"Upstart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lane girl, after all. Its coarseness, its vulgarity underlay all her veneer. They had got into her book; everybody said so. Raphael said so. How dared she write disdainfully of Raphael's people? She an upstart, an outsider? She went to the library, lit the gas, got down a volume of Graetz's history of the Jews, which she had latterly taken to reading, and turned over its wonderful pages. Then she wandered restlessly back ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... necessarily of lowly birth and of inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive in manner and shallow in artifice. The coarse but honest Snob still perhaps exists, and here and there he thrusts and pushes in the old familiar way; but more often than not the upstart who has won his way to wealth and consideration finds himself to his own surprise courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick. Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... back from the table and rose to feet, fire flashing from his eyes, and if ever a young upstart received a lecture that young officer received one. I was sitting to the left of Gen. Davis while Jesse Applegate, one of the "Makers of Oregon," sat at his right. The General spoke of the women as the wife and daughter of a frontiersman, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... her own name and serving her with suitable rites. In the Prometheus of Aeschylus the hero addresses his appeal as follows to the beings he regards as gods of old race who will sympathise with him against the upstart Zeus:— ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... which was powerful and illustrious when the Hohenzollerns were but mean and petty barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the opportunity is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish designs. Our enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too will be forced to abandon the War. With him and with the deeds that have outraged the world they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... wonderment how the apples get inside the dumplings. How can a critic criticise a creator? The man who looks on writing things about the man who does things. But he criticises and artists owe him much. Neither in "ink-horn terms" nor in an "upstart Asiatic style" need the critic voice his opinions. He must be an artist in temperament and he must have a credo. He need not be a painter to write of painting, for his primary appeal is to the public. He is the middle-man, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... "You young upstart," he cried, shaking his fist at Calvin as the car turned around, "I'll be down in ten minutes and see to you!" The provost marshal turned his white steed and began gathering up his procession and his prisoners. But the spell was broken. The mind of the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... since there are upstart ministers as well as City-turned gentlemen, I will remember Moliere's M. Jourdain, and feed full the gluttonous vanity ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... telling you, I suppose! Yes, I was inclined to suspect him, because he didn't care about sauces of any kind. I always did doubt a man's being a gentleman if his palate had no acquired tastes. An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The idea of my bringing out a bottle of my '40 Martinez—only eleven of them left now—to a man who didn't know it from eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation; it was very cut-and-dried, very; or I, who haven't looked ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... his rise into society he laid aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no more cats; and conscious of his collar, he ignored his old companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to recognise the upstart, and from that hour, except for human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Larralde was fleet of foot despite his meagre limbs, and leapt over such obstacles as he could perceive, with the agility of a monkey. He darted into the lighted doorway—the entrance to the palatial mansion of an upstart politician. The large doors were thrown open, and the hall-porter stood in full livery awaiting the master's carriage. Larralde was already in the patio, and Conyngham ran through the marble-paved entrance hall, before the porter realised what was taking place. There ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... of 1813 against Napoleon. It was an Idea that brought the Balkan League into being and carried its armies in triumph to Salonica and Adrianople. Freedom, Unity, Liberation, such were the forms which that Idea took: the determination of a free people to resist an upstart despot's designs of world-dominion; the enthusiasm of a divided nation for the dream of national unity; the longing of races which had but recently won their own freedom, to emancipate their kinsmen from an alien and ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... as the relentless frankness that furnished it, which overcame Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She sat down with an emphasis so sudden that it was as though her knees were glass and the blow had broken them. Once in the chair, she waggled her head dolorously, and moaned out against upstart vulgarians who, without a name or a shilling, insinuated themselves like vipers into households of honor, and, coiling themselves upon the very hearthstones, dealt ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... habit of not paying at all, except in promises and patriotic flatteries which are not compatible with martial law of the Prussian type. Napoleon has therefore approached the Alps in command of men without money, in rags, and consequently indisposed to stand much discipline, especially from upstart generals. This circumstance, which would have embarrassed an idealist soldier, has been worth a thousand cannon to Napoleon. He has said to his army, "You have patriotism and courage; but you have no money, no clothes, and deplorably indifferent food. In Italy there are ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... young upstart know about the Scriptures? Why, I have been a student of the Scriptures for fifty long years, many years before this young man was born. I have heard many great preachers in my time, and they all said that man was born unto sin as the sparks are ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... grew ill at ease seeing the vast crowd of islanders that had now gathered there, but he spoke boldly, and told them all that they were a pack of rebels, and that King Valdemar would speedily prove to them that he would not brook the interference of this upstart sea rover. At that Rand drew his sword and called to his men to stand by their rights and drive these intruders from their shores. There was a brief fight, in which I know not how many men were ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... nobilities no more. Enervated by their luxuries, effeminated by their ease, made insipient by their debauchery, they were entirely powerless. All that they possessed in reality was the nominal rank and hereditary birth. On the contrary, despised as the ignorant, sneered at as the upstart, put in contempt as the vulgar, the Samurai or military class had everything in their hands. It was the time when Yori-tomo[FN79] (1148-1199) conquered all over the empire, and established the Samurai Government at Kama-kura. It was the time when even the emperors were dethroned or exiled at ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... is about fifty-five years of age, is a short, plump, vulgar-looking woman, with dark, piercing eyes and jet-black hair. Once she was handsome, but possesses now no traces of her former beauty. She looks like an upstart or 'shoddy' female, but not particularly wicked or heartless. She commenced business about twenty years ago. Her establishment at that time was in C—- street, and for some time she was but little known. About four ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... it now. The Princess and her escort—the plebeian upstart—were quite near at hand, and, to the dismay of the smokers, apparently were unaware of their presence in the shadows. Chase's heart was boiling with disappointed rage. His idol had fallen, from a tremendous height to a ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... had a fling at other subjects—a dozen books or so—but his graver hours were given to the study of London. There is hardly a park or square or street, palace, theatre or tavern that did not yield its secret to him. Here and there an upstart building, too new for legend, may have had no gossip for him, but all others John Timbs knew, and the personages who lived in them. And he knew whether they were of sour temper, whether they were rich or poor, and if ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... talking? What did Toddling Johnny's son know about business? What was the world coming to? To hear him setting up his face there, and asking the best merchant in the town whether business was brisk! It was high time to put him in his place, the conceited upstart, shoving himself forward like ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Hearne's Ductor Historicus, 1714 (for the old doctrine of the Four Monarchies); Thomason Pamphlets; Carlyle's Cromwell, III. 24-27.—The Fifth Monarchy notion was by no means an upstart oddity of thought among the English Puritans of the seventeenth century. It was a tradition of the most scholarly thought of mediaeval theologians as to the duration and final collapse of the existing Cosmos; and it may be traced in the older imaginative ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the works a vain young upstart," Mrs Parkyn said to her husband. "I cannot think how you keep your temper with such a popinjay. I hope you will not allow yourself to be put upon again. You are so sweet-tempered and forbearing, that everyone ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Addressing three brother dramatists—Marlowe, Nash, and Peele or Lodge—he bade them beware of puppets 'that speak from our mouths,' and of 'antics garnished in our colours.' 'There is,' he continued, 'an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a players hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum is, in his owne conceit, the only Shake-scene in a countrie. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Stonehouse reflected rapidly and contemptuously, must have been bribed to have turned out such perfection at such short notice. Too much perfection and too new. An upstart young rake. No, not quite that, either. Pain had lent an elusive beauty to the plain and freckled face, and happiness had made it lovable. It was obvious that he was trying to suppress his pride and astonishment at himself and not succeeding. The corners of his mouth quivered ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... were ejected and dispossessed, they, according to that mythology, had rights of their own. To them belonged all the universe that had not been seized and reclaimed by the younger race of Odin and AEsir; and though this upstart dynasty, as the Frost-Giants in AEschylean phrase would have called it, well knew that Hel, one of this giant progeny, was fated to do them all mischief, and to outlive them, they took her and made her queen of Niflheim, and mistress over nine worlds. There, in a bitterly cold place, she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... remember where it lay. So rapid streams the wealthy land About them have at their command; And shifting channels here restore, There break down, what they bank'd before. Thou art not Honour! for those gay Feathers will wear and drop away; And princes to some upstart line Gives new ones, that are full as fine. Thou art not Pleasure! for thy rose Upon a thorn doth still repose; Which, if not cropp'd, will quickly shed, But soon as cropp'd, grows dull and dead. Thou ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... fair words enough had Frederick for the occasion. To think of such a man as HE, flaunting the banner of Germany in my face—he who, not many years ago, was under the ban of the empire as an ambitious upstart! He thought to scare me with the rustling of his dead laurel-leaves, and when he found that I laughed at such Chinese warfare, lo! he ran and hid himself under my mother's petticoats; and the two old crowns fell foul of one another, and their palsied old wearers plotted ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... red fields of slaughter, through death and defeat and disaster, Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from a stain, - Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg for a master! How the red flush of her shame mars the ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... which the Prussians and Saxons stood towards each other during this war could not be removed by its termination. The Saxon now first felt, with true bitterness, the wounds which the upstart Prussian had inflicted upon him. Political peace could not immediately re-establish a peace between their dispositions. But this was to be brought about symbolically by the above-mentioned drama. The grace and amiability of the Saxon ladies conquer the worth, the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... gave the grand name of "evolution" to a notion that things do themselves. Our wealth, our insularity, our gradual loss of faith, had so dazed us that the old Christian England haunted us like a ghost in whom we could not quite believe. An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not without that ugly question which Hamlet asked ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... lies sick unto death from the after-effects of an old wound and sends for his kinsmen and other nobles of the Quarter. While delivering his message to them, Thorolf, his favorite (secretly the lover of the chieftain's wife, Helga), and long a thorn in the flesh of these proud men as an upstart, infuriates them anew by his insolent bearing. Obedient to the call of their chief, they assemble about him to determine on measures for the defence of the land, and to learn of the disposition of his dominions. The weak Brand ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... Syria, and cut off the Semites of the west from those of the east. The Israelites poured over the Jordan out of Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan, while Babylonia itself, for so many centuries the ruling power of the Oriental world, had to make way for its upstart rival Assyria. The old imperial powers were exhausted and played out, and it needed time before the new forces which were to take their place could acquire ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... impudent upstart!" gasped the old lady, as the door closed behind the waiter. "How ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... him, one goes back to the days when we ourselves were as loud and mad in his dispraise. Who does not remember his own personal hatred and horror, twenty-five years ago, for the man whom we used to call the "bloody Corsican upstart and assassin?" What stories did we not believe of him?—what murders, rapes, robberies, not lay to his charge?—we who were living within a few miles of his territory, and might, by books and newspapers, be made as well acquainted with ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a time, it behoves every lover of literature to declare himself, and to furnish his quota of facts or arguments corrective of this upstart paradox. It is under the influence of that sentiment that I submit, for consideration in the proper quarter, some short extracts ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... not even begun to think of them as their equals. Scotland was at that time a very poor country, and the poor relation has {148} never been a popular character anywhere. Consequently Englishmen—and who was ever more English than Johnson?—commonly saw in the newly arrived Scot a pauper and an upstart come to live upon his betters: and they revenged themselves in the manner natural to rich relations. To Johnson's tongue, too, the Scots offered the important additional temptations of being often Whigs, oftener still Presbyterians, and always the countrymen of Boswell. ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... coxcomb, not at all abashed, said that he meant not Sophocles, but Euripides. Whereupon Porson drew from another pocket a copy of Euripides and challenged the upstart to find the quotation in question. Full of confusion, the fellow thrust his head out of the window of the coach and cried to ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... universal use, and in constant practice, has been ever since upon the improvement; and we may, I think, with good reason believe, is arrived at its greatest height and perfection, if it is not got beyond it, even to its declension; for whatsoever new, upstart, out-of-the-way messes some humourists have invented, such as stuffing a roasted leg of mutton with pickled herring, and the like, are only the sallies of a capricious appetite, and debauching rather than ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... new upstart; one that swears like a falconer, and will lie in the duke's ear day by day, like a maker of almanacs: and yet I knew him, since he came to th' court, smell worse of sweat ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... now occupied by the brick range of stores, as well as the present court-yard, was laid out in grass-plats overshadowed by trees and bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Now the old aristocratic edifice hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building; at one of the back windows I observed some pretty tailoresses sewing and chatting and laughing, with now and then a careless glance toward the balcony. Descending thence, we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly gentleman above ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... democracy they wield. Even the aristocratic party that had so long opposed him appear, with the fall of Thucydides, to have relaxed their hostilities. In fact, they had less to resent in Pericles than in any previous leader of the democracy. He was not, like Themistocles, a daring upstart, vying with, and eclipsing their pretensions. He was of their own order. His name was not rendered odious to them by party proscriptions or the memory of actual sufferings. He himself had recalled their idol Cimon—and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Boisflottant, and the son of Pillardin, the lucky millionaire, successively come into the regiment, and these sprigs of lofty lineage, full of brilliancy and loquacity, naturally eclipsed the modest qualities of the obscure upstart soldier. Spending their life in cafes, overwhelmed with debt, loved by the women, they laughed among themselves at all the minutiae of the service, which they treated as beneath their notice, ridiculed their superiors, ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... thence for either the princesses, Sir Patrick, or Geordie of the Red Peel, so that the strange situation of the latter must needs continue as long as he insisted on being beholden for nothing to the English upstart, as he scrupled not to call Lord Suffolk, whose new-fashioned French title was an ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great power to the west was necessarily the absorbing political question of the day. It menaced every potentate in France; and before a month was out a ring of foes had gathered round the upstart Angevin ruler. The outraged King of France; Stephen, King of England, and Henry's rival in the Norman duchy; Stephen's nephew, the Count of Champagne, brother of the Count of Blois; the Count of Perche; and ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... upon the place, each after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... Monty muttered something about "upstart impudence," and obeyed the O.C. Troops, who thereupon boarded the rocking lighter, and exchanged with one step the fatal Peninsula for the safety ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the lot of them!" he announced vehemently. "I hate this upstart Cyclops and his conscienceless power. I hate the pampered brother—but Thayre is right. Great God in heaven, gentlemen, it is a family of geniuses. Stop and reflect. Fifteen years ago they were bare-footed—ragged—half-starved, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... BOO'BY (Lady), a vulgar upstart, who tries to seduce her footman, Joseph Andrews. Parson Adams reproves her for laughing in church. Lady Booby is a caricature of Richardson's "Pamela."—Fielding, Joseph ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Lucy, who regarded her with wonder as well as affection, and she was the object of the boyish devotion of Charley, who often defended her from his cousin Sedley's endeavours to put down what he considered upstart airs in a little nobody from London. Sedley teased and baited every weak thing in his way, and Lucy had been his chief butt till Anne Woodford's unconscious dignity and more cultivated manners ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for ends that weren't my own!—And what return do I get for it? A new-comer only needs to wave a red flag before them, and all alike rush blindly to him. A pupil of Liszt?—bah! Who was Liszt? A barrel-organ of execution; a perverter of taste; a worthy ally of that upstart who ruined melody, harmony, and form. Don't ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Landover's contention that the upstart was bound to hang himself if they gave him rope enough, or in Ruth's patient reminder that Percival was getting results,—and getting them ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... "The Americas were upstart continents, werent they? I am not speaking sarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not even hemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But how much culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Without a doubt there are exactly the same number of composers ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the master of the house, without any heraldic addition which might recall the recent elevation of rank, a graceful bit of coquetry on the part of a man who had been successful in life, but who was no upstart. At every plate was also placed a bouquet, in a holder representing a crystal lily with a silver cup. The company harmonized with the luxurious environment. The married ladies attracted the eye by their ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... invited. The marchioness hates her; Mrs. Gilmer is the only rival whom Madame de Fleury takes the trouble to detest; and it makes me indignant to see a lady of her superlative fascinations annoyed by this little upstart American. One must admit that Mrs. Gilmer is very pretty; her figure scarcely needs help, and she is so vivacious, and has so much aplomb, so much dash, that the notice she attracts renders her alarmingly ambitious. Still, for her to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Anna, to me, as the mother of Ivan, chosen as emperor by Anna, to me alone belongs the regency, and by Heaven I will reconquer that of which I have been nefariously robbed! I will punish this insolent upstart whose shameful tyranny we have endured long enough, and I hope you, my friends, will stand by me and obey the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... investment and occupation of Ying, and witnessed Wu's sudden collapse in the following year. Yueh's attack at this critical juncture, when her rival was embarrassed on every side, seems to have convinced him that this upstart kingdom was the great enemy against whom every effort would henceforth have to be directed. Sun Wu was thus a well-seasoned warrior when he sat down to write his famous book, which according to my reckoning must have appeared towards the end, rather than the ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... everything come his way ever since he entered High School," growled Phin. "And now the mucker is going off to West Point, and the government is going to stamp him 'gentleman.' A gentleman? Pooh! I'd like to show him up, as a bumptious upstart. Phin scowled fiercely for a moment, ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... agitated mind Jim had barely escaped being drowned in the ocean of his own unreadiness and confusion under trying conditions. And she was right. Jim had never felt more the upstart uneducated farm-hand than when he was introduced to that audience by Professor Withers, nor more completely disgraced than when he concluded his remarks. Even the applause was to him a kindly effort on the part of the audience to comfort him in his failure. ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... Park, there had been a scene. The old gun maker had blustered and roared and forbidden, pounding on his desk with his fist. When Sam remained cool and unimpressed, he had stormed out of the room slamming the door and shouting, "Upstart! Damned upstart!" and Sam had gone smiling back to his desk, mildly disappointed. "I told Sue he would say 'Ingrate,'" he thought, "I am losing my skill at guessing just what ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... return'd; "and so thy fame Shine bright, when thou art gone; as thou shalt tell, If courtesy and valour, as they wont, Dwell in our city, or have vanish'd clean? For one amidst us late condemn'd to wail, Borsiere, yonder walking with his peers, Grieves us no little by the news he brings." "An upstart multitude and sudden gains, Pride and excess, O Florence! have in thee Engender'd, so that now in tears thou mourn'st!" Thus cried I with my face uprais'd, and they All three, who for an answer took my words, Look'd at each ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... men, in order to prevent the discovery of his individuality. He had no insulting egotism, and no pompous pride; no haughtiness, and no aristocracy. He was not indifferent, however, to approbation and public opinion. He was not an upstart, and had no insolence. He was a meek, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman.... Read Mr. Lincoln's speeches, letters, messages and proclamations, read his whole record in his actual life, and you cannot fail to ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... of the term—that is, pretending to be anxious about religion when they knew that they felt no anxiety. They were anxious, in their way. They heard a startling free announcement of forgiveness by a man. To them it appeared license given to sin. If this new teacher, this upstart—in their own language, "this fellow—of whom every man knew whence he was," were to go about the length and breadth of the land, telling sinners to be at peace; telling them to forget the past, and to work onwards; bidding men's consciences be at rest; ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... tragedy of Antelope Springs, the falsity of his insinuations against Davies, the trickery of his methods, one and all be brought to light. Already, through Haney, he heard of the sensation created among the men by his defence of Howard, and of the depth of feeling among the old hands against this airy upstart recruit, not a year in service, who frequently boasted that he had more influence with "Cap." than all the rest of them put together. Haney himself could not cipher out the secret of Howard's importance, and was plainly and palpably jealous. Ever since early in the campaign, when young ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... off the door, and, as I came to it, a fellow with a ream on his back laboured out. I had expected naught but the desolation and silence which I last remembered in the place, and it staggered me to find all going on as before. No doubt here was some upstart printer, standing in my late master's shoes and working at his ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... France, and they persuaded the false and fickle Anjou that there would never be any hope of his royal brother's assistance, except upon the understanding that the blood and treasure of Frenchmen were to be spent to increase the power, not of upstart and independent provinces, but of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Langlois, but he had run the shop during Jackson's residence in Paris and his former employee no doubt had learned a great deal by observing its operation. Yet here more than twenty years later was the upstart Englishman again, venturing into wallpaper manufacturing with an air of moral superiority, attacking all other products as unworthy. Jackson's ridiculing of the Chinese style must have been particularly galling since ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... powerful allies in the cause of reaction. Heathenism was still a living power in the world. It was strong in numbers even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart on Caesar's throne. The favour of the gods had built up the Empire, and men's hearts misgave them that their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still an established religion, the Emperor still its official head. Old Rome was still ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham, justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... to the interior, all noisily eager to stamp out of existence the upstart Chief, who had dared to wear shoes, and to carry an umbrella in the streets of their King's capital. The aged Chief of Lipis and his people, however, clove to Panglima Prang, or To' Raja, as he now openly called himself, and the war did not prosper. To' Gajah ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... two hundred foreigners of all nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama, the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What was the use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect a few cracks in the craniums belonging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s cowboy's granddaughter, has done?—she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince George ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... habitual courtesies of the regular army is exceedingly apparent with these men: an officer of polished manners can wind them round his finger, while white soldiers seem rather to prefer a certain roughness. The demeanor of my men to each other is very courteous, and yet I see none of that sort of upstart conceit which is sometimes offensive among free negroes at the North, the dandy-barber strut. This is an agreeable surprise, for I feared that freedom and regimentals ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... good-night in a large, self- conscious way. Gaston hoped that his campaign would not be wasted, and the fluffy gentleman retired. When he got out of earshot in the shadows, he turned and shook his fist towards Gaston, saying: "Half-breed upstart!" Then he refreshed his spirits ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had found a definite excuse in the tract, called "A Quip for an upstart Courtier, or a quaint dispute between Velvet-Breeches and Cloth-Breeches," which Greene had published early in the year 1592. Accordingly, when he heard of Greene's death, he hastened to his lodgings, interviewed his landlady, collected scurrilous details, and, with matchless bad taste, issued, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... the Meadow Saffron rises bare from the earth, and is, therefore, called "Upstart" and "Naked Lady." This plant owes its botanical name Colchicum, to Colchis, in Natalia, which abounded in poisonous vegetables, and gave rise to the fiction about the enchantress Medea. She renewed the vitality of her aged father, AEneas, by drawing blood ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... running after a hundred sous, statesmen in a fair way to fortune; and he distributed to this little crowd, just as he would throw food into a kennel, the discounts and clippings of his ventures, taking malicious pleasure, the insolent delight of a fortunate upstart, in feigning at the moment when loans were issued, sickness that had no existence, in order to have the right of keeping his chamber, of hearing persons of exalted names ringing at his door and dancing attendance upon him,—powerful, influential and illustrious persons,—him, the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... thou shalt have a good pottle of our master's best wine every day, for thou art an old and faithful servant. Also, good Cook, I have ten shillings that I mean to give as a gift to thee. But hatest thou not to see a vile upstart like this Reynold Greenleaf taking it upon ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... mien is dignified, his gait is slow; If upstart strangers try to catch his eye He kicks the dust behind with scornful toe, Averts his lifted ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... the royal favour, he did not hesitate to oppress the poor by continual acts of forestalling and monopoly. As there is no enemy so bitter as the estranged friend, so of all the tyrants and tramplers upon the poor, there is none so fierce and reckless as the upstart that sprang from their ranks. The offensive pride of Jacques Coeur to his inferiors was the theme of indignant reproach in his own city, and his cringing humility to those above him was as much an object of contempt to the aristocrats into whose society he thrust himself. But ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... O King!" I said. "Is it the will of the king that an impi should be gathered to eat up this upstart? Such was the command of the one who is gone, given, as it were, with ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... made the whole Exchange the gamesters, and raised and lowered the prices of stocks as they pleased, and always had both buyers and sellers who stood ready innocently to commit their money to the mercy of their mercenary tongues. This upstart of a trade, having tasted the sweetness of success which generally attends a novel proposal, introduces the illegitimate wandering object I speak of, as a proper engine to find work for the brokers. Thus stock-jobbing ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... passage tells of his renewed attempt. Partial defeat stirs up our foes to stronger struggles. The league was extended to include Syrian states farther east, and a still more formidable expedition was fitted out to attack this dangerous upstart king of Israel, who was casting his shadow so far. Such is always the case. We are never in more danger of fresh assailants than when we have won some victory over evil in ourselves or around us. David repeated his former tactics. Not waiting ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... great deal for Shelbyville, no matter what its excellencies in social and political life. The old town stood just about as it was finished, sixty years and more before that time. Upstart cities had sprung up not far away, throwing Shelbyville into hopeless shadow. The entire energies of its pioneers seemed to have been expended in its foundation, leaving them too much exhausted to transmit any of their former fire and strength ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... hardly have recited your touching history before it would go forth to the world, and be deemed unlikely and unnatural. You would be no longer a lost child found, but you would be looked upon as an upstart, who had sprung up like a mushroom in the night. You might excite a little curiosity, but it is not every one who likes to be made the centre of observation and the subject of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shouted Hal in derision, "he wants to be captain of our team, no doubt, the little upstart! Come on, lads, we don't want his company. See, all the others ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... and he turned on Roger with all the anger of his mean nature choking his voice. "I'll—I'll beat you, you young upstart, you! I'll beat you in that man's place," he cried, with a string ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... have to ask Mr. Pitkin. I am sure he had good reason for the course he took. He's an impudent, low upstart in my opinion." ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... they reminded him of a parcel of saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... officer; an upstart. Also, the merry-thought of a fowl. Also, a small fish of the bonito kind, which frequently jumps out of the water. A name applied also ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... times complains of the breaking up of old family establishments, all crowding to "upstart London." "Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house, and an emperor in the streets; not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hurried in a coach: giving that allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintained houses full of men; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... sir! And see how it lies open anywhere! There is n't a book in my library that has such a generous way of laying its treasures before you. From Alpha to Omega, calm, assured rest at any page that your choice or accident may light on. No lifting of a rebellious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know his place and can never be taught manners, but tranquil, well-bred repose. A book may be a perfect gentleman in its aspect and demeanor, and this book would be good company for personages like Roger Ascham and ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... belief! Summer, my lord, this saucy upstart Jack, That now doth rule the chariot of the sun, And makes all stars derive their light from him, Is a most base, insinuating slave, The sum[44] of parsimony and disdain; One that will shine on friends and foes alike, That under brightest smiles hideth black show'rs Whose envious breath ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... energy of the French people; but when outrages perpetrated on the national feelings of Germans and Spaniards added an enthusiastic popular support to the hatred which the European monarchs cherished towards a domineering upstart, the fall of Napoleon became only a question of time. The excess and the abuse of French national efficiency and energy, consequent upon its sudden liberation and its perpetuation of an illogical but natural policy ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Quip for an upstart Courtier; or, a quaint Dispute between Velvet Breeches and Cloth Breeches, &c. 1620 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the time had come to insist firmly upon his rights which were being seriously threatened by this sleek brown upstart. He possessed a weapon against which the fox would be helpless and in this extremity he prepared to use it. Still, the skunk was a gentleman and ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... more difficult and seemingly more ungracious to return a gift so graciously given, a gift of no inconsiderable intrinsic value. Moreover, Mr. Flint had ingeniously contrived almost to make the act, in Austen's eyes, that of a picayune upstart. Who was he to fling back an annual pass in the face of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you want this upstart to be editor?" snarled Herring, annoyed at these interruptions and yet not wishing to pick a quarrel with one who was ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... remarked that that was nothing new for him: seven days from Sicily to Rome, three hours from Rome to Interamna![151] Entered by night, did he? so he did before! No one went to meet him? neither did anyone on the other occasion, exactly when it should have been done! In short, I bring our young upstart to his bearings, not only by a set and serious speech, but also by repartees of this sort. Accordingly, I have come now to rally him and jest with him in quite a familiar manner. For instance, when we were escorting a candidate, he asked me "whether I had been accustomed to ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... passed their time in endless quarrels. The old world abounded in great cities, all of which owned the supremacy of Rome, from Gades to Thapsacus; and in modern India the most venerable places are compelled to bow before the upstart Calcutta. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... account, it is not surprising that there was a considerable amount of dishonesty among them. These conditions apart, they were neither worse nor better than the men of their time. As the original Company gained stability by the incorporation of its upstart rival established in 1698,[2] which put an end to a condition of affairs that promised to be ruinous to both, and by the grant of perpetuity issued in the year following incorporation, there was a gradual improvement ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... attends upon our councils, And each event has answer'd to my wish; The queen and all her upstart race are quell'd; Dorset is banish'd, and her brother Rivers, Ere this, lies shorter by the head at Pomfret. The nobles have, with joint concurrence, nam'd me Protector of the realm: my brother's children, Young ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... remarked of him that his rank as a nobleman was almost sufficient in itself, without any special soundness of understanding or calmness of temperament, to prevent him from throwing himself headlong either into an absolutist reaction which was identified with the ascendency of upstart favourites, and contemners of the old nobility, or into a popular revolution which soon disclosed its tendency to come into collision with the privileged order, and which ended its parricidal career by leaving England, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... daughter, and would not associate with her, which made her very uncomfortable; and she used to tell me on the Sundays, when we walked out, how she had been treated during the week. But it was all for her advantage, and tended to correct the false pride and upstart ideas which in time must have been engendered by my mother's folly. Neither, after a few weeks, was my sister unhappy; she was too meek in disposition to reply, so that she disarmed those who would assail her; and being, as she was, of the lowest ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... would rather see the Prince dead at my feet, I would rather see our loved State sunk and lost, Than know my boy, the sole heir of my crown, The sole hope of my people, taken and noosed By this proud upstart girl. Speak not of ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... snuffed out, to be charged up as advance sacrifices for political cohesion. Hapsburger against Hohenzollern, Protestant against Catholic, Ultramontanes beholding the reign of Anti-Christ; Guelphs and Wittelsbachs, protesting their own peculiar and ancient lineage against self-seeking latter-day upstart aristocrats! ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... professional you must sit in that miserable office and let your family starve. Why don't you denounce this upstart barber?—tell people that he hasn't a diploma—that he doesn't know anything—that he couldn't reduce that hernia and had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... did, the possibility of marriage between Joseph and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, was going to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody—a little upstart governess. "Hang it, the family's low enough already without her," Osborne said to his friend Captain Dobbin. "A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... your poor father had been alive," wound up Mrs. O'Keeffe, "the dirty upstart would never have dared to put such an insult on his orphaned daughter, that he wouldn't, and if Dan O'Leary should hear of it—which the saints forbid—it's not the jig that his foot would be teaching Mr. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and 19th centuries were the golden age of Dalmatian rule, and when their dynasty was finally overthrown, it was not by a new upstart race of dogs, but by a new upstart production of that blind and ugly mother of strong and hideous children—progress. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... then, and mark me well; for thou wilt see, I long have known the grief that weighs thee down. The Viceroy hates thee, fain would injure thee, For thou hast cross'd his wish to bend the Swiss In homage to this upstart house of princes, And kept them staunch, like their good sires of old, In true allegiance to the Empire. Say, Is't not so, Werner? ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... quickly to turn the tables upon their catch questions. But then it can't be the real article of learning, because He hasn't been in our established schools. He has no sheepskin in a dead language with our learned doctors' names learnedly inscribed. How indeed! An upstart!! ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... Angus turned red as a beet. Here was this upstart new boy with an air of questioning his authority. By means of Angus' ability to give any boy in the neighbourhood a sound drubbing if necessary he had become the recognized leader. Evidently this new boy needed to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for an Upstart Courtier," 1592:— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... it is so much easier to think of it as a tree, to consider it and admire it, and learn to love and understand it just as a tree. So the Mr. Foxleys thought, as they gazed at its monstrous trunk, its glorious branches of deep, dark glossy green with here and there an upstart arm of glowing bronze or a smaller shoot of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... come through him.—For Bruce the elder had determined that in his son he would restore the fallen fortunes of the family, giving him such an education as would entitle him to hold up his head with the best, and especially with that proud upstart, Alec Forbes. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... could recast even the finest products of his genius. Five years after the supposed date of his arrival in London he was already famous as a dramatist. Greene speaks bitterly of him under the name of "Shakescene" as an "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," a sneer which points either to his celebrity as an actor or to his preparation for loftier flights by fitting pieces of his predecessors for the stage. He was soon partner in the theatre, actor, ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... our condition are not allowed to carry arms. What would a lord say—yes, or any other person of whatever condition —if he caught an upstart peasant with a dagger on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... diplomacy the Tartars henceforward played an important part in the Bulgarian welter. Then Constantine married, as his second wife, the daughter of the Greek emperor, and thus again gave Constantinople a voice in his country's affairs. Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... this which he requires to have explained to him, or which he believes himself capable of conducting. The revelation acts on Job as the sign of the Macrocosmos on the modern Faust; but when he sinks, crushed, it is not as the rebellious upstart, struck down in his pride—for he had himself, partially at least, subdued his own presumption—but as a humble penitent, struggling to overcome his weakness. He abhors himself for his murmurs, and 'repents in dust and ashes.' It will have occurred ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... around the barn, but I didn't see any one there but that ugly little upstart, Bully the English Sparrow, and he wanted to pick a fight with me right ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... resolves of destiny, a crime long meditated in the bosom of the human agents. The Chorus here has an importance altogether wanting in the Chorus of the Oedipus. They throw a pall of ancestral honour over the bier of the hereditary monarch, which would have been unbecoming in the case of the upstart king of Thebes. Till the arrival of Agamemnon, they occupy our attention, as the prophetic organ, not commissioned indeed but employed by heaven, to proclaim the impending horrors. Succeeding to the brief intimation of the watcher who opens the play, they seem oppressed with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... "I'll show that upstart Corner House girl that she sha'n't ride over me," she declared, angrily, as the contestants gathered for the second trial ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Fortune promised so much hope at first, To make thy conquest of a prince's child? And should I stand to question, how thou durst To leave to think she might be so beguil'd? But words may not suffice to wreak this wrong, Hid under cloak of over-hardy[74] love. Thou[75] upstart fondling, and forborne too long, To give such cause ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... this upstart, anyway, to come setting signs and marks in the land that had been theirs from time immemorial? What mattered the little copper-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he was beginning to send out word of his ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... fears these upstart baronets and their insolent soldiers? Oh, how I wish women could fight! If the men can't drive them back, let us take the field, and Clinton shall never set his foot in the streets of Charleston;" and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the Land Office'! No doubt he also gave Natalie the suggestion that led to her scene with you. Tell her to occupy herself less with affairs which do not concern her and more with her own conduct. Her actions with that upstart have been outrageous." ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Estmere pulld forth his harpe, And plaid a pretty thinge: The ladye upstart from the borde, And wold ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... story short, Monsieur de Trailles was sent to Arcis to put an end to the candidacy of an upstart of the Left centre, a certain Simon Giguet; and having brought forward the mayor of the town as the ministerial candidate, he finds the said mayor, named Beauvisage, possessed of an only daughter, rather pretty, and able to bring her husband ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... having a single inducement to stay longer in this place, weighed anchor in the morning of the 31st and put to sea. In the prosecution of the voyage, when the Endeavour was close under Cape Upstart, the variation of the needle, at sunset, on the 4th of June, was 9 east, and at sunrise the next day, it was no more that 5 35'. Hence the lieutenant concluded, that it had been influenced by iron ore, or ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... fear of losing the independence. He has got over that now. He is no longer morbidly sensitive about his rights as a free and independent citizen and the backbone of the British electorate. He has bigger things to think of. He no longer regards sergeants as upstart slave-drivers—frequently he is a sergeant himself—nor officers as grinding capitalists. He is undergoing the experience of the rivets in Mr. Kipling's story of "The Ship that Found Herself." He is adjusting his perspectives. He is beginning to merge himself ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... 'tis downright scandalous to see This unknown upstart master of the house— This vagabond, who hadn't, when he came, Shoes to his feet, or clothing worth six farthings, And who so far forgets his place, as now To censure everything, ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... received as a substitute for the Prince Saracinesca your friends have known so long? Do you suppose that the vicissitudes of my life are unknown, and that no one will laugh behind my back and point at me as the new, upstart prince? Few people know me in Rome, and if I have any friends besides you, I have not been made aware of the fact. Pray consider that in doing what I ask, you would be saving me ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... listening to his abrupt, vivid speech, and a fear came to her which blanched her cheeks and caught at her throat. The hand which held her dainty parasol of lace shook, and an indescribable thrill ran through her veins. She could no more think of this man as a clodhopper, a coarse upstart without manners or imagination. In many ways he fell short of all the usual standards by which the men of her class were judged, yet she suddenly realised that he possessed a touch of that quality which lifted him at once far over their heads, The man had genius. Without education or culture he ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Siviglia.' This was originally produced in Rome under the name of 'Almaviva,' and strangely enough, proved an emphatic failure. For this, however, the music was scarcely responsible. The people of Rome were at that time devotees of the music of Paisiello, and resented the impertinence of the upstart Rossini in venturing to borrow a subject which had already been treated by the older master. 'Il Barbiere' soon recovered from the shock of its unfriendly reception, and is now one of the very few ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild |
