"Mean-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superiors of the Georgians in every way that one set of men could be superior to another. They were manly, soldierly, and honorable, where the Georgians were treacherous and brutal. We had nothing to complain of at the hands of the Alabamians; we suffered from the Georgians everything that mean-spirited cruelty could devise. The Georgians were always on the look-out for something that they could torture into such apparent violation of orders, as would justify them in shooting men down; the Alabamians never fired ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... thoughts would turn to the act of which he had just been guilty. "I did not want to hurt him—I did not want to kill him," he said to himself; but each time that he said so conscience replied, "You did; you know you did. Cowardly mean-spirited revenge induced you to commit the act, and ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... what I'm determined I won't do. It's mean-spirited, and so I tell Frank. I never would have hurt them as long as they treated us well; but now they are enemies, and as enemies I will regard them. I should think myself disgraced if I were to sit down in the presence of the Marquis ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... expenses being solely confined to the chearful entertainment of his friends at home, and now and then a moderate glass of wine, in which he indulged himself in the company of his wife, who, with an agreeable person, was a mean-spirited, poor, domestic, low-bred animal, who confined herself mostly to the care of her family, placed her happiness in her husband and her children, followed no expensive fashions or diversions, and indeed rarely went abroad, unless to return the visits of a few plain neighbours, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... she should quarrel with him. That little snake, Lucy, would of course now tell him of the meeting between them in Hertford Street, after which anything but quarrelling would be impossible. What a fool the man must be, what an idiot, what a soft-hearted, mean-spirited fellow! Lucy, by her sly, quiet little stratagems, had got him once to speak the word, and now he had not courage enough to go back from it! He had less strength of will even than Lord Fawn! What she offered to him would be the making of him. With his position, his ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... more or less than the natural recourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin, making of course a wide distinction between the will and the power, for the hanging of traitors is soon to begin before a month is over. The Nations of Europe may ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Gonzaga. "By the Host, no! The man is bewitched by that plausible rogue, Francesco. Far from resenting the fellow's treatment of him, he follows and obeys his every word, like the mean-spirited dog that ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same—a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in your children's way! 'Ow do you know who old John's going to leave his money to? 'Ow do you know as he wouldn't leave it to them poor innercents"—she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing in the road—"if we was just ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to our cloth." "Nay," says I, "every man knows his own circumstance best; you are in the right, if you haven't wherewithal." He looked very sour (for it is, you must know, the utmost vanity of a mean-spirited rich man to be contradicted, when he calls himself poor). But I was resolved to vex him, by consenting to all he said; the main design of which was, that he would have us find out, he was one of the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... perilous, comes to be faced and gone through with positively on a ground of high principle, and, indeed, of stern moral necessity. So deceitful is the human heart that you could not believe what compelling reasons such a mean-spirited man will face you with as to why he should leave all the ways he once so delighted in for a piece of bread, and for the smile of the open enemies of his church, and his faith, not to say his Saviour. You will meet with several such men any afternoon coming home from their ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... own, if he were informed that it belonged to a plebeian who had grown vastly rich through some coarse traffic, might resolve to reduce all the display of his own equipage the moment he reached home. The labored and mean-spirited purpose of the writer of the aforesaid article in the Quarterly, and of other writers of like essays, is to find in our democracy the material and occasion of everything of a discreditable sort which occurs in our land. Now we apprehend, not without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... generations of fish-eating, purposeless life. Physical and moral decency usually go hand in hand, even in a state of nature. The Columbia tribes had no conception of either; they were in the same condition then as now, mean-spirited, and strangers to all those little delicacies of behavior that had ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... we exclude them from the basis of representation they should be excluded from the basis of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, taxation and representation have always gone hand in hand. If we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain any thing by it. What kind of taxation, is distributed according to representation? Direct taxation. Now, we do not have any direct taxation. There has been but twenty millions of direct taxation ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... in truth, had too much sense to often join or sympathize with these notions. But young Sir John and the Butlers, father and son, adopted them with enthusiasm, and I am sorry to say there were both Dutch and German residents, here and there, mean-spirited enough to accept these reflections upon their ancestry, and strive to atone for their assumed lack of birth by aping the manners, and fawning for the friendship, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Federationists, as they want to be called, are not only traitors to the greatest Irishmen of the age, but also mean-spirited tools of the Catholic bishops. A man may have proper respect for his faith, and may yet resent the dictation of his family priest. I admit his superior knowledge of spiritual matters, but I think I know what politics suit me best, and I send him to ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... whole force, most gorgeous in gold lace and brilliant accoutrement. Of the twenty-two hundred men he looked at that day, the nine Virginia companies found least favor in his eyes, for he deemed them listless and mean-spirited,—an opinion which he was at no pains to keep to himself, and which had the effect of making the bearing of his officers toward ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... never see sich cases with my own eyes—ho no! He he he! Nor master neither—ho no! He he he! I HAVE heerd the neighbours make remark as some one as they was acquainted with, was a poor good-natur'd mean-spirited creetur, as went out fishing for a wife one day, and caught a Tartar. Of course I never to my knowledge see the poor person himself. Nor did you neither, mim—ho no. I wonder who it can be—don't you, mim? No doubt you do, mim. Ho yes. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... wrong sow by the ear &c (blunder) 699. give a bias, give a twist; bias, warp, twist; prejudice, prepossess. Adj. misjudging &c v.; ill-judging, wrong-headed; prejudiced &c v.; jaundiced; shortsighted, purblind; partial, one-sided, superficial. narrow-minded, narrow-souled^; mean-spirited; confined, illiberal, intolerant, besotted, infatuated, fanatical, entete [Fr.], positive, dogmatic, conceited; opinative, opiniative^; opinioned, opinionate, opinionative, opinionated; self-opinioned, wedded to an opinion, opiniatre; bigoted &c (obstinate) 606; crotchety, fussy, impracticable; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... any unexpected accident," observed Oroboni, "we should be restored to society, should we be so mean-spirited as to shrink from confessing our faith in the Gospel? Should we stand firm if accused of having changed our sentiments ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... banded themselves together, to the number of more than five hundred, and shut themselves up in S. Marco, and Baccio with them, on account of the great affection that he had for their party. It is true that, being a person of little courage, nay, even timorous and mean-spirited, and hearing an attack being made a little time after this on the convent, and men being wounded and killed, he began to have serious doubts about himself. For which reason he made a vow that if he ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... saw this, it forc'd me to reflect upon Affairs in our own Country; Well, said I, 'tis happy for England that our Dissenters have not this Spirit of Union and Largeness of Heart among them; for if they were not a Narrow, mean-Spirited, short-Sighted, self-Preserving, friend-Betraying, poor-Neglecting People, they might ha' been every way as Safe, as Considerable, as Regarded and as Numerous as the Crolians in the Moon; but it is not in their Souls to do themselves ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... the kind of person who took trouble to rouse an easy personal enthusiasm, the whole thing would have fallen to pieces at the first stress of work; on the other hand, if she had never inspired more than respect, she would never have won the quality of service she succeeded in winning. The really mean-spirited were loyal just so long as she was present because she daunted them, and Dr. Inglis's disapproval was most certainly a thing to be avoided. But the great majority, whatever their personal views, were quickly ready to recognize her authority ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... against thee, an' it were a sin, Richard. Were it wrong to think I would rather be in thy hands, sin or none, or sin and all, than in those of a mean-spirited knave whom I despised? Besides I might one day, somehow or other, make it up to thee—but I could not to him. But was it sin, Richard?—tell me that. I have thought and thought over the matter until my mind is maze. Thou seest it was ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... He had shown them all those glorious signs and wonders for their sakes, and brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm. Were they high-spirited and brave? On the contrary, they were mean-spirited and cowards, murmuring against Moses and against God, if anything went wrong, for setting them free; ready to go back and be slaves to the Egyptians rather than face danger and fight; looking back and longing after the flesh-pots of Egypt, where they eat bread to ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... whose shop they liked to haunt. His children were heard to dispute about an animal they had seen, and one of them said, "Tell ye 'twa'n't a squeerrel; 'twas a maouse;" and the boys had that for a by-word. They despised Yankees as a mean-spirited race, who were stingy and would cheat; and would not hit you if you told them they lied. A person must always hit a person who told him he lied; but even if you called a Yankee a fighting liar (the worst form of this insult), he would not hit you, but just call you a liar back. ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... such a price, is paid for very dearly. In my own personal experience as boy and man, the most hypocritical, mean-spirited treacherous characters I have come into contact with, were among those who had been most disciplined ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... happy, free, and unconstrained. He who does good must give pleasure to himself. But this perpetual upstart Duty, this pedagogic tyranny, this peevishness, this futile discussion, this acrid, puerile quibbling, this ungraciousness, this charmless life, without politeness, without silence, this mean-spirited pessimism, which lets slip nothing that can make existence poorer than it is, this vainglorious unintelligence, which finds it easier to despise others than to understand them, all this middle-class ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Claude had been sent. Now he dismissed all Christian theology as something too full of evasions and sophistries to be reasoned about. The men who made it, he felt sure, were like the men who taught it. The noblest could be damned, according to their theory, while almost any mean-spirited parasite could be saved by faith. "Faith," as he saw it exemplified in the faculty of the Temple school, was a substitute for most of the manly qualities he admired. Young men went into the ministry because they ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... mean-spirited creature that fellow Willett must be," observed Langdon in disgust; "and ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... rise till ten o'clock. Then they commonly walked out, but always found themselves very soon tired; when they would often sit down under a shady tree, and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes, and say to each other, "What a mean-spirited, poor stupid creature our young sister is, to be so content within this low way of life!" But their father thought differently; and loved and admired his youngest child ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... to have taken every occasion of showing her contempt for the mean-spirited wretch to whom she had given her hand: but at present her treatment only incited the King's ardor of affection: he formed more schemes of pleasure for her, and turned a deaf ear to all complaints from his deserted subjects, until Falaise had surrendered, Mont ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mean-spirited wench!" said the Abbess; "is that a speech worthy of the name of Seyton, or of the mouth of a sister of this house, treading the path of election—and to be spoken before a stranger youth, too?—Go to my oratory, minion—there read your Hours till I come thither, when I will read ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... gathering piously its broken ideals, and interpreting its momentary achievement. The spirit of liberty and co-operation was already dead. The private citizen, debauched by the largesses and petty quarrels of his city, had become indolent and mean-spirited. He had begun to question the utility of religion, of patriotism, and of justice. Having allowed the organ for the ideal to atrophy in his soul, he could dream of finding some sullen sort of happiness in unreason. He felt that the austere glories ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... time away: they had their breakfast in bed, and did not rise till ten o'clock. Then they commonly walked out; but always found themselves very soon tired; when they would often sit down under a shady tree, and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes, and say to each other, "What a mean-spirited poor stupid creature our young sister is, to be so content with our low way of life!" But their father thought in quite another way: he admired the patience of this sweet young creature; for her sisters not only left her to do the whole work of the house, but made ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... the meanest of her subjects to her bed. The thefts committed during these interregnums were amazing in their amount, and the jewels of the crown were to be replaced as fast as they were stolen. Poor Christy all this time was considered as a mean-spirited cratur, who had no notion of living like a prince; and whilst his wife and her relations were revelling in this unheard-of manner, he was scarcely considered as the master of the house: he lived by the fireside disregarded in winter, and in summer ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... wife. There was no principle our Ned adhered to so firmly, as that no provocation, however great, justified a boy in striking a girl, or a man a woman; he held to this as staunchly as kings to the doctrine of divine right. 'Depend upon it, Archie,' he would say, 'a boy who would strike a girl is a mean-spirited puppy, and a man who would strike a woman is a cowardly cur, and one deserves drowning, and the other hanging! Why, I read that even dogs respect the sex, and no respectable dog would so far forget ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... engaged this weak and inconsiderate man to give his eldest daughter, the lady Jane Grey, in marriage to his fourth son Guildford Dudley. At the same time he procured an union between her sister, the lady Catherine, and the eldest son of his able but mean-spirited and time-serving associate, the earl of Pembroke; and a third between his own daughter Catherine and lord Hastings, son of the earl of Huntingdon by the eldest daughter and co-heir of Henry Pole lord Montacute; in whom the claims of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... see our younger sister," said one to the other, "what a poor, stupid, mean-spirited creature she is, to be contented ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... Jefferson in his time had not faced nor looked down through those great fissures or chasms of inefficiency in what he chose to call democracy, the haughty, tyrannical aimlessness and meaninglessness of crowds, too mean-spirited and full of fear and machines to dare to ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... years of struggle against France, and for a time against France with the continent at its feet. If moralists or political theorists find much to condemn in the ends to which British policy was directed, they must admit that the qualities displayed were not such as can belong to a simply corrupt and mean-spirited government. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Margaret got so far, then her brow flushed, and I could see there was an inward struggle. Then she rose from the form, and laying down her work, knelt and kissed the ground at Mother Ada's feet. I could hear Sister Roberga whisper to Sister Philippa, "That mean-spirited fool!" ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... manners and deference to employer alike forgotten, "don't you say no more of that wicked foolishness to me. I'll leave the minute you're mean-spirited enough to let that child go and not afore. And when THAT happens I'll be GLAD to leave. Land sakes! there's somebody at the door; and I expect I'm a ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... said, stretching out his hand, which George felt would be mean-spirited not to take, "that was an unpleasant affair this morning, but I didn't think you would fire up as you did; and when I let fly at you, ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... known as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify; while she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss Steeles courted its continuance, without ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... pompous rascal, Dr. Bell, then chaplain to the Princess Amelia. "Give me your money," screamed Jack, "and take no notice or I'll blow your brains out." And the doctor gave him all that he had, the mean-spirited devil-dodger, and it was no more than eighteenpence. Now what should a man of courage do with eighteenpence? So poor Jack was forced to seize the parson's watch and trinkets as well, and thus it was that a second time we ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... of what had formerly taken place between her friend and Georges at Savigny. Her own life was so upright, her mind so pure, that it was impossible for her to divine the jealous, mean-spirited ambition that had grown up by her side within the past fifteen years. And yet the enigmatical expression in that pretty face as it smiled upon her gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness which she could not understand. An affectation ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... enemies in Holland. If my son disgraces himself so far, as to ask favours from the Dutch, he is unworthy to call me father. If he chuses rather to be an Ensign with you, than a Captain among others, he is mean-spirited, and forgetful of what he has been." Diederic had a design of writing the history of the Duke of Weymar; which project Grotius approved of, as worthy of a grateful mind. He sent him word, that if he would set about this work whilst ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... a general meeting of the club is convened, for the purpose of considering the subject of properties. A grand demonstration, with a procession of the members, is resolved upon: it is to come off upon Whit-Monday. In spite of the remonstrance of a mean-spirited Mr Nobody—who proposes that, by way of distinguishing themselves from the rest of the thousand-and-one clubs who will promenade upon that occasion, with music, flags, banners, brass-bands, big drums, sashes, aprons, and white wands, they, the Charitable Chums, shall walk in procession ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... which has simply remained outside the adjoining Dominion, and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where "Home Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union. Unionists and Imperialists ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... a slice of beef between two pieces of bread with great care and nicety, "who would be so mean-spirited as to sell that freedom which is the glorious prerogative of man (and which I beg you to notice is a not unpleasing phrase, sir) who, I demand, would surrender this ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... "False, and mean-spirited!" exclaimed La Tour, scornfully; "you stoop to insult a prisoner, who is powerless in your hands, but from whose indignation you would cower, like the guilty thing you are, had I liberty and my good sword to revenge your baseness! Go, use me as you will, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Dave Porter and his crowd get what is coming to them," thought the money-lender's son. It pleased him greatly to think his school might be beaten. Which shows how really mean-spirited ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... "If you find me a traitor, treat this boy as an enemy without any mercy." The concern which Charon showed, drew tears from many; but all protested vehemently against his supposing any one of them so mean-spirited and base, at the appearance of approaching danger, as to suspect or blame him; and therefore, desired him not to involve his son, but to set him out of harm's way; that so he, perhaps, escaping the tyrant's power, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... countenance and stumpy would-be fashionable figure. Hit a man your own size, or bigger, by all means if you are game to take the consequences. But to smite a creature conspicuously your inferior in fortune—past, present, and prospective—is unchivalrous, not to say downright mean-spirited. So Damaris, swiftly repentant, put her arm round the heaving shoulders, bent her handsome young head and kissed the uninvitingly dabby cheek—a caress surely counting to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... first Austrian bailiff was Hermann Gessler, who built a strong fortress at Kuessnacht, in Uri. At first he professed great love for the people, but when he became firmly established he threw off the mask, and showed himself to be a cruel, cowardly, mean-spirited tyrant. He was both vain and greedy, and he exacted both homage and tribute from the surrounding peasantry. Property was seized by the soldiers, and, should the owner venture to remonstrate, he was mercilessly beaten or killed on the spot. Complaints to the governor were ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... this famous letter, the messenger was, of course, only doing his duty, but it is certain that in some way he failed in the respect due to a noble lady. He may have been one of those mean-spirited people who delight in trampling on the fallen. There are, strange to say, many ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... 'disgrace'; and if I went home, disgrace would always be in your mind, if not upon your tongue. I should have the word and thought kept before me till I went mad. If I go home all my old acquaintances would sneer at me as a mean-spirited cur, whose best exploit was to get in jail, and when his mother obtained his release he could do nothing more manly than hide behind her apron the rest of his days. As far as I can judge, you and my sisters would have no better opinion of me. I have been a wicked fool, I admit, but I was ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... this proposition, and repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage, from his jealousy of creating ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... you were mistaken in me. I am narrow-minded, mean-spirited, a thorough Philistine; you have said so repeatedly. What do you see in me to ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... the Temple gate, he speaks of the sophists exhorting their followers, "that it was a glorious thing to die for the laws of their country, because the soul was immortal, and an eternal enjoyment of happiness did await such as died on that account; while the mean-spirited, and those that were not wise enough to show a right love of their souls, preferred death by disease to that which is a sign of virtue." The sentiments here are not so objectionable, but the description of the Pharisees ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... man named Thorvald, the son of Eystein, bynamed the Tinker: he was a wealthy man, a smith, and a skald; but he was mean-spirited for all that. His brother Thorvard lived in the north country at Fliot (Fleet); and they had many kinsmen,— the Skidings they were called,—but little ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... 'receive the insult with a patient shrug.' But exertion is now demanded on other accounts than those of mere honourable punctilio. Misers themselves will struggle in defence of their property, though tolerant of all aggressions by which that is not threatened. Avarice herself, however mean-spirited, will rouse to defend the wealth she possesses, and preserve the means of gaining more. Scotland is now called upon to rally in defence of the sources of her national improvement, and the means of increasing it; upon which, as none are so much concerned in the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs. Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. "Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What's the use of all the voting, when ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... nincompoop who stuck his head under his wife's apron-string; and intimated that, saving for the sake of the horses, which required both rest and food, he would advise his worshipful Master Tressilian to push on a stage farther, rather than pay a reckoning to such a mean-spirited, crow-trodden, henpecked coxcomb, as ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... mean-spirited, selfish man. If he were not, he could not have talked as he did last night. Because you do not love him, Mildred, you cannot love such a man as that, if he were fifty times a member ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... more degraded than the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion—such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would infer that I am," replied Lord Glenvarloch; "one who fears the skilful, and preys upon the ignorant—who avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure of pillaging his inferiors?—Is this what I am to understand ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... numerous enough to carry over into peace the taboos of war. Fortunately, the mass of men is too tolerant long to enjoy the professional inquisitors, as gradually, under the criticism of men not willing to be terrorized, they are revealed as mean-spirited creatures who nine-tenths of the time do not know what they are talking about. [Footnote: Cf. for example, the publications of the Lusk Committee in New York, and the public statements and prophecies of Mr. Mitchell Palmer, who was Attorney-General ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... in her berth, which was a top one, and looking languidly over the side at her friend, who lay in the berth below looking sympathetically up, she revealed her hopes and fears and sentiments, to the edification, (it is to be hoped) of a mean-spirited passenger in the saloon, who stood on the other side of the very thin partition, and tried to overhear. If he succeeded it must have been a new sensation to him to listen to the gentle streams of hope and love that flowed through to him—for Aileen's thoughts were gems, as pure and beautiful ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming sense of hospitality; but if my object be to kill Mrs. Jones with envy at the sight of all my silver trinkets, I am a very mean-spirited fellow. This, in a broad way, will be acknowledged; but if we would bear in mind the same idea at all times,—on occasions when the way perhaps may not be so broad, when more thinking may be required to ascertain ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... their injustice. Yes, she remembers it, now that he speaks of it, but the dear people meant nothing unkind, they love her dearly at heart. For her part she could not take to heart a little thing like that. And John remarks that if she is mean-spirited enough to pass by such an occurrence, he has nothing to say. It is her family, thank goodness, not his! After this, he is more quick than ever before to detect a fancied slight and to resent it. Mary laments secretly that "John does not love her family." It ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... "A miserable, mean-spirited young scoundrel!" said Captain Belton, angrily, but his face grew less stern directly, as he saw his brother throw himself back in his chair, to laugh silently till he was ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... indeed, but as one who had more self-command than his brother, perhaps than his uncle, whose exclamations became bitter and angry as he heard of the treatment the boys had experienced from their half-brother, who, as he said, he had always known as a currish mean-spirited churl, but scarce ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those wild fellows," said I to myself, "is worth a dozen of the poor mean-spirited book-tramper I have lately been ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... hurry," said his uncle, coolly. "Let me think this over again. After all, we are of the same stock, although your father always flouted me for a mean-spirited churl. Poor Gavan, we may ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... new fault made me swear to lead a better life, to sin no more. What was the result of these periodical repentances? At the first temptation I forgot my remorse and good resolutions. I am weak and mean-spirited, and you are not firm enough to govern my vacillating nature. While my intentions are good, my actions are villainous. The disproportion between my extravagant desires, and the means of gratifying them, is too ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... we are, in such a positive state of the world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless—and I wonder if maybe that isn't it?—we just do two or three rather right ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... was snobbish and mean-spirited. She did not like him. She decided that on the night of the ball. She had seen him exchanging smiles with Miss Harris behind their backs before Tom Curtis had introduced him as his friend. This merely confirmed ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... 'Mean-spirited beast,' retorted the Ass, 'who neglectest thy master's business! Well, then, I at least will endeavor to arouse him; it is no less ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... situation in the hollow of her hand. Besides, as Rose pointed out, we couldn't very well return it without asking Julian, and we had both agreed that for the present Julian had better remain in ignorance of the incident. He would have thought it mean-spirited to allow any instance of Anne's generosity to remain concealed from the public. Rose and I were willing ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... not cover those by whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is true, sent the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not exorcise it; for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a bad temper is one of them—a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited, and unjust, as any in the peerage of hell—much petted, nevertheless, and excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed by him. Mrs. Wardour was a lady, as the ladies of this world go, but a poor lady for the kingdom of heaven: I should wonder much if she ranked ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... astonishment at the recklessness of the South concerning it. We have thought it braver to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of its value. We have been in danger of thinking too much of it, and of being mean-spirited in its use. But the first sacrifice for which war calls is life; and we must revise our estimates of its value, if we would conduct our war to a happy end. To gain that end, no sacrifice can be too precious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various |
