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More "Boastful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... illustration. These ideas, these principles generally termed New England ideas, and New England principles, it seems to me, have had much to do with that prosperity which we are now enjoying, and about which we are perhaps apt to be too boastful, but for which it is certain we cannot be too ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... last book," says Conington, [2] "must have centred, at least to us, in the discourse about himself, in which the old bard seems to have indulged in closing this his greatest poem. Even now we may read with sympathy his boastful allusion to his late enrolment among the citizens of the conquering city; we may be touched by the mention he appears to have made of the year of his age in which he wrote, bordering closely on the appointed term of man's life; and we may applaud ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... rolled and the lightning flashed all around his paradise, Hiram lost his boastful courage. He saw visions. Trembling in every limb, he crouched on his throne and imagined he saw angels and demons and fairies dancing round him and jeering at his pretensions and his ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the opportunity, but—for some reason, he knew not why—awkwardly and clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly the girl ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... land, That breathes of poesy from every sod, Indignant throb beneath the heavy foot Of jeering renegade? at best a son His mother blushes for—shall he, bold rebel Entwine its glories in defiant wreath Above his boastful brow, and flaunt it in Her face, rejoicing in her woe? No! No! This priceless gem shall ever deck her crown, And grace its setting with a ray more pure For that, nor flood, nor fire, can flaw its heart. Yes, Canada, thy sons, at least, maintain The ancient honour of their ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... skilful (commander) strikes a decisive blow, and stops. He does not dare (by continuing his operations) to assert and complete his mastery. He will strike the blow, but will be on his guard against being vain or boastful or arrogant in consequence of it. He strikes it as a matter of necessity; he strikes it, but not from ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... strength and weakness, on both sides, in a possible campaign. A popular idea of Edison that dies hard, pictures a breezy, slap-dash, energetic inventor arriving at new results by luck and intuition, making boastful assertions and then winning out by mere chance. The native simplicity of the man, the absence of pose and ceremony, do much to strengthen this notion; but the real truth is that while gifted with unusual imagination, Edison's march to the goal of a new invention is ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... them to be laws of mortal mind, not of God. He showed the need of changing this mind and its abortive laws. He demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and effected this change through the higher laws of God. The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, "That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;" but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... be boastful, I must admit that they are. You know the prince: he has more whims and freaks than Caligula. He has moments when he is capable of throttling an angel from heaven, and gentle moods in which he is ready to do his most deadly ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... other bearing of the matter than that on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increased the heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grew clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remained something that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before had passed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained. A deep fear took ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... war against Greece, all his courtiers encouraged his boastful temper, which forgot how unsubstantial his grounds for confidence were. One declared that the Greeks would not endure to hear the news of the declaration of war, and would take to flight at the first rumour of his approach; another, that with such ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... know of it, he gave us a permit for the military trains. It had been the intention of the War Office to pack us under guard with the herds on one of those Government refugee trains. But to live and sleep with the soldiers as we were now to do, to see their marches, to absorb their uninformed and boastful talk, to study their guns, munitions, and equipment, was better than our ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... having entirely supplanted the national spectacle of bull-baiting. Cuba, in fact, seemed to me a great poultry-yard. I heard the crowing of cocks in all quarters, for the game-cock is the noisiest and most boastful of birds, and is perpetually uttering his notes of defiance. In the villages I saw the veterans of the pit, a strong-legged race, with their combs cropped smooth to the head, the feathers plucked from every part of the body except their wings, and the tail docked like that ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... band if we get half a chance!" declared Bud, and it was not said in a bloodthirsty or boastful spirit. It was calm retribution ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... Conwell stands steadily and strongly for good citizenship. But he never talks boastful Americanism. He seldom speaks in so many words of either Americanism or good citizenship, but he constantly and silently keeps the American flag, as the symbol of good citizenship, before his people. An American flag is prominent in his church; an American ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... exceedingly to accomplish this purpose. Undoubtedly this must have made me a very undesirable person to contend with in a fight. Luckily for me, I have never been afflicted with a quarrelsome or vindictive mind. This is not a boastful or frivolous assertion, but is uttered in the spirit of thankfulness to the allwise Creator ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... the highest wisdom, seek the company of such a one, for he has realized the Divine, he lives with the Eternal, he has become one with the Infinite. Believe not him that is impatient, given to anger, boastful, who clings to pleasure and refuses to renounce his selfish gratifications, and who practices not good-will and far-reaching compassion, for such a one hath not wisdom, vain is all his knowledge, and his works and ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... courage and a certain nobility of character. This natural valor, joined to his blind confidence in himself, sometimes precipitated him into almost inextricable situations, into which he threw himself headlong, and from which he never emerged without hard blows—for if he was as adventurous and boastful as a Gascon, he was as obstinate and opinionated ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Amherstburg; disappointed in his hope of a general insurrection of the Canadians; and, "above all, dismayed at the report of General Brock's resolution to advance against him,"[62] Hull's schemes of conquest vanished; and he who, less than a month before, had landed in Canada boastful of his strength and with threats of extermination, now saw no other alternative than a hasty return to Detroit, under the pretence of concentrating his forces; and after re-opening his communication ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... tables, a young man in a red shirt sat drinking. He was in a boastful mood. Behind his ear stuck a cigarette. The fellow intruded ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... It becomes difficult to write of these personal courtesies, as I find them increasing in the progress of my life from now on. I trust the casual reader will not construe anything in these pages into a boastful desire to spread myself in too large ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... and Indian marauders, who gathered to our camp, were drunk with the most intoxicating of all stimulants—human blood. This flush of victory excited the redskins' vanity to a boastful frenzy. There was wild talk of wiping the pale-face out of existence; and if a weaker man than Grant had been at the head of the forces, not a white in the settlement would have escaped massacre. In spite of the bitterness to which the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... though not a bit alike in looks and ways. Abe, the elder by a year, was a bit slow and heavy on his pins; given to reading, too, though he seemed to take it up for peace and quietness more than for any show he made of his learning. Bill was smarter altogether and better looking; a bit boastful, after the manner of young chaps. He could read too, but never did much at it, though I've heard that on Saturday nights he was fond of ranting verses—stuff about drink and such like—out of a book of Robert Burns's poetry he'd borrowed ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... women—protect their complexions from the sun with fans and veils, as only the stately gentlewomen do in Germany and the Netherlands. As a people they are stout-hearted, vehement, eager, cruel in war, zealous in attack, little fearing: death; not revengeful, but fickle, presumptuous, rash, boastful, deceitful, very suspicious, especially of strangers, whom they despise. They are full of courteous and hypocritical gestures and words, which they consider to imply good manners, civility, and wisdom. They are well spoken, and very hospitable. They feed well, eating much meat, which-owing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Cristina tried to prevent the Triton's carrying off her son, since he could learn nothing but bad words and boastful bullying in the old home of the Ferraguts. And trumping up the necessity of seeing her own family, she left the notary alone in Valencia, going with her boy to spend the summer on the coast of Catalunia near ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to look back upon the high spirit and independent temper uniformly displayed by Mr. Adams abroad and at home in all dealings with foreign powers. Never in any instance did he display the least tinge of that rodomontade and boastful extravagance which have given an underbred air to so many of our diplomats, and which inevitably cause the basis for such self-laudation to appear of dubious sufficiency. But he had the happy gift of a native pride which enabled him to support in the most effective ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... scene I should love to dwell, and there end my days. Nor was I alone in these transports of delight. All my fellow-travellers seemed equally affected: and from the native Palmyrenes, of whom there were many among us, the most impassioned and boastful exclamations broke forth. 'What is Rome to this?' they cried: 'Fortune is not constant. Why may not Palmyra be what Rome has been—mistress of the world? Who more fit to rule than the great Zenobia? A few years may see great changes. Who can tell ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... venom of deceit that adder tongue of thine o'erflows, Nor is thy temper over-sweet, as well thine earlier consort knows. Thou'rt truly worthy of thy fame for boastful speech and lust of power, And well dost thou deserve thy name— the Brachail of Rathcroghan's tower.[45] Thy words are fair and soft, O queen! but still I crave one further proof— Give me the scarf of silken sheen, give me the speckled satin woof, Give from thy cloak's empurpled ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... you be afraid? He might mean you to go to the bottom, you know. Would you mind going to the bottom with him looking at you? I do not think I should mind it myself. But I must take care lest I be boastful ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Beaumont, the distress of the recent forced retreat on Sedan—all were forgotten. Now that they were about to fight at last, was not victory certain? He had learned nothing and forgotten nothing; his blustering, boastful contempt of the enemy, his entire ignorance of the new arts and appliances of war, his rooted conviction that an old soldier of Africa, Italy, and the Crimea could by no possibility be beaten, had suffered no change. It was really ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... us leave these boastful courages. Theodorus answered Lysimachus, who threatened to kill him, "Thou wilt do a brave feat," said he, "to attain the force of a cantharides." The majority of philosophers are observed to have either purposely anticipated, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... speaking the submarine boy realized that this must have had a boastful sound. So ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... accord—unless he was a dealer. And then usually he was not really a true-born Briton. He waits to see what is being hung. He has these things now because he thinks they are right, not because they are beautiful, just as he used to have the Stag at Bay and the Boastful Hound. It is Leighton now; it was Landseer then. Really I believe that very soon the ladies' papers will devote a column to pictures. Something in this style. 'Smart people are taking down their Rossetti's Annunciations now, and are hanging Gambler Bolton's new Hippopotamus ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... was to his table companions, as sympathizers with Reuchlin and other innovators, well as he doubtless remembered their scornful attacks upon his Latin—he was a man to maintain his place. So, with boastful self-conceit, allowing no one else an opportunity to speak, he at once began to complain of the fatigues of the journey and to mention, with tiresome detail, the eminent persons whom he had met and who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of Gloucester, delighting in his work in youth, quitting it only when compelled by crooked age, and then anxious to train up worthy successors in the art and mystery of managing a well-appointed household. Aman evidently who knew his work in every detail, and did it all with pride; not boastful, though upholding his office against rebellious cooks[3], putting them down with imperial dignity, "we may allow and disallow; our office is the chief!" Asimple-minded religious man too,—as the close of his Treatise shows,—and ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... pace with the expanding mind. A French boy is taught the glory of Moliere as well as that of Turenne; a German boy is taught his own great national philosophy before he learns the philosophy of antiquity. The result is that, though French patriotism is often crazy and boastful, though German patriotism is often isolated and pedantic, they are neither of them merely dull, common, and brutal, as is so often the strange fate of the nation of Bacon and Locke. It is natural enough, and even righteous enough, under the circumstances. ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... back to the rectory, he talked with a feverish volubility and excitement. Avoiding the slightest reference to the subject discussed at our strange and stormy interview, he returned, with tenfold confidence in himself, to his old boastful assertion of the great things he was going to do as a painter. The mission which called him to reconcile Humanity with Nature; the superb scale on which he proposed to interpret sympathetic scenery for the benefit of suffering mankind; the prime necessity of understanding ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... day after Law's entry into Paris, and the first time for more than two long years that he found himself alone with the Lady Catharine Knollys. His eagerness might have excused his impetuous and boastful speech. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... friends he has made here at Yale are a lot of thin-blooded, white-livered creatures. Look at them! There is Bruce Browning, once called 'King of the Sophomores,' but cowed and bested by Merriwell, to be afterward dropped a class. There is Jack Diamond, a boastful Southerner. He forced Merriwell to fight, but fawned about Merriwell's feet like ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... fate. But who should come to rescue her but a certain young hero, Perseus, who was hastening homeward after a perilous adventure with the snaky-haired Gorgons. Filled with pity at the story of Andromeda, he waited for the dragon, met and slew him, and set the maiden free. As for the boastful queen, the Gods forgave her, and at her death she was set among the stars. That story ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... rivals. In size, in richness of decoration, in boldness of outline, and in aerial lightness it is unequalled. Above all, it still contains six windows of magnificent stained glass. Even now it seems to justify its boastful inscription: ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... difficult to say," I answered. "There is a certain kind of cad who is much given to boastful rhodomontade concerning his conquests. We all know him and can generally spot him at first sight, but I must say that Reuben Hornby did not strike me as that kind of man at all. Then it is clear that the proper course for Walter to have adopted, if he ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... possessed of small energy and strength, without knowledge and given to avarice and folly and sinful practices men will accept with joy the gifts made by wicked people with words of contempt. And, O son of Kunti, the kings of the earth, with hearts wedded to sin without knowledge and always boastful of their wisdom, will challenge one another from desire of taking one another's life. And the Kshatriyas also towards the end of such a period will become the thorns of the earth. And filled with avarice and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... me of the worst excesses of my brother in Yorkshire. Examining my own life, I had often come to the conclusion that adventures did not exist outside books. But the boys shook this comforting theory with their boastful prophecies, and I thought once more that perhaps it was my misfortune that they did not happen to me. I began to fear that I would ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... Andersonville in June, July, and August; that he could see three thousand men die each month in the most horrible manner, without lifting a finger in any way to assist them; that he could call attention in a self-boastful way to the fact that "I am killing off more Yankees than twenty regiments in Lee's Army," and that he could respond to the suggestions of the horror-struck visiting Inspector that the prisoners be given at least more room, with ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... now, only obliged to keep quiet and give up my grand walking excursions, which poor Robert used to be so boastful of. If he is vain about anything in the world, it is about my improved health, and I used to say to him, 'But you needn't talk so much to people of how your wife walked here with you and there with you, as if a wife with ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... no doubt, will. But right observation and reflection in regard to children will make any one modest and fearful on the subject of their right government, rather than bold and boastful. Those who, like you, think themselves so well qualified to manage children, usually make ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... after civilly saluting me, he stirred almost fiercely, eyeing as he did so the blazing coals with a half-abstracted and sullen, cowed, disquieted look altogether unusual with him. At least wherever I had before seen him, he had been as loquacious and boastful as a Gascon. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... of opinion that the said petition ought to be dismissed." Moreover, the sympathy which Franklin met with from some of the leading members of the opposition, tended still further to embitter the passions which had been roused in the mind of the philosopher. That boastful patriot himself—the great Earl of Chatham—hastened to express his sympathy with Franklin, and his detestation of the treatment he had received from Wedderburne and the government. It is due to the character of Chatham, however, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... It does not seem to have been the "vanity" of Hakem which induced him to introduce a new religion. The curious point in the new faith is that Hamza, the son of Ali, the real founder of the Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful title,) was content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was God, the one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It was not in his "divine character" that Hakem "hated the Jews and Christians," but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he displayed in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... in all the phases of Jewish life. With some it was a religion of ceremony,—of prayers and fastings, tithes and boastful alms, fringes and phylacteries. But Joseph and Mary belonged to the simpler folk, who, while they reverenced the scribes as teachers, knew not enough of their subtlety to have substituted barren rites for sincere ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... to specify depravity, greedy covetousness, maliciousness. Oozing out of every pore there are envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. Men are whisperers, backbiters, God-haters, and self-lovers, in that they are insolent, haughty, boastful. They are inventors of evil things, without understanding, breakers of faith, without natural ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... and made another lightly-confident, almost-boastful remark, to the effect that he did not think any one was ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... and those two other cronies of Nick's were holding their breath with dismay. They had never expected to see the time when any one could knock their boastful leader out in this easy fashion. What previous opinions they had entertained concerning Hugh Morgan's prowess must ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... island in the sea. When the ship's library over the blue horizon dwindles at last in its cloud of smoke and he is left without a shred of printed paper by him, the supreme opportunity of education will come to him. He will learn how vital and beautiful, or boastful and empty, his education is. If it is true education, the first step he takes he will find a use for it. The first bird that floats from its tree-top shall be a message from London straight to his soul. If he has truly known them, the spirits of all his ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... eyes Rale was an incendiary, setting on a horde of bloody savages to pillage and murder. While they thought him a devil, he passed in Canada for a martyred saint. He was neither the one nor the other, but a man with the qualities and faults of a man,—fearless, resolute, enduring; boastful, sarcastic, often bitter and irritating; a vehement partisan; apt to see things, not as they were, but as he wished them to be; given to inaccuracy and exaggeration, yet no doubt sincere in opinions and genuine in zeal; hating the English more than he loved the Indians; calling himself their friend, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... eyes now; there was a ferocious gleam. It died away quickly, however; the squared shoulders drooped, and there was a deprecating shrug. "Pardon, signore; this is far away from the matter of boots. I grow boastful; I am an old man and should know better. But does the signore return to Italy in ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... resources of the University is not to check the natural history department, but to stimulate all the others? not that the zoological school grows too fast, but that the others do not grow fast enough? This sounds invidious and perhaps somewhat boastful; but it is you and not I who have instituted the comparison. It strikes me you have not hit upon the best remedy for this want of balance. If symmetry is to be obtained by cutting down the most vigorous growth, it seems to me it would be better to ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... thus: 'Is it a small matter that thou hast taken away my husband? and wouldst thou take away my son's dudaim also?' And Rachel said, 'See, Jacob shall be thine to-night for thy son's dudaim.' But Leah insisted, 'Jacob is mine, and I am the wife of his youth,' whereupon Rachel, 'Be not boastful and overweening. To me he was betrothed first, and for my sake he served our father fourteen years. Thou art not his wife, thou wast taken to him by cunning instead of me, for our father deceived me, and put me out of the way the night of thy nuptials, so that Jacob could not see me. Nevertheless, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the other day an article by my colleague "Arcturus" which I thought was a little boastful. It referred to a bull-dog. Now I cannot tell what there is about a bull-dog that makes people haughty, but it is certain that I have never known a case in which the companionship of that animal has not had this effect. The man ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... African;—he has the Carib's large and melancholy eye, better adapted to express the emotions. ... Rarely can you discover in him the sombre fury of the African, rarely a surly and savage mien: he is brave, chatty, boastful. His skin has not the same tint as his father's,—it has become more satiny; his hair remains woolly, but it is a finer wool;... all his outlines are more rounded;—one may perceive that the cellular tissue predominates, as in cultivated plants, of which the ligneous and savage fibre ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... to beggary, as though I had been a prince? why have taught me nothing whereby I could now at least earn my daily bread? Why did you let me lavish in my youth the money which, frugally husbanded, might now have supported us in comfort? Why did you do all this—you who were so boastful of your worldly wisdom?" For a moment, so great was her mental anguish, that she almost looked her age—not that the picture had any terrors for herself, but upon her son's account alone. She may not have been penitent, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... subsequent revelations and the present sequel those words would have been forgotten, and were at the time attributed by some to mere boastful exuberance. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... the boy took his stand once more at the knothole. Boastful as ever, after an interval, came Pete. Not only to-day, but to-morrow and the next day and through all the days to come, he would have to give up shooting sparrows because ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... her hand! And so I raved, and cast in hope A superstitious horoscope! And still, though something in her face Portended 'No!' with such a grace It burthen'd me with thankfulness, Nothing was credible but 'Yes.' Therefore, through time's close pressure bold, I praised myself, and boastful told My deeds at Acre; strain'd the chance I had of honour and advance In war to come; and would not see Sad silence meant, 'What's this to me?' When half my precious hour was gone, She rose to meet a Mr. Vaughan; And, as the image of the moon Breaks up, within some still lagoon That ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the rearmost file when one boastful ruffian, egged on by the rest, suddenly ran out in front of the crowd and whipping a long, murderous-looking knife from his sash, hurled it with deadly aim at him. Luckily for the master, he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and wheeled round just in time to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... she has already spoken frankly of her own appetit sensuel, and she proceeds to show this in the fashion which makes the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth a sort of trough of animalism between the altitudes of Mediaeval and Renaissance passion. Her lover turns out to be an utter cad, boastful, blabbing, and almost cowardly (he tells her in the usual stolen church interview, Je crains merveilleusement monsieur votre mari). But it makes not the slightest difference; nor does the at last awakened wrath of an at last not merely threatened ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... protect our citizens from proper treatment in foreign lands. We continue steadily to insist on the application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Western Hemisphere. Unless our attitude in these and all similar matters is to be a mere boastful sham we can not afford to abandon our naval programme. Our voice is now potent for peace, and is so potent because we are not afraid of war. But our protestations upon behalf of peace would neither receive nor deserve the slightest ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... "Wicked and boastful fool, who seeks any such thing from you? Do you think that your good looks win you the love of the very flies in the air? Nay, if you were presumptuous enough to address yourself to me, I would show you that I love, and seek to love, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... themselves, and affect to undervalue all other nations, they leave us, luckily, trap-doors and back-doors open, by which we strangers, less favoured by nature, may arrive at a share of their advantages. And thus they are in some respects like a boastful landlord, who exalts the value and flavour of his six-years-old mutton, while he is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company. In short, you, whose proud family, and I, whose hard fate, made us soldiers of ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... himself close to the ground, concealed by the ashes around him, so like they were in color to his dingy robe, and the cap that covered his matted grizzled hair. Occasionally he chuckled to himself at the thought of the discomfiture which lay in store for Curling Smoke, that boastful giant, whom he believed to be lying in wait for the Prince near to the Wizard's Cave. Such confidence had the Ash Goblin in his snare that never for an instant did he believe that the Prince could escape it and come within reach of ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... ancestors was an empty name; but even a name was now sufficient for the general disaffection to rally round. A pamphlet which was at the time disseminated amongst the people openly called him the heir of Holland; and his engraved portrait, which was publicly exhibited, bore the boastful inscription:— ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... an evil, a monstrous personality which leered out of Logan Black's diary. Boastful of his own iniquity, swaggering in his wickedness, fatuous with self-love, he recounted his deeds with gusto and with particularity. They did not read a quarter of this terrible autobiography at the time, but they read enough to see the man in the process of building up a criminal organization ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... since the world has grown so wise and made such progress in the art of running rapidly downhill, is even the aristocratic British peer quite easy in his mind regarding his fair peeress? Can he leave her to her own devices with safety? Are there not men, boastful too of their "blue blood," who are perhaps ready to stoop to the thief's trick of entering his house during his absence by means of private keys, and stealing away his wife's affections?—and is not she, though a mother of three or four children, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... pretty sure to be deep—not with water but with sand. Whoever saw water in the channel, or "wash," of the Mohave? Perhaps the oldest settler may have seen it; at any rate he will so claim, for the oldest settler is always boastful; indeed, fairy-story telling is his inherent, bounden right. To make good his assertion he points to the bridge, and certainly the bridge is there; but as for the river, it may be on hand one day—perhaps an hour or so—in ten, ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... preposterously boastful and hollow; but he was manfully in earnest; every word came ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... very short sack coat; that his waistcoat was of a combustible plaid pattern with gaiters to match; that he had taken his fingers many times to the jeweler, but not once to the manicure; that he was beautifully jingled and alcoholically boastful of his native land and that—a crowning touch—he wore flaring from an upper pocket of his coat a silk handkerchief woven in the design and colors of his country's flag. But, praises be, it was not our flag that he wore ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Montrevel listened to Edouard's slightly boastful account of his prowess. Then she looked at him with that deep and holy sorrow of mothers to whom fame is no compensation for the blood it sheds. Oh! ungrateful indeed is the child who has seen that look bent upon him and does not ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... not so noisy as the Russians round their camp-fires, these Turks were by no means taciturn. There was a touch, now and then, of dry humour in the remarks of some, and a sedate chuckle occasionally. Among them stood Eskiwin and his resuscitated friend Ali Bobo. The latter, although not naturally boastful, had been so nettled by a big comrade underrating his courage and muscular power, in regard to which latter he, Bobo, was rather vain, that he vowed he would prove both by going to the front and bringing in, single-handed, ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... element is a fear of the ultimate consequences of a Union reconstructed without Slavery; for then Mr. Bright may argue in favor of universal suffrage, uninterrupted by allusions to the arrogance and coarseness, the boastful and aggressive spirit belonging to a pro-slavery America. "Why do you desire the dissolution of the Union?" asked one Englishman of another. "Oh, I have no reason, except that the Americans are so bounceable I want to see them humbled." But we were the weakest when Slavery made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... reviewed them in "The Westminster Review" for July, 1835, and, with his usual earnestness and generosity, applied all his powers to making a just estimate of the new aspirant. To have reprinted this among his miscellaneous writings might have seemed rather boastful, as claiming credit for the first full recognition of a great poet: still it is a very remarkable review; and one would hope it will not be omitted if there is to be any further collection of his casual productions. I shall quote two passages ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... women from their example. We hear from different sources that American women will attempt, to some extent, to be registered this year as voters, and we hope so brave an example will become a contagion. A boastful warrior once demanded of his foe, "Deliver up your arms." The answer was, "Come, if you dare, and take them!" Let women become brave enough to take their rights, and there will not be much resistance. According to their faith and their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... which I have delivered, and by the dangers too of which I have encountered great numbers, by reason of the most bitter hatred which all impious men bear me, have at least, (not to seem to say anything too boastful,) conducted myself so as to be no injury to the republic. And as this is the case, do you think that I ought to have no consideration ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... listening to his own recorded voice, rubbed the sunstone on his left finger with the heel of his right palm and watched it brighten. There was, he noticed, a boastful ring to his voice—not the suave, unemphatic tone considered proper on a message-tape. Well, if anybody wondered why, when they played that tape off six months from now in Johannesburg on Terra, they could look in the cargo holds of the ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... Milan, or that Last Supper which is now but a shadow on the wall of S. Maria delle Grazie. And above all, we may see how the true splendour of Titian exposes the ostentation of Rubens, as the sun will make even the greatest fire look dingy and boastful. Gradually Vandyck, shy and of a quiet, serene spirit, becomes aware of this, and, led by the immeasurable glory of the Venetians, slowly escapes from that "Flemish manner" to be master of himself; so that, after he has painted in the manner of Titian at Palermo, he returns to ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... peoples of the earth, with their varied productions, to the full and free enjoyment of their habits at home, and in return exhibit to them the results of our growth and industry. In no boastful spirit this new and marvelous city, which has sprung into existence within the life of men who hear me, has, with the aid of the general government and the states that comprise it, built these great palaces, adorned these lately waste places and brought into ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... in a boastful tone, "do you know that this old fellow lying here, won't get the drink out of the veins of that dainty creature he was so thirsty for? No! nor ever cheat any sweet little Red Riding Hood into thinking ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... Legislative, from the individual Patriot, flame monitory on all walls. Flags of Danger to Fatherland wave at the Hotel-de-Ville; on the Pont Neuf—over the prostrate Statues of Kings. There is universal enlisting, urging to enlist; there is tearful-boastful leave-taking; irregular marching on the Great North-Eastern Road. Marseillese sing their wild To Arms, in chorus; which now all men, all women and children have learnt, and sing chorally, in Theatres, Boulevards, Streets; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... "I am sure I never wish to hear the thing mentioned again. I have taken a lot of pains to become a good shot, and it seems that I have a natural aptitude that way. There is nothing more to feel boastful about than if nature had made me a giant, and I had thereby been able to thrash a man of ordinary strength. I am very glad that I have put it out of Marshall's power to bully other men, and, as he had several times done, to force them ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Ha-ha. For some for Tamdka contend, and some for the fair, bearded stranger, And the betting runs high to the end, with the skins of the bison and beaver. A wife of tall Wazi-kut —the mother of boastful Tamdka— Brought her handsomest robe from the tee, with a vaunting and loud proclamation: She would stake her last robe on her son who, she boasted, was fleet as the Cbri [80] And the tall, tawny chieftain looked on, approving the boast of the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... together in the empty coffee-room; compared notes; drank a pint of port apiece; and under its influence became boastful. Insensibly the adventure of the beaver hat came to wear the aspect of a dashing practical joke. It encouraged us to exchange confidences of earlier deeds of derring-do, of bird-nesting, of rook-shooting, of angling for trout, of encounters with poachers. I remember crossing my knees, holding ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the peaceful charms of thy presence; That which the silent does not, never the boastful can do. Vigor in man I expect, the law in its honors maintaining, But, through the graces alone, woman e'er rules or should rule. Many, indeed, have ruled through the might of the spirit and action, But then thou noblest of crowns, they were ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... for defense from the militia of the country, and but poorly armed and equipped?" "Providence!" was the reply; nothing less than Providence could have baffled and beaten such a powerful foe, bent on conquest and spoliation for a wicked purpose, with a wicked spirit, and in a wicked cause. England's boastful pride and intolerant and cruel insolence toward her American kindred was humbled at last. The God of battle had once again in time punished a strong nation for its stubborn crimes, and given victory to the oppressed. Providence was with Jackson ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... Browning and Mr. Kenyon had a nice little visit, talking about books and art. And Mr. Kenyon told Mr. Browning that Miss Elizabeth Barrett, the poetess, was a cousin of his—he was a bit boastful ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... page. The gathering broke up in quick confusion on finding him a silent auditor. When they were gone he reached for the newspaper. A record-breaking launching was to be achieved at Hilmer's shipyard within the week. The article ended with a boastful fling from Hilmer to the effect that his plant was running to full capacity in spite of strikes and lockouts. Fred threw the paper to the floor. A chill enveloped him. He had caught only the merest fragments of conversation which had fallen from the lips of the ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... eye over the Natchez players practicing on the field. Bo Stranathan had out his strongest team. They were not a prepossessing nine. They wore soiled uniforms that did not match in cut or color. But they pranced and swaggered and strutted! They were boastful and boisterous. It was a trial for any Madden's Hill ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 150 Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire; The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar; Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave; Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave: Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of power: A Quaker? sly: A Presbyterian? sour: A smart free-thinker? ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... people,—the new Democratic-Republican societies, in imitation of the French Jacobin clubs, being potent disseminators of democratic doctrine and sympathy with the French uprising against despotism. The forbearance of Washington, in suffering the irascible and boastful Genet to ride rough-shod over his own cabinet, was extraordinary. In ordinary times the man would have been summarily expelled from the country. At last his insults could no longer be endured and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... naturally and without any toilsome effort. We shall then find that the secret of co-operation is to have faith in ourselves because we first have faith in God; and we shall discover that this Divine self-confidence is something very different from a boastful egotism which assumes a personal superiority over others. It is simply the assurance of a man who knows that he is working in accordance with a law of nature. He does not claim as a personal achievement what the Law does FOR him: but on the other hand he does not trouble himself ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... North appeer'd From skirt to skirt a fierie Region, stretcht 80 In battailous aspect, and neerer view Bristl'd with upright beams innumerable Of rigid Spears, and Helmets throng'd, and Shields Various, with boastful Argument portraid, The banded Powers of Satan hasting on With furious expedition; for they weend That self same day by fight, or by surprize To win the Mount of God, and on his Throne To set the envier of his State, the proud Aspirer, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... conceited, boastful old thing, and even misfortune could not humble her. I was so annoyed that I felt coldly even toward Antonia and listened unsympathetically when she told me ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... declaring his musical powers in his boastful way. If he chose he could rip out the hearts of a dead Municipal Council with a violin, and could set a hospital for paralytics a-dancing. He would have fiddled the children of Hamelin away from the Pied Piper. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... of humility is in accord with Eskimo ethics. They say that if they adopt a boastful air and fail to give as many presents as the other n['ae]skut they will be ashamed. So they safeguard ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... to appear boastful; but I apprehend the fact to be not unlike what you suggest," the voice replied, with a subdued gusto. "It would depend upon our hypothetical person's discretion, and his views as to the claims of the august Being who has so long controlled ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... amount of crop on a given space is carried on among the slaves, who not unfrequently "chafe" each other upon the superior wealth and talent of their masters. It is a well-known fact, that John C. Calhoun's slaves, in addition to being extremely fond of him, were proud and boastful of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... satellites of the Tuileries" were well acquainted with him and trembled at the sight of him; and asserted that one half of them must be guillotined, and the other half transported, the next time there was "a flare-up." His violent political creed found food in boastful, bragging talk of this sort; he displayed all the partiality for a lark and a rumpus which prompts a Parisian shopkeeper to take down his shutters on a day of barricade-fighting to get a good view of the corpses of the slain. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... than the stable-lot Between the house and highway fence That bounds the home his father rents. His playmates mostly are the ducks And chickens, and the boy that "shucks Corn by the shock," and talks of town, And whether eggs are "up" or "down," And prophesies in boastful tone Of "owning horses of his own," And "being his own man," and "when He gets to be, what he'll do then."— Takes out his jack-knife dreamily And makes the Folk-Child two or three Crude corn-stalk figures,—a wee span Of ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... shivered as fearsomely over it as Robert did. Other tales followed; Uncle Jesse told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer, how he had been boarded by Malay pirates, how his ship had caught fire, how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a South American republic. He never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been—brave, true, resourceful, unselfish, skilful. He sat there in his poor little room and made those things live again for us. By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to HAVE to whistle for us to get out of their way. If I may do so, without appearing boastful, I think I can honestly say that our one small boat, during that week, caused more annoyance and delay and aggravation to the steam launches that we came across than all the other craft on the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... ornament. They shaved the beard on the chin; that on the upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to an extraordinary length, to favor the martial appearance, in which they placed their glory. They were in their natural temper not unlike the Gauls, impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, fond of novelty,—and like all barbarians, fierce, treacherous, and cruel. Their arms were short javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great cutting swords with a blunt point, after ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him. Human beings have, since the beginning of the world, stoned their prophets. Nevertheless, he has liberated a force that no gauge made by man can measure. He has been boastful, if you like, and has said that with a teacupful of water he would drive a steamship across the Atlantic. I have been silent, working away with my eye on him, and he has been working away with ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... sang: "Ten acres of land, and a cow-house with three stalls and a stall for the new calf, and a pigsty, and a house for my bones and a barn for my hay and straw, and a loft for my hens: why should men pray for more?" She ambled to Moriah, diverting passers-by with boastful tales of Joseph, and loosened her imaginings ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... night returning, every labour sped, He sits him down the monarch of a shed; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze; While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard, 195 Displays her cleanly platter on the board: And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, With many a tale ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... element in Hunt's unmoral nature that this Maggie, through whom he was trying to symbolize so much, he knew to be a petty larcenist: shoplifting and matters of similar consequence. She had been cynically frank about this to him; casual, almost boastful. Her possessing a bent toward such activities was hardly to be wondered at, with her having Old Jimmie as her father, and the Duchess as a landlady, and having for acquaintances such gentlemen as Barney Palmer and ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... mild and on the other as too stringent. Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone both opposed it; the latter because the change was wanted by English Catholics rather than by the Vatican. He condemned the vanity and boastful spirit of the papal documents, but contended that his fellow Catholic countrymen should not suffer for that. The difficulty of applying it to Ireland, where the system objected to already existed, was pointed out. However the preliminary motion was passed ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... army and in the navy, the Negroes had demonstrated their worth and manhood. They had stood with the undrilled minute-men along the dusty roads leading from Lexington and Concord to Boston, against the skilled redcoats of boastful Britain. They were among the faithful little band that held Bunker Hill against overwhelming odds; at Long Island, Newport, and Monmouth, they had held their ground against the stubborn columns of the Ministerial army. They had journeyed with the Pilgrim Fathers through eight years ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... and something more. They fell straightway to gambling, sharper and fiercer than before, actuated now by the flaming spirit of this son of Belllounds. Luck, misleading and alluring, favored Jack for a while, transforming him until he was radiant, boastful, exultant. Then it changed, as did his expression. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... sense Heaven's favourites. Such conceptions do not minister to heavenly-mindedness, or beget lives of ethic beauty. The ancient Hebrews, blinded by this very belief, became "worse than the heathen," and herein lies a solemn warning alike for the beaten Boer and the boastful Briton! There is no true religion where there is no all round righteousness; and wheresoever that is wanting the wrath of ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... his past experience. When circumstances condemn such generous souls as Father Hecker to inactivity, a favorite solace is picking up fragments of work or recalling high ideas from the crowded memory of their former zeal, often with much profit to those who listen. And this was no idle-minded or boastful trait in him, as we see ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... to think slightingly of the poor fare and furniture of his old dwelling, they do their office badly and commit injustice. Who so mindful of those he left at home—albeit they were but a mother and two young babies—as Kit? What boastful father in the fulness of his heart ever related such wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was there ever such a mother as Kit's mother, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... as an eyewitness, Zwanziger displayed boastful hardiness in his narration of details. Philippina looked at him with venomous contempt from under the imbecile locks that hung down over her forehead, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... not a person then on earth who could have supposed that that would be which was written in the Book of Fate. That freedom should come to a people from a despot's throne was almost as hard to understand as that the rankest kind of despotism should rise up from among a people the most boastful of their liberty that ever existed. There are, unhappily, but too many instances of free nations that have behaved oppressively. The first African slaves that were brought into the territory of the American nation came under the flag of a people who had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... whites that they had brought about these aspirations in the bosom of the negro, and that the liberty-loving negro was their legitimate offspring, and not a bastard. The whites should recognize their own doings. On the other hand, the negro should not be over boastful, and should recognize that the lofty conception of the dignity of man and value and true character of liberty were taught him by the Anglo-Saxon. The birds betokened a happy adjustment of all differences; ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... rude and boastful son of Mars, at heart a bully, if not a coward, is represented as ever aching for a fight, in which his domineering spirit and rough-and-tumble ways for a time gave him the advantage over abler, but ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... happened that a youth of wealth and lineage sought Ibla's hand in marriage. But pride choked him and he basked in the glory of his fathers' deeds. When Antar heard of the boastful youth's suit he swore a great oath to kill him and he fell upon him. But the youth escaped. Now the chieftains saw a chance to destroy Antar's power and encompass his destruction. They appeared before Zoheir and demanded Antar's life. Then Zoheir ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... into two, the boastful and the cantankerous. When Festus put on the big pot, as it is classically called, he was quite blinded ipso facto to the diverting effect of that mood and manner upon others; but when disposed to be envious or quarrelsome he was rather shrewd ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Mongolian title Ung-Khan as denoting a priest-king named John, and it was this distant Eastern potentate who came to be known in Europe as Presbyter Johannes or Prester John. It was the Syrian Christians who, in their desire to outvie the boastful arrogance of their Latin neighbours, together with many apochryphal tales invented a letter from this dignitary to some of the sovereigns of Europe, including the Pope. Equally fabulous seems to have been the report to Alexander III of a physician named Philip, ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... which, now first acting in aid of the land-forces gave the formidable spectacle of war at once pushed on by sea and land. The cavalry, infantry, and marines were frequently mingled in the same camp, and recounted with mutual pleasure their several exploits and adventures; comparing, in the boastful language of military men, the dark recesses of woods and mountains, with the horrors of waves and tempests; and the land and enemy subdued, with the conquered ocean. It was also discovered from the captives, that ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... all there trickles down that third and darker thought, the thought of the things themselves, the confused half-conscious mutter of men who are black and whitened, crying Liberty, Freedom, Opportunity—vouchsafe to us, O boastful World, the chance of living men! To be sure, behind the thought lurks the afterthought: suppose, after all, the World is right and we are less than men? Suppose this mad impulse within is all wrong, some mock mirage ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... watching the Bandarlog at play in the forest. As you behold them and comprehend their natures, now hugely brave and boastful, now full of dread, the most weakly emotional of any intelligent species, ever trying to attract the notice of some greater animal, not happy indeed unless noticed,—is it not plain they are bound to invent things ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... tho' you may not believe it, that I am not entirely in a sober mood. Yesterday I planted bulbs with a lady who was not bulbous. The day before I shot pigeons for a lark. And I am boastful! fair boastful, my Lady! My secretary and my confidential clerk and my many dark-hued messengers are solemnly impressed with my prowess with gun and spade. The truth shall not be heard in the land. I am my own talebearer and my own censor. I know more about agriculture than the Secretary ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... not reasonable I should continue our engagement to its denouement, since by that boastful parade of skill I have inadvertently turned you into a blind man. Can you not stanch your wound sufficiently to make possible a renewal of our exercise on ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... reverses and overcome them. I hope God will at last crown our efforts with success. But the contest must be long and severe, and the whole country has to go through much suffering. It is necessary we should be humbled and taught to be less boastful, less selfish, and more devoted to right and justice to ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... sun with fans and veils, as only the stately gentlewomen do in Germany and the Netherlands. As a people they are stout-hearted, vehement, eager, cruel in war, zealous in attack, little fearing: death; not revengeful, but fickle, presumptuous, rash, boastful, deceitful, very suspicious, especially of strangers, whom they despise. They are full of courteous and hypocritical gestures and words, which they consider to imply good manners, civility, and wisdom. They ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Apple-Tree disputed as to which was the most beautiful. When their strife was at its height, a Bramble from the neighboring hedge lifted up its voice, and said in a boastful tone: "Pray, my dear friends, in my presence at least cease from ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... committed, and of the consequences which must befall him. How many long, weary nights since he fled from Geneva, with his ill-gotten booty, had he, even in the midst of a bacchanalian revel, started suddenly, as if in fear of the officer he so much dreaded, and then with a boastful laugh drank deeper to drown the agonies that oppressed him? Perhaps, on the other hand, the first step taken, the rest had come easy and without effort, and he had already become hardened and reckless. Whatever might be the case, we were as yet uninformed, and operative ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... and exhilaration of conscious activity. Her imagination was roused by the revival of ancient and now new learning, by the stories of travellers, by the gains of commerce, by the excitements of religion and the alarms of superstition. She was boastful, jealous, quarrelsome, lavish, magnificent, full of fickleness,—exhibiting on all sides the exuberance, the magnanimity, the folly of youth. After the long winter of the Dark Ages, spring had come, and the earth was renewing its beauty. And above all other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... being myself the cause that the execution of yesterday's contract is postponed, I would fain keep it suspended over your head for an indefinite term of years. No one resigns willingly such rights as yesterday gave me; and, let me speak a boastful word, sooner than yield them up to man of woman born, I would hold a fair field against all comers, with grinded sword and sharp spear, from sunrise to sunset, for three days' space. But what I would retain at the price of a thousand ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... excellent, and greatly stimulated our discourse. Yet, I must confess, it was drunk chiefly by the Frenchman and Jordan; for Wells barely touched his glass, while I had never acquired a taste for such liquor. De Croix waxed somewhat boastful, toward the last; but we paid small heed to him, for I was deeply interested in Captain Wells's earlier experiences among the savages, which he related gravely and with much detail. Jordan proved himself a reckless, roistering ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... this speech—half boastful, half bitter—Florence Kearney had reached the hotel where he was stopping—the celebrated "Saint Charles," and entering its grand saloon, sat down to reflect further on the step he ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... as far as I could judge at the distance of half a mile. In the harbour, however, lay a Spanish frigate and French war brig. As we passed the former, some of the Spaniards on board our steamer became boastful at the expense of the English. It appeared that, a few weeks before, an English vessel, suspected to be a contraband trader, was seen by this frigate hovering about a bay on the Andalusian coast, in company with an English frigate, the Orestes. The Spaniard ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... comest, where thou goest, From what lowly tribe descended?" Wainamolinen, wise and ancient, Answered thus the youthful minstrel: "If thou art but Youkahainen, Thou shouldst give me all the highway; I am many years thy senior." Then the boastful Youkahainen Spake again to Wainamoinen: "Young or ancient, little matter, Little consequence the age is; He that higher stands in wisdom, He whose knowledge is the greater, He that is the sweeter singer, He alone shall keep the highway, And the other take the roadside. Art thou ancient ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... mistake, and that slavery was the true condition of labor. That these are the deliberate convictions of the Southern leaders, and these the doctrines on which the Montgomery constitution is based, no reflecting person can hesitate to believe; and the boastful declaration of the rebel vice-president, that slavery was the corner stone of the rebel confederacy, serves to confirm our conclusion beyond possibility of doubt. What these things prove is nothing more nor less than that the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and of a fight in which Drennen had gone down from a bullet fired by Ernestine Dumont, had made up his mind that in the dugout he would come upon a certain type of man which he knew well. He expected to find Drennen half sodden with liquor, garrulous, boastful and withal easy to handle. His estimate changed swiftly, but he altered merely in slight detail his plan of attack. After a keen glance about the dugout his words came smoothly. Drennen was no illiterate miner but he was sorely ridden by poverty, just ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... even a name was now sufficient for the general disaffection to rally round. A pamphlet which was at the time disseminated amongst the people openly called him the heir of Holland; and his engraved portrait, which was publicly exhibited, bore the boastful inscription:— ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... kings of Pontus, Arabia, Judaea, Lycaonia, Galatia, and Media. Thus Octavianus held Rome, with its western provinces and hardy legions, while Antony held the Greek kingdom of Ptolemy Phila-delphus. Cleopatra was confident of success and as boastful as she was confident. Her most solemn manner of promising was: "As surely as I shall issue my decrees from the Roman Capitol." But the mind of Antony was ruined by his life of pleasure. He carried her with him into ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... brightened, and Captain Norton at once saw that in spite of his boastful bearing he would be easily tempted to act any ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... give Hannibal battle, nor expose his troops to any danger, but to pursue steadily the same policy which he himself had followed. He had, however, been in Rome only a short time before tidings came that Minucius had fought a battle and gained a victory. There were boastful and ostentatious letters from Minucius to the Roman senate, lauding the exploit ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of saving many lives. Not a doubt ever touched her that it is right to kill a murderer, an actual and intending murderer, on condition of accepting the penalty. She told no one of the resolution in her mind, and said nothing that was pathetic, and nothing that was boastful. She only replied to Petion's clumsy pleasantries: "Citizen, you speak like that because you do not understand me. One day, you will know." Under a harmless pretext she went to Paris, and saw one of the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... recollection of the time, about fourteen months previous, when we started out from St. Louis, down the "Father of Waters," bound for the "seat of war." The old regiment, in every respect, had greatly changed since that time. Then we were loud, confident, and boastful. Now we had become altogether more quiet and grave in our demeanor. We had gradually realized that it was not a Sunday school picnic excursion we were engaged in, but a desperate and bloody war, and what the individual fate of each of us might be before it was over, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... endued with devotion to his preceptors and with intellect possessed of the eight attributes, who by his abstinence, ability, origin and age, is alone capable of protecting the celestial regions like Mahavat himself; who is never boastful; who showeth proper respect to all; who beholdeth the minutest things as clearly as if those were gross and large; who is sweet-speeched; who showereth diverse kinds of food and drink on his friends and dependents; who is truthful, worshipped of all, eloquent, handsome, and without ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... fill a high post, always believed that his presence on earth was an act of supreme Providence. Philip, in proclaiming his glorious advent for the good of mankind, explained it with a decorum that had a fascinating flavour. Unlike some imitators of great personalities, he was never vulgarly boastful in giving expression to the belief that his power came from above and would be sustained by the mystery that gave him it in such abundance, but, in fact, he never doubted what was known as the doctrine of the divine right ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... owe no allegiance to the puny House of Savoy!" There was no twinkle in the black eyes now; there was a ferocious gleam. It died away quickly, however; the squared shoulders drooped, and there was a deprecating shrug. "Pardon, signore; this is far away from the matter of boots. I grow boastful; I am an old man and should know better. But does the signore return ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... the youthful Joukahainen Uttered words of boastful triumph: "Now thou ancient Vainamoinen, Never while thy life endureth, In the course of all thy lifetime, While the golden moon is shining, 200 Walk in Vainola's fair meadows. Or ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... steadily and strongly for good citizenship. But he never talks boastful Americanism. He seldom speaks in so many words of either Americanism or good citizenship, but he constantly and silently keeps the American flag, as the symbol of good citizenship, before his people. An American flag is prominent in his church; an American flag is seen in his home; ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... herself so;—but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his passion for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy; and we should remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of his own making, which is never shown where love is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... sperit as Cherokee, to whom any form of boastful bluff is plumb reepellant, subscribes to a mod'rate snifter of that licker; an' in less time than it takes to rope a pony, he's out in front of the Red Light, onbucklin' in a display of pistol shootin'. Thar's ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... equivalent at times to absolute abhorrence. The perspective of all things had changed. The men who had once seemed great to him in this little world now appeared in the light of a wider judgment, as they really were—small, boastful, pompous, cowardly, deceitful, pretentious. Franklin was himself now a man, and a man graduated from that severe and exacting school which so quickly matured a generation of American youth. Tall, finely built, well set up, with the self-respecting carriage of the soldier and the direct eye of ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... The boastful squire was richly adorned for the occasion, having already made friends among the ladies of the court, and wearing favors and jewels received at the hands of some of the fairest there. Nor was his boast an empty one. Not a man who faced him was able to hurl him from the saddle, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... a boastful and entirely untruthful declaration that he and Hoddan, together, had slaughtered twenty men in one place and thirty in another, and left ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Changarnier, public reprimands from their constituencies, located in the industrial districts, branding their coalition with the Mountain as an act of high treason to the cause of order. Although, true enough, the boastful, vexatious and petty intrigues, through which the struggle of the party of Order with the President manifested itself, deserved no better reception, yet notwithstanding, this bourgeois party, that expects of its representatives to allow ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... conducted to the spirit world." As an orator, he is said to have been even more powerful than Tecumseh himself, and his great influence in after years among the various tribes would seem to bear that statement out. However, he was boastful, arrogant, at times cruel, and never enjoyed the reputation for honesty and integrity that his more distinguished brother did. In personal appearance he was not prepossessing. He had lost one eye, "which defect he concealed by wearing a dark veil or handkerchief over the disfigured ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... a certain young hero, Perseus, who was hastening homeward after a perilous adventure with the snaky-haired Gorgons. Filled with pity at the story of Andromeda, he waited for the dragon, met and slew him, and set the maiden free. As for the boastful queen, the gods forgave her, and at her death she was set among the stars. That story ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... by Monk, and introduced to the best society of Charles II.'s court, we will follow him to one of Charles II.'s summer residences near the lively little village of Kingston, at Hampton Court, situated on the Thames. The river is not, at that spot, the boastful highway which bears upon its broad bosom its thousands of travelers; nor are its waters black and troubled as those of Cocytus, as it boastfully asserts, "I, too, am cousin of the old ocean." No, at Hampton Court ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... said she, 'you have acquired a bad habit, a very bad habit. Hereafter, whenever you become vain and strut, your head and neck shall become as red as they now are, as a reminder to you and all who see you of how silly it is to be vain and boastful.' ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... the man escaped by producing thirty strophes on the subject next day. The Saxon gleemen were generally of humble origin and not only performed music, but exhibited tricks. So also among the Normans we find the barons originally amusing one another with "gabs," i.e. boastful and exaggerated accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amusement; professed musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were classed ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of Kaheutahi and eaten by his friends, Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and Kaheutahi took his place and became father of the children of the house. He said they were his in fact, but men were ever boastful." ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... acres of land, and a cow-house with three stalls and a stall for the new calf, and a pigsty, and a house for my bones and a barn for my hay and straw, and a loft for my hens: why should men pray for more?" She ambled to Moriah, diverting passers-by with boastful tales of Joseph, and loosened her imaginings ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... of the United States can never recompense the people of Arizona for the atrocities committed by the Apaches. It will never do to make the plea that a government so vain-glorious and boastful could not have conquered this tribe of savages, if the will to do so had existed. Now, after forty years of devastation, the government pays the Apaches one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in goods to maintain a quasi peace. The settlers are not at any time secure against ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... his recovery, Tip Branders had been inclined to be boastful. He had shown his boldness by his thieving exploits and by daring to face the steady rifle fire of Private Hal Overton, United States Army. But when the sentence of the court came upon him Tip broke ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... burial. Conscious that none of their warriors—save Achilles—match Hector, the Greeks at first hesitate, but, among the nine who finally volunteer, Ajax is chosen by lot to be the Greek champion. Overjoyed at this opportunity to distinguish himself, Ajax advances with boastful confidence to meet Hector, who, undismayed by his size and truculent speeches, enters into the fight. The duel is, however, not fought to a finish, for the heralds interrupt it at nightfall, pronouncing ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... a hundred, lay in Vaiusu, a village half way between Apia and Malie; there they talked big, thence sent menacing messages; the gaol should be broken in the night, they said, and the six martyrs rescued. Allowance is to be made for the character of the people of Manono, turbulent fellows, boastful of tongue, but of late days not thought to be answerably bold in person. Yet the moment was anxious. The government of Mulinuu had gained an important moral victory by the surrender and condemnation of the chiefs; and it was needful the victory should be maintained. The guard upon the gaol was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is possible for a man who is poor and has no office ([Greek: anarchonti)] and enjoys no honor to be happy; or to show yourself to them as rich and in power? For the second of these things belong to a man who is boastful, silly, and good for nothing. And consider by what means the pretence must be supported. It will be necessary for you to hire slaves and to possess a few silver vessels, and to exhibit them in public, if it is possible, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... this purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, "l'audace! l'audace! toujours l'au-dace!" but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British officer who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword he would cram the "stamps" down the throats of the American people, and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with a civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... course they avoided the danger of getting lost, such as had overtaken the saddle boys. And if the nerve of Spanish Joe and Nick Jennings continued to hold out, when strange things began to happen, the boastful tenderfoot from the East stood a ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... already spoken frankly of her own appetit sensuel, and she proceeds to show this in the fashion which makes the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth a sort of trough of animalism between the altitudes of Mediaeval and Renaissance passion. Her lover turns out to be an utter cad, boastful, blabbing, and almost cowardly (he tells her in the usual stolen church interview, Je crains merveilleusement monsieur votre mari). But it makes not the slightest difference; nor does the at last awakened wrath of an at last not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... said, "Jack is a curious fellow in some ways—some call him a crank, but he isn't that. Still, he is something of a 'character,' and absolutely unconventional. I remember his making a bet, once, that he would punch out a boastful pugilist at the National Sporting Club—no, it wasn't at the N.S.C., it was at a place down East—'Wonderland,' ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... league of the Iroquois is no more, but in the Empire State of the American Republic the scene of their ancient Indian empire remains. It is left for the white man to commemorate the Indian who made no effort to perpetuate memorials of himself, erected no boastful monuments, and carved no inscriptions to record his many conquests. Having gained great wealth by developing the resources of a land which the Indians used only as hunting grounds, the white man may none the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... new uniforms and rifles and common and lots of nice crisp Bolshevik money and with boastful stories of how they had whipped the invading foreigners on other fields in the fall and with invective against the invaders these leaders soon excited quite a large following of fighting men from the numerous villages. With growing power they rounded up unwilling men and ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... bracelets worn, And none was faithless or forsworn, A braggart or unkind. None lived upon another's wealth, None pined with dread or broken health, Or dark disease of mind. High-souled were all. The slanderous word, The boastful lie, were never heard. Each man was constant to his vows, And lived devoted to his spouse. No other love his fancy knew, And she was tender, kind, and true. Her dames were fair of form and face, With charm of wit and gentle grace, With modest raiment simply neat, And winning ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... at this time but lately returned from his triumphs in South Carolina, and he was more boastful and arrogant than ever. After Washington he was second in command, but he had no doubt in his own mind that he ought to be first. Now he was not slow to let others know what he thought. And while Washington, noble and upright gentleman as he was, trusted ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... is no law against a widow's remarrying forthwith: and widows are quickly made by any champion about whom the wise Norns are already talking. But I must not tell you about that, Niafer, because I do not wish to appear boastful. So I must simply say to you, Niafer, that I am called Manuel, and have no other title as yet, being not yet ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... This boastful phrase might have been prompted by the most profound Machiavelism. Southern natures often hide under the outward impulsiveness of action and speech a certain ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... self-conceit. Self-conceit is ridiculous; conceit is offensive. Self-respect is a thoroughly worthy feeling; self-esteem is a more generous estimate of one's own character and abilities than the rest of the world are ready to allow. Vainglory is more pompous and boastful ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that His Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty; but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice than ever made by any ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light ever afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Several swaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain; it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons, that you were to do good, not because it WAS good, but because you were to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught to read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... little Julian, who now re-entered the hall, leading his little sister, as if he had brought her to bear witness to the boastful tale which he told his father, of his having manfully ridden Black Hastings to the stable-yard, alone in the saddle; and that Saunders though he walked by the horse's head, did not once put his hand upon the rein, and Brewer, though he stood beside him, scarce held him by the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Vain, ridiculously boastful, pleasure chasers, they loved above all else the frolic, the dance, and a good horse. All the way from San Diego to Shasta were located the immense ranchoes, more than six hundred in number, ever since celebrated ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... fact, Jo was convinced that there was no living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death, with more or less ease, by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect,—except, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... spiteful out, make heartless signs, Utter awestricken purpose of no sense,— But I walk quiet, crush aside the hands Stretched furtively to drag me madmen's ways. I know the thing they suffer, and the tricks They must be at to help themselves endure. I would not be too boastful; I am weak, Too weak to put aside the utter ache Of this lone splendor long enough to see Whether the moon is still her white strange self Or something whiter, stranger, even the face Which by the changed face of my risen youth Sang, ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... the remark of the New Zealanders in answer to the commander's praise would be, "Thank you. Why not?" as if this were what the New Zealanders expected of themselves. They take much for granted about New Zealand, without being boastful. ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... avoid exciting any suspicion on the part of their comrades, "we've just got to beat Marshall on Saturday. Why, it'd break the hearts of those pretty girls if we failed. I really believe they'd feel it more than any of us would. And that little spitfire Mollie is crazy to rub it into her boastful friend over at Harmony, too. Oh! we've got our job set out before us for a fact, and must ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... talk like this before. She had often heard these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of incantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the older men together around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful. Khamane then spoke to them and said, "Why should Khama rule you? Remember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away with the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or throw enchanted dice or make incantations ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... Lincoln, there are other respects in which this chapter-house surpasses all its rivals. In size, in richness of decoration, in boldness of outline, and in aerial lightness it is unequalled. Above all, it still contains six windows of magnificent stained glass. Even now it seems to justify its boastful inscription: ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... leads to disaster and suffering. A thorough Yankee—using that word as the English do, to indicate national, not sectional, character—is never satisfied with doing well; he always underrates his gains and his successes; and, though to others he may be boastful enough, and may, even truly, rate the profits of his enterprise by long strings of "naught," he is always whispering to himself, "I ought to do better." If he sees any one accumulating property faster ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... concerned. And soon she found it. The New Day was taking subscriptions for a fund to send sick children and their mothers to the country for a vacation from the dirt and heat of the tenements—for Remsen City, proud though it was and boastful of its prosperity, housed most of its inhabitants in slums—though of course that low sort of people oughtn't really to be counted—except for purposes of swelling census figures—and to do all the rough and dirty work necessary ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... share her brother's boastful triumph. "Do you suppose," she said, wistfully, "that he is like that ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... closed with a resolve to think clearly, closely, to some determination of her life. But Jim's note, which had so roused her amusement, began to force itself in another fashion upon her. She discovered that it was an insufferable note. It insinuated everything, it suggested—everything. It was a boastful messenger. It swaggered male-ishly. It threw out its chest and smacked its lips. "See what a sad dog my master is," it said; "a regular devil of a fellow." Sheila found her thoughts confused by anger. She found that she was too disturbed for any clear decision. She ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the sympathy which Franklin met with from some of the leading members of the opposition, tended still further to embitter the passions which had been roused in the mind of the philosopher. That boastful patriot himself—the great Earl of Chatham—hastened to express his sympathy with Franklin, and his detestation of the treatment he had received from Wedderburne and the government. It is due to the character of Chatham, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Dymov said reluctantly. "Two merchants, father and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up in the inn not far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The old man had a drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him. We all know merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . They can't resist showing off before the likes of us. And at the time some mowers were staying the night at the inn. So they overheard what the merchants said and took ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the humblest of his companions; he scolded his lieutenants, even those of the highest rank. Artillery, provisions, baggage, he insisted upon seeing all himself. He examined the equipment of every soldier; assured himself of the health and soundness of every horse. It was plain that, light, boastful, egotistical, in his hotel, the gentleman became the soldier again—the high noble, a captain—in face of the responsibility he had accepted. And yet, it must be admitted that, whatever was the care with which he presided over the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... loath to appear boastful; but I apprehend the fact to be not unlike what you suggest," the voice replied, with a subdued gusto. "It would depend upon our hypothetical person's discretion, and his views as to the claims of the august Being who has so long controlled the destinies of the human ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... husband, had suddenly broken a silence, saying "Where is Oak?" There was no answer, but the look of the man of whom she had asked the question was such that she was glad to creep from his sight unharmed. Yet once again, months later, she forgot herself and mocked Ab when he had been boastful over some exploit of strength and courage and when he had seemed to say that he knew no fear. She, but to tease him, sprang up with a face convulsed and agonized, and with staring eyes and hands opening and shutting, had cried out "Oak! Oak!" as she had seen Ab do at night. Her mimic terror was ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... of corn or cutting (with sickles) an allotted patch of wheat. Among the men the bravos or bullies often were dandies also in the backwoods fashions, wearing their hair long and delighting in the rude finery of hunting-shirts embroidered with porcupine quills; they were loud, boastful, and profane, given to coarsely bantering one another. Brutally savage fights were frequent; the combatants, who were surrounded by rings of interested spectators, striking, kicking, biting, and gouging. The fall of one of them did not stop the fight, for the man who was down was maltreated without ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and she commanded her invisible servants to serve them with the finest foods and entertain them with the most exquisite music. After the meal was over, the happy girl conducted them about the palace and pointed out to them all its treasures. She was not proud or boastful; she only wanted to show them how kind and thoughtful her husband was. But the sights that met their eyes filled them with envy, and when Psyche left the room to make some further plans for their comfort, one said ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and before her mirror began to dress for a dinner to which she had been invited. So it was Cowperwood's money that had been sustaining them all during the last few years; and she had been so liberal with his means—so proud, vain, boastful, superior. And he had only fixed her with those inquiring, examining eyes. Why? But she did not need to ask herself why. She knew now. What a game he had been playing, and what a silly she had been not ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... did not stop to ask whether the story was probable. They formed their opinion upon the manner of the young chief—upon his grave dignity, and upon the absence of a boastful spirit. ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... of the Lords of the English Admiralty had predicted that in the first naval battle fought between Germany and England, the German fleet would be entirely annihilated. We naturally only smiled in derision at these boastful words. The English newspapers, besides, had for many years announced that whenever German officers met together they drank a toast "To the Day." Although of course this was untrue, yet we were all burning to prove in battle what our great Navy had learned in long, hard-working ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... It is boastful, gallant and brave. It sips wine gracefully and knows how to laugh with refinement, while the broad-bearded jaws are clumsy ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in plenty of time," was his boastful reply. "I'll take some bread-and-butter with me for breakfast, and get a cup of milk from the apple-woman on the beach; and shall be at the pier waiting for you ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... which the Queen might be destroyed. Richelieu considered. If he could but obtain possession of the studs, the rest would be easy. There would be an end—and such an end!—to the King's obstinate, indolent faith in his wife's indifference to that boastful, flamboyant English upstart. Richelieu held his peace for the time being, and wrote to ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... again now, only obliged to keep quiet and give up my grand walking excursions, which poor Robert used to be so boastful of. If he is vain about anything in the world, it is about my improved health, and I used to say to him, 'But you needn't talk so much to people of how your wife walked here with you and there with you, as if a wife with a pair of feet was a miracle ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... ha!" (he laughed bitterly, and with a dash of wild humour in the tone), "to travel under yer care, an' eat yer accursed bread, and—and—oh! there ain't no sitch thing as shame left in my corpus. I'm a low mean-spirited boastful idiot, that's wot I am, an' I don't care the fag-end of a hunk o' gingerbread ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bang;" and his French was a circus all by itself. According to his account, he had been a prime favorite with all the high dignitaries of the war, and he attributed this to the fact that he was not afraid of them. In short, it was the same old flippant, boastful, R-rolling Archibald Archer who had won many a laugh from sober Tom Slade. And here he was again as ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... how hopeful he could be; How in good fortune and in ill the same; Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, Thirsty for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... fixedly deep, as though she were looking into her very soul. And her walk, too, was queer. Natalya moved about the spacious room slowly and carefully, as if something invisible restrained the freedom of her movements. Their house was filled with heavy and coarsely boastful luxury; everything there was resplendent, screaming of the proprietor's wealth, but the Cossack-wife walked past the costly furniture and the silverware in a shy and somewhat frightened manner, as though fearing lest they might seize and choke her. Evidently, the noisy life of the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... suffrage, and appealed to American women from their example. We hear from different sources that American women will attempt, to some extent, to be registered this year as voters, and we hope so brave an example will become a contagion. A boastful warrior once demanded of his foe, "Deliver up your arms." The answer was, "Come, if you dare, and take them!" Let women become brave enough to take their rights, and there will not be much resistance. According to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... on with a boastful, nervous giggle. "I was loaded right to the neck. Oh, she was a daisy. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... and somewhat boastful of our intelligence, we should put the education of the young in wild-life protection ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... and urged the line of 49 deg.. Mr. Crittenden followed in the same vein, and in a reply to Senator William Allen of Ohio, chairman of Foreign Affairs, made a speech abounding in sarcasm and ridicule. The Whigs having in the campaign taken no part in the boastful demand for 54 deg. 40', were not subjected to the humiliation of retracing imprudent steps and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... shapes itself as the hurrying dialogue is read! The key-note of merriment is struck by the Prince himself as he implores the aid of Poins to help him laugh at the excellent trick he has just played on the boastful but craven Falstaff, and the bustle and hilarity of the scene never flags for a moment. Even Francis, the drawer, whose vocabulary is limited to "Anon, anon, sir"—the fellow that had "fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman"—and the host himself, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... particularly gratifying to the three men; for they stood in need of the outfit which it furnished, and were enabled to make a long-desired trip into the virgin East, where miners had not yet appeared. It was brought about by a conversation in the Eldorado Saloon, in which men waxed boastful of their favorite dogs. Buck, because of his record, was the target for these men, and Thornton was driven stoutly to defend him. At the end of half an hour one man stated that his dog could start a sled with five hundred pounds and walk off with it; a second bragged ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... of Telamon. In spite of his small stature, he held his own amongst the other heroes before Troy; he was brave, next to Achilles in swiftness of foot and famous for throwing the spear. But he was boastful, arrogant and quarrelsome; like the Telamonian Ajax, he was the enemy of Odysseus, and in the end the victim of the vengeance of Athene, who wrecked his ship on his homeward voyage (Odyssey, iv. 499). ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all the resources of the University is not to check the natural history department, but to stimulate all the others? not that the zoological school grows too fast, but that the others do not grow fast enough? This sounds invidious and perhaps somewhat boastful; but it is you and not I who have instituted the comparison. It strikes me you have not hit upon the best remedy for this want of balance. If symmetry is to be obtained by cutting down the most vigorous growth, it seems to me it would be better to have a little irregularity here and there. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... 1) outward movements are indications of the inward disposition, and this regards chiefly the passions of the soul. Wherefore Ambrose says (De Offic. i, 18) that "from these things," i.e. the outward movements, "the man that lies hidden in our hearts is esteemed to be either frivolous, or boastful, or impure, or on the other hand sedate, steady, pure, and free from blemish." It is moreover from our outward movements that other men form their judgment about us, according to Ecclus. 19:26, "A man is known by his look, and a wise man, when thou meetest him, is known by his ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 150 Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire; The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar; Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave; Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave: Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of power: A Quaker? sly: A Presbyterian? ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... mixed-bloods, who inflamed his prejudices against the Americans, all had their influence in making of the wily Sioux a determined enemy to the white man. While among his own people he was always affable and genial, he became boastful and domineering in his dealings with the hated race. He once remarked that "if we wish to make any impression upon the pale-face, it is necessary to put ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... provided they immediately leave the country, undertaking never to return; forsooth, the latter part of the arrangement would be no great punishment, as I cannot conceive any one willingly remaining in a land ruled by that despotic and boastful tyrant, Duke Alva. I was permitted to see my wife, and I was thus able to keep up her spirits. My belief is, that the authorities, who have got her in their power, keep her there, in order to see how much they can draw from me. I am now going forth to endeavour to raise the sum they require; at the ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... will be quarrels and bloodshed. Tradition says that there was once a Chinese kingdom at the north of Borneo, whose chiefs married into the families of the principal Dyak chiefs; but it is the misfortune of the Chinese character to be both boastful and cowardly, and when they had irritated the Malays by their big words, they stood no chance of prevailing against them in war. If their enemies did not run away after the first attack and discharge of firearms, they were pretty sure to show them an example by doing so themselves. I speak ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... hell-fires, flaming clamor Lest we fall 'neath the hammer! Too oft we've heard with tremor, How pitiably it grieves The land so pure and holy All helplessly and fearfully! Jerusalem, weep lowly, That thou forgotten art! The heathen's boastful glory Put thee in slavery hoary. Christ, by thy name's proud story In mercy take her part! And help those sorely shaken Who treaties them would maken That we may not be taken And conquered at ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... he exclaimed, in a boastful tone, "do you know that this old fellow lying here, won't get the drink out of the veins of that dainty creature he was so thirsty for? No! nor ever cheat any sweet little Red Riding Hood into thinking him her ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the opportunity, but—for some reason, he knew not why—awkwardly and clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "A boastful tongue is not heard in the heaven of a white man," solemnly returned the old man. "What I have done, He has seen. His eyes are always open. That, which has been well done, will He remember; wherein ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Hasten back, O Shaugodaya! Hasten back among the women, Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart! I will slay you as you stand there, As of old I slew her father!" But my Hiawatha answered, Nothing daunted, fearing nothing: "Big words do not smite like war-clubs, Boastful breath is not a bow-string, Taunts are not so sharp as arrows, Deeds are better things than words are, Actions mightier than boastings!" Then began the greatest battle That the sun had ever looked on, That the war-birds ever witnessed. All a Summer's day it lasted, From the sunrise to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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