"Derision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... All my friends—and foes—believed that he was the estranged lover of my youth. If he stayed long in Avonlea, one of two things was bound to happen. He would hear the story I had told about him and deny it, and I would be held up to shame and derision for the rest of my natural life; or else he would simply go away in ignorance, and everybody would suppose he had forgotten me and would pity me maddeningly. The latter possibility was bad enough, but it wasn't to be compared to the former; ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... found a mass of people, mostly comprising those who had been spectators rather than actors in the siege. I remember being seized with strange feelings when I saw their little air of derision and their sneers as they looked down towards the Palace in pleasurable anticipation. They imagined, these self-satisfied people who had done so little to defend themselves, that a day of reckoning had at last come when they would be able to ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... of the General Government, in a part of the country, where, if we are to believe the statement of Governor Rabun, 'an officer who would perform his duty, by attempting to enforce the law [against the slave trade] is, by many, considered as an officious meddler, and treated with derision and contempt;' ... I have been told by a gentleman, who has attended particularly to this subject, that ten thousand slaves were in one year smuggled into the United States; and that, even for the last year, we must count the number not by hundreds, but by thousands."[132] ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the Character of Sir John Falstaff; the Ground-work is Humour, the Representation and Detection of a bragging and vaunting Coward in real Life; However, this alone would only have expos'd the Knight, as a meer Noll Bluff, to the Derision of the Company; And after they had once been gratify'd with his Chastisement, he would have sunk into Infamy, and become quite odious and intolerable: But here the inimitable Wit of Sir John comes in to his Support, and gives a new Rise and Lustre to his Character; ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... grave doubt among white troops as to the fighting qualities of Negro soldiers. There were various doubts expressed by the officers on both sides of the line. The Confederates greeted the news that "niggers" were to meet them in battle with derision, and treated the whole matter as a huge joke. The Federal soldiers were filled with amazement and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... the very refinement of derision, suddenly bubbled into a bar of clinking song—a perfect ecstasy of crystal notes—then as suddenly died down, babbling and gurgling, and flowed smoothly on, whispering and murmuring to itself of the delights ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... kind, as everybody's consciousness will testify, presents itself directly as belonging to a knowing subject and referring to an object; those therefore who attempt to prove, on the basis of this very knowledge, that Reality is constituted by mere knowledge, are fit subjects for general derision. This point has already been set forth in detail in our refutation of those crypto-Bauddhas who take shelter under a pretended Vedic theory.—To maintain, as the Yogkras do, that the general rule of idea and thing presenting themselves together ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... piano-playing. I mention, for example, one of the most foolish affectations of modern times. You try to quiver on a note, just as violin and 'cello players are unfortunately too much inclined to do. Do not expose yourselves to the derision of every apprentice in piano manufacture. Have you no understanding of the construction of the piano? You have played upon it, or have, some of you, stormed upon it, for the last ten years; and yet you have not taken pains to obtain even ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... be supposed that the deliberation of the Indian council, which had been held to settle the fate of Boone and Calloway, would end in sentencing them to run the gauntlet, and then amidst the brutal laughter and derision of their captors, to be burnt to death at a slow fire. Had the prisoners betrayed the least signs of fear, the least indications of a subdued mind, such would in all probability have been the issue of the Indian consultation. Such, however, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... prudent in a man in his lofty station in the law; diverting it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord Chancellor I shall never think it." The fun of Mountfort's imitations was often heightened by the presence of the persons whom they held up to derision—some of whom would see and express natural displeasure at the affront; whilst others, quite unconscious of their own peculiarities, joined loudly in the laughter that ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... vulgar prejudice that evolution is by the measure of man, progressive; adaptation is indifferent to better or worse, except as to each species, that its offspring shall survive by atrophy and degradation. The predatory species flourish as if in derision of moral maxims; we see that though human morality is natural to man, it is far from expressing the whole of Nature. Animals, at first indistinguishable vegetables, devour them and enjoy a far richer life. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... the derision he expected from her, was delighted to see her come sliding down alone to the ravine, where the successful ones paused to take up the rest of the party. Her solitary state encouraged him, and he sought her where she sat knocking the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... such a commonplace article as the saw, it might be assumed that the ordinary apprentice would look upon instruction with a smile of derision. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Abbey on the coronation day, July 19, 1821. It was a painful scene when she, who had so lately been the idol of the fickle populace, was turned away from the doors amidst conflicting exclamations of derision and pity. A fortnight later, on August 2, she was officially reported to be seriously ill; on the 7th she was no more. In accordance with her own direction her body was buried at Brunswick. Her ill-founded ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... flask giving a clue, he guessed all, and faced about to stare at his brother in amaze. He forgot that the motive scheme was against White Fell, demanding derision and resentment from him; that was swept out of remembrance by astonishment and admiration for the feat of speed and endurance. In eagerness to question he inclined to attempt a generous part and frankly offer to heal the breach; but Christian's depression ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... Jos. { I } humble, poor, and lowly born, He The meanest in the port division— The butt of epauletted scorn— The mark of quarter-deck derision— Have } dare to raise { my } wormy eyes Has his Above the dust to which you'd mould { me him In manhood's glorious pride to rise, I am } an Englishman—behold { ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to call he broke through the floor an' come near ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... own trading ventures; and although several petitions have been presented to them, by the merchants here, urging upon them the dangers which might arise at the death of Ali, they have taken no steps whatever, and indeed have treated all warnings with scorn and derision." ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... while the victim was deciphering the fatal paper, he had restrained with impatience the desire to burst out into bitter laughter. But now there was something in the aspect of Plowden's collapse which seemed to forbid triumphant derision. He was taking his blow so like a gentleman,—ashen-pale and quivering, but clinging to a high-bred dignity of silence,—that the impulse to exhibit equally good manners possessed Thorpe ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... their commander's prowess. For Cadman was by no means popular among them, because, though his pay was the same as theirs, he always tried to be looked up to; the while his manners were not distinguished, and scarcely could be called polite, when a supper required to be paid for. In derision of this, and of his desire for mastery, they had taken to call him "Boatswain Jack," or "John Boatswain," and provoked him by a subscription to present him with a pig-whistle. For these were men who liked well ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... bat an eyelid. "Trying to pass the buck, Hal? You can't get away with it—not for a minute." A gay little smile of derision touched his face. "I'm in your hands completely. I'll not tell you a damn thing. What are you going to do about it? No, don't tell me that Meldrum and Tighe will do what has to be done. You're the high mogul here. If they kill me, Hal Rutherford will be my murderer. Don't forget ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; 65 Its portals are inhabited By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,— A divine work! Athens, diviner yet, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... instruction, of warning or rebuke, of protest or denunciation—yet for Herod the fox He had but disdainful and kingly silence. Thoroughly piqued, Herod turned from insulting questions to acts of malignant derision. He and his men-at-arms made sport of the suffering Christ, "set him at nought and mocked him"; then in travesty they "arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him again to Pilate."[1289] Herod had found nothing ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... found any likeness for thy vision? O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom? What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good? Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood? Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are mute And all the stars ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... is unworthy of M. Licquet; because it not only implies a charge of a heinous description—accusing me of an insidious intrusion into domestic circles, a violation of confidence, and a systematic derision of persons and things—but because the French translator, exercising that sense and shrewdness which usually distinguish him, MUST have known that such a charge could not have been founded in FACT. He must have known that any gentleman, leaving England with ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... poor as the only means they had of deprecating the injuries so frequently in his power to inflict; he had, too, from his necessity of not attending to their supplications, acquired a habit of treating them with constant derision, which they well understood and appreciated; and the contempt which he always showed for them was one of the reasons why he was so particularly hated through the country. Though now a guest of Brady's, he could not help showing the same feeling. Moreover, ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... shelter and security, the ingenuity of their frauds, and daring outrages of their violence—in short, to hold up every species of national error, and every weakness of national folly, to public obloquy and derision. In dwelling upon such topics the writer will, of course, describe scenes and characters common to every state of civilized society. The broad and general features of the time-serving courtier, of the servile coxcomb, of the rapacious mistress, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... mirth with which they recapitulated his "damnable faces," "strange postures," uncouth gestures, and ungainly deportment; imitation followed imitation of the poor actor's peculiar declamation, and the night became noisy with the shouts of mingled derision and execration of his critics; when suddenly, as they came to a gas-light at the corner of a crossing, a solitary figure which had been preceding them, without possibility of escape, down the long avenue of Harley Street, where G—— lived, turned abruptly round, and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... become praiseworthy of men. The sons of Pritha have all been plunged by us into everlasting hell. They have been deprived of happiness and kingdom for ever and ever. They who, proud of their wealth, laughed in derision at the son of Dhritarashtra, will now have to go into the woods, defeated and deprived by us of all their wealth. Let them now put off their variegated coats of mail, their resplendent robes of celestial make, and let them all attire themselves in deer-skins according to the stake they ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... turn to be met with derision. It could hardly be wondered at, for as he stood before them, John Lansing looked the personification of fastidiousness, and his face, although it surmounted a strongly proportioned and well developed body, suggested the mental characteristics not only of his father, but ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the polar circle, since the time that this planet assumed its present form and condition. So much then on the subject of a southern continent, which, after all, we see is not worth being disputed about, and appears to be set up, as it were, in absolute derision of human curiosity and enterprise. Wise men, it is likely, notwithstanding such promissory eulogiums as Mr Dalrymple held out, will neither venture their lives to ascertain its existence, nor lose their time and tempers in arguing about it. Cook's observation, it is perhaps necessary to remark, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... to conceive what Dryden must have felt, at beholding his labours and even his person held up to public derision, on the theatre where he had so often triumphed. But he was too prudent to show outward signs of resentment; and in conversation allowed, that the farce had a great many good things in it, though so severe against himself. "Yet I cannot help saying," he added, in a well-judged tone ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... sack-coats, with any sort of coats; and, above all, the Londoner affects in summer a straw hat either of a flat top and a pasteboard stiffness, or of the operatically picturesque Alpine pattern, or of a slouching Panama shapelessness. What was often the derision, the abhorrence of the English in the dress of other nations has now become their pleasure, and, with the English genius of doing what they like, it may be that they overdo their pleasure. But at the worst the effect is more interesting ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... same cleanliness, but the people stop short of washing themselves, and the bath among the poorer classes is practically unknown. People of this kind may not have had one for thirty or forty years, and will receive the idea with derision and look on the practice as a 'fad,' while the case of many animals is seriously cited as an argument that it is quite unnecessary. A doctor told me once of a rich old patient of the farming class near Utrecht who, on being ordered a bath, said, 'Any amount of physic, but a bath—never!' On the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... made of sheepskin and the tunic of plaited wheat-straw. In contradistinction to the Yuraks the settled inhabitants of the country are called Turks. That term, however, which means rustic or clown, is never used by the Turks themselves except in derision or disdain; they always speak ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... weakened by the ludicrous naivete of its style. It describes the missionaries as addressing themselves particularly to those who stood most in need of their instructions, and who were most likely to treat them with derision; as availing themselves of the favourable reception which they experienced from the Avignonese, to preach the duties of forgiveness and reconciliation, both private and political, and to dwell on the practical ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... Harkaway, then his (Hunston's) position was indeed critical. What should he do? What would be better than to cast doubt and derision upon ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... spring upon him, seize the tax-roll, and "tear it up with countless imprecations;" the municipal council is assailed, and two hundred persons stone its members, one of whom is thrown down, has his head shaved, and is promenaded through the village in derision.—When the small tax-payer defends himself in this manner, it is a warning that he must be humored. The assessment, accordingly, in the village councils is made amongst a knot of cronies. Each relieves himself of the burden by shoving it off on somebody else. "They tax the large proprietors, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... shells of scooped oranges, which renders them so hideous, that one must have seen these madmen to form a notion of their appearance; particularly while dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor masses; but mumble a certain gibberish, as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... devotion. That is the wonderful thing about being good. You see it always, your eyes are happily holden to evil. On the other hand, I had occasion to learn after William's death that Pendleton regarded him with good-natured derision. He thought him a stupid man bound down to the earth by a meager theology. He even wrote an obituary notice of William that must have made his guardian angel long to kick him—all a grand toot to ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... its second hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition; the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision and scoffing. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... or would-be explorers and wilderness wanderers have been unusually prominent in connection with South America (although the conspicuous ones are not South Americans, by the way); and these are fit subjects for condemnation and derision. But the work of the genuine explorer and wilderness wanderer is fraught with fatigue, hardship, and danger. Many of the men of little knowledge talk glibly of portaging as if it were simple and easy. A portage over rough and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... special mock of the walking-staff, and scarcely an hour in the day passed that they had not some disparaging reference to it. Among themselves they spoke of Osseo of the walking-staff, in derision, as the owner of the big ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... his heart oppressed and his mind clouded with a sense of unsatisfied revenge, of a new and unhappy rupture with his father, a fear of foreign derision, a feeling of his subjection to the will of the priests, and of a gloomy fate which had hung over his head since ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the well-known doctrine of this author, that ridicule is the test of truth; for truth and virtue being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as that inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. "Nothing is ridiculous," he says, "but what is deformed; nor is any thing proof against raillery but what is ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... and what declining, and are enabled to shape their measures with some regard not solely to present exigencies, but to tendencies in progress. Representative assemblies are often taunted by their enemies with being places of mere talk and bavardage. There has seldom been more misplaced derision. I know not how a representative assembly can more usefully employ itself than in talk, when the subject of talk is the great public interests of the country, and every sentence of it represents the opinion either of some important body of persons in the nation, or of an individual ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... knowledge, nor the lust of power, nor the blast of spiritual vanity, shake from his perfect rectitude and service. Of a man who, seeing the good and the beautiful way, turned not aside from it, nor yielded a step to the enemy; in whose soul the voice of the inward Divinity no rebuke, nor derision, nor neglect could quench; who chose his part and abode by it, seeking no reconciliation with the world, not weakly repining because his faith in the justice of God distanced the sympathies of common men." Every poet has it in him to imagine, to comprehend, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... derision and disdain; The fatal madness spreads from land to land; Peace, Art, and Beauty everywhere are slain By greedy Traffic's hard, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... have said enough; for as to such as desire to know more of them, they may easily obtain them from his book itself. However, I shall not think it too much for me to name Agatharchides, as having made mention of us Jews, though in way of derision at our simplicity, as he supposes it to be; for when he was discoursing of the affairs of Stratonice, "how she came out of Macedonia into Syria, and left her husband Demetrius, while yet Seleueus would not marry her as she expected, ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... knew, that he was drifting into one of the mind-storms which swept across him, was that in these moods everything that people said or wrote had power to arouse his irritation, to interrupt his work, to break his sleep, and to show him that he was powerless indeed. What he feared was derision, and the good-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision, and the knowledge that, with all his powers and perceptions, his common-sense, which was great, and his sense of responsibility, he was treated ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... by the innocent impulse to place the delicacy and wisdom and spirituality of my age at the affectionate service of your youth for a few years, at the end of which you would be a grown, strong, formed—widow. Alas, my dear, the delicacy of age reckoned, as usual, without the derision and cruelty of youth. You told me that you didnt want to be an old man's nurse, and that you didnt want to have undersized children like Bentley. It served me right: I dont reproach you: I was an old ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... souls with stunted visions Often measure giants by their narrow gauge; The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... to regain his lost dominion over the world; therefore it shall come to pass that the Lord will suffer him to become a mock and derision to all mankind, and for the first time since the world was made men will doubt his existence and disbelieve his power, and his name will be a scorn and idle word to the very children, and the old wives by their spinning-wheels. Then ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... sit there together, now for the first time really together, there is a shrill shout of derision ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... to conceal the expression of his triumph and derision, the consequence of which was, that, as soon as "poor-'us" could see, he fell upon his antagonist, and both immediately disappeared from view in the bosom of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... covert smile of derision passing over the speaker's face as he said this, and I turned to see whether I could detect anything of the kind on that of his companion, but I found he had withdrawn to the gangway, apparently to call his people up out of the boat, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... at present the most important and securely intrenched intimidating force that modern society presents against the actual culture of the world, whether in the schools or out of them. Its voice is in every street, and its shout of derision may be heard in almost every walk of life against all who refuse to conform to it. There are but very few who refuse. Millions of human beings, young and old, in meek and willing rows are seen on every side, standing before It—THE DEAD LEVEL,—anxious to do anything to be ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... earth to answer the call. They knew he needed them now with the rich interest of good deeds they had won for him. Fast they came and the multitude of them filled him with wonder. The enemy who hated him pointed to them in derision. "Gold buys hell, not heaven," he laughed, but we stood around the bed and the enemy could not pass us. Then we, and deeds we did for him at his command, began to pray and the prayer was like sweetest music echoing against ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... stories for boys and girls are not plentiful. Many stories, too, are so highly improbable as to bring a grin of derision to the young reader's face before he has gone far. The name of ALTEMUS is a distinctive brand on the cover of a book, always ensuring the buyer of having a book that is up-to-date and fine throughout. No buyer of an ALTEMUS book is ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... said he!—and a laugh of congratulation to each other, and derision of me (as I made it out) quite turned my frantic humour ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... spectacle was one well suited to please an Eastern audience: it was followed by a proceeding of equal barbarity and still more thoroughly Oriental. The Parthians, in derision of the motive which was supposed to have led Crassus to make his attack, had a quantity of gold melted and poured it into ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... how definitely I had separated from her. There was so much I had intended to say. My thoughts grew very bitter as I repeatedly lived over our short and unsatisfactory meeting. I recalled patches of the bright dreams filling my poor noodle when I was riding to meet her, and I smiled in derision ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... that I am a Southerner with all the Southerner's inherited and acquired prejudices touching on the race question—that as a result of what our black soldiers are going to do in this war, a word that has been uttered billions of times in our country, sometimes in derision, sometimes in hate, sometimes in all kindliness—but which I am sure never fell on black ears but it left behind a sting for the heart—is going to have a new meaning for all of us, South and North too, and that hereafter ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... length, and for some moments drank her tea in silence save for an occasional grunt which was half sniff, half snort; then as she put down her glass and took up a sandwich she waved the paper in good-natured derision. ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... Me! But had the Vision Come to him in beggar's clothing, Come a mendicant imploring, Would he then have knelt adoring, Or have listened with derision And ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... stroke of Death. Senility falls on all beings and institutions—if they are allowed to perish naturally; and as our august Monarchy is the joke of wits, and our ancient House of Lords is an object of popular derision, so the high and mighty Devil in his palsied old age is the laughing-stock of those who once trembled at the sound of his name. They omit the lofty titles he was once addressed by, and fearless of his feeble thunders and lightnings, they familiarly style him Old Nick. Alas, how ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon returns, and strange performances, resolving, in despite of public derision, to stick to his own particular ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Star upon star, moon, Sun; And let his God-head toil To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven, Since in the end derision Shall prove his works and all his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... pinnacle the pace had been tremendous; but owing to the higher breeding of the cattle, the carriage party had still the advance, and when they reached the top they proclaimed the victory by a cheer of triumph and derision. The carriage disappeared beneath the crest of the mountain, and the pursuers halted as if disposed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... early periods of the revolution, he, in common with many of his countrymen, conformed to the fashion of treating all such matters, both in conversation and action, with levity and even derision. In his subsequent career, like most men exposed to wonderful vicissitudes, he professed half in jest and half in earnest a sort of confidence in fatalism and predestination. But on some solemn public occasions, and yet more in private and sober discussion, he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to slay those shallow, narrow-minded, often ignorant and uneducated tourists and business men who dare to speak of this traveling missionary with derision. Mr. Forman has no particular interest in missions and he has no particular interest in the Church, but he started out to investigate this derogatory ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... that I perceived a little derision of countenance on his face as he said this, nevertheless I sunk dumb before such a man, aroused myself to the task, seeing he would not have it deferred. I approved of it in theory, but my spirit stood aloof from the practice. I saw and was convinced that the elect of God would ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... following synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling,—that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... center of public interest, unless on grounds of respect. To come walking in in this fashion, buoyed balloon-like by the body of this loved one, and before the members of a frivolous, gaping house party—ah, even I could imagine the mingled horror and derision, the hysterics among the women, perhaps. Nor would it stop there. Rumors—and heaven only knows what distortions such rumors might undergo, having their source in the incredible—would range our social circle like wildfire. And the newspapers, for our families are established ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... festooned with chains, and glittering rings. His ringlets were combed in a heavy mass over his right shoulder; and it is said that he looked like some strange actor. The noise grew as he went on; his finest periods were lost amid howls of derision, and at last he raised his arms above his head, and shouted, "I sit down now; but the time will come when you will hear me!" A few good men consoled him; but most of his friends advised him to get away out of the country ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... ever on the alert to expose his opponent's fallacies, and to hold up the author to the derision ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... last disaster so staggered their faith and unstrung their nerves, that they never again had the hardihood to make other contributions. Indeed, they already rendered themselves the subjects of ridicule and derision for their temerity and presumption in giving countenance to this wild projector and visionary madman. The company thereupon gave up the ghost, the boat went to pieces, and Fitch became bankrupt and brokenhearted. Often ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... fire, quiet, unflurried, then slowly raised her lids. Courant had moved his pipe and the obscuring film of smoke was gone. Across the red patch of embers his eyes gazed steadily at her with the familiar gleam of derision. Her tenderness died as a flame under a souse of water, and an upwelling of feeling that was almost hatred, rose in her against ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... bitter apples to me. Now I am a ship that comes from the whirlpools to a warm blue sea; now I see again the evening star. I kiss your hands, and am your faithful slave—Gustav Fiorsen." These words, which from any other man would have excited her derision, renewed in Gyp that fluttered feeling, the pleasurable, frightened sense that she could not get away from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as usual, in her sun-bonnet. The time would be out on Tuesday, she reminded us, and bade me be in readiness to play my part, though I had no idea what it was to be. And suppose Ronalds came? we asked. She received the idea with derision, laughing aloud with all her fine teeth. He could not find the mine to save his life, it appeared, without Rufe to guide him. Last year, when he came, they heard him "up and down the road a hollerin' and a raisin' Cain." And at last he had to come to the Hansons in despair, ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... member of the committee. The mockery of a man whose family owned miles of tenements being chosen for a committee, the province of which was to find ways of improving tenement conditions, was not lost on the public, and shouts of derision went up. The working population was skeptical, and with reason, of the good faith of this committee. Every act, beginning with the mild and ineffective one of 1867, designed to remedy the appalling ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... Marseillaise" moves us even more than does the old priest. The poor fellow cannot grasp the reason for the ferocity of stupid fate, which unrelentingly preys upon him. Arrested by mistake as a revolutionist and condemned to deportation, he becomes an object of derision to his comrades. However, gradually, he finds the strength to share the severe privations of his companions who have sacrificed themselves to their ideal of justice and liberty. And, on his death-bed, he is elated ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... love? A slave! True, a beautiful slave—but still a slave! How the world would laugh! how Louisiana would laugh—nay, scorn and persecute! The very proposal to make her my wife would subject me to derision and abuse. "What! marry a slave! 'Tis contrary to the laws of the land!" Dared I to marry her—even were she free?—she, a quadroon!—I should be hunted from the land, or shut up in ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... action to take. Snaffle had named as his witness Sergeant Fitzroy, Private Kelley (who, though drunk on duty, had not been so drunk, said Snaffle and Fitzroy, that he could not recognize an officer when he saw him), and the third witness, to the amaze of Barker and the derision of Ennis, when told of it, was no less a person than poor Tom Rafferty, Lanier's own "striker" and hitherto devoted henchman. And to the consternation of Stannard, Sumter, and others, Captain Snaffle had been able to back his words. Riggs sent for the two availables, Fitzroy and Kelly, and the ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... no getting away from the fact that he despised me for no other reason than that I was an American. I could not help feeling the derision in which he held not only me but the Hazzards and the Smiths as well. He looked upon all of us as coming from an inferior race, to be tolerated only as passers-by and by no means worthy of his august consideration. We were not of his world ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... ancient temples of the gods are falling to ruin? Why do not you, wretch that you are, bestow something on your dear country, out of so vast a hoard? What, will matters always go well with you alone? O thou, that hereafter shalt be the great derision of thine enemies! which of the two shall depend upon himself in exigences with most certainty? He who has used his mind and high-swollen body to redundancies; or he who, contented with a little and provident for the future, like a Wise man in time of peace, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... and in a short and friendly speech tried to induce them to disperse, promising them, if they would refrain from meeting in the streets, they should have the use of the Town Hall once a week for their meetings. This proposal was received with shouts of derision, and the mob, by this time greatly increased in numbers, marched noisily through New Street, Colmore Bow, Bull Street, and High Street, to the Bull Ring. On the following Monday, July 1st, there was a large crowd in the Bull Ring, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... failure followed another. Blake had been engaged to make twenty drawings to illustrate Ambrose Philips's "Virgil's Pastorals" for schoolboys. The publishers saw them, and stood aghast, declaring he must do no more. The engravers received them with derision, and pronounced sentence, "This will never do." Encouraged, however, by the favorable opinion of a few artists who saw them, the publishers admitted, with an apology, the seventeen which had already been executed, and gave the remaining three into more docile ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... something strange about Ellen. In HER eyes some obscure triumph or excitement, some scorn and derision, Maggie fancied, of herself. Had the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... a gun was coolly standing near the great dovecot and shooting at the pigeons. Dominique threw open the window and shouted. The answer was a gesture of derision. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... that steam-shovels were already devouring, toward forsaken Bohio. Picking its way across the rotting spiles of culverts, it pushed on through the unpeopled jungle, all the old railroad gone, rails, ties, the very spikes torn up and carried away, while already the parrots screamed again in derision as if it were they who had driven out the hated civilization and taken possession again of their own. A few short months and the devouring jungle will have swallowed up even the place where it ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... to desire but for the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck, and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile that had in it something both of pain and weakness—a haggard, old man's smile; but there was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of treachery, in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tobacco. "But what would you have?" thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. "But then," asked the hell-like voice, "how long is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... officer gave two loud smiles, full of derision. "There's evidence at hand," he rejoined, "so if you compel me to speak out before your venerable father, won't you, young man, have to suffer the consequences? But as you assert that you don't know who ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... any act of cruelty or wanton offence. He was as cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for scorn to point the finger of derision at: and humanity shudders as it remembers the scourge with which this man's ambition was permitted to devastate every home tie, and every ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... skipping over the river before the boat began to glide swiftly, under the pressure of her sail, and yells of derision came ringing from the enemy as they saw the effect of their fire and the effort ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... banqueting hall. But by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision. Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... point in which thou didst deem thyself most strong, in thy spiritual pride and thy carnal wisdom. Thou hast laughed at and derided the inexperience of thy brethren—stoop thyself in turn to their derision—tell what they may not believe—affirm that which they will ascribe to idle fear, or perhaps to idle falsehood—sustain the disgrace of a silly visionary, or a wilful deceiver.—Be it so, I will do my duty, and make ample confession ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... retired from the Church at the head of the monks, and left the court free for the revellers to work their will. But, wild and wilful as these rioters were, they accompanied the retreat of the religionists with none of those shouts of contempt and derision with which they had at first hailed them. The Abbot's discourse had affected some of them with remorse, others with shame, and all with a transient degree of respect. They remained silent until the last monk had disappeared through the side-door which communicated with their dwelling-place, and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... you thought about as stolidly you sat there, A grin of faint derision on your pudgy porcelain face; I wonder if you dreamed about some cherry blossom tea house, And if the goldfish bored you in their painted ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... by Barbara Frietchie's exploits. They never hoisted a Union flag, or did any grand thing; but they deserve a place in story just the same. Their name was Peyre, and the young people called them "The Pears", not in derision, for the regard they inspired was little short of veneration. Their ages ranged from sixty-five to eighty years when I first knew them. Unlike the Hannah More quintette, they were not literary. But no hive of busy bees was ever more industrious than ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... a good deal about our slang. They used to be fond of quoting in superior derision in their papers our, to them, utterly unintelligible baseball news. Mr. Crosland, to drag him in again, to illustrate our abuse of "the language," quotes from some tenth-rate American author—which is a way they have had in England of judging our literature—with the comment that "that ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... he had been 'had in derision' by 'two gentlemen poets' because I could not make my verses get on the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bow-bell, daring God out of heaven with that atheist tamburlane, or blaspheming with the mad priest ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... than the picture of this boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To take a slight liberty with the lines ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... may be fairly considered, is two-fold, and may be stated thus:—In the first place, it by no means follows, because reason is found not to be the only infallible or safe rule of conduct, that it is no rule at all; or that we are to discard it altogether with derision and ignominy. On the contrary, if not the sole, it is the principal ground of action; it is "the guide, the stay and anchor of our purest thoughts, and soul of all our moral being." In proportion as we strengthen and expand this ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... house was stormed by a mob and he narrowly escaped with his life. Barbon, who was a man of substantial property, was summoned by Cromwell on the 6th of June 1653 as a member for London to the assembly of nominees called after him in derision Barebone's Parliament. His name is occasionally mentioned, but he appears to have taken no part in the debates. In 1660 he showed great activity in endeavouring to prevent the Restoration. He published Needham's book, News from Brussels ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... am tragedian in this scene alone. Station the Greek and Briton side by side And if derision ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... warning. She thought if it came it might be by poison in the food that was sent up, but she had to eat to live. She took to eating only one thing on her tray, and she thought she detected in the girl an understanding and a veiled derision. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Yorkshire. In 1319 an army of Scots, 15,000 in number, advanced to the very gates of York. Melton, the archbishop, hastily got together 10,000 men and fell in with the Scots at Myton, on the Swale, where he was utterly routed, and narrowly escaped with his life. This battle was known in derision as ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... "that the first temptation on reading such monstrosities as the above, is to utter a laugh of derision." But it is with no such feeling that we place them before our readers. Rather would we exclaim with the inspired penman, "O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night" for the deluded followers of these willfully ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... another day; and the world will fall back into idolatry, led back into it by the delusions of a madman. The word of God is a weak thing, Paul, Jesus answered, if it cannot withstand and overcome the delusions of a madman, and God himself a derision, for he will have sent his son to die on the cross in vain. Of the value of the testimony of the twelve I am the better judge. Then thou goest to Jerusalem, Paul asked, to confute me? No, Paul, I shall ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... existing condition of things. He went on, now: "Didn't you? Well, I think it would look better than that girl they've got there in circus-clothes." They all laughed; Putney had a different form of derision for the Victory of the soldier's monument every time he spoke of it. "And it would suggest what those poor fellows really died for: that we could have more and more Northwicks, and a whole Northwick system of things. Heigh? You see, Billy, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... that I thought New York City a most friendly and neighborly place, and was greeted with howls of derision. I suppose I said it because that morning a dear old lady in an oculist's office had patted me, saying, "My dear, it would be a pity to put glasses on you," and an imposing blonde in a smart Fifth Avenue shop had sold me a hat that I couldn't ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... edict of pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn, and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... along the dusky woodland road at the base of the hills, and evidently going home from his work in the fields, was singing at the top of his bent, apparently as a stimulus to failing courage. Our islanders shouted at him in derision. The shoreman's replies, which lacked not for spice, came clear and sharp across the half-mile of smooth water, and his tormentors quickly ceased chaffing. Having all drunk copiously, men and mules resumed their line of march up ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... under his insatiable blue eyes. He called himself Octavius. He was literally consumed by the blaze of his own conceit and envy. When he was not in raptures over the poetry, subtlety, or depth of his own playing or compositions, he would give way to paroxysms of malice and derision at the expense of some other musician, from his East Side rivals all the way up to Sarasate, who was then at the height of his career and had recently played in New York. Wagner was his god, yet no sooner would ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... an expression of intense bitterness darkened his countenance. Then he smiled in a sort of derision, and gave vent to his ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Y., July 28, '01. DEAR JOE,—As you say, it is impracticable—in my case, certainly. For me to assist in an appeal to that Congress of land-thieves and liars would be to bring derision upon it; and for me to assist in an appeal for cash to pass through the hands of those missionaries out there, of any denomination, Catholic or Protestant, wouldn't do at all. They wouldn't handle money which I had soiled, and I wouldn't trust them with it, anyway. They would devote ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... us a detailed account of how chicken broth was prepared, and when we gave it, he wrote it down on a piece of paper. But it seemed as if this were done merely from curiosity or derision, for the chicken broth was never mentioned afterwards. Once he treated us to beer, and in return wished to see us perform a Russian dance. When I remarked to him that no one could compel us to dance, in such a situation as ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith! So ascend the feet of worth on the ladder of life; so reaches a high purpose a place beyond the derision ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... she repeated; "the night that should have been yours. The night I had promised to you for years." Then, in a flame of self-derision, "Why don't you let go my hands and hate me, now that you ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... He collected all the people of the fort, broached a cask of wine, and railed valiantly at the intrepid Englishman, whose ship was fast disappearing beyond the palisades. His conduct excited only the contempt and derision ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott |
