"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a sneer: "He's pushin' the yellow stuff at us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get yours all right. I don't know what it is, but you get it, same as me an' Heinie an' Duck. I don't know what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it's dough; maybe it's them suffragettes with ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... relations who had taken charge of him. An anecdote is told which shows his impudence and incurable perversity. One day he was caught taking some money, and was soundly whipped by his cousins. When this was over, the child, instead of showing any sorrow or asking forgiveness, ran away with a sneer, and seeing they were ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... call it greatness, dignity, majesty, what you will, which seems to hold men aloof and keep them from knowing him. In truth he was a most difficult man to know. Carlyle, crying out through hundreds of pages and myriads of words for the "silent man," passed by with a sneer the most absolutely silent great man that history can show. Washington's letters and speeches and messages fill many volumes, but they are all on business. They are profoundly silent as to the writer himself. From this Carlyle concluded apparently that there was nothing to tell,—a ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... us in an ugly mood, ready to quarrel. "If there's anything I hate," one of them remarked with a sneer, "it's a young fellow who's too much a mollycoddle to take a drink with a friend, and too stingy ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... but she told her husband afterwards that she thought that Mr. Gibbs had his mind so full of electricity that it had no room for old-fashioned common-sense. It did not do to sneer at signs and portents. Among the earliest things she remembered was a story which had been told her of her grandmother's brother, who was the thirteenth passenger in an omnibus when he was a young man, and who died that very night, having slipped off the back step, where he ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... heartily agrees with him—had denounced rhyme as "too low for a poem"; [Footnote: English Garner, iii. p. 567.] by which, as the context shows, is meant an epic. This was written the very year in which Paradise Lost, with its laconic sneer at rhyme as a device "to set off wretched matter and lame metre", was given to the world. That, however, did not prevent Dryden from asking, and obtaining, leave to "tag its verses" into an opera; [Footnote: The ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... It is the common trick of unprincipled women to affect to despise those who conduct themselves with propriety. Prudence they term coldness; fortitude, insensibility; and regard to the rights of others, prejudice. By this perversion of terms they would laugh or sneer virtue out of countenance; and, by robbing her of all praise, they would deprive her of all immediate motive. Conscious of their own degradation, they would lower every thing, and every body, to their own standard: they would make you believe, that ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... repeating to all of them: 'Ah! If I belonged to the committee, I'd make them walk straight.' He sent every one away delighted, closed the door behind each visitor with an air of extreme amiability, through which, however, there pierced the secret sneer of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... not a man of many words, and this reply, coupled with the insolent sneer with which it was uttered, caused him to plant a sudden and well-directed blow on the point of Hugh's nose, which flattened it on his face, and brought the back of his head into ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... not austere in age; Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage; Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer, And only just when seemingly severe; So gently blending courtesy and art That wisdom's ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Bertrand's departure. He was plainly engrossed in the pleasant pastime of conversing with her. Chris began to give him more of her attention. No, she certainly did not like the man. His sneer and his self-assurance disturbed her. He made her uncomfortably conscious of her own youth and inexperience. She almost felt as if he ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... glass—" Ciccio, at the end of the table, did not rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there would be no need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the lip persisted. Madame glared at him. But he turned the handsome side of his cheek towards her, with the faintest flicker of a sneer. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion reclaimed her empire; and the skeptical world-wise man, thinking only of his child, spoke and felt ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... blacks and the poorer whites. Education, however, has thrown the ban of disrepute upon witchcraft and conjuration. The stern frown of the preacher, who looks upon superstition as the ally of the Evil One; the scornful sneer of the teacher, who sees in it a part of the livery of bondage, have driven this quaint combination of ancestral traditions to the remote chimney corners of old black aunties, from which it is difficult ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... father would never consent,' he whispered, putting his arm round her waist; 'we must run away quietly, and when we are married can ask his pardon and,' with a sardonic sneer, 'his blessing.' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... with that gun! Why the blazes couldn't you have come home and brought me a bit of peat from the pit? A fine hunter you are! I might as well have married the devil.—And his wife turned from him with a sneer. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... was about to reply to Loris' sneer, but, by a severe effort, he checked his rising anger, and without another word turned on his heel and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... old doctor father? Surely he was an inspiration?" Jeff didn't, this time, trouble to hide the sneer. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... disclosed to mortals its virtues. Thorius, as Dr. Clarke tells us, very ominously ascribes the discovery and first use of this herb to Bacchus, Silenus, and the Satyrs, (drunkenness, gluttony, and lust,) and yet, continues the Doctor, with a sneer, this poem was written in praise of it. Mr. Lamb, in the poem before quoted, has the same thought, and he farther adds a belief, that the tobacco plant was the true Indian conquest for which the jolly ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... myself, have so much worldly wisdom as you have," said he at last, with something like a sneer. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... use is it?" people asked with a sneer, when Franklin told of his discovery that lightning and electricity are identical. "What is the use of a child?" replied Franklin; ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... skin!" Hunt-Goring's eyes left their contemplation of the cigarette and travelled to his face. They held a sneer that was well-nigh intolerable, and yet which somehow restrained Noel for the moment. "What a very headlong young man you are!" pursued Hunt-Goring, in his soft voice. "I've done nothing to you. I haven't the smallest desire to quarrel ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... English parliamentary annals. The minister had introduced a measure for the division of the province of Canada and for the establishment of a local legislature in each division. Fox in the course of debate went out of his way to laud the Revolution, and to sneer at some of the most effective passages in the Reflections. Burke was not present, but he announced his determination to reply. On the day when the Quebec Bill was to come on again, Fox called upon Burke, and the pair walked together from Burke's house in Duke ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... brood of special magazines for the literati and the advanced, which Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer praises so warmly, we are not so well provided with the distributive machinery for a national culture as to flout a recognized agency with a gesture and a sneer. But the family magazine has undeniably lost its vigorous appeal, and must be reinvigorated. The malady is due to no slackening of literary virility in the country; indeed there has probably not been so much literary ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... under a cloud of gloom, a frown on the forehead and a sneer on the lips, but it was something more than the expression which repelled Mary. For she felt that no matter how she wooed him, she could never win the sympathy of this darkly handsome, cruel youth; he ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... it? The qualifications for such a writer are apparently these two; first, that he should deal chiefly with the elder and elementary affections of man, and under those relations which concern man's grandest capacities; secondly, that he should treat his subject with solemnity, and not with sneer—with earnestness, as one under a prophet's burden of impassioned truth, and not with the levity of a girl hunting a chance-started caprice. I admire Pope in the very highest degree; but I admire him as a pyrotechnic artist for producing brilliant and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... snorted O'Moy, as with his hands behind his back he strode forward into the room. He was pale, and there was a set, malignant sneer upon his lip, a malignant look in the blue eyes that were habitually ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... a well-dressed woman covered with diamonds, and whom nobody knew, alight from a very handsome carriage, were curious to know who it was, and sent to enquire of the lackey. He replied, with a sneer, "It is a lady who has recently tumbled from a garret into this carriage." This lady was probably of the same sort as Madame Bejon's cook. That lady, being at the opera, some days back, saw a person ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... have dropped his face into his hands and would have wept over this letter; now he laughed at it. And the laugh, this first one, was the laugh men came to know as Dave Drennen's laugh. It was like a sneer and a curse and a slap ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... for so much sentiment, Bolton," said Curtis, with a sneer. "You don't look like it, but appearances are deceitful. We'll drop the subject. You can serve me in another way. ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... you felt the influence of the icy esprit that leaves the most spontaneous feeling frost-bound and stiff, that checks the most generous inspirations, and gives a sharp ring to the laughter. Their table-talk was full of bitter irony which turns a jest into a sneer; it told of the exhaustion of souls given over to themselves; of lives with no end in view but the satisfaction of self—of egoism induced by these times of peace in which we live. I can think of nothing like it save a pamphlet against mankind at large which Diderot was afraid to publish, ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... explain the reason to Mr. Cable. I am sorry to have distressed you. Really, I had expected quite a different evening, after your invitation. You can't blame me for misunderstanding your motive in asking me to come here when you expected to be utterly alone." His laugh was a sneer. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... pathos, joy, sorrow—the good and the evil too—all there is in life, all that one has lived." (This recalls a recently published remark of J. S. Van Cleve: "The piano can sing, march, dance, sparkle, thunder, weep, sneer, question, assert, complain, whisper, hint; in one word it is the most versatile and plastic ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... going to do." He began to pace up and down, trembling with disappointment and fury. He turned suddenly. "How about the second act? Did you make those changes in Sidney's lines? I infer not," he added, with a sneer. ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... close of a Parliamentary session, an uneventful leader of a section of Parliament banters his more eventful rival, and enlivening his criticism by a sneer at our Congress, challenges the contempt of his rival, as if to draw it forth in the same critical direction. Alas! it is too true that great congresses, like great men, and even like Parliaments, ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... ought to know better, for you bear on your person proof that he knows very well how to make his mark!" At another time, Tarleton was sarcastically speaking of Washington in the presence of her sister, Mrs. Ashe. "I would be happy to see Colonel Washington," he said, with a sneer. Mrs. Ashe instantly replied: "If you had looked behind you, Colonel Tarleton, at the battle of the Cowpens, you would have enjoyed that pleasure." Stung with this keen wit, Tarleton placed his hand on his sword with an inclination to use it. General Leslie, who was present, ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... little divil! There's a freezin' draught comin' in. (She does so and comes back to her chair. Carmody continues with a sneer.) It's mad I am to be thinkin' he'd go without gettin' his money—the like of a doctor! (Angrily.) Rogues and thieves they are, the lot of them, robbin' the poor like us! I've no use for their drugs at all. They only keep you sick to pay more ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... morality. If on the other hand he echoes the joyous carelessness of the Italian tale, he tempers it with the English seriousness. As he follows Boccaccio all his changes are on the side of purity; and when the Troilus of the Florentine ends with the old sneer at the changeableness of woman Chaucer bids us "look Godward," and dwells on the unchangeableness ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... failed of their wonted effect. In the natural course of things they had recourse to remonstrances, but their appeals were equally fruitless. The delicate creatures tried reproaches, but the boyish cynics received them with a scowl and answered them with a sneer. ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... who could, in their sermons, set forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such justness of thought, and such energy of language, that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen and the fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer; men whose address, politeness, and knowledge of the world qualified them to manage the consciences of the wealthy and noble; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of our active, aggressive, material, Occidental civilization to sneer and scoff at the quiet, passive, and less material civilization of the Orient. We despise—that is, the unthinking majority do—the studious, contemplative Oriental. We believe in being "up and doing." But in this one particular ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... old; in a short time she will be a marriageable girl. I have not come to this house to make a scene, nor do I wish to preach about morality, or religion, or God, or maidenly innocence, subjects which great men and grand gentlemen simply sneer at as the stock-in-trade of hypocrites. I will therefore tell you in a couple of words why I have come. All I ask is that you deliver over to me your youngest daughter. I will engage to bring her up honourably as a respectable middle-class girl should be brought up. Her mind is ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... they are, one thing is certain—it will be long before America will have a literature. Nor am I disposed to sneer, when I think of it, at the alarm of the New York Gazette, which is afraid lest the Tories of Maga should gain a preponderating influence in the minds of educated American youth. Why is it absurd to suppose that, if given up to such teachers, the next ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... not weave their usual soothing spell over the Princess. It was plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips. "What boys men are!" she said; "what lovers of big words! Courage, indeed! If you had to scour pans, Herr von Gondremark, you would call it, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Christ are exposed, it will be the most natural thing in the world for them to show an undying earnestness in seeking the lost. Then propriety, and reticence, and restraint, and rules of rhetoric will be thrown to the winds, and a divine passion will possess the life. The world may sneer at it as fanaticism, but it is the fanaticism of Pentecost. When the crowd saw the intensity of emotion shown by the newly-anointed disciples, they exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." Here was shown an enthusiasm that leaps over all difficulties and rises ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... man, and she was prepared for his becoming proportionately more respectful. He dusted a little heap of ashes from the small table beside him and scattered them with his foot, in a well-meant attempt to cover the traces of his previous untidiness. She watched him with a covert sneer. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... contemptuous tone in which this work was spoken of by many critics; it made her more indignant than almost any other circumstance during my acquaintance with her. Much as she regretted the publication of the book, she could not see that it had given any one a right to sneer at an action, certainly prompted by no worldly motive, and which was but one error—the gravity of which she admitted—in the conduct of a person who had, all her life long, been striving, by deep thought and noble words, to serve ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the sneer upon Ferd's lip, for that young man had never earned one cent in all his life, and foolishly looked down upon the unfortunate boy whom fortune compelled to face the world and wrest his ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... test of truth! Wise men may be struck with admiration, respect, doubt, or humility; but the ignorant, happily unconscious that they know nothing, can be checked in their merriment by no consideration, human or divine. Theirs is the sly sneer, the dry joke, and the horse laugh: theirs the comprehensive range of ridicule, which takes "every creature in, of every kind." No fastidious delicacy spoils their sports of fancy: though ten times ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... mill my father built, and, if I remember all connected with my boyhood there, I trust there will be few or none to sneer or blame. The flouring-mill, or mill for grinding grain, and the saw-mill were united under the same roof; and it was the business of father to give his attention, as overseer, not only to the mills, but to his planting interest. He employed a North Carolina Scotchman—that ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... cast an evil glance at his father. "He has not been complaining, has he?" he said, with a sneer. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... when that time comes. I will never distrust the king, but I do distrust those cormorants of ministers and courtiers, who tingle his ears with talk about the public welfare, the honor of France, the interests of the crown, and other crochets. They will sneer at a loyal Vendean or a brave Chouan, because he is old and the sword he drew for the good cause dangles on his withered legs, palsied with exposure. Can you say that we are wrong ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... to our Saviour, and saving our soul alive. We must not ask for some new revelation, some fresh Gospel, some sign or miracle. If we use not the means given us, neither shall we be persuaded though one rose from the dead. It is sometimes the fashion in these days to sneer at the preacher, or to listen with a polite contempt. God grant that those "who come to ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... except Henry, who, having come down with some hot water from the galley, surveyed the ribald scene with a scarcely concealed sneer. ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... of the frescos of Giordano that decorated its ceilings. Afterwards, he fixed his attention on a building with red walls and a stone portal, which pretentiously obstructed the space in the foreground, at the edge of the green slope. Bah! The Academy! And the artist's sneer included in the same loathing the Academy of Language and the other Academies—painting, literature, every manifestation of human thought, dried, smoked, and swathed, with the immortality of a mummy, in the bandages of tradition, rules, and respect ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sort of smile that brought a flush to Betty's cheek. There was a tinge of a sneer in it that seemed to say, "Oh, you poor thing, of course you like it. You ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said Tressilian, who saw, from a grotesque sneer on Dickie's face, that he was more likely to act upon his own bottom than by the instructions of his elders, "I will give thee a silver groat, my pretty fellow, if you will but guide me to this ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... interesting bit of character," said Lady Mabel, with a faintly perceptible sneer. ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... family tenaciously held to a particular locality—old Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh, Swithin by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining that people might sneer, but there was nothing like New Zealand! As for Roger, the 'original' of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a locality of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man who had devised a new profession for his sons, he had discovered a shop where they sold German; on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at the Cuban with a trifle of bewilderment. But at last his face began to grow dark with belligerency, his mouth curved in that wide sneer with which he would confront an angel of darkness. He arose suddenly in his seat and came towards the little Cuban. He was going to ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... age again. One of the next arrivals was Bell Masters, very fine in her new dress, but flushed and overheated to an unbecoming degree. She rowed up smartly, shipped her oars in true nautical fashion, sprang from the boat, and held out her hand to her companion with a hardly repressed sneer: "Pray allow me to assist ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... The sneer returned to Sara's voice. "You ask Jim if he ever heard of locking the barn too late? Tell him to bring on his ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... questioned the other with a sneer-tinge in his gruff voice; "thou art overthick in the shoulder for ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... accomplishment of religious purpose, the soul's earnest purpose. We work the love way falsely, from the upper self, and work it to death. The second way, of active unison in strong purpose, and in faith, this we only sneer at. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... sneer, "business first and pleasure afterwards! Bezers will obtain satisfaction in his own way, I promise you that! And at his own time. And it will not be on unfledged bantlings like you. But what is this for?" And he rudely kicked the culverin ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... shackles that fetter you might be broken. Be not alarmed. It was the virtuous Murray himself propounded it to Argyll and Lethington—for the good of Scotland and yourself." A sneer flitted across his tanned face. "Let them speak for themselves." He raised his voice and called ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... start again; he felt his face flush warm. But he managed to show a fairly controlled front, and he made shift to sneer. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... sneer at the life-matrimonial, may perhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better likened to two principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune is low and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the mere pleasure of the buffeting; and in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Pickie openly sneer at Ballyards, and Greenry affects to be unaware of it, but the pride of Ballyards remains unaltered, incapable of being diminished, incapable even of being increased ... for pride cannot go to greater lengths than the pride of Ballyards has already gone ... ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... sufficiently apprised of the power of the Gods by domestic examples? Will not the temerity of P. Claudius, in the first Punic war, affect us? who, when the poultry were let out of the coop and would not feed, ordered them to be thrown into the water, and, joking even upon the Gods, said, with a sneer, "Let them drink, since they will not eat;" which piece of ridicule, being followed by a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and brought great calamity on the Roman people. Did not his colleague ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... our laughter will not be considered as indecorous or profane. Our great essayist has exalted her into a Deity, and invested her with a mythological charm, which makes us doubt her existence; so that to laugh at her can be no more irreverend than to sneer at the belief in apparitions, a joke which is very generally enjoyed in these good days of spick-and-span philosophy. Whether Liberty ever existed or not, is to us a matter of little import, since it is certain that she belongs to the grand hoax which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... were an honest man," said he with a sneer. "Honest men don't go around in this fashion. You're the man, beyond a bloody doubt, and I am going to hand you over to ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... breast, and yet talking with the vivacity and gayety of his nation; making this his home from darkness to daylight, and enjoying here what little domestic comfort and confidence there is for him; and then going about all the livelong day, teaching French to blockheads who sneer at him, and returning at about ten o'clock in the evening (for I was wrong in saying he supped here,—he eats no supper) to his solitary room and bed. Before retiring, he goes to B——'s bedside, and, if he finds him awake, stands talking French, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... significant sign of the times (in the sense of linking past with present) is the ever-increasing number of women doctors and their success. Men for the most part have ceased to sneer or even to be more than humanly jealous, often speaking in terms of the warmest admiration not only of their skill but of their conscientiousness and power of endurance. When I went to live in Munich (1903) a woman surgeon was just beginning to practice. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... us do thee justice here, Tho' distant from thy native shore, For all thy faults repress the sneer, ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... celebrated Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set remarkably close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The most triumphant success had waited on the Carlist arms during the period of his captivity. The Christino generals had been on all hands discomfited by the men at whose discipline and courage, even more than at their poverty and imperfect resources, they affected to sneer, and numerous towns and fortified places had fallen into the hands of Zumalacarregui and his victorious lieutenants. The mere name of the Carlist chief had become a tower of strength to his followers, and a terror to his foes; and several ably managed surprises had greatly increased the panic dread ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Grenoble, and two presidents. The counsellor, or reporter of the State, Laubardemont, who had directed them in all, was at their head. Joseph often whispered to them with the most studied politeness, glancing at Laubardemont with a ferocious sneer. ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... carved admirable drapery. He has clothed the Graces, though the Graces never clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest. Notwithstanding his willingness to please the populace with the coarse wit current in the Agoras, I think it gratifies his equestrian pride to sneer at those who are too frugal to buy coloured robes, and fill the air with delicious perfumes as they pass. I know you seldom like the comic writers. What did you think ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... it did not at the time possess that importance which we have been taught to give it; though roughly, thus, we do away with the poetry of it, to be sure. Let Voltaire, whose function it was to deny, enjoy his feeble sneer, that "the difficulty of pronouncing those respectable names"—to wit, Melchtad, and Stauffager, and Valtherfurst, to say nothing of Grisler—"injures their celebrity." Neither are we to conceal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... murmurs of partisan criticism or of personal ill-will. For example, a few days after Jefferson had taken his seat in the stately chair which Patrick Henry had just vacated, St. George Tucker, in a letter to Theophilus Bland, gave expression to this sneer: "Sub rosa, I wish his excellency's activity may be equal to the abilities he possesses in so eminent a degree.... But if he should tread in the steps of his predecessor, there is not much to be expected from the brightest talents."[307] Over against a taunt like this, one can scarcely ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... the sinister light in Wilson's eyes that had been held in check hitherto seemed at once to flash out, and he turned hotly upon his master, as though to retort sneer for sneer. But, checking himself, he took up his bonnet and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... realizing the counterfeit. The Western country boy, whatever his Cavalier stock, had a Puritanical backbone in common with the whole American race. And without being aware of it, his personal, private bearing toward the light and airy French girl was a sneer, a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... satisfied; but if his anxiety was solely of a public nature, why did it date from March 7, when, prior to that time, there was much greater cause for alarm than afterwards. In everything he said or wrote he continually recurs to the slavery question and always in a defensive tone, usually with a sneer or a fling at the abolitionists and anti-slavery party. The spirit of unrest had seized him. He was disturbed and ill at ease. He never admitted it, even to himself, but his mind was not at peace, and he could not conceal the fact. Posterity can see the evidences of ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... if you're afraid, don't go," answered Raymond, with a sneer. "I thought you were a chap who didn't care for ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... lads and lassies among them, of whom in former days, evil things had been prophesied, who were now growing into men and women, earnest, patient, aspiring—into such men and women as have made the name of Scotland known and honoured in all lands. They were not spared a sneer now and then. They were laughed at, or railed at, as "unco gude," or as "prood, upsettin' creatures, with their meetings, and classes, and library books," and the names which in the Scotch of that time and place stood for "prig" and "prude," were freely bestowed ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... enough. But will helped me through it—though perhaps you think me a humbug for saying it—and immediately afterwards I felt that of all persons in the world whom it was my duty and desire to save from the wrath to come—sneer if you like—the woman whom I had so grievously wronged was that person. I have come with that sole purpose ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the use of the Alexandrine is that, in attempting to give dignity to his line, the poet may only produce heaviness, incurring the sneer of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Bunce blushed at this point— "has displayed before me the delights of that quick artistic life that you glory in following. I have eaten out my heart in longing. But now that I see how it coarsens a women—for it is coarse to sneer at age, in spite of all you may say about uselessness being no better for being ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with a contemptuous sneer. "Didn't you just tell me that we were living in an age when no one has any money except those who are in business? The richest of my friends have only enough for themselves, even if they have enough. The time of old ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... him of her truth, but could understand the sneer which was conveyed in his acknowledgement. "But you cannot, nor can I for your sake, abolish the things which ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... outside the doors of superiority, but out there they raised a clamor of self-assertion. Their tongues wagged with prodigious activity utterly unleashed. In the days before Ina Carroll's wedding all Banbridge seethed and boiled like a pot with gossip, and gossip full of malice and sneer, and a good deal of righteous indignation. Anderson heard much of it. Neither he nor his mother was asked to the wedding. The Carrolls had not even considered the possibility of such a thing. Mrs. Anderson spoke of it one evening ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thought he would come to good, when I heard him attempting to sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After a man begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... laugh or sneer, yawn or cavil. But as literature it looks back to Sappho and Catullus and the rest, and forward to all great love-poetry since, while as something that is even greater than literature—life—it carries us up to the highest Heaven and down ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and abbreviations of the names of characters. There can be no gain to the reader in reproducing, for example, Sheridan's different indications for the part of Lady Sneerwell—LADY SNEERWELL, LADY SNEER., LADY SN., and LADY S.— or his varying use of EXIT and EX., or his inconsistencies in the use of italics in the stage-directions. Since, however, Sheridan's biographers, from Moore to Fraser Rae, have shown that no authorised or correct edition of THE SCHOOL FOR ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... were increasingly disagreeable ones, as he diagnosed moral, physical, and financial decrepitude. It was nothing short of impudence on Jack's part to intrude himself upon the town and upon his family. It was with a slight sneer that William replied to his brother's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... and included my intelligence in the sneer at Scotland Yard. He argued the point with me until he forced me to admit that there was a large element of luck in ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... she said; "I couldn't talk like this to anyone else, but I know you love me. I look upon you already as my father and mother. I don't want to be unkind to mamma, but I couldn't talk of it to her; she would only sneer at me. And I'm afraid it's making ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... humiliated her. Who could guess the real motive that prompted her to humble her pride so far as to follow him? Was it love or hatred? Who could say? Her delicate, coral lips curled with just the suggestion of a sneer as she raised her eyes to his again and said in a tone of contempt: "So this is the place where your wild woman lives—" but the words died on her lips. Her head came up with a jerk and her figure suddenly straightened and stiffened as ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... nine, I waited at Apollo's shrine; I told him what the world would sa If Stella were unsung to-day; How I should hide my head for shame, When both the Jacks and Robin came; How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer, How Sh—-r the rogue would sneer, And swear it does not always follow, That Semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assured them twenty times, That Phoebus helped me in my rhymes, Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic licence. ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... dinner," the other one cried, "That Mary would venture there now." "Then wager and lose!" with a sneer, he replied, "I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... Hofgardaref, and Thorfin Mun. Then said Thormod to Gissur, "Let us not stand so close together, brother, that Sigvat the skald should not find room when he comes. He must stand before the king, and the king will not have it otherwise." The king heard this, and said, "Ye need not sneer at Sigvat, because he is not here. Often has he followed me well, and now he is praying for us, and that we greatly need." Thormod replies, "It may be, sire, that ye now require prayers most; but it would be thin around the banner-staff if all thy court-men were now on the way to Rome. True it ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... epic. The term "Epic Satire" (p. 6) certainly seems to refer to the wedding of two disparate genres in The Dunciad, lifting it above satire that is merely "rugged" or "mischievously gay" (p. 8). (The epithet is also, perhaps, a thrust at Edward Ward, who had pinned it on The Dunciad with a sneer.)[22] Harte's claim that ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... evening clothes. George proceeded to jam the scarf-pin into the fellow's coat where the badge of service had rested the instant before. Then, with Simmy looking on in disgust, he pinned the waiter's badge upon his own coat. "There!" he said, with a sneer. "That is supposed to make a gentleman of you, and this makes a man of me. On ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... mercy to the living here Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch; The utmost reverence is not too much For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... least the officials, set wonderful store by the approbation of the Colonial Office at home. It does not matter what the colonial newspapers say, it is 'what will they say in Downing Street?' And if a despatch goes out approving of their conduct, neighbours may censure and sneer as they list. So we Christians have to report to Home, and have so to live 'that whether present or absent'—in a colony or in the mother country—'we may be well ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... these few days in the two mansions of Ning and Jung, and every one was in high glee; but he alone looked upon everything as if it were nothing; taking not the least interest in anything; and as this reason led the whole family to sneer at him, the result was that he got more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... With half a sneer on his astute face, Lawrence drawled: "I cannot see that you have accomplished anything by this rather extraordinary summoning of us to your laboratory. The evidence is just as black against Dr. Gregory as before. You may think you're clever, Kennedy, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of his "high species of humor, pregnant with moral meanings," and no happier choice of phrase could characterize his many works. Lamb, with true discrimination, says: "All laughter is not of a dangerous or soul-hardening tendency. There is the petrifying sneer of a demon, which excludes and kills love, and there is the cordial laughter of a man, which implies ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... regular code has been arranged, eh? And the gloves were dropped in the road purposely; he slipped his answer into one of them; on her way back she discovers her supposed loss, looks for the gloves, and finds them. It is quite ornate," with a bitter sneer. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... would think, might know better. Who is called there 'the man according to God's own heart'? David, the Hebrew King, had fallen into sins enough; blackest crimes; there was no want of sins. And thereupon the unbelievers sneer and ask, Is this your man according to God's own heart? The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward details of a life; if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it, be forgotten? ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... go from beneath his shaggy, scowling eyebrows, and his thin lips relaxed their usual tightness to curve in a contemptuous sneer. Jackals! ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... hedge-bottom brethren and the British public, who delight in calling them either 'the King,' 'Queen,' 'Prince,' or 'Princess.' It is true also that there are vast numbers of the Gipsies who, with a chuckle, tongue in cheek, wink of the eye, side grin and a sneer, say they have these important personages amongst them; and if any little extra stir is being made at a fair-time in the country lanes, in the neighbourhood of straw-yards, they will be sure to tell them that either the 'king,' 'queen,' or some member of the 'royal family' ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the sorceress with a sneer, evidently in anger at having her offer so rejected. "If Kaolin can right your wrongs, let him." And she adds, making to move off, "I suppose you haven't any more need for me, or ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the type of Gordon, but that privilege is only for the few. As the great majority of our fellow-creatures are denied it, the next best thing for them is to be able to read about these heroes, and thus endeavour to catch their spirit. Some are inclined to sneer at biographies, and to say that, speaking generally, they set forward only the good part of the character of their subjects, omitting all that is faulty. To a certain extent this is undoubtedly true, owing to the very nature of things; but, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... help thinking of the strong, tanned hands of David Eby. I glanced at the handsome face of the musician with its magnetic charm—swiftly the countenance of my old playmate rose before me and then slowly faded: David, boyish and comradely; David, manly and strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me? Ach—I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget what he said and attribute ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... look at either; his pale, close-shaven face was deeply marked by lines of avarice and cunning,—his tall, lean figure had an aggressive air in its very attitude, and his unkind mouth never failed, whether in speaking or smiling, to express a sneer. Apparently he guessed the vague tenor of my ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... easy manner—and perhaps the reputation of his small sword too—damped the mettle of his courage. He drew back with a curse, whispered a word into the ear of the nearest bailiff, and shouldered his way into the crowd, from the midst of which he watched us with a sneer. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... said nothing to Dorothy of her interview with Richard; she appeared to believe that Richard had saved her that labor. There was a kind of sneer in this. Feeling the sneer, Dorothy put no questions; she was willing, in her resentment, to have it understood that Richard had told her. Why should he not?—she who was to be his wife! Dorothy would have been proud to proclaim her ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the word "damn" or some other analogous one when you read that. "Fun!" you'll sneer. But my dear fellow, it expresses my point of view. I am having fun. I'm having the time of my life. Afterward—"let come what come may, I shall have had my day." And I'm going to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer—unless Caspian undermines ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... hear thoughtless people, who know nothing of the facts, but consider it fashionable to sneer at the missionaries, declare that Hindus never are converted. The official census of the government of India, which is based upon inquiries made directly of the individuals themselves, by sworn agents, and is not ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... is contained in it. For instance, It is not innocence which makes men good. 'This is your man after God's own heart, is it?' runs the common, shallow sneer. Yes; not that God thought little of his foul sin, nor that 'saints' make up for adultery and murder by making or singing psalms; not that 'righteousness' as a standard of conduct is lower than 'morality'; but that, having fallen, he learned to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... There are some men, mostly seedsmen, and some publishers, mostly those interested in securing patronage through seed premiums, or which are run in the interest of seed dealers, who grumble a great deal about this matter, and who sneer at the department and derisively call it the "Government seed store." But I imagine if the public was thoroughly informed of the good the department has done by its seed distributions, it would have a great deal better opinion of this branch than it now has, and I wish Mr. Dodge, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... England, is comparatively a good fellow, and the scoundrel Ratcliffe is not a scoundrel utterly. "'To make a Lang tale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience.' 'Your conscience, Rat?' said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader will probably think very natural upon the occasion. 'Ou ay, sir,' answered Ratcliffe, calmly, 'just my conscience; a body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... close it, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Langton; the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick; Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up—the gigantic ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... much land as I. The aspect is due north—a grave disadvantage. Upon that side, from the house-wall to the fence, I have forty-five feet, on the east fifty feet, on the south sixty feet, on the west a mere ruelle. Almost every one who works out these figures will laugh, and the remainder sneer. Here's a garden to write about! That area might do for a tennis-court or for a general meeting of Mr. Frederic Harrison's persuasion. You might kennel a pack of hounds there, or beat a carpet, or assemble those members of the cultured class who ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... highest flight sublime Exalt the mind, by tenderest pathos' art, Dissolve, in purifying tears, the heart, Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; The fond illusions of the youth and maid, At which so many world-formed sages sneer, When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, Our natural religion must appear. All things in thee tend to one polar star, Magnetic all ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... agony of excitement, but unable to endure the notion of approaching the scene of action; and his half-choked surly 'Don't' was sufficient to deter his brother Thomas, who had never shown himself so kind, considerate, and free from sneer or assumption. In 'hours of ease' he might seem selfish and exacting, but a crisis evoked the latent good in him, and drew him out ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was Alexander Paulvitch immune. A sneer curled his bearded lip as his forefinger closed upon the trigger of his revolver. There was a loud report. A little hole appeared above the heart of the sleeping boy, a little hole about which lay a blackened rim ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... suddenly and a cowboy stalked in, a lean, dark man, rather short and slim, with eyes of that peculiar light, slaty gray that have a staring effect; apparently no depth to them. These, with heavy overhanging brows and an inclination to sneer, gave him a forbidding appearance. His hat and slicker glistened with water. At his entrance Injun ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... whisky-and-soda. Austin bore very little resemblance to his grim and dominant elder brother. He had a slight frail figure, very carefully dressed, and one of those thin-lipped faces which seem, to wear a perpetual sneer of superiority over commoner humanity. The movements of his white hands, the inflection of his voice, the double eyeglass which dangled from his vest by a ribbon of black silk, revealed the type of human being which considers itself ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... of an open eulogy of her handsome brother, more or less invidious in comparison to the officers. "I suppose it's an active out-of-door life gives him that perfect grace and freedom," said Emily, with a slight sneer at the smartly belted Calvert. "Yes; and he don't drink or keep late hours," responded Cicely significantly. "His sister says they always retire before ten o'clock, and that although his father left him some valuable whiskey he seldom takes a drop of it." "Therein," gravely concluded Captain Kirby, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... on the boy a glance to cast Swept careless by the gorgeous Queen of Gain. More scornful still, the Queen of Fashion passed, With mincing gait and sneer ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... they'll do that," Collins remarked, with a wicked sneer, "but it would clear the atmosphere if he should fall ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... he chanced to utter some admiring word concerning the pretty deft creature that had just flitted from the room like a dark butterfly, would not in reply draw from him more than a grunt and a half sneer. Yet now and then he might have been caught glowering at her, and would sometimes, seemingly in spite of himself, smile ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... will preserve you from the temptation of dismissing with hasty contempt their thoughts upon any subject so important; will make you inclined to listen to their opinion with affection, if not with reverence; and save, perhaps, the preacher from a sneer when he declares that the doctrine of those old Saxon men is, in his belief, not only the most Scriptural, but the most rational and scientific explanation of the grounds of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... true test of the teacher's fidelity to this vow of service is the degree in which he loses himself in his pupils,—the degree in which he lives and toils and sacrifices for them just for the pure joy that it brings him. Once you have tasted this joy, no carping sneer of the cynic can cause you to lose faith in your calling. Material rewards sink into insignificance. You no longer work with your eyes upon the clock. The hours are all too short for the work that you would do. You are as light-hearted ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... emphasis, as on the earlier occasion. But he could not reject the promotion offered him to the high rank of Ti-Tu, or Field Marshal in the Chinese army, or churlishly refuse to receive the rare and high dignity of the Yellow Jacket. The English reader has been inclined on occasion to smile and sneer at that honour, but its origin was noble, and the very conditions on which it was based ensured that the holders should be very few ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Brotherhood; The ignorant may sneer, The bad deny; but we rely To see their triumphs near. No widow's groans shall load our cause, Nor blood of brethren slain; We've won without such aid before, And so ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... cares a straw about Nera," put in the languid Franchi, drawling out his words. "I have heard quite another story about Nobili. Give Nera to Ruspoli. He seems about to take her for life. I wish him joy!" with a sneer. "Ruspoli likes English manners. Nera won't get Nobili, my word upon that—there are ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Rockwood, I doubt if you see him before mid-afternoon." The sneer is plainly evident here, and Grandon ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... in a vicious sneer. "Not till the job's done! D'ye think I'm going to spend half an hour cracking a safe and take a chance of missing any bets? We've got the coin all right, but there ought to be one or two of Sonnino's sparklers lying around in some ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... glowing ruby that caused the thief to fall, But—he was very hungry, and lonely, too, and cold; And youth lay all behind him, a tattered funeral pall, For he was very tired, and he was growing old. It was a glowing ruby that lay upon the breast Of one who had not earned it, who wore it with a sneer; The thief was very weary, he only longed for rest; He was too wan for caring, he was too numb ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... Jo Grain had been to the public-house that day, and the sneer, which at other times would have been passed over with indifference, stung him—coupled as it was with a slur on his lowly position. He looked fiercely at Grime, and said, in a loud, angry tone: "It's a matter of moonshine to ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... comfort, and move in those circles of society to which their birth gave them entrance, the thought often occurred to me whether I was really worth my salt or not; and then perhaps the lips curled with a bitter sneer. It may seem strange that I should place so much emphasis upon words thoughtlessly, idly spoken; but then we do many strange things in life, and cannot always explain the motives that actuate us. The ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... moved by a slight smile, it becomes even beautiful in the intensity of this expression; but the upper lip, as if impelled by the action of involuntary muscles, habitually uplifts itself, conveying the impression of a sneer. Imagine, now, a person of this description looking at you one moment earnestly in the face, at the next seeming to look only within her own spirit or at the wall; moving nervously every now and then in her chair; speaking in a high key, but musically, deliberately, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... by some forgotten demonstration when he recalled his thoughts in the morning. But, while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in nowise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer, and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim's misfortune, and the emotions consequent upon that event completed the change of which the child had ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... my shabby coat make the lovely or proud faces ashamed of me? Do they turn from me coldly because I'm the last of a ruined line? Do they sneer at my napless hat, and laugh at my tattered elbows? I do not think of them so poorly and unkindly. My coat is very shabby, but I think, at least I hope, that it ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... slowly proceed through the thronged thoroughfare, obstructed by crowds who came to gaze upon the pageant, many a significant sneer or half-uttered jest would convey to Haman a sense of his degradation in appearing as the groom ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... thoroughly good chap, and he and I have enormous sympathy. I don't know any man in the world with whom I have more intellectual sympathy than Aylmer Ross. Do you remember how I pointed him out to you at once at the Mitchells'? And sometimes when I think how you used to sneer at the Mitchells—oh, you did, you know, dear, before you knew them—and I remember all the trouble I had to get you to go there, I wonder—I simply wonder! Don't you see, through going there, as I advised, we've made one of the nicest friends we ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... interfere with business. But I wouldn't stand Farnsworth—little shrimp!—setting up to run a bank. Ill? Well, he ought to be; makes himself ill meddling with other people. He'd be better if he didn't worry about what doesn't belong to him. I'd give him rest. It's all well enough to sneer at a woman's notion of business, but the bank would be better off if you had entire control of it. The directors know that, they must know it; they are ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... reality, though there are very marked differences between the two commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one another more closely, in blood and manners, than either does any other American State; and both have too just cause for pride to make it necessary for either to sneer at the other, or indeed at any State of our mighty Federal Union. In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas the original pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession of Tennessee as long as they lived,—Jackson, at Sevier's death, taking the latter's place ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... it was shrewd enough to discern that education led to unbelief in all that was old. I wanted to study, to study science, the arts, philosophy, to study everything old Howard knew, which enabled him, on the edge of the grave, undauntedly to sneer at superstition, and to give me Jules Verne to read. He was an Oxford man before he went wild and wrong, and it was he who had set the Oxford bee buzzing ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... is not elegant enough for you. That commonplace taunt is unworthy of my mother," said Mr. Beaumont, warmly, for he was thrown off his guard by the reflection implied on Miss Walsingham. "Ignorant silly women may be allowed to sneer at information and talents in their own sex, and, if they have read them, may talk of 'Les Precieuses Ridicules,' and 'Les Femmes Savantes,' and may borrow from Moliere all the wit they want, to support the cause of folly. But from women who are themselves ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... in Great Britain. Swift wrote his dedication three years after the Count's expulsion. Knowing that the Count's master, Charles XII. of Sweden, had been a party to the plot, he yet writes in a most amiable tone of friendliness towards both, with a parenthetical sneer at "his present Britannic Majesty." Undoubtedly this dedication might easily and fairly be taken as strong presumptive evidence of a leaning on Swift's part towards the Pretender. It will, however, be more truly interpreted, if it be considered as an expression ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... answered with a sneer, "and I'll do with it what I've done with many others—see that it ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the hexameter in modern poetry is due to Johann Heinrich Voss, a man of genius, an admirable metrist, and, Schlegel's sneer to the contrary notwithstanding, hitherto the best translator of Homer. His "Odyssey," (1783,) his "Iliad," (1791,) and his "Luise," (1795,) were confessedly Goethe's teachers in this kind of verse. The "Hermann ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the professor, with a bitter sneer; 'who are my friends? Where have I found any whose friendship was other than a name? My books, my cabinet, my studies, the great work on which I am now laboring—these are my friends; it is only through these that I shall be raised to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... absolutely nothing to Max Mainz, so he took it out by awarding the Telly reporter with a rare combination of glower and sneer. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... them, and deposited it with a banker. There is no evidence that such a draft was ever dishonored. On one occasion Massena disgorged two millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient nobility the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army, they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many noteworthy exceptions, but on ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... prison clothes, handcuffed between two warders. You know how the trains come in every minute. Almost at once I was recognised, and there passed before me a continual stream of men and boys, and one after the other offered some foul sneer or gibe or scoff. They stood before me, Frank, calling me names and spitting on the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... with a suggestion of defiance and more than a suggestion of a sneer, "it's the most ye should expect from me, and certainly it's ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... that memorable session, which closed in the failure of all peaceful measures to restore the Union, slowly dawned—with but a few hours lacking of the time when Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United States—Mr. Wigfall thought proper, in the United States Senate, to sneer at him as "an ex-rail-splitter, an ex-grocery keeper, an ex-flatboat captain, and an ex-Abolition lecturer"—and proceeded to scold and rant at ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... Vision moving in an outer world, a phase of civilization, old, tired, dying, dull as ditch-water, without imagination, with no little vestige of poetry, no gleam of aspiration,—with wit enough to sneer at him, and no more; by no means with wit enough to allow him to save it from itself and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris |
