"Slightingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... previous season he had studied very hard at the military school on the Hudson which he often referred to slightingly as "the barracks," and as a reward for the flattering reports sent home by his teachers, had been promised a long vacation in the Adirondacks with a schoolmate who lived in the northern portion of ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... implements with nicer discrimination among the meats. Not once have I been forced to stir my after-dinner coffee with a soup spoon. And yet I look back on these grand occasions with contentment chiefly because they are past. I am in whole agreement with Cleopatra when she spoke slightingly of her salad days—surely a fashionable afternoon affair at a castle on the river Nile—when, as she confessed, she was ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... towards those learned scholars whose labours will help you, Gentlemen, to enjoy it afterwards in other ways and from other aspects; since I hold there is no surer sign of intellectual ill-breeding than to speak, even to feel, slightingly of any knowledge oneself does not happen to possess. Still less do I aim to persuade you that anyone should be able to earn a Cambridge degree by the process (to borrow Macaulay's phrase) of reading our great authors 'with ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... trust, to explain what I do not mean. My very last intention is to speak slightingly of devoted work and self-sacrificing endeavours, whether or no they take the line which most approves itself to me. A faineant in the English Ministry to-day is something worse than even a cumberer of the ground; he is, I dare to say, like a upas upon it, blighting where ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... very learned men, when I have brought them their own papers back from him, with his alterations, who ever contest his amendments to have bin very material. And I once by his commandment brought him a paper of my own to read, to see, whether it was suitable unto his directions, and he disallow'd it slightingly: I desir'd him, I might call Doctor Sanderson to aid me, and that the Doctor might understand his own meaning from himselfe; and with his Majestie's leave, I brought him, whilst he was walking, and taking the aire; whereupon wee two went back; ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... Mrs. Shelley, of which she herself speaks slightingly as a poor performance, was noticed about the time of its publication as an interesting and truthful piece of writing by an authority on the subject. Mrs. Shelley's very modest and retiring disposition gave her little confidence in herself, and she seems to have met, with ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... One should not speak slightingly of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, though it comes upon one who journeys from the north, as a thing apart from anything he has met before; so much so that he is hardly likely to be able to judge it dispassionately until he has ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... prefects and all self-respecting members of the upper and middle schools have tea in their studies, Frank was accustomed to eat tinned lobsters and sometimes tinned salmon, but he knew that superiority to such forms of food was one of the marks of a grown man. He hoped, by speaking slightingly of the Californian peaches, to impress Priscilla with the idea that he was a sort of uncle of hers. The luncheon was involving him in considerable expense, but he did not grudge the money if it produced the effect he desired. Unfortunately ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... sixty-eight, Rodney sixty-three, at the moment of testing. The one lost the support of the man—Curtis—upon whom he must chiefly rely for observation and execution; the other was urged in vain by the officer who held the same relation to him. Nelson once spoke slightingly of "a Lord Howe's victory, take a part, and retire into port;" as a trait of official character, however, Howe's purpose was far in advance of Rodney's, as this was viewed by Nelson's ideal admiral, Hood. It is now known, by a letter of Nelson's very recently published, that he held ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... or not Millet was technically a master of his trade, as if the methods that produced them could possibly be anything but good methods for the purpose; but it is still too much the fashion to say and think that the great artist was a poor painter—to speak slightingly of his accomplishment in oil-painting and to seem to prefer his drawings and pastels to his pictures. We have seen that he was a supremely able technician in his pot-boiling days and that the color and handling of his early pictures were greatly admired by so brilliant a virtuoso as Diaz. ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... observed another keeper. "Recollect that Mark Fytton, the butcher, was hanged for speaking slightingly of the Lady Anne Boleyn; and you may share his fate if you ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with a grandeur and force that overpower and disarm resistance. Something of this is to be found in many passages of his sermons; but, in general, both the language and the arguments of them are forced and unnatural. His letters to the nuns are very interesting. Let those who affect to talk slightingly of the devotions of the religious, recollect that the sublime Bossuet bestowed a considerable portion of his time upon them. The same pen that wrote the discourse on universal history, the funeral oration of the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... spoken slightingly of; it matters little. At this day, when the sphere of the Novel is broadening and expanding, when it is beginning to be the serious, impassioned, living form of literary study and social investigation, when ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... into quiet days," said the servant. "Everything depends, my lord, upon the heart of which you speak so slightingly—the heart and, even above that, upon the blood. 'Help is needed there,' cried the kind heart just now, and then the blood did its 'devoir'. The act followed the desire as the sound follows the blow of the hammer, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his hands in his pockets, had strolled in and assisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy spoke these words slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin, and turned up his face ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... tired, reproachful accents from a third voice behind him, "you were reared in the East. I trust you have not formed the pernicious habit of speaking slightingly ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... what does it matter? When the higher qualities of the heart are all that can be desired, the higher notes of the voice are matters of comparative insignificance. Who thinks slightingly of the cocoanut because it is husky? Be- sides (demurely), you are not singing for an engagement (putting her hand in his), ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... her head. "I hope she will improve on acquaintance, but I doubt it. It isn't my principle, my dear, to speak slightingly of any student in my house, but I am certain that this is not the last time I shall have to lay down the law of Wayne Hall ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... contemptible thing to that girl once," he continued, "and I feel that the least I can do to make amends is to refuse to allow her to be spoken of slightingly in my presence." ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... that of the Presbyterian church of Scotland; and their attention to psalmody very great. It has been much the practice of the surrounding townships, as well in Bohemia as in Silesia and Saxony, to speak slightingly of them. But a brief sojourn among them, sufficed to convince me that they were at least as honest as any of those by whom their honesty ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... school, nor till after the publication of his 'Hours of Idleness'. Lord Byron was then at Cambridge; I, in one of the upper forms, at Harrow. In an English theme I happened to quote from the volume, and mention it with praise. It was reported to Byron that I had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself, for the purpose of conciliating the favour of Dr. Butler, the master, who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. Wingfield, who was afterwards Lord Powerscourt, a mutual friend of Byron and myself, disabused him ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... saw standing over me a right goodly youth with a stout cudgel in his hand, who seized me by the habit and threw me at his feet and belaboured me till I was bruised from head to foot. And when I asked him why he used me thus, he answered:—''Tis because thou didst to-day presume to speak slightingly of the celestial charms of Monna Lisetta, whom I love next to God Himself.' Whereupon I asked:—'And who are you?' And he made answer that he was the Angel Gabriel. Then said I:—'O my lord, I pray you pardon me.' Whereto ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of Hazlitt's Shakespearian criticism is no longer open to question. Though Coleridge alluded to them slightingly as out-and-out imitations of Lamb,[84] Hazlitt's dicta on the greatest English genius are equal in depth to Lamb's and far more numerous; and while in profoundness and subtlety they fall short of the remarks of Coleridge himself, they surpass them ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Captain, "if I have expressed myself rudely, pray pardon me: I have heard too much of you to doubt your courage, and I have envied your exploits too often to speak slightingly of your methods. As a matter of fact, disguise would do nothing, and worse than nothing, for a man who speaks Spanish with my Highland accent. I may, perhaps, take a foolish pride in my disadvantage, but," and here he smiled, "so, you remember, did ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... in return; for surely it is not to be expected that the world is to pay in mere expectancy: time enough, in all conscience, when the service has been rendered, or at soonest, when a reasonable ground of hope has been established that it will not be withheld or performed slightingly. Only too much room there is to fear that, if these questions were put and faithfully answered, the ordinary result would be a conviction that the world had used us quite ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... slightingly you put it!" cried Marise under her breath. "She's made herself into one of the rarest and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... upon the time when buzzards, in the guise of carpet-baggers, had battened upon the recumbent form; and spoke slightingly of divers persons of antiquity as compared with various Confederate leaders, whose names were greeted with approving nods and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... was going on. Verily, there were some compensations in diplomacy when it gave a man like my uncle a chance to hold close converse with a man like the First Consul. (And in that I do not intend to speak slightingly of my Uncle Francois, for he was ever in my regard the most admirable of men. Only, it seemed to me then that to be able to talk familiarly with the great Bonaparte was a privilege above ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so slightingly, you had sentiments ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... and the weaving of it, that she thought of the moving forms upon the road beyond the river merely as things that could be depicted in her coloured threads. He took up the Pilgrim's Progress and sate a long while reading it, and smiling as he read; he wondered why so many critics spoke so slightingly of the second part, which seemed to him in some ways almost more beautiful than the first. There was not perhaps quite the same imaginativeness or zest; but there was more instinctive art, because the writer was retracing the same ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Raymond's recent snub, was exceedingly charming to Sabina. He stopped and chatted another five minutes, then mentioned the smoking concert again and so took his departure. Raymond spoke slightingly of him ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... surprising that the memories of the Confederacy come back to me whenever I contemplate the history of the Peloponnesian war, which bulks so largely in all Greek studies. And that is all this paper really means. It belongs to the class of inartistic performances of which Aristotle speaks so slightingly. It has no unity except the accidental unity of person. A Southerner in the Peloponnesian War has no more artistic right to be than A Girl in the Carpathians or A Scholar in Politics, and yet it may serve as a document. But what ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... saw Grant was on the wharf at Nashville, February 26, 1862. He was fresh from his recent achievements, and we looked upon him with interest. He was then only a visitor at Nashville. His quiet, modest demeanor, characteristic of him under all circumstances, led persons to speak of him slightingly, as only a common-looking man who had, by luck, or through others, achieved success. He was then forty years old,(29) below medium height and weight, but of firm build and well proportioned. His head, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... remained a notion. Much to our loss, for myself I prefer his 'Sea- Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast' (in the scarce 'East Anglian,' 1868-69 {81}) to half his translations. For this "poor old Lowestoft sea- slang," as FitzGerald slightingly calls it, illustrates both his strong love of the sea and his own quaint lovable self. One turns over its pages idly, and lights on dozens of entries such ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... because of Marvell's art, and not for love of the sorry reign. We had plague, fire, and the Dutch in the Medway, but we had the couplet; and there were also the measures of those more poetic poets, hitherto called somewhat slightingly the Cavalier poets, who matched the wit of the Puritan with a spirit simpler and ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... and extension of our mental being we shall see the many in the one and the one in the many. Did Sir Isaac think what he was saying when he made his speech about the ocean,—the child and the pebbles, you know? Did he mean to speak slightingly of a pebble? Of a spherical solid which stood sentinel over its compartment of space before the stone that became the pyramids had grown solid, and has watched it until now! A body which knows all the currents of force ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... try and save a poor girl from fatal error. I have devoted the best years of my life to the cause of the poor as against the rich, the down-trodden against the purse-proud. I should not have presumed to speak to you on such a subject had I not heard your name lightly, slightingly used among these very satraps whom Mr. Forrest hails as companions,—comrades. It is to protect you from the misjudgment, the censure of others that I strive to warn you. Pardon me if I recall to you that it was partially, at least, on my recommendation that you were given the position ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... to speak slightingly of anyone, but these world-revolutionaries have no business to be so young. According to my view a professor of anarchy and assassination ought to be a man of middle-age with stiff stubble on his chin. He has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... on June 13, 1797, Lamb says of this Spenserian exercise:—"You speak slightingly. Surely the longer stanzas were pretty tolerable; at least there was one good ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... a bad cause. He looked upwards for a second for two, and then answered, slowly and distinctly, "Captain Pinkem, I now repeat what I said before; this rencontre is none of my seeking. You accuse me of having spoken slightingly of you seven years ago, when I was a mere boy. You have the evidence of a gallant officer that I did so; therefore I may not gainsay it; but of uttering the words imputed to me, I declare, upon my honour, I have ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... falsely call the 'German Theatre' into such deserved contempt in England. Some portion of the gall, due only to these inflated, flimsy, and fantastic persons, appears to have acted on certain critics in estimating this play of Schiller's. August Wilhelm Schlegel speaks slightingly of the work: he says, 'it will hardly move us by its tone of overstrained sensibility, but may well afflict us by the painful impressions which it leaves.' Our own experience has been different from that of Schlegel. In the characters of Louisa ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... found that they had a slender view of his law reading, and spoke slightingly of Ford as a lawyer. They had both diligently studied to the lower depths of the law, had a fair appreciation of their acquisitions, and would not overestimate the few months of solitary reading of a boy ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... on how fast you can walk, sonny. Some men might do it in half or three quarters of an hour: you couldn't." And the man looked down, slightingly, on the ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... he pleaded for the supremacy of order, regularity, law, the voice of MATHURIN REGNIER (1573-1613) was heard on behalf of freedom. A nephew of the poet Desportes, Regnier was loyal to his uncle's fame and to the memory of the Pleiade; if Malherbe spoke slightingly of Desportes, and cast aside the tradition of the school of Ronsard, the retort was speedy and telling against the arrogant reformer, tyrant of words and syllables, all whose achievement amounted to no more than proser de la rime et rimer de la ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... degraded by being employed to produce anything useful. It was with difficulty that he was induced to stoop from speculation to practice. He was half ashamed of those inventions which were the wonder of hostile nations, and always spoke of them slightingly as mere amusements, as trifles in which a mathematician might be suffered to relax his mind after intense application to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... because the means of living are very abundant and easily got, but also, I think, because the government has been wisely managed, the people have not been taught to look toward public charity for relief; and though we Americans, who live in a big country, are apt to think slightingly of what some one called a toy kingdom, any one who has undertaken to manage or organize even a small community at home will recognize the fact that it is ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... and the honor of his home are concerned. It is only the punishment that differs. The Turk, for instance, bowstrings you or tries to, for peeping under his wife's veil; the American shoots you at sight for speaking slightingly of his daughter. Both are right in a way. I am not brutal; I am only just, and I tell you there is only one way of treating a man who has robbed you dishonestly of the woman you love, and that is to finish him so completely that the first man called in will be the undertaker—not the surgeon. I am ...
— Homo - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... morning of her marriage day with his favourite Planxty Kelly at her lips, a natural bubble of the notes. Emma drove down to the cottage to breakfast and superintend her bride's adornment, as to which, Diana had spoken slightingly; as well as of the ceremony, and the institution, and this life itself:—she would be married out of her cottage, a widow, a cottager, a woman under a cloud; yes, a sober person taking at last a right practical ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... there it spread over the whole world, always moving forward and travelling at times favourable to it. For it seemed to move by fixed arrangement, and to tarry for a specified time in each country, casting its blight slightingly upon none, but spreading in either direction right out to the ends of the world, as if fearing lest some corner of the earth might escape it. For it left neither island nor cave nor mountain ridge which had human inhabitants; and ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... Kirby, frowning, for he was not pleased to hear Ranjoor Singh spoken of slightingly. A Jat may be a good enough man, and usually is, but a Sikh is a Jat ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... with unruffled composure, "I have not insulted you as yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends. May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or do you wish me to suppose that an atheist cannot be ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... very agreeably, and I am delighted with the very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the poem,—passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and "does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or rather become blemishes when they mark ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... true state of our finances. They were in such a state that if I left Guernsey with my little income my father would positively find some difficulty in making both ends meet; the more so as I was becoming decidedly the favorite with our patients, who began to call him slightingly the "old doctor." No path opened up for me in any other direction. It appeared as if I were to be bound to the place which was no longer a home ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... in some secret way; some reveal it by defending the sweetheart when she is being "talked about," in many of which cases boys fight most spiritedly for the honor of the one they love. Some never confess,—neither to friends nor to lover. Some boys deny that they are in love and speak slightingly about their sweetheart, but afterwards confess. Then there are the revelations through gifts that are nearly always delivered in some secret manner, in many instances of which the giver leaves no clue that would reveal ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... resemblance of the portrait. The consequence, therefore, was, that as Madame did not openly exhibit any approbation, no one felt authorized to applaud, not even Monsieur, who secretly thought that Saint-Aignan dwelt too much upon the portraits of the shepherdesses, and had somewhat slightingly passed over the portraits of the shepherds. The whole assembly seemed suddenly chilled. Saint-Aignan, who had exhausted his rhetorical skill and his palette of artistic tints in sketching the portrait of Galatea, and who, after the favor with which ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sit down calmly after having been offered the highest honour in the gift of his community! And he had spurned it as if Mr. Blackwood and the others had gratuitously insulted him! And how was it, if my father so revered the Republican Party that he would not suffer it to be mentioned slightingly in his presence, that he had refused contemptuously ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... seeing that Maya listened most respectfully and attentively to the tale of his experiences, became a good deal pleasanter in his manners. And as for Maya's opinion of Puck, although she didn't believe everything he told her, still she was sorry she had thought so slightingly of ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... Kirkbank, with Lady Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire place during the Henley week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta was a kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too proud to riot and batten upon the parvenu's luxurious hospitality, albeit they were apt to talk somewhat slightingly of his antecedents. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Armagnac, and discoursed with Aristide on the seductions of the South. It was there that he longed to retire—to a dainty little hotel of his own with a smart clientele. The clientele of the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse was not to his taste. He spoke slightingly of his guests. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... other hand, who do an injury on purpose, seem to sin from contempt; wherefore we are angry with them most of all. Hence the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 3) that "we are either not angry at all, or not very angry with those who have acted through anger, because they do not seem to have acted slightingly." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... husband held an important official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her own beauty and tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-Saxon society ever drifting in and out of the city. The women disliked her, and copied her. The men spoke slightingly of her to their wives, lightly of her to each other, and made idiots of themselves when they were alone with her. She laughed at them to their faces, and mimicked them behind their backs. Their friends said it ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... best pair of intellectual eyes of our time. But he sometimes made a like mistake as a critic of poetry. He speaks slightingly of Emerson's ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... that he was being spied upon in this manner, and in his conversation with Antigone frequently spoke insolently and slightingly of his sovereign. Alexander, although he had accumulated terrible proofs of treason against Philotas, nevertheless remained silent, either because he felt assured of the loyalty of Parmenio, or because he feared to attack a man of such power ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... dance of evenings—on June 12th they 'set out and proceeded on,' leaving this great and historical fork of the water road on the morning of June 12th, with Sacagawea so very sick that the captains took tender care of her all the trip, though they speak slightingly of Chaboneau, her husband, who seems to have been a bit of a mutt. One of the men has a felon on his hand; another with toothache has taken cold in his jaw; another has a tumor and another a fever. Three canoes came near being lost; and it rained. But they 'proceeded on,' ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... McHale, ejaculated, "if the whole durn creek ain't lowered!" Because he came from a land of real rivers, he invariably referred to the Coldstream thus slightingly. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... Being thus addressed by Hanuman, Bhima proud of the strength of his arms, took him for one wanting in energy and prowess, and thought within himself, 'Taking fast hold of the tail, will I send this monkey destitute of energy and prowess, to the region of Yama.' Thereat, with a smile he slightingly took hold of the tail with his left hand; but could not move that tail of the mighty monkey. Then with both arms he pulled it, resembling the pole reared in honour of Indra. Still the mighty Bhima could not raise the tail with both his arms. And his eye-brows were contracted up, and his eyes rolled, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... crinoline. Poor men. There are so few of you who know even Hebrew; you think it something to boast of if, like Bolingbroke, you only "understand that sort of learning and what is writ about it;" and you are perhaps adoring women who can think slightingly of you in all the Semitic languages successively. But, then, as we are almost invariably told that a heroine has a "beautifully small head," and as her intellect has probably been early invigorated by an attention to costume and deportment, we may conclude that she can pick up the Oriental tongues, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the Chamber. On that I said to him, 'Nonsense; let us come to the point.' The end was that his Excellency told me frankly you were in bad odor with the diocese. In short, I made a few inquiries among my colleagues, and I find that you have been talking slightingly of a certain Abbe Troubert, the vicar-general, but a very important personage in the province, where he represents the Jesuits. I have made myself responsible to the minister for your future conduct. My good nephew, if you want to make your way be careful ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... and decided to practise, although his writing had by now taken on a professional character. He always gave his calling a high place, and the doctors in his works are drawn with affection and understanding. If any one spoke slightingly of doctors in his presence, he would exclaim: "Stop! You don't know what country doctors do ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... the grain to speak slightingly of the knightly, white-headed sea-eagle—a friend and almost a companion; but as any one may see that it fishes not for the sport but for the pot, and that the plunge into the water is a shock that is dreaded, no injustice is done. Some birds—and they ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... very opposite effects upon the Roman Catholics themselves. Cardinal Wiseman manifested some alarm, and endeavoured to appease the popular wrath by directing his emissaries to speak slightingly of the importance of the matter, and to represent it as an ecclesiastical arrangement only of any interest to Roman Catholics themselves. Lord Beaumont, and other members of the Latin church, who were men of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... no more at that time, but he became very thoughtful, while, as for myself, I felt quite ashamed that I had spoken so slightingly of the savages, and had shown so much impatience with their rather disagreeable company; for, to tell the truth, their ways were somewhat offensive, as they never washed their faces, and were altogether rather a ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... his equal. Sue, he informed Madame Hanska, was a man of narrow bourgeois mind, perceiving merely certain insignificant details of the vulgar evils of French contemporary society. To Balzac, besides, it was blasphemy in Sue that he spoke slightingly of the century which to this Legitimist was the grandest epoch in French history, slightingly of Louis XIV., who, in the said Legitimist's opinion, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... it, without at least a reasonable amount of money, a man could not secure any of the things essential to well-being of either body or mind. The moneyless man was a slave so long as he was moneyless. MacRae smiled at those who spoke slightingly of the power of money. He knew they were mistaken. Money was king. No amount of it, cash in hand, would purchase happiness, perhaps, but lack of it made a man fall an easy victim to dire misfortunes. Without money a man was less than the dirt beneath the feet of such as Robbin-Steele and Hurley ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... could talk slightingly of a genuine college professor would speak disrespectfully of the equator or be sassy ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... has long been the custom to pity and despise the ignorance of the alchemists of the middle ages, because they gave the title of "elements" to substances which modern chemistry has discovered to be compounds; but in speaking of them thus slightingly we have done them great injustice, for their knowledge on this subject was really wider, not narrower, than ours. They may or may not have catalogued all the sixty or seventy substances which we now call elements; but ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... past life of their acquaintances, they should have far too much to do. Folks do not trouble themselves as to whether a person has done this or that; the essential thing is to have plenty of money. And if any fool speaks slightingly of you, you can reply: 'I have an income of five hundred thousand francs,' and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... young man, at St. John's College, Oxford, been the originator and chief supporter of a periodical paper called 'The Loiterer,' written somewhat on the plan of the 'Spectator' and its successors, but nearly confined to subjects connected with the University. In after life he used to speak very slightingly of this early work, which he had the better right to do, as, whatever may have been the degree of their merits, the best papers had certainly been written by himself. He was well read in English literature, had a correct taste, and wrote readily ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... lodgings, we walked forth to take a preliminary glimpse of the city, and Mr. Hall, being familiar with the localities, served admirably as a guide. If I remember aright, I spoke very slightingly of the exterior aspect of Oxford, as I saw it with J——- during an hour or two's stay here, on my way to Southampton (to meet S——- on her return from Lisbon). I am bound to say that my impressions ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... soon grew eloquent in praise of the colonial juice, which he declared would, in another twenty years' time, be fit to compete successfully with the best French vintages. Of course, the French gentlemen with us could not stand this; they spoke slightingly of the British colonial, and one of them even went so far as to call it rotgut. I cannot say whether it was the spirit of the uncompromising opinion thus pronounced, or the coarsely indelicate way in which the judgment of our French friend was expressed, that riled our phantom guest—enough, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... high within him, as he attempted to speak slightingly of his own services. "Oh!" said he, "I couldn't do much, you know, for I had only a stick; but of course we red scarfs will always stick to each other. Denot, you know, never was a red scarf Well, thank heaven for that; but I tell you what, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... instinct, is dark. But man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her—calling her capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue. But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be natural to expect ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... manner, with a refinement of contempt which was little less than devilish in its ingenious assumption of the language of pity, she now boldly described Magdalen's appearance in disguise in Magdalen's own presence. She slightingly referred to the master and mistress of Combe-Raven as persons who had always annoyed the elder and more respectable branch of the family; she mourned over the children as following their parents' example, and attempting to take ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... somewhat slightingly of my uncle, and in his dissipation he deserved it, for he was both too honest and too simple to shine in that galaxy of prostituted genius of which Charles II. was the centre. But in retirement he was no longer the same person; and I do not think that the elements ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him; and though I have spoken against him myself, it is for the last time: hereafter, I shall never permit myself to utter a word in his dispraise, however he may seem to deserve it; and whoever ventures to speak slightingly of the man I have promised to love, to honour, and obey, must expect my serious displeasure. After all, I think he is quite as good as Mr. Huntingdon, if not better; and yet you love him, and seem to be happy and contented; and perhaps I may manage as well. You must tell me, if you can, that ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... as these, the world at large has very little charity. It speaks slightingly of them as "agonizers." It believes that they are "fond of making scenes." It regards as an affectation something that is really instinctive and inevitable. Unless such women are beautiful and young and charming they are treated badly; and this is ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Greek, and Latin, but had for sixty years constantly and ardently studied the Scriptures and the works of commentators in the original languages." She did not know Greek, and he probably over-estimated her other acquirements, which Boswell certainly underestimates when he speaks slightingly of them on the strength of Johnson's having said: "It is a great mistake to suppose that she is above him (Thrale) in literary attainments. She is more flippant, but he has ten times her learning: he is a regular scholar; but her learning ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and one laying hold of the bow, and the other the stern, they swung it between them, as two washerwomen might a basket of dirty clothes. I must confess that I was a great deal mortified at seeing my command treated thus slightingly, which mortification was not a little increased by an overture that they kindly made to me, saying, that if I were at all tired, they would, with all the pleasure in the world, carry me in it. I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Leyden with his would-be adversary, calling in turn upon each of his many friends, and obtaining from each, in the presence of his companion, the assurance that Townshend had never been known to speak of Johnstone slightingly or discourteously behind his back. The episode, trivial in itself, gains a kind of gravity by the illustration it affords of Townshend's character all through Townshend's short career. The impossibility of restraining an incorrigible tongue, and the unreadiness to follow out the course of action ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that I should forget that the Assembly Plain is sacred ground. The first time, he spoke lightly of my skill; but I thought that a jest, since it had proved too much for him. The second time, he spoke slightingly of my courage, saying that the reason I did not go in my father's Viking ship this spring was because I was wont to be afraid in battle. Now it had been seen by everybody that I wished to go. I had spent the winter in Normandy, yet I returned by the ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... responded Uraga, in a peal of mocking laughter, mingled with a whine of chagrin, "we shall see about that. Perhaps the senorita may not treat my offer quite so slightingly as yourself. Women are not so superbly stupid. They have a keener comprehension of their own interests. Your sister may better appreciate the honour I am intending her. If not, Heaven help her and you! She will ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... of welcome, that the attendant porter laughed till he held his sides. With Dick's coming, the state of affairs looked up—here, there, and everywhere went the two boys, not always with a string of girls after them, as Dick slightingly expressed it. ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... Westminster, Bishop of Lincoln, and Archbishop of York, exerting himself on Gwyn's behalf. It appears that Williams in after years repented of the choice, and Thomas Baker, the historian of the College, speaks slightingly of Gwyn. Still, under his rule the College flourished, and Williams himself marked the period by providing the greater part of the ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... "Speak not slightingly of gold," cried Olympia, laughing; "it has probably saved my life to-day. Unluckily we are far from the end of our journey, and I may not have enough of this precious gold wherewith to purchase forbearance as ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... was a bitter and most effective speaker. She inflamed to action many a warm-hearted person like myself, like Rossiter (who got into trouble—though it was hushed up—in 1910-1911 for slapping the face of a Secretary of State who spoke slightingly of the women Suffragists and their motives). Yet I seem to be stranded now, with a few others, in my pre-war enthusiasm over the woman's cause, or, later, my horror at ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... East. The old question of disunion arose. If we would have liberty and union forever, railroads would insure them. Douglas had said that if the North should ever be arrayed against the South, the pioneers of the northwest and the southwest would balance the contest. Webster had spoken slightingly of the West which Douglas so greatly loved. And these were Douglas' inspiring and prophetic ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... boy, don't speak slightingly of old Vesuvius. It is one of the great mysteries of the world. To-morrow that mountain may swallow up the whole bay, or it may never wake up again. Respect it; I do. When I recall Herculaneum ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... learning and dullness went hand in hand, and that genius was not to be put in harness. Even in riper years, when the consciousness of his own deficiencies ought to have convinced him of the importance of early study, he speaks slightingly of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... could repeat," added to the fact that she was seen everywhere with a lady whose reputation had been attacked, made men of a certain class feel a sudden interest in her. "Birds of a feather," they maintained; then spoke of her slightingly in public places, and sent ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... twenty-five years. Have I given you license to interfere in my affairs? You astonish me with your impertinence! You amaze me! No man has ever dared to offer me such an insult! I will have you understand, sir, that Mr. Dewey is my husband, and I will allow no one to slightingly refer to him in my presence." She was heaving and grasping the broom pretty firmly. I ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent |
