"Disdainful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, with his arms my neck Encircling, kiss'd my cheek, and spake: "O soul Justly disdainful! blest was she in whom Thou was conceiv'd! He in the world was one For arrogance noted; to his memory No virtue lends its lustre; even so Here is his shadow furious. There above How many now hold themselves mighty kings Who here like swine ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Due pellegrini, which cannot be later than 1528, contains the rudiments of a plot, two lovers bent on suicide being persuaded by a miraculous voice to become reconciled with the world and life. Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Pike foremost of all things, for lofty angling-disdainful of worm and even minnow—Providence, I say, at this adjuration, pronounced that Pike must catch that trout. Not many anglers are heaven-born; and for one to drop off the hook halfway through his teens would ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... by making a breach in public opinion, through which his friends have passed in behind him. Probably without him all these artists would have remained unknown, or at least without influence, because they all were bold characters in art, but timid or disdainful in life. Degas, Monet and Renoir were fine natures with a horror of polemics, who wished to hold aloof from the Salons, and were resigned from the outset to be misunderstood. They were, so to say, electrified by the magnificent example of Manet's fighting spirit, and Manet was generous enough ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... perchance be gracious— With disdainful smiling pride, She will place it with the trinkets ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... England; and still the powerless King and his disdainful Lords were always in contention. Some of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made proposals to Bruce, to accept the rule of that country. He sent his brother Edward to them, who was crowned King of Ireland. He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his Irish wars, but ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... wiped his forehead after he had made this speech, and looked round for the approbation which he was aware he had deserved; and Miss Leonora Wentworth threw a glance of disdainful observation upon the unhappy lady who had caused this disturbance. "If your wife will come with us, we will go and look at the house," she said, graciously. "I daresay if it is in Grange Lane it will suit us very well. My nephew is a very young man, Miss Wodehouse," said Miss Leonora, who had not ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... unfortunate affair that he made proposal to Adela Miranda. And now he cannot help thinking it had something to do with her abrupt and disdainful rejection of him, though the young lady's little concealed disgust, coupled with her brother's indignation, had no reference to the physical deformity. But for his blind passion he might have perceived this. Fancying it ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... of American property was exasperating to the last degree. The disdainful impressment of American seamen, and still more the unofficial blockade of the ports, would have justified war. Yet notwithstanding the loss of American shipping, trade continued to prosper, and vessels engaged in foreign commerce increased; ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... forces dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after her. It was not only that there was something akin to association and intimacy in drinking next, but there was the fearful joy of meeting her in transit and receiving a cold and disdainful look ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Wouldest thou not suffer as an evil-doer, addict not thyself to play with evil, 25 to joke and jest, and mock at men in place and power. Gaal mocked at Abimelech, and said, Who is Abimelech that we should serve him? But he paid for his disdainful language at last (Judg 9). I have heard of an innkeeper here in England, whose sign was the crown, and he was a merry man. Now he had a boy, of whom he used to say, when he was jovial among his guests, This boy is heir to the crown, or this boy shall be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fool that I have been," she breaks forth, in disdainful self-contempt; "never in this life shall I obtain it, for outward circumstances influence it little. How vainly deluded I have been hitherto! Little did I imagine that the very longing and craving of my heart for it, would thereby ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... Yes—but what do words mean to me now? (Then suddenly starting to his feet and flinging off her hand with disdainful strength—violently and almost insultingly.) What damned rot! I tell you we'll win! We must! Oh, I'm a fool to waste words on you! What can you know? Love isn't in the materia medica. Your predictions—all the verdicts of all the doctors—what ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... Apollyon met him. Now the Monster was hidious to behold; he was cloathed with scales like a Fish (and they are his pride); he had wings like a Dragon, and out of his belly came Fire and Smoak; and his mouth was as the mouth of a Lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, curving lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the queenliness of her face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet of Burgundy in the spiral threads of her golden ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... weekly and daily reports of her going to be married to fifty different people, that she cared little for what was said on this subject. Indeed, conscious of rectitude, and with an utter contempt for mean and commonplace gossiping, she was, for a woman, and a young woman, rather too disdainful of the opinion of the world. Mrs. Broadhurst, though her daughter had fully explained herself respecting Lord Colambre, before she began this course of visiting, yet rejoiced that, even on this footing, there should be constant intercourse ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... with imitation lead frame in the front door. He paid five-and-forty pounds a year for it, and did not think the rent too high, because Mrs. MacWhirr (a pretentious person with a scraggy neck and a disdainful manner) was admittedly ladylike, and in the neighbourhood considered as "quite superior." The only secret of her life was her abject terror of the time when her husband would come home to stay for good. Under the same roof there dwelt also a daughter called Lydia and a son, Tom. These two were ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... horizontal position the Baron's eyes were but three feet above the floor. His gaze, wandering idly, as that of a man who is just awake and collecting his ideas, fell on a door painted with flowers by Jan, an artist disdainful of fame. The Baron did not indeed see twenty thousand flaming eyes, like the man condemned to death; he saw but one, of which the shaft was really more piercing than the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... hounds, the appetites were let loose. The supreme appetite of power in Eugene Rougon, the great man, the disdainful genius of the family, free from base interests, loving power for its own sake, conquering Paris in old boots with the adventurers of the coming Empire, rising from the legislative body to the senate, passing from the presidency of the council of state to the portfolio of minister; ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... constant effort to keep her temper, and to submit patiently to her cousin's whims. Muriel, taking advantage of Patty's forbearance, had ordered her companion about, and treated her in such a haughty and disdainful manner, that the latter had sometimes felt her position nearly unbearable. At The Priory at least she could be independent; she could select her own friends, with whom she might mix on equal terms, and could secure ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, "the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve me ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... meantime, had pulled on his outer clothing and had stood moodily by, watching Dave's more workmanlike preparations with a disdainful smile. ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... and the most absurd of women. She never knows what she wants, what she fears, whom she loves, or whom she hates. There is no nature in her expression: with her chin in the air she poses eternally as tender or disdainful, absent or haughty; all is affectation. . . . She is feared and hated by all who live in her society. Yet she has truth, courage, and honesty, and is such a mixture of good and evil that no steadfast opinion about her can be entertained. She pleases, she ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, their destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... Marianne extremely uncomfortable; but at last he let fall such a harsh expression that Valentine indignantly rebelled, and he had to apologize. At heart he feared her, especially when the blood of the Vaugelades arose within her, and she gave him to understand, in her haughty disdainful way, that she would some day revenge herself ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... means account for the variety of passions excited within him by the mere difference of the spacing, time, or rhythm of music? In my new condition of living I notice that the soul throws out with most disdainful impatience music that was formerly beautiful to my mind and heart (or my creature); and certain types of flowing cadences (very rarely to be found), sustained in high, flowing, delicate, and soaring continuity will produce ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... a half-disdainful smile, "what one calls happiness. I, for one, don't want a respectable, plodding, money-saving married life. I'm not fit for it. Of course ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... of the other prisoners included in the verdict, "the law should take its course." No one credited this declaration for an instant, and most persons felt that the Crown officials were indulging in an indecent piece of mockery. Amidst this universal incredulity, however—this disdainful and indignant disbelief—the prisoners' solicitor, Mr. Roberts, vigilant and untiring to the last, took the necessary steps to pray arrest of execution pending decision of the serious law points raised on the trial. Some of the most eminent counsel in England ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... received no honour or respect; so that even the Tartars appointed to attend them, however low their condition, always went before them, and took the upper places, and even often obliged them to sit behind their backs. They are irritable and disdainful to other men, and beyond belief deceitful; speaking always fair at first, but afterwards stinging like scorpions. They are crafty and fraudulent, and cheat all men if they can. Whatever mischief they intend they carefully conceal, that no one may provide or find a remedy for their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... Unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin We die as we have lived, and 'tis rare it happens otherwise Whatever course I adopt many people will condemn me Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe Who counted others only as they stood in relation to himself Wise and disdainful silence is difficult to keep under reverses With him one's life was safe World; so unreasoning, and so little in accord ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ceased roaring, and the fight was still going on close at hand—at the Tuileries doubtless. The townspeople were tranquil and the soldiery disdainful. A strange contrast; all these good citizens smiling and chatting, and the soldiers, who had come to save them at the peril of their lives, looking down upon them with the most careless indifference. My friend reached the Boulevard ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... thing Tyndall ever saw was the Priestess Lhyreesa as she stepped out of the empty hulk, kicking it away with a disdainful toe. Breathless from her ordeal, she sank to the grass, her breasts ...
— Grove of the Unborn • Lyn Venable
... would he exclaim, "that disdainful Apollo. Thus cold, callous, and triumphing in the work of destruction, must be the angel of death, who winged the shaft at ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... but be the call how peremptory soever, he resolved not to comply with it until he had seen Alice placed in safety. In the meantime, he determined not to lose sight of Fenella; and disregarding her repeated, disdainful, and impetuous rejection of the hand which he offered her, he at length seemed so far to have soothed her, that she seized upon his right arm, and, as if despairing of his following her path, appeared reconciled to attend him on that ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... warrior's slumbers last And bind his torpid senses fast; But now his deep repose he breaks, The best of all our champions wakes. I captured, Rama's heart to wring, This daughter of Videha's king. And brought her from that distant land(920) Where wandered many a Rakshas band. Disdainful still my love she spurns, Still from each prayer and offering turns, Yet in all lands beneath the sun No dame may rival Sita, none, Her dainty waist is round and slight, Her cheek like autumn's moon is ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... perhaps be aware, is one of the most peculiar features of Welsh poetry. In the ode to which I allude the poet complains of the barbarity of his mistress, Morfydd, and what an unthankful task it is to be the poet of a beauty so proud and disdainful, which sentiment ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Calenderer's horse under the its guidance of the celebrated John Gilpin, the disdainful steed now in the management of Sir Felix, "wondered what thing he'd got upon his back," we are not competent to decide; but he certainly in his progress "o'er the stones" manifested frequent impatience of restraint. These symptoms of contumaciousness ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly—simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear and ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... his opponent to pay his flippant gibe the honor of repartee, he was disappointed. To be sure, Hobart, admirably erect in his slender grace, was moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it evidenced scarcely the appreciation that anybody less impervious to criticism than Ridgway would have ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... was now at hand, and from his seat The Monster moving onward came as fast, With horrid strides, Hell trembled as he strode. Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd, Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except, Created thing naught vallu'd he nor shun'd; And with disdainful look thus first began. 680 Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated Front athwart my way To yonder Gates? through them I mean to pass, That ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... seemed rather disdainful of what Jessie had to offer her in the way of shawls. She continued to toss them to right and left, scattering them so carelessly about that one or two fell to the floor of the aisle and were retrieved by a near-by floor-walker, who glanced at poor Jessie, as much as to say, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... fete, a procession passing through the quarter which is not so virtuous as our own, so our mousmes tell us, with a disdainful toss of the head. Nevertheless, from the heights on which we dwell, seen thus in a bird's-eye view, by the uncertain light of the stars, this district has a singularly chaste air, and the concert going on therein, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... jargon, and against the universe for the rush and discomfort of the last quarter of an hour, was disposed to express her feelings by a marked lack of relish for her food. She regarded Hadria's hearty appetite with a disdainful expression. Martha ate bread and butter and fruit. She was to have some milk that had been brought for her, when they ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Lady Frances, with as disdainful a toss of her head, as if she had always formed a part of the aristocracy. "Pity her! methinks the maid was well off to obtain the man ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... exclaimed the stranger. "By these fetters, no!" And, weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful laughter. ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... withdrew, not in confusion, but with a smile of malignant triumph. He strove to soothe his wife—for his daughter, when relieved from the presence of the disdainful eyes that gazed on her, bore the insult that had been offered them meekly—and, after remaining an hour in Keswick, they returned to their villa in the same chaise in which they ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... but a great man spoiled, that is, largely soured. He was never a Timon; but, while at best a Stoic, he was at worst a Cynic, emulous though disdainful, trying all men by his own standard, and intolerant of a rival on the throne. To this result there contributed the bleak though bracing environment of his early years, amid kindred more noted for strength than for ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... refused to let any cause remove her from Northwold, until after an event which it was hoped would render James less disdainful of his inheritance. But—'Was there ever anything more contrary?' exclaimed Jane, as she prepared to set out the table for a grand tea. 'There's Master James as pleased and proud of that there little brown girl, as if she was as fine a boy ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he sat down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He was ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... his senses than I myself, or any person present, and I had no doubt that what induced him to commit the act was rage at being looked down upon by a quondam acquaintance, who was rising a little in the world, exacerbated by the reflection that the disdainful quondam acquaintance was one of the Saxon race, against which every Welshman entertains a grudge more or less virulent, which, though of course, very unchristianlike, is really, brother Englishman, after the affair of the long ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... State Gas Co., J. Edward Addicks, 20,000 shares"—two millions of dollars. I leaned back and laughed as I thought of this wary old fox, with the bruises and scars of the "System's" hopper thick all over his body, dutifully bringing his contribution to his old enemy, Rogers. And Rogers, disdainful and contemptuous of the man, found his $400,000 good. This, I said to myself, is a case of spider eat spider with a vengeance; and I wondered if experience is really as good a teacher as ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... with the outside of the building, lofty and imposing. The floor was of oak, almost black with age, the walls were beautifully wainscoted and carved, and here and there tall armoured figures looked down upon me in disdainful silence. But the crowning glory of all was the magnificent staircase that ran up from the centre. It was wide enough and strong enough to have taken a coach and four, the pillars that supported it were exquisitely carved, as were the banisters and rails. Half-way up ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... to be seated in the royal presence to relate his experiences. Around the hall stood the grandees of Spain and the magnates of the Church, as obsequious and attentive to him now as they had been proud and disdainful when, a hungry wanderer, he had knocked at the gates of La Rabida to beg bread for his son. It was the acme of the discoverer's destiny, the realization of his dream of glory, the well-earned recompense of years ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... A disdainful gesture completed her meaning. Thus, under the influence of her disastrous education, Emile for the second time killed her budding happiness, and destroyed its prospects of life. Maximilien's apparent indifference, and a woman's smile, ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... certainty of possessing her for fourteen hours. That beauty's name was Saint Hilaire; and under that name she became famous in England, where she followed a rich lord the year after. At first, vexed because I had not remarked her before, she was proud and disdainful; but I soon proved to her that it was fortunate that my first or second choice had not fallen on her, as she would now remain longer with me. She then began to laugh, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... so nice as the things Mother's sending them," said Muriel, turning over the toys in a rather disdainful manner. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Sir,' replied Davy. 'I'm on my way, Sir, to the Mills, where my client, Mrs. Nutter (here Toole uttered a disdainful grunt), resides; and I called at your house, doctor, and they sent me here; and I am desirous to prove to you, Sir, as a friend of Miss Sarah Harty, styling herself Mrs. Nutter, that my client's rights are clear and irresistible, in order that you may use any interest ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Alston had a very poor opinion of Miss Meredyth. He did not deny her loveliness. He could not; no man in his senses and gifted with eyesight could. But the placid prettiness of Marjorie appealed to him far more than the cold, disdainful beauty of the young woman he had called ungenerous, and who had in her ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... of society, for the sufferings of the obscure. If the successful adventurer, Lesable, and the handsome Maze are the objects of his veiled irony, he maintains, or feels a sorrowful, though somewhat disdainful tenderness, for poor old Savon, the old copying clerk of the Ministry of Marine, who is the drudge of the office and whose colleagues laugh at him because his wife deceived him, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Grief is disdainful, Sottish and painful: Then wait on pleasure, And lose no leisure. No no! Heart's ease it lendeth And comfort sendeth. Then sing we all Fa la la ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... night till morn alternate food and rest, No rightful cheer withheld, no sleep debar'd, Their each day's labour brings its sure reward. Yet when from plough or lumb'ring cart set free, They taste awhile the sweets of liberty: E'en sober Dobbin lifts his clumsy heels And kicks, disdainful of the dirty wheels; But soon, his frolic ended, yields again To trudge the road, and wear ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... will kill herself," I answered, thinking that this resolve would startle Henriette. But when she heard it a disdainful smile, more expressive than the thoughts it conveyed, flickered on her lips. "My dear conscience," I continued, "if you would take into account my resistance and the seductions that led to my fall you would ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... invitingly at my own end, and even advanced a step or two towards her. She then broke into a long disdainful pace, and began to circle round me at the extreme limit of her tether. I stood admiring her free action for some moments—not always turning with her, which was tiring—until I found that she was gradually winding herself up ON ME! Her frantic astonishment when she suddenly found herself ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to discover that the charioteer was none other than Pieter van de Werff, though now when she thought of it, she remembered he had told her that his sledge was named the Badger. In his choice of passenger she noted, too, not without a smile, that he showed his cautious character, disdainful of any immediate glory, so long as the end in view could be attained. For there in the sleigh sat no fine young lady, decked out in brave attire, who might be supposed to look at him with tender eyes, but a little fair-haired mate aged nine, who was in fact ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... held E'en hell. Between the sepulchres, to him My guide thrust me, with fearless hands and prompt; This warning added: "See thy words be clear." He, soon as there I stood at the tomb's foot, Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood Address'd me: "Say what ancestors were thine." I, willing to obey him, straight reveal'd The whole, nor kept back aught: whence he, his brow Somewhat uplifting, cried: "Fiercely were they Adverse to me, my party, and the blood From whence I sprang: twice, therefore, I abroad ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... chair and began to pull over the things. Broken games and animals, dolls' dresses painfully tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,—sorry relics of past pleasures,—one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Ferdinand, conscious of the importance of a papal coronation, sent a very obsequious embassy to Rome, announcing his appointment as emperor, and imploring the benediction of the holy father and the reception of the crown from his hands. The haughty and disdainful reply of the pope was characteristic of the times and of the man. It ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... be kept thus under my wing, And have all that which they desire; For why it is but their only undoing, And, after the proverb, we put oil to the fire.[317] Wherefore we parents must have a regard Our children in time for to subdue, Or else we shall have them ever untoward, Yea, spiteful, disdainful, naught and untrue. And let us them thrust alway to the school, Whereby at their books they may be kept under: And so we shall shortly their courage cool, And bring them to honesty, virtue and nurture. But, alas, now-a-days (the more is the pity), Science and learning ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... sphere Enchas'd with thousands ever-shining lamps, Will sooner burn the glorious frame of heaven Than it should [194] so conspire my overthrow. But, villain, thou that wishest this [195] to me, Fall prostrate on the low disdainful earth, And be the footstool of great Tamburlaine, That I may rise into [196] my ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... said he, "and let us crack a bottle, that our hearts may not turn to water under the frown of the disdainful Winwood. I think the old 'Bell' in Holborn will meet our present requirements better than the club. There is something jovial and roystering about an ancient tavern; but we must keep a ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... obtained the dominion of the world, sent legates or deputies to the Britons to demand of them hostages and tribute, which they received from all other countries and islands; but they, fierce, disdainful, and haughty, treated ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... feeling which his countenance exhibited might have been that of disdainful contempt ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the disdainful demeanor and grudging disposition of the Supreme Council, and irritated by the arbitrariness of its decrees and the indefensible way in which it applied principles that were propounded as sacred. Before ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... her another disdainful glance and darted off into the thick of the crowd. A moment later Pollyanna heard his strident call of "paper, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... Pamela's. Pamela, who seemed lightly, and as it were casually, to swing a key to the door against which Neville, among many others, beat; Pamela, going about her work, keen, debonair and detached, ironic, cool and quiet, responsive to life and yet a thought disdainful of it, lightly holding and easily renouncing; the world's lover, yet not its servant, her foot at times carelessly on its neck to prove her power over it—Pamela said blandly to Grandmama, when the old lady commented one day on her admirable composure, "Life's so short, you see. Can ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... her own face expanding irresistibly, bent lower over Diego's small trousers. The picture of Ana, standing disdainful among the sorrowing caballeros and waving off their pleas with an imperious hand, was one to bring a smile to lips of deadliest gravity. Ana, with her hands on her broad hips, short and thick as a squat brown jug with its handles ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... "You see, I am frank with you. We marry for money, yes, but we do not make a god of it. It is our servant. You make it, and we enjoy it. Yes, and you, Mademoiselle—you, too, were made to enjoy. You do not belong here," he said, with a disdainful sweep of the arm. "Ah, I have solved you. You have in you the germ of the Riviera. You were ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... behind. He followed, and then Beverly, more venturesome and vastly more interested than the others, rode recklessly after. Quinnox was questioning the laconic Ravone when she drew rein. The vagabonds seemed to evince but little interest in the proceedings. They stood away in disdainful aloofness. No sign of recognition ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... it's because you can paint pictures with a brush. Or—or perhaps it's because you've got such a wonderful command of words."(Miss Dorothy stumbled a little precipitately into this sentence—she had not failed to see the disdainful movement of the man's head and shoulders at the mention of his pictures.) "Whatever it is," she hurried on, "you've got it. I saw it first years ago, with—with your son, when I used to see him at father's. He would sit and ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... assert his rights to the crown by bloodshed, Nicholas I. showed himself resolved to maintain the absolute principles of his throne. He accorded a disdainful pardon to Prince Trubetskoi, whom the conspirators of the capital had chosen as head of the government. The mass of misled soldiery was likewise treated with clemency. But against the real instigators of the insurrection the Czar proceeded with uncompromising severity. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... lift Rupert out of the wagon, and let us get him to bed as quickly as we can, for I am afraid that he is dreadfully ill. Where are the bedrooms? Oh, what a dreadfully poky little house it is!" and Miss Sylvia turned up the tip of her nose in disdainful fashion. ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... guessed what you wanted," she went on in that deep, vibrating tone which had such a rich quiver of anger within it; "but I never thought you would—" She paused, and a little disdainful laugh broke from her lips. "You would make me your wife—me? You think me likely to accept such an offer?" And she drew herself up with a superb gesture, and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... was not appeased, and gave a disdainful shrug as she answered with a look in her eyes that his lordship did not like, "Thank you. I don't want admirers or slaves, but friends and helpers. I've lived so long with a wise, good man that I am rather hard ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... boat you would have met many of your land, friends maybe, who perchance would have turned upon you the eyes of suspicion, the shoulder cold with disdainful convention, whilst their tongue, more poisonous even than the forked tip of the cerastes cornutus,[1] might, nay, would, have striven to corrupt your mind with a festering mass of doubt and suspicion and misgiving. Therefore have I brought you on this journey, which is ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... were resumed by the same set in town next winter. The memories and the methods of one season were tided over to another. Gertrude was still "gay"—perhaps gayer—and a little more openly impatient with her husband, and a little more openly disdainful of him. Young men swarmed and fluttered, and those who had "never tried it on" before seemed inclined ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... a compliment he ever came, and I feel extremely flattered. As to poor Marie, he refers to her as "Bash" because he can't pronounce her name, and is too disdainful to try. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... his manner of mind and conversation may be found in the circle of whom we read in the Diary of Fanny Burney. We can conceive Lord Cromer leaning against the Committee Box in earnest conversation with Mr. Windham and Mr. Burke at Warren Hastings' trial. We can restore the half-disdainful gesture with which he would drop an epigram ("from the Greek") into the Bath Easton Vase. His politeness and precision, his classical quotations, his humour, his predilections in literature and art, were those of the inner circle ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... to his feet, and regarding the group with a menacing and disdainful look, walked up to Amabel, and saying to her, "You shall yet be mine," strode out of the room. He then marched along the passage, and called to Pillichody, who instantly answered the summons. Accompanied by Hodges, the grocer followed them to ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... centurion. After him, his hands bound behind his back, walked the criminal. A deep flush overspread his handsome face, his eyes glowed under the too lofty brow with the fierce light of fever, his waving locks stood out in wild confusion round his head, while the finely cut upper lip with its disdainful curl seemed the very seat of scorn and bitterest contempt. Every feature wore that same expression, and not a trace of fear or regret. But his panting breast betrayed to the physician's first glance that they had here to deal with a sick man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cents apiece); and a fifty-dollar organist has put on his full instrument, as though he were proclaiming the glory of God most mighty, instead of the folly of man most miserable. Into the church have thronged the elect, proud and disdainful; on the outside has stared the vulgar multitude, too ignorant for anything but rapt wonderment. From the temple of high-priced worship the celebrants have passed, in a still more exclusive body, to a residence where a banquet has been prepared by a man who generally makes ice cream ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... animal, and in some sort the property of that hazel-eyed young girl. But it would need more than repugnance to save him from his destiny. A slave is a slave, and has no power to shape his fate. Peter Blood was sold to Colonel Bishop—a disdainful buyer—for the ignominious ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... itself up in its own glory; hair of the colour of the reflection from a furnace; a gallantry of adornment producing in herself and in others a tremor of voluptuousness, the half-revealed nudity betraying a disdainful desire to be coveted at a distance by the crowd; an ineradicable coquetry; the charm of impenetrability, temptation seasoned by the glimpse of perdition, a promise to the senses and a menace to the mind; a double anxiety, the one desire, the other ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... after one comprehensive, disdainful look at Mary Gowd's suit, hat, gloves and shoes. Now she sat up, her bewitching face ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... voice of triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you there!" he continued. "You dare not, for my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout and point to the window"—and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the other's gesture—"but my safety is more to you than to me! And 'twill ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... a public service. A popular novelist may be licensed to draw on his imagination; but hitting below the belt is another thing, whoever wears it. Mr Dexter's disdainful treatment of that eminent educationalist Mr. Platt-Culpepper—who is in his grave and therefore unable to reply (so like a man!)—can be called nothing less. I hope it will receive the silent contempt ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dura, amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having executed one or two throws, there comes me a voracious fish, and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10] Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round disdainful, making a whirl in the water of prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... abstracted range of subjects; and the Greek sculptor as a workman almost exclusively intellectual, having only a sort of accidental connexion with the material in which his thought was expressed. He is fancied to have been disdainful of such matters as the mere tone, the fibre or texture, of his marble or cedar-wood, of that just perceptible yellowness, for instance, in the ivory-like surface of the Venus of Melos; as being occupied only with forms as abstract almost as the conceptions of philosophy, and translateable ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... himself the passionate admiration of its most brilliant undergraduates; among the rest, of the younger Cicero and of Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the learning of old Greece, strong ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... perceptible contraction of her brows into a little frown, and the setting of her lips into a curve of determination. They were handsome lips, mobile and sensitive—lips that might easily have been disdainful had not the inner spirit softened them with a tremor—or it might have been a ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... in 1600- 1601, known as 'The Returne from Parnassus.' These pieces prove that Shakespeare the poet was identified with Shakespeare the player. They also prove that Shakespeare's scholarship and art were held very cheaply by the University wits, who, as always, were disdainful of non-University men. His popularity is undisputed, but his admirer in the piece, Gullio, is a vapouring ignoramus, who pretends to have been at the University of Padua, but knows no more Latin than many modern critics. Gullio rants ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... wide-mouthed fire-place, without beholding also the gifted cat that purrs softly at his feet and nestles on his knees, or, with thickened tail and lifted back, parades, loftily round his chair in the haughty and disdainful manner ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... to run after some one who will perhaps laugh at him —one of those aristocratic women she would no doubt hold in abhorrence: "An angel beauty in whom one imagines a beautiful soul, a true duchess, very disdainful, very loving, delicate, witty, a coquette, a novelty to me! One of those phenomena who efface themselves from time to time, and who says she loves me, who wishes to keep me with her in a palace at Venice (for I tell you everything) —who wishes that I shall in future write only ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... resigned indecision and monotonous gentleness which is impressed upon subordinate officials by the influence of a life spent entirely under the fear of the stick. Banofir, on the contrary, is a noble lord looking upon his vassals passing in file before him: his mien is proud, his head disdainful, and he has that air of haughty indifference which is befitting a favourite of the Pharaoh, possessor of generously bestowed sinecures, and lord of a score of domains. The same haughtiness of attitude distinguishes the director of the granaries, Nofir. We rarely encounter ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... did not understand. She repeated her explanation impatiently, something disdainful and sinister in her metallic little voice. A slow blush mounted ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... thought, in all the arrogance of disdainful youth, that a woman of her age should have learnt to care for her appearance thus; or to wear becoming gowns, and arrange her hair like ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... exactly suited to the worthy Pedro's tastes. They were strangely battered, and stained as with salt water. How he had obtained them Lawrence would not say. The priest saw the books, but turned away from them with a disdainful glance, as if he could take no interest in subjects of a character so trivial. The contrast between the two strangers was very great. Pedro Alvarez was in figure more like an English sailor than ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... beautiful or genteel: Ambitious at any rate to be esteemed a wit; and with that view always affecting to keep company with wits; a great reader, and a violent admirer of poetry; happy in the thoughts of being reputed Swift's concubine; but still aiming to be his wife. By nature haughty and disdainful, looking with contempt upon her inferiors; and with the smiles of self-approbation upon her equals; but upon Dr. Swift, with the eyes of love: Her love was no doubt founded ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber |
