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More "Vainglorious" Quotes from Famous Books



... edicts. In truth, this most vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men perhaps scarcely comprehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, however, somewhat vainglorious immediately after his return, and excessively attentive to business. "He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a Steve Girard. An' he knows it. Wherefore this yere crafty sharp starts in to cinch a play; starts in to defy fate, an' rope up an' brand the footure, for at least six months to come. An', jest as I argues, Destiny accepts the challenge of this vainglorious sharp; acccepts it with a grin. Yere's what he does, an' yere's what comes to pass. "'Our wise, forethoughtful sport seeks out the robber who keeps the tavern. "The ponies will be back in May," says he, "an' I'm perishin' of cur'osity to know how ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... thinks himself lucky, since the bond between the pair is of such a nature as to involve a real partnership—a partnership full of perplexity to the working member of it, the ordinary forensic creature of senses, passions, ambitions, and self-indulgences, the eating, sleeping, vainglorious, assertive male of common experience—and it is not to be denied that it has been fruitful, nor again that by some freak of fate or fortune the house has kept a decent front to the world at large. It is still solvent, still favourably regarded by the police. ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... not take long to decide, and a very short time saw Surbridge Hall once more in the ancient line; and old Mr Roe, in relating the means he used to expel the vainglorious descendant of his partner, generally concluded with the moral, if not the words of Shakspeare—"Men's pleasant vices make whips ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... the truth of Bridgenorth's observation, he felt indignant at his ill-timed triumph. "If fortune had followed worth," he said, "the Castle of Martindale, and the name of Peveril, had afforded no room for their enemy's vainglorious boast. But those who have stood high on Fortune's wheel, must abide by the consequence of its revolutions. This much I will at least say for my father's house, that it has not stood unhonoured; nor will ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... whose hearts most generous sentiments knock in vain, who still are overawed and bowed by the magnitude of this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it, the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the swaggering braggart—the vainglorious lord of what he sees—the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of everything—to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos. He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the few, small, pitiful things ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... inwardly and outwardly, it is still under the sway of unbelief, impiety and disobedience. Man is called old, not because of his years; for it is possible for a man to be young and strong and vigorous and yet to be without faith or a religious spirit, to despise God, to be greedy and vainglorious, or to live in pride or the conceit of wisdom and power. But he is called the old man because he is unconverted, unchanged from his original condition as a sinful descendant of Adam. The child of a ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... appreciation. They were all proud of him, in so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against people who were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as "taking credit." They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulged in vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he had said, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort of frigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personal sense of right; and there can, ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... of France, of Spain, of Germany and of England, had flowed, and were destined still to flow, for the gratification of a man who wanted the vulgar courage which was found in the meanest of the hundreds of thousands whom he had sacrificed to his vainglorious ambition? ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... bullying. It is true that your own lips are not soiled by the utterance of all the mean words that are spoken for you, and that you don’t even know of the sham threats, and the false promises, and the vainglorious boasts, put forth by your dragoman; but now and then there happens some incident of the sort which I have just been mentioning, which forces you to believe, or suspect, that your dragoman is habitually ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoffing and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... in a den of lions, while the sensual and simoniacal Pope is to have his flesh torn with red-hot iron. And we have—although here Vicente discreetly went to the Danza de la Muerte for his satire—the vainglorious and tyrannical Emperor, the Duke who had adored himself and the King who had allowed himself to be adored. There are the careless hedonistic Count more given to love than to charity or churchgoing, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... proved, as Sanza had said, to be a genuine Muramasa. Sanza was delighted at the verdict; but the other two went home rather crestfallen. Umanojo, although he had been worsted in the argument, bore no malice nor ill-will in his heart; but Banzayemon, who was a vainglorious personage, puffed up with the idea of his own importance, conceived a spite against Sanza, and watched for an opportunity to put him to shame. At last, one day Banzayemon, eager to be revenged upon Sanza, went to the Prince, and said, "Your lordship ought to see Sanza fence; his swordsmanship ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... Vainglorious bird of Gaul, or of the island contiguous, wait a moment ere you crow before the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... triumphant issue in his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Shakespeare's treatment of eccentric character like Don Armado in 'Love's Labour's Lost' and his boy Moth reads like a reminiscence of Lyly's portrayal of Sir Thopas, a fat vainglorious knight, and his boy Epiton in the comedy of 'Endymion,' while the watchmen in the same play clearly adumbrate Shakespeare's Dogberry and Verges. The device of masculine disguise for love-sick maidens was characteristic of Lyly's method before Shakespeare ventured on it for the first of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a smile on his lips. He felt he had already become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... the day he had settled for his departure, as he sat thinking how he would go down to the lake in a few hours, a letter started to his mind which, as well as he could remember, was written in a foolish, vainglorious mood—a stupid letter that must have made him appear a fool in her eyes. Had he not said something about—The thought eluded him; he could only remember the general tone of his letter, and in it he seemed to consider Nora as a sort ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... but had also been employed on the staff of General Williams, and had been for several years in the consular service. He was, in all respects, well fitted for his post; but, unfortunately for him, when he entered Abyssinia he had to deal with a fascinating, vainglorious, shrewd man, hiding his cunning under an appearance of modesty: in a word, with Theodore who had become an over-bearing despot. On his first arrival, Cameron was received with great honours, and treated by the Emperor with marked respect, and when he left in October, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... he had the most amazing self-confidence, with not a particle of reverence for any man, whatever his rank or culture. He thought no one his superior. Colonel Coffee paid very little respect to his vainglorious report. In the following characteristic strain Crockett comments ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... than I have been for a long time. Waste myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh well," I thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... all others in personal prowess and valor, in a manner very eloquent indeed, and in a style which it seems was very much admired in those days as evincing only a proper spirit and energy,—though in our times such a harangue would be very apt to be regarded as only a vainglorious and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... sled of saplings, of the kind known to hunters as a "scoot," and drew the bear home; and from the vainglorious talk of Willis one might have thought us the three most valiant lads that ever ranged the forest! John and I said little. It was rather fine to be considered heroes, who would not leave a bear even to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... was opposed to the measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy. Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely remain in their city ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... disqualify themselves for the great role of world-wide emancipation, which some religion at some time will certainly have to play. It is the same difficulty which is looming large in modern World-politics, where the local selfishness and vainglorious "patriotisms" of the Nations are sadly impeding and obstructing the development of that sense of Internationalism and Brotherhood which is the clearly indicated form of the future, and which alone can give each nation deliverance from fear, and a promise of growth, and the confident ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... whose correspondence interlarded with flashes of wit, pungencies, archaisms and enigmas, allured him. He willingly re-read the panegyrics in which this bishop invokes pagan deities in substantiation of his vainglorious eulogies; and, in spite of everything, he confessed a weakness for the affectations of these verses, fabricated, as it were, by an ingenious mechanician who operates his machine, oils his wheels and invents intricate and ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... and spirits, that the best-educated people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... mighty warlords, the might of three was much more in their armies than in themselves. Cruel Philip was not a warrior of any kind. Ambitious Louis and the vainglorious Kaiser were only second-rate soldiers, who would never have won their own way to the highest command. But Napoleon was utterly different. He was as great a master of the art of war on land as Nelson was by sea; and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... the courageous developments of the man. He soon evinced the sagacity, cunning, perseverance, and heroic courage which constitute the admiration of the Indians. And he relied largely upon these in the gratification of an ambitious, vainglorious, and mischief-loving disposition. In wisdom and energy he was superior to any one who had ever lived before. Yet he was simple when circumstances required it, and was ever the object of tricks and ridicule in others. He could transform himself into any animal he pleased, being ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... those whose protectors and supporters are sustaining the country's honor in the field; evidences more striking than the founding of charitable institutions or benevolent societies, since the latter may, and too often does, arise from the most selfish and vainglorious motive, while in the former the individual is lost in the many who press eagerly to bear their part in a noble work, in this spontaneous outpouring of true and heartfelt benevolence. From this same spirit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... might. They are, again, fighting for their own sake. Why should not they, O Bharata, be able to slay thy troops. Thou, however, O king, art exceedingly covetous. Thou, O Kaurava, art deceitful. Thou art vainglorious and suspicious of everything. For this, thou suspectest even us. I think, O king, thou art wicked, of sinful soul, and an embodiment of sin. Mean and of sinful thoughts, thou doubtest us and others. As regards myself, fighting with resolution for thy sake, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... pikes, and they fell back with heavy loss. On the 20th Bonaparte raised the siege which had cost him nearly 5,000 men by war and sickness. Smith received the thanks of parliament and a pension of L1,000 a year. Though vainglorious and arrogant, he conducted the defence of Acre with sound judgment as well as with energy and courage. By weary marches through the desert, Bonaparte led his army back to Egypt, where he defeated an invasion of Turks. Smith sent him a bundle of newspapers, and from them he received tidings ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... will. They who bid me speak now, are willing that you should learn some lesson to benefit yourselves, and your fellow men. They say to you, oh Poet, 'Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.' Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility of opening other eyes to the beauty, and other minds ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... frivolous modes of dealing with the rights of races to self-development! Because Englishmen may be classified as hard and conceited, Frenchmen as capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious, shall these therefore be slaves? And where is that model race which shall sway them all? A people may have grave defects, but it may not therefore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... prizes had been captured, and he launched forth into a long and vainglorious account (why must the French always boast of their successes?). I affected to be greatly impressed by his tale of daring, and invited him to sup with me, so that I might hear more of his adventures at length. As I had guessed, he replied, regretfully, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... his haste, in his vainglorious delight, he bore Jansoulet off so quickly that the latter had no time to present his companion, Paul de Gery, to whom he was giving his first entry into society. The young man welcomed this forgetfulness. He slipped away among the crowd of black dress-coats constantly pressed ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... the Thersites of the campaign, and with one advantage over his prototype—he really wanted to fight. So he swaggered, heeding not the reproving spear; he fumed; he mocked; for no warrior affected to notice his vainglorious absurdities. He was as much in earnest as those who fought on account of elemental love, and far more so than any of the blusterers who talked big and looked small. He longed to fight, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... and, it must be added, to his relief, also, his apprehensions proved to be groundless. The only emotions aroused in Noel Vanstone's mind by a perusal of the letter were a hearty admiration of his friend's idea, and a vainglorious anxiety to claim the credit to himself of being the person who carried it out. Examples may be found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found occasionally of a fool who is not cunning; but it may reasonably be doubted ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... type of criminal who is greedy—for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish—with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty—with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious—with pride in his skill to thwart justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I am the wriggling little ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... fears of the result; the Corsair city would fall at the mere sight of his immense flotilla; and in this vainglorious assurance he set out in October, 1541. He even took Spanish ladies on board to view his triumph. The season for a descent on the African coast was over, and every one knew that the chance of effecting anything before the winter storms should guard the coast from any floating enemy was more than ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Judith, who was some years his senior, sat behind his tea-urn on most occasions and made it possible for the young things of society to flutter in as freely as they willed. The young things came to little in themselves, but some of them had vainglorious mothers and ambitious, pomp-loving fathers, and who could tell in what richly promising crevice their light-minded chatter might lodge and sprout? So Daffingdon and his sister encouraged them to come, and the young things came gladly, willing enough to meet with a break in the ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... with the commander in chief three men who died hated and scorned by their countrymen. The first was Horatio Gates, a vainglorious man, given to intrigue and treachery. Next came tall and slovenly Charles Lee of Virginia, a restless adventurer, who, by his cowardice in the battle of Monmouth, stirred even Washington to anger. Then there was a young man for whom Washington had a ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... for no vainglorious purpose. We should remind ourselves constantly that we have a history behind us, that we have a character to sustain. Are we of this generation worthy descendants of tea spillers and abolitionists? Are we living up to the traditions of the Commonwealth, to the principles of the fathers in relation ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... and rendered furious by the pillage of all the houses of the patriots at Chataigneraie—to which town Chalbos with seven thousand troops had marched—it was against him that the Vendeans first moved. Chalbos, who had occupied his time in issuing vainglorious proclamations, and in writing assurances to the Convention that the Vendeans were so panic stricken that the war was virtually over, only saved his army by a long and painful night march back to Fontenay. Here the troops lay down to sleep, feeling certain that there ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... words to my companions. I told them that there would soon be a serious demand on their modesty. We had performed a great and generous exploit, and it did not become us to lessen its merit by betraying a vainglorious self-esteem. I implored them all to take pattern by me; promising, in the end, that their new friends would trebly prize their hardihood, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... been accustomed to sit a horse before, his thoroughbred had flung him against a tree so severely that the taste for equitation had gone out of him for ever. Be this as it may, M. Rajon was far from being vainglorious; he knew his value as an artist, frankly and openly enjoyed his success, but remained simple, urbane, and courteous. He told us that he could only give two hours a day to original work, and that his mother (a simple woman for whom art remained an incomprehensible mystery) could not admit this ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... the Island of Guernsey, and had served with the armies of Britain in many parts of the world, being also present with Nelson at Copenhagen; but had already served officially in Canada for ten years before the war. He now found himself opposed to the vainglorious Hull; nor was it long before he justified his reputation and won glory for the arms of Canada by capturing the American General at Detroit, together with 2500 troops and thirty-three cannon. Brock's ally on this occasion was the Chief Tecumseh, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... "directly" came home to me. But merely flicking the ashes from his cigarette, he glanced round the room without offering the slightest recognition, and then disappeared. How he made his change from civilian clothes so quickly I can't understand. It seemed like a vainglorious display of his uniform in order to let us take full cognizance ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... starvation, but the peril seemed forgotten while the dream lasted. The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be injured, and not advanced, by such outrages ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... Marechal de Biron, when, in the vainglorious hope of one day becoming the sovereign of certain of the French provinces, he voluntarily trampled under foot every obligation of loyalty and gratitude, and leagued himself with the enemies of his royal master, to wrest from him the sceptre ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... the deepest sorrows I have ever known—perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I have never been so mercifully supported under it. It is a good and profitable sorrow I trust for me: it has made so much in me reveal itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious. It has, I hope, helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God's blessing the beginning of more earnest life-long repentance and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery, in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon taste. It is addressed ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... appeared to have spoken freely about our projects, greatly exalting and exaggerating their importance; indeed, he could scarcely have said more if we had been traveling as accredited agents between two belligerent powers. Such vainglorious garrulity was not only intensely provoking, but involved real peril to all parties concerned. I thought the Irishman was perfectly right in taking that blundering bull by the horns, and acting decisively ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... both cheeks, after the manner of foolish men, David gravely got him to his home and to a sound sleep that night. Next morning, the remembrance of the pleasant smiting roused him to an outwardly sedate and inwardly vainglorious courage. Going with steady steps to the Friends' meeting-house at the appointed time, the Spirit moved him, after a decorous pause, to announce his intended marriage to the prettiest Quaker in Framley, even the maid who had shocked the community's sense of decorum and had been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a swordsman ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... weakest of mortals, was, nevertheless, by a common fatality attending such men, the most vainglorious; he yielded precedence to every petty officer of the Crown, and yet in his own house would not give the right-hand to any person of quality that came to him about business. My behaviour was the reverse of his in almost ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... importance in the scheme and the honors which his position in certain companies would heap upon him, that an abyss had yawned before him of which he had been wholly unaware. He was not unaware of it now. He was a vainglorious, ignorant man, whose life had been spent in common work done under the supervision of those who knew what he did not know. He had fed himself upon the comforting belief that he had learned all the tricks of any trade. He had been openly boastful of his astuteness ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the conquering dog until now. He had so far been the victim of the sex, and in his own small way had suffered scorn and beguilement enough. What with the luncheon and the sticky champagne, he began to feel mighty and vainglorious, and he took the airs which he supposed to be appropriate to the situation. He praised the lady, therefore, with a humorous appreciation of the manner in which she accepted flatteries which were passed, so to say, upon a shovel, and he ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible confidence in his own resources, no danger could appall and no toil could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher the charm; for his soul revelled in excitement, and the enterprise without peril ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... it. Nobody knows about it but me, and I don't tell everything I sees unless there's something to be got by it. A still tongue makes a wise 'ead, I say," said William Roper, with a somewhat vainglorious air. ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... glory" was to be the day of military power. Carlyle said of Germany and France in November, 1870, "that noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest army in Europe—an ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... writs in pursuit of him, it continually changed its lodgings; whilst others have lustily sworn that the soul was a vagrant, with no claim to any place of settlement whatever. Nevertheless, a vulgar notion has obtained that the soul dwelt on a little knob of the brain; and that there, like a vainglorious bantam-cock on a dunghill, it now claps its wings and crows all sorts of triumph—and now, silent and scratching, it thinks of nought but wheat and barley. The first step to knowledge is to confess to a late ignorance. We avow, then, our late benighted condition. We were of the number ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... would afford him even greater pleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a well-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations of those who are ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... He just run up a storm sail and beat for harbor back of the barn. And from the piazza Milo cackled vainglorious. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... with the conflict between the human state, simple, without pomp, without dramatic symbols—the republic as we men of the twentieth century understand it, and as you Americans conceive and practise it—and the monarchy of divine right, vainglorious, full of ceremonies and etiquette, despotic in internal constitution, which still exists in Europe under more or less spurious forms. Now it is easy to explain how, in an age in which the contest between these two conceptions and these two forms of the ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... and upon whose hearts most generous sentiments knock in vain, who still are overawed and bowed by the magnitude of this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it, the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the swaggering braggart—the vainglorious lord of what he sees—the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of everything—to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos. He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the few, small, pitiful things ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... King of England was informed that the Duke of Buckingham, for reasons well known to himself, would not be agreeable as Charles's ambassador to his Most Christian Majesty. Upon learning this, the vainglorious Buckingham was loud in proclaiming the reason ("well known to himself") and in protesting that he would go to France to see the Queen with the French King's consent or without it. This was duly reported to Richelieu, and by Richelieu to King Louis. But his Most Christian ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... warlords, the might of three was much more in their armies than in themselves. Cruel Philip was not a warrior of any kind. Ambitious Louis and the vainglorious Kaiser were only second-rate soldiers, who would never have won their own way to the highest command. But Napoleon was utterly different. He was as great a master of the art of war on land as Nelson was by sea; and that is one reason why Nelson, who caused ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... bloody and swollen eyes rolled up and set, while the mucker threw the inert form roughly from him. Quick to the girl's memory sprang Mallory's recent declaration, which she had thought at the time but the empty, and vainglorious boasting of the man in love—"Why I'd die for you, Barbara, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... prominence desirable; not one whose writings betrayed egotism, self-inflation or bombast. Such was their honest aversion to personal publicity, it is now almost impossible to trace the work each did. Some of their noblest arguments for Freedom were published anonymously. They made no vainglorious claims to the original authorship of ideas. But never in the history of reform was work better done than the old American Anti-Slavery Society did from its formation in 1833 to its disruption in 1840. In less than seven years it regained for Freedom most of the vantage-ground ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... decide the point; and the sword proved, as Sanza had said, to be a genuine Muramasa. Sanza was delighted at the verdict; but the other two went home rather crestfallen. Umanojo, although he had been worsted in the argument, bore no malice nor ill-will in his heart; but Banzayemon, who was a vainglorious personage, puffed up with the idea of his own importance, conceived a spite against Sanza, and watched for an opportunity to put him to shame. At last, one day Banzayemon, eager to be revenged upon Sanza, went to the Prince, and said, "Your lordship ought to see ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... swung his free arm under the detective's lifted guard, not in Yokohama style but in the best manner of the old English prize ring, his clenched fist falling full on the point of the heart, full on the unguarded solar-plexus nerves which God put there for the undoing of the vainglorious fighters. And Coquenil dropped like a smitten ox with this thought humming in his darkening brain: "It was the left that ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... Monsieur Graslin sent an architect to Montegnac. The banker intended to restore the chateau, gardens, terrace, and park, and also to connect the castle grounds with the forest by a plantation. He set himself to make these improvements with vainglorious activity. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... the same floor; being, in fact, the back parlour; and had, as Mrs Todgers said, the great advantage (in London) of not being overlooked; as they would see when the fog cleared off. Nor was this a vainglorious boast, for it commanded at a perspective of two feet, a brown wall with a black cistern on the top. The sleeping apartment designed for the young ladies was approached from this chamber by a mightily convenient little ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... cook! I believe that he would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous, vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we could more or less guard against it. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... A Melancholy Man A Sailor A Soldier A Tailor A Puritan A Mere Common Lawyer A Mere Scholar A Tinker An Apparitor An Almanac-Maker A Hypocrite A Chambermaid A Precisian An Inns of Court Man A Mere Fellow of a House A Worthy Commander in the Wars A Vainglorious Coward in Command A Pirate An Ordinary Fence A Puny Clerk A Footman A Noble and Retired Housekeeper An Intruder into Favour A Fair and Happy Milkmaid An Arrant Horse-Courser A Roaring Boy A Drunken Dutchman resident in England ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... and slumped on the cushions. As for Cap'n Jonadab Wixon, he'd stopped yellin', but his face was one broad, serene grin. His mouth, through the dust and the dirt caked around it, looked like a rain gully in a sand-bank. And, occasional, he crowed, hoarse but vainglorious. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... transfigured, and Monsieur remains his truculent, vainglorious self, Montsurry has suffered a strange degeneration. It is sufficiently remarkable, to begin with, after his declaration at ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... somewhat favoured by a great man of the church and a great estate, one of the greatest in all that country there. And indeed, whosoever could spend as much as he could for one thing and another, would be a right great estate in any country of Christendom. But vainglorious was he, very far above all measure. And that was great pity, for it did harm and made him abuse many great gifts that God had given him. Never was he satiated with hearing ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I books of eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a damnable and vainglorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." But this book altered my affections, and turned ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... idle, even to his mind, desirous as he must have been of every species of defence, were all the vainglorious mouthings of the pettifogger! He soon discovered that the ambition of Pippin chiefly consisted in the utterance of his speech. He saw, too, in a little while, that the nonsense of the lawyer had not even the solitary merit—if such it be—of being extemporaneous; and in the slow and monotonous ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... been visited by the ticklish Tarasconnais. Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a humorous light upon some of the more vivid phases of the Provencal character he selected Tarascon at a venture; not because the temperament of its natives is more vainglorious than that of their neighbours, or their rebellion against the "despotism of fact" more marked, but simply because he had to name a particular Provencal city. Tartarin is a hunter of lions and charmer of women, a true "produit du midi," as Daudet ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... a stately red-brick and freestone house upon the southern verge of the great plateau of moorland which ranges northward to the confines of Windsor Forest and eastward to the Surrey Hills. And this he did in no vainglorious spirit, with purpose of exalting himself above the county gentlemen, his neighbours, and showing how far better lined his pockets were than theirs. Rather did he do it from an honest love of all that is ingenious and comely, and as the natural outgrowth of an inquiring ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... thou yield to Fate, Minion of Fortune, now miscalled in vain! Can vantage-ground no confidence create, Marcella's pass, nor Guarda's mountain-chain? Vainglorious fugitive! yet turn again! Behold, where, named by some prophetic Seer, Flows Honour's Fountain, {2} as foredoomed the stain From thy dishonoured name and arms to clear - Fallen Child of Fortune, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... Martial, if we two could be To enjoy our days set wholly free; To the true life together bend our mind, And take a furlough from the falser kind. No rich saloon, nor palace of the great, Nor suit at law should trouble our estate; On no vainglorious statues should we look, But of a walk, a talk, a little book, Baths, wells and meads, and the veranda shade, Let all our travels and our toils be made. Now neither lives unto himself, alas! And the good suns we see, that flash and pass And perish; and the bell that knells them cries: "Another ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... is at hand when he may choose it, if he will. They who bid me speak now, are willing that you should learn some lesson to benefit yourselves, and your fellow men. They say to you, oh Poet, 'Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.' Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... regaining possession of the capital. His plan was rejected by Charles. The patience of the sensitive and vainglorious hero was worn out. He had none of that serenity of temper which enabled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony with Eugene, and to endure the vexatious interference of the Dutch deputies. He demanded permission to leave the army. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... have been more written about and fought over than those of Amerigo Vespucci. Some will have it that he went only two voyages, and say he was a braggart and a vainglorious fool if he said he went more. Others think that he went at least four voyages and probably six. And most people are now agreed that these last are right, and that he who gave his name to the great double Continent of America was ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... filled with snow, which, being partly thawed, furnished an uncertain footing for the horses, and I could not but join in the ringing laughter of oar Frenchmen as occasionally Brunet and Souris, the two ponies, would flounder, almost imbedded, through the yielding mass. Even the vainglorious Plante, who piqued himself on his equestrian skill, was once or twice nearly unhorsed, from having chosen his road badly. Sometimes the elevations were covered with a thicket or copse, in which our dogs would ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... twenty-eighth place in the list of National League pitchers, finished third in the earned run computation, showing that if he had been given proper support he probably would have been one of the topmost pitchers of the league, even on the basis of percentage of games won, which is more vainglorious than absolutely truthful. ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... training. No one else can do it for him. The assumption of superiority over his opponent will riot develop his suppleness of body and strength of muscle. To be sure, faith and courage are essential to—victory, but they must be backed by careful and persistent training. Vainglorious boasting alone will ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... therefore, called in; and deducting eight thousand men destined for the siege of Mantua, he still had an army of nearly forty thousand men wherewith to meet the Austrians. There was, of course, some disaffection among his generals. Augereau was vainglorious and bitter, Massena felt that he had not received his due meed of praise for Bassano, and both had sympathizers even in the ranks. This was inevitable, considering Bonaparte's policy and system, and somewhat interfered with the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... way in the courageous developments of the man. He soon evinced the sagacity, cunning, perseverance, and heroic courage which constitute the admiration of the Indians. And he relied largely upon these in the gratification of an ambitious, vainglorious, and mischief-loving disposition. In wisdom and energy he was superior to any one who had ever lived before. Yet he was simple when circumstances required it, and was ever the object of tricks and ridicule in ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... she knows perfectly well that she has still greater obligations to discharge, that she must fulfil the countless demands of a vanity that enters into every fibre of that living organism called society. Love, for her, is above all things, and by its very nature, a vainglorious, brazen-fronted, ostentatious, thriftless charlatan. If at the Court of Louis XIV. there was not a woman but envied Mlle. de la Valliere the reckless devotion of passion that led the grand monarch to tear the priceless ruffles at his wrists ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... moderation of the edicts. In truth, this most vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men perhaps scarcely comprehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, however, somewhat vainglorious immediately after his return, and excessively attentive to business. "He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged with petitioners, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... remember the vainglorious way in which Germany's enemies foretold that before long their armies would meet in the heart of Germany, where Cossacks would parade the streets of Berlin and Indian lancers and Gurkhas would stroll through the parks of Potsdam. The German fleet, it was asserted, would be at the bottom ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... second to Voltaire, though at an immense distance, in the literary society which had been assembled at the Prussian Court. Frederic had, by playing for his own amusement on the feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to set his mark—a mark never to be effaced;—on the forehead of Maupertuis, and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and indeed was opposed to the measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy. Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... pleasure of travelling in Asia is the being obliged, more or less, to make your way by bullying. It is true that your own lips are not soiled by the utterance of all the mean words that are spoken for you, and that you don’t even know of the sham threats, and the false promises, and the vainglorious boasts, put forth by your dragoman; but now and then there happens some incident of the sort which I have just been mentioning, which forces you to believe, or suspect, that your dragoman is habitually fighting ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... of the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantly that he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace as any grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been more personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... passed, and within another brief span the trade of China and Japan. It is a glorious destiny for a man—one man!—to pass into history as the Russian of his century who has done most to add to the extent and the wealth and the power of his empire! Does that sound vainglorious, and do you resent it? You must not, I tell you, you ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... is called emphatically "his god." In temper he is hasty and violent, but not obstinate; his fierce resolves are taken suddenly and as suddenly repented of; he is moreover capable of bursts of gratitude and devotion, no less than of accesses of fury; like most Orientals, he is vainglorious but he can humble himself before the chastening hand of the Almighty; in his better moods he shows a spirit astonishing in one of his country and time—a spirit of real piety, self-condemnation, and self-abasement, which renders him one of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... a vainglorious announcement of the Vikzhel, threatening to strike if both sides ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... indignities he had offered to our ambassador; but the real ground of quarrel was to be found in an official gasconade of Bonaparte's, in which he declared that "Britain could not contend single handed against France," a vainglorious boast, which (in those days at least) touched a chord which thrilled the patriotic feelings of every Englishman that ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... his seamen who helped to drive them out with their pikes, and they fell back with heavy loss. On the 20th Bonaparte raised the siege which had cost him nearly 5,000 men by war and sickness. Smith received the thanks of parliament and a pension of L1,000 a year. Though vainglorious and arrogant, he conducted the defence of Acre with sound judgment as well as with energy and courage. By weary marches through the desert, Bonaparte led his army back to Egypt, where he defeated an invasion of Turks. Smith sent him a bundle ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... 6. Vainglorious ostentation this way is very blamable. All ambition, all vanity, all conceitedness, upon whatever ground they are founded, are absolutely unreasonable and silly; but yet those being grounded on some real ability, or some useful skill, are wise and manly in comparison ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he could pass through a graveyard at night without fear at ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... of Rouen was followed within a few weeks by the death of the King of Navarre. His painful wound was not, perhaps, necessarily mortal, but the restless and vainglorious prince would not remain quiet and allow it to heal. He insisted on being borne in a litter through the breach into the city which had been taken under his nominal command. It was a sort of triumphal procession, marching to the sound of cymbals, and with other marks of victory. But the idle pageant ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... readily understand that the present difficulties in Kabul cause him endless anxiety, considering the position of his dominions. The unexpected turn of events, following now so rapidly on each other since the English wantonly sacrificed Cavagnari and his friends to a vainglorious love of bravado, has shaken the confidence of the native princes in the stability of English rule. They are frightened out of their senses, having the fear of the tribes before them if the English should be worsted; and they dread, on the other hand, lest the English, finding themselves ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... particular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea they could not have failed to express it. But then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. It is interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course, men have been higher than this both in balloons and in the ascent ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sharp and boisterously the cowherds, shepherds, and farmers of Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoffing and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... with such frivolous modes of dealing with the rights of races to self-development! Because Englishmen may be classified as hard and conceited, Frenchmen as capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious, shall these therefore be slaves? And where is that model race which shall sway them all? A people may have grave defects, but it may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... whom we see before us, and around us, and beneath us, are but a herd of slaves; gulled and vainglorious slaves!" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... in wit, beauty, and accomplishment those of the whole world, and challenged any knight to dispute it. Thereupon appeared the seven knights of The Burning Mountain, and by their herald announced that they would disprove by arms the vainglorious assertions of the knights of The Blended Rose and show that the ladies of The Burning Mountain as far excelled all others in charms as the knights themselves surpassed all others in prowess. Upon this a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... peril seemed forgotten while the dream lasted. The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be injured, and not advanced, by such outrages as before and since his day ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... a perpetual crick in the back, he insisted that he was still an abler seaman than ninety-five per cent, of the thirty-year-olds who followed the sea for a living. When Captain Trigger announced his resolve to stay on board, where he belonged, these vainglorious old seadogs elected to remain ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... leads the path To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads, 110 To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... destroyed the royal palace by fire, an act which has been variously estimated by historians. Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and condemned as a senseless and vainglorious work of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of him, in so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against people who were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as "taking credit." They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulged in vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he had said, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort of frigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personal sense of right; and there can, perhaps, be no better proof of the high esteem in which ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... see Small hope indeed for Hen-alie; And thus you clearly will perceive That who has great things to achieve Must not stand talking but must do, Else he will fail like Cock-alu. For he who would perform the most Will utter no vainglorious boast; But still press onward, staunch and true, With but the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... empty-headed ability to tie a ribbon well. She was so occupied with resenting the young teacher's feeling of vast superiority that she failed to understand, as did the Farnshaw child, that along with all that vainglorious assumption went a real knowledge of some things with which it ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the custom obtains among the women—though less now than of old—of sending a fougasso as a Christmas gift to each of their intimates. As this custom had in it something more than a touch of vainglorious emulation, I well can understand why it has fallen into desuetude in the vicinity of Vielmur—where Mise Fougueiroun's inspired kitchening throws all other cook-work hopelessly into the shade. As I ate the "horns" (as its fragments are called) of my fougasso ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... lisped out, 'Sherry, sir?' Only imagine being handed one's fish by the envoy that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the accomplished writer of 'Orley Farm'! Picture a succession of celebrities in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious sentiment of the man that could say, 'Lyons, a little more fat;' or, 'Carlyle, madeira;' and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so gracefully handed you by 'Lost and Saved,' and the culminating pride of taking your flat candlestick from the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... foreman of Alamito Ranch, was in charge of the expedition that rode late that afternoon against Macdonald's homestead to liberate Mark Thorn, and close his mouth in the cattlemen's effective way upon the bloody secrets which he might in vainglorious boast reveal. Chadron had promised rewards for the successful outcome of the venture, and Chance Dalton rode with his three picked men in ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... would prove more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow. He promised his Tennessee and Kentucky soldiers that their feet should soon tread their "native soil," etc., etc. He made no concealment of these vainglorious boasts, and thus gave us the full key to his future designs. To be forewarned was to be forearmed, and I think we took full advantage ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... ban the new inquisitiveness. The intercourse with familiar spirits is condemned as a theological offence, a vainglorious and futile storming of the citadel of God. The secret of the tomb must be preserved, though the masses of Christendom have ceased to believe in the long and mouldering sleep of the centuries before the summons to the Judgment. They ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... had kept up the appearance of being hurt every few minutes, just as a precaution. Then even that had ceased and I had dropped into vainglorious apathy. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt for this vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species, who spent his nights in his country ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... of life's beautiful hours, she thought, as in a great splash of salt water she reached the buoy, and hung laughing and panting to its restless bulk. Ward had preceded her by a full minute, Richard was half a minute behind her. With much vainglorious boasting from the men, they all rested there before the homeward swim. Harriet hardly spoke, her cup was full to the brim with a mysterious felicity born of the summer hour, the heaving waters, and the joyous mood of father and son. When Richard ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris









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