw on the whole reserve who does not think him to be one of the most illustrious and mighty men alive. Therefore he has never sued in vain for the hand of a pretty maiden without success; and he has now no fewer than a score of wives, whom he is not able to ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... experimenting when Collinson overtook him in the hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached Marysville. But he found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune: he was naturally no boaster, he had no desire to impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed by his own understatement; and under the grave, patient eyes ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... it be not checked, he smiles inwardly, and moralizes on the weakness of human nature. But the man who never jumps is not usually of a benevolent nature, and it is almost certain that he will make up a little story against the boaster. ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... said his mother, in distress. "Geoffrey Cliffe is not a man to be trusted. You and I know that of old. He is a boaster, and—" ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... might fail too. It was to tear up my handkerchief and make it into a string to throw up to you, so that you could afterwards draw up the rope. No: my string might break. But I am as foolish as you are, and as wanting in resource. There," he continued, after a few moments' pause, "what a boaster I am! I did not even think of cutting a piece off the rope, unravelling it, and making it ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the Duke, Brabo promised if his lord's soldiers would storm the gates of the giant's castle, that he would seek out and fight the ruffian. While they battered down the gates, he would climb the walls. "He's nothing but a 'bulle-wak'" (a bully and a boaster), said Brabo, "and we ought to call ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... retorted the woman, fiercely—"you dare not, coward! boaster! and you know it! I have a great deal more to say, and I will say it, and you will hear me before we part to-night. I know my power, Mr. Carl Walraven, and I mean to use it. Do you think I need wear ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... his cheerful tones; "but Tom Ross wuz right when he said the way them Greeks an' Trojans fought was plumb foolish. Do you think that me, Sol Hyde, is goin' to take a tin pan an' go beatin' on it down thar among the bushes, an' callin' on the biggest boaster o' all the savages to come out an' fight me? No, sir; I wouldn't go fifty yards before I'd tumble over, with a ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... uncontrolled boy, who spent most of his time in the street, played truant three days out of five, was a great boaster, and sneered at anything like goodness. He was vastly amusing, however, and generally was surrounded by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to his faults and attached ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... fear. I am no boaster. But we cannot fight him here in Roan Kiti, which is open to the sea, and never can we make it a strong fort, for here we have no falat,{*} nor yet any great forest trees. But at Tokolme are many thousands of the great stones and ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... who seem to have understood this cowardly boaster, received his story with shouts of laughter. But Knight was very glad to make off with his gun and ammunition, and leave them to settle the affair among themselves. When he came to the prairies he hid himself in the grass ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught Bertram that the soldier who had been impudent enough to call Helena his "kicky-wicky" was far less courageous than a wife. Parolles was such a boaster, and so fond of trimings to his clothes, that the French officers played him a trick to discover what he was made of. He had lost his drum, and had said that he would regain it unless he was killed in the attempt. His attempt was a very poor one, ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... If savage monsters were to fly your presence, It would not be surprising. Those who die In this most righteous cause will go to Heaven, With all their sins forgotten!" Then Kabad Went to the king, and told the speech of Tur: A smile played o'er the cheek of Minuchihr As thus he spoke: "A boaster he must be, Or a vain fool, for when engaged in battle, Vigour of arm and the enduring soul, Will best be proved. I ask but for revenge— Vengeance for Irij slain. Meanwhile, return; ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... say that Mrs. Button is a passionate woman; and they say that Kate swears when Bill Boaster teases her. So I thought you would not choose to call at the house of such ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester
... Orlando; his father was Otho. He was a great boaster, but was generous, courteous, gay, and singularly handsome. Astolpho was carried to Alci'na's isle on the back of a whale; and when Alcina tired of him, she changed him into a myrtle tree, but Melissa ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... against the French because they were ignorant of sport, caused me to challenge him in the very sport at which he excelled. You will say that it was foolish, my friends, but the decanter had passed many times, and the blood of youth ran hot in my veins. I would fight him, this boaster; I would show him that if we had not skill at least we had courage. Lord Rufton would not allow it. I insisted. The others cheered me on and slapped me on the back. "No, dash it, Baldock, he's our guest," said Rufton. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... five feet high; grey (nearly white) hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in Manchester, Salford, and ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... written, cannot be read; and what, when preached, cannot be listened to. We believe it; for in cases of this kind the ease is all on the part of the author. We believe further, we would fain say to the boaster, that you and such as you could scuttle and sink the Free Church with amazingly little trouble to yourselves. But is it easy, think you, to mature such thoughts as Butler matured? And yet these were embodied in sermons. Is it easy, think you, to convey ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... relative?" So while he retained the blandest expression, and was ready to drink as many glasses of wine with the new comer as he wished, he set him down in his own mind not only as an ill-bred man and a boaster, in which there was some truth, but as a liar and a vulgar-minded man as well, in which there was little ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Usop, in consequence of his cowardly flight (for so they deem it), from the want of energy he has displayed, has lost character as well as wealth, and would scarce find ten men in Bruni to follow him. Unluckily for himself, he was a great boaster in the days of his prosperity; and now the contrast of his past boasting with his present cowardice is drawn with a sneer. 'His mouth was brave,' they exclaim, 'but his heart timid.' 'He should have died as other great men have died, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... body to mark whether the word struck home; or again he mentioned some person with whom Mitchelbourne was quite unfamiliar. At length, however, he seemed satisfied, and drawing up his chair to the fire, he showed himself at once in his true character, a loud and gusty boaster. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and drolleries. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... street of Pleasure. And as for tranquillity, where is it? and who obtains it? If you be a great man, flattery and envy are killing you; if you be poor, every one is trampling upon and despising you; after having become an inventor, if you exalt your head and seek for praise, you will be called a boaster and a coxcomb; if you lead a godly life and resort to the church and the altar, you will be called a hypocrite; if you do not, then you are an infidel or a heretic; if you be merry, you will be called a buffoon; if you are silent, you will be called a morose wretch; if you follow honesty, you ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... in England then. He dined in high places and afterwards supped at the Savoy with the coryphees; and both in the high places and among the coryphees his jewels had made him welcome. This is truth I am telling you. He was a boaster. Well, after supper that night he threw a girl down the stairs. Never mind what she was—she was of the white ruling race, she was of the race that rules in India, he comes back to India and insolently boasts. Do you approve? ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... as at Berlin, I should be reclaimed; and that I could not make the least preparation for departure without his being informed of it; for he knew, he said, every thing that passed in my house. In that respect he was a boaster, and, as the event has proved, exhibited mere fatuity in matters of espionnage. But who would not have been terrified at the tone of assurance with which he told all my friends that I could not move a step without ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... manufacture, and uncommonly neat; in the interior such an article is only used by the principal people, and his bridle also was of curious workmanship. The horseman had an extravagant idea of his own consequence, and seemed to be a prodigious boaster. He wore abundance of clothing, most of which was superfluous, but it made him excessively vain. He informed the travellers that he had been despatched by the king of Jenna, to meet them in the path, and to escort them to the capital; but understanding that Adooley had supplied them ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster? ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... answered, with a scream of laughter. "You hear that, Clopin? You hear that, my good servitors? This silly French noodle is going to get the things in spite of us. Oho, but you have a fine opinion of yourself, monsieur. You need work fast, too, pretty boaster, I can tell you. For the royal jewellers will require the Rainbow Pearl very soon to fix it in its place in the crown for the coronation ceremony, and if that thing his Majesty holds is offered to them, how long, think you, will it be before all Mauravania knows that it is an imitation? Look ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... goldfinches began to fight, and then a blackbird came up from the brook and perched on a rail, and he was such a boaster, for he said he had the yellowest bill of all the blackbirds, and the blackest coat, and the largest eye, and the sweetest whistle, and he was lord over all the blackbirds. In two minutes up came another one from out of the bramble bushes at the corner, and away ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or ...
— The Republic • Plato
... see that you are no boaster, Saduko," said Panda. "Would that more of the Zulus were like you in that matter, for then I must not listen to so many loud songs about little things. At least, Bangu was killed and his proud tribe humbled, and, for reasons ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... and during the contest she had been cut in the head by one of the rackets—an accident that she falsely attributed to her adversary in the game. She had an opportunity of proving her hatred, for directly that it was known how Wenonah had refused to marry Red Cloud, a stalwart boaster, openly preferring a younger warrior of the tribe, the ill-thinking Harpstenah sought out the disappointed suitor, who sat moodily apart, and thus advised him, "To-morrow is the Feast of Virgins, when all who are pure will sit at meat together. Wenonah will be there. Has she the right ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... kicking you with my heels." The Ass held his peace, and made only a silent appeal to the justice of the gods. Not long afterwards the Horse, having become broken-winded, was sent by his owner to the farm. The Ass, seeing him drawing a dungcart, thus derided him: "Where, O boaster, are now all thy gay trappings, thou who are thyself reduced to the condition you so lately treated ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... George MacDougall drew on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... excessive frankness of speech to all alike; he was in desperate pursuit of a reputation for being able to comprehend and speak as no one else could, and before all wanted to be thought a valuable citizen. As a result of this and because he was the greatest boaster alive and thought no one equal to himself, but in his words and life alike looked down on all and would not live as any one else did, he was wearisome and burdensome, and was consequently both envied and hated even by those ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... wyth iaueles wer fouled, at p{re}syo{us} i{n} his presens wer proued su{m} whyle. 1496 Soberly i{n} his sacrafyce su{m}me wer anoynted, ur[gh] e somones of him selfe at syttes so hy[gh]e; [Sidenote: For "a boaster on bench" drinks from them till he is as "drunken as the devil."] Now a bost{er} on benche bibbes erof Tyl he be dronkken as e deuel, & dotes {er} he syttes; 1500 [Sidenote: God is very angry.] So e worcher of is worlde wlates ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... enlarge And shape them to their needs. Much must be done That lies in your discretion. At Detroit Hull vaunts his strength, and meditates invasion, And loyalty, unarmed, defenceless, bare, May let this boaster light upon our shores Without one manly motion of resistance. So whilst I open Parliament at York, Close it again, and knit our volunteers, Be yours the task to head invasion off. Act boldly, but discreetly, and so draw Our interest to the balance, that affairs May hang in something ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... their defiance, the boast, the taunt and the insult, All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish, 795 Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples. Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard, Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it. Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop, 800 And, like a ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... work out our deliverance in common. But if so, we must set out with minds prepared, since to-day either a glorious death awaits us or the achievement of a deed of noblest emprise in the rescue of so many Hellene lives. Maybe it is God who leads us thus, God who chooses to humble the proud boaster, boasting as though he were exceedingly wise, but for us, the beginning of whose every act is by heaven's grace, that same God reserves a higher grade of honour. One duty I would recall to you, to apply your minds to the execution of the ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... was dumbfounded. Though no boaster, he knew he had done a magnificently heroic thing, and to get his mouth slapped for it was an exigency which he did not know what to do with. He had staggered against the boards from the force of the stroke, but it had not ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... preferred men for his part with spunk enough to do such work themselves, and there was an argument, they protesting and he mocking them, until at last this man, whose neck the glass cut, demanded of him whether he, Yussuf Dakmar, was not in truth an empty boaster who would flinch ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy |
