"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him come and prove, the field I grant, Nor wrong nor treason let him doubt or fear, Some here shall pay him for his glorious vaunt, Without or guile, or vantage, that I swear. The herald turned when he had ended scant, And hasted back the way he came whileare, Nor stayed he aught, nor once forslowed his pace, Till he ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... if he declined this, to invite him to decide their differences by personal combat. Alfonso accepted the latter alternative; but, a dispute arising respecting the guaranty for the performance of the engagements on either side, the whole affair evaporated, as usual, in an empty vaunt of chivalry. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... perspiration, and the health-giving work is so much the better done as Nature is above Art. Let the Coralli [in Moesia, on the shore of the Euxine] boast their wonderful sea, let the pearl fisheries of India vaunt themselves. In our judgment Baiae, for its powers of bestowing pleasure and health, surpasses them all. Go then to Baiae to bathe, and have no ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... dialogue, the first speech of Goliath is simple vaunt. Confident in his huge bulk and strength, he strides occasionally from side to side while speaking, elevating his arms and throwing his limbs about as if anxious to display his powerful sinews and muscular ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the king, peering out through the parted curtains. "I am fain almost to believe these men of Wales, who vaunt that the false Glendower is a black necromancer who can call to his aid the dread demons of the air. Hark to that blast," he added, as a great gust of wind shook the royal tent. "'T is like a knight's defiance, and, like true knights, let us answer it. Hollo, young ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust, they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really unworthy of such admiration ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... provoking indignant remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... that looked down from the mountain on the cornfield, and waited day after day for the scarecrow to finish his work and depart; and the smoke of far-off burning woods, that pervaded the air and hung in purple haze about the summits of the mountains, —these were the vaunt-couriers and attendants of ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... necessity of "making man sole sponsor of himself." Ever and again, of course, he was betrayed by the bewildering and defiant puzzle of life: seeing in the face of the child the seed of sorrow, "in the green tree an ambushed flame, in Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night." Yet never of him could be written that thrilling saying which Sainte-Beuve uttered of Pascal, "That lost traveller who yearns for home, who, strayed without a guide in a dark forest, takes many times the wrong road, goes, returns upon his steps, is discouraged, sits down ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... hae a wife and twa wee laddies, They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies; Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is— I need na vaunt, But I'll sned besoms—thraw saugh woodies, Before ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... flourish, parade, pompousness, vaunt, boasting, pageant, pomp, show, vaunting. display, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... vaunt my exertions, but I can truly say that I have never passed so trying a period as the last two months. Professor Fisher (who has been of the greatest service to me) and I have been busy from morning till night ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... 'What need is there, O man, for this thy vaunt and this thy boast? Accomplish all this first, and then mayst thou vaunt indeed. Therefore, delay thou not. Thou knowest thyself to be strong and endued with prowess, so thou shalt rightly estimate thy strength today in thy encounter with me. Until that, I will not slay these (thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... not be convinced by the power of truth and the virtuous lives of some, but that God might leave them to be snared, hardened, and emboldened to run upon their unavoidable destruction by the lies and lightness of others? They begin to vaunt it already, and to say, Where is the word of the Lord as to this? let it come now. But when Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is passed," then was the time for him to be ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves our vanity ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Anti-Slavery zeal, with him a passion, He knows less warmly shared by other traders; But soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for philanthropists—a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... grievously worsted and beaten out of the field by the power and force of the tyrant. Yea, even those of our captains, in whose valour we did formerly use to put most of our confidence, they are as wounded men. Besides, Lord, our enemies are lively, and they are strong; they vaunt and boast themselves, and do threaten to part us among themselves for a booty. They are fallen also upon us, Lord, with many thousand doubters, such as with whom we cannot tell what to do; they are all grim-looked and unmerciful ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... being mounted upon the roof of a lofty shed, and seeing a Wolf below, loaded him with all manner of reproaches. Upon which, the Wolf, looking up, replied, "Do not vaunt yourself, vain creature, and think you mortify me; for I look upon this ill language as not coming from you, but from ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... a slighter clue would have sufficed to lead to the conviction of so besotted a traitor, than many an incautious hint of his, and many a tale-telling vaunt of his irresistible egotism, afforded her; for, like all the weak wretches of his sort, there was not a more bungling lout, to try the patience of a clever man, than Philip Withers, when his game lay between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... settle small differences with their equals and shoot down their inferiors without premeditation or compunction, and who drown their sorrows, as well as their joviality in rye or Bourbon whiskey; the gentlemen who claim consanguinity with Europe's titled sharks, and vaunt their chivalry in contrast to the peasant or yeoman blood of all other Americans; the gentlemen who got their broad acres (however they came by their peculiar blood) by robbing black men, women and children of the produce of their toil under the system of slavery, and who maintain ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... their retreat by land, in spite of all their garrisons both of horse and foot. In this sort I have a little digressed from my first purpose, only by the necessary comparison of their and our actions: the one covetous of honour, without vaunt or ostentation; the other so greedy to purchase the opinion of their own affairs, and by false rumours to resist the blasts of their own dishonours, as they will not only not blush to spread all manner of untruths, but even for the least advantage, be it but for the taking of one poor adventurer ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... sickness,—sickness that you almost covet for the sympathy it brings,—that hand of hers resting on your fevered forehead, or those fingers playing with the scattered locks, are more full of kindness than the loudest vaunt of friends; and when your failing strength will permit no more, you grasp that cherished hand with a fulness of joy, of thankfulness, and of love, which your ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... SALADIN. Don't vaunt thus, my courageous knights, For I, as you, have seen some sights In Palestine, in days of yore. 'Gainst prowess strong I bravely bore The sway, when all the world in arms Shook Holy Land with war's alarms. I for the crescent, you the ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the proud words of that bird foreshadowing danger the bearer of the discus, provoking Tarkshya still more, said unto him, "Though so very weak, why dost thou, O Garuda, yet regard thyself strong, O oviparous creature, it ill behoveth thee to vaunt thus in our presence. The three worlds united together cannot bear the weight of my body. I myself bear my own weight and thine also. Come now, bear thou the weight of this one right arm of mine. If thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... likely to appear to us even more viciousthan that of other men. To be sure, we remember Sir Philip Sidney's contention, supported by his anecdote of the loquacious horseman, that men of all callings are equally disposed to vaunt themselves. If the poet seems especially voluble about his merits, this may be owing to the fact that, words being the tools of his trade, he is more apt than other men in giving expression to his self-importance. But our specific objection to the poet is not met by this explanation. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... His people, and both thoughts intensify Sennacherib's sin. The Highest, before whose transcendent height all human elevations sink to a uniform level, has so joined Israel to Himself that to touch it is to strike at Him, and to vaunt one's self against it is to be arrogant towards God. That mighty name has received wider extension now, but the wider sweep does not bring diminished depth, and lowly souls who take that name for their strong tower can still run into it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 2. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. 3. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... But, sir, if it be imagined by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... with no avenue of escape in case of accident. These are the people who suffer in cases of snagging and collision, &c. These hardy sons of toil, migrating with their families, are all but penniless, and therefore, despite all vaunt of equality, they are friendless. Had every deck-passenger that has perished in the agony of a crushing and drowning death been a Member of Senate or Congress, the Government would have interfered long ere this; but these miserable wretches perish in their agony, and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?" demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... extravagance for trifles, that I like better than vanity, that I should not care to be at that expense. But I should think either the Duke or Duchess of Northumberland would rejoice at such an Opportunity of buying incense; and I will tell you what you shall do. Write to Mr. Percy, and vaunt the discovery of Duke Brithnoth's bones, and ask him to move their graces to contribute a plate. They Could not be so unnatural as to refuse; especially if the Duchess knew the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Savannah, Charleston, Natchez, or St. Louis, he would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would have secured to them the legal ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... And cleared their eyes to the image in the fire, Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this: For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me? None, I know, unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole: That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus. Aeschylus: ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... Under the Monarchy, the very tombs were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the frightful ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... it come from dose kopjes de good Gott made in His anger against man for his vickedness. I zay so. Dey not believe me. Dey tink dem abominable stones grow in mine house, and break out in mine plaster like de measle: dey vaunt to dig in mine wall, in mine garden, in mine floor. One day dey shall dig in mine body. I vill go. Better I love peace dan money. Here is English company make me offer for mine varm. Dey forgive ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... better than other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... abandoned since the memory of man, (for the Court, previous to the arrival of the present tenant, had been for years uninhabited,) was, under his exertions and superintendence, rapidly assuming an aspect of luxuriance and order. It was not impossible but Helen might realise her playful vaunt, and beat me in my ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... failed. The minister was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... secret judgments pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common with man, that is sin; another he would seem to have in common with God; and not being clothed with the mortality of flesh, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that with them he should be condemned ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... balancing of colors, a gorgeousness about it, as if he had learned coloring from the great Master himself. Even in the overpowering human effect of this piece, it is impossible not to perceive that every difficulty which artists vaunt themselves on vanquishing has in this piece been conquered with apparently instinctive ease, simply because it was habitual to do so, and without in the least distracting the attention from the great moral. Magical foreshortenings and wonderful effects of ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... patrol had recently turned at the end of his beat; but the guide knew the country thoroughly, and professed to have no fears. To speak the truth, I had heard him, when in the ingle-nook, and warm with Old Rye, vaunt so loudly his own sagacity and courage, that I conceived certain misgivings as to how far either were to be relied on. That night, however, he fully maintained part of his character by leading us safety and surely through a perfect ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... man as Cook over the mass of vulgar conquerors, whom, unfortunately for the world, it has been so much and so long the fashion to admire? Shall we ever witness the time, when the wanton destroyers of our species, under whatever name or trappings they vaunt themselves, shall inherit the abhorrence and the curses of humanity; and when the only claim to applause that shall be sanctioned, must be founded, like that of our navigator, on the ability and the disposition to confer benefits on society? It has often been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... innocence Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, I gave way to my humors, to my passion: Bold were my words, because my deeds were not. Now every planless measure, chance event, The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph, And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing, Will they connect, and weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step tracing step, each step a politic progress; And out of all they'll fabricate a charge ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... land, the sons, the maids of Spain; Her fate, to every free-born bosom dear; And hailed thee, not perchance without a tear. Now to my theme—but from thy holy haunt Let me some remnant, some memorial bear; Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant, Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... pope sought a spouse worthy of this princess, who was the descendant of a long line of emperors. Mohammed II., having overrun all Greece, flushed with victory, was collecting his forces for the invasion of the Italian peninsula, and his vaunt, that he would feed his horse from the altar of St. Peters, had thrilled the ear of Catholic Europe. The pope, Paul II., anxious to rouse all the Christian powers against the Turks, wished to make the marriage ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... with diverse gifts, mainly of an imperious order, that he could scarcely have limited his sphere of action to Corsica. Profoundly as he loved his island, it offered no sphere commensurate with his varied powers and masterful will. It was no empty vaunt which his father had uttered on his deathbed that his Napoleon would one day overthrow the old monarchies and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed that his instincts had ever prompted him that his will must prevail, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... yet as one who expected some such answer. "In age we are not unsuited, nor perhaps in fortune, while of rank I have enough, more than you guess perhaps. I vaunt not myself, yet women have thought me not uncomely. I should be a good friend to the house whence I took a wife, where perchance a day may come when friends will be needed; and lastly, I desire her ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... I say. The Master-Weaver understands what we are here for and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not yourself O thread of purple, over ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Do not here produce ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, Plinius, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... limited, and we are outside it. But can we not observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth, i.e., robbery; the commanders in the army pride themselves on victories, i.e., murder; and those in high places vaunt their power, i.e., violence? We do not see the perversion in the views of life held by these people, only because the circle formed by them is more extensive, and we ourselves are moving ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... vainly do not vaunt Large demesnes, to feed my pleasure; I have favours where you want, That would buy respect with treasure. You have lands lie here and there, But my wealth is everywhere; And this addeth to my store— ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... Cellini's vaunt that if he only tried he was sure he could fly, put him under strict guard, saying, "Benvenuto e un pipistrello contrafatto, ed io sono un pipistrello ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... "is not such a great work as any of those which you have mentioned, sir, only the painting which I so much vaunt and praise will be the imitation of some single thing amongst those which immortal God made with great care and knowledge and which He invented and painted, like to a Master: and so downwards, whether animals or birds, dispensing ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... sheaf of darts, will it not fall unbound, Except, disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt, Thou bring it to be blessed where saints ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... the corruption of the judgment-seat in Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the Senators. One passage I will give now, in order that the reader may see by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the judgment-seat during the ten ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host. From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head. But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... exquisite lines; nor about to expatiate on the beauties of error, for it has none; but the clank of steam-engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the struggle for gain or bread, and the loud denunciations of stupid bigots, have wellnigh smothered poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, and vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter exist? In spite of all the forms which our policy has invented to secure it—in spite of all the preachers, all the meeting-houses, and all the legislative enactments—if any person ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... canst not lend The least delight: Thy favors cannot gain a friend, They are so slight: Thy morning pleasures make an end To please at night: Poor are the wants that thou supply'st, And yet thou vaunt'st, and yet thou vy'st With heaven: fond earth, thou boasts; ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... designed, there are few better books now extant on this globe, bar the epics, and the big tragedies, and histories, and the choice lyric poetics and a novel or so - none. But it is not executed yet; and let not him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and traditions, so incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible, the savage and civilised. I will give you here some idea of the table of contents, which ought ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... replied to thunder; then The ships rasped side by side, The battle-hungry Breton men A boarding sally tried, But the stern steel of Britain flashed, And spite of Breton vaunt The lads of Morbihan were dashed Back ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frederic, of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... of us have for some years past boasted of our appreciation of the inferior beauty, the substitute, the waiting gentlewoman of corrupt or corruptible heart; Keats confessed, but did not boast. It is a vaunt now, an emulation, who shall discover her ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... the truth of what they affirm, and which originates in the very nature of things. It is characteristic of human perversity to disbelieve what is imperceptible to reason or invisible to sense, and to vaunt itself upon that very infidelity as a distinctive mark of pre-eminence, which is, in fact, a proof of debasement and guilt. If a system of religion were to be so constructed as to be exempt from the ridicule of the profane, it must be itself ridiculous; because their distorted minds ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cat[)a]r[)a]cts and hurricanoes, spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! and thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... rather as a genial and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good fight—let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... want a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I 'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan— We all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the devil somewhat ere ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... impression that a male child had been born, and was alive. I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by draggin it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last. I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I would have ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... are coming nigh our hills the auspices foretold, When he shall fail to vaunt his power who chain'd our sires of old, In iron bands who held them fast, but now he droops with fear; Delusion's age is past, and strife avows the smile, the tear, That sympathy or fondness ask,—and the sad world is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... majesty of princes? Why doth he then, as none of the old bishops of Rome heretofore ever did, suffer himself to be called of his flatterers "lord of lords," as though he would have all kings and princes, who and whatsoever they are, to be his underlings? Why doth he vaunt himself to be "king of kings," and to have kingly royalty over his subjects? Why compelleth he all emperors and princes to swear to him fealty and true obedience? Why doth he boast that the "emperor's majesty's is a thousandfold inferior to him:" and for this reason specially, because God hath ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... lantern of the spirit, Which none see by but those who bear it, That makes them in the dark see visions And hag themselves with apparitions, Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt Of their own misery and ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... lair! Listen at eventide on lonesome path For traveller's footfall, or the mule-bell's chime, Pouncing by hundreds on one helpless man, To cut him down, then back to your retreats— You dare to vaunt your sires? I call your sires, Bravest of brave and greatest 'mid the great, A line of warriors! you, a pack ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... pleasure, also if they please you well, under whose name and cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot taste them, let them sporte but not spue. ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... engravings would exceed that of the whole work: all we hope is, that the public patronage may be as lasting as the metal; then it will be no idle vaunt to call this the march, or even race, of genius. In conclusion, we recommend all our lady friends (who have not done so) to place on their drawing-room table a Print Album, or Scrap Book, to be supported "by voluntary contributions." They may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... also the lists of men capable of bearing arms. "The number," said he, "is great, but what can be expected from mere citizen soldiers? They vaunt and menace in time of safety; none are so arrogant when the enemy is at a distance; but when the din of war thunders at the gates ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... honour of the family of Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already compared him, who, being overtasked, broke ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Daughters of Delight, Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt Upon this hill and dance there, day and night; Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt Is borrowed of them; but that fair one That in the midst was placed paravant, Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone, That made him pipe so ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... time Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with decay To change ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... surpassing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow in such ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and were like what is most permanent on the face of the planet: these, and the barrows—(mere mounds of which there are a hundred and sixty within a circle of three miles about Stonehenge)—like the same mound on the plain of Troy, which still makes good to the passing mariner on Hellespont, the vaunt of Homer and the fame of Achilles. Within the enclosure grow buttercups, nettles, and, all around, wild thyme, daisy, meadowsweet, goldenrod, thistle, and the carpeting grass. Over us, larks were soaring and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... erected, and upon which it seemed partly to recline. In this shed stood a saddled horse, employed in eating his corn. The cottages in this part of Cumberland partake of the rudeness which characterises those of Scotland. The outside of the house promised little for the interior, notwithstanding the vaunt of a sign, where a tankard of ale voluntarily decanted itself into a tumbler, and a hieroglyphical scrawl below attempted to express a promise of 'good entertainment for man and horse.' Brown was no fastidious traveller: ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... confession makes thee partial in the law; for here, in the midst of thy boasts, thou hast not, because thou canst not say, thou hast fulfilled all righteousness. What madness then has brought thee into the temple, there in audacious manner to stand and vaunt before God; saying, "God, I thank thee, I am not as other ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... an essayist, as a journalist, as a critic, as a Liberal, as everything that offers your laziness a refuge, until starvation and shame drive you to serious dramatic parturition. I shall repeat my public challenge to you; vaunt my superiority; insult your corpulence; torture Belloc; if necessary, call on you and steal your wife's affections by intellectual and athletic displays, until you contribute something to the British drama. You are played out as an essayist: your ardor is soddened, your ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the almost innocent self-congratulation, but recognises in it an appeal to his faithfulness. It was really a prayer, though it sounded like a vaunt, and it is answered by renewed assurances. To part with outward things for Christ's sake or for the kingdom's sake—which is the same thing—is to win them again with all their sweetness a hundred-fold ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently. I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt. I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt. My arms held nothing but ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... N. boasting &c v.; boast, vaunt, crake^; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade^; gasconade; blague^, bluff, gas [Slang]; highfalutin, highfaluting^; hot air, spread-eagleism [U.S.]; brag, braggardism^; bravado, bunkum, buncombe; jactitation^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sake of the church or Christianity, except the one thing its Lord cares about—that they should do what he tells them! He would deliver them from themselves into the liberty of the sons of God, make them his brothers; they leave him to vaunt their church. His commandments are not grievous; they invent commandments for him, and lay them, burdens grievous to be borne, upon the necks of their brethren. God would have us sharers in his bliss—in the very truth of existence; they worship from afar, and ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... {a} great displeasure; because he grudged 1010 that any other man ever more glories of mid-earth held under heaven than himself: 'Art thou the Beowulf who with Breca strove on {the} wide sea, in {a} swimming strife, where ye from pride 1020 tempted {the} fords, and for foolish vaunt in {the} deep water ventured {your} lives? Nor you any man, nor friend nor foe, might blame {for your} sorrowful voyage, when on {the} sea ye row'd, when ye {the} ocean-stream, 1030 with {your} arms deck'd, measur'd {the} sea-ways, with ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... peace, O Spectres, who haunt My labouring mind, I have fought and failed. I have not quailed, I was all unmailed And naked I strove, 'tis my only vaunt. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... vaunt their love of gold and fame, High station and accomplishments of skill, Yet of life's greatest conquest they are still, And deem it weakness, or an act of shame, To seem to place high value on the love Which first of all ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... round Malea unsafe, and you captured and slew more Roman citizens almost than Philip himself; and to our ships conveying provisions to our armies the coast of Macedonia itself was less dangerous, than the promontory of Malea. Cease, therefore, to vaunt your good faith, and the obligations of treaties; and, dropping a popular style of discourse, speak as a ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... disease of electricity has been for some time past almost universally conceded. While some vaunt the faradic, others prefer the galvanic current in its treatment. It appears that thus far the best results have been obtained on the one hand by galvanization of the spine, on the other by general faradization. It occurred to me, when I began to devote myself to electro-balneological treatment, ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... smiled and said no more. She knew how little Avery was drawn by pomp and circumstance, but she would not vaunt her knowledge before one so obviously incapable of understanding. In silence she let ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... is different; and furthermore, what originated in a necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large rivalry in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house four stories high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds five stories high, then the former, not to be looked down upon that way, immediately sends for his architect and claps ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... (French, pro. bon ve-van'), one who lives well. Gour-mand (French, pro. goor'man), a glutton. Gas-tro-nom'ic, relating to the science of good eating. 8. Cor'pu-lent, fleshy, fat. Ep'i-cure, one who indulges in the luxuries of the table. Vaunt'ed, boasted. 9. Ex'pi-ates, atones for. Lard'er, a pantry. Es-chew', ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Jean Richmond's son (in his own ruinous way), but not to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Statuaries make, The image of some great & worthy one, They still, as they intend his forme to take, Forecast the Basis he shall rest vpon, Whose firme infixe thunders nor winds can shake, Nor Time, that Nature deeds to liue alone. So (worthiest Lady) may I proudly vaunt, (Being neuer guilty of that crime before) That to this Laye, which I so rudely chaunt, Your diuine selfe, which Dian doth adore, As her maids her, I haue select to daunt Enuy: as violent ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... The free-born daughter of the freest people under heaven—a people too proud to imitate even foreign virtues—would surely never have sold herself to foreign vices! It is not possible, lady, that you should be a native of Britain, unless indeed your heart be as much below as the sons of Britannia vaunt theirs to be above ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he was an Episcopalian, and was long one of the leading members of Trinity Church. His devotion was unaffectedly sincere, and though he made no vaunt of his religious principles or hopes, there could be no question of his deep, earnest convictions. Kind, courteous, ever thinking of the good of others, and wholly unselfish, Mr. Walton was a good specimen of the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... rebellion anew. He plunders his uncle, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, of a considerable sum of money, to fill the Scottish Usurper's not over-burdened treasury, debauches the servants of his relation, takes arms, and though repeatedly chastised in the field, still keeps his vaunt, and threatens mischief to those, who, in the name of his rightful sovereign, defend the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Thus did he vaunt; but his arrow had not killed Diomed, who withdrew and made for the chariot and horses of Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. "Dear son of Capaneus," said he, "come down from your chariot, and draw the arrow out ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... The nursling of a chaste, heroic mother, I have not proved unworthy of my birth. Pittheus, whose wisdom is by all esteem'd, Deign'd to instruct me when I left her hands. It is no wish of mine to vaunt my merits, But, if I may lay claim to any virtue, I think beyond all else I have display'd Abhorrence of those sins with which I'm charged. For this Hippolytus is known in Greece, So continent that he is deem'd austere. All know my abstinence inflexible: The daylight is not purer than my heart. ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... "Vaunt not, poor mortal one, nor claim knowledge when the Gods know not. He who is greatest among all the sons of evil now waits for the hour to strike when he may assail us and have with him all the hosts of the foes of light. What may be the issue of the combat cannot ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... months later, he writes, "I am tired of railing against Destiny and myself.... There are moments in which I despair of all that is good, in which I feel it has been enjoined upon me to work against everything that makes a vaunt of specious happiness." But he took no manful and resolute steps to battle against his unhappy state; he continued to correspond with the lady of his affections, to gaze upon her portrait, to write to his friend about her, and to dwell upon the past, the hours he had ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... received his Diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly pleased ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... may vaunt and Death may boast, But we laugh his pow'r to scorn; He is but a slave at most,— Night that ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... of snakes is alluded to in Dante's "Inferno", 24. "I saw a crowd within Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape And hideous that remembrance in my veins Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands Let Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus, Pareas, and Chelyder be her brood, Cenchris and Amphisbaena, plagues so dire Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she showed." — Carey. (See also Milton's "Paradise Lost", Book X., 520-530.) (24) The Egyptian Thebes. (25) "... All my being ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... that a silly fool, with nothing but empty birth to boast of, should in his insolence array himself in the merits of others, and vaunt an honour which does ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Famine and Pestilence, Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes, Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes Above the world! where all the air grows dense With rumors of destruction and a sense, Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... own, without acknowledging the Piracy they are guilty of, or so much as paying the least Complement to the Authors of their Wisdom: No, Gentlemen and Ladies, I am not the Daw in the Fable, that would vaunt and strut in your Plumes. And besides, I know very well you might have me upon the Hank according to Law, and treat me as a Highwayman or Robber; for you might safely swear upon your Honours, that I had stole the whole Book from your recreative Minutes. But I am more generous; I am what you may ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... As this, however, was a period posterior to all the incidents of this tale, we shall continue to call the young hunter by the name under which he has been first introduced to the reader. Nor was the Iroquois less struck with the vaunt of the white man. He knew of the death of his comrade, and had no difficulty in understanding the allusion, the intercourse between the conqueror and his victim on that occasion having been seen by several savages on the shore of the lake, who had been stationed at different ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper |
