"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... want you to keep saying within yourself as I proceed: "That is the way to treat a perfect husband;" for you are to remember that no wife was ever worse swindled than this Abigail of my text. At the other end of her table sat a mean, selfish, snarling, contemptible sot, and if she could do so well for a dastard, how ought you to do with that princely and splendid man with whom you are to walk the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... it was, how contemptible it was, this playing with the glorious thing that had been their love! For the first time in her life Rachael could have played the virago, could have raged and stamped, could have made him absolutely afraid to misuse her so. He did not deserve ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to some minds a dreadfully low and contemptible state of things. "What!" a romantic reader may exclaim, "they had arrived in that celebrated city, from which in days of old the stalwart Vikings used to issue on their daring voyages, in which the descendants of these grand fellows still ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... garnished, had faded from his face, had died upon his lips. Once more he was a soul in torments of despair and degradation; and yet once more did the absence of the abject in man and manner redeem him from the depths of either. In these moments of reaction he was pitiful, but not contemptible, much less unlovable. Indeed, I could see the qualities that had won the heart of Raffles as I had never seen them before. There is a native nobility not to be destroyed by a single descent into the ignoble, an essential honesty too bright ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... petticoats for a much smaller sum than $10,000. It should be remembered, furthermore, that Miss Anthony has labored indefatigably in the cause of woman suffrage, paying her own expenses most of the time; has undergone a contemptible and outrageous persecution at the hands of the United States court for violating the election laws; has bent for months over the bed of a brother wounded almost to death by an assassin's bullet; has watched tenderly over the steps of an aged mother; and has always, everywhere, been the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... something to me, Katrine!" he cried, at length. "Tell me even that I am the contemptible cad you think me to be; only say something. I cannot endure this. With every fibre of me I am longing to take you in my arms, to kiss your eyes that have the ache in them. God knows how I want you ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... employer to hitch up his team every Saturday night and carry you home?" This seemed a poser, but it wasn't. "No," said the man promptly, "I wouldn't expect that; but if the farmer had his team hitched up and was going my way, I should call him a contemptible fellow if he would not let me ride." Mr. Employe came out three minutes afterwards with a pass ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans, whose natural endowments and provisions come no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite nations. So that he who first made known the use of that contemptible mineral, may be truly styled the father of arts, and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... sitting down with some white man or some native who can be a little understood, and collecting the history of those islands, of Tamaahmaah's wars, the curiosities of the islands, &c., preparatory to the histories of their voyages; and the collection is indeed ridiculously contemptible. To enumerate the thousand instances of ignorance, filth, &c.,—or to particularize all the frantic gambols that are ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the history of Greece—could not but make the Cretan's rule both odious and despicable. What made it more hateful still in the eyes of the people was the fact {214} that it had been imposed upon them by foreign arms, and what made it more contemptible still was the fact that it functioned under false pretences. As free men, the Greeks resented the violence done to their liberty; but as intelligent men they would have resented open violence less than a profanation of the name of liberty that added mockery to ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... Britain who every month read and prayed about the then little known world of heathenism, and spared not their best to bring that world to the Christ whom they had found, seem a small thing? How much smaller, even to contemptible insignificance, must those who think so consider the arrival of William Carey in Calcutta to be three years before! Yet the thirty thousand sprang from the one, and to-day the thirty thousand have a vast body of Christians really obedient to the Master, in so ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... adores With the same spirit that he drinks and whores; Enough, if all around him but admire, And now the punk applaud, and now the friar. Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart; Grown all to all; from no one vice exempt, And most contemptible, to shun contempt: His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade; A fool, with more of wit than half mankind; Too rash for ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... at the height of his autocracy, he was visited by a composer named Gluck, whom we think of to-day as a revolutionist in music, and a man of the utmost historical importance. To the lordly Haendel, however, he was more or less contemptible, and people who know nothing else of either genius, know that Haendel said, "Gluck understood about as much counterpoint as ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Gospel, may be allowed to feel, and talk of these grand truths with little emotion. But in those who profess a sincere belief in them, this coldness is insupportable. The greatest possible services of man to man must appear contemptible, when compared with "the unspeakable mercies of Christ:" mercies so dearly bought, so freely bestowed—A deliverance from eternal misery—The gift of "a crown of glory, that fadeth not away." Yet, what judgment should we form of such conduct, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... is, it will be big for the American forces that are to have part in it. There has been a conference among the Allied commanders, and it has been decided that it's time to teach the Germans a lesson. They've been despising the American troops, as they despised General French's 'contemptible little army,' and General Pershing is going to show Fritz that we have a soldier or two ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... had to pass, and a cloth of gold borne over his head, the fountains poured forth wine, and the city made him a present of a silver buffet weighing a thousand marcs. At this period schools existed in Paris sanctioned by the government, when the pay for each scholar was so contemptible that they must have been for the use of the middle classes, whose means were very confined; they were called Petites Ecoles (Little Schools), and paid a certain sum for having the privilege to teach; the number in the reign of John was sixty-three, of which forty-one were under ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... sat with Gloria and found little to say, he was conscious of her eyes probing at him when she thought that he did not see. He looked away, a shadow in his eyes, and chanced to see Gratton. Gratton, who had struck him as contemptible in the woods, a misfit and a poor sort of man at best, was here on his own heath. He carried himself well, he talked well; he bore himself with a certain distinction. Clearly he was much in favour among the girls and women, much envied by the younger men. Yes; Gloria was ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... genius—a philosopher like the doctus Laurentius, not be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to leave his manuscripts, and pica, and pie, to strive for a contemptible triumph, to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man, let me ask you, who can put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... stoats, weasels, and minivers in the warren of Church and State." They were "Antichrist's little toes." To judge from these expressions merely one might be disposed to agree with Heylin, who says of the Letany that it was "so silly and contemptible that nothing but the sin and malice which appeared in every line of it could have possibly preserved it from being ridiculous." But the Letany is really a most important contribution to the history of the period. Nothing is ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... shape in the effort to secure justice for others or justice for ourselves, save as conditioned upon the attitude we are willing to take toward our Army, and especially toward our Navy. It is not merely unwise, it is contemptible, for a nation, as for an individual, to use high-sounding language to proclaim its purposes, or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported by potential force, and then to refuse to provide this force. If there is no ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... admire in others is admiration of ourselves? And is it not a wise selection? If you would have me admirable, my friend, admire me, and speak your commendation without stint that in the sunshine of your praises I may wax. For indifference maketh an indifferent man, and contempt a contemptible man. Come, is it not true? Does not all that is worthy in ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... these degenerate mediums yield themselves more readily to fraud, with the result that several who had deservedly won honoured names and met all hostile criticism have, in their later years, been detected in the most contemptible tricks. It is a thousand pities that it should be so, but if the Court of Arches were to give up its secrets, it would be found that tippling and moral degeneration were by no means confined to psychics. At the same time, a psychic is so peculiarly sensitive ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... A gallant Contemptible has been complaining to me that the Press shows no sense of proportion in the space that it allots to air-raids. Our casualties from that source, he said, are never one tenth as heavy as those in France on days when G.H.Q. reports "Everything ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... dances, dresses, and spends his time in drawing rooms, instead of being a good lawyer, divine, or physician; Cleanthes is a down-right coxcomb, and will remain to all that knew him a contemptible example of talents misapplied. It is to this affectation the world owes its whole race of coxcombs; Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part; she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... eloquent, instructive language, though his enemies may despise or deny it ever so much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest historian on his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham histories were much truer than real histories; which are, in fact, mere contemptible catalogues of names and places, that can have no moral effect upon ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes. We are on all sides surrounded by bodies wonderfully curious, and no less wonderfully diversified." Trifling, therefore, and, perhaps, contemptible, as to the unthinking may seem the study of a butterfly, yet, when we consider the art and mechanism displayed in so minute a structure, the fluids circulating in vessels so small as almost to escape the sight, the beauty of the wings and covering, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... would richly repay their exertions; and by hopes of indefinite advantage, if they could by any means prevent its happening. That these gentlemen really did keenly scrutinize, and carefully weigh every expression in that letter, ridiculous as it was, and contemptible as, I fear, it showed its writer to be, is certain; but it did not occur to them to compare with it the spirit, at least, and intention of their own answer to it. Did the latter document contain less cunning and insincerity, because it was couched in somewhat superior ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... machine Spain in the sixteenth century was a marvel of power; as an aggregation of thinking men, it was even then contemptible. Ferdinand, Charles V and Philip II were able and illustrious rulers, and they appeared at a time when their several characters could tell on the immediate fortunes of Spain. They were warriors, and the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... flung the words out like an execration that throbbed with his scorn and loathing of the sex. Other women! By an act of his will he had put his wife on a high pedestal for the moment—made her shine, for the moment, white and fair above the contemptible herd, her obscure multitudinous sisterhood. Other women! The phrase had an undertone of dull passionate self-reproach that was distinctly audible to Stanistreet's finer ear. Stanistreet knew many things about Tyson—knew, for instance, the ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... have no right to object. Considering the position which we have so long occupied, and still occupy, in China, this snarling and blustering at the first appearance of a stranger on the scene is more offensive and contemptible than the conduct of the dog ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 11, March 17, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... a cavalier of rank, and you assured him that a hundred thousand thalers was not sufficient. I grant you a pension of two thousand thalers, and I tell you it must suffice to support you creditably. Woe to you, when you commence again your former most contemptible and miserable life! woe to you, when you again forget to distinguish between your own money and the money of others! I assure you that I will never again pay one of your debts. And in order that credulous men may not be so ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... our more sensitive moments, when one considers what he has done in dragging this great issue into the light and making it clear. He shows that what we have against us is not so much a system of society or a set of laws, as a definite and contemptible type ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... "Contemptible creature!" I exclaimed; "you may think you've a fine voice, but, like a simpering schoolgirl, you can't sing till you're pressed!" I ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... misanthropy is absurdly overcharged. In the first place, bis play of "Virginia," which was first produced at Drury Lane on the 25th of February, 1754, actually achieved something like a suc'es d'estime. It ran eleven nights, no contemptible run for those days ; was revived both at Drury Lane and at Covent Garden; was printed and reprinted; and all this all in his own lifetime. It had, in fact, at least as much success as it deserved, though, doubtless, too little to satisfy the ambition of its author. In the second place, there ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... you further, that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible, are they, compared with the Scripture! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the Sacred Personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... trade, was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly, do we pay for the repeal of the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land. As I have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an event, which sooner or later must ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... exceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of Robert Hall, is well known; but happily, their absurd ravings are attended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are unclogged by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge. In point of intellect they are utterly contemptible. Their ignorance, however, is fully matched by their impudence, which never forsakes them. They claim to be considered God's right-hand men, and of course duly qualified preachers of his 'word,' though unable to speak five minutes without taking the same number ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... how good can accrue to themselves, if they do what is right to others: and I regret to say I have met with not a few, who have been engaged in the art of teaching, who have been guilty of the mean and contemptible conduct I have hinted at above, and it is to deter others from falling into the same errors that I have ventured to allude to this subject at all. It would be invidious to mention names, which I could very easily do, and should this be persisted in, if I am spared, I shall most ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... I will go. Prepare her somewhat, Franziska, beforehand, that I may not become contemptible in her eyes, and in my own. Come, Werner, you shall dine ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... or not, these gunboats were found worse than useless as a substitute for 'the ruinous folly of a navy.' They failed egregiously to stop Jefferson's own countrymen from breaking his Embargo Act of 1808; and their weatherly qualities were so contemptible that they did not dare to lose sight of land without putting their guns in the hold. No wonder the practical men of the Navy ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... may tell you candidly that of all contemptible hounds I've ever had the misfortune to meet, ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... too much about what I say in the pulpit, mother," Gavin said, with a sigh, "though of course a man who fell in love merely with a face would be a contemptible creature. Yet I see that women do not understand how ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... fellowship of yours? Do you suppose I'm so much in love with you, Herbert Walters, that I can't let you go without wanting to fawn upon you and run after you ever afterwards! Pah! you miserable, pitiable, contemptible cur and coward, are you afraid even of a woman! Go away, and don't be frightened. I never want to see you or speak to you again as long as I live, you wretched, lying, shuffling hypocrite. I'd rather go ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... said, Mr. Bulstrode; I am no wrangler, to quarrel with a shadow; and, I trust, not in the least, that most contemptible of all human beings, a social bully, to be on all occasions menacing the sword or the pistol. Such men usually do nothing, when matters come to a crisis. Even when they fight, they fight bunglingly, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... hedging. There are two kinds of hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at random merely to make bulk. The first is tolerable; the last is contemptible. The moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge flippantly, he is talking insincerely. And when a good converser runs against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with Carlyle, for an empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. It is maintained by some ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... when he talked of the inestimable value of a man's soul, which he said endured for ever, whilst his body, as every one knew, lasted at most for a very contemptible period of time; and how forcibly he reasoned on the folly of a man, who, for the sake of gaining the whole world—a thing, he said, which provided he gained he could only possess for a part of the time, during which his perishable body existed—should lose ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... it was the high crime of the code to slug him with brass or steel knuckles, commonly called knucks. The man who carried this reenforcement for the natural fist in his pocket and used it in a fight was held the lowest of all contemptible and namelessly vile things. So, these Texas cowboys turned on Morgan at their comrade's accusation, deaf to any denial, flaming with ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Many people and writers are satirical without first of all demonstrating upon what grounds they have the right to be so. Satire is a wholly laudable thing if it is directed in a fair minded manner, but if it is only an excuse for bitter cynicism it is altogether contemptible. Thus he says of the Thackerean treatment of 'Vanity Fair,' 'he was attacking "Vanity Fair" from the inside.' It comes to this: if you want to make an extract from Thackeray you must dive about all over the place to make apparent ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... that in some cases society expects a man to overlook the law, to kill as unclean curs those who thus defame a female member of their family. It is possible that there are other shyster lawyers as mean, other bipedal coyotes as contemptible as those under consideration; but if so they have not yet been called to the attention of the ICONOCLAST. True it is, however, that the average attorney cares more for victory than for virtue. Howsoever honest and upright he may be in private ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... her glorious news came at an opportune moment, to cheer the spirits of the American people. The war had begun to assume a serious aspect. Continued reverses on the ocean had roused the British ministry to the fact that they were dealing with no contemptible enemy, and the word had gone forth that the Americans must be crushed into submission. Troops were hurriedly sent to Canada, and all the vessels that could be spared were ordered to the coast of the United States. The ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... circular letter of 1783, Washington had spoken of the times as a period of "political probation." The moment had come for the United States to determine, said he, "whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation." Three years had now passed and the period of probation seemed to have ended in the ruin of national hopes. The events of the years 1786 made a profound impression upon the minds of all responsible ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... street—was born in the Hielands o' Bonnie Scotland; but, be it said, he appears not to have become inoculated with the same spirit of honesty and perseverance that characterizes the greater portion of his countrymen. He arrived here nearly twenty years ago, and since that time he has been a lazy, contemptible thief, a shocking contrast ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that on Atticus or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled—to borrow Horace's imagery and his own—a wolf which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly contemptible. Of argument there is not even the show; and the jests are such as, if they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the drama; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. "There is," he cries, "no peripetia in the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not already done so, Helen would pass him by sooner or later, like so many of the others. But Will Fairmont had stuck to him. Maybe he had got his sister to pity him. Al winced at the thought. "I am getting contemptible. Will Fairmont would not do that. O, well, I might as well be done with them all right now!" His eyes flashed defiantly. Then he caught sight ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... contemplation of heaven, became in popular opinion the highest ideal of humanity, displacing the old ideal of the patriot and hero who, forgetful of self, lives and is ready to die for the good of his country. The earthly city seemed poor and contemptible to men whose eyes beheld the City of God coming in the clouds of heaven. Thus the centre of gravity, so to say, was shifted from the present to a future life, and however much the other world may have gained, there can be little doubt that this one lost heavily by the change. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... situation hopeless was the circumstance that the civilians accepted it with contemptible humility. It was almost pathetic to observe how people, just on the border-line, received with humble thankfulness such crumbs of recognition as were occasionally thrown to them. Snobbery increases in offensiveness ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... contributed to hasten the approach of that cloudy reverse at which I have already hinted. For some time the ruin of my father's affairs had been prevented by the sums which his eloquence had wrung from the well-meaning Mr. Elford. Hugh was no contemptible orator on these occasions. Hope seldom forsook him, and he built so securely on what he hoped might come to pass as sometimes to assert the thing had already happened. Such convenient mistakes are ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... spring-time, when its flowers were loveliest, and hope was strongest for its summer, her life was changed into the dreary wind-swept, rain-sodden moor. The man who can ACCEPT such a sacrifice from a woman,—I say nothing of WILING it from her—is, in his meanness, selfishness, and dishonour, contemptible as the Pharisee who, with his long prayers, devours the widow's house. He leaves her desolate, while he walks off free. Would to God a man like the great-hearted, pure-bodied Milton, a man whom young men are compelled to respect, would in this our age, utter such a word ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... a "gossip"; but such are the changes which words undergo in their meaning as well as in their form, that a title of honour formerly implying a spiritual relationship in God, is now applied only to those whose conversation resembles the contemptible tittle-tattle of a Christening. ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... mentioned lately, had to shoot a good few of his first levy against the Protestant Champion, before they would march at all!—I am sorry for these poor men; and wish the Reich had been what it once was, a Veracity and Practical Reality, not an Imaginary Entity and hideously contemptible Wiggery, as it now is! Contemptible, and hideous as well;—setting itself up on that, fundamental mendacity; which is eternally tragical, though little regarded in these days, and which entails mendacities without ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... face the most contemptible enemy, but they spare not the weak and inoffensive of any class, age, or sex. A respectable landholder, in presenting a petition, complaining of the outrages committed upon his village and peasantry, said a few days ago—"The oppression ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... wrong way, also, hard to travel; yea, impassable, except for those whose sin against light made them exceeding sinful. What more vile, degraded, contemptible, and criminal, than a minister of Christ, that is leased to an earthly power, purchased with things that perish, and controlled by designing men? In this manner would God separate the precious from the vile ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... home-evenings—which were not many—chatted together familiarly, the well-pleased Masons thought confidentially, by the fireside in the family parlor. It must not be inferred from their constant intercourse that he had the field entirely to himself. Gallants of divers pretensions—first-class, mediocre, and contemptible—considered with a practical eye to "settlement," hovered about the fascinating witch as moths about a gas-burner, and had no citable cause of complaint of non-appreciation, inasmuch as she shed equal light upon all, save one. "My very old friend, Mr. Chilton," she was wont to ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... had hitherto doubted and disputed, the discovery of the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the secret of half the arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed to us in this playful guise. Nor are the designs themselves contemptible from an artistic point of view; look how intent, for example, is the pose of the tiny jeweller working with a graver's tool upon the gold vessel before him; how steadily he bears himself at a task which requires at once ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of the time; he would have, at the worst, to contend with loose confederacies of tribes, distrustful of each other, unaccustomed to act together, and, though brave, possessing no discipline or settled military organization. At the same time, his adversaries must not be regarded as altogether contemptible. The Philistines and Canaanites in Palestine, the Arabs of the Sinaitic and Syrian deserts, the Rutennu of the Lebanon and of Upper Syria, the Nairi of the western Mesopotamian region, were individually brave men, were inured to warfare, had a strong ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... impos'd, But to sit idle on the houshold hearth, A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze, Or pitied object, these redundant locks Robustious to no purpose clustring down, Vain monument of strength; till length of years 570 And sedentary numness craze my limbs To a contemptible old age obscure. Here rather let me drudge and earn my bread, Till vermin or the draff of servil food Consume me, and oft-invocated death Hast'n the welcom end of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... this contemptible comedy is plain enough to my mind. She is simply holding off (Julian, as you know, is a poor man) until the influence of Lady Janet's persuasion is backed by the opening of Lady Janet's purse. In one word—Settlements! But for the profanity of the woman's language, and ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... aroused in me a healthy sense of shame. Perhaps his righteous maledictions on the nobles had given me glimpses of the idea of justice. Perhaps, in short, what I had hitherto despised in myself as impulses of weakness and compassion, henceforth began dimly to take a more solemn and less contemptible shape. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with that his memory came clear, and he shuddered, and cried, "Oh, horrible! horrible! to be turned all at once into a coward!—a shameful, contemptible, disgraceful coward! I am ashamed—ashamed—and so frightened! It ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Period which this Age styles AUGUSTAN, his Lordship speaks with sovereign scorn. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception, labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third Volume; "If," says he to the authors, "your Poets are still to be Mr. Bayses, and your prose writers Sir Rogers, without offering ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... said he, 'you don't know what you are doing. You are serving the devil, boy. Don't you know that I am an Indian? I tell you that I am; and if I should taste your beer, I could never stop until I got to rum, and become again the drunken, contemptible wretch your father once knew me. John, while you live, never again tempt any man to ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... likely as anyone to be frightened by shadows. I told myself that the whole thing was sheer absurdity, and that I should be thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct when the morning came. 'If you don't want to be self-branded as a contemptible idiot, Marjorie Lindon, you will call up your courage, and these foolish fears will fly.' But it would not do. Instead of flying, they grew worse. I became convinced,—and the process of conviction was terrible beyond ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... he went on soliloquizing, though all the time Felix stood before him, "who has learned that lesson of contentment which the generality never learn. Rich in his poverty here, an inheritor of the skies, I have only insulted him by so contemptible an offer." His head sunk upon his breast, his eyes fell upon the ground, his pocket-book dropped from his unconscious hand, and he resumed his walk. The negro stooped and picked it up, saying, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... iron rod, and she is so wily that Auntie thinks her every action something perfect. Now, Mr. Lawson," said Jennie, with greater earnestness, "Mrs. Arnold is determined that Marguerite shall marry that unprincipled Mr. Tracy, and the thought makes me sick. I loathe him—he is almost as contemptible ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... he said, hesitating, not to say stammering, notwithstanding a prodigious effort to seem philosophical and calm—"To own the truth, these minute-fellows are not quite as contemptible as we soldiers would be apt to think. It was a stone-wall affair, and dodging work; and, so, you know, sir, drilled troops wouldn't have the usual chance. They pressed us ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... abject suppliant with the most unmitigated scorn. There is always something contemptible in the sight of one man pleading to another for assistance in his love affairs—that is a business which he should do for himself. How much greater, then, is the humiliation involved when the amorous person asks the aid of one whom he believes ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... that he should have been quicker. He begged my pardon. His cold voice really maddened me, and I burst out into some foolish, contemptible diatribe, called him a machine, taunted him, then—as I felt that loathsome thing nestling once more to me,—begged him to assist me, to stay with me, not to leave me alone—I meant in the company ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... off than our own in point of stable, quiet government and of national welfare? The theorist scoffs at forms which have survived their meaning, at privilege which will bear no examination, at compromises which sound ludicrous, at submissions which seem contemptible; but let him put forward his practical scheme for making all men rational, consistent, just. Englishmen, I imagine, are not endowed with these qualities in any extraordinary degree. Their strength, politically speaking, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Editor. These lines are inscribed in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks. The following note or comment is attached:—'These lines I wrote as nonsense verses merely to try a metre; but they are by no means contemptible; at least in reading them I am surprised at finding them so good. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... implies.... I didn't care—I didn't care even to understand, because I thought you generous and nice to me—and I was so confident of you that I came with you and told you I had had some champagne which made my head swim.... And you—did this! It—it was contemptible." ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... formerly; but was pulled up by some of the envious inhabitants thereabouts, who are not so far convinced as to promise not to injure them for the future. The ground will probably in a short time yield them some fruit of their labour, how contemptible soever they ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... Nature's womb—there have been evolved intelligence and love, sacrifice, ideals; splendours which no splendour to come can utterly dim. These things are in the power of Nature. This is what "dead matter" can mother. So much the worse for our contemptible conceptions of matter, and That of which matter is the manifestation. But if it be that from the slime, by natural processes, there can grow a St. Francis, surely our dim notions of the potencies of Nature must be exalted. The forces that have erected us from the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... to terrify them: but they found to their astonishment that the Christians would not change their minds for any terror. Then their hatred became rage and fury. They could not understand how such poor ignorant contemptible people as the Christians seemed to be, dared to have an opinion of their own, and to stand to it; how they dared to think themselves right, and all the world wrong; and in their fury they inflicted on them ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sit down, and then abused him roundly. 'What did he mean,' I asked, 'by disturbing me in this rude way? How did he dare to cause a person of my quality and evident importance to be awakened in order to interview his entirely contemptible self?' ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... emotion. To depict a being facing an impossible task with no noble, but with only an ignoble, motive requires such an exaggerated mode of expression. Mime's grief is real enough, but the cause of it contemptible. After a considerable deal in this mournful key comes the sudden entry of the bright young savage Siegfried, driving the bear. His first theme is simply a bugle hunting call: Siegfried was then nothing but a hunter, a wild child of the forest. But as he gets on with what he has ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... infinitude into love are angelic exceptions; they are among women what noble geniuses are among men. Their great passions are rare as masterpieces. Below the level of such love come compromises, conventions, passing and contemptible irritations, as in all things petty ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... misjudge you, Peggy. I can only explain that fact by saying that never before had I met any one of like truthfulness and so straightforward. Then, not knowing that your friends had the same attributes, I am guilty of injustice toward Sally. Now she misconstrues what was meant for a jest into a contemptible trick. Oh, it was! I see it now. I' faith! the sooner that execution comes off ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... and legal rule in the Transvaal; and there are European lawyers of the opinion that the Uitlanders must be the most contemptible and lowest set of adventurers for not being satisfied with it! Dr. Kuyper declares that "the factitious discontent existed only among the English"; and adds with contempt, "Let us look into the Edgar, Lombaard, ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... he had done right, but his generous heart could not feel the black, shameless treason of his brother because his own smaller treason stood in the way. He could not see the full guilt of that wretched brother because he felt mean and contemptible himself. Truly, the soldier had hit the nail on the head when he said, "You're ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... his auditors, and rob the poor slave of the benefits of his labors, his character was defamed, his life was sought, and he at last driven from our Republic, as a fugitive. But was Thompson disgraced by all this mean and contemptible and wicked chicanery and malice? No more than was Paul, when in consequence of a vision he had seen at Troas, he went over to Macedonia to help the Christians there, and was beaten and imprisoned, because he cast out a spirit of divination from a young damsel ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... greed—shall we be encouraged in this savage selfishness by what dares to call itself science, to play one another false, instead of standing, with united front, to the powers of darkness, and scorning to betray our fellows, human or animal, in the contemptible hope of gaining by the treachery? Ah! you may quote authorities, wise and good, till you are hoarse!" cried the Professor, with a burst of energy; "but they will not convince me that black is white. I care not who may uphold the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice; it is monstrous, it is dastardly, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Oracles, as the product indeed of inspiration, but of inspiration emanating from an evil spirit. This hypothesis of a diabolic inspiration is rejected by the school of Van Dale. Both the power of at all looking into the future, and the fancied source of that power, are dismissed as contemptible chimeras. Upon the first of these dark pretensions we shall have occasion to speak at another point. Upon the other we agree with Van Dale. Yet, even here, the spirit of triumphant ridicule, applied to questions not wholly within ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... minister"—that is, to Walpole. In the next scene the effrontery of the piece culminates in a ballet where the Prime Minister appears, leading a chorus of false patriots, who, to use Fielding's own words, are set in the 'odious and contemptible light' of a set of "cunning self-interested fellows who for a little paltry bribe would give up the liberties and properties of their country." These worthy patriots are of four types, the noisy, the cautious, the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Cowardice is always contemptible, and wickedness is always odious; but when the two come together, and a man has no other reason for his sin than 'I was afraid,' each makes the other blacker. Israel had cast off the fear of the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was supposed to possess. "Why should such a rich man stoop to cheat?" asked his defenders. "To put money into one's pocket in this way is even worse than to cheat at cards! Besides, it's impossible! Valorsay is above such contemptible charges. ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... justified to the Prophet Jonah the pardon that he had granted to the inhabitants of Nineveh, he even touched upon the interest of the beasts who would have been involved in the ruin of this great city. No substance is absolutely contemptible or absolutely precious before God. And the abuse or the exaggerated extension of the present maxim appears to be in part the source of the difficulties that M. Bayle puts forward. It is certain that God sets greater store by a man than a lion; ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... said that you would disown Vincent if he were not true to the South. Think of Vincent in my place—dawdling in Acredale or Washington while battles were going on. You would not hold him less contemptible that he was in love; that he let his love, or his life, for you are both to me, stand as a barrier to his duty. You can't love where you can't honor, and you can't hate where you know conscience ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... last fifty years and marshalled, on that fatal August day of 1914, the formidable army that swept over Belgium, France and Russia? Public Opinion created by the military caste in Germany! What secret and growing force made of the Allies' contemptible army of yesterday the crushing victorious army of to-day?—The invincible power of Public Opinion!—It leaped from the very depths of the wounded heart and outraged conscience of nations, and created in ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... the whims, oddities, and eccentric developments of London life. His procedure was to bring together a number of these fantastic humorists, to play them off upon each other, involve them in all manner of comical misadventures, and render them utterly ridiculous and contemptible. There was thus a perishable element in his art, for manners change; and however effective this exposure of contemporary affectations may have been, before an audience of Jonson's day, it is as hard for a modern reader to detect ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... demonstrate the truth of Haig's predictions, and then the blow fell. The Kaiser viewed his strong hosts and boasted that he would soon wipe out England's "contemptible little army." He very nearly did so, and would certainly have succeeded, had it not been for the fighting spirit of ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... army in the eyes of neutral Powers. Any of these was good enough, but what now appears is better. Exact measurements have since demonstrated beyond all question of cavil that Rheims Cathedral had been built with mathematical accuracy to shield our contemptible enemy's trenches around Chalons from our best gun positions outside Laon. This act of treachery proves that, instead of Germany being the aggressor, France has been cunningly preparing ever since 1212 A.D. for the war which at last even our chivalrous diplomacy ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... England's fleet was mobilised. France had contributed millions of francs to fortify the Russian border in Poland, although Germany had made most of the guns. Belgium had what the Kaiser called, "a contemptible little army" but the soldiers knew how to fight when the invaders came. Germany had new 42 cm. guns and a network of railroads which operated like shuttles between the Russian and French and Belgian frontiers. Ever since ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman |
