"Scoff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... escape from his controul or management; his word was esteemed in the council as the word of wisdom; his warning of danger was regarded as the cry of the owl. Never did he mock the wretched, or laugh, or scoff at the insane; he was always respectful to the aged; and he daily cried to the Master of Life, from the high grounds, with clay spread thick upon his hair, and at every successful hunt offered, to the same Great Judge ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... never seemed to the eye more peaceful than on a certain November evening in the year 1591: and this although many a one within its walls resented the fineness of the night as a mockery, as a scoff alike at the pain of some and the fury ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... promises you that his precepts will lead you to happiness, though he uses neither flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... begin, dear love, where we left off; Tie up the broken threads of that old dream, And go on happy as before, and seem Lovers again, though all the world may scoff. ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... whispered aside in her delicate ear, A sentence of warning,—it might be of fear: "Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life." (Nothing more,—such advice might be given your wife Or your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough, Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.) But hark to the music: the dance has begun. The closely-draped windows wide open are flung; The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light, Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night. Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly; Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... more than decorate the assembly with his good-tempered smile, was a most necessary feature of it, and Dick Tryon was more often than not to be found there also, though whether he came to scoff or bless, no one was quite certain. His position in the circle of Mrs. Hading's satellites had never been clearly defined. He was supposed by some people to be hopelessly in love with Gay Liscannon, and that supposition alone was enough to make Marice Hading anxious to attach ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... events: The best is Christmas day, But every holiday presents Its special round of play, And looking back on boyhood now And all the charms it knew, One day, above the rest, somehow, Seems brightest in review. That day was finest, I believe; Though many grown-ups scoff, When mother said that we could leave ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... concerning Life and its obligations. They were often startling, particularly as she made no secret of the fact that she and her husband never "got on." Between puffs of cigarette smoke she would scoff at the laws of marriage and speak with much leniency of divorce. Her sympathies were invariably with offenders, and Joyce thought her rather too fond of the society of men. Meredith feared and disliked her. The fear was on his wife's account, lest she should be contaminated. "I have ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... and power passed over for a nameless, haunted, dumb thing, a stray from some other world into a world of men, women, and the children they rear to follow them. She scorned Mabilla for flinching so much, she scorned her for not flinching more. That Mabilla could be desirable to Andrew King made her scoff; that Andrew King should not know her dangerous kept her awake ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... sometimes with great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs Winterfield. No woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious ideas of her duty as a woman than Mrs Winterfield of Prospect Place, Perivale. And this, as I say it, is intended to convey no scoff against that excellent lady. She was an excellent lady unselfish, given to self-restraint, generous, pious, looking to find in her religion a safe path through life a path as safe as the facts of Adam's fall would allow her feet to find. She was ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... such pranks to draw people who scoff? It is They to whose critical words you are deaf. Though in your country you are not a prophet, is This how you make one, that's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... a [glass] [howl], and a [toast] [scoff], and a [cheer] [sneer], For all [the good wine, and we've some of it here] [strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer] In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, [Long live the gay servant that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and Cassander, taking upon himself the command, had found a letter of Demades's, formerly written by him to Antigonus in Asia, recommending him to come and possess himself of the empire of Greece and Macedon, now hanging, he said, (a scoff at Antipater,) "by an old and rotten thread." So when Cassander saw him come, he seized him; and first brought out the son and killed him so close before his face, that the blood ran all over his clothes and person, and then, after ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... pondering on the frailty Of happiness, hope, and mirth, The ascending sun with derisive scoff Hurled its golden lances and smote me off From the bulge ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... got nearly beside yourself with fright and anger, and said it was the devil. And now for the third time the same sort of thing has happened. What is the good of telling you about it? You'd only scoff and jeer as you did before, although on this occasion it is your own life that ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... how now, saucy Jade; Sure the Wench is tipsy! How can you see me made [To him. The Scoff of such a Gipsy? Saucy ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... to take the risks, and remain chief of the guard yourself?" she said with an angry scoff. "Truly there did not seem to be many thrusting forward to strip you of the office. I shall have a fine sorting up of places in payment for this night's work. But for the present, Tarca, do ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... you any where, There's no respect of persons there; Then comes the Coffee-man to greet you, With welcome Sir, let me entreat you, To tell me what you'l please to have, For I'm your humble, humble slave; But if you ask, what good does Coffee? He'l answer, Sir, don't think I scoff yee, If I affirm there's no disease Men have that drink it ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... somewhat, although I have been at pains to cut out extraneous matter. It is also true that many will not believe him in these days, for out of their puny volition they will analyze, and out of their discontent they will scoff. But to those I say, Go to your microbes, your statistics, your volts, and your bicycles, and leave me the ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... Italy as elsewhere. Let it burn. The cross, accounted still adorable, Is Christ's cross only!—if the thief's would earn Some stealthy genuflexions, we rebel; And here the impenitent thief's has had its turn, As God knows; and the people on their knees Scoff and toss back the crosiers stretched like yokes To press their heads down lower by degrees. So Italy, by means of these last strokes, Escapes the danger which preceded these, Of leaving captured hands in cloven oaks,— Of leaving very souls within the buckle Whence bodies struggled ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... damsel turning right, "And what say you, my noble lord ?" quoth she. He taunting said, "I that am slow to fight Will follow far behind, the worth to see Of this your terrible and puissant knight," In scornful words this bitter scoff gave he. "Good reason," quoth the king, "thou come behind, Nor e'er compare thee ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... a man with frozen feet Came to the marble halls of state, And told his mission but to meet The chill of scorn, the scoff of hate. "Is Oregon worth saving?" asked The treaty-makers from the coast; And him the Church with questions tasked, And said, "Why did you leave your post?" Was it for this that he had braved The warring storms of ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... am I? The victim of infidelity and you, the bearer of a cursed existence, the scoff and scorn of the world, the monument of a broken vow and a guilty life, a being scourged by the scorpion lash of conscience, blasted by periodical insanity, pelted by the winter's storm, scorched by the summer's heat, withered by starvation, hated by man, and touched into my ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... with Mammon of Unrighteousness, among the magistrates of the Gentiles, and among their mighty men; and it shall come to pass that Darsie Latimer shall be delivered, even if it were at the expense of half my substance." And I said, "Nay, my brother, go not, for they will but scoff at and revile thee; but hire with thy silver one of the scribes, who are eager as hunters in pursuing their prey, and he shall free Darsie Latimer from the men of violence by his cunning, and thy soul shall be guiltless of evil towards the lad." But he answered and said, "I will not ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... hearer lives over again the finely shaded mood of the poet. Take the words of a lyric for what they say, and they say nothing most of the time. And that is true of philosophers. You must penetrate the ponderous vocabulary, the professional cant to the insight beneath or you scoff at the mountain ranges of words and phrases. It is this that Bergson means when he tells us that a philosopher's intuition always outlasts his system. Unless you get at that you remain forever ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... be sure thou dost not invite wild Lemminkainen.' At this the servant asked why she was not to ask Lemminkainen, and Louhi answered: 'Lemminkainen must not come, for he loves war and strife, and would bring disturbance and sorrow to our feast, and scoff at our maidens.' ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... where a portion of our citizens, though not all, are commissioned with the rest, Heaven blesses, and Fortune aids the struggle: but where you send out a general and an empty decree and hopes from the hustings, nothing that you desire is done; your enemies scoff, and your allies die for fear of such an armament. For it is impossible—ay, impossible, for one man to execute all your wishes: to promise, [Footnote: Chares is particularly alluded to. The "promises of Chares" passed into a proverb.] and assert, and accuse ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... on and ceased to scoff. Money is a great dignifier, and Jim and 'Lias were making money. There had been some sniffs when the latter had hinged the front gate and whitewashed his mother's cabin, but even that had been accepted now as a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... which is by plain institution ... a qualification, of the communicants. Now these think it not enough to charge the churches, which require & expect such accounts, with exceedingly provoking the Lord. But of the tears dropt by holy souls on those occasions, they say with a scoff, 'whether they be for joy or grief, we are left in the dark.'" [Footnote: Collection of Some of the More Offensive Matters, p. 6.] But the suffering divines found peace in knowing that Christ himself would inflict the punishment ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... with him by laughing at him and trying to cover him with ridicule. But in his presence those who come to scoff remain to pray. Such men really ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... my Lord Prince, your Highness is young. When you are as old as I am, you will not scoff at Ceremony. This is the pleasantest day that I have spent since your Highness's wedding-day. I thank you greatly, and will do my best, ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... becoming matter not only of emotional intuition, but established scientific fact: and no modern sociologist, no psychologist who realizes how unknown in origin and how intimate in interpenetration are the forces that control our destiny, can afford to scoff at her. She had longed inexpressibly for outward martyrdom. This was not for her, yet none the less really did she lay down her life on the Altar of Sacrifice. The evils of the time, and above all of the Church, ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society—"a beautiful book," says the reviewer, "full of wisdom and devotion—of poetry and feeling; conceived altogether in the spirit of other times, such as the wise men of our own day may scoff at, but such as Evelyn, or Isaak Walton, or Herbert would have delighted to honour." The work is in general too polemical and political for our pages; but we may hereafter be tempted to carve out a few pastoral pictures of the delightful country ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... us believe, that the world is made in a certain fashion. You have deceived us. It is much uglier, more dull, dirtier, sadder and harder, at least in our opinion and to our imagination: you judge us as overexcited and disordered; if so, it is your fault. For this reason, we curse and scoff at your world and reject your pretended truths which, for us, are lies, including those elementary and primordial verities which you declare are evident to common sense, and on which you base your laws, your institutions, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... find a whole new world of those who despise the honours and prizes of the commercial machine, and who care not for the shows, diversions, pleasures, and gambles provided for commercial slaves. But it will not cause those of that world to falter if the great multitude of their fellow-men scoff at them or think that they ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... misfortunes of many. True, you have lessened our taxes to the public; but, too, you have increased those to ourselves;—prosecutions, protests, and failures are no blessing to a community. And you dare scoff at the man in his grave whom the whole parish blesses! You dare say he lies in our way,—yes, very likely he lies in your way. This is plainly to be seen; but over this grave you shall fall! The spirit which has reigned over you, and at the same ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... But who, fifty years ago, could have imagined that to-day women would be steadily monopolizing learning, teaching, literature, the fine arts, music, the church and the theater? And yet that is the condition at which we have arrived. We may scoff at the way women are doing the work, and reject the product, but that does not alter the fact that step by step women are taking over the field of liberal culture as opposed to the field of ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... stupidity of these open and generous people, they get on better than the 'fellow of some soul' And this, though he is not particularly eager to get on, wounds his pride. Goodness therefore annoys him. He is always ready to scoff at it, and would like to strike at it. In ordinary circumstances these feelings of irritation are not vivid in Iago—no feeling is so—but ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... black shaggy brows tremendously ferocious; and his curses, as they rolled up half smothered from his huge chest, were deeper and more diabolical by far than their own. He even jeered at them; but, however disgusting his frown, there was something truly apalling in the dark gleam of his scoff, which threw them at an immeasurable distance behind him, in the power of displaying on the countenance ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Jewish Letters, published at Newcastle in 1746. (The Dublin edition of 1753 I have not seen.) Though d'Argens's purpose in Letter 35 may have been to advertise his own novel, what he had to say is interesting. Like many others, he could scoff at the heroic romances and yet borrow and quietly modify the doctrines of Ibrahim and Clelie. He proposed a still more "advanced" vraisemblance and decorum—psychological analysis tinged with cynicism ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... Anstice would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... figurehead never came together, and the old wood-carver left it to his daughter, in lieu of other property. It has not been wholly unproductive, Mrs. Bruce fancies, for the casual passers-by, like those who came to scoff and remained to pray, go into the shop to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy chops out ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Shantung question in Europe was of much less significance. The eyes of every small nation of Europe were upon Fiume, which was regarded as the touchstone of Allied professions of justice. If the Allied leaders permitted Italy to take Fiume, the small nations would scoff at all further professions of idealism; they would take no further interest either in the Conference or its League. Whereas, on the other hand, the small nationalities of Europe knew and cared little about the justice ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... age.[835] Catullus wrote of death as "nox perpetua dormienda"; Lucretius, of course, gloried in the thought that there is no life beyond. In the following century the learned Pliny could write of death as the relapsing into the same nothingness as before we were born, and could scoff at the absurdities of the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... notice how men are invading our precincts now-a-days. They used to scoff at such a meal as afternoon tea, and now most of them take it as regularly as they stream out of the trains on Saturday afternoons with pink papers under their arms—such elevating literature! Indeed there is quite a fuss ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... "Do not scoff at Robak," he said; "I know him; he is a clever priest. That little worm130 has gnawed a larger nut than you; I have seen him but once, but as soon as I set eyes on him I noticed what sort of bird he was; the Monk turned away his eyes, fearing that I might summon him to ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... approached, and still the traitor allowed him to suffer. And there was the hate and scorn of man, the clamor for vengeance from society, the condemnation of the jury who had prejudged his case, the sneer of the paid advocate, the scoff of the gaping crowd, to whom the plea of noblesse oblige and stainless honor and perfect truth seemed only maudlin ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must feel about it very much as we do, and those who came to scoff, if they did not exactly remain to pray, at least left the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking, and, perhaps to their own surprise, of respect for ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... some cause to complain; but alas, slander, calumny, and disgrace, are no other way injurious than as they are interpreted; nor otherwise evil, than as they are thought to be so: what harm is it then if all persons deride and scoff you, if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be yourself thoroughly conceited of your deserts? And prithee, why should it be thought any scandal to be a fool, since the being so is one part of our nature and essence; and as so, our not ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... of us are asking, "What is the way out?" As for myself, I confess to being only a student. I have no word of sneer or scoff for any mail's honest thinking, who is sincerely trying to uplift his brothers and sisters; and yet I must say that, as yet, I have not been able to become a disciple of any of the new systems that have been presented. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... tried spreading plastic wax where the beasts would walk on it, in pathways or before dens. How they did scoff! The simplest ground squirrel knew too much to venture on my waxen snare; around 'it, or if hemmed in, over it, with a mighty bound they went; but never a track ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Goldsmith's "travelling over one's mind," with power to travel no farther. Browning, too, had been "found out by Society"; was the guest at noble houses, and I suppose became somewhat lofty in his views. No one could scoff so loudly and violently as could Forster, at what is called snobbishness, "toadying the great"; though it was a little weakness of his own, and is indeed of everybody. However, on some recent visit, ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... who scoff at such emotions, without endeavouring to understand them, would do well to remember that whatever truth there is in the dogma of the immorality of the soul, is dependant upon this proposition, that time, ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dark Redan, in silent scoff, Lay, grim and threatening, under; And the tawny mound of the Malakoff ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... until at last it became something quite different from the original paradox, and full of truth and wisdom. But when such a paradox went off in a letter, there it remained unqualified; and they who, not having known him, scoff at his friends who claim for him the honours of a great critic, seem to ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... father!" Iskender blurted out the truth at last. "I know not how my patron would regard it. On him I depend entirely for the present. I have heard him scoff at all who change the faith that they were born in. Wait a little, I beseech thee, until ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... in his society, and I can say, as many others have said, that William, since the day of his conversion, was never heard to utter an unkind word about any one, or do anything that could give the enemies of the Lord Jesus an opportunity to scoff at his profession of loving the Lord with all his heart. He was never a very strong man physically while we knew him, and so was unable to go on the long tripping or hunting expeditions with him more vigorous comrades. He suffered much from inward ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... is. What right have I to judge others severely, do you suppose, when I must ask for indulgency myself? Or have you forgotten that I am a laughing stock to everyone, who is not too indifferent even to scoff?... By the way," he added, "did you keep ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... thy blessed teachings, but when man's promises prove false, and the head bows before the endless strife, and woes overwhelm us like a flood, there is relief, there is light, there is life in Thee. The wicked may jeer, the learned may scoff, the powerful may despise, the favored may turn away, but there comes the time when learning, gifts, wealth, power, beauty and all the world can give turn to ashes, and they have no boon compared to Thine. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The pampered monarch, the dying ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... rather, we should say, in the capital, for of that we speak,) are unaffectedly so, for they have no worldly benefit to hope for from their piety; the great majority have no religion at all, and do not scoff at the few, for scoffing is the minority's weapon, and is passed always to the weaker side, whatever that may be. Thus H. B. caricatures the Ministers: if by any accident that body of men should be dismissed from their ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mind occupies itself with sneering, carping, and fault-finding; and is ready to scoff at everything but impudent effrontery or successful vice. The greatest consolation of such persons are the defects of men of character. "If the wise erred not," says George Herbert, "it would go hard with fools." Yet, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... store; and, if so——, but I cannot trust myself with such anticipations. I am well aware how little the world sympathises with the man whose fortunes are the sport of his temperament—that April-day frame of mind is ever the jest and scoff of those hardier and sterner natures, who, if never overjoyed by success, are never much depressed by failure. That I have been cast in the former mould, these Confessions have, alas! plainly proved; but that I regret it, I fear also, for my character ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the power of wealth, that it commands the ear of greatness and the eye of beauty, gives spirit to the dull, and authority to the timorous, and leaves him from whom it departs, without virtue and without understanding, the sport of caprice, the scoff of insolence, the slave of meanness, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... flung the linen napkin on the floor, and, dropping the hand which had shaded his face, turned to La Mothe with what seemed a challenge in his eyes, almost a defiance: it was as if he said, Scoff if you dare! And yet in the little heap of interwoven, fine steel rings there was nothing to move either laughter or contempt, and if the quaint velvet mask which lay beside the coat of mail was effeminate in the tinsel of its ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... was equivalent to reducing the former wages of their labour, or of the produce of their land—the effects of which were speedily felt and comprehended by them, although some of the officials, who imposed it, might scoff at the causes they assigned, and reiterate their crude and erroneous notions of political economy, to prove that it could not affect them, but must be paid by the great merchants, or by the consumers of their produce in Europe. They quite forgot that these could be supplied with the ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... with some asperity, "Sir Knight, we have in this land of Scotland an ancient saying, 'Scorn not the bush that bields you'—you are a guest of my father's house to shelter you from danger, if I am rightly informed by the domestics. Scoff not its homeliness, nor that of its inmates—ye might long have abidden at the court of England, ere we had sought your favour, or cumbered you with our society. Since your fate has sent you hither amongst us, be contented with such fare and such converse as we can afford you, and scorn ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... was feeling too deeply to be conscious of the rudeness in the scoff. "So you figure it out like that—do you? And you get some satisfaction out of that way of looking at it? The scheme of things is very fine, but he must pay the penalty of his own oversight, weakness—carelessness—whatever you choose to call it. Well, I don't ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... felt at the recollection. "I admit that it was a very striking scene. It was very good," I added, religiously, referring to the corn. Mr. Rollin ought to know, I thought, that I had come to Wallencamp on a mission, and that if he wished to scoff at the ways of its defenceless inhabitants, he shouldn't look to find a confidante ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... last, with strange gentleness, "insult me, scoff at me, overwhelm me with scorn! but come, come. Let us make haste. It is to be to-morrow, I tell you. The gibbet on the Greve, you know it? it stands always ready. It is horrible! to see you ride in that tumbrel! Oh mercy! Until ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... at ten o'clock—encamped to our joy—so here we are with "piled arms," "saddles off," and "horses picketed." As we came into camp we heard once again the Mausers of the snipers afar off. We have rigged up a sun shelter and have just dined, our "scoff" (Kaffir for "grub") being bread and ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... multitudinous changes; in fact, without change, we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we should have no consciousness of living. We have become so accustomed to certain sensations that we are apt to take them, as facts, and scoff at the suggestion that they are non-realities. I propose, however, to show that what we perceive are not Realities, and true conception of our surroundings depends upon the knowledge which we can bring to ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... hand upon her arm "Dear Mabel, this no more shall be; Who scoffs at you must scoff ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... other engaged in active duties. All was done with religious gravity and decorum. If we went out, the make-believe continued even in the street; the two hermits would say the Rosary, using their fingers to count on, so as not to display their devotion before those who might scoff. One day, however, the hermit Therese forgot herself—before eating a cake, given her for lunch, she made a large Sign of the Cross, and some worldly folk did not repress ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... him! no, ma'am, be not afraid;—my father! how shall I meet him? how go back to Lyons? the scoff of the whole city! Cruel, cruel, Claude [in great agitation]. Sir, ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Guly, firmly, drawing back; "I will not drink. However you may scoff, Mr. Clinton, at woman's influence, it is to that I impute my strength to withstand temptation here. My last promise to my mother, was never to become a wine-bibber, and I shall ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... shalt thou change them, said the prophet, And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust; Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it, And the fine gold woven and worn of youth is rust. Hours that wax and wane salute the shade and scoff it, That it knows not aught it doth nor aught it must: Day by day the speeding soul makes haste to doff it, Night by night the pride of life resigns ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... shall look backward with scorn and derision And scoff the old book though it uselessly lies In the dust of the past, while this newer revision Lisps on of a hope and a home in the skies? Shall the voice of the Master be stifled and riven? Shall we hear but a tithe of the words He has said, When so long He has, listening, ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... Chichester was besieged by Waller and taken after ten days. His soldiers, we read, "pulled down the idolatrous images from the Market Cross; they brake down the organ in the Cathedral and dashed the pipes with their pole-axes, crying in scoff, "Harke! how the organs goe"; and after they ran up and down with their swords drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead and hacking the seats and stalls." Indeed, such was their malice that it is wonderful to see ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... at the cadets): Here are the rebels! Ay, Sirs, on all sides I hear that in your ranks you scoff at me; That the Cadets, these loutish, mountain-bred, Poor country squires, and barons of Perigord, Scarce find for me—their Colonel—a disdain Sufficient! call me plotter, wily courtier! It does not please their mightiness to see A point-lace collar on my steel cuirass,— And they enrage, because ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... Her neighbours scoff, and her menace, But saddened friends grieve at her sore disgrace, Love, through their heart, in fervour rills, Each one respects this plaintivest of girls; And many a pitying soul a prayer said, That some great miracle ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... keep our cattle.... Our comic prints do an infinity of harm by their caricatures. Firstly, the caricatures are not true, for the crime in Ireland is not greater than that in England; secondly, they exasperate the people on both sides of the Channel, and they do no good. It is ill to laugh and scoff at a ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Carbajal, to rid himself of the ghostly father's importunity, replied by coolly repeating the words, "Pater Noster," "Ave Maria"! He then remained obstinately silent. He died, as he had lived, with a jest, or rather a scoff, upon his lips.5 ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Antichrist had trodd'n them down, once more Swells forth amid the new-lit paschal lights The "Gloria in Excelsis:" sudden then That mighty conflict ceased, save one low voice Twice heard before, now edged with bitterer scoff, "That race thou lov'st, though fierce in wrath, is soft: Plenty and peace will melt their Faith one day:" Then with that whisper dying, died the night: Then forth from darkness issued earth and sky: Then fled the phantoms far o'er ocean's wave, Thence ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... man!" she exclaimed; "ay, possibly! but would the scorn of any other man so have crushed self-esteem? The injuries of the wicked do not sour us against the good; but the scoff of the good leaves us malignant against virtue itself. Any other man! Tut! Genius is bound to be indulgent. It should know human errors so well—has, with its large luminous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to be human, that, where others may scorn, genius ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who snarl out suchlike dirges, which any laundryman with a little sense would scoff at, think themselves great theologians ... Not that I want the kind of theology which is customary in the schools nowadays consigned to oblivion; I wish it to be rendered more trustworthy and more correct by the accession of the old, true learning. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... could please. Those things would scarce be proper now. But they are gone, I know not how, And woman's written on your brow. Time draws his finger o'er the scene; But I cannot forget between The Thing to me you once have been Each sportive sally, wild escape,— The scoff, the banter, and the jape,— And antics ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... could be forged out of slander and falsehood was used against him by "Liberals", who employed their Christianity as an electioneering dodge to injure a man whose sturdy Radicalism they feared. Over and over again Mr. Bradlaugh was told that he was an "impossible candidate", and gibe and sneer and scoff were flung at the man who had neither ancestors nor wealth to recommend him, who fought his battle with his brain and his tongue, and whose election expenses were paid by hundreds of contributions from poor men and women in every part of the ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... gazed at her much puzzled. He could not divine what her look signified—whether she spoke in earnest or in jest. There were purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... had the patience to accompany me through these pages devoted to Miss Dickinson will surely own, whether in scoff or praise, the essentially American nature of her muse. Her defects are easily paralleled in the annals of English literature; but only in the liberal atmosphere of the New World, comparatively unshadowed by trammels of authority and standards of taste, could they have co-existed with so ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... shrill fanatic upon the platform be a contemptuous jest to my Lady Cavaliere, this fairer lady remembers John clad in goat-skins and crying in the wilderness. I wish, she says, that mankind might sit at a sumptuous table, but I shall not scoff at the wooden spoon that feeds its hunger. She hangs one picture upon her wall: it is Christ sitting at meat with publicans and sinners. And so season after season, year after year, she carries her sympathy, her hope, her steady faith to all the pioneers. She is not a poet, but the world is ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... if so well off He deems himself in worldly goods, That at unseen beatitudes He blindly flings an aimless scoff. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... know and love their business. No human being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable features of the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... and poor, Greeks and barbarians, kings and slaves. And he who boasts of his descent from Amphitryon in the twenty-fifth generation, may, if he pleases, add as many more, and double that again, and our philosopher only laughs at his inability to do a larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff; he seems to them as if he could not mind his feet. 'That is very true, Socrates.' But when he tries to draw the quick-witted lawyer out of his pleas and rejoinders to the contemplation of absolute ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... take a savage delight in gazing on this sad pilgrimage. At the foot of the glacier, which stood out sheer and steep before me, I felt so depressed, and my nerves were so overwrought, that I said I wished to turn back. I was thereupon met by the coarse sarcasm of my guide, who seemed to scoff at my weakness. My consequent anger braced up my nerves, and I prepared myself at once to climb the steep walls of ice as quickly as possible, so that this time it was he who found difficulty in keeping up with me. We accomplished the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... hate into contempt, and perhaps give a touch of pity. 'Behold the man!' as he meant it, was as if he had said, 'Is this poor, bruised, spiritless sufferer worth hate or fear? Does He look like a King or a dangerous enemy?' Pilate for once drops the scoff of calling Him their King, and seeks to conciliate and move to pity. The profound meanings which later ages have delighted to find in his words, however warrantable, are no part of their design as spoken, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... sat with the Gods at their golden tables, I had tasted of all earth's bliss, "both living and loving!" But now Paradise barred its doors against me; I was driven from her presence, where rosy blushes and delicious sighs and all soft wishes dwelt, the outcast of nature and the scoff of love! I thought of the time when I was a little happy careless child, of my father's house, of my early lessons, of my brother's picture of me when a boy, of all that had since happened to me, and of the waste of years to come—I stopped, faultered, and was going to turn back once more to make ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... when Chilvers was extolled, stung him so keenly that he rushed into any distraction to elude the thought. When he was suffering shame under the gaze of Buckland Warricombe he remembered Chilvers, and shrank as before a merited scoff. But the sensation had not been abiding enough to affect his conduct. He had said to himself that he should never come in contact with the fellow, and that, after all, community of religious profession meant no more, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... early thoughtless judgments must be overcome by a counter-resistance to itself, in a better audience slowly mustering against the first. Forty and seven years it is since William Wordsworth first appeared as an author. Twenty of these years he was the scoff of the world, and his poetry a by-word of scorn. Since then, and more than once, senates have rung with acclamations to the ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... we fear not scoff or smile At meek attire of blue and grey, For the proud wrath that thrills our isle Gives faith and force to ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... fought several tough fights with certain lads who had dared to scoff at his red hair. Sam Jefferson, who lived down on the quay, still bore the marks of one such battle in the absence of two front teeth. But he did not take affront from womenkind. He looked over their heads, and went his way in ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... those without imagination—scoff at the idea that love can be born in a moment, but such is often the case, for all their ill-advised jibes. A man may be brought into contact with the loveliest and most brilliant of women, yet remain ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... we were painted"?—Faith, no word of black was said; The lightest touch was human blood, and that, ye know, runs red. It's sticking to your fist today for all your sneer and scoff, And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... of satisfaction to the board of directors that presided over Bostock's. It was a record Christmas for Bostock's. The electric cars were thundering over the frozen streets of all the Five Towns to bring customers to Bostock's. Children dreamt of Bostock's. Fathers went to scoff and remained to pay. Brunt's was not exactly alarmed, for nothing could alarm Brunt's; but there was just a sort of suspicion of something in the air at Brunt's that did not make for odious self-conceit. People seemed to become intoxicated when they went into ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... can tell how hard it is to climb The steep, where Fame's proud temple shines afar! Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And waged with Fortune an eternal war! Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, And Poverty's unconquerable bar, In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... foolish and vain thing to scoff at business and those who do it in the market places, and to shout out the old war cries of our fathers, in the face of a generation which sings the song of capital, or groans in heavy labour beneath the banners of their copyrighted trade marks; and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... all! caps off! Old Blue-light's going to pray. Strangle the fool that dares to scoff! Attention! 'tis his way! Appealing from his native sod In forma pauperis to God; "Lay bare Thine arm—stretch forth Thy rod! Amen!" That's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... illiterate as his accent and his general air of uncouthness seemed to imply. In his speech, the broad vowels of the Lancashire dialect were grafted on to the clipped staccato of a Cockney. He would scoff at anyone who told him that knives and forks had precise uses, or that table-napkins were not meant to be tucked under the chin. In England, especially in the provinces, some men of affairs cultivate these minor defects, deeming ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... something to scoff, I'm starvin'," groaned Nippers, "but we'll hafta lay low till the bloody tub pulls out or we'll get caught ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Free Gold Mining Company, his objection was likely to be based on substantial grounds. But then, as Brooks had observed, or, rather, inferred, Bill was not exactly an expert on finance, and this new deal savored of pure finance—a term which she had heard Bill scoff at more than once. At any rate, she hoped nothing ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the cup They felt themselves tangled and caught, as when the net cometh up Before the folk of the firth, and the main sea lieth far off; And the laughter of lips they hearkened, and that hall-abider's scoff, As his face and his mocking eyes anigh to their faces drew, And their godhead was caught in the net, and no shift of creation they knew To escape from their man-like bodies; so great that day was ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... and high, So noble was his manly front, So calm his steadfast eye,— The rabble rout forbore to shout, And each man held his breath, For well they knew the hero's soul Was face to face with death. And then a mournful shudder Through all the people crept, And some that came to scoff at him Now turned aside ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... wooden spoons must needs apply the old ethics, even against the new teachers themselves. Every truth has to fight for recognition, to prove itself not a lie. The brilliant and impatient young men who scoff at conventions because the people who hold them are unreal—not persons, feeling and passing moral truths through their own soul, but parrots—forget that just because the people are unreal, their maxims are real; that they do not ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... railer may say of the mighty science, in which, by Heaven's blessing, I have advanced so far that I would not call the wisest of living artists my better or my teacher—I say, howsoever yonder reprobate may scoff at things too holy to be apprehended by men merely of carnal and evil thoughts, yet believe that the city beheld by St. John, in that bright vision of the Christian Apocalypse, that new Jerusalem, of which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... proved to the world's satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it are liars, how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can believe, and venerate, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... a baffled, angry, selfish man, at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The one word was—she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. She can rely on ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... old, Pierrot, But I do not laugh As in harlequinade You totter down the path. Now you are old, Pierrot, And drool to your guitar, I do not cast you off. Though your love songs are as feeble as a winter fly's I do not scoff. Exultant I cast back on you What you gave me, And bind you with the unasked love That has ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... genius, we must try to recognize, both what is still imperfect, and what is grandly and unwontedly successful. There is no great work of art, not excepting even the Iliad or the Parthenon, which is not open, especially in point of ornament, to the scoff of the scoffer, or to the injustice of those who do not mind being unjust. But all art belongs to man; and man, even when he is greatest, is ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... in her own Epilogue when she speaks of 'fat Cardinals, Pope Joans, and Fryers'; and Lord Falkland's scoff in his Prologue to Otway's The Soldier's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... When the wondrous tale was ended, Looking round upon his listeners, Solemnly Iagoo added: "There are great men, I have known such, Whom their people understand not, Whom they even make a jest of, Scoff and jeer at in derision. From the story of Osseo Let us learn the fate ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev |
