"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am flattered by your application," said Somerville, with a polite sneer, "since it would seem to place me next in estimation to your husband, I cannot help suggesting that it is not usual to bestow such a sum on a stranger, or even a friend, without an ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... said by somebody in a former debate, (I forget by whom, and am not very anxious to remember,) if the Catholics are emancipated, why not the Jews? If this sentiment was dictated by compassion for the Jews, it might deserve attention, but as a sneer against the Catholic, what is it but the language of Shylock transferred from his daughter's marriage ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... flaunt the fact that we have had all the last books from Germany is simply vulgar; like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last bonnets from Paris. To introduce into philosophical discussions a sneer at a creed's antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady's age. It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion Similarly I find that I have tried in these pages to express the real objection to philanthropists ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... guests, I presume?" he said, insultingly, his lividly lavender-like lip upcurling into a haughty sneer, which was maddening to a ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... have been prone either to sneer indiscriminately at everything foreign, or to undervalue their own country and advantages, and find nothing tolerable which was not the growth of the eastern shore of the Atlantic. These tendencies are now, we think, giving place to a calmer impartiality, a broader and more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... impatiently with a shrug, she went into the nursery. The nurse had been so glad to get back that most of her old hostility toward Ethel had vanished. Still there were signs now and then of a sneer which said, "You'll soon be paying no more attention to this poor bairn than her mother did before you." And it was as well to show the woman how blind and ignorant she was—to ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... to show an undying earnestness in seeking the lost. Then propriety, and reticence, and restraint, and rules of rhetoric will be thrown to the winds, and a divine passion will possess the life. The world may sneer at it as fanaticism, but it is the fanaticism of Pentecost. When the crowd saw the intensity of emotion shown by the newly-anointed disciples, they exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." Here was shown an enthusiasm that leaps over ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... your prejudices will allow, for the very truth's sake:—If I have the most trifling claims upon your good will, for an hour's amusement to yourself, or benefit to your children, read it for my sake:—Read it, if it be merely to find fresh occasion to sneer at the vulgarity of the cause:—Read it, from sheer curiosity to see what a woman (who had much better attend to her household concerns) will say upon such a subject:—Read it, on any terms, and my purpose will ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... goaded Dyan to exasperation. "Quite likely," he retorted, a sneer lurking in his tone. "Plenty of mayonnaise and cream, for all parties. But when we make bold to ask for more satisfying things, we find ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... resembled a death's-head. When you first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me—for I am considered a good artist—and, therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... us, after the southern sporting slang had been brought among us by our neighbour Captain Barclay, as "Pad-the-hoof" and "Flash-the-muzzle[7]" The fox-hunting was on foot, but let no mounted hunter sneer. The haunts of the game were continuous woods and bogs, hard to ride and from which no fox could be forced to break. "Pad-the-hoof" looked no ignoble sportsman as he cheered his great slow-hounds through the thicket, and his halloo rang from ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... that Tom began to talk to her? He had paced on by her side, serious, but not sad. True, he had suspected her; he suspected her still. But that scene with the dying child had been no sham. There, at least, there was nothing to suspect, nothing to sneer at. The calm purity, self-sacrifice, hope, which was contained in it, had softened his world-hardened spirit, and woke up in him feelings which were always pleasant, feelings which the sight of his father, or the writing to his father, could ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... lips suddenly. But he knew perfectly the unspoken words. She was about to suggest that there was too little man in him. He dropped his chin in his hand, partly for comfort and partly to veil the sneer. If she could have followed what he had done ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... in the use of the Alexandrine is that, in attempting to give dignity to his line, the poet may only produce heaviness, incurring the sneer of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... by Sir Charles Russell, who led off with a sneer about my being the most popular man in the county, and, when I adhered to other statements, he added, 'Well, a very popular man. I will not put you on too high a pinnacle.' (Laughter.) Then for an hour and a half he plied me with the best balanced statistical ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... worst of it was she saw and knew just what she was doing. She was aware before he was, and she made him aware, her face turned to look at him, on her lips a mocking, contemplative smile that was almost a superior sneer. It was this that shocked him into consciousness of the orgy his imagination had been playing him. From the wall above her, the stiff portraits of Isaac and Eliza Travers looked down like reproachful spectres. Infuriated, he left the room. He ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... first merely out of sorts with themselves, and vent their spleen in little interjections and contortions of phrase—cry Pish at a lucky hit, and Hem at a fault, are smart on personal defects, and sneer at 'Beauty out of favour and on crutches'—are thrown into an ague-fit by hearing the name of a rival, start back with horror at any approach to their morbid pretensions, like Justice Woodcock with his gouty limbs—rifle the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... less pretty politeness European women have from these Orientals the better!" she said, almost with a sneer. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... A sneer was perpetually upon his face, and malice grinning at his heart. He would say the most ill-natured things, with the least remorse, of any man I ever knew. This gained him the reputation of a wit—other traits got him ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... absent-mindedly, kept shaking the hand she had held. Awakening suddenly to the fact that his hand was empty, he looked at it curiously, and sighed. Turning quickly, he slapped his hat on his head, hitched up his chaps, and stepped up to Bud, who stood with a sneer on ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... you be willing to occupy it, even if you could establish it?" she asked, with a covert sneer, "would you force yourself into a position which, appearances go to prove, was never intended to be given to you? Would you force yourself upon a man who had subjected you to the indignity of repudiating you as a wife and ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Macedon begins to fill the pannier." And he tossed his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him with a quiet sneer: "Go!—I will give you my orders when ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and watch the steady, inexorable decline of the strong man, you feel minded to cry out for some one to save him—he is alive to you, and you want to call out and warn him. When the bitter end comes, you cannot sneer as Lydgate does—you can hardly keep back the tears. And what is it all about? It simply comes to this, that a good strong man falls into the bad company of a number of fairly good but dull people, and the result is a tragedy. Rosamund Vincy is a pattern of propriety; Mrs. Vincy is a fat, kindly ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... idea how wretched and despised all the Irish rebels are here. O'Connor alone is an exception; and this he owes to Talleyrand, to General Valence, and to Madame de Genlis; but even he is looked on with a sneer, and, if he ever was respected in England, must endure with poignancy the contempt to which he is frequently exposed in France. When I was in your country I often heard it said that the Irish were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... finish, looking as though, his head had come out of hot water. He sacrificed Royalty to his necessities, under a kind of sneer at its functions: 'Court! my girl? But the arduous duties are over for the season. We are a democratic people retaining the seductions of monarchy, as a friend says; and of course a girl may like to count among the flowers of the kingdom for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of true greatness rendered him superior. Some instances of rashness have been noted by Walpole with unsparing vituperation;[1] and some self-complacent or boasting sallies, have been pointed at by Croker with a sarcastic sneer. But, admitting that these were far from being venial faults, yet it would be very uncharitable now to recall them from the forgetfulness and forgiveness in which they have long been passed over; especially as they were fully ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... you?" she cried. "Ha, ha! That's too good! Home, with you to forever remind me what I am? For you to sneer at me, and point me to your friends for what I am? Never, never! Go you back where you came from. I'm not a wife. Do you hear? God help me, I'm—" And she buried her face ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... poorer whites. Education, however, has thrown the ban of disrepute upon witchcraft and conjuration. The stern frown of the preacher, who looks upon superstition as the ally of the Evil One; the scornful sneer of the teacher, who sees in it a part of the livery of bondage, have driven this quaint combination of ancestral traditions to the remote chimney corners of old black aunties, from which it is difficult ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... half-smothered exclamation of dismay from Marjorie. Ellen was regarding her in mute appeal. Mignon's lips curled back in a sneer. It was dreadful ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... of being a sour Puritan. In the Rehearsal Bayes (Dryden), who is turned by Sheridan in his adaptation of the piece into Mr. Puff, is made to produce out of his pocket his book of Drama Commonplaces, and the play proceeds (Johnson and Smith being Sheridan's Dangle and Sneer): ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... like a bullet against the huge, gross mouth. Almost in the same second he side-stepped and brought his right in an arc to the mark above Garman's belt and leaped back out of danger. Garman did not stir, and though the blow on the mouth cut it did not efface the sneer on his lips. ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... Robespierre's designs; but I suppose I am the only person who ever saw the games played that were expected to be played before them. It was a curious coincidence that the little livid-green man was also there, leaning against a tree and looking on with a half sneer. It seemed to me an odd classic revival, but then Paris has spasms of that, at the old Theatre ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... it is to have in our harbor in New York the statue of Liberty with outstretched arms welcoming the foreign girl to the land of the free! How she must sneer at it and rebuke the country with such an emblematic monument at its very gate when she finds here a slavery whose chains bind the captive more securely than those in the country from ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... with a burst of uncontrollable feeling, "I am alone in the wide world also! Not a person exists who would assist me in distress, or shed a single tear if I died this very night." "Then you are welcome!" said one of the men with a sneer, while he cast a glance of peculiar expression at the other inhabitants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... sleeves stood a little to one side watching the excitement in the street. As Drew came up the man glanced at the scout, surveying his shabbiness, and his mouth took on the harsh line of a sneer. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... and position to make, he might have been one of the foremost men of his time in politics or letters or both; and that he was not far below such rank in either. The following letter is one of the most characteristic of those at which it has been the fashion to sneer. All one can say of it is, "What a blessing it would be if a good many people in the twentieth century, and in places varying from the streets to the House of Commons, would obey at least some ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... at the Drachenfels, were lifted up. He thought with pride and satisfaction that his work was going on well; and that he surely would see it finished. While thus meditating he did not observe that a stranger stood by his side watching him with an ugly sneer. A burning red cloak hung round his tall figure, a gold chain glittered on his breast, and a cock's feather nodded from a quaint velvet cap. He introduced himself to the somewhat surprised builder as ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... particularly beautiful. He had spent his years in the unremitting effort to add thousands to thousands, and, now that he stood well outside of it, the business of money-getting appeared tolerably dry and sterile. It is very well to sneer at money-getting after you have filled your pockets, and Newman, it may be said, should have begun somewhat earlier to moralize thus delicately. To this it may be answered that he might have made another fortune, if ...
— The American • Henry James
... man accosted her. She looked up with an almost guilty start. A little cry broke from her lips. It was one of disappointment, and Graveling's unpleasant lips were twisted into a sneer ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... chiefly among the Christians; urge on the engines of torture to their uttermost; devise and invent; increase the heat of the fire and the ebullition, until the hissing flood of the cauldrons overwhelms them; and when their unutterable woes are extremest, then sneer at them and mockingly reproach them, and when ye have exhausted all your store of scorn and gall, hie to me ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... with great unction. They appear to have the same pride in the superiority of their great families, that the American slave is known to feel in the importance of his master. I say this seriously, and not with a view to sneer, but to point out to you a state of feeling that, at first, struck me as very extraordinary. I suppose that the feelings of both castes depend on a very natural principle. The Englishman, however, as he is ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in life has been a hardening process tending in the direction of a crystallized selfishness the rules of etiquette are regarded with contempt and alluded to with a sneer. No more disheartening problem faces the social reformer than the question how to overcome the bitter hostility to refined manners which marks the ignorant "lower classes." On the other hand, there is no more hopeful sign of progress ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... said he, with something between a smile and a sneer. 'David and Jonathan—or, to be more classical and less scriptural, Damon and Pythias—eh?' These papers, then, are from the faithful abroad, the exiles in Holland, ye understand, who are thinking of making a move and of coming over to see King James in his own country ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... There was a sneer accompanying this question, which Dora felt keenly. Her little swelling heart was already full, and, with quivering lips and gushing tears, she answered, ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... England. James I. chopped in with his cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily said. When Raleigh returned after his last miserable failure in May 1617, the monarch spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the seas. Of course, the King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no golden city. But the immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams were more real than reality; they existed in the future; he looked far ahead, and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... sorrowing glance was cast at this forlorn habitation as the party rode past it, and many a sigh was heaved for the poor girl who had so lately been its pride and ornament; but if any one had noticed the bitter sneer curling the reeve's lip, or caught the malignant fire gleaming in his eye, it would scarcely have been thought that he shared in ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... continued to nag and sneer at each other all day long, yet they remained as mutually dependent upon each other as David and Jonathan. For thirty years the old gentlemen had angled in company, and gathered inspiration out of the same books, the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... resented this. She knew it was true, and her father had not meant to sneer. He was a blunt man and generally talked like that, and Sadie sometimes did so. Well, she had not been cheated, because she knew what Bob was before they married; and although ambition had something to do with it, she loved him. For all ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... you next time," he promised, looking up between what seemed hope and contrition. But there was a mocking light in his sophisticated face, a greedy sneer in his lustful eyes, which Joan could feel and see, although she could not read to the last ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... white vine,[591] were amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning: Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Caesar the second, and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunder-storm.[592] These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where the magical properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit; and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... diffused matter in space—so as to make it a distinct and separate factor in the universe from "the spirit of God,"—that spirit which was breathed into man when he became a living soul, and which, we are told, "upholds the order of the heavens," then its devotees may sneer at the Bible Genesis, and the logical ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... you, indeed!" answered the elder sister with a sneer, "it is no place for a cinder-sifter: stay at home and do ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to assure him of her truth, but could understand the sneer which was conveyed in his acknowledgement. "But you cannot, nor can I for your sake, abolish the things which ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... quite accomplished," said Fitz, with a covert sneer. "Pretty company Oscar has taken up with!" he thought. "How long were you in the circus business?" he asked, ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and softens the plainest, had failed entirely to dissipate the impression of meanness in the face of the stricken man. The lips were set in a little sneer, the half-closed eyes were small, the clean-shaven jaw was long and underhung, the ears were large ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... say!' said Mr. Fang, with a sneer. 'Come, none of your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... assist his inquiry; with her own hands pulled out a parcel of small drawers, in which her trinkets were contained; desired him to look into her needlecase and thimble, and, seeing his examination fruitless, earnestly intreated him to rummage her closet also, saying, with a sneer, that, in all probability, the dishonourer would be found in that lurking-place. The manner in which she pretended to ridicule his apprehensions made an impression upon the jeweller, who was very well disposed to retreat into his own nest, when his wife, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... this; but after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: "They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What? did the Hand then ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... to a crooked elm over-hanging the water,—all in vain for many lingering minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband, clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his face, and the lurid glow of drunkenness, that made a savage brute of a bad man, gleaming in his deep-set eyes. Hitty neither shrieked nor ran; despair nerved her,—despair turned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... slave. It stands in his mind, that our life in this world is not of quite so easy interpretation as churches and school-books say. He does not wish to take ground against these benevolences, to play the part of devil's attorney, and blazon every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for him. But he ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... press do more harm than the record of their vapid talk could possibly accomplish. Why tie these millstones around your neck? They came yesterday to demand the head of Albert Sidney Johnston. They are organizing to drive Lee out of the army. They allow no opportunity to pass to sneer at his position as your chief military adviser since his return from Western Virginia. You know and I know that Albert Sidney Johnston and R. E. Lee are ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... any disrespect to a form of worship that may be new or strange to you is rude in the extreme. If you find it trying to your own religious convictions, you need not again visit churches of the same denomination; but to sneer at a form, while in the church using that form, is ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Francis perhaps hints at the solution. To him brother Wind and brother Fire and brother Worm are alike and equal, for he sees them in the light of infinity. But all are wonderful, and we must not sneer at the stars. ... Today writing as a means of expression has seemed to be absolutely futile. Silence is the only active way of praise that I can find, provided that it informs some daily action. My will won again today. Horizons are wonderful. ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... "How do you do, Miss Jane?" and "Good-morning, Mr. Lovejoy," and passed on; but not before Jane Barker had had time to say in her gentlest tones, "Very well, thank you, Mr. Stephen," while an ugly sneer spread over the face ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... said Danjou, with a sneer. At which the Guardsman after a moment's amazement, delighted to find an Academician with so much ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Movement is the justification for treating it in what may appear to be disproportionate detail. From it dates the first clear realisation even by hostile critics in England, and probably by Ministers themselves, that the policy of Ulster as laid down at Craigavon could not be dismissed with a sneer, although it is true that there were many Home Rulers who never openly abandoned the pretence that it could. Not less important was the effect in Ulster itself. The Unionist Council had proved itself in earnest; it could, and was prepared to, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... heart. "What is the use in saying anything? Had she not heard with her own ears Marion's sneering sentence in the face of the unanswerable arguments that had been presented?" I wonder how often we turn away from harvest fields that are ready for the reader because we mistake for a sneer that which is the admission ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... years more? Though I am, like Sir John, old only in judgment and understanding, I have again and again seen the wealthy emir of yesterday sitting on the ash-heap to-day, scraping himself with a bit of crockery, but happily too broken to find an inhuman sneer for the vagrants whom, in former days, he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock. I could write you a column of these emirs' names. And if there is one impudent interpolation in the Bible, it is to be found in the last chapter of that ancient Book of Job. The ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the ruin?" asked the Marquis with a sneer; "Do you not know that if the King dared to give an opinion on a national crisis, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... child in my hand and I says "Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandson's cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may." With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says "Jane, is there a ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... daze to hear Mrs. Silverstein's hysterical sneer, "keepin' company vit a bruiser." Next, Silverstein and his wife fell to differing on "noted" and "notorious" ...
— The Game • Jack London
... these his guides instill'd, His Palace was with long-nosed people fill'd; At Court, whoever ventured to appear With a short nose, was treated with a sneer. Each courtier's wife, that with a babe is blest, Moulds its young nose betimes; and does her best, By pulls, and hauls, and twists, and lugs and pinches, To stretch it to ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... got to say about it?" he demanded, with something like a covert sneer. "You'll know all about it, Krevin, I ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... start again; he felt his face flush warm. But he managed to show a fairly controlled front, and he made shift to sneer. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... our 'forefathers' will appeal differently to different minds. By some they will be dismissed with a sneer; to others they will appeal as proofs of genius on the part of those who enunciated them. There are men, and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy in regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and they are sometimes intolerant ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... heard him exclaim, as I entered the room, shrugging his shoulders with such a contemptuously good-natured sneer as only a Frenchman can manufacture; and raising both his hands derisively, he went off with vivacity to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... are!' put in Daniel with half a sneer. 'I don't call that Socialism. Let a man support himself by his own work, then he's got a right to say what he likes. No, no, we know what Socialism means, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... pretty evident, that Mr. Hazlehurst will not be easily satisfied," added Mr. Clapp, with an approach to a sneer. "Shall we go on, Mr. Reed, or ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... people who sneer at them are ludicrously ignorant of the history of modern fox-hunting, which is altogether founded on the experience and maxims of hare-hunters. The two oldest fox-hound packs in England—the Brocklesby and the Cheshire—were originally formed ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... honorable poverty and his Western surroundings. At the very outset of the campaign a Democratic newspaper declared that Harrison would be more at home "in a log cabin, drinking hard cider and skinning coons, than living in the White House as President." The Whigs instantly took up the sneer and made the log cabin the emblem of their party. All over the country log cabins (erected at some crossroads, or on the village common, or on some vacant city lot) became the Whig headquarters. On the door was a coon skin; a leather latch string was always hanging out ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... it took to produce it, for they had labored themselves, and they grew to take care of small things, not to squander and waste what they had been so long at work on. This, instead of being a thing to sneer at, is one of the very best elements in a community, one of the best securities of character. For sudden leaps to fortune are given to but few, and are seldom lasting, and the results of sudden inflations are more disastrous even to a ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... force, and represents an expenditure of brain power by no means justifiable on the part of a man who could have made so much better use of it, they are never to be spoken of disrespectfully. Those who sneer at their "Wardour Street" Old French are not usually the best qualified to do so; and it is not to be forgotten that Balzac was a real countryman of Rabelais and a legitimate inheritor of Gauloiserie. ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... He has (God knows why) a serene contempt for ordinary mortals. He is always growing black with fury, and bullying weak men. On such occasions, his lips may be observed to be twisted into an evil sneer. He is a seducer and liar: he has ruined various women, and had special facilities for becoming acquainted with the rottenness of society: and occasionally he expresses, in language of the most profane, not to say blasphemous character, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the fashion since Gibbon to sneer at the Eastern Empire, it must be remembered with respect as the last treasure house of the inheritance bequeathed by Rome and Greece during the dark centuries of barbarian and Saracen. Even in its ruin it sent its fugitives westward with the manuscripts of a language and ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... has no intention of going to get the standards back from the Parthians, but is thinking only of the Spanish gold-mines. 'Does he think to wing our Roman eagles with money or with glory?' he asked, with what I thought was an insolent sneer. I shook him off, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. However," smiling again as he saw a familiar impassiveness settle upon his host's face, "for you to-night there shall be neither Parthians nor budgets. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... dissipated when the daylight floods in. Who can sense the spiritual uncleanness of adultery except one who is in the cleanliness of chastity? Who can feel the cruelty of vengeance except one who is in good from love to the neighbor? What adulterer or what avenger does not sneer at those who call enjoyment in such acts as theirs infernal but the enjoyments of marital love and neighborly love heavenly? ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... how it will purge of coarseness the picture-sheets of that artistic nation, which will hardly be able to caricature the new wife as it did poor plebeian Josephine. Such starched and ironed monarchists cannot sneer at a woman of such a divinely dry and crusted line like ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Graces, though the Graces never clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest. Notwithstanding his willingness to please the populace with the coarse wit current in the Agoras, I think it gratifies his equestrian pride to sneer at those who are too frugal to buy coloured robes, and fill the air with delicious perfumes as they pass. I know you seldom like the comic writers. What ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... were getting frayed and thin. The Colonel's sneer was like a match to a magazine, and in an instant the Frenchman was dancing in front of him with a broken torrent of angry words. His hand was clutching at Cochrane's throat before Belmont and Stephens ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... through Lizzie's spirit in those busy hours could have found their way into the texture of the dingy yarn, as it was slowly wrought into shape, the eventual wearer of the socks would have been as light-footed as Mercury. I am afraid I should make the reader sneer, were I to rehearse some of this little fool's diversions. She passed several hours daily in Jack's old chamber: it was in this sanctuary, indeed, at the sunny south window, overlooking the long road, the wood-crowned heights, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... and Antoine was preparing to go, when the other, who had been eyeing the prisoner suspiciously, stopped and said with a sharp sneer, "Does the ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... the sight of you is one of the chief things," said Reginald, with a sneer. "After having heard your sad fate, it is something to see you here in ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the coffers of mediaeval dialecticians and plundered the arsenals of the Sophists. Many years later, when the vultures of misfortune had swooped down upon him, and his name was no longer mentioned without a sneer, he was still remembered in New York drawing-rooms as the man who had brought to perfection the art of talking. Even to dine with him was ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... door, ye little divil! There's a freezin' draught comin' in. (She does so and comes back to her chair. Carmody continues with a sneer.) It's mad I am to be thinkin' he'd go without gettin' his money—the like of a doctor! (Angrily.) Rogues and thieves they are, the lot of them, robbin' the poor like us! I've no use for their drugs at all. They only ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... guns, and have a hundred and fifty men on board, and they'll swear they fought us for three hours. They have something to boast of, that's certain; and I suspect that French captain is a brave sort of chap, from the sneer he gave when our cowardly English lubber gave him so fine a speech. Well, it's ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Strefford, and of revealing to him that Nick had left her for that very reason. She was not afraid that the discovery would diminish her in Strefford's eyes: he was untroubled by moral problems, and would laugh away her avowal, with a sneer at Nick in his new part of moralist. But that was just what she could not bear: that anyone should cast a doubt on the genuineness of Nick's standards, or should know how far below ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... retorted the Tiger, with a sneer. "Tell me, then, into how many pieces you usually tear your ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... prepared for his becoming proportionately more respectful. He dusted a little heap of ashes from the small table beside him and scattered them with his foot, in a well-meant attempt to cover the traces of his previous untidiness. She watched him with a covert sneer. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... snorted O'Moy, as with his hands behind his back he strode forward into the room. He was pale, and there was a set, malignant sneer upon his lip, a malignant look in the blue eyes that were habitually ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... of society, that every faculty he has bestowed upon her should have ample room for its proper development. Is this asking too much? And yet this is the sum and substance of the Woman's Rights Reform—a movement which fools ridicule, and find easier to sneer at ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant but most cutting reply, were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... lawn in merry mobs, They note the polished art of Trumper, The Surrey Lobster bowling lobs, The anxious wriggles of the Stumper. 'Tis not (believe me) theirs to sneer At what the modern mortal loves, But theirs to copy noble sport; And radiant hawkers every year Do splendid trade in bats and gloves With Jupiter ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... pleasance and revel, of glitter and sheen; So bad that the worst Of Cologne spake up first, And declared 'twas an outrage to suffer one curst, And already a fief Of the Satanic chief, To martyr herself for the Church's relief. But in vain fell their sneer On the mob, who I fear On the whole felt a strong disposition ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... masses, but the leader of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable and logical form. It is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the futility of some of Godwin's conclusions or to complain of the aridity of his style. His Political Justice remains, nevertheless, a lucidly written, well-ordered piece of intellectual reasoning. Shelley spoke of Godwin's Mandeville in the same breath with ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... said he, coldly; 'but it is the custom to consider that wit lies in obscurity.' He turned from Glaucus as he spoke, with a scarcely perceptible sneer of contempt, and after a moment's pause addressed ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... all sneer again" is to carry canvas to such an extent as to strain the ropes and spars ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... other way with this whipper-snapper. I'll go to-night beneath Eva's window and sing a serenade which will surely win her heart. I'll not lose her even if this great knight should prove to be a great singer." Every time he thought of Walther, it was with a sneer. On the whole, Beckmesser was a nasty little man, even though he was quite a singer. He was old and ugly and it was quite ridiculous of him ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... broke the silence. "Your god ignores you Lu-don," he taunted, with a sneer that he meant to still further anger the high priest, "he ignores you and I can prove it before the eyes of your priests and ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said Red, with a sneer, "do YOU want to take the kid and raise her, yourself? We've either got to do away with her, or keep her hid. Do YOU want to be her nurse, and keep with her in some cave or other ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... lesson is contained in it. For instance, It is not innocence which makes men good. 'This is your man after God's own heart, is it?' runs the common, shallow sneer. Yes; not that God thought little of his foul sin, nor that 'saints' make up for adultery and murder by making or singing psalms; not that 'righteousness' as a standard of conduct is lower than 'morality'; but that, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... for a moment, but Arthur's tone was so kind it dispelled his embarrassment. They talked for a few moments, then parted; and Clarence, looking back a moment later, saw Arthur ring the bell at Beth's boarding-place. A peculiar look, almost a sneer, crossed his ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... a time, but both at the same time—I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend," replied Jack, with an ironical sneer, "to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been little ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... relishes, throat emollients, fireside novels, canned edibles, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The money was no doubt legitimately earned. The patent-medicine man and the millionaire tailor have my entire respect. I do not sneer at honest wealth acquired by these humble means. The rise—if it be a rise—of these and others like them is superficial evidence, perhaps, that ours is a democracy. Looking deeper, we see that it is, in fact, proof of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... answered the elder sister, with a sneer; "it is no place for a cinder-sifter: stay at home ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... to you for thinking so much about my comfort," he said in a voice into which he hoped he had insinuated a sneer. "But I'm bound to say you're awful suspicious folk about here. You needn't be feared for your old policies. There's plenty of nice walks about the roads, and I ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... for me to hear any more dying requests," she said to the old negro, with a sneer. "Your prisoner will survive. Only give him a little coffee, if there is any. Here is some: ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed with him, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... those who remained had much to think about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, and the loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the "distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist Noel. But the movement had raised the whole scale of feeling about ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... a slight sneer in the Southerner's voice. Jerry perceived it and thought it directed against him. Instantly his pride ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... kicking anyone who is down. It was very quickly realized at Briarcroft that Gipsy was in ill favour at headquarters; and though most of the girls were sorry for her, with a certain number her changed fortunes undoubtedly lessened her popularity. Maude Helm never lost an opportunity of a sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the gibes hurt all ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... not know the widow Custis had put on such airs with her second marriage. Presently we shall hear of Mount Vernon palace if Dunmore does not make short work of it. And some of the rebels sneer at good English titles, or think ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas |
