"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Before that dire disgrace shall blast my fame, O'erwhelm me, earth; and hide a warrior's shame!" To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied:(194) "Gods! can thy courage fear the Phrygian's pride? Hector may vaunt, but who shall heed the boast? Not those who felt thy arm, the Dardan host, Nor Troy, yet bleeding in her heroes lost; Not even a Phrygian dame, who dreads the sword That laid in dust her loved, lamented lord." He said, and, hasty, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... surprised young man tore open the letter, and, in company with his wife, read, with mingled emotions of pain and indignation, the following singular but characteristic compound of malicious vaunt ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... on their philosophical attainments vaunt in very eloquent words the superiority of the physical instrument over mere sensation. Evidently, however, the earnestness of this eulogy leads them astray. The most perfect registering apparatus must, in the long-run, after its most scientific operations, address itself to our senses ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... that considerate valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already compared him, who, being overtasked, broke his skull through the desperate ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... highly than any other flowers of the field. The Dutch are still notorious for their partiality to them, and continue to pay higher prices for them than any other people. As the rich Englishman boasts of his fine race-horses or his old pictures, so does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of his tulips. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and bed-fellow," answered Cuculain, "it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... plaster vas limestone; it come from dose kopjes de good Gott made in His anger against man for his vickedness. I zay so. Dey not believe me. Dey tink dem abominable stones grow in mine house, and break out in mine plaster like de measle: dey vaunt to dig in mine wall, in mine garden, in mine floor. One day dey shall dig in mine body. I vill go. Better I love peace dan money. Here is English company make me offer for mine varm. Dey forgive ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... were the graces, Daughters of Delight, Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt Upon this hill and dance there, day and night; Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt Is borrowed of them; but that fair one That in the midst was placed paravant, Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone, That made him pipe so merrily, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he will know how to use the appliances, of which the teacher is only ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Spain; Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear; And hailed thee, not perchance without a tear. Now to my theme—but from thy holy haunt Let me some remnant, some memorial bear;[cw] Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant, Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... of 1863 I was serving as a private in the First Virginia Cavalry. Gettysburg was in the past, and there was not much fighting to be done, but the cavalry was not wholly idle. Raids had to be intercepted, and the enemy was not to be allowed to vaunt himself too much; so that I gained some experience of the hardships of that arm of the service, and found out by practical participation what is meant by a cavalry charge. To a looker-on nothing can be finer. To the one who charges, or is supposed ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... crusade against it if he dared; for, of course, he would have to join issue with Good Templars, Sons of Temperance, and all the fanatical anti-alcoholists. These zealous reformers are so blindly infatuated with their hatred for alcohol, that tea seems to them its natural antithesis, and they vaunt it as if it were a celestial boon. And such people are a political ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... craft, and spread thy fame, To glad thy father in his weak old age. Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! Dearer to the red jackels shalt thou be Than to thy friends, and to thy father old,' And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:— 'Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. For were I matched with ten such men as thee, And I were that which till to-day I was, They should be lying here, I standing there. But that beloved name unnerved my arm— That name, and something, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... him to decide their differences by personal combat. Alfonso accepted the latter alternative; but, a dispute arising respecting the guaranty for the performance of the engagements on either side, the whole affair evaporated, as usual, in an empty vaunt of chivalry. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... however, was a period posterior to all the incidents of this tale, we shall continue to call the young hunter by the name under which he has been first introduced to the reader. Nor was the Iroquois less struck with the vaunt of the white man. He knew of the death of his comrade, and had no difficulty in understanding the allusion, the intercourse between the conqueror and his victim on that occasion having been seen by several savages on the shore ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Suffer if one of modern mood steals back— Weary and wayworn from the desert-road Of barren thought; from Hope's Dead Sea, which glowed With Love's fair mirage; from the poet's haunt, The scholar's lamp, the statesman's scheme, the vaunt, The failure, of all fond philosophies,— Back unto Thee, back to thy olive-trees, Thy people, and thy story, and thy Son, Mary of Nazareth! So long agone Bearing us Him who made our christendom, And came to save the earth, from ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... arm was cast about the priest's breast; her face was hidden on it. But for all that, I knew her—knew her, shuddering for the woman whose badges I was even now wearing, whose gift I bore at my side; and I remembered the priest's vaunt of a few hours before, made in her presence, "There is no man in Paris shall ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... If there was any gratitude it was all mine. But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Thus did he vaunt; but his arrow had not killed Diomed, who withdrew and made for the chariot and horses of Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. "Dear son of Capaneus," said he, "come down from your chariot, and draw the arrow out ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... wot, be hanged? Furthermore, victuals and other matters are dearer, seeing rich men buy up all, and with their monopoly keep the market as it please them. Unless you find a remedy for these enormities, you shall in vain vaunt yourselves of executing justice ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... being conscious of the innocence Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, I gave way to my humors, to my passion: Bold were my words, because my deeds were not. Now every planless measure, chance event, The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph, And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing, Will they connect, and weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step tracing step, each step a politic progress; And out of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... gold, Worse than remorse, and worse a thousand-fold, Than pangs of hunger. 'Tis the thirst of love, The rage and rapture of the ravening dove We name Desire. Ah, pardon! I offend; My fervor blinds me to the withering end Of all good council, and, accurst thereby, I vaunt anew ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... be confiscated, doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen, as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it, that Southern officers with Yankee seamen ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... de Cailon, a knight of Gascony, and Governor of Berwick, who had been heard to vaunt that he had sought the famous Black Knight, but could not find him, was returning to England, loaded with plunder, the fruit of an inroad on Teviotdale. Sir James thought it a pity that a Gascon's vaunt should be ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Monsieur was, in truth, a splendid and formidable marksman. Mr. G——, in preparing for the duel, happening to cast his eyes on his adversary, perceived that he had slily placed his arm in such a position, as must ensure, on the honourable gentleman's fire, the fulfilment of his vaunt to make him "a dead man." No time was to be lost; the young Englishman's life depended upon dispatch; and, instantly firing, he proved himself as good a marksman as Monsieur ——, by sending his ball, with the utmost precision, through the wily manoeuvrer's elbow, from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... began, "is not such a great work as any of those which you have mentioned, sir, only the painting which I so much vaunt and praise will be the imitation of some single thing amongst those which immortal God made with great care and knowledge and which He invented and painted, like to a Master: and so downwards, whether ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... the absence of Lampe, whom Reynard described as enjoying a chat with Ermelyn, Bellyn bounded off to court, where he did not fail to vaunt that he had helped Reynard prepare the contents of the wallet. Nobel publicly opened it, and when he drew out Lampe's bleeding head his anger knew no bounds. Following the advice of his courtiers, Bellyn, in spite of all his protestations, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely the level-toned manner of an observer of facts ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... vaunt is in my deeds. It dates from the 13th Vendemiaire of Year IV, the day I swept the Royalist Sections with cannon-shot from the steps of St. Roch. Come, let us drink to the Republic! 'Tis the arrow of Evander, which falls not to earth again, and ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... of more than one man's lifetime after, the reign of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs was a memory recalled over the bottle at the dining-table among men, some of whom had but heard their fathers vaunt her beauties. It seemed as if in her person there was not a single flaw, or indeed a charm, which had not reached the highest point of beauty. For shape she might have vied with young Diana, mounted side ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I 'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan— We all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the devil somewhat ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... anniversary. Under the Monarchy, the very tombs were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... land an Almazour Steps forth. All Spain can show no greater wretch. Before Marsile he makes a boastful vaunt: "To Ronceval will I my people lead— Full twenty thousand men with lance and shield. If I Rolland find there, I pledge his death; No after-day shall dawn but Carle shall ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... below the belt. I shall deliberately destroy your credit as an essayist, as a journalist, as a critic, as a Liberal, as everything that offers your laziness a refuge, until starvation and shame drive you to serious dramatic parturition. I shall repeat my public challenge to you; vaunt my superiority; insult your corpulence; torture Belloc; if necessary, call on you and steal your wife's affections by intellectual and athletic displays, until you contribute something to the British drama. You are played out as an essayist: your ardor is soddened, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... and compromise. But that hope failed. The minister was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... always a thick veil. But you—I mean you, I, any of us—are oddly dim-sighted also in regard to the civil population. For instance, we get into the empty motor-bus as it leaves the scene of the street accident, and examine the men and women who gradually fill it. Probably we vaunt ourselves as being interested in the spectacle of life. All the persons in the motor-bus have come out of a past and are moving towards a future. But how often does our imagination put itself to the trouble of realising this? We may observe with some care, yet owing to a fundamental defect of ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... made their retreat by land, in spite of all their garrisons both of horse and foot. In this sort I have a little digressed from my first purpose, only by the necessary comparison of their and our actions: the one covetous of honour, without vaunt or ostentation; the other so greedy to purchase the opinion of their own affairs, and by false rumours to resist the blasts of their own dishonours, as they will not only not blush to spread all manner of untruths, but even for the least advantage, be it but for the taking of one poor adventurer ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... never more unhappy." In other letters, written some months later, he writes, "I am tired of railing against Destiny and myself.... There are moments in which I despair of all that is good, in which I feel it has been enjoined upon me to work against everything that makes a vaunt of specious happiness." But he took no manful and resolute steps to battle against his unhappy state; he continued to correspond with the lady of his affections, to gaze upon her portrait, to write to his friend about her, and to dwell upon the past, the hours he ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... poet's circle is likely to appear to us even more viciousthan that of other men. To be sure, we remember Sir Philip Sidney's contention, supported by his anecdote of the loquacious horseman, that men of all callings are equally disposed to vaunt themselves. If the poet seems especially voluble about his merits, this may be owing to the fact that, words being the tools of his trade, he is more apt than other men in giving expression to his self-importance. But our specific objection to the poet is not met by this explanation. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... the fact, she related circumstances which she could have known, as I thought, only from my mistress herself; my silence pleased her; for the Russians, when a lady had a partiality for them, never fail to vaunt of their good fortune. She wished to persuade me she had observed us in company, had read the language of our eyes, and had long penetrated our secret. I was ignorant at that time that she had then, and long before, entertained the maid of my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... words, Hidimva said, 'What need is there, O man, for this thy vaunt and this thy boast? Accomplish all this first, and then mayst thou vaunt indeed. Therefore, delay thou not. Thou knowest thyself to be strong and endued with prowess, so thou shalt rightly estimate thy strength today ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... have been considered valid after the close of the great wars have but one object—an attack on the expenses of the table, a form of sensuous enjoyment which, on account of the ease and barbaric abundance with which wealth may vaunt itself in this domain, was particularly in vogue amongst the upper classes in Rome. Other forms of extravagance seem for the time to have been left untouched by legislation, for the Oppian law which had been due ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the District Court opened. Men who had come for a long distance to vaunt their ignorance and other qualifications as jurors could be seen on the streets. Here and there you could see the familiar faces of those who had served as jurors for years and yet had never lost a case. Wealthy delinquents began to subpoena large detachments of witnesses at the expense ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... moment of passion made big boasts of what they would do "some day." Few ever made so tremendous a vaunt; fewer still ever so completely fulfilled their threats; and, perhaps, no one ever struggled so patiently, so nobly, nor against such tremendous obstacles before the goal was reached, as did this angry little Swede, known to history as Gustavus Vasa. He was born in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... that mighty empires have passed from the memory of mankind, and proud kings who may have ruled the world, sunk into the far depths of Time and been forgotten. We divide into classes industrial and sets social and give Pride free rein to vaunt herself, knowing that the hour will surely come when not even a Hilprecht can distinguish between the prince's ashes and the pauper's dust—can e'en so much as say, "This cold dead earth, o'er which lizards ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... were snapped! Tell, Hal—vouch, Will, o' the ward-room mess, On you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped. With a bead in your eye and beads in your glass, And a grip o' the flipper, it was part and pass: "Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the shock, To North or to South, let the victory cleave, Vaunt it he may on his dung-hill the cock, But Uncle Sam's eagle never ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... but there's no reason why the fact should be noised abroad." Other provincial managers were much less anxious to conceal the paucity of their company. A country playbill, bearing date 1807, seems indeed to vaunt the system of doubling to which the impresario had been driven. The comedy of "The Busy Body" was announced for performance with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... much as I do, I also perceive how much more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of committing myself too confidently, and has taught me that to vaunt one's knowledge ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men: Irks care the crop-full bird? ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... mighty matter. When the tidings of his approach came to the ears of Sankharib, the King rode forth to meet his Minister, rejoicing in him with joy exceeding and received him lovingly and kissed him, and cried, "Well come and welcome and fair welcome to my sire and the glory of my realm and the vaunt of my kingdom: do thou require of me whatso thou wantest and choosest, even didst thou covet one-half of my good and of my government." The Minister replied, "Live, O King, for ever; and if thou would gift me bestow thy ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... sweet carnation slight, It is the gardener's pleasure, Now he unfolds it to the light, Now shields from it his treasure. But no—the flower for which I pant, No rare, no brilliant charms can vaunt, 'Tis ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... they one whit, Hrothgar the glad, for good of kings was he. There whiles the warriors far-famed let leap Their fair fallow horses and fare into flyting Where unto them the earth-ways for fair-fashion'd seemed, Through their choiceness well kenned; and whiles a king's thane, A warrior vaunt-laden, of lays grown bemindful, E'en he who all many of tales of the old days A multitude minded, found other words also 870 Sooth-bounden, and boldly the man thus began E'en Beowulf's wayfare well wisely to stir, With good speed to ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... this God is our God for evermore Through life, through death, while clod returns to clod. For though He slay us we will trust in Him; We will flock home to Him by divers ways: Yea, though He slay us we will vaunt His praise, Serving and loving with the Cherubim, Watching and loving with the Seraphim, Our very selves His praise through ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... flourish, parade, pompousness, vaunt, boasting, pageant, pomp, show, vaunting. display, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... vaunt the glories of ancient Rome; but Germany also had deeds to be proud of. Rome might have founded the World-empire; but Charlemagne had conquered the dominions of the Caesars and made the Empire Germanic. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt my growing manliness. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... Viewing the Sun by day, the Moon by night Endimions, Dianaes dear delight, Upon the grass resting your healthy limbs, By purling Brooks looking how fishes swims, If pride within your lowly Cells ere haunt, Of him that was Shepherd then King go vaunt. This moneth the Roses are distil'd in glasses, Whose fragrant smel all made perfumes surpasses The cherry, Gooseberry are now in th' prime, And for all sorts of Pease, this is the time. July my next, the hott'st ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... at least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her. All her brave vaunt of service faded before ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... acquired by seven years' experience. In his anxiety to make this instance prove his case, in the previous disobedience to Keith, for which the Admiralty had censured him, Nelson overreached himself and certainly fell into an ungenerous action. His vaunt of success by the road of disobedience rested only on the fact that he had failed to see Keith's signal. This the latter did not know, and evidently considered he had complied with its spirit. The signal to chase to windward was not strained to disobedience in being construed to search a fairly ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Kentucky (Mr. Beck), who seems to be the leading exponent on this floor of the party that is arrayed against the principle of this bill, has been pleased, in season and out of season, to cast odium upon the Negro and to vaunt the chivalry of his State, I may be pardoned for calling attention to another portion of the same dispatch. Referring to the various regiments under his command, and their conduct on that field which terminated the second ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Let him not vaunt that gains my loss, For when that he and time hath proved her, She may him bring to Weeping-Cross: I say no more, because I ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently. I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt. I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt. My arms held ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... hither, thou that would'st forget The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, The statesman actor's face hard set, The kennel cry that cheers his taunt, Come where pure winds and rills combine To murmur ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... improper vaunt," said Sir Dugald; "but I owe you some favours, Ranald, and therefore ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... unfortunately for the world, it has been so much and so long the fashion to admire? Shall we ever witness the time, when the wanton destroyers of our species, under whatever name or trappings they vaunt themselves, shall inherit the abhorrence and the curses of humanity; and when the only claim to applause that shall be sanctioned, must be founded, like that of our navigator, on the ability and the disposition to confer benefits on society? It has often ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... rumour fain would fright my ear With the destruction and decay Of things familiar and dear, And vaunt of a swift-running day That sweeps the fair old Past away; Whatever else be strange and new, All other things may go or stay, So that there be no ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. And so Diogenes, when Plato was being praised, said, "What has he to vaunt of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never gave pain to anyone?" For one could not say, to use the words of Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to philosophy as are the emotions of ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... that you must expose yourself to contempt by failing to make your vaunt good," said Brithric; "but you shall not ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... only meant for a counter-vaunt, the retaliation of a pang for it was evident the savages knew that among their captives were the wife and daughter of our chief. These were placed conspicuously in front, upon the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Death's dark hour had all but whelmed me In the gloom of endless night. Now, because misfortune's shadow Hath o'erclouded that false face, Cruel Life still halts and lingers, Though I loathe his weary race. Friends, why did ye once so lightly Vaunt me happy among men? Surely he who so hath fallen ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... footmen as thee and I are, let us never desire to meet with an enemy, nor vaunt as if we could do better, when we hear of others that they have been foiled, Nor be tickled at the thoughts of our own manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried. Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before. He would swagger, ay, he would; he would, as his vain ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... more elaborate chemistry of our own days has reversed all these motions of our simple ancestors, with results in every stage that to them would have realized the most fantastic amongst the promises of thaumaturgy. Insolent vaunt of Paracelsus, that he would restore the original rose or violet out of the ashes settling from its combustion—that is now rivalled in this modern achievement. The traces of each successive handwriting, regularly effaced, as had been imagined, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... rain of melody"; surpassing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow in such ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... limited, and we are outside it. But can we not observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth, i.e., robbery; the commanders in the army pride themselves on victories, i.e., murder; and those in high places vaunt their power, i.e., violence? We do not see the perversion in the views of life held by these people, only because the circle formed by them is more extensive, and we ourselves are moving inside ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... that Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the honored group, it is only necessary to say, that as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age of Sydney and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... was to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the exiled heart to cheer? What matter'd it that men should vaunt and loud and fondly swear, That higher feat of chivalry was never wrought elsewhere? They bore within their breasts the grief that fame can never heal,— The deep, unutterable woe which none save exiles feel. Their hearts were yearning for ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... with his bargain, on the other side, as if he were dealing with creatures utterly without feeling. Shanty turned first to one, and then to another; nodding and winking to Dymock to keep quiet on one side, whilst he continued to vaunt the merits of the ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frederic, of equal ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... a genial and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good fight—let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... my destiny: Rosalvo knows no medium: Rosalvo can never act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove by his extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. He lives a double life: in the guise of Abellino, he joins the banditti, and by inexplicable methods rids Venice of her enemies; in the guise of a noble Florentine, Flodoardo, he woos the Doge's daughter, Rosabella. The climax of the story is reached when Flodoardo, under oath ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"—And then, the glad 55 chaunt Of the marriage—first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.—And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?—Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Reproaches on my head were showered, 360 And Giaffir almost called me coward! Now I have motive to be brave; The son of his neglected slave, Nay, start not,'twas the term he gave, May show, though little apt to vaunt, A heart his words nor deeds can daunt. His son, indeed!—yet, thanks to thee, Perchance I am, at least shall be; But let our plighted secret vow Be only known to us as now. 370 I know the wretch who dares demand From Giaffir thy reluctant hand; More ill-got wealth, a meaner soul Holds not a ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... political sincerity (for I cannot see to what other want you can allude), surely a boy up to eighteen may be pardoned for exercising his faculty if he happens to be the one among millions who can use grown men as his toys. He was an absolute and untarnished hero, but for that reckless defying vaunt. Certainly that most ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... and through him to the world, granted visible rewards and visible punishments, that was not the permanent scheme. God's administration is hid from vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in which all furnishings are visible; rather a twilight gloom, where men and women grope. We know enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice very despicable, and God very apparent—and these be the sufficient data for the monograph of ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... chant, Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... ten thousand horsemen and slay their leader, the Wazir Dandan and vanquish their champion Sharrkan.[FN182] Nor would aught of shame accrue to me thereby, for I have read books and studied the rules of good breeding in the language of the Arabs. But I have no need to vaunt my own prowess to thee, more by token as thou hast proved in thy proper person my skill and strength in wrestling; and thou hast learnt my superiority over other women. Nor, indeed, had Sharrkan himself been here this night and it were said ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... my own undergraduate life of thirty years and upwards agone, I feel, notwithstanding modern vaunt, the laudator temporis acti earnest within me yet, and strong. Nowadays, as it seems to me, there is but little originality of character in the still famous University; a dread of eccentric reputation ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... — N. boasting &c. v.; boast, vaunt, crake|; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade[obs3]; gasconade; blague[obs3], bluff, gas*; highfalutin, highfaluting[obs3]; hot air, spread-eagleism [obs3][U. S.]; brag, braggardism[obs3]; bravado, bunkum, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present greatness ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... Providence that is most large Takes hearts like throe in special charge, Helps who for their own need are strong, And the sky dotes on cheerful song. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt; For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, As 'twould accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be! And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee! I think old Caesar must have heard In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... frolics fancy spirit. What is't to me by whom begot? Thou restive, pert, conceited sot. 90 Your sires I reverence; 'tis their due: But, worthless fool, what's that to you? Ask all the carriers on the road, They'll say thy keeping's ill bestowed. Then vaunt no more thy noble race, That neither mends thy strength or pace. What profits me thy boast of blood? An ass hath more intrinsic good. By outward show let's not be cheated; An ass should like an ass be ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... but not to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Death may vaunt and Death may boast, But we laugh his pow'r to scorn; He is but a slave at most,— ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... trembling heart Pierce, like a bitter dart, Anguish and terror; Hark to the foemen's vaunt, Boasting and bitter taunt Of Saxon warrior. Nay, do not triumph so, Do not rejoice as though Your deeds were glorious; Not your own valour brave, Numbers, not courage, have Made you victorious. Those who on ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... for a forty-parson power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh, for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise! BYRON. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... thy liver. To such labors look thou for no termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... Vaunt not its shippers, my friend, but produce it—an Actual, "forty-five," languorous Lusitan, Befitting, whate'er be its label, You, my good host, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... Vaunt less thy reason, O unhappy man! Behold how useless is this gift celestial, For which, they say, thou should'st the rest disdain. Feeble as thou wert in thy infant days, Like thee she mov'd, she totter'd, and was weak. When age mature arriv'd, and call'd to pleasures, Slave to thy sense, she still ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... in this disease of electricity has been for some time past almost universally conceded. While some vaunt the faradic, others prefer the galvanic current in its treatment. It appears that thus far the best results have been obtained on the one hand by galvanization of the spine, on the other by general faradization. It occurred to me, when I began ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... Men proudly vaunt their love of gold and fame, High station and accomplishments of skill, Yet of life's greatest conquest they are still, And deem it weakness, or an act of shame, To seem to place high value on the love Which first of all ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... upon the roof of a lofty shed, and seeing a Wolf below, loaded him with all manner of reproaches. Upon which, the Wolf, looking up, replied, "Do not vaunt yourself, vain creature, and think you mortify me; for I look upon this ill language as not coming from you, but from the place ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Christian, who looks back to the "hole of the pit whence he was digged," and remembers that he now stands by virtue of the same grace that took his feet out of the "horrible pit and miry clay," will be the last person to vaunt over the fallen condition of his fellow-creatures. He will look upon them with an eye of tender compassion; and his rebukes will be administered in a meek, subdued, and humble spirit, remembering the injunction of Paul, "Let him that thinketh he standeth ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... face changed. "Come they," said he, "with so large a train? This smells more of vaunt than of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a great wrong by the supposition that I mention these circumstances to make a vaunt of my courage; I am sure that the fact of my having undertaken this journey alone will be sufficient to clear me from the imputation of cowardice. I wish merely to give future travellers a hint as to the best method of dealing with these people. Their respect can only be secured by the display ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... peculiarly favoured by Heaven, seeing that we may hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions of so great violence. But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is the custom of the dying soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or to recommend them to his fellows; but, on the contrary, to express contrition for the same, and to repeat, or have repeated to him, some comfortable prayer; which, if you please, I will intercede with his Excellency's chaplain to prefer on your account. It is otherwise no ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... supplied or labour rendered. I had not pocketed one penny of the money, nor had I received any reward for my completed works. I brought back with me into Italy nothing but some marks of favour and most royal promises, truly worthy of his Majesty. "Now, though I cannot vaunt myself of any recompense beyond the salaries appointed for my maintenance in France, seven hundred golden crowns of which are still due, inasmuch as I abstained from drawing them until I could employ them on my return-journey; ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... there; if God lives, it is there. The voice of the meek Nazarene, which we have deafened down as ill-timed, unfit to teach the watchword of the hour, renews the quiet promise of its coming in simple, humble things. Let us go down and look for it. There is no need that we should feebly vaunt and madden ourselves over our self-seen rights, whatever they may be, forgetting what broken shadows they are of eternal truths in that calm where He sits and with His ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... slave may want Your counsel. Let her but appear, This mighty Pallas whom you vaunt!" The ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... opinion that my prospects in this abstruse and perplexing chase were not at that time much to vaunt. My theories and my acts had led me into a mental cul-de-sac, a blind alley, where, in lack of exit, I took hold of every straw that the wind of thought set flying. Here was the problem at this stage as it then appeared to me:—Item (1): ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the lad felt his blood run cold as he listened to the Indian's vaunt, and it is little wonder that his head swam until he was near in reality to the very ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby |
