"Disparaging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to make his acquaintance. The famous Punch caricaturist thereupon stepped forward, and was duly introduced. Disraeli showed himself particularly gracious, and warmly congratulated the artist, whose pencil had lately been employed in satirising him in a disparaging fashion, depicting him as a nice young man for a small party, i.e. the Young England party, as a Jew dealer in cast-off notions, and as a young Gulliver before the Brobdingnag Minister (Sir R. Peel). Disraeli tried his hardest to ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... performed any very conspicuous action. They were highly civilized young Americans, born to an easy fortune and a tranquil destiny, and unfamiliar with the glitter of golden opportunities. If I did not shrink from disparaging the constitution of their native land for their own credit, I should say that it had never been very definitely proposed to these young gentlemen to distinguish themselves. On reaching manhood, they had each come into property sufficient to make violent exertion superfluous. ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... shillings and sevenpence, minus ninety-seven pounds rent of chambers and clerk," said Lady Honoria, with a disparaging accent on ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... number of dinners at the same place—more than were good for him, I may add without disparaging their quality; for he fell in love with Miss Margovan, proposed marriage to her ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... all right." Phil seldom spoke a disparaging word of any of his comrades. "But I haven't the smallest wish to ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and Maurice walked there together for the first time—it now leaked out that Dove spent every Sunday afternoon in the LESSINGSTRASSE—he spoke to Maurice of Johanna. Not in a disparaging way; Dove had never been heard to mention a woman's name otherwise than with respect. And, in this case, he deliberately showed up Johanna's good qualities, in the hope that Maurice might feel attracted by her, and remain at her side; for Dove had fallen deeply in love with Ephie, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... is an inflexible one which torrents of fluent platitudes will neither affect nor modify. Even should this entail their being labelled with the silly and meaningless term of "reactionary," I do not imagine that their equanimity is much upset by it. It is, perhaps, natural for the elderly to make disparaging comparisons between the golden past and the neutral-tinted present; so that one shudders at reflecting what a terrific nuisance Methuselah must have become in his old age. One can almost hear the youth of his ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... Cattley's. He was like many other young men such as one sees in shops; but then, what very nice-looking young men one sometimes sees there! Sally had classed him as a young whippersnapper, but this was unjust, if it impugned his stature. She repeated the disparaging epithet when, in further justification to Miss Wilson of her asking him to her mother's house, she sketched a policy of conduct to guide inexperienced girls in their demeanour towards new male friends. "You let 'em come close to, and have a good look," said the vulgar ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... visit just after, that she was the most beautiful woman I had seen in England. As I approached the house there was a bagpiper playing near it, and the pipes entered into the conversation in the drawing-room. On my making some very disparaging opinion of their music, which I heard for the first time, Mrs. Ruskin flamed up with indignation, but, after an annihilating look, she said mildly, "I suppose no Southerner can understand the pipes," and we discussed them calmly, she telling some stories to illustrate their power ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... brought on the baked apples which I had prepared with especial care for dessert, Dick gave them one glance which to my oversensitive mind looked disparaging. Then he pushed ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... give. There is no fixing this point with precision. In the general, that aera is the fittest for the poet's purpose, which, though fresh enough in pure minds to warm and interest us in the event of the action, is yet at so great a distance from the present times, as to have lost all those mean and disparaging circumstances, which unavoidably adhere to recent deeds, and, in some measure, sink the noblest modern transactions to the ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... had not remarked. She went down to dinner with a gentleman, whose name of course she did not make out, and whose appearance, she thought, was exactly the same as that of half the gentlemen in the procession down the narrow staircase. Chatty, indeed, made disparaging reflections to herself as to society in general, on this score; the thought flashing through her mind that in the country there was more difference between even one curate and another (usually considered ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife's disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, "I'll read you an episode from my History that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their own respectable way, had ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... when Cathro, still ignorant that the heather was on fire, dropped some disparaging remarks about the Stuarts to his history class. Tommy said nothing, but—but one of the school-windows was without a snib, and next morning when the dominie reached his desk he was surprised to find on it a little cotton glove. He raised ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... be toying with a bat when Tommy made this disparaging remark threatening to topple her off the dizzy height she had attained. She saw red! She made an infuriated rush upon him, and brought the bat down on his offending head. Tommy crumpled up like a paper doll. There was an awful moment ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge I would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor do I fear their judgment. These writings are for those who see something in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... systems. Dr. James Stalker, of Glasgow, said a few months since that, whereas it might be expected that the advocates of the true faith would be the first to compare and contrast it with the false systems of the world, the work had been left rather to those who were chiefly interested in disparaging the truth and exalting error. Yet something has been done. Such men as Sir Monier Williams, Sir William Muir, Professors Rawlinson, Fairbairn, and Legge, Bishop Carpenter, Canon Hardwick, Doctors Caird, Dodds, Mitchell, and others, have given the false systems of the East a thorough and ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... distrust the soundness of political councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging attacks upon any great class of our fellow citizens. Such are those urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial classes of our country. You yourself know, from education and experience, how important these classes are to the prosperous conduct of the complicated affairs of ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... Riah,' said Fledgeby, with a very disparaging utterance of his name, 'leads me to believe that this is about the shop for disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest and tightest screw ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... communion of confidential friendship, to sound the depth of his character and know the treasures of excellence hidden beneath its surface. Beside, he was dogged for years by certain malignant scribblers, who took a pleasure in misrepresenting all his actions, and holding him up in an absurd and disparaging point of view. In what hostility originated I do not know, but it must have given much annoyance to his sensitive mind, and may have affected his popularity. I know not to what else to attribute a circumstance ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... a term at all, it was in no disparaging sense. Every earnest nature presents an—er—priggish side at times. I know that even I myself have occasionally, and by people who didn't know me, of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... within a circular enclosure of palisades, or that the commerce of the country consisted in an exchange of beads, muskets, and bad whiskey for the furs of the Aborigines. Still his ideas were vague and indistinct, not to say disparaging, and he had already quite unconsciously excited the amusement of Will and the indignation of Rose, by indulging in remarks indicative of a low opinion of things in general in the Queen's dominions. So when he ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... with some large and casual inquiries about the city's streets and hotels, in the manner of one who had but for the moment forgotten the trifling details. I could think of no reason for disparaging my own quiet hotel in the downtown district; so the mid-morning of the night found us already victualed and drinked (at my expense), and ready to be chaired and tobaccoed in a ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... that lack of food conduced to this disparaging outlook; and he recovered presently, for he had been smitten with a quick vision of Beulah Baxter in one of her most daring exploits. She, at least, was real. Deaf to entreaty, she honestly braved her hazards. It was a comforting thought after ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... and there lived in a kind of semi-civilized independence, refusing to pay taxes, boasting of having kept themselves from any alliances with the inhabitants of the Nile valley, while their kinsmen of the older stock betrayed the knowledge of their origin by such disparaging nicknames as Pa-shmuri, "the stranger," or Pi-atnu, "the Asiatic." The Shardana, who had constituted the body-guard of Ramses II., and whose commanders had, under Ramses III., ranked with the great officers of the crown, had all but disappeared. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... grind down the natives into the dust. We seem to be losing many of the characteristics which formerly distinguished us in the world, but there is one which marks us out very plainly from all other nations—the habit of disparaging our own achievements and vilifying our own reputation. We do not find the Germans pertinaciously seeking to bring into disrepute the efforts now being made to extend their colonial possessions; the Americans have ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... happy at Rambagh, for though the other officers were pleasant enough with me, Barton always seemed to be sneering at my efforts, and was ready to utter some disparaging remark. There was one consolation, however: the others did not seem to like him, so that it did not look as if it were all my fault. I noticed one thing, though, and it was this: Barton was always ready to say disparaging ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... from community of wrongs: They wrote each other little odes and sang each other songs; They told each other anecdotes disparaging their wives; On several occasions, too, they ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... But when he referred to my bonnie sloop as "an old tub" and said it wasn't rigged right and that I didn't know how to sail her, then—well, I leave it to you if it wouldn't have made you huffy? You know how it is yourself. Wait till the next fellow makes disparaging remarks about your bicycle, for instance or your motor cycle, or canoe, or what-not, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... public prayer against pirates on Sunday, Apr. 26: "Behold, before the week was out, there comes in a Vessel wherein" were the captive pirates. But the victorious mutiny against the pirates occurred on Apr. 18, and without disparaging Dr. Mather's influence in the councils of Heaven, it seems doubtful if the rising could have been caused by prayers publicly offered by him on the 26th. After the trial he adds: "One of the first Things which the Pyrates, who are now so much the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... an ars vivendi is characteristically Greek. Nothing can be further from the truth than to call the Greeks 'intellectualists' in the disparaging sense in which the word is now often used. The object of philosophy was to teach a man to live well, and with that object to think rightly about God, the world, and himself. This close union between metaphysics, morals, and religion ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... attractive table with the true peacock markings, or a handsome slave. While doing so, he may find amusement in observing a pretender who "shops" but does not buy, wearying the dealers by pricing and disparaging the costliest tables and most artistic vessels, and ending with the purchase of a penny pot which he carries home himself. He may then stroll along under the pictured and statued colonnades, perhaps offering ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... but she—trust a woman for intrigue!—she was quick to perceive my reasons for so doing. Directly Ferrari's back was turned she would look at me with a glance of coquettish intelligence, and smile—a little mocking, half-petulant smile—or she would utter some disparaging remark about him, combining with it a covert compliment to me. It was not for me to betray her secrets—I saw no occasion to tell Ferrari that nearly every morning she sent her maid to my hotel with fruit and flowers and inquiries after my health—nor was my valet Vincenzo the man to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... that Mrs. Wilkins had seen her disappointment in her face, and tried, with wifely zeal, to defend her lord from even a disparaging thought. Wishing to atone for this transgression she was about to sing the praises of the wooden-faced Elisha, but was spared any polite fibs by the appearance of a small girl who delivered an urgent message to the effect, that "Mis Plumly was down sick and wanted ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... or company of musicians, an expression constantly used by old writers without any disparaging meaning. It is sometimes applied to voices as well ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... agree with what the Speaker writes about our 'absurdly late hours.' I have no strong feeling upon the Wednesday question, and perhaps the Speaker is right, although I think the point is alluded to in a manner not too strong nor too 'disparaging' to the fixed hour, as I only recommend that a division, instead of an adjournment, either upon main question or adjournment, should take place compulsorily ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Lina's disparaging view of achievements in the way of defying the proprieties, of which all the girls had been very proud, cast a profound gloom over the circle. The blonde seemed to voice the common sentiment when she said, resting her chin on Lina's knee, and gazing ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... presently fell into conversation. Pennroyal finally declared that he had been insulted by a man who retained his present title and estates solely by his (Pennroyal's) permission and kindness. Sir Edward was constrained to ask him what he meant. Pennroyal thereupon began to utter disparaging reflections upon the late Sir Clarence, who, he intimated, was not legally entitled to his name. This brought on a dead silence, and all eyes were turned upon Sir Edward, whose pale countenance became yet paler as he said, with his ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... a year I visited Toledo, and inquired of one who occasionally employed Dutch Mary, but knew nothing of my experience with her, how she was prospering. The cheering reply was, "Splendidly; I haven't heard a disparaging word of her for months, and there used to be hard stories about her." I heard she had united with the Baptist Church, and I think she is trying to live a Christian. If she had not left town on a visit to her friends I should have ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... coming to the front and canoeing is gaining rapidly in popular favor, in spite of the disparaging remark that "a canoe is a poor man's yacht." The canoe editor of Forest and Stream pertinently says, "we may as properly call a bicycle 'the poor man's express train'." But, suppose it is the poor man's yacht? Are we to be debarred from aquatic sports because we are not rich? And are we such weak ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... observed by ordinary vision. The accuracy of this information was confirmed by letters which he received from Paris; and this general report, Galileo asserted, was all he knew of the subject. Fuccarius, in a disparaging letter, says that one of the Dutch telescopes had been brought to Venice, and that he himself had seen it. This statement is not incompatible with Galileo's affirmation that he had not seen the original instrument, and knew ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... hand, the mothers of the people are commonly unable to see the use of it all. It seems a waste of dear-bought human life, with a large sum of nothing to show for it. So also many men of an elderly turn, prematurely or otherwise, are ready to lend their countenance to the like disparaging appraisal; it may be that the spirit of prowess in them runs at too low a tension, or they may have outlived the more vivid appreciation of the spiritual values involved. There are many, also, with a turn for exhortation, who find employment for their best faculties in attesting the well-known ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... believed that there was. And he took his revenge through every channel by which he fancied himself to have a chance for reaching and stinging the national pride; 1st, by ridiculing the English pretensions to higher principle and national morality; but that failing, 2ndly, by disparaging Shakspeare; 3rdly, on the same principle which led Dean Swift to found the first ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... disparaging remarks, however, we are strongly inclined to believe that this book, despised by its author, and neglected by his contemporaries, will in the end be admitted to be one of Darwin's chief titles to fame. It is, perhaps, an unfortunate circumstance ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... main-point.. I will not now take up time to carry out this illustration minutely. The mere suggestion that each one is working out a peculiar destiny invests even the meanest life with a solemn dignity, and counteracts any disparaging argument drawn ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... 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 woods, or ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... amount of fine literature created in a given period of time differs from epoch to epoch, but it does not differ much. And we may be perfectly sure that our own age will make a favourable impression upon that excellent judge, posterity. Therefore, beware of disparaging the present in your own mind. While temporarily ignoring it, dwell upon the idea that its chaff contains about as much wheat as any similar quantity of chaff has ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Sir Joseph, Miss Mallowcoid had already seized more than one opportunity of disparaging the nerve specialist of Ashbury, and on the evening of the two proposals just described, when the Incandescent Gerald had retired to bed, the three had an animated discussion about ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... fun," said Mildred, "you'll surely take cold. Besides, I can't have you making any disparaging remarks upon my guardian." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... speaking," remarked Levy, with a disparaging eye on me. "However, if you're both in the job, so much the more chance of bringing it off, I daresay. But you'll never 'ave to 'andle a ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... race are placed in the hands of utterly untrained young girls. The suffrage draws the woman out of her purely personal relations and puts her in relations with her kind, and it broadens her intelligence. I am not disparaging the noble devotion of our present mothers—I know how they struggle and toil—but when that tremendous force of mother love is made intelligent, fifty per cent of our children will not die before they are five years old, and those that grow up will be better ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... consider how it was to be met by Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel themselves more deeply interested, they cannot ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... know the doubts and fears and the anguish that had been roused in his heart by the note which Madame Leon had given him at the garden gate? What did she know of the poignant suspicions that had rent his mind, after listening to Madame Vantrasson's disparaging insinuations? ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... and disparaging remarks on Luther, contained in his Introduction to the Literature of Europe, are simply outrageous, "stupid and senseless paragraphs," evidencing a presumption on the part of their author which deserves intensest rebuke. "Hallam knows nothing about Luther; ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... feast many presents are given away by the n['ae]skut, the husbands of the female feast givers distributing them for the ladies, who assume a bashful air. During the distribution the n['ae]skut maintain their deprecatory attitude and pass disparaging remarks on their gifts. Sometimes the presents are attached to a long line of oklinok (seal thong) which the n['ae]skut haul down through the smokehole, making the line appear as long as possible. At the same time they sing in a ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake,—it is noticeable, I say, that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... enemies, and the inevitable consequence was frequent defeat. With the dolorous slaughter of Pinkie we have nothing to do, excepting that, among ten thousand men of low and high degree, Simon Glendinning, of the Tower of Glendearg, bit the dust, no way disparaging in his death that ancient race from which he ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... are quite well and very happy. I had Dora down this morning, who was quite charmed to see me. That Miss Ketteridge appointed two to-day for seeing the house, and probably she is at this moment disparaging it. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... personal history and professional career, with sundry comments on his style as an advocate. From this article I shall quote so much as refers in general to the Scottish part of his practice, and particularly to the case above mentioned. It will be perceived that the writer takes a comparatively disparaging view of Mr. Hope-Scott's manner of pleading; but this only shows the coarse drawing which those who write for the people often fall into, like artists whose pictures are to be seen from a great distance. For convenience of arrangement ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... the writer was among the first, seven or eight years ago, to make the suggestion and call upon the Liberians to hold up their heads like men; take courage, having confidence in their own capacity to govern themselves, and come out from their disparaging position, by ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all others. ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the same sort of place in Jim's estimation as "the girls." The girls were other people's sisters, to whom Jim was polite, and whom he even fawned on and flattered while they were present, but made most disparaging remarks about and ridiculed behind their backs; to his own sisters, on the contrary, he was habitually rude, but he always spoke of them nicely in their absence, and even boasted ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... rely on you. These others'—he indicated with a disparaging wave of the hand the rest of the team, who were visible through the window of the changing-room—'are all very well. Decent club bats. Good for a few on a billiard-table. But you're our hope on a wicket like ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... Parthian towns, like Halus and Artemita, followed their example. Seleucia, the second city in the Empire, received the new monarch with an obsequiousness that bordered on adulation. Not content with paying him all customary royal honors, they appended to their acclamations disparaging remarks upon his predecessor, whom they affected to regard as the issue of an adulterous intrigue, and as no true Arsacid. Tiridates was pleased to reward the unseemly flattery of these degenerate ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Mr. Merton for his son's escape was unbounded, and even Mrs. Merton was ashamed of her disparaging remarks about Harry. As for Tommy, he went to his friend's home to seek reconciliation, reflecting with shame and contempt upon the ridiculous prejudices he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... imagination, resulting from the instinctive sagacity with which he perceived and met its wants. The generation of readers for which he wrote has mostly passed away; new fashions in fiction have risen, had their day, and disappeared; he has been subjected to much acute and profound criticism of a disparaging kind; and at present he has formidable rivals in a number of novelists, both eminent and popular;—yet his fame has quietly and steadily widened with time, the "reading public" of our day is as much his public as the reading public of his own, and there has been no period since ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... wolf in the fable appreciated the kindness of the crane. Why not thank him with the same simplicity with which he served you. You are a real wolf; you are for ever disparaging, detracting, or blaming someone, either ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... further,' continued the centurion, fearful lest his disparaging comments might defeat the projected sale. 'I only speak of him as he is useful or not to me. To another person he would be most valuable; for, though he cannot polish armor, he can polish verses, and he can write as well as though he were educated for a scribe. For one ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... fellow, you have said the most disparaging thing, I hope, that ever was said of me! You cannot better that statement, if you think an hour! You mean it of me as a human being, I trust? not as an individual? In the one case it would be indeed melancholy, but in the other it would ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Miss Whichello, with a disparaging glance. 'Your face is pale and pasty; if it isn't ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... simple y de buena intencion;" "fuese Catalan de nacion y no habla del todo bien nuestra lengua Castellana." Ramon came to Haiti four or five years before Las Casas, and the latter speaks of him in a disparaging tone. "Este Fray Ramon escudrino lo que pudo, segun lo que alcanzo de las lenguas que fueron tres, las que habia en esta ysia: pero no supo sino la una de una chica provincia, que arriba dejimos llamarse Macaria de abajo, y ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... absolutely startled. Color was coming into his face. His short, crisp hair, which had been parted so neatly an hour ago, stood rumpled all over his head, not mitigating the general queerness of his appearance. And yet his mouth wore a smile, humorous and disparaging. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... this army crossed the Alps instead of keeping watch over Rome from Northern Italy; had crushed in the bud a new Cimbrian invasion, and within two years (696, 697) had carried the Roman arms to the Rhine and the Channel. In presence of such facts even the aristocratic tactics of ignoring and disparaging were baffled. He who had often been scoffed at as effeminate was now the idol of the army, the celebrated victory- crowned hero, whose fresh laurels outshone the faded laurels of Pompeius, and to whom even the senate ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... told that Prince Mahdi-Kuli dreamed that he saw the Sayyid shoot the Shah at a levee. [Footnote: Ibid. p. 355.] Evidently there were some Court politicians who held that the Bāb was dangerous. Probably Shah Muḥammad's vizier took the disparaging view mentioned above (i.e. that the Bāb was a mere mystic dreamer), but Shah Muḥammad's successor dismissed Mirza Aḳasi, and appointed Mirza Taḳi Khan in his place. It was Mirza Taḳi Khan to ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... W: in command of Department of Missouri, 27; plans for Denver, 71; disparaging remarks, 75, footnote; probable reason for objecting to use of Indians in war, 75, footnote; in charge of Department of Mississippi, 96; Lincoln's estimate of, 96; instructed regarding First Indian Expedition, 100; opposed to arming ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... natural order of things [hear], and also reduced to a less number [hear], in which respect we do not allude to any abstract classification, as if one were to say,'—and he quotes here, in this apparently disparaging manner, his own grand, new-coined classification, which he has drawn out with his new method from the heart of nature, and applied to the human,—which he had to go into the universal nature to find, that very classification which he ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "Tiger" although anything less ferocious than he would be hard to find. He was more like a sheep in spirit than anything else. But Charles thought he saw signs of promise in that pup, and in spite of our disparaging remarks he clung to him. Charles knew a lot about dogs, or thought he did, which was the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... manner was that of a blunt, bluff soldier, who spoke his mind freely and plainly. He was often hearty, and could be thoroughly jovial; but he was not seldom rather rough and caustic of speech, and he was given to making remarks somewhat disparaging to human nature. He was aware of this trait in himself, and frankly admitted that he was nothing if not critical, and that it was his nature to spy into abuses. In these admissions he characteristically exaggerated ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... name of culture one might easily give up, if only those who decry the frivolous and pedantic sort of culture, but wish at bottom for the same things as we do, would be careful on their part, not, in disparaging and discrediting the false culture, to unwittingly disparage and discredit, among a people with little natural reverence for it, the true also. But what we are concerned for is the thing, not the name; and the thing, call it by what name we will, is simply the enabling ourselves, ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... because my father always began by disparaging her suggestions that (by the balancing action of some instinctive sense of justice) he almost always ended by adopting them, whether they were wise or foolish. He came at last to listen very tolerantly when she ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity vaunted itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in my tone. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... mine," Mollie retorted with spirit. "Why is it that whenever you make a disparaging remark you never ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... lieutenants were Dunning and Barre, who at the time sat for his borough Calne. He now rapidly formed an intimacy with Bentham, who went to stay at Bowood in the autumn of 1781. Bentham now and then in later years made some rather disparaging remarks upon Shelburne, whom he apparently considered to be rather an amateur than a serious philosopher, and who in the House of Lords talked 'vague generalities'—the sacred phrase by which the Utilitarians denounced all preaching but their own—in a way to impose ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "catalogue of the ships" had lighted in him a secret glow that persisted. In his roused imagination the long pageant of the rival steamers still moved on through the rudely thronging, ever-multiplying fleet of the boundless valley's yearly swelling commerce, ocean-distant from all disparaging contrasts of riper empires; moved, yeasting, ruffling, through forty years of a civilization's genesis, each new boat, Hayle or Courteney, more beautifully capable than her newest senior, and each, in her time and degree, as cloud-white by day, as luminous ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... If, indeed, the enemy had landed, we may be sure that he would have been heroically opposed. But history shows us so many examples of the superiority of veteran troops over new levies, however numerous and brave, that, without disparaging our countrymen's soldierly merits, we may well be thankful that no trial of them was then made on English land. Especially must we feel this when we contrast the high military genius of the Prince of Parma, who would have headed the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... children. As members in the family of God we yield ourselves unto his service and "our members as instruments of righteousness unto him." This prohibits sin. To live impure, or to commit more or less sin, and have the yoke of Christ upon us, or to be a joint-heir with him is indeed very disparaging. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... General Orde, Mr. Sandford, and others equally decided; though he punctually attended the faithful ministry of Mr. Hancock at the college chapel, besides his regular appearance at the usual military service, and would not allow one disparaging word to be uttered in his presence of that zealous preacher or his deeply spiritual discourses; though he chose from among his brother officers a bold, uncompromising Christian as his most intimate associate, and gave many unconscious indications that he had received the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... have none. I am often very disagreeable," said Diana candidly, "but my worst enemy won't charge me with disparaging good looks in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... governor is inciting the soldiers and telling them that I am depriving them of means of sustenance, and various other things, in order to set them against me, and make himself popular with them, while disparaging me. Consequently, some of them bear me ill-will. Your said governor, although he knows that he cannot take Indians from your royal crown, has assigned some of them three or four times; and I have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... prey, not indeed of barren fancies but of barren facts, of random intrusions from without, though not of morbid imaginations from within? And in thus speaking, I am not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself a real treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored mind, though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any more than I would despise a bookseller's shop:—it is of great value to others, even when not so to the owner. Nor am I banishing, far from it, the possessors of deep and multifarious ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... might be said that its embarrassments began at the cutting of the first sod, when Mr. Whalley, who was as ubiquitous as ever where Welsh railways were concerned, permitted himself to make some remarks, in his speech, disparaging Messrs. David Davies and Savin because he disapproved their method of financing the line. Never before or since has such a scene been witnessed on such an occasion! In vain did some of the influential company present attempt to smooth things ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... a commander. Whoever wins a battle is, in the estimation of such persons, a great general: whoever is beaten is a lead general; and no general had ever been more completely beaten than Mackay. William, on the other hand, continued to place entire confidence in his unfortunate lieutenant. To the disparaging remarks of critics who had never seen a skirmish, Portland replied, by his master's orders, that Mackay was perfectly trustworthy, that he was brave, that he understood war better than any other officer in Scotland, and that it was much to be regretted that any prejudice should exist against ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... understood, too, that as Frank had declared his purpose of supporting Lizzie, it might be as well that he should see just at present as little of Lady Fawn as possible. Not a word, however, had Lady Fawn said to Lucy disparaging her lover for his conduct. It was quite understood now at Fawn Court, by all the girls, and no doubt by the whole establishment, that Lizzie Eustace was to be regarded as an enemy. It was believed by them all that Lord Fawn had broken off the match—or, at least, that he was resolved ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... fact that Mr. Paulding, in the reprint of these "Letters," in 1835, struck out this passage with all others disparaging to slavery and its supporters, does not impair the force of his testimony, however much it may sink the man. Nor will the next generation regard with any more reverence, his character as a prophet, because ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of his short-lived hallucination. It humiliated him bitterly to think that all his religious zeal had proved in her regard but the empty crackling of a fire of thorns. No matter what may be a youth's sentiment for girlhood, he never likes it to be witness of anything disparaging to his sturdy resolution and manly purpose. But Adele had seen him shake like a reed under the deepest emotions that could give tone to character; and in his mortification at the thought, he transferred to her a share of the resentment he felt against himself. It was a relief to treat her with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... he saw that Miss Margaret took some interest in you, he began to talk of you in a disparaging way, as a poor sort of a fellow, easily led, and that you had all sorts of strange fancies, which he said he supposed had come to you with the northern blood which flowed in your veins, and then he spoke ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... simple, unaffected kindness of the two great artistes who were to assist at her recital. It surprised her a little; she had anticipated the disparaging, almost inimical attitude towards a new star so frequently credited to professional musicians, and had steeled herself to meet it with indifference. She forgot that when you are at the top of the tree there is little cause for envy or heart-burning, and graciousness ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... by the prospects which opened upon them, now treated their rivals with contemptuous disdain. They dared not insult the defenders of our country face to face, because the scars of the warriors scared them. But they were spitefully active in disparaging their birth, their services, and their glory, and these noble retainers of royalty took care to impress the soldiers of Napoleon with a due sense of the width of the gulf which was henceforth to separate a gentleman of good family, from an ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... felt. But, even in his case, there was an evident disposition to know something more of Charlemont. He was really willing to return. He renewed the same subject of conversation, when it happened to flag, with obvious eagerness; and, though his language was still studiedly disparaging, a more deeply penetrating judgment than that of his uncle, would have seen that the little village, slightly as he professed to esteem it, was yet an object of thought and interest in his eyes. Of the sources of this new interest time ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... pound to half a hundredweight. He scarred his hands and broke his fingernails to pieces over them, but, on the whole, considered it not a bad employment, except when old Joe took it into his head to perch on the fence and spur him on to greater efforts by disparaging remarks about England. Whatever his work, there was never any certainty that old Joe would not appear, to sit down, light his short, black pipe, and make caustic remarks about his methods ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... bit of fruit from her greenhouse," says the old man in a disparaging tone: "and, oh Jane, bring me a saucer. Here's a sprat I just capered out of Hemmelford mill-pit; perhaps the Doctor would like it fried for supper, if it's big enough not ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... speech through a miraculous process which takes place in one of the people of the play. Surely these are grounds on which "Siegfried" might be stoutly criticized from the conventional as well as a universal point of view; but I have not enumerated them for the purpose of disparaging Wagner's drama, but rather to show the intellectual and esthetic attitude of the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House twenty years ago, who, through all these defects, saw in "Siegfried" a strangely beautiful and impressive creation, which, under trying ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Seldom has the mind of the Church been able to preserve it for any length of time. It has oscillated from one kind of one-sidedness to another, sometimes exalting doctrines and neglecting duties and at other times preaching up morality and disparaging doctrine. To which side the balance may be dipping at the present time among you I do not know; but among us, I should say, it was from doctrines ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... odious habit, but we are apt to believe, without any reserve, disparaging stories, that may or may not be true, concerning men of distinction, and the more prominent the man or woman, the more viciously the scandal-mongers pursue their contemptible occupation. These vermin invariably belong to a class of industrious mediocrities ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... thrives on the slightest possible food. It lives on air. Public rumor is substantial enough for its richest diet. Public Rumor! I was educated to despise it. An established public opinion, we must treat with due respect, but disparaging rumor, however public, I should be ashamed to own as a motive for one action of my life. When the counsel for the prosecution passed his eulogy on the memory of Dr. Croswell, I could not but think what a rebuke his whole life was to public rumor. If ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... upon him that their type of womanhood was superior to any he had hitherto known. And by way of refuting his own argument, he would draw from his pocketbook the photograph of Bertha, which had a secret compartment there all to itself, and, gazing tenderly at it, would eagerly defend her against the disparaging reflections which the involuntary comparison had provoked. And still, how could he help seeing that her features, though well molded, lacked animation; that her eye, with its deep, trustful glance, was not brilliant, and that the calm earnestness of her face, when compared ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... is about many things, Priscilla, it is not so wicked as to thank any one for waging a cowardly war against the good, for disparaging the able and accomplished, and fabricating and circulating injurious stories against people too magnanimous for the slanderer ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love's world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For though the celestial rapture ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the true form and force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not justly liable either to those disparaging epithets[4] or to those exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them. Thus, for example, Cocacin, Ghel or Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan, Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol, Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Coloman, Gauenispola, Mutfili, Avarian, Choiach, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... cried his companion, flushing with momentary indignation at this disparaging remark. At the same moment he took a rapid aim and fired. For a few yards the goose continued its forward flight as if unhurt; then it wavered once or twice, and ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... it, Mr. Lovelace, if designed, is presuming, if you please.—I am not a man ready to take offence, Sir—especially where I am employed as a mediator. But no man breathing shall say disparaging things of Miss Howe, in my hearing, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" is thorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in a footnote) of Seneca, who, after all, will ever be regarded as the greatest literary product of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... in the East seems to have obliterated any (all?) sentiments of chivalry, for he is never weary of recording disparaging estimates of women, and apparently delights in discovering evidence of 'feminine devilry"' (p. 184). This argumentum ad feminam is sharpish practice, much after the manner of the Christian "Fathers of the Church" who, themselves ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... As to her being companionable that is a matter of taste; I shall continue to follow mine, and each young lady present is at liberty to do the same; but be assured that unless you can furnish some more satisfactory reason for your disparaging remarks than you have yet done, they will bear no weight with me." With much irony in her voice Miss Carlton replied, "Really, Miss Lebaron, I am unable to reply to your very able defence of your charming friend, and will only say that I shall avail myself of the ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... school. "I have some news for you. What do you think—I am going to London!" she panted, fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief, and casting a triumphant glance at Esther Odell, the girl who had called her proud and stuck-up. Esther was always talking about going to London, and saying disparaging things of going to service—servants were vulgar and despised and she never would be a servant, though her mother and father both said she ought to get a situation. This was how Esther had talked, and it gave Kate Haydon no small pleasure to be able ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... When the rays of light enter their eyes and make a picture on their retinas, their brains become conscious of the picture and they act accordingly. When the waves of sound started by your speaking enter their ears and record a disparaging remark on their keyboards, their brains become conscious of the disparagement and resent it accordingly. If you did not disparage them they would not resent it. They are ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued. She had formed a habit of talking at him. And he retaliated by drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as disparaging ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... said before, no one cares to hear another say what in self-disparaging moments he often says about himself. A dozen times in the last fortnight had I spoken of myself as inferior to my brother, but for another to say it was ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... indeed, and with all my heart, but the review article is wavering and indistinct in my mind now, and though it is inside a drawer of this table where I write, I cannot bring myself to look at it again,—not from a motive which is disparaging to you, as I am sure you understand; the general impression is enough for me, also, if you care in the least how I feel toward you. The boy has certainly the likeness to which you refer, and an absolute sameness, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... revived in him memories of his native city, which he had left with reluctance; then, too, it probably gave him satisfaction to find his literary countryman honored and respected in Weimar, where he heard nothing but disparaging opinions regarding the intellectual standing of Austria. And, finally, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Viennese in his home dialect, which he had preserved pure and unadulterated while living among people who spoke quite differently. I do not know whether it was the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... seemed blandly unconscious of any such disparaging thoughts in the mind of his young friend, for he continued quite amiably, even though a note of anxiety seemed to make itself felt ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... partner, would be able to supply his place. The young man had very high testimonials and an excellent education. She was evidently exercised between her own distrust of the assistant and fear of disparaging him. Seeing how much shaken we were, she sent for wine, and I was surprised to see Eustace take some almost furtively, but his little sister, though still sobbing, glared out from behind the knuckles she was rubbing into ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... determined young fellows could not be found probably in the kingdom. The relative position, then, in which they and the people, or rather the worst class of them, stood to each other, and the bitter disparaging taunts and observations with which the proctor and his sons were treated, not only on the chapel green, but almost wherever they appeared, are now, we trust, intelligible ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... colonizing at all, or of managing colonies? Who says so? Is it any one with the glorious history of this continental colonization bred in his bone and leaping in his blood? Or is it some refugee from a foreign country he was discontented with, who now finds pleasure in disparaging the capacity of the new country he came to, while he has neither caught its spirit nor grasped the meaning ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... signora had made upon him; but the countenance of the king told nothing; he was quiet and thoughtful, his brow was stern, and his lips compressed. The courtiers concluded that he was disappointed, and began at once to find fault, and make disparaging remarks. Frederick did not regard them. At this moment he was not a king, he was only a man—a man who, in silent rapture, had gazed upon this wondrous combination of grace and beauty. The king was ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... that poor Olaf's heart gave a violent leap, and then apparently ceased to beat altogether, while the blood fled from his visage, is not to say anything disparaging to his courage. Whether you be boy or man, reader, we suspect that if you had, in similar circumstances, beheld such a pair of eyes, you might have been troubled with somewhat similar emotions. Cowardice lies not in the susceptibility of the nervous system to a shock, but in giving way to that shock ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges," whereupon we sat down and talked music and Heine for the rest of the evening. Mr. Pfeifer, reclining in his capacious easy-chair, smoked on with slow, brooding contentment, and now and then threw in a disparaging ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... brown-study color, or Dr. Reasono, gave a very cordial assent; hinting delicately, at the same time, his expectation that this new auditor, who, of course, was no other than Captain Noah Poke, would not deem it disparaging to his manhood, to consult the sensibilities of the ladies, by appearing in the garments of that only decent and respectable tailor and draper, nature. To this suggestion I gave a ready approval; when ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Patrick Henry, during the first three or four years of his nominal career as a lawyer, was a briefless barrister,—earning his living at the bar of a tavern rather than at the bar of justice,—is the very least of those disparaging myths, which, through the frailty of human memory and the bitterness of partisan ill-will, have been permitted to settle upon his reputation. Certainly, no one would think it discreditable, or even surprising, if Patrick Henry, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... wretched ball. She had suffered her name to be joined with that of a stranger in a manner derogatory to her husband's honour. It was hardly surprising that his brother should have spoken of her conduct in disparaging terms;—but he did not believe that his brother had used that special term. Personal violence;—blows and struggling, and that on the part of a Dean of the Church of England, and violence such as this seemed to have been,—violence ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Balbo (Vita, I. Lib. II. Cap. XVII.), whom De Vericour copies without question, we are at a loss to account for the preservation of the original epitaph replaced by Cardinal Bembo when he built the new tomb, in 1483. Bembo's own inscription implies an already existing monument, and, if in disparaging terms, yet epitaphial Latin verses are not to be taken too literally, considering the exigencies of that branch of literary ingenuity. The doggerel Latin has been thought by some unworthy of Dante, as Shakespeare's doggerel English epitaph has been thought unworthy of him. In both cases the ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... to be turned homewards towards the close of his English visit his saddest reflection was that there would be no Mozart to meet him. His wretched wife had tried to poison his mind against his friend by writing that Mozart had been disparaging his genius. "I cannot believe it," he cried; "if it is true, I will forgive him." It was not true, and Haydn never believed it. As late as 1807 he burst into tears when Mozart's name was mentioned, and then, recovering himself, remarked: ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... church, symbolical of beauty regained, to weigh upon all Christendom; and the Rome of to-day, which he knew nothing of, which he had neglected, and whose royal palace, so bare and so cold, brought him disparaging ideas—the idea of some out-of-place, bureaucratic effort, some sacrilegious attempt at modernity in an exceptional city which should have been left entirely to the dreams of the future. However, he shook off the almost painful feelings which the importunate ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to the son. We need not stop to examine how far the praises which he bestows on Lord Chatham's talents as a planner of military operations are deserved; but it may very fairly be contended that the disparaging views of Pitt's military policy which he has advanced are founded solely on what is in this as well as in many other instances a most delusive criterion, success. It is true, unquestionably, that in the campaigns ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... and I rather liked him for it. While more recitations and more music went round, he told them heroic stories about their heroes. He told them strange stories and beautiful stories and funny stories; but never, never disparaging stories. One saw their faces glow with wonder. Then the time came for him to work again. He certainly earned that seven-and-six. This time the Vicar was there, so he handed them ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... to the earlier writings of Plato. The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates. For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato. ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... prejudicial effect on the character of the books in after-times.(30) The word, which he did not employ in an injurious sense, was adopted from him by Protestants after the Reformation, who gave it perhaps a sharper distinction than he intended, so as to imply a contrast somewhat disparaging to writings which were publicly read in many churches and put beside the canonical ones by distinguished fathers. The Lutherans have adhered to Jerome's meaning longer than the Reformed; but the decree of the Council of Trent had ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... tongue." And what reasonable man will do that which is disgustful to the wise and good, is grateful only to the foolish and baser sort of men? I pretermit that using this sort of language doth incapacitate a man for benefiting his neighbour, and defeateth his endeavours for his edification, disparaging a good cause, prejudicing the defence of truth, obstructing the effects of good instruction and wholesome reproof; as we did before remark ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... in the street. What an attitude each assumes towards the other! What disparaging looks! What contempt they throw into each glance! How they toss their heads while they inspect each other to find something to condemn! And, if the footpath is narrow, do you think one woman would make room for another, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... heard of her, she has a mind of her own. You will not be able to force her into a marriage that doesn't appeal to her, and you may be quite sure, Mr. Blithers, that you can't force me into one. I do not want you to feel that I have a single disparaging thought concerning Miss Blithers. It is possible that I could fall in love with her inside of a week, or even sooner. But I don't intend to, Mr. Blithers, any more than she intends to fall in love with me. You ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... his favourite place of rest. His head half covered with the famous red bandana; his boots off, and a pair of dirty worsted stockings exposed to view, he twiddled his thumbs, and through half-closed eyes cast a disparaging glance at the young member of the Gallery who had not yet patronised either his whisky or his ham; then, with a grunt, he would wake up and begin to speak. "I hope, sir, that you are intellectual enough to appreciate the grandeur ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... for although she felt justified in saying a sharp word herself, she could ill brook the idea of any one disparaging or thinking lightly of her invalid sister. Nellie gave a slight nod of assent, which seemed to signify approval of Aunt Debby's words. Nevertheless she retained her own opinion, and mentally condemned poor Miss Margaret as being both ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... while Hawthorne was in Rome, he became acquainted with a sculptor named Mosier, who gave him a most disparaging account of Margaret Fuller's marriage to Count D'Ossoli. This informant said that the D'Ossoli family, though pretending to be noble, actually lived like peasants; that the count's brother had for some years been a servant to a gentleman he knew of; that the count himself was an exceedingly ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... he is, in fact, a kind of inferior executioner employed by the county court. But the word "lawyer" (homme de loi) is a depreciatory term applied to the legal profession. Consuming professional jealousy finds similar disparaging epithets for fellow-travelers in every walk of life, and every calling has its special insult. The scorn flung into the words homme de loi, homme de lettres, is wanting in the plural form, which may be used without offence; but in Paris every profession, learned ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... was carried on by Rachel giving copious and disparaging information concerning the "Yankees," and the Lieutenant listening in admiration to the musical accents, interrupting but rarely to interject a question or a favorable comment. He was as little critical as ardent young men are apt to be of the statements ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... fellows that raise such reports against the English navy, that frighten the poor fellows so; they hear of men being flogged until they die under the lash, and all the lies that can be invented. Not that the masters of the merchant vessels are at all backward in disparaging the service, but threaten to send a man on board a man-of-war for a punishment, if he behaves ill—that itself is enough to raise a prejudice against the service. Now, sir, I can safely swear that there is more cruelty and oppression—more ill-treatment ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... A pig from the herd of Epicurus. The old philosophers accepted good-humouredly the disparaging terms attached to them by their enemies or rivals. The Epicureans acquiesced in the pig, the Cynics in the dog, and Cleanthes was content to be called the Ass of Zeno, as being alone capable of bearing the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Baron saw Lucien, and favored him with a cool, disparaging little nod, indicative to men of the world of the recipient's inferior station. A sardonic expression accompanied the greeting, "How does he come here?" he seemed to say. This was not lost on those who saw it; for de Marsay leaned towards Montriveau, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... ta legs for ta kilt," grumbled Long Shon, who was behind; and Max partly caught his words, and felt a curious sensation of annoyance at the disparaging remark. ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... escape from Coventry; and to gain the favour of old Hazlewood, who was a leading man in the county, was of more importance still. Lastly, if he should succeed in discovering, apprehending, and convicting the culprits, he would have the satisfaction of mortifying, and in some degree disparaging, Mac-Morlan, to whom, as Sheriff-substitute of the county, this sort of investigation properly belonged, and who would certainly suffer in public opinion should the voluntary exertions of Glossin be more ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... upon the ground. The art was presently taken up by the leading men in Crete, who by dint of practice became admirable dancers; and this applies not only to private persons, but to men of the first eminence, and of royal blood. Thus Homer, when he calls Meriones a dancer, is not disparaging him, but paying him a compliment: his dancing fame, it seems, had spread not only throughout the Greek world, but even into the camp of his enemies, the Trojans, who would observe, no doubt, on the field of battle that agility and grace ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... was anything more than diverted with Harry's company; Philip could not determine. He scorned at any rate to advance his own interest by any disparaging communications about Harry, both because he could not help liking the fellow himself, and because he may have known that he could not more surely create a sympathy for him in Ruth's mind. That Ruth was in no danger of any serious impression ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... by the stem, and dipped it in the sugar, but with a disparaging look. It was large and juicy, and possessed a rich flavor and an aromatic odor which French strawberries can seldom boast; but the countess would not have admitted the superiority even of American fruit over that of her own country, and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... supports first one Signorina and then the other with the strictest impartiality, and finally dances with both together, to show that he makes no distinctions and has no serious intentions. All this time Louis has been getting more and more restless; now and then he makes some remark, evidently disparaging, to the Queen, who receives it coldly. But at last he can't stand it any longer. "Call this dancing! I'll show 'em how to dance!" his look says. "Where's LOUISE?" And he gets up, pulls himself together, and invites her to come and dance a minuet. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various |
