"Boasting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the female hell; To the great God of Love a glad farewell. 80 Is this the triumph of thy awful name? Are these the splendid hopes that urged thy aim, When first my bosom own'd thy haughty sway? When thus Minerva heard thee, boasting, say— 'Go, martial maid, elsewhere thy arts employ, Nor hope to shelter that devoted boy. Go teach the solemn sons of Care and Age, The pensive statesman, and the midnight sage; The young with me must other lessons prove, Youth calls for ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... lead it and use it for the highest purposes of the world and of democracy? We can do what we like if we go about it heartily and with good manners (any man prefers to yield to a gentleman rather than to a rustic) and throw away—gradually—our isolating fears and alternate boasting and bashfulness. "What do we most need to learn from you?" I asked a gentle and bejewelled nobleman the other Sunday, in a country garden that invited confidences. "If I may speak without offence, modesty." A commoner in the company, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... sons believe they ought to have the first place in the sun; and I reckon we Americans have done a heap of boasting that way," Merritt remarked, which seemed to be about what Tubby ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... sea. And so he would have fled his doom, albeit hated by Athene, had he not let a proud word fall in the fatal darkening of his heart. He said that in the gods' despite he had escaped the great gulf of the sea; and Poseidon heard his loud boasting, and presently caught up his trident into his strong hands, and smote the rock Gyraean and cleft it in twain. And the one part abode in his place, but the other fell into the sea, the broken piece whereon Aias sat at the first, when his heart was darkened. And the rock bore him down into the vast ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... when a thin curl of smoke from behind a rock advised me that there was at least one human habitation within reach, where it might be possible to get information. It was a wretched mud hovel backing on to the rock—its roof of sods being held at the corners by stones—and boasting no window, only the door out of which ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... the shop for a day or two, they would have had no clerks or young women. But old Rogron, their father, sent them all the unfortunate young people of his neighborhood, whose parents wished to start them in business in Paris. He obtained these apprentices by boasting, out of vanity, of his son's success. Parents, attracted by the prospect of their children being well-trained and closely watched, and also, by the hope of their succeeding, eventually, to the business, sent whichever child was most in the way at home to the care of the brother and ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... about boasting of the relationship," laughed the youth from Bel-Abbes. "He comes to my father's cafe, which is the best in the town, as you well know. If any one speaks to him of la petite, he laughs: and it is a laugh she ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Fauchelevent was very great. Fauchelevent became the best of servitors and the most precious of gardeners. Upon the occasion of the archbishop's next visit, the prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving the convent, the archbishop mentioned it with approval, and in a whisper to M. de Latil, Monsieur's confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Reims and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it made its way to Rome. We have seen ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... play a losing game. In the first clash of weapons, she had been well-nigh disarmed, and the sting of the steel in her loosened grip had touched her to that momentary loss of control. It was not so much the fact that she had spoken of Apsley as her house. That piece of boasting would have fallen from Traill's shoulders, shaken off by the shrug with which he would have taken it. It was the veiled insult to Sally, the ill-concealed suggestion as to what their relations had been when she had met Sally at the rooms ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... signal' in 'Galignani.' Lake could never suspect its meaning, even were he to see it. There was but one risk in it, which was in the coarse perfidy of Mark Welder himself, who would desire no better fun, in some of his moods, than boasting to Lake of the whole arrangement ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... given to boasting. Hugh had never heard anything suggesting it from his lips before. He turned full round and looked at him. On his face lay a solemn quiet, either from a feeling of his own responsibility, or a sense of the excuse ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the habit of writing to Philip freely, and boasting also about his doings, as he could not help doing and remain himself. Mixed up with his own exploits, and his daily triumphs as a lobbyist, especially in the matter of the new University, in which Harry was to have something handsome, were amusing sketches of Washington ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... was a talkative man, and somewhat given to boasting; but, apart from the fact that the business of the night before gave him little excuse for glorying, he had plenty of sound sense—too much sense to gossip with the mistresses of inns about serious business. He signed ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... While not boasting a large acreage under cultivation, Idaho was a competitor at the World's Fair with the best of her sisters in the quality of her field products. The exhibit in the Palace of Agriculture was impartially chosen and fairly represented all parts of the State where agricultural interests have a ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... man to do the good because he would be praised. For vain-glory makes evil of good: as if alms-deed that is good in nature be done for praising, it wins only sin. The third that snatches a reward from a good deed is boasting by him that does the good deed, as the Pharisee did, of whom GOD said to the folk that stood before Him, "Soothly, this man has lost his reward for all his good deed." Needful it is therefore that a man do what good he can, and do not pride himself thereof in thought or in ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... of the officers of Diabolus were slain, and some of the townsmen wounded. For the officers, there was one Captain Boasting slain. This Boasting thought that nobody could have shaken the posts of Ear-gate, nor have shaken the heart of Diabolus. Next to him there was one Captain Secure slain: this Secure used to say that the blind and lame in Mansoul were able to keep the gates of the town against Emmanuel's ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... been slowly understood even by its occupants, who have wearied the world with boasting of its productiveness. Originally it was a vast cattle and sheep ranch. It was supposed that the land was worthless except for grazing. Held in princely ranches of twenty, fifty, one hundred thousand acres, in some cases areas larger than German principalities, ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... was in my hand—but, wait, Methought, awhile! 'Tis early toasting With paeans too precipitate A baby scarce an outline boasting: One week at least of life must flit For me to match it with its brothers— I'll wager, like most infants, it Is wholly different ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... "He was boasting this morning openly of whom he intended to bring with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of which the Duchess ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... army of men; which expression of her great splendor I now mention (as I repeat) purely as applying to the question of her machinery for enforcing discipline. This part of her machinery, it will be seen, is unique, and absolutely peculiar to herself. Other universities, boasting no such enormous wealth, cannot be expected to act upon her system of seclusion. Certainly, I make it no reproach to other universities, that, not possessing the means of sequestering their young men from worldly communion, they must abide by the evils of a laxer discipline. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... always felt that it would be unwise to boast; but I think both you and I can make our voyage without being troubled in that way. But we won't boast, Pickle, for, as they say, we will not holloa till we are out of the wood. Let me see; isn't there an old proverb something about a man not boasting till he taketh ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... I accelerated my pace down stairs; I heard bolt after bolt withdrawn by the officious scoundrel, while all the time he was boasting his own and his master's loyalty to King George; and I could easily calculate that the party must enter before I could arrive at the door to replace the bars. Devoting the back of Andrew Fairservice to the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... allowances, seems to work remarkably well in rural districts, in the state, and in the nation, has certainly been far less successful as applied to cities. Accordingly our cities have come to furnish topics for reflection to which writers and orators fond of boasting the unapproachable excellence of American institutions do not ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... of Major Gahagan, though his adventures are very good fun. He is a warrior,—that is, of course,—and he is one in whose wonderful narrative all that distant India can produce in the way of boasting, is superadded to Ireland's best efforts in the same line. Baron Munchausen was nothing to him; and to the bare and simple miracles of the baron is joined that humour without which Thackeray never tells any story. This is broad enough, no doubt, but is still humour;—as when the major tells ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... lips, expressive of unscrupulous appetites. A wretched scholar, regarding every profession with the same contempt, he had decided to do nothing. Spoilt by his father, he took some little interest in poetry and music, and lived in an extraordinary circle of artists, low women, madmen and bandits; boasting himself of all sorts of crimes and vices, professing the very worst philosophical and social ideas, invariably going to extremes, becoming in turn a Collectivist, an Individualist, an Anarchist, a Pessimist, a Symbolist, and what not besides; without, however, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... prepared from rice and spiced with various ingredients, tobacco being one. The men must drink at these feasts; they are very temperate generally, but on this occasion they are rather proud of being drunk and boasting the next day of a bad headache! The women urge them to drink, but do not join in the orgies, and disappear when the intoxicating stage begins. I trust that this description belongs only to the past; at any rate, we know that in those ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... round the young traveller, a perfect fountain of various and wonderful information to those who had for the most part never seen a book of travels. He narrated simply and well, without his boyish shy embarrassment and awkwardness, and likewise, as his father alone could judge, without boasting, though, if to no one else, to Diccon and Cis, listening with wide open eyes, he seemed a hero of heroes. In the midst of his narration a message came that the Queen of Scots requested the presence of Mistress Cicely. Humfrey ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... concerning his reelection, that the element of personal triumph gave him no gratification, he spoke far within the truth. He was not boasting of, but only in an unintentional way displaying, his dispassionate and impersonal habit in all political relationships,—a distinguishing trait, of which history is so chary of parallels that perhaps no reader will recall even one. A striking instance of it ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... would procure him some place equivalent to that of which he had been lately deprived. Upon the faith of this promise, Simon worked harder for his patron than he ever was known to do upon any previous occasion; and he was not deficient in that essential characteristic of an electioneerer, boasting. He carried this habit sometimes rather too far, for he not only boasted so as to bully the opposite party, but so as to deceive his friends: over his bottle, he often persuaded his patron that he could command voters, with whom he had no manner of influence. For instance: ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... drily, "when a girl goes about boasting that her father is more powerful than the Czar or Kaiser! Suppose she had stopped there, any hearer would have concluded that he was an anarchist, and therefore to be watched. But she went further: she asserted that he can blow up ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... make him prove his steady aim which he was boasting so much about," replied the Major; "but stop a moment; I will bring down that gallant little animal, and then we will look ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ceased to be of interest. He was sitting just as I had first seen him that morning, staring into the embers of the fire. As I watched him, even through my anger I felt a vague regret, a touch of pity—pity for a life that was wasted in spite of its possibilities, in boasting and blackguardry. I began hoping that he would speak, would argue or remonstrate. Instead, he said nothing, only sat serenely indifferent, his eyes still on the fire. Stepping around the debris that filled the room, I had placed my hand on the latch, when I heard a ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... yet uses much tiresome boasting, intermixing with the passion and action of his plays irrelevant matter about himself. Similarly Pindar says, that "to boast unseasonably is to play an accompaniment to madness,"[768] yet he does not cease to talk big about his own merit, which ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... after his departure, Heliodora, by means familiar to her, had learnt that Marcian's confidential servant was a man named Sagaris, a conceited and talkative fellow, given to boasting of his light loves. Before sunset, Sagaris had received a mysterious message, bidding him repair that night to a certain place of public resort upon the Quirinal. He did so, was met by the same messenger, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... happened. At last a spiteful worker informed him that he had never been in the clutches of the Robber Fly at all. Peevish Peggy and some of her companions had played a trick on Buster—because of his boasting. She had seized him when he wasn't looking. And he had screamed so loud that the Robber Fly—who happened to ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... mistress of every species of the art of healing, and in particular, I have fed myself on perfumes, and on the essences of flowers, and all the scented odours of aromatic shrubs, till I have myself become as it were a very attar, incarnate in a woman's form. Dost thou doubt it, and think me to be boasting? then try me, and I will prove to thee my power by experiment, in any way thou wilt I will soothe and shampoo[17] thee with a hand softer than a snowflake's fall and cooler than the icy moon: or, if thou wilt, I will croon to thee old airs, and put thee to sleep like a tired ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... bound almost as distressing to her brother as her ascent had been, and leapt at once to the embrace of Mrs. Frost, who stood there, petting, kissing her, and playfully threatening all sorts of means to stop her growth. Clara reared up her giraffe figure, boasting of having overtopped all the world present, except Louis! She made but a cold, abrupt response to her cousin Mary's greeting, and presently rushed upstairs in search of dear old Jane, with an impetus that made Mrs. Frost sigh, and say, 'Poor child! how happy ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shall ever say 'Twas there the vanquish'd Indian lay; Or boasting to his Friends relate The Tale ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... dried up at the bottom; mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... At Chambly, in the Province where he had the good fortune to have the occasion to manifest that valour which was the proud tradition of his race, we place his statue. It is raised in no spirit of idle boasting, but with a hope that the virtues shown of old may, unforgotten, light and guide future generations. These virtues were conspicuous in this distinguished man, whose military talents enabled him to perform his duty with signal advantage to our arms. In rearing this monument to him, let us not forget ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... all this may be idle boasting, but yet no wise government will lightly estimate the efforts which may be inspired by such frenzied fanaticism as exists among the Mormons in Utah. This is the first rebellion which has existed in our Territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... ravages of the Fellatas so terrible, that any one coming from amongst them was likely to experience a very disagreeable reception. Indeed it may be suspected, that the sultan must have been a good deal embarrassed by the simplicity with which his guest listened to his pompous boasting as to the extent of his empire, and by the earnestness with which he entreated him to name one of his seaports, where the English might land, when it was certain that he had not a town which was not some hundred miles distant from the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... intended to wait until Koorshid's party should march, when I resolved to follow them, as I did not believe they would dare to oppose me by force, their master himself being friendly. I considered their threats as mere idle boasting to frighten me from an attempt to follow them; but there was another more serious cause of danger to ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... how, so far from being listless and sluggish, old age is even a busy time, always doing and attempting something, of course of the same nature as each man's taste had been in the previous part of his life. Nay, do not some even add to their stock of learning? We see Solon, for instance, boasting in his poems that he grows old "daily learning something new." Or again in my own case, it was only when an old man that I became acquainted with Greek literature, which in fact I absorbed with such avidity—in my yearning to quench, as it were, a long-continued thirst—that ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... heard himself boasting, "I'm going after Dylks myself; and if he'll come peaceably, and do his miracle I'll take him for my god, and if he won't, ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... boasting, And bragging thus alone, Sir, For my selfe I will be praying still, For Neighbours have I none, Sir. Which ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Somme he will be free and able to see me. Meanwhile we go off to luncheon and much talk with some members of the Staff in a house on the village street. Everywhere I notice the same cheerful, one might even say radiant, confidence. No boasting in words, but a conviction that penetrates through all talk that the tide has turned, and that, however long it may take to come fully up, it is we whom it is floating surely on to that fortune which is no blind hazard, but the child of high faith and untiring labour. Of that labour the ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... muir our gallant clan, Frae boasting foes their banners tore; Wha shew'd himself a better man, Or fiercer waved the red claymore? But when in peace—then mark me there— When through the glen the wand'rer came, I gave him of our lordly fare, I gave ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... on the part of this sturdy fellow—mere boasting of what he would do under particular conditions which were never likely to arise. A glance at him, indeed, rather helped to support his statements, for Stuart, though somewhat attenuated after those months of internment at Ruhleben, after months of short commons and indifferent accommodation, was ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... gentleman was the main cause of that sentence, as those who had a hand in passing it did confess; for he had solemnly sworn, that if he lived there, that minister should not be in that place. Returning to his house a few days after, and boasting how he had kept his word, and got his minister cast out of his parish, he was suddenly struck by the Lord with a high fever, which plucked him away in the very strength of his years." Fulfilling of the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... boasting, false apostles, Paul boldly defends his apostolic authority and ministry. Humble man that he was, he will not now take a back seat. He reminds them of the time when he opposed Peter to his face and reproved the chief ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... brutal and insolent. So much are the people already familiarized with the unnatural depravity of manners that begins to prevail, that the wife of the Colonel of a battalion now here walks the streets in a red cap, with pistols at her girdle, boasting of the numbers she has destroyed at the massacres in August ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... with Ellen as well as with their other children. It is easy to be exemplary with a sick girl, but they increasingly affected Breckon as exemplary with Ellen. He fancied that they acted upon each other beneficially towards her. At first he had foreboded some tiresome boasting from the father's tenderness, and some weak indulgence of the daughter's whims from her mother; but there was either never any ground for this, or else Mrs. Kenton, in keeping her husband from boasting, had been obliged in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... at first proposed that the board should consist of the governor, attorney general and the warden of the prison, but before the bill passed, Senator Allen J. Greer secured the substitution for the chief justice for the warden, boasting, ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... left, she was met by what she thought was a crowd of peaceful, cheerful—people, eager only to greet her and to help her. She modified her opinion later: a "wild and lawless class," she called them, "boasting of their wildness," and who came to the services drunk. When she spoke of God's love they would say, "Yes, Ma Slessor tell us that plenty times." But she bravely held ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... from appearing to my eye in the light of a Miles Gloriosus, that, in the best of my taste and judgment, he does not discover, except in consequence of the robbery, the least trait of such a character. All his boasting speeches are humour, mere humour, and carefully spoken to persons who cannot misapprehend them, who cannot be imposed on: They contain indeed, for the most part, an unreasonable and imprudent ridicule of himself, the usual subject of his good humoured merriment; but in the company of ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... now replaced by good. The Tartars, completely taken by surprise, were everywhere driven back, and Hokiuping returned to China rich in booty, among it the golden images used as religious emblems by one of the Tartar princes. Returning with a larger force, he swept far through their country, boasting on his return that he had put thirty thousand Tartars to the sword. As a result, two of the princes and a large number of their followers surrendered to Vouti, and were disarmed and dispersed through the frontier ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... guide. Arriving among the Neutrals, after a journey of five or six days, he was at first kindly received in each of the six towns which he visited. But this happy situation was not to last. The Neutral country, now the richest and most populous part of Ontario, boasting such cities as Hamilton and Brantford and London, was rich in fur-bearing animals and tobacco; and the Hurons were the middlemen in trade between the Neutrals and the French. The Hurons, fearing now that they were about to lose their business—for it was ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... unexpected guest, his father jumped up embarrassed from his chair; but he recovered himself immediately, and began, in his boasting tone, "Oh, it is a good thing that you are here, sir; I have something urgent to say ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... we may mention a trivial matter which, however, brings our newspapers into deserved disrepute-their self-laudation ad boasting. How many "greatest American newspapers" are there? There are even, in this country alone, more than one "World's greatest newspaper!" From this principle of conceit there are all gradations down to the humblest village paper that lies about its circulation and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... entails. There is a large modern hotel here, just as we find similar edifices in some of the lovely solitudes of the Lizard and confronting the very castle of Arthur at Tintagel. Being there, we must take them philosophically—perhaps even make use of them. The cottage once boasting in the name of the "First and Last House in England" must now take a second place. There are some other aspects of even more definite vulgarisation—the presence of the tripper with his halfpenny newspaper, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... a message to which Jagger returned (by the skipper of the Never Say Die) an answer of the sauciest—so saucy, indeed, that the doctor did not repeat it, but flushed and kept silent. And now the coast knew of the open war; and great tales came to us of Jagger's laughter and loose-mouthed boasting—of his hate and ridicule and defiant cursing: so that the doctor wisely conceived him to be upon the verge of some cowardly panic. But the doctor went about his usual work, healing the sick, quietly keeping the helm of our business, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... of Holland—but when I presume to speak of our ancestors, I mean those which I can claim the honour of boasting as belonging to me in ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... works. The Roman Church was spread over all Italy, Spain, France, and great part of Germany, and tried to force down all differences of opinion by cruel and bloody means, caring more for unity than for truth, and boasting of being the only Catholic Church, instead of only one branch of it. The Lutheran doctrine was taught in Norway, Denmark, and many parts of Germany, and the Calvinist teaching gained a great hold in Holland, Scotland, and on such French as were not Roman Catholic. The Greek ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... opportunity to the growing powers of the West. Alexander is scarce gone ere we hear Carthage boasting that the Mediterranean is but a private lake in her possession. She rules all Western Africa and Spain, Sardinia and Corsica. She masters the Greeks of Sicily, against whom Athens failed. Rome is compelled to sign treaties with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... in no wise disconcerted by the fact that the shells continually play over her roof. The building is immense and spreading, and when one wing is damaged she picks up her proteges and trots them off, bed and baggage, to another. "Je promene mes malades," she said calmly, as if boasting of the varied accommodation of an ultra-modern hospital, as she led us through vaulted and stuccoed galleries where caryatid-saints look down in plaster pomp on the rows of brown-blanketed pallets and the long tables at which haggard ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... at us from his cave, deriding every secret plan we entertained, and boasting that the Senecas had now a prophetess who could reveal to them everything their white enemies were plotting—because her own throat ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... well to be angry at the words of this bold stripling," said Hagen. A quarrel arose, but King Gernot, Gunther's brother, made peace and Siegfried began to think of the wonderlady of his dreams and grew ashamed of his boasting. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... however, Hugh was still within Lamb's power. When Lamb was not skulking, he was much given to boasting; and his boasts were chiefly about what a great man he was to be in India. He was really destined for India; and his own opinion was that he should have a fine life of it there, riding on an elephant, ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... a much-traveled man, who knew the country well, said, "Jamaica Plain is the Eden of America." He was not a Bostonian, and our village was still a part of Roxbury, so that the suggestion of conceit and boasting over this small portion of "the Hub" could ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... am going to strike now; one, two, three, four. There it is for you. How silly you look! You can say nothing." 5. The sun, at that moment, broke forth from behind a cloud, and showed, by the sundial, that the clock was half an hour behind the right time. 6. The boasting clock now held his tongue, and the dial only smiled at his folly. 7. MORAL.—Humble modesty is more often right than ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Edw., Barbers, women, Bafille le grant, Basil, St., Bearers of letters, Beauty and chastity. Bees, Begging, Beringen, H. von, Bernard, W., Bernard, St., Biblical allusions, Bibliography of the Chess-book, Birds, Blades, William, Blindness, philosophical, Blind, raised letters for, Boasting, Bocchus, Bodleian Library, Body of Man a castle of Jefus, Boece, Boecius, Boethius, Boneuentan, Borrowing, Boys, R., Breath, stinking, Brevio, Giovanni, Bribery, Bromyard, John of, Brudgys. See Bruges. Bruges, ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... not prevail. He could only obtain a promise of their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in amazement at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their attractions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the Miss ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... am in prison the rest of our lives, or else cut our throats. But this sending us out in the world to starve, and to be kicked and cuffed during the process, is scarcely in keeping with the Bible civilization they are always boasting of." ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... occasions the devil is never far away with the spark. The Sunday after the sermon, Francis de Bard, the aforesaid Lombard, and other foreign merchants, happened to be in the King's Gallery at Greenwich Palace, and were laughing and boasting over Bard's intrigue with the citizen's wife. Sir Thomas Palmer, to whom they spoke, said, "Sirs, you have too much favour in England;" and one William Bolt, a merchant, added, "Well, you Lombards, you rejoice now; but, by the masse, we will one day have a fling at you, come when ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... horsemanship, you may be sure that he will never be first over a fence, unless it be some wee obstacle, which you could almost arrange on a rocking-horse, and then he will rush wildly at it, as though he had made up his mind to die; or, if his boasting be of cricket, you may expect next morning to see him miss the first easy catch ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... illustrated in the "last word" of one who has boldly maintained a proposition on the strength of individual recollection, but begins to recognize the instability of his position: "I either witnessed the occurrence or dreamt it." This is sufficient to prove that, with all people's boasting about the infallibility of memory, there are many who have a shrewd suspicion that some of its asseverations will not bear ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... its acceptance or rejection reached the writer during the half year of its publication; but it rose in book form from that failure and stood upon its feet and went its way to greater favor than any book of his had yet enjoyed. I hope that my recognition of the fact will not seem like boasting, but that the reader will regard it as a special confidence from the author and will let it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said Cousin Gustus. "Why, every time they steal a picture they get an Iron Cross. I know a man who saw a German wearing a perfect rosary of Iron Crosses; the fellow was boasting of having bayoneted more babies than any other man in the regiment. Listen to this: 'The enemy attacked the outskirts of the village of What D'you Call'em, and engaged our troops in hand-to-hand fighting.' Think of it, and we used to say they were a civilised race. At the point of the bayonet, ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... this fierce talk he was tenderly wiping the boy's tear- stained cheeks and nose with his rough hand, and taking the sack upon his back again. There was something touchingly feeble about his stooping figure, as, boasting and comforting, he trudged down again to the harbor holding the boy by the hand. He tottered along in his big waterproof boots, the tabs of which stuck out at the side and bore an astonishing resemblance to Pelle's ears; out of the gaping pockets of his old winter ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... foolish things said and done since the beginning of this horrible siege; had taken part too many times in one of the most wretched spectacles in which a people can show vanity in adversity. He was heart broken to see his dear compatriots, his dear Parisians, redouble their boasting after each defeat and take their levity for heroism. If he admired the resignation of the poor women standing in line before the door of a butcher's shop, he was every day more sadly tormented by the bragging of his comrades, who thought ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... Birmingham, Dr. Ullathorn, went beyond his master in boasting, and uttered the following blasphemous address:—"The people of England, who for many years had been separated from the see of Rome, were about, of their own free will, to be added to the Holy Church. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... precautions of military discipline. Had the command been with men, who, I may say, without boasting, have been accustomed to the duties of the field, proper pickets would have been posted, and instead of being caught like so many rabbits in a burrow, to be smoked out with brimstone, we should have had an open field for the struggle; or we might have possessed ourselves of these walls, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... commiseration. "I don't believe that was because he wasn't suffering, though. I'm sure it was only because he felt his business was so important. Mary told me he seemed wrapped up in his son's succeeding; and that was what he bragged about most. He isn't vulgar in his boasting, I understand; he doesn't talk a great deal about his—his actual money—though there was something about blades of grass that I didn't comprehend. I think he meant something about his energy—but perhaps not. No, his bragging usually seemed to be not ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... your pardon. I ought to have tempered this; but you are an American, and strong enough at this moment to know the truth. I may pull you through. Without boasting, there is not another man in America, or Europe either, who would ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... happened during your unconscionable absence. Servants are only too ready to talk to the first comer of their mistresses' wealth and position. They have no discrimination." said Aunt Judith in a reproving tone. The old ladies were very fond of boasting of their wealth and position, whereas, in reality, their nephew was the only barrier between them and ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... puppy! upon whose vicious vanity the cold, still, statuesque scorn of Miss Wimple was grandly lost. At last, at the Splurge house one evening, in the presence of Adelaide and Simon, he was betrayed by his egotism into boasting, by insinuation, of certain successes at the Circulating Library most damaging to Miss Wimple's reputation for understanding and good taste; he was "in her books," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... comrades it won him honor; but Napoleon, on hearing his high descent urged as a claim to consideration, is said to have replied, brusquely,—"I don't want any of those people." In his letters to his mother, he recounts his adventures, military and amorous, with frankness, but without boasting; but his confidences soon become very partial, and before she knows it the poor mother has a dangerous rival. We will let him give his own account of the origin of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... command of Capt. Donohue, made a reconnaissance in the direction of Chippawa during the afternoon, and after discovering a party of mounted farmers, who they mistook for Canadian cavalry, fired a volley at them without effect and then retreated valiantly back to the Fenian camp, bombastically boasting that they had routed a ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... horses; seen the transfer of several baskets of fowl, and peeped into the corn exchange, when he thought it was about time to return home; but as he passed an inn-yard he lingered to see a farmer commence his homeward journey. He was making preparations to start, at the same time boasting how ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... scrape, I generally managed to scramble out of it with flying colours; and if I did not, I laughed at the punishment to which I was doomed. I was a broad-shouldered, strongly-built boy, and could beat my elder brothers at running, leaping, or any other athletic exercise, while, without boasting, I was not behind any of them in the school-room. My father was somewhat proud of me, and had set his mind on my becoming a member of one of the learned professions, and rising to the top of the tree. Why should I not? I had a great-uncle a judge, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... jackanapes, as the hostile pamphleteers loved to call him, strutted through the lobby, making the most of his small figure, rising on his toe, and perking up his chin, made him enemies. Rash and arrogant sayings were imputed to him, and perhaps invented for him. He was accused of boasting that there was nothing that he could not carry through the House of Commons, that he could turn the majority round his finger. A crowd of libellers assailed him with much more than political hatred. Boundless rapacity ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid disposition), I spoke, and ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... was boasting to a cat of its clever devices for escaping its enemies. "I have a whole bag of tricks," he said, "which contains a hundred ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... "self-made men." There are some men whom you cannot approach without hearing them blow their trumpet, saying, "I am a self-made man. I came here a poor man ten years ago; and now I am rich." It is all I—I—I! They go on boasting, and telling what wonderful beings they are! There is one thing that is excluded from the kingdom of heaven; and that is—boasting. If you and I ever get there it will be by the sovereign grace of God. There will be ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... the Kaiser's own heart—provocative and boasting to a degree. It had, as a matter of fact, it is said, been prepared by the Emperor, and was delivered by the Kaiser's order for the special benefit of Prince Bulow, who had at that time fallen out of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... had plenty of food in my closet, but I don't remember eating any more. I fasted eight days, and felt comfortable and happy most of the time. I sang to myself, "O death, where is thy sting, where is thy victory, boasting grave." I wept for my own sins, and wished to die, the world to save. I was trying to perform some ancient right or vow, one day, and my sons came in. I ordered them away, but they would not go. They said they would bring me home, for Lewis, who was living with me near Boston, sent ...
— Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum • Mary Huestis Pengilly
... at first by settlers in Canada. At the period of which I am now speaking, the titles of "sir" or "madam" were very rarely applied by inferiors. They entered your house without knocking; and while boasting of their freedom, violated one of its dearest laws, which considers even the cottage of the poorest labourer his castle, and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... exquisite little collection of frauds and forgeries," said Cooper, "—and I don't believe I am boasting when I speak of my few treasures as exquisite—came to me in a natural enough way. One of the bitterest trials the connoisseur has to contend with, is the consciousness that no amount of care and expense can guarantee him an absolutely flawless collection. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... the air of having donned unaccustomed garments of righteousness for the occasion, and making a great deal of it because for once every one must see that they were in the right. They were fairly loud mouthed in their boasting about it. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... as he had heard from his father, or the rough men who consorted with him, from the bullying down to the most playful remark. But, as aforesaid, Dexter did not realise all this. He had only got as far as the fact that Bob was not half so nice as he used to be, and that, in spite of his boasting and bullying, he was not very brave when put ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... "Your uncle is innately modest, Miss Gray, and never speaks of anything that bears the slightest resemblance to boasting. See, the grave solemnity with which he smokes while I say this proves the truth of my assertion. Well, since he has never told you, I will tell yell myself. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... it seems as if some years ago the inhabitants had been seized with an architectural disease, which has left its marks in the shape of an eruption of stucco porticoes, and one or two pretensious mansions, externally resembling jails or infirmaries, internally boasting halls which bear the same proportion to the living rooms as Falstaff's gallon of sack to his halfpennyworth of bread. No doubt there are persons whom this style of house exactly suits, the portico represents their pride, the parlour their economy. What was intended for the Walsall ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... were going up the stairs, before we saw the papers at all; and it was great luck, for she reminded me of the answer, and it was the first question on the paper!' cried Doreen, whose idea was to prove to the mistress that Vava was not boasting, which was what she imagined her friend ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... Jesus caused his disciples, and the new life which the resurrection brought to their hearts. The resurrection was the fundamental theme of apostolic preaching, the supreme evidence that Jesus was the Messiah. Hence the cross early became the object of exultant Christian joy and boasting; and in this the church entered actually into the Lord's own thought, for through the cross he looked for his exaltation and glory (Mark viii. 31; John xii. 23-36). From the time of the confession at Caesarea Philippi, he had had his death ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... his services received an augmentation of arms.(1257) He was a nephew of the late Archbishop Laud, and full of his own self-importance "a talking, bragging, buffle-headed fellow," Pepys calls him—boasting of his powers over his brother aldermen, but nevertheless attentive to the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... consumed—and yet I have scarcely entered upon the threshold of my argument. Now, what a spectacle is presented to the world!—the American people, boasting of their free and equal rights—of their abhorrence of aristocratical distinctions—of their republican equality; proclaiming on every wind, "that all men are born equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights," and that this land is an asylum for the persecuted of all nations; ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... little do I appeal in my own eyes at this moment; and how little, with all my boasting, have I known my own heart! No! It was not because I am open and candid that I resented your engagement with Colonel Lennox; it was because ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of Mr. Jas. Donaldson, then residing on a farm in Lydenburg—lately one of the Reform prisoners—was mentioned in the House of Commons, and became the subject of a demand by the Imperial Government for reparation and punishment. He had been ordered by two Boers (one of whom was in the habit of boasting that he had shot an unarmed Englishman in Lydenburg since the war, and would shoot others) to abstain from collecting hut taxes on his own farm; and on refusing had been attacked by them. After beating them ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... The Invaders march, of victory secure; Skilful their force to sever or unite, And trained alike to vanquish or endure. Nor skilful less, cheap conquest to ensure, Discord to breathe, and jealousy to sow, To quell by boasting, and by bribes to lure; While nought against them bring the unpractised foe, Save hearts for Freedom's cause, and hands ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... they coveted, or deserted, and wished to have left waste. In these attacks, neither age, nor sex, nor condition are spared. The greater part of the leaders of these gangs of ruffians are Rajpoot landholders, boasting descent from the sun and moon, or from the demigods, who figure in the Hindoo religious fictions of the Poorans. There are, however, a great many Mahommedans at the head of similar gangs. A landholder of whatever degree, who is opposed to his government ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... harm in saying what his adopted son Patrick could do. He offered to match him at anything against any man in Berwickshire, yea in all Scotland. The blood of old Cunningham boiled at the bravado. He said he had had three sons—yea, he hoped to have said four—any of whom would have stopped the boasting, and taken up the challenge of his Northumbrian friend. But he said he had still a nephew, and he would risk him ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... graver, Angelot more restless, the Prefect sleepier, as the rough voice talked on. Angelot thought breakfast would never be over, and that this brute would never have done boasting of his fine deeds, such as hanging up six brothers in a row outside their own house, and threatening the mother and sisters with the same fate unless they showed him the way to the cellar, where he knew ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... way-house we were received by a white-haired old man en route to take a situation as cook in one of the houses on the line—though certainly no one ever looked less like a cook. He ushered us into the kitchen, the only room boasting a fire, and we were there met by the proprietor, a depressed and apologetic sort of person. After several whispered consultations with a hopeless wife, who moved in melancholy protest, or sat with her head leaning against the wall, applying the corner of her ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... some days in preparing their camp and reconnoitring the ground. Then Scott, with five hundred provincials, seized upon a ridge within easy range of the works. An officer named Vannes came out to oppose him with a hundred and eighty men, boasting that he would do great things; but on seeing the enemy, quietly returned, to become the laughing-stock of the garrison. The fort fired furiously, but with little effect. In the night of the thirteenth, Winslow, with a part of his own ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... before all the others in the king's household began to be jealous of the lad, and there was no end to the bad things they would have done to him, if they had only dared. At last they thought of telling the king that he had been boasting he was man enough to set the king's daughter free—whom the Troll had long since carried away into the hill—if he only chose. The king called the lad before him, and said he had heard what the lad had said, so now he must go and do it. If he succeeded, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... one which I have re-named 'The Carol of the Ferns.' Pardon me, Mr. Flagg, if in my enthusiasm over the beauties of what you have so poetically termed my 'magical temple of ferns,' some of my statements should sound like boasting; I assure you they are not so intended. I trust that now I have cleared up the mystery to ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... beautiful gold and silver fish of many kinds. The Chinese certainly excel in producing gold and silver and red fish; they are the pets of every household, and are of all colours, some being striped and spotted, and boasting any number of tails ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... quoting. He had a contempt for the love of honour and glory, and in his letters often blames himself for the pleasure he took in the success of his books, as though he were departing from his ideal—a love of truth and carelessness about fame. Often, when writing to Sir J. Hooker what he calls a boasting letter, he laughs at himself for his conceit and want of modesty. There is a wonderfully interesting letter which he wrote to my mother bequeathing to her, in case of his death, the care of publishing ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... constituted the staple of many laughable stories, which were not without their value because of the lesson they contained as to the uncertainties of war, and the mortification that usually follows vain boasting. Among the articles abandoned by the enemy in his flight were some which excited a just indignation, and which indicated the shameless disregard of all the usages of honorable warfare. They were handcuffs, the fit appendage ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... manhood he began to confide his most intimate thoughts to a notebook, he wrote, "The prime inclination—that is, natural bent (which I have checked, though)—of my nature is to music, and for that I have the greatest talent; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have an extraordinary musical talent, and feel it within me plainly that I could rise ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... common cause was made by the girls of the county. They attended the trial in large numbers; and we are informed that on the acquittal of the prisoner a general expression of delight was perceptible in the court; and they left the assizes town boasting 'that they might now do as they liked.' We are then, it seems, with all our boasted civilization, relapsing into a barbarous and savage state ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... great Contest to a happy Conclusion the next year.—Altho' the Enemy have gaind the Possession of Charleston, they have not succeeded to their Wishes in that Quarter. They do not find the People so pliable as they flatterd themselves they should. Notwithstanding Cornwallis' boasting Letter to Lord George, of "a compleat Victory obtaind the 16th Instant by His Majesties Troops under my Command, over the rebel southern Army," that brave Army checkd the Progress of the Troops under his Command on the 16th of August; and the Militia have since, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... had purchased a piece of ground at the confluence of the Arno and Pesa, and, upon it, he built the Villa Ambrogiana, which he furnished in lavish style, boasting that "it will be handy when I come into my own!" This estate, with a sufficient household, he made over to the Lady Cammilla, for her own free use. Before, however, she took up her residence, Ferdinando, now, of course, Grand Duke of Tuscany, placed at her disposal a country ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... or "You should see Adcock's cat" or "You should see Sharp's cat," but "You should see our cat." There is nothing we are more egoistic about—not even children—than about cats. I have heard a man, for lack of anything better to boast about, boasting that his cat eats cheese. In anyone else's cat it would have seemed an inferior habit and only worth mentioning to the servant as a warning. But because the cat happens to be his cat, this man talks about its vice excitedly among women as ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... he had managed to secure a splendid snapshot of the big fellow boasting the striped tail; indeed, the picture was bound to be one of the most prized in all ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... took up the axes, and brought them outside, he said, 'Thou seest, lord Telemachus, that thy guest does not shame thee through foolish boasting. I have bent the bow of Odysseus, and I have shot the arrow aright. But now it is time to provide the feast for the lords who woo thy lady mother. While it is yet light, the feast must be served to them, and with the feast they must ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... that he would ever pay; that his allies were not much better; and that the Brethren had deceived the Parliamentary Committee by representing themselves as men of means. At the very time, said Whitefield, when the Moravian leaders were boasting in Parliament of their great possessions, they were really binding down their English members for thousands more than they could pay. They drew bills on tradesmen without their consent; they compelled simple folk to sell their estates, seized the money, and then sent the penniless ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... for as they applied themselves to the supper, the boy, with glowing face, would tell just how his company "A" was getting on, and what they were going to do to companies "B" and "C." It was not boasting so much as the expression of a confidence, founded upon the hard work he was doing, and Hannah and the "little sister" ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... calling at the bar of the Assembly for the blood of their own children, as being royalists or constitutionalists. Sometimes they have got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand the murder of their sons, boasting that Rome had but one Brutus, but that they could show five hundred. There were instances in which they inverted, and retaliated the impiety, and produced sons, who called for the execution of their ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Rome, as is at present visible in our own communion. There is among us a growing feeling, that to be a mere Establishment is unworthy of the Catholic Church; and that to be shut out from the rest of Christendom is not a subject of boasting. We seem to have embraced the idea of the desirableness of being on a good understanding with the Greek and Eastern Churches; and we are aiming at sending out bishops to distant places, where they must come in contact with foreign communions and though the extreme vagueness, indecision, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... snare of the fowler, the snare is broken, and we are escaped: our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heaven and the earth." Who thought to have seen such a sudden change in Scotland, when all second causes were posting a contrary course? when proud men were boasting and saying, "Bow down that we may go over;" and we laid our "bodies as the ground, and as the streets to them that went over." But now, behold one of God's wonders! So many of all ranks taking the honour ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... has rounded up and arrested all persons suspected of corresponding with the rebels, and sent some to Old Capitol Prison, and others through the lines to Richmond, where they can do us no harm. Most of these spies gave themselves away by their secesh talk, or by boasting of their ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Misguided fool, and this is the end! To this thou hast come with thy plotting and thy conspiring, thy lying and thy boasting, consecrated banners and Pope's bulls, Agnus Deis and holy waters, the blessing of all saints and angels, and thy Lady of the Immaculate Conception! Thou hast called on the heavens to judge between thee and us, and here is their answer! ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... my companions, Will from life attend me forth, Or will fondly watch beside me In the cold and silent earth? All thy boasting this, O Friendship! Shedding tears and heaving sighs, When my need of thee is greatest, When ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... parts. Now it so happened that some three miles out from New Salem lay Clary's Grove, the haunt of a gang of frontier ruffians of the familiar type, among whom one Jack Armstrong was champion bully. Offut's boasting soon rendered an encounter between Lincoln and Armstrong inevitable, though Lincoln did his best to avoid it, and declared his aversion to "this woolling and pulling." The wrestling match was arranged, and the settlers flocked to it like ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... innumerable multitude of tadpoles—after surpassing these, and many other perils, we at last got into the quiet road that leads from Penty Goitre bridge down to the church of Llanvair—a large, solemn-looking churchyard, ornamented with a goodly array of splendid yew-trees, and boasting, at some former period, a majestic stone cross, now of course defaced, and the very square it stood upon moss-grown and in ruins. The church itself is a plain quiet structure, but the sylvan beauty and peaceful seclusion of the situation cannot be surpassed. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the boasting dog which never hurts. If Lone Wolf is a dog, why are you so afraid to come within ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... his own account; Imagination, who follows, is worse, being one of those hardened, ready-witted, quick-tempered rogues whom providence saves from drowning for another fate. He is sore, this second fellow, with sitting in the stocks; yet quite unrepentant, boasting, rather, of his skill in avoiding heavier penalties. That others come to the gallows is owing to their bad ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... was little boasting of the superior fighting qualities of Southern over Northern soldiers. Both armies fought with a courage creditable to their race and nationality. Americans may always be relied upon to do this when well commanded. I ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... sort got together what their conversation would be about? Would they shout one another down, each saying he was perfect, and so end in thunder or silence? Or would they contradict each other immediately and come to blows, or would they realise it was no use boasting to one of their own species, and so talk business ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... too great to be true," replied Ensign Darrin. "Danny, the Mexicans have been boasting that we don't dare tackle them and stir up that Mexican hornet's nest. If we get a chance, the American Navy will show them—-and ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... forest-people always listened to Tommy's stories, they disliked him more than ever. For he was always going about boasting of what he had seen, and what he had done, and what his ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the demand itself for the release of Mason and Slidell that in the end so stirred America as the warlike tone of the British press and the preparations of the Government. Even after their surrender America was further incensed by British boasting that America had yielded to a threat of war, as in the Punch cartoon of a penitent small boy, Uncle Sam, who "says he is very sorry and that he didn't mean to do it," and so escapes the birching Britannia was about to administer. America had, in all truth, yielded to a threat, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... saw when it was too late that boasting is dangerous work, but to refuse anything to "wan av the young ladies" never for an instant occurred to him. Probably had he asked Miss Howard's consent he would have been spared complying with a request which his better judgment questioned, but that did not occur to him, either, so, giving ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... commenced, and the captain's working features assumed instantly their accustomed immobile serenity. Martin noticed that the hunchback's face was sober, and that Ruth's face was white. He judged that the captain was not indulging in vain boasting. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... royal guardian sat regarding her critically. "Now it seems to me that your boasting is less than before," he said. "And you were mistaken in supposing that I would have given this animal to you if I had not known you could ride him." When she made no reply, he shook the rein impatiently. "Is it still the horse that makes you heavy in your breathing? Or perhaps ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... market-time, and agreements are entered into then for which more than one gold piece must be paid later; but for a few roses and good words they are not accustomed to be so liberal as you have been. The girls have been boasting about you and your gifts, and showing your good red gold to their stingier suitors. As rumor is a goddess who is very apt to exaggerate and to make a crocodile out of a lizard, it happened that news reached the Egyptian captain ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hush that boasting tone, my love, Repress self-glorying pride; You can do nothing of yourself— Friends all your ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... "Mr. Hume was boasting to the doctor (Gregory) that among his disciples he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. 'Now tell me,' said the doctor, 'whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure you that ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... received the offer with too much pleasure to dream of a refusal. To no class of persons is the presentation of a gratuitous opera-box more acceptable than to the wealthy millionaire, who still hugs economy while boasting of carrying a king's ransom in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... desire to say a word, not only about the opportunities offered to us individually, but about those offered to England for this great enterprise. The prophet of old represented the proud Assyrian conqueror as boasting, 'My hand hath gathered as a nest the riches of the peoples . . . and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.' It might be the motto of England to-day. It is not for nothing that we and our brethren across the Atlantic, the inheritors of the same faith ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... however, the subject was freely discussed. Nick Marsh, the poet of the class, as became the mystic tendencies of his tribe, was for poisoning the detested Pomeranian—Oswald was a compatriot of Bismarck, often boasting, as the then slowly emerging statesman became more widely known, that he lived in his near neighborhood. Marsh's suggestion fell upon fruitful perceptions. Bernard Moore—Barney, for short—was to be a physician, and had ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... four year old brother George heard much talk of Border Ruffians, and he went around flourishing a long thorn for a dagger, and boasting in childish accent: "Bad Border 'uffians s'an't get my pa. I hit 'em in 'e eye wid my dagger." One day I was helping uncle drop corn, when George came running to us, much excited. "I foun' a Border 'uffian! I foun' a Border 'uffian! ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... judges decern and ordain Anton Anderson for the back-biting and slandering of Andrew Fraser, bailie; and Alexander Logan, notary, for saying to them that the said persons have sold him to his contrar (opposite) party by seeking out of his decreet; and also for boasting (threatening) and menacing of the said persons, is decerned in twenty merks money; and likewise shall come to the Cross by ten hours on Saturday, in presence of the magistrates, conveyed by the officers from his own house, and there shall confess in presence of the haill people his offence, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... counsellor, the King of the Belgians, was decidedly so. Accordingly, the Whigs hailed the accession of Queen Victoria as their triumph, likely to secure and prolong their tenure of office. They claimed her as their Queen, with a boasting exultation calculated to wound and exasperate every Tory in the kingdom. Lord Campbell, who, though a zealous Whig, was comparatively cool and cautious, wrote in his journal, after the Queen's first Council, "We basked in the full glare of royal sunshine;" and this tone was generally ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler |
