"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the expansive generosity of the humble grate and not because they were moved by inward remorse. They were able, however, to supply the odour of far- off steam, as of an abandoned laundry; and sometimes they chortled meanly, revealing signs of an energy that in anything but a steam pipe might have been mistaken for a promise to ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... refused to allow him to go. When I asked him on what ground the permission had been refused, he said that it had not exactly been refused, but that he could go only on his own responsibility. He wanted us to protest against this. I meanly suggested to him that he would be in much more serious danger if he had an escort of German troops to take him to the Belgian lines, and he left in a ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... for a statesman, firmness. Cicero, on the contrary, was irresolute, timid, and inconsistent.[113] He talked indeed largely of preserving a middle course,[114] but he was continually vacillating from one to the other extreme; always too confident or too dejected; incorrigibly vain of success, yet meanly panegyrizing the government of an usurper. His foresight, sagacity, practical good sense, and singular tact, were lost for want of that strength of mind which points them steadily to one object. He was never decided, never (as has sometimes ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... cheaply and meanly furnished as any that the three girls from Lakeview Hall had ever seen. Nan thought she had seen poverty of household goods and furnishings when she had lived for a season with her Uncle Henry Sherwood at Pine ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... the Portuguese and Spanish settlements is accounted for, by saying that the white people are very little superior to the negroes in knowledge and refinement. But Doctor Walsh's book certainly gives us no reason to think meanly of the Brazilians; and it has been my good fortune to be acquainted with many highly intelligent South Americans, who were divested of this prejudice, and much surprised at ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... my stomach, and look you," and she pointed across the room to a pile of nets beside a wooden bench. "There are three score rents to mend and the day is done." She turned to the doorway and for a moment stood looking out, barefooted, meanly clad and unkept, yet of comely form and with abundant dark hair falling around an oval face of more than ordinary beauty. She sighed and turned back into ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... farmers was Nathan Badger. He was fond of money, but knew no better way to get it than to live meanly, drive hard bargains and spend as little as possible. In this way, though not a very good farmer, he was able to lay by a couple of hundred dollars a year, which he put away ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... return to my hotel, I was a little surprised to find the streets of this gay city so meanly lighted. Lamps placed at gloomy distances from each other, suspended by cords, from lofty poles, furnish the only means of directing the footsteps of the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the children grow up, thinly and meanly clad, [119] to that bulk of body and limb which we behold with wonder. Every mother suckles her own children, and does not deliver them into the hands of servants and nurses. No indulgence distinguishes the young master from the slave. They lie ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... of the Hall. In the centre of the Hall stood Kai. "Tell me, tall man," said Peredur, "is that Arthur yonder?" "What wouldest thou with Arthur?" asked Kai. "My mother told me to go to Arthur, and receive the honour of knighthood." "By my faith," said he, "thou art all too meanly equipped with horse and with arms." Thereupon he was perceived by all the household, and they threw sticks at him. Then, behold, a dwarf came forward. He had already been a year at Arthur's Court, both he and a female dwarf. They had craved harbourage of Arthur, and had obtained ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... though not an ungenerous man, meanly refused to give a copy of the Musical Museum to Burns, who desired to bestow it on one to whom his family was deeply indebted. This was in the last year of the poet's life, and after the Museum had been brightened by so much of his ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... shadow of the sword of Damocles for many months; on and off, for years—indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things—too keenly about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair—a panoply, an armory, a very arsenal! And we grow ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... and honesty. Disdain me not for being a steward's son, one of thy father's servants." Felice interrupted him saying, "Cease, bold youth, leave off this passionate address; you are but young and meanly born, and unfit for my degree: I would not my father should know this." With this answer she ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... should Marian have so carefully avoided telling him anything about her husband? That his friend, having betrayed him, should shrink from the revelation of his falsehood, should adopt any underhand course to avoid discovery, seemed natural enough. Yet to believe this was to think meanly of the man whom he had loved so well, whom he had confided in so implicitly until the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Good Girl and Pretty Girl. In this the pretty child had bright eyes and pretty plump cheeks and was much admired. She, however, was a meanly proud girl, and so naughty as not to want to grow wiser, but applied to those good people who happened to be less favored in looks such terms as "bandy-legs, crump, and all such naughty names." The good sister "could read before the pretty miss could tell a letter; and though her shape was ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... most bewildering and despairing sight, men clinging to a lie, honoring it, trusting it, defending it, in all sincerity, against all assailants. It is not the lie they defend, but the truth in the lie. What a relief it was when I first made that discovery! I was ready to think meanly of my kind, to distrust humanity's instincts for truth. The lookout was on despair. But, when I understood the nature of the lie, I learned to think better of my brethren, I learned to have more hope in their Maker. No, there is no building on nothing. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... a farmer living near Sassafras Neck, Md. Henry evidently felt, that he did master Rybold no injustice in testifying that he knew no good of him, although he had labored under him like a beast of burden all his days. He had been "clothed meanly," and "poorly fed." He also alleged, that his mistress was worse than his master, as she would "think nothing of knocking and beating the slave women for nothing." John was owned by Thomas Murphy. From that day to this, Thomas may ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and the host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony. Boswell has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly been written, but it ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... glow. At length, recovering herself, 'I have much, my dear madam, to tell,' said she, 'and much to explain, 'ere you will admit me again to that esteem of which I was once so justly proud. I had no resource from misery, but in flight; and of that I could not make you a confidant, without meanly involving you in its disgrace.'—'Say no more, my love, on the subject,' replied madame; 'with respect to myself, I admired your conduct, and felt severely for your situation. Rather let me hear by what means you effected your escape, and what has since be fallen you.'—Julia ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... carry "his chop" upon a skewer through the streets of London. How every line revels in the recollection of having dined, and speaks how seldom! while the well-buttered bread infers the usual fare. Still it is not meanly written. There are a glorying and exultation in every word that redeem it, and show the author is more to be envied than compassionated; though a little further on we perceive the shifts to which his homeless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... breaks down, and, grasping her father's arm, she cries out - O so shudderfully! - I thought it high time to be out of that GALERE, and so I do not know yet whether it ends well or ill; but if I ever afterwards find that they do carry things to the extremity, I shall think more meanly of my species. It was raining and cold outside, so I went into a BIERHALLE, and sat and brooded over a SCHNITT (half-glass) for nearly an hour. An opera is far more REAL than real life to me. It seems as ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... holding a conversation of such a kind with me, which lasted a considerable time, in the presence of the guard. The soldiers of the whole garrison had afterwards the utmost confidence, as they were convinced I would not meanly devote others to destruction, that I might benefit myself. This was the way to gain me esteem and intercourse among the men, especially as the Duke had said he knew I must have money concealed, for that I had ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Verity was touched alike with self-reproach and admiration. For he had succeeded in asserting himself beyond his intention. Had overcome, had worsted her; yet, as it occurred to him, won a but barren victory. That she was alienated and resentful he could hardly doubt, while the riddle he had rather meanly used to procure her discomfiture remained unanswered as ever, dipped indeed only deeper in mystery. He was hoist with his own petard, in short; and stood there nonplussed, vexed alike at himself ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bless the anger and the sense of duty to our children which drove me forth—too debased a thing to realize my loss. I have won again my self-control, thank God! am a man once more. You have, have always had, my love. You have to-day again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children's. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and to-night a mysterious memory, or ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... "Well! Aramis," continued Porthos, "I have dreamed, I have imagined that an event has taken place in France. I dreamt of M. Fouquet all the night, of lifeless fish, of broken eggs, of chambers badly furnished, meanly kept. Villainous dreams, my dear D'Herblay; very ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... glare as they see her stand In majestic pride serenely, And gnash with the impotent rage of hate, Creeping up slowly, meanly; While she cries, "Come forth from your covered dens, All your hireling legions send me, I'll bare my breast to a million swords, Whilst God and my sons ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... toward that shrine which then in all the realm Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went The marshalled Order of their Table Round, And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see The maiden buried, not as one unknown, Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. And when the knights had laid her comely head Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, Then Arthur spake among them, 'Let her tomb Be costly, and her image thereupon, And let the shield of Lancelot at her ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... distance" of an eighteenth-century landscape. But, as every one knows, the splendid Cathedral is the proper attraction of the spot, which, indeed, save for this fine monument and for its craggy and crumbling ramparts, is a meanly arranged and, as Italian cities go, not particularly impressive little town. I spent a beautiful Sunday there and took in the charming church. I gave it my best attention, though on the whole I fear I found it inferior to its fame. A high concert ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... capital of Roumania, picturesquely situated on the Dambovitza, a tributary of the Danube, in a fertile plain, 180 m. from the Black Sea; is a meanly built but well-fortified town, with the reputation of the most dissolute capital in Europe; there is a Catholic cathedral and a university; it is the emporium of trade between the Balkan and Austria; textiles, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... rowing, it was fantastic. I wasn't there. Indeed, those who know me, would never think so meanly of me as to suppose that I would attend this Regatta pour rire. But I know enough to be sure that the Eights were slow, the Fours deficient in pace, the pairs on the minus side of nothing, and the scullers preposterous. Rowing must be in a bad way when it can boast no better champions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... taught me. I do not say that it cannot be true: but still, one so unsettled as I am may be allowed to waver. But, Philip, I'll assume that all is true. Then, if it be true, without the oath you would be doing but your duty; and think not so meanly of Amine as to suppose she would restrain you from what is right. No, Philip, seek your father, and, if you can, and he requires your aid, then save him. But, Philip do you imagine that a task like this, so high, is to be accomplished ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... "nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. . . . The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... friend tried to dissuade him from the calling as one too much below his birth, he answered: "It hath been judged formerly, that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be one of the noblest families on earth. And though the iniquity of late times have made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable. . . . And I will labor to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek example of my ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... provided the work were done. He had had streaks of fortune, for there had been times when he lay soft and ate delicately and scattered money. But nothing lasted. He had no sooner made purchase with a great man and climbed a little than the scaffolding fell from his feet. He thought meanly of human nature for in his profess he must cringe or snarl, always the undermost dog. Yet he had some liking for the priests, who had been kind to him, and there was always a glow in his heart for the pale wife who dwelt with his child ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... whole, it is not good that human nature should have the road of life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity of working hard and faring meanly, than to have everything done ready to our hand and a pillow of down to repose upon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively small means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work, that it may almost be set down as one of the conditions essential to ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... a bleak wind blew meanly. The air was free from particles of sleet; wetly the fall of the night clung to the earth where ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... operation by leaning over a little Bridge when the Prince took hold of his Heels and threw him into the Water, which was rather deep. The Abbe, much enraged, the moment he got himself out run at the Prince with great violence, a Horse-whip in his Hand, saying he thought very meanly of a Prince who cou'd not keep his word. The Prince flew from him, and getting to the Inn locked himself in one ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... illogically are apt to resent the withholding of a friend's confidence, even in matters concerning only himself. It was no use for me to reason that it was no business of mine, that he was right in keeping a secret that concerned another—and a lady; but I was afraid I was even more meanly resentful because the discovery quite upset my theory of his conduct and of Miss Mannersley's attitude toward him. I continued to walk on to the gateway, where I bade Enriquez a hurried good-by, alleging the sudden remembrance of another engagement, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... no very respectable kind, as a "medium" claiming powers of supernatural communication with the world of spirits. When the imposture was ultimately discovered, he had gained money by his unworthy appeal to the meanly prosaic superstition of modern times. A long interval had then elapsed, and nothing had been heard of him, when a starving man was discovered by a traveller, lost on a Western prairie. The ill-fated Irish lord had associated himself with an Indian ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Cause I've meanly quitted For the sake of pelf; But ah, the Devil has me outwitted; Instead of hanging others, I've ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... said I whom this world so much dotes on, where is now thy virtue, thy excellency to me? You cannot procure me one thing needful, nor remove me from this desolate island to a place of plenty. One of these knives, so meanly esteemed, is to me more preferable than all this heap. E'en therefore remain where thou art to sink in the deep as unregarded, even as a creature whose life is not worth preserving. Yet, after all this exclamation, I wrapt it up in a ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... to the general reader, and not a little information to scientific observers. He has thought proper to apologize for his deficiency in composition; but it is questionable if this be not mere affectation, common with writers who are far from thinking too meanly of themselves, for the reasons they chuse to state in the way of deprecating critical severity, and abundantly disposed to attach magnitude of consequence to the very particulars which they have employed to indicate their own inferiority. A translation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... thence, well blown, he comes to the relay, Where man's famed reason proves but cowardice, And only serves him meanly to betray; Even for the flying, man in ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... pride in his own virtue—preyed upon by cunning vice. He read Hamlet again. Oh, what depth of anguish! What a portrayal of grief and madness! Horace shook with the sobs that nearly choked him. Like the sleek murderer and his plump queen, the two creatures hatefulest to him lived their meanly prosperous lives on his bounty. What conscience flamed so dimly in the Danish prince that he could hesitate before his opportunity? Long ago, had Horace been in his place, the guilty pair would have paid in blood for their lust and ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... various scales of pauperism with open door, and a common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim. They had him in their toils. Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little after my time), with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... lest th' accursed tribe Should glory thence with exultation vain." I then: "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus, That they lament so loud?" He straight replied: "That will I tell thee briefly. These of death No hope may entertain: and their blind life So meanly passes, that all other lots They envy. Fame of them the world hath none, Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." And I, who straightway look'd, beheld a flag, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... provisions. The first emotions of the nobles, and of the people, were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world: but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the reigning emperor: but they ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... and that the soul did not know its own needs? Besides, without any reasoning on the matter, I have no discontent. The good soul nourishes me and unlocks new magazines of power and enjoyment to me every day. I will not meanly decline the immensity of good, because I have heard that it has come to others in ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Father! May no sloth, Or weakness of my weaker soul, Delay him in his kingly growth, Or hold him meanly from the goal That shines with guerdon for ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... rum lately introduced by the master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... the figure alone, he was uncouth and oversized in his common and scant gear. But the lofty nobility of his severe young face and the high-lifting forehead, proclaimed to all who were competent in such matters that it was only his body that was meanly clad. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... ungrateful person cannot be justified and need not be mourned for. If your love is noble why do you treat it meanly? If it is lewd the man was right to ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... through his eyes when ushered so suddenly into the company of those whom his earliest education had taught him to treat with awe and reverence. The degree of embarrassment, which his demeanor evinced, had nothing in it either meanly servile, or utterly disconcerted. It was no more than became a generous and ingenuous youth of a bold spirit, but totally inexperienced, who should for the first time be called upon to think and act for himself in such society and under such ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Roderic. "Now have I got you at an advantage as you had me yesternight. But it shall never be said that Roderic of Gigha would meanly slay any man who was weaponless. And therefore take up your sword, Earl Alpin, and let us make an end of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... genuine information; and others, after the most illiberal reflections on all contemporaries, have found it expedient entirely to abandon their own boasted performances, or to wait the completion of the very work which they have thus meanly and insidiously laboured to depreciate, before they could ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... day, Harvey, finding his clothes upon a chair, his tools redeemed from pawn, and a beefsteak ready for his dinner, accused his wife of having money, and meanly refusing him the benefit of it. She acknowledged she had a little, and appealed to the improved state of things as a proof that she knew better than he the use of money. He demanded the said money. She refused—he leathered her—she put ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... it was a heavy load, and the muddy road made things no easier. But for all that I walked with a light heart. It was a miserable business altogether, and I might as well admit I had acted a trifle meanly. Meanly? Not a bit! I formed myself into a little committee, and pointed out that those infernal girls had planned to entertain their sweethearts with my wine. Well and good; but was not my ill-will towards that idea male selfishness on my part? If ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... of war. JOHNSON. 'Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.' BOSWELL. 'Lord Mansfield does not.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of General Officers and Admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he'd wish to creep under the table.' BOSWELL. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the poor wife! In the most trying ordeal of her life her husband had basely deserted her. Neither Jake nor Joey was to be seen. The instrument of execution, a small, twig-like branch from the lilac bush, was lying upon the doorstep. Mrs. Sawyer took it up with a Spartan air. If Jake could so meanly fly from his duty then she must so ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... want was that of a general; and the only one from whom he could hope for the revival of his former splendor had been removed from his command by an envious cabal. So low had the Emperor now fallen that he was forced to make the most humiliating proposals to his injured subject and servant, and meanly to press upon the imperious Duke of Friedland the acceptance of the powers which no less meanly had been taken from him. A new spirit began from this moment to animate the expiring body of Austria; and a sudden ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... his small chin through it. A forehead remarkably lofty but not broad, mounted almost perpendicularly above the man's eyes; and these were large and dark and full of fire, though marred by a discontented expression. His mouth was full-lipped, his other features huddled rather meanly together under the high brow: but his face, while admittedly plain even to ugliness, was not commonplace; for its eyes were remarkable, and the cast of thought ennobled ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Danger free, Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee: Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes, And pause awhile from Learning to be wise; There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail; Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail. See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just; To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust. If Dreams yet flatter, once again attend, Hear Lydiat's Life, and Galileo's ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... and stockily built; his face was not at all good looking. It is said he was generally meanly dressed and was homely, but full of nobility, fine feeling and highly cultivated. The eyes were black and bright, and they dilated, when the composer was lost in thought, in a way that made him look inspired. A mass of dark hair surmounted a high broad forehead. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... fable, when the island of AEgina was depopulated by sickness, at the instance of AEacus, Jupiter turned the ants into men, that is, as some think, he made men of the inhabitants who lived meanly like ants. This is perhaps the fullest history of those early ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... of a ship that doubtless had foundered in the storm of yesterday.—Once more I am in England; and, to use the words of a venerable though apocryphal writer, "Here will I make an end. And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... made the council-friend of Jove; And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath Once more, though down he pluck'd the shield, to prove His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death O'er skin and nerves alone exert its power, Not he, you grant, in nature meanly read. Yes, all "await the inevitable hour;" The downward journey all one day must tread. Some bleed, to glut the war-god's savage eyes; Fate meets the sailor from the hungry brine; Youth jostles age in funeral obsequies; Each brow in turn is touch'd by Proserpine. Me, too, Orion's mate, the ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... with Mr. Weevil, I told Newall what I thought—that he had acted meanly in not speaking up. 'Why should I have spoken?' he burst out. 'I didn't want to speak. All I wanted was to get that blow back that Moncrief gave me; and I'll have it back, if ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... dear Marlow! But I'll suppress the emotion. Were I a wretch, meanly seeking to carry off a fortune, you should be the last man in the world I would apply to for assistance. But Miss Neville's person is all I ask, and that is mine, both from her deceased father's consent, ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... Gill. "I said that Jordan needed to make friends, for he never had any where he came from," and then, staring meanly at Frank, he whispered ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... becoming a dwarfed and pinched idea. Ours is the country where love of constant improvement ought to be greater than anywhere else, because fear of revolution is less. Yet the art of politics is growing to be as meanly conceived as all the rest At elections the national candidate has not often a chance against the local candidate, nor the man of a principle against the man of a class. In parliament we are admonished on high authority that 'the policy of a party is not the ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... one had ever heard her rudely complain, though she often thought of the hardness of her lot. She knew that there were other girls whose lives were infinitely freer and fuller, but, it never occurred to her to be meanly envious; her heart might be lonely, but her lips continued to sing. When the days were fair she looked out of her kitchen window and longed to go where the meadows were. Nature's fine curves and shadows touched her as a song itself. There were times when she had gone with George and ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... morning air is cold. [They close the door on the corridor.] [Enter the Duchess followed by a crowd of meanly dressed Citizens.] ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... be said that Alexander was surly. Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies. Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him. He did his work, and achieved at least the show of equanimity. Strickland wondered. What was it that had happened? It never occurred to him that it had happened here in this dale. But in all that life of ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... thinks Goldsmith unsurpassed; then Addison comes. Greatly dislikes the style of Junius and of Gibbon; indeed, thinks meanly of the latter in all respects, except for his research, which alone of the work of that century stands the test of nineteenth-century criticism. Did not agree with me that George Sand's is the high-water mark of prose, but yet could not name anybody higher, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... our adversary Confounds all codes of honourable war, Which ever have held as granted that the track Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine— Whether in peace or strenuous invasion— Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen, And meet us in our front. But he must wind And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us Thiefwise, by out back door! Nevertheless, If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne, As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there, It destines Bonaparte to pack him back Across the Rhine again. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... God-given. Truth falling from the lips of a Lucretia Mott in long skirts is none the less truth, than if uttered by a Lucy Stone in short dress, or a Helen Maria Weber in pants and swallow-tail coat. And I can not yet think so meanly of manly justice, as to believe it will yield simply to a change of garments. Let us assert our right to be free. Let us get out of our prison-house of law. Let us own ourselves, our earnings, our genius; let us have power to control as well as to earn and to own; then will each woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Cecil asked slowly. "Should I?" She turned back to the tireless grate, and her thoughts sped... With her eyes opened she would not, of course, consent to marry this man who had so meanly abused her trust, but—suppose she had not known! Suppose in ignorance the marriage had taken place? If he had been loving, if he had been kind, would she in after days have regretted the step? At the bottom of her weary woman's heart, Cecil ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... from a flaccidity which meanly envied the activities and enthusiasms of other men. As a writer he was superficial; he had not the requisite energy for forming a clear or profound judgment on any question of difficulty; Johnson's comment, "He thinks justly but he thinks faintly" ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... for it. I was sick for a couple of days, meanly sick, and my arms were painfully poisoned from the barnacle scratches. For a week I could not use them, and it was a torture to put on ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... coquetry, emulation, passionate appeal, or innocent tenderness, which makes tolerable the jealous caprices of the younger woman. The struggle for rivalry is felt to be hopeless, the power of imitation is gone. Of her forgotten womanhood Mrs. McKinstry revived only a capacity to suffer meanly and inflict mean suffering upon others. In the ruined castle of her youth, and the falling in of banqueting hall and bower, the dungeon and torture-chamber appeared to have been left, or, to use her own metaphor, she had querulously ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... are capable of loving a machine more deeply than they can love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is not a sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement of notorious fact. Men who worry themselves to distraction over the perfecting of a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their kind. Most of us have known such men. Yesterday ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... fore-mast, seated on a coil of cordage, beside a well-worn valise, which contained his effects, and upon which he kept a hand. His face was brown, and his black and wavy hair descended to his shoulders. He was meanly clad, and had a tattered mantle thrown over his shoulders, and an old leather pouch on a cross-belt. He gazed thoughtfully about him at the passengers, the ship, the sailors who were running past, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... applied. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had the most beautiful sentiments on paper, but who in real life was not always a model of self-denial, found, as we shall see, grave fault with Gibbon's conduct. Gibbon, as a plain man of rather prosaic good sense, behaved neither heroically nor meanly. Time, absence, and the scenes of a new life, which he found in England, had their usual effect; his passion vanished. "My cure," he says, "was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself, and my love ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... pair of stockings, can't be surely speaking the truth." And thus gradually his first impression against Caroline wore away, and pity took possession of his soul, pity for the meek little girl, who, though trampled upon, was now springing up to womanhood; and though pale, freckled, thin, meanly dressed, had a certain charm about her which some people preferred to the cheap splendours and rude red and white of the Misses McCarty, and which was calculated to touch the heart of ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... on, it is not wonderful that the people live shabbily, meanly, out at elbows. Tastes so handicapped as theirs make no headway, and, though not dying, sink into disuse. The average cottager learns to despise pleasantness and to concentrate upon usefulness. His chief pride now is in his food-crops, which, if not eaten, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... the squire would act so meanly. At any rate, father, I will see that you don't any of you suffer for ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... believe you know how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing him there ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... genius. They have discovered him never controlling, never creating events, but always yielding to them with rapid change, and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war, they saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. In the debates on the Regency, they detected the laxity of his constitutional principles, and received proofs that his eloquence consisted not in the ready application ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... exquisite sculpture of Praxiteles, was received with the most marked and formal coldness, and his gift, which could not be declined, consigned almost without eliciting a glance of approbation, to the hand of a freedman; while, the next moment, as an old white-headed countryman, plainly and almost meanly clad, although with scrupulous cleanliness, approached his presence, the consul rose to meet him; and advancing a step or two took him affectionately by the hand, and asked after his family by name, and listened with ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... complaint: a willingness to extend every fair advantage to an adversary: a courage to strive to the uttermost without regard to the material value of the prize—and paramount to all the rest, a scorn for any meanly gained advantage, however profitable. If there was any value in his heritage of gentle blood and a sportsman's training, it should stand him in good stead now, for the sake ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... first, indeed, it was with an aching heart struggling in his breast, and an agony of wounded spirit tempting him to cast away all such studied pretences, and to throw himself upon her mercy, and meanly beg for even the slightest return of her former affection. But gradually, as he perceived how vain would be such self-abasement, and how its display would rather tend to add contempt to her indifference, his pride came to rescue him from such a course; and he began more and more to tune the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... about it as much as you like,—one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for "scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that— ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... accordingly they proceeded from their own apartment, accompanied by the secretary of the Vizier, and attended by their own dragoman. The usher of the white rod led the way, and conducted them through a suite of meanly-furnished apartments to the presence chamber. Ali when they entered was standing, a courtesy of marked distinction from a Turk. As they advanced towards him, he seated himself, and requested them to sit near him. The room was spacious and handsomely fitted up, surrounded by that species of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... sons and daughters of his own. I loved that man. I had been brought up among the Dutch and Irish, and had never associated with the Jews, and I supposed from what I had heard that they were put on earth for us to get the best of, fire stones at, and treat as meanly as we could. That was my idea of a Jew—my boy idea. Yet here was a man, a Jew, one of the whitest men I ever met, who by his life changed completely my opinion of the Jews, and I put them down from that day ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... said to the poor father, in whose aged eyes, turned to the earth, tears of shame were gushing, "I could have forgiven any thing but that. You deceived me meanly and deliberately. The character you gave with him was false. You knew it to be so, and you were well aware that nothing but mischief and ruin could result ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... admiring mine own outside here, To think what privilege and palm it bears Here, in the court! be a man ne'er so vile, In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else; If he can purchase but a silken cover, He shall not only pass, but pass regarded: Whereas, let him be poor, and meanly clad, Though ne'er so richly parted, you shall have A fellow that knows nothing but his beef, Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer, Will take him by the shoulders, or the throat, And kick him down the ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... in my face. No; I had never pressed him; I had never even encouraged him to come. I was proud of him; proud of his handsome looks, of his kind, gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when others were happy; proud, too (meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth and startling liberalities. And yet he would have been in the way of my Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to expose to criticism his innocent ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... You did burn my finger, and begged me not to tell Constance or papa afterward, and I never told them, because I never break my word if I can help it, and I wouldn't have told Mrs. Austin (but I didn't promise about her, you know), only you twitted me so meanly, and made me so mad—and it all came out. For I can keep a secret! I know where that squirrel is now, Evelyn Erle, but I will never tell any one—never—not even Constance Glen. I promised myself that, and crossed my ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... as meanly as he will of my deserts in the far greater part of my conduct in life. It is free for him to do so. There will always be some difference of opinion in the value of political services. But there is one merit of mine which he, of all men ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the maid's genteel horror of such proximities that steeled Miss Levering to endure them. Under circumstances like these the observant are reminded that no section of the modern community is so scornfully aristocratic as our servants. Their horror of the meanly-apparelled and the humble is beyond the scorn of kings. The fine lady shares her shrinking with those inveterate enemies of democracy, the lackey who shuts the door in the shabby stranger's face, and the dog who barks a beggar ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... disposed to think highly of themselves, and meanly of others—to say to others, "Stand by thyself; come not near me; I am holier than thou"—Some, to "compare themselves with others and exalt themselves above others." But not so the humble Christian—Not so the meek follower of ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... lot were lying sprawled, with their eyes closed. Most of these had come aboard at New Orleans, probably. The brisk ones had been aboard already, from the North. Charley was wickedly pleased to see the long-nosed man stretched limp, and greenish in the face, while his two companions meanly teased him. And then, as Charley's father and Mr. Grigsby appeared, Charley ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... keen-sighted in detecting gross inconsistencies of conduct, and ready to bestow the full measure of contempt upon those, who, while placed above them by the advantages of birth, and fortune, and education, yet meanly condescend, by their vices and their excesses, to degrade ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... did day surprise them until again and again and in full measure they had satisfied their desire. With the first streaks of dawn they rose, for the lady was minded that none should surmise aught of the affair. So, having meanly habited Rinaldo, and replenished his purse, she enjoined him to keep the secret, shewed him the way to the castle, where he was to find his servant, and let him out by the same postern by which he had entered. When it was broad day the gates were opened, and Rinaldo, passing himself off as ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... were the life-blood of such a villain, and looked at his father, who expressed approval by the like proceeding. And Geoffrey Mordacks was well content at finding them made of decent stuff. It was not his manner to do things meanly; and he had only spoken so to moderate their minds ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee. Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from letters to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the gaol. See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust. If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, Hear ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Sir, said I, I do not desire to commend myself, but to think meanly of myself; yet when I do most despise myself, taking notice of that small measure of light which God hath given me, also that the people of the Lord, by their own saying, are edified thereby. Besides, when I see that the Lord, through ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... resemble one than the fact of his staying. It would be an adventure to break away, to depart, to go back, above all, to London, and tell Kate Croy he had done so; but there was something of the merely, the almost meanly, obliged and involved sort in his going on as he was. That was the effect in particular of Mrs. Stringham's visit, which had left him as with such a taste in his mouth of what he couldn't do. It had made this quantity clear to him, and yet had deprived him of the sense, the other sense, of what, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... the book-plate with the following device:—An eagle or vulture feeding with a snake another bird nearly as large as herself; a landscape, with the sea, &c. in the distance: very meanly engraved, in an oval, compassed with the motto, "Pietas ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... of the exotic about her; in many ways she was old for her years. No one ever thought or spoke of her as a prig, but all her influence was brought to bear in the right direction. The girl who could do or think meanly avoided the expression of Annabel's beautiful eyes. It was impossible for her to think badly of her fellow-creatures, but meanness and sin made her sorrowful. There was not a girl in Heath Hall who would willingly give ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... died in exile, and distant relations of the Count, who though not choosing to regard them as his heirs, had, when the abolition of a severe law enabled the proscribed faction to return to Florence, accorded them shelter and protection. Meanly clad in vestments of coarse serge, there were yet no cavaliers who fluttered in silk and velvet who could compare in personal beauty with Francesco Gonzago; and the bride alone, of all the beauties who shone in gold and silver, appeared superior in feminine charms to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... design? may he not dissemble now? may he not recoil hereafter? have not others made as fair a show? yet we know what came of it." Thus do calumnious tongues pervert the judgments of men to think ill of the most innocent, and meanly of the worthiest actions. Even commendation itself is often used calumniously, with intent to breed dislike and ill-will towards a person commended in envious or jealous ears; or so as to give passage to dispraises, and render the accusations following more credible. Tis an artifice commonly observed ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... courageous enough. He said that these Eastern girls were not used to having any sort of attention; that there was only about a tenth or fifteenth of a fellow to every girl, and that it tickled one of them to death to have a whole man around. He was not meanly exultant at their destitution. He said he just wished one of these pretty Boston girls—nice, well dressed, cultured, and brought up to be snubbed and neglected by the tenths and fifteenths of men they had at home—could be let loose in the West, and have a regular round-up ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... prospectus. He adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him from dismissal, and was even heard to say that if any misfortune happened to the chief through anybody's fault he would kill that person. Dutocq meanly courted Fleury because he feared him. Fleury, crippled with debt, played many a trick on his creditors. Expert in legal matters, he never signed a promissory note; and had prudently attached his own salary under the names of fictitious creditors, so that he was able to draw nearly the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... 62 is in the French Maxim quoted under the previous Rule (61), beginning with the third sentence, 'Ne parlez point, etc.') 63d. A Man ought not to value himself of his Atchievements or rare Qua[lities, his Riches, Tit]les Virtue or Kindred[; but he need not speak meanly of himself.] ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... you have behaved meanly and dishonourably to me. I don't wish to discuss the matter, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... split The cloud with thunder dread: or wildly burst Upon the sea the water-spout. Shall first She fear thy flame, who feared not these?" "Fit mate Art thou for Eblis," answered he. "His fate Share, great-souled one. Thou wouldst not meanly shrink, Though his strong heart did fail. O Lilith, think! The crown of clustered worlds thou mayest find, If thou with him who loveth thee wilt bind Thy life." "Nay, far happier seems to me Than eagle caged, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... friends lie dying in her name! A bed of stones is soft enough for me If she but rock to sleep,—a crust to-day, To-morrow none, and at her board I'm fed. But when I look on you, my traitor blood Flies from her service. Oh, to see these hands That plucked no beauty ruder than the rose, So meanly laboring in the basest needs! Your gentle body resting on cold earth, Glad of a blanket 'tween you and the sod, While in your bed the foreign robber sleeps! This shakes my loyalty till I could hate The fair, unspotted cause ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... anything, hurt him, bringing him down to her base, sordid level, making him fellow-conspirator with her, plotting...ugh! How cruelly unfair that he, upright, generous, should be involved like this so meanly. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... of my keeping his head straight that he might the easier rob our fellow passengers raised a pretty question of ethics. I meanly dodged it. I told him professional etiquette required I should leave him to the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis |
