"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sewing-machine in one hand; it was a heavy load, and the muddy road made things no easier. But for all that I walked with a light heart. It was a miserable business altogether, and I might as well admit I had acted a trifle meanly. Meanly? Not a bit! I formed myself into a little committee, and pointed out that those infernal girls had planned to entertain their sweethearts with my wine. Well and good; but was not my ill-will ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... defence, were also divided in their opinions with respect to the conduct of General Oglethorpe. While one party acknowledged his signal services, and poured out the highest encomiums on his wisdom and courage; another shamefully censured his conduct, and meanly detracted from his merit. None took any notice of his services, except the inhabitants in and about Port-Royal, who addressed him in the following manner: "We the inhabitants of the southern parts of Carolina beg leave to congratulate your Excellency on your late wonderful ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sovereign. I have always endeavoured to deserve his friendship, by dealing strictly with his subjects, and by constantly exerting myself to procure immediate ladings for their ships. Hitherto the Portuguese, who have visited my country, were meanly dressed, and easily satisfied with the commodities we had to give them; and so far from desiring to remain in the country, were always anxious to complete their cargoes, and to return whence they came. This day I observe a wonderful difference. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... of mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France. The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... that cold, make their way into the thoughts, which they do not make known; and this is the reason why such marriages dissolve of themselves. Moreover, it is well known, that an impious man thinks meanly of a married partner; and all who are without religion ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... was but indifferently attained, for it could scarcely fail to be noted at a glance. His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and he had a grizzly jagged beard of some three weeks' date. Such was the figure (very meanly and poorly clad) that now rose from the seat, and stalking across the room sat down in a corner of the chimney, which the politeness or fears of the little clerk very readily ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... you are right; for the rest I may thank my gracious king. During the course of this year he has presented me with three hundred Fredericks d'or; and now you know the source of my revenue and will not think so meanly of me as ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... depreciate or to ridicule his neighbour: nations proverb each other; counties flout counties; obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves—the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, Mieux vaut bon repas que bel habit; "Better a good ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... superiority of this settlement instead of prolonged war. This is the close: "We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... of thy strange discourse Will ne'er have end. Sit still; and, my good wife, Entreat thy tongue be still; or, credit me, Thou shalt not understand a word we speak; We'll talk in Latin. Humida vallis raros patitur fulminis ictus, More rest enjoys the subject meanly bred Than he that bears the kingdom in his head. Great men are still musicians, else the world lies; They learn low strains after ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... word. A trifle, a thing of mere weight, I have brought you From the Assyrian camp. My apron here Is loaded now more heavily, but as meanly As an old witch's skirt, when she comes home From seeking camel's-dung for kindling; yet My burden was, an hour ago, the world Where you were ground to tortures; it was the brain Inventing your destruction.—Look ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... The ministerial majority had run down to 28. Next day the battle was renewed. According to parliamentary usage, the report of the address was brought up, and Pulteney seized the opportunity to make another vehement attack on the convention and the ministers. He accused the Prime-minister of meanly stooping to the dictates of a haughty, insolent Court, and of bartering away the lives and liberties of Englishmen for "a sneaking, temporary, disgraceful expedient." But the interest of the day was ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... seemed to have his attention attracted to the three friends. At first he looked uncomprehendingly, and then, as the features of the lads toward whom he had acted so meanly became plainer, he stared ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... small and most meanly furnished, but it was clean. The walls were dingy beyond the power of soap and water to change, but the floor had been scrubbed, and what glass there was in the windows had been washed. There were occasional holes in the ceiling and walls where the plaster ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... believed to be concerned in an insolent breach of certain orders, and was sentenced to a flogging which was really the due of another lad whom he was too proud to betray. He would not even condescend to remonstrate with the boy who was meanly allowing him to suffer, and betrayed his anguish in the matter so little that I doubt if the real culprit (who never was a week unflogged himself) had any idea what the punishment was ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 'I cannot suppose it to be all said.' Clara looking up as she heard the voice, was astonished both by the fire in the woman's eye and by the force of her tone. 'I will not think so meanly of you as to believe that such words from such a man can be passed by as meaning nothing. I will not say that you ought to be able to love him; in that you cannot control your heart; but if you cannot love him, the want of such love ought ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... Sir, said I, I do not desire to commend myself, but to think meanly of myself; yet when I do most despise myself, taking notice of that small measure of light which God hath given me, also that the people of the Lord, by their own saying, are edified thereby. Besides, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... see them meanly cling, Round the master, round the king, Sported with, and sold and bought,— Pitifuller sight ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the neighborhood who was cold. There was an endless procession of gossiping women. Gervaise took pride in the comforting warmth of her shop and welcomed those who came in, "holding a salon," as the Lorilleuxs and the Boches remarked meanly. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... What boundless jealousies environ you! When for this rule, which to my hand the State Committed unsolicited and free, Creon, my first of friends, trusted and sure, Would undermine and hurl me from my throne, Meanly suborning such a mendicant Botcher of lies, this crafty wizard rogue, Blind in his art, and seeing but for gain. Where are the proofs of thy prophetic power? How came it, when the minstrel-hound was here, This folk had no deliverance through ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... of a strange feeling of elation, which he attributed to his being free, and to the fact that he was his own master again in everything. And with this he confessed to a distinct feeling of littleness, of having acted meanly or unworthily of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... spirit of the drama. That he merited the distinctive epithet of "the incomparable Robert Cox," as Kirkman calls him, we can only judge by the memorial of our mimetic genius, which will be best given in Kirkman's words. "As meanly as you may now think of these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and, I may say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author of most of these farces. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... its revolutionary leaning by forbidding a subscription which was undertaken for the purpose of presenting a sword of honor to Lamoriciere. It did even worse than this. It meanly persecuted the vanquished soldiers of the Holy See, as well as those who had hastened to fill their places. This was pure revenge. And now that the success of Piedmont was no longer doubtful, it could serve no other purpose than to establish the fact of the Emperor's complicity. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... parted from him it was as his betrothed. Immediately after George's return from Europe, he had heard the story of Arabella's perfidy, and if no other circumstances had interposed to wean him from her entirely, this alone would have done it, for he could not respect a woman who would thus meanly stoop to deception. He had lingered in G— for the purpose of renewing his former acquaintance, with Mildred, the result ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... pleasure which they can receive from the drama, and to whom the very idea of what an author is cannot be made comprehensible without some pain and perplexity of mind: the error is one from which persons otherwise not meanly lettered, find it ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... impression which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country, and had not seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves, so full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... each Friday, where any stranger knight might show his prowess, winning honour and renown. But in these degenerate times it was necessary for the would-be champion to cry his challenge in some public place, or else arrange the fight beforehand meanly in some tavern. I should have been delighted with him on the whole, if he had not been quarrelsome and had not expected us, as his companions, to extricate him from the strife in which his arrogance involved him. We dreaded the arrival at a town or village. If he had possessed the prowess ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... were still rude and barbarous, and he had no respect for the property of his host. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted him—a handsome giant, six feet eight inches high, with full lips, dark skin, and curly hair that always showed beneath his wig. The Tsar disdained to adorn his person, and was often meanly clad, wearing coarse darned stockings, thick shoes, and studying ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... come aboard at New Orleans, probably. The brisk ones had been aboard already, from the North. Charley was wickedly pleased to see the long-nosed man stretched limp, and greenish in the face, while his two companions meanly teased him. And then, as Charley's father and Mr. Grigsby appeared, Charley began to ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... and is the real spring that moves the movers that are seen. It is all a lesson of how God works out His purposes through men that seem to themselves to be working out theirs. The king's criminal abandonment to lust and luxury, Haman's meanly personal pique, Esther's beauty, the fall of the favourite, the long past services of Mordecai, even the king's sleepless night, are all threads in the web, and God is the weaver. The story raises the whole question of the standing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the lookout thus kept for this person, it was reported that he had been seen to pass on foot through towns lying south of Denver, meanly dressed and accompanied by a young man named Linford. To all inquiries he answered that he was on his way to fast in the desert as his "Father" had commanded. His companion was even less communicative, saying somewhat irritably that his goings and comings were ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... brightened. "Say, Nat, you're real good! I'm sorry I treated you so meanly when you paid us ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sharpened. The support and inspiration which come naturally to authors in contact with their kind were being denied me. Age was bringing me no "harvest home." In short, at the very time when I should have been most honored, most recompensed, in my work, I found myself living meanly in a mean street and going about like a man of mean concerns, having little influence on my art or ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... genius of Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights guaranteed by the peace ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... movement, betrayed a man whose lightest word was law, but who feared to give the word. Where muscles had been were unfilled folds of skin that shook; where a firm if selfish mouth had once smiled merrily beneath a pointed black mustache, a mouth still smiled, but meanly; the selfishness was there, but the firmness ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... me that you fellows use me as meanly as you know how," flared Hen. "You ought to be ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... seemed to stretch like the channellings in a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of songs from ancient harvest-days, of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... ones, the witless and wise Gain husbands at pleasure, while none will me prize; Ah! why should the swains think so meanly of me, And I full as comely ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... how it fares with Pepys! Some men who have been roguish in their lives have been remembered by their higher accomplishments. A string of sonnets or a novel or two, if it catches the fancy, has wiped out a tap-room record. The winning of a battle has obliterated a meanly spent youth. It is true that for a while an old housewife who once lived on the hero's street will shake a dubious finger on his early pranks. Stolen apples or cigarettes behind the barn cram her recollection. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Marlow! But I'll suppress the emotion. Were I a wretch, meanly seeking to carry off a fortune, you should be the last man in the world I would apply to for assistance. But Miss Neville's person is all I ask, and that is mine, both from her deceased father's consent, and her ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... satisfaction, to resume their seats in the upper house, from which they had absented themselves since the decision against the patent of the duke of Hamilton; but whatever pecuniary recompence they might have obtained from the court, on which they were meanly dependent, they received no satisfaction from the parliament. The commons, finding Mr. Walpole very troublesome in their house, by his talents, activity, and zealous attachment to the whig interest, found means to discover some clandestine practices in which he was concerned as secretary at war, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sed nulli obnoxia; sed non Sordida; parta meo sed tamen acre domus." Small, yet it suits me; is of no offence; Was built, not meanly, at ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... sleeue. Had he bin Adam, he had tempted Eue. He can carue too, and lispe: Why this is he, That kist away his hand in courtesie. This is the Ape of Forme, Monsieur the nice, That when he plaies at Tables, chides the Dice In honorable tearmes: Nay he can sing A meane most meanly, and in Vshering Mend him who can: the Ladies call him sweete. The staires as he treads on them kisse his feete. This is the flower that smiles on euerie one, To shew his teeth as white as Whales bone. And consciences that wil not die in debt, Pay him the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... were given with a will. Several of the girls who had treated the western girl so meanly about the dunce cap had been in the boat, and they asked Ann to shake hands. They were truly repentant, and Ann could ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... room, but could not prevail against the odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... four-cornered "spare room," because her sister, who has married a city man, is obliged to have a folding-bed in the cramped limits of her flat Partly because so little is done for him educationally, and partly because he must live narrowly and dress meanly, the life of the average laborer tends to become flat and monotonous, with nothing in his work to feed his mind or hold his interest. Theoretically, we would all admit that the man at the bottom, who performs the meanest and humblest ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... the back of that a terror, far more dignified than the protest to which it gave birth, at the dreadful things she knew would happen because she was disregarded, and a small, weak, guilty sense that she had not made her protest loudly and, perhaps, cleverly enough. Life had behaved very meanly to this woman. When she was young and sweet her sweetness had been violated and crushed by something harsh and reckless; and now she was not sweet any longer, but just a wisp of an old woman, and nobody would ever bother about her again; and life gives one no second chances. Yaverland ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Damocles for many months; on and off, for years—indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things—too keenly about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair—a panoply, an armory, a very arsenal! And we ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the tower, that I was going to ring all the good people of Hillingford out of their beds in a fright, I should indignantly have repelled the accusation. Now, however, owing to the way in which Coleman had requested my assistance, it appeared to my bewildered senses that I should be meanly deserting my friends the moment they had got into difficulties, if I were to refuse; but when he used the word "shabby," it settled the business, and, seizing a rope with my uninjured hand, I began ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... is servitude at best. Already So many years hast thou been serving me; But rather as a friend than as a servant. We have grown old together. Dost thou think So meanly of this Michael Angelo As to imagine he would let thee serve, When he is free from service? Take this purse, Two thousand ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Thurlow was a type of the lawyer who fights his way to success and cares for little else. But he was a true and generous friend to Johnson, for whose proposed journey to Italy he offered to provide the means. And if his career allowed any one to think meanly of his abilities, Johnson's opinion of them would be a sufficient answer. He always maintained that "to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack"; it {241} was the question and answer of conversation, he thought, that showed what a man's real abilities ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... on the mountain hunting in company with the Leather-Stocking, as if they were of the same family; but there is a manifest difference in their manners. The youth delivers himself in chosen language, such as is seldom heard in these hills, and such as occasions great surprise to me, how one so meanly clad, and following so lowly a pursuit, could attain. Mohegan also knew him. Doubtless he is a tenant of Nattys hut. Did you remark the language of the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... children which drove me forth—too debased a thing to realize my loss. I have won again my self-control, thank God! am a man once more. You have, have always had, my love. You have to-day again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children's. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and to-night a mysterious memory, or shall I be ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... stabbed afresh by this quotation,—"provided they do not carry off the property of their neighbors, basely, meanly; as, for example, you would do if you failed within three months, and my ten thousand ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... towns, that is, taking away all the gold and silver he found: and Atabalipa supposed that, as he was the chief of the Spaniards, he must be the cleverest of them too; but one day he happened to find out by accident, that Pizarro could neither read nor write, and this discovery made him think so meanly of his conqueror, that from that moment he treated him with great contempt, saying that Pizarro, though a general, could not be a person of any consequence in his own country; since his common soldiers were better ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... by leaning over a little Bridge when the Prince took hold of his Heels and threw him into the Water, which was rather deep. The Abbe, much enraged, the moment he got himself out run at the Prince with great violence, a Horse-whip in his Hand, saying he thought very meanly of a Prince who cou'd not keep his word. The Prince flew from him, and getting to the Inn locked himself ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... motives, and of the basest kind, inasmuch as it was intended that the popularity of the work should rest upon satire; or, in other words, on the ability to be displayed by it in the art of detraction. Being disappointed in his hopes of profit, he shuffled out of the concern as meanly as any higgler could have done who had found himself in a profitless business with a disreputable partner. There is no disguising this unvarnished truth; and though his friends did well in getting the connection ended as quickly as possible, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... restless, Hamil looked for Shiela and saw Portlaw, very hot and uncomfortable in his best raiment, shooting his cuffs and looking dully about for some avenue of escape; and Hamil, exasperated with purple perfumes and thumbs, meanly snared him and left him to confront a rather ample and demonstrative young girl who believed that all human thought was precious—even sinful thought—of which she knew as much as a newly hatched caterpillar. However, Portlaw was ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Opposition criticism on Curragh affair by describing "how meanly the SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR sneaked out of the position into which he so proudly strutted a few days ago." More of same genial kind of talk from benches near. But as debate went forward Members evidently became possessed of growing sense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... ungrateful person cannot be justified and need not be mourned for. If your love is noble why do you treat it meanly? If it is lewd the man was right ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... which she had been guilty. But if the self-contempt of the doer can avenge a wrong done to another, Perez was amply avenged for this. And the worst of it was that the thought that she had wronged him here also, and meanly taken advantage of him, added to that horrid sense of his claim on her. He began to occupy her mind to a morbid and most painful extent, really much affecting her enjoyment. His sad and shabby figure, with its mutely reproachful face, haunted her. All that might have been to his disadvantage ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... his setting forth, nor yet where he would go (But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show, In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark; With his frieze hood and cloak above, he looked like ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... little the mere beauty of the outward form. He would then conduct his pupil to science, so that he might look upon the loveliness of wisdom; and that contemplating thus the universal beauty, no longer would he unworthily and meanly enslave himself to the attractions of one form in love, nor one subject of discipline or science, but would turn towards the wide ocean of intellectual beauty, and from the sight of the lovely and majestic forms which it contains, would abundantly bring ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... expediency itself is becoming a dwarfed and pinched idea. Ours is the country where love of constant improvement ought to be greater than anywhere else, because fear of revolution is less. Yet the art of politics is growing to be as meanly conceived as all the rest At elections the national candidate has not often a chance against the local candidate, nor the man of a principle against the man of a class. In parliament we are admonished on high authority ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... his head. "Well! Aramis," continued Porthos, "I have dreamed, I have imagined that an event has taken place in France. I dreamt of M. Fouquet all the night, of lifeless fish, of broken eggs, of chambers badly furnished, meanly kept. Villainous dreams, my dear D'Herblay; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him because she thought that he would like to share in her revenge. That, more than anything, hurt him, bringing him down to her base, sordid level, making him fellow-conspirator with her, plotting...ugh! How cruelly unfair that he, upright, generous, should be involved like this so meanly. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... compelled to seek for safety in disguise and flight; I thought we should meet with succour and assistance in the mountain home of Caneri—and how do I meet him? Not ready in arms to cover our retreat; not laudably occupied in providing resources for our dispirited soldiers, but meanly courting the blandishments of a Christian slave. Weak and forlorn and despairing, my few brave comrades are stretched on yonder street, fainting through want, and worn out with fatigue. I call upon Caneri for help, and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... and a passive ingratitude; applying both to this occasion, we may say, the first is, when a prince or people returns good services with cruelty or ill usage: the other is, when good services are not at all, or very meanly rewarded. We have already spoke of the former; let us therefore in the second place, examine how the services of our general have been rewarded; and whether upon that article, either prince or people ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... vanity said I whom this world so much dotes on, where is now thy virtue, thy excellency to me? You cannot procure me one thing needful, nor remove me from this desolate island to a place of plenty. One of these knives, so meanly esteemed, is to me more preferable than all this heap. E'en therefore remain where thou art to sink in the deep as unregarded, even as a creature whose life is not worth preserving. Yet, after all this exclamation, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... the closed and deserted store, but Marmaduke Simms was perched on the veranda, and Trooper meanly deserted his fair partner, and swung himself up beside his chum, there to wait until the sound of the first hymn would assure them they were in no danger of being ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... the only solution which I can offer of the enigma presented in his character:—"I am unchanged,—the same man as of yore!" said he. "True, my brother's wealth—he dying intestate—is legally my own. I know it; yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding her, so beautiful,—so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of outward state,—the cursed vanity, which, half a lifetime since, dropt off like ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... undetected criminal who in the dark watches of the night pores over the bitter scroll of his delinquencies? When Henry H. Rogers reads the record set down here of this faithless and degrading action, he will suffer infinitely more than ever I did for the loss of the gold he and his associates so meanly filched. Nor will the knowledge of the seven and a half score of millions marshalled ready at his nod, abate one jot or tittle of the measure of his ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... rule through seas of blood; The oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains, 210 Who ravaged kingdoms, and laid empires waste, And in a cruel wantonness of power Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up To want the rest; now, like a storm that's spent, Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind the covert. Vain thought! to hide them from the general scorn That haunts and dogs them like an injured ghost Implacable. Here, too, the petty tyrant, Whose scant domains geographer ne'er noticed, And, well for neighbouring grounds, of arm as short; 220 Who fix'd his ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... herself, 'I have much, my dear madam, to tell,' said she, 'and much to explain, 'ere you will admit me again to that esteem of which I was once so justly proud. I had no resource from misery, but in flight; and of that I could not make you a confidant, without meanly involving you in its disgrace.'—'Say no more, my love, on the subject,' replied madame; 'with respect to myself, I admired your conduct, and felt severely for your situation. Rather let me hear by what means you effected your escape, and what has since ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... rightly: the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely and worship meanly. ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... reflection present itself, that to know something of the terraqueous globe, is a favourite object with every one who can taste the lowest rudiments of learning. Let us not, therefore, think so meanly of the times in which we live, as to suppose it possible that full justice will not be done to the noble plan of discovery, so steadily and so successfully carried on, since the accession of his majesty; which cannot fail to be considered, in every succeeding age, as a splendid period in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... nothing really our own can satisfy. For if Winchester appeals to us as the symbol of England, it is not the England of our day for which she stands. Let Manchester or Sheffield stand for that, places so unquiet, so meanly wretched and hopeless, that no one has ever thought of them without a kind of fear and misery. Alas, they are the reality, while Winchester gradually fades year by year into a mere dream city, as ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... administration of the Protector. She was engaged in war with the United Provinces, then governed with almost regal power by the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt; and though no war had ever cost the kingdom so much, none had ever been more feebly and meanly conducted. France had espoused the interests of the States- General. Denmark seemed likely to take the same side. Spain, indignant at the close political and matrimonial alliance which Charles ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tempers, but very positive and aggressive ones, which the Bible associates with a love of wealth, and we have but to remember history to know that the Bible is right. Luxury may have dulled the combative instincts in man, but it has often nursed the meanly cruel ones. The Romans with the rapid growth of their wealth loved the battlefield less; but the sight of the arena, with its struggling gladiators, and beasts tearing women and children, became ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... especially as an adventure, nothing could now less resemble one than the fact of his staying. It would be an adventure to break away, to depart, to go back, above all, to London, and tell Kate Croy he had done so; but there was something of the merely, the almost meanly, obliged and involved sort in his going on as he was. That was the effect in particular of Mrs. Stringham's visit, which had left him as with such a taste in his mouth of what he couldn't do. It had made this quantity clear to him, and yet had deprived him of the sense, the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... Goldsmith unsurpassed; then Addison comes. Greatly dislikes the style of Junius and of Gibbon; indeed, thinks meanly of the latter in all respects, except for his research, which alone of the work of that century stands the test of nineteenth-century criticism. Did not agree with me that George Sand's is the high-water mark of prose, but yet ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... her affections when the result must be, if I succeeded, that the brothers would be disappointed in their darling wish of establishing her as their own child, and that I must seem to hope to build my fortunes on their compassion for the young creature whom I had so meanly and unworthily entrapped: turning her very gratitude and warmth of heart to my own purpose and account, and trading in her misfortunes! I, too, whose duty, and pride, and pleasure, Kate, it is to have other claims ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... on Sunday afternoon, but a Bible class on Saturday afternoon! It was incredible. It was unbearable. It was gross tyranny, and nothing else. Nevertheless the young minister had his way, by dint of meanly calling upon parents and invoking their help. The scurvy worm actually got together a class of twelve to fifteen boys, to the end of securing their eternal welfare. And they had to attend the class, though they swore they never would, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... train-bands, and burns a Pope. And shall not Britain now reward his toils, Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils? In vain at Court the bankrupt pleads his cause, His thankless country leaves him to her laws. The sense to value riches, with the art T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued, Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude; To balance fortune by a just expense, Join with economy, magnificence; With splendour, charity; with plenty, health; O teach us, Bathurst! ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... out of malice or caprice, compelled the monks to renovate their decaying monastery in this unfavourable location, wherefore it was ill-built and as if by forced feudal labour. In the old galleries we see miserable meanly-wrought columns, great arches with small ill-assorted bricks, the materials from ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... all compressed, and I can hardly breathe; it seems like a moan that you can barely hear. Now a banker makes the room ring and astonishes a whole street. But what afflicts me to-day, is not that I snore and sleep meanly and shabbily, like a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... retrieving his luck, there was one thing which the calculator of chances does not take into consideration in games of this kind. We, visiting such cultured and fashionable people, would never for a moment think so meanly of our friends; I mean the possibility of their cheating, a word never mentioned in well-bred society. A suspicion of such conduct, even, would be tantamount to treason, and a violation of the rules that regulate the conduct of ladies and gentlemen. It was far from all our ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable! How can you think so meanly of the people with whom ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... was running away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral scruples, but he had the ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van Loo was not. Whether the woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, he was satisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin also had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was not fair game, he knew that for HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Somali never stole, lied, seduced, cheated, drank, swore, gambled, betrayed, slandered, blasphemed, nor behaved meanly nor cowardly—but, alas! he had personal ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... to make you happy, be so at any cost, and I shall be content. We have faults to weep over and to expiate, but no crimes; let us not blot out by the imprudence of our closing days the sweetness and purity of those we have passed together."[135] Think ill as we may of Rousseau's theories, and meanly as we may of some parts of his conduct, yet to those who can feel the pulsing of a human life apart from a man's formulae, and can be content to leave to sure circumstance the tragic retaliation for evil behaviour, this letter is like one of the great master's symphonies, whose theme ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... at this moment, but it is certain that the Transvaal and Free State are preparing for war. Every hour the enmity between the Boers and the English deepens in intensity. It will be to many minds a relief when the storm bursts. The War Office may think meanly of the Africanised Dutchman as a fighting force, but the opinion of every loyal Briton in this country is that he is not a foe to be despised, and that he will shed the last drop of his own blood and his children's for the sake of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of all her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out. They said they had seen nobody go out but a young girl very meanly dressed, who had more the air of a poor country ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... said, "I don't want to pile up the agony. Besides," she added, with an obvious effort, "I must be honest. I—I know I have given you reason to think meanly of me—vilely! But, don't you see, Mark, I—I have done with all that. I was never so anxious to make the best of myself. Not that it can ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... are engaged is for no meanly ambitious or unworthy purpose. It was primarily, and is to this moment, for the preservation of our national existence. The first direct movement towards it was a civil request on the part of certain Southern persons, that the Nation would commit suicide, without making any ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... William Rybold, a farmer living near Sassafras Neck, Md. Henry evidently felt, that he did master Rybold no injustice in testifying that he knew no good of him, although he had labored under him like a beast of burden all his days. He had been "clothed meanly," and "poorly fed." He also alleged, that his mistress was worse than his master, as she would "think nothing of knocking and beating the slave women for nothing." John was owned by Thomas Murphy. From that day to this, Thomas may have been troubling his brain to know why ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... catalogue of them," every kingdom, every province will yield innumerable examples: and why then should baseness of birth be objected to any man? Who thinks worse of Tully for being arpinas, an upstart? Or Agathocles, that Silician king, for being a potter's son? Iphicrates and Marius were meanly born. What wise man thinks better of any person for his nobility? as he said in [3658]Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, &c. "We are by nature all as one, all alike, if ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... New York surnames to which his was more or less affiliated. They always amuse me, those names, which more than any in the world give the notion of social straining; but I doubt if they affected the imagination of Mr. Gage, either in this way or in the way I meanly meant ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... insisted on the truth of the story of the roman Kings unless there were more in it than mere pralayic historicity. Unless it were of bigger value, that is, than Andorran or Montenegrin annals. Rome, after the Etruscan domination, was a meanly built little city; but there were remains from pre-Etruscan times greater than anything built under the Republic. Rome is a fine modern capital now; but there were times in the age of papal rule, when it was a miserable ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... caught. Jack, I'm not going to ask you to come with me. I shall think no worse of you if you say you won't come, and I cannot take advantage over you to force you against your own wish, because I lent you money. Don't think so meanly ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... Nathan Badger. He was fond of money, but knew no better way to get it than to live meanly, drive hard bargains and spend as little as possible. In this way, though not a very good farmer, he was able to lay by a couple of hundred dollars a year, which he put away in the County ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... the town, and consented that the native warriors should come in. A further delay was accounted for, on the plea that the King was putting on his robes of state. Finally, he entered the Palaver House and seated himself; an old man of sinister aspect, meanly dressed, and having for his only weapon a short sword, with a curved blade, six inches wide. Governor Roberts now opened the palaver, by informing the king that his tribe were suspected of having participated in the plunder of the Mary Carver, and the murder of her captain and crew. I subjoin a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... from displeasing to the First Consul, who had no objection to flattery though he despised those who meanly made themselves the medium of conveying it to him. Duroc once told me that they had all great difficulty in preserving their gravity when the cure of a parish in Abbeville addressed Bonaparte one day while he was on his journey to the coast. "Religion," said the worthy cure, with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... by his coming: and true it was that he had been a constant attender (as he said) at Timon's feasts, as he had in greater things tasted his bounty; but that he ever came with that intent, or gave good counsel or reproof to Timon, was a base unworthy lie, which he suitably followed up with meanly offering the servant a bribe, to go home to his master and tell him that he had ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... did Jacob get, who so meanly bought the birthright, and cheated his father out of the blessing? Trouble in the flesh; vanity and vexation of spirit. He had to flee from his father's house; never to see his mother again; to wander over the deserts to kinsmen who cheated him as he had cheated others; to ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... caused his eye-lids to be lifted up; and finding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in high indignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to the people." Berkeley accepted the rebuke, and ordered him treated with all the dignity due his position as the leader of many Indian nations. Unfortunately the life of Opechancanough was shortly after snuffed out by one of his guards who ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... more manly than to be meanly right, is an expression I once used on a former occasion, and it is equally applicable now. We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice, but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable: and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... great wealth and his munificent benefactions soon spread over all the country, and he was visited, among others, by the celebrated doctors of that day, Jean Gerson, Jean de Courtecuisse, and Pierre d'Ailli. They found him in his humble apartment, meanly clad, and eating porridge out of an earthen vessel; and with regard to his secret, as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchymy. His fame reached the ears of the king, Charles VI., who sent M. de Cramoisi, the Master of Requests, to find out whether ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head. For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in this world are to be found always among the thoroughly-upright, meanly-impeccable members of any and every church. They are the Scribes and Pharisees who contribute most to the building of fine houses of worship; they give most to its causes. They are the "right hands" of all the preachers from their youth up. They have never been truthful sinners. They were the ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... be said that Alexander was surly. Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies. Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him. He did his work, and achieved at least the show of equanimity. Strickland wondered. What was it that had happened? It never occurred to him that it had happened here in this dale. But in all that ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.—Goethe. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... have done well, and as is fitting, . . . it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... misfortunes the awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... with discontent, perchance to tempt them into crime. 'I know we are extravagant,' said one of my acquaintance, the other day; 'but how can I help it? My husband does not like to see his wife and daughters dress more meanly than those with whom they associate.' 'Then, my dear lady, your husband has not as much moral dignity and moral courage as I thought he had. He should be content to see his wife and daughters respected ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... council-friend of Jove; And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath Once more, though down he pluck'd the shield, to prove His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death O'er skin and nerves alone exert its power, Not he, you grant, in nature meanly read. Yes, all "await the inevitable hour;" The downward journey all one day must tread. Some bleed, to glut the war-god's savage eyes; Fate meets the sailor from the hungry brine; Youth jostles age in funeral obsequies; Each brow in turn is touch'd ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... at once. [Exit ORDERLY.] The very men Who meanly shirk their service to the crown! A breach of duty to be remedied, For disaffection like an ulcer spreads Until the caustic ointment of the law, Sternly applied, eats ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... diagram.' Of his work few people know more than that he invented a tubular screw which is still used for pumping water, and that for a long time he foiled the attacks of the Romans on Syracuse by the mechanical devices and engines which he used against them. But he thought meanly of these things, and his real interest was in pure mathematical speculation; he caused to be engraved on his tomb a representation of a cylinder circumscribing a sphere, with the ratio 3/2 which the cylinder bears ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... things by bits and scraps, some at one time and one pretence, and some at another, just as they pressed, without any sort of regard to their relations or dependencies. They never had any kind of system, right or wrong; but only invented occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which they had proudly strutted. And they were put to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a repeal of an act which they had not the generous courage, when they found and felt their error, honorably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
