"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moral demonstrations (whatever it may do in the genteel letter-writing of Lord Chesterfield or the chivalrous rhapsodies of Burke) that vice by losing all its grossness loses half its evil. It becomes more contemptible, not less disgusting. What is there in common, for instance, between his beaux and belles, his rakes and his coquettes, and the men and women, the true heroic and ideal characters in Raphael? But his people ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... trigonometrical canon, a walking table of Logarithms. All my perceptions of elegance and beauty gone, or at least going. By the end of the term my brain will be "as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." Oh to change Cam for Isis! But such is my destiny; and, since it is so, be the pursuit contemptible, below contempt, or disgusting beyond abhorrence, I shall aim at no second place. But three years! I cannot endure the thought. I cannot bear to contemplate what I must have to undergo. Farewell then Homer and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... would be a very mean and contemptible thing for her to go and look at that paper, and so, perhaps, find out what was troubling Miss Barbara, but, without the slightest hesitation, she did it. Her bare feet made no sound upon the carpet, and as she had very good eyes, it was not ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... shoemaker, and seem to enjoy it as much. And then, there's them mean yaller-eyed bull terriers that don't care who they bite, so they bite sumbody. They are no respekter of persons, and I never had much respekt for a man who kept one on his premises. But of all mean, triflin', contemptible dogs in the world, the meanest of all is a country nigger's houn—one that will kill sheep, and suck eggs, and lick the skillet, and steal everything he can find, and try to do as nigh like his master as possibul. Sum ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... would surprise you even less if you knew me better," he replied. "But really, I came here to talk about Cardegna and not to chatter about that contemptible creature, man, who is not worth a moment's notice, I assure you. I believe I can find these people, and I confess it would amuse me to see the old man's face when we walk in upon him. I must be absent for a few days on business in Austria, and shall ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... gives us a contemptible idea of the taste of the Saracens at this period, which indeed, in architecture, seems to have been far inferior to that of the later princes of Granada, we cannot but be astonished at the adequacy of their resources to carry such magnificent ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... generally speaking, the most complete cowards that I ever met with; and the consequence of their cowardice was evident upon many occasions. However, there was here and there one among them that was not so bad as the rest; and, as my lot fell among them, it made me have the most contemptible thoughts of the ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... tell you that, to my surprise, I found I had another friend in these dark days; I mean the poet. Contemptible as was my plight, and mean as was the cabin I hid in, when he heard I was ill, he came more than once to see me. It suited him to make a mighty to do about it, as if his condescension must heal me on the spot. Yet the kindness that was in him, and the wonder he afforded me, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... about what I say in the pulpit, mother," Gavin said, with a sigh, "though of course a man who fell in love merely with a face would be a contemptible creature. Yet I see that women do not understand how beauty ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... this wish had operated like a purifying baptism on Susanna's soul; and she felt fresh and light thoughts ascend within her. "A poor maid-servant!" repeated now Sanna; "and why should that be so contemptible a lot? The Highest himself has served on earth; served for all, for the very least; yes, even for me. Oh!—" and it became continually lighter and warmer in her mind.—"I will be a true maid-servant, and place my honour in it, and desire to be nothing ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... wedded himself; and of the impossibility of preserving in it the purity of his character as a philosopher or a man. He was aware that in the existing state of society at Rome, wealth was necessary to men high in station; wealth alone could retain influence, and a poor minister became at once contemptible. The distributor of the Imperial favours must have his banquets, his receptions, his slaves and freedmen; he must possess the means of attracting if not of bribing; he must not seem too virtuous, too austere, among an evil generation; in order ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the quality we most admire in others is admiration of ourselves? And is it not a wise selection? If you would have me admirable, my friend, admire me, and speak your commendation without stint that in the sunshine of your praises I may wax. For indifference maketh an indifferent man, and contempt a contemptible man. Come, is it not true? Does not all that is worthy in us ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... own degrees, sit down: at first,/And last the hearty welcome] As this passage stands [sit down:/At first and last], not only the numbers are very imperfect, but the sense, if any can be found, weak and contemptible. The numbers will be ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... had given him his first glimpse of his frailty. He would have no lawyers make the peace or draft the covenant of the league of nations. Lawyers were pitiful creatures,—he kept one of them near him, Mr. Lansing, admirably chosen, to remind him of how contemptible they were, living in fear of precedents, writing a barbarous jargon out of deeds and covenants, impeding the freedom of the imagination with ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... him it was, how contemptible it was, this playing with the glorious thing that had been their love! For the first time in her life Rachael could have played the virago, could have raged and stamped, could have made him absolutely afraid to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to listen to none but wise counsels; act nobly, and abandon base designs. While you are thus forewarned as to your situation, keep a prudent eye on your affairs." This discourse rendered Hadifah furious. "Contemptible sheik! Dog of a traitor!" he exclaimed. "What! Must I be in fear of Cais and the whole tribe of the Absians? By the faith of an Arab, I will let all men of honor know that if Cais refuse to send the camels I will not ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... prohibit them. But, though allowable as the relaxation, they are most culpable as the business, of the young, for they then become the gulf of time and the poison of the mind; they weaken the manly powers; they sink the native vigour of youth into contemptible effeminacy. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... point Sidi Hassan had listened with satisfaction, but the appointment just offered seemed to him so contemptible that he had difficulty in dissembling his feelings. The knowledge, however, that his despotic master held his life in his hand, induced him to bow and smile, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... "You are as famous in your kind as I am in mine, and are not banished from France. I tell you there is nothing to be feared but truth and material persecution. Beyond these two things, enemies can do absolutely nothing; and your enemy is but a contemptible woman, jealous of your beauty and purity." "Write to me. I know you address me by your deeds; but I still ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the head, it is the head of passion. It is no anatomical knife, it is a weapon. Its object is its enemy, which it will not refute but destroy. For the spirit of the conditions has been refuted. In and for themselves they are no memorable objects, but existences as contemptible as they are despised. Criticism has already settled all accounts with this subject. It no longer figures as an end in itself, but only as a means. Its essential pathos is indignation, its essential work ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... imagination to realize types of excellence altogether differing from their own. It is this, much more than vanity, that leads them to esteem the types of excellence to which they themselves approximate as the best, and tastes and habits that are altogether incongruous with their own as futile and contemptible."] Be sure that you are saying what you are saying for the other's good, and not to give vent to your own irritability or selfishness or sense of superiority; say what must be said sweetly or gravely, never patronizingly or sharply, with resentfulness or petulance. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... which reigns among the maritime powers of Europe, with their narrow, weak, and contemptible system of politics, prevents our being able to procure ships of war; to remedy which, you have with you timber, iron, and workmen, and we must send you over sailcloth and cordage, as fast as we can. The importance of having a considerable naval force, is ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... back to the Lodge, was sick at heart. He came of a family of clean, honest gentlemen. Most of them had been soldiers. Occasionally one had gone to the devil as this young cousin of his had done. But there was something in this whole affair so contemptible that it hurt his pride. The theft itself was not the worst thing. The miner had traded on their faith in him. He had lied to them, had made a mock of their friendly offers to help him. Even the elements of decency seemed ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... Bottom. I don't know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they are a credit to the makers. But I do know this: I made rails then, and I think I could make better ones than these now." It is unnecessary to tell of the part those rails were to play in the coming campaign. It is a contemptible trait in books like that able novel "Democracy," that they treat the sentiment which attached to the "Rail-splitter" ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G——'s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... him, get him to bed: Why, pity should not let age make it self contemptible; we must be all old, ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and sneaks upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow or garden, he imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of little birds that come in cheerful response, hopping ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... firing a Musket, and scarce know how to keep it clean, or to charge it aright. It consists of People whose Reputation (especially the Officers) has been industriously diminished, and their Persons, as well as their Employment, rendred contemptible on purpose to enhance the Value of those that serve for Pay; insomuch that few Gentlemen of Quality will now a-days debase themselves so much, as to accept of a Company, or a Regiment in the Militia. But for all this, I can never be persuaded that a Red Coat, and Three Pence ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... the little patience I had left. Savagely I tore the note into contemptible fragments, tossed into my travelling-boxes as much of my wardrobe as happened to be at hand, consigned to a sealed case my diplomatic instructions and all other documents pertaining to my office, placed them in the hands of a confidential friend, Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... compared to this in the reign of either Charles? England may blush at the remembrance of the insults she sustained during the reigns of the first most amiable, yet most weak—of the second most admired, yet most contemptible—of these legal kings. What must she think of the treatment of the elector palatine, though he was son-in-law to king James? And let her ask herself how the Duke of Rohan was assisted in the Protestant war at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... enthusiasm. If the malicious misrepresentations and persecutions which Wagner endured during his lifetime were the outcome of ignorance, assuredly the hysterical raving of our day is no less ignorant and contemptible. I hear it said that in England "Wagnerism" is an attitude, and can only reply that it is so in Germany too. Among the cosmopolitan audiences who crowd the theatres of Dresden and Munich on a Wagner night and greet his ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... that one is hated, to expose oneself before the man who hates one, in the most pitiful, contemptible, helpless state. My God, how hard it is!" he thought a little while afterwards as he sat in the pavilion, feeling as though his body were scarred by the hatred of which he had just been ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on the contemptible little fellow, the chief cause of his arrest and banishment and, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... honoured Sir!" I told him, seeing that flattery was requisite; "but I am not the ignoramus of how highly your character and virtues are esteemed, and I can assure you that you are not so contemptible a nonentity as you imagine. Listen to me; I am now to go to the Foreign Office, and shall there assume the liberty of mentioning your distinguished name as ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... pass; whether common or uncommon, it matters nothing. It is something soft, which will soon pass away, and of itself can do no good. It is contemptible." ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are Commissioners and some are Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand and smoked a cigar—no, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and with the heavy drafts upon the public treasure, little or nothing had been accomplished. Meanwhile, in other parts of France there existed a scarcity of food amounting almost to a famine; nor had the solemn processions to the shrines of the saints—processions for the most part rendered contemptible by the irreverent conduct both of the clergymen and the laity that took part in them[1303]—averted the wrath of heaven. The poor suffered extremely. Selfishness gained such ascendancy in some towns, that cruel ruses were adopted to remove the destitute that had taken refuge within ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... now, in the name of the people you have tricked and robbed under the cover of business, in the name of the people you have slandered and ruined under cover of the church, I'm going to give you what such a contemptible rascal as you ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... in Burke's history of Spain, and no excuse is needed for giving it in its entirety: Berenguela was one of those rare beings who seems to have been born to do right and to have done it. From her earliest youth she was a leading figure, a happy and noble influence in one of the most contemptible and detestable societies of mediaeval Christendom. Married of her own free will to a stranger and an enemy, that she might bring peace to two kingdoms, she was ever a true and loyal wife; unwedded by ecclesiastical tyranny in the very flower of her young womanhood, she was ever a faithful daughter ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... his posture enabled him to conceal a smile; but perhaps Clement guessed at it, for he exclaimed, 'A fit consequence, to have made myself contemptible to everybody!' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... content with not believing that there is another life, or rather, with believing that there is none, but who are vexed and hurt that others should believe in it or even should wish that it might exist. And this attitude is as contemptible as that is worthy of respect which characterizes those who, though urged by the need they have of it to believe in another life, are unable to believe. But of this most noble attitude of the spirit, the most profound, the most human, and the most fruitful, the attitude of ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... and his brother's righteous. They argued with them; they threatened them; they tried to terrify them: but they found to their astonishment that the Christians would not change their minds for any terror. Then their hatred became rage and fury. They could not understand how such poor ignorant contemptible people as the Christians seemed to be, dared to have an opinion of their own, and to stand to it; how they dared to think themselves right, and all the world wrong; and in their fury they inflicted on them tortures to read of which should make the blood ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... petty intrigues, trickeries, and deceptions. He could not, it has been said,—the conceit is borrowed from Young's Satires—'take his tea without a stratagem,' and knew how to utter the loftiest sentiments while acting the most contemptible of parts. ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... kindness, after all. He felt like a child before a strong man; but the strong man looked on him with a father's indulgence. Many and many a time, when he had come desponding and bemoaning himself on account of some contemptible bodily infirmity, the old Doctor had looked at him through his spectacles, listened patiently while he told his ailments, and then, in his large parental way, given him a few words of wholesome advice, and cheered him up so that he went off with a light heart, thinking ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... his spirit into the army he made it a rapid, compact, accurate and terrible engine of war. The contemptible assault of the Richmond Examiner fell harmless from the armor of his genius. Davis was bitterly denounced for his favoritism in passing G. W. Smith and appointing Governor Letcher's pet. He was accused ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... and admirable man!—a man who would have been a remarkable personality if he had not written a note of music. His faults—and he was far from being a paragon—were never petty or contemptible: they were truly the defects of his qualities—of his honesty, his courage, his passionate and often reckless zeal in the promotion of what he believed to be sound and fine in art and in life. Mr. Philip Hale, whose long friendship with MacDowell gives him the right to speak ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... Shaving."—When Louis VII. of France, to obey the injunctions of his bishops, cropped his hair and shaved his beard, Eleanor, his consort, found him with this unusual appearance, very ridiculous, and soon very contemptible. She revenged herself as she thought proper, and the poor shaved king obtained a divorce. She then married the Count of Anjou, afterwards our Henry II. She had for her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poitu and Guyenne; and this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... enforce? Whether those haughty and victorious barons, when they had their tyrant king at their feet, gave back to him his throne, with full power to enact any tyrannical laws he might please, reserving only to a jury (" the country") the contemptible and servile privilege of ascertaining, (under the dictation of the king, or his judges, as to the laws of evidence), the simple fact whether those laws had been transgressed? Was this the only restraint, which, when they had all power in their hands, ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... Tyson flung the words out like an execration that throbbed with his scorn and loathing of the sex. Other women! By an act of his will he had put his wife on a high pedestal for the moment—made her shine, for the moment, white and fair above the contemptible herd, her obscure multitudinous sisterhood. Other women! The phrase had an undertone of dull passionate self-reproach that was distinctly audible to Stanistreet's finer ear. Stanistreet knew many things about Tyson—knew, for instance, the cause that but for this ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... was a soul in torments of despair and degradation; and yet once more did the absence of the abject in man and manner redeem him from the depths of either. In these moments of reaction he was pitiful, but not contemptible, much less unlovable. Indeed, I could see the qualities that had won the heart of Raffles as I had never seen them before. There is a native nobility not to be destroyed by a single descent into the ignoble, an essential honesty too bright and brilliant to be dimmed by incidental dishonour; and both ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... savings-bank; and at a given time they are to have their freedom, but to remain on the plantation if they choose, at a stipulated rate of wages. Indeed, so strongly impressed with the good results of his proposed system is Rosebrook, that he long since scouted that contemptible fallacy, which must have had its origin in the very dregs of selfishness, that the two races can only live in proximity by one enslaving the other. Justice to each other, he holds, will solve the problem of their living together; but, between the oppressor and the oppressed, a volcano that may ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... nobility that intrinsically they do not possess. Take away from Macbeth the fatal predestination, the intervention of hell, the heroic struggle with an occult justice that for ever is revealing itself through a thousand fissures of revolting nature, and Macbeth is merely a frantic, contemptible murderer. Take away the oracle of Calchas, and Agamemnon becomes abominable. Take away the hatred of Venus, and what is Phedre but a neurotic creature, whose "moral quality" and power of resistance to evil are too pronouncedly ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... fast as they are born, and then let the generations of men manage as they can! Woman, so feeble and crazy in body, fair enough sometimes, but full of infirmities; not strong, with nerves prone to every pain; ailing, full of little weaknesses, more contemptible than great ones!" ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... alas, Us, poor mortals, constrains to bear Anguish of vision, unspeakable, Which the contemptible, ever-detestable, Doth in lovers ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... "Your heartless, contemptible vanity, which tempts you to demand a homage and incense that should be offered only where it is due,—at another, and I grieve to ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... lxxi. Hist. August. in Marco. The Parthian victories gave birth to a crowd of contemptible historians, whose memory has been rescued from oblivion and exposed to ridicule, in a very lively piece ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... or wicked law? Wisely does the American Congress forbid to its members wine in its own dining-room, because those who have to make sacred law are bound to deliberate and vote with clear heads. Evil law is of all tyrannies the most hateful, and makes a State contemptible to ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... shame at the pleasures and pains of a courtier's life, and yet it is hard to escape from them. A ribbon, a slight difference of dress, the right of way through a door, the entrance into such and such a drawing- room, are the occasion, contemptible in appearance, of a host of ever new emotions. Vain is the struggle to acquire indifference to them.... In vain, do the mind and the reason revolt against such an employment of human faculties; however dissatisfied one is with ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... many Englishmen appear to glory in justifying the idea, and astonishing the natives by the eccentricity of their behaviour. But these originals should recollect that what may be tolerated in a man of superior talent, is ridiculous, if not contemptible, in one undistinguished by such a pretension; and that, by thus posting their absurdities to the eyes of a foreign nation, they leave behind them an impression which operates as a real injury in regard to their more rational countrymen. Another ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... shall never marry. It's cruel to you, contemptible of me, to be here. I forgot myself, Ned. Come along! It's madness to ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... Papers, the Poor REVIEW is quite exhausted, and grown so very Contemptible, that tho' he has provoked all his Brothers of the Quill round, none of them will enter into a Controversy with him. This Fellow, who had excellent Natural Parts, but wanted a small Foundation of Learning, ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... experiments might have been conducted under the influence of an anaesthetic, so as to minimize, if not remove, this needless suffering, this cold-blooded, heartless torture can only be characterized as contemptible and monstrous. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... in this connection, and after a longer experience of the world, that many schoolmasters, "armed with a little brief authority," are the most contemptible of petty tyrants. Their arrogance and oppression are intolerable; and I have often wondered, that where such men have been planted, they have not produced more of the evil fruit of strife and rebellion. Mr. Parasyte was one of this class; and the fact that he was a splendid ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... rarer than is the love of Dupris and Bolingbroke. These sentiments proceed from an unknown cause. But you have brought me thus to consider love as a passion. Yes, indeed, it is the last of them all and the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfils nothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away the first. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, of ambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in them; these sentiments are imperishable; they make sacrifices ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... says, that "he was the worst Pontiff that ever filled St. Peter's Chair," can only be justified by an utter ignorance of papal history. You have but to compare him calmly and honestly—your mind stripped of preconceptions—with the wretched and wholly contemptible Innocent VIII whom he succeeded, or with the latter's precursor, the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... thinks; and yet he is not so great a fool as you take him for, neither." The Princess Caroline vowed that if the worst were to prove true, she would run out of the house au grand galop. Walpole described the prince to Hervey as "a poor, weak, irresolute, false, lying, dishonest, contemptible wretch," and asked, "What is to become of this divided family and this divided country?" It is something of a relief to find that there was in one mind at least a thought of what might happen ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... alone once more he turned upon the speechless Paul with furious scorn and indignation. "Contemptible liar and hypocrite," he thundered, pacing restlessly up and down the room in his excitement, till Paul felt very like Daniel, without his sense of security, "you are unmasked—unmasked, sir! You led me to believe that you were as much shocked and pained at this girl's venturing to write ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... and said, "Well, Eric, it would serve you right to be caught. What business have you to be going out at night, at the invitation of contemptible small ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... play, Scripture is quoted and ridiculed, religion is made contemptible, and vice under the name of "geniality, openheartedness, and merriment," is made to appear the one thing necessary to ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... she proceeded to flatter and to promise them great things, for which she was paid 1s 6d each. This is called the frying-pan fortune. But it ought to be remembered that all fortune-telling is quite as contemptible. ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... might have been made a scapegoat by the Southern people, and, great as were the sufferings that he had endured, they were as nothing to coward stabs from beloved hands. The attacks mentioned were few, and too contemptible for notice; for now his calamities had served to endear him to all. I think that he ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... gentlemen of the South. While Mr. Pickens could openly call the resolution of the 18th of January a miserable and contemptible resolution,—while Mr. Thompson could say it was only fit to be burnt by the hands of the hangman, without rebuke or reproof,—I was to be censured by the house for casting ridicule upon them by asking the question ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... this time," says the narrative quoted, "met one of those shocks, a succession of which during this war degraded her from her high station of mistress of the seas in both hemispheres, to a contemptible rank among maritime powers. The king was fitting out a powerful fleet to carry the war to the coasts of Sweden, and for its equipment had commanded a reinforcement of men and provisions to be sent from Dunkirk. ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... out of an estate that is lying all but barren. Before the emancipation of the niggers, the Bahamas flourished wonderfully; now they are fallen to decay, and ruled, so far as I understand it, by a particularly contemptible crew of native whites, who ought all to be kicked into the sea. My friend's father is a man of no energy; he calls himself magistrate, coroner, superintendent of the customs, and a dozen other things, but seems to have spent his time for years in lying about, smoking ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... and Poets were in old time with Princes and otherwise generally, and how they be now become contemptible ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... how to do so? But this, though true, did not satisfy me. To follow it lawfully—even in his sight—no longer seemed enough.—Was there then no possibility of raising it to dignity? Did the business of Zacchaeus remain, after the visit of Jesus, a contemptible one still? Could not mine be made Christian? Was there no corner in the temple where a man might buy and sell and not be driven out by the whip of small cords?—I heard a step in the shop, and lifting ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... canine lamentation I caught the faint click of snowshoes, and hid again to catch the cur's owner at his contemptible work. But the sound stopped far back on the trail ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... More assures us that with the simple abolition of money, vice and misery would, for the most part, disappear of themselves. Hence in his Utopia, criminals are bound in golden chains and the chamber-pots are made of gold and silver in order to make these metals contemptible. (Ed. 1555, ff., 197 ff.) Similar views among the over-cultured Romans. (Compare 79, 204.) Auri sacra fames. Virgil, AEneid, III, 56. Pliny, too, would recall the days of trade by barter. (H. N., XXXIII, 3.) Even in Boisguillebert, Factum de la France, ch. 4, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... form of national government has been notoriously inefficient—taking Germany as the standard. Our state governments at their best are mediocre, while at their worst they stand pitifully paralyzed before mob law. Our unpunished lynchings of coloured people, innocent as well as guilty, make us contemptible in the eyes of the civilized world. No other government on earth remains silent and helpless while its citizens assemble as for a holiday and burn a criminal at the stake. Our municipalities are largely rotten with graft, and the graft is accompanied by ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... Confraternities who attend on funerals, are dismal and ugly to look upon; but the services they render are at least voluntarily rendered, and impoverish no one, and cost nothing. Why should high civilisation and low savagery ever come together on the point of making them a wantonly wasteful and contemptible ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... and Grimshaw. Again, he could fully appreciate Cowper's taste for classical literature; considering how utterly Newton's education had been neglected, it is perfectly marvellous how he managed, under the most unfavourable circumstances, to acquire no contemptible knowledge of the great classical authors. Add to all this that Newton's native kindness of heart made him feel very deeply for the misfortune of his friend, and it will be no longer a matter of wonder that there should have ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... want to hear about poor, dear little Bessie;" and they began so low and confidentially, that Rachel wondered if her alarms wore to be transfered from the bearded colonel to the dapper boy, or if, in very truth, she must deem poor Fanny a general coquette. Besides, a man must be contemptible who wore gloves at so small a party, when ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who next day sent a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst of a group of Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where Kursheed was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these contemptible gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become uncomfortable. I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan (Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which will leave it considerable trouble ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... moonless night; the dark blue canopy spangled with myriad stars—grandeur, peace, and purity above; squalor, worry, and profanity below. Fit basis for many an ancient system of Theology— unscientific, if you will, but by no means contemptible. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... abundantly loquacious, but now he was as dumb as a fish—tippling in silence, and answering such questions as I put to him in abrupt monosyllables. The thing was intolerable, but I saw into it: Julia had played me false; the "Mountain" was the man of her choice, and I his despised and contemptible rival. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... houses, which were used as retail shops, sailor-boarding establishments, and for other purposes, lined Broadwater, which was then not much more than half as long as it is now, and Little Water, nearly their western length. Market square, the houses of which were almost wholly wood, and mean and contemptible in appearance, was the home of the wholesale and more respectable retail dealers in dry goods and hardware. The larger grocery dealers centred near the then head of Broadwater. The population ranged between 6,500 and 7,500, and consisted of a large infusion of French from the West India ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... like one rolled in a vessel full of pikes—which way soever he turns, he something finds that pricks him. Yet, besides all these, there is another transcendent misery—and this is, that maketh men contemptible. As if the poor man were but fortune's dwarf, made lower than the rest of men, to be laughed at. The philosopher (though he were the same mind and the same man), in his squalid rags, could not find admission, when better robes procured both an open door and reverence. Though outward ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... way, that I'll come up to Oxford to pry and peep into that snug comfortable fellowship of yours? Do you suppose I'm so much in love with you, Herbert Walters, that I can't let you go without wanting to fawn upon you and run after you ever afterwards! Pah! you miserable, pitiable, contemptible cur and coward, are you afraid even of a woman! Go away, and don't be frightened. I never want to see you or speak to you again as long as I live, you wretched, lying, shuffling hypocrite. I'd rather go back to my own people at Hastings a thousand ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... were alike unrevealed to him. Borrow indeed stands quite apart from the great literature of a period in which he was a striking and individual figure. Lacking appreciation in this sphere of work, he wrote of 'the contemptible trade of author,' counting it less creditable than that ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... We all agree with Lister that this is contemptible business. This casts another light on the ancients' methods of ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... escape punishment. Hospitality was formerly the virtue of the Romans; and every stranger who could plead either merit or misfortune was relieved or rewarded by their generosity. At present, if a foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible rank, is introduced to one of the proud and wealthy senators, he is welcomed indeed in the first audience with such warm professions and such kind inquiries that he retires enchanted with the affability of his illustrious friend, and full of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... or leave it,' interrupted Desprez fiercely; 'but understand it once for all—there is nothing so contemptible as a precisian.' ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conceptions. It is a very miserable and a very false thing to belong to the majority. We Russians shall find some better form of national freedom than an artificial conflict of parties—which is wrong because it is a conflict and contemptible because it is artificial. It is left for us Russians to discover ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Queen's. Then, of course, Denny and Dicky went and did the same. Oswald wishes that the word "kiss" might never be spoken again in this world. Not that he minded kissing Mrs. Red House's hand in the least, especially as she seemed to think it was nice of him to—but the whole thing is such contemptible piffle. ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... world "would not willingly let die," was content to occupy himself with the most ephemeral of all hackwork. His own polemical writings may be justly described in the words he himself uses of a book by one of his opponents, as calculated "to gain a short, contemptible, and soon-fading reward, not to stir the constancy and solid firmness of any wise man ... but to catch the worthless approbation of an inconstant, irrational, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which she had been wrought by the moving ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... service of the truth ought to be—their every "thou shalt" was launched against us.... Our objectives, our methods, our quiet, cautious, distrustful manner—all appeared to them as absolutely discreditable and contemptible.—Looking back, one may almost ask one's self with reason if it was not actually an aesthetic sense that kept men blind so long: what they demanded of the truth was picturesque effectiveness, and of the learned a strong appeal to their senses. It was our modesty ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... inheritance? This attachment of Rous to the house of Beauchamp, and the dedication of his work to Henry, Would make his testimony most suspicious, even if he had guarded his work within the rules of probability, and not rendered it a contemptible legend. ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... licentious white, knew she was a good woman. Perhaps, had she been married, and had she had a yellow, tallowy skin and the generally acidulated appearance peculiar to white women long resident in the South Seas, we wouldn't have thought so much of her, and felt mean and contemptible when she taxed us in her open, innocent fashion with doing those things that we ought not have done. But she had a sweet, merry little face, set about with dimples, and soft cheeks hued like the first flush of a ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... of tragic poetry. But to make the extreme of littleness produce an effect like grandeur—to make the excess of frailty produce an effect like power—to heap up together all that is most unsubstantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, and variable, till the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a sense of the sublime spring from the very elements of littleness,—to do this, belonged only to Shakspeare that worker of miracles. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... treat our foreign policy, whether this policy takes shape in the effort to secure justice for others or justice for ourselves, save as conditioned upon the attitude we are willing to take toward our Army, and especially toward our Navy. It is not merely unwise, it is contemptible, for a nation, as for an individual, to use high-sounding language to proclaim its purposes, or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported by potential force, and then to refuse to provide this force. If there is no intention of providing and of keeping the force necessary to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... enjoyments of earth on a larger scale, but to the joys of heaven there is no limit. He believed in God, and the spell that gave him the treasures of the world was as nothing to him now; the treasures themselves seemed to him as contemptible as pebbles to an admirer of diamonds; they were but gewgaws compared with the eternal glories of the other life. A curse lay, he thought, on all things that came to him from this source. He sounded dark depths of painful thought as he listened to the service performed for Melmoth. The Dies ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... three sons into hiding. At dawn the bell was struck for the court to assemble; but no one came. His Majesty then ascended the Coal Hill in the palace grounds, and wrote a last decree on the lapel of his robe: "WE, poor in virtue and of contemptible personality, have incurred the wrath of God on high. My ministers have deceived me. I am ashamed to meet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my crown, and with my hair covering my face await dismemberment at the hands of the rebels. Do not hurt a single one of my people." ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... Moguls. He follows up a general statement with swarms of instances. Have historians been given to exaggerating the villainy of Machiavelli? Macaulay can name you half a dozen who did so. Did the writers of Charles's faction delight in making their opponents appear contemptible? "They have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled by Hollis, that the Earl of Northumberland cudgeled Henry Marten, that St. John's manners were sullen, that Vane had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a red nose." ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... an officer said to Desmond, "of our throwing away our lives, fighting for these Spaniards, when they themselves are useless, save when they meet the Portuguese, who are still more contemptible? Here have we, on level ground, fairly beaten the enemy, while the right and centre, although having a great advantage in position, allow themselves to be scattered like a ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... seriously menaced. The storm will probably burst in New Orleans, where I shall meet it, and triumph or perish!" Just five days later he wrote a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico which proves him beyond doubt the most contemptible rascal who ever wore an American uniform. "A storm, a revolutionary tempest, an infernal plot threatens the destruction of the empire," he wrote; the first object of attack would be New Orleans, then Vera Cruz, then Mexico City; scenes of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... cavalry so unsuccessful in its assaults, now brought up the infantry, in order to make a combined attack on all sides at once. Besides the Mexicans three hundred of their Indian allies, Lipans and Caranchuas, approached us on the left, stealing through the long grass, and, contemptible themselves, but formidable by their position, wounded several of our people almost before we perceived their proximity. A few discharges of canister soon rid us of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... obscurity, as pearls from homely oyster shells. Working among the poor of London, an English author searched out the life-career of an apple woman. Her history makes the story of kings and queens contemptible. Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger, cold and two rooms in a tenement. But there were three orphan boys sleeping in an ash-box whose lot was harder. She dedicated her heart and life to the little waifs. During two and forty years she ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... long as you like," said Mrs Keswick. "I turn nobody from my doors, even if they belong to the Brandon family. I want you to talk to my niece, and get all you can out of her about this thing, and then you can go to work and blot out this contemptible marriage as soon ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... easier than to criticize a military commander who fails to realize the high expectations of his countrymen. Whatever may be the verdict of history for or against General French, it will certainly acknowledge that he did great things with his "contemptible little army." The figure of Viscount French of Ypres will stand out in bold relief when the inner history of Mons, the Marne, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and Loos is definitively written. The present generation may not be permitted to read it, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... aristocracy—they called them lackeys. This word "lackey" served as the strongest expression, when all others were exhausted, to designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy, to denote by a single expression a low-spirited contemptible fellow, it was usual to say that he had the "soul of a lackey"; the term was enough to convey all that was intended. [Footnote a: If the principal opinions by which men are guided are examined closely and in detail, the analogy ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... they profess to reproach themselves for not doing so. And this is more contemptible. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... defendant up to the time the State introduced the unexpected wives. They had regarded him as a poor unfortunate, driven to crime by adversity, and after a fashion the victim of an arrogant and soulless police system, aided and abetted by the District Attorney's minions, a contemptible robber in the person of a dealer in women's hats, and a bejeweled snob who insulted their intelligence by trying to convince them that her confidence had been misplaced. But the two wives settled it. Smilk was a rascal. He ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent, then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... when the people aroused in righteous indignation tarred and feathered the culprit, bestowed the cat-o'-nine-tails or ducked him in the nearest pond. Though not in accordance with the British Constitution it is certainly the most effective way of dealing with some mean, contemptible cases. And Farrington's was one of them. With clever legal counsel he might be able to prove that he was acting within his right in holding the money "until called for," according to the wording of the paper he had signed, while the real motive that prompted ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live, as not ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... portrayed the Goddess of Fortune dispensing her rich gifts. But cardinals' hats, bishops' mitres, gold medals, decorations of orders, were falling upon bleating sheep, braying asses, and other such like contemptible animals, whilst well-made men in ragged clothes were vainly straining their eyes upwards to get even the smallest gift. Salvator had given free rein to his embittered mood, and the animals' heads bore ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... nice trainers and backers for you, my lad. Pretty nigh muffed any small chance you'd got. Square up those shoulders a little bit, do, my lad! That form won't put in a slommocking shot. Their fumbling style and contemptible flabbiness Clings to you yet. Ah! thanks be, you've changed hands. They'd crab our swim, but the Old Scuttler's shabbiness ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... to improve them.' Whether 'improved' or not, these gunboats were found worse than useless as a substitute for 'the ruinous folly of a navy.' They failed egregiously to stop Jefferson's own countrymen from breaking his Embargo Act of 1808; and their weatherly qualities were so contemptible that they did not dare to lose sight of land without putting their guns in the hold. No wonder the practical men of the Navy called ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... felt all that he himself could have wished as such. He was very fond of Milly and quite content with her, but not perfectly content with himself. He supposed he must at bottom be one of those ordinary and rather contemptible men who care more for the excitement of the chase than for the object of it. But he felt sure he was really a very lucky fellow, and determined not to give way to the self-analysis which is always said to be the worst enemy ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... indifference could impose restraint upon her emotions. As he listened to the most significant of her words he was distressed with shame, and now, in recalling them, he felt that he should have said something, done something, to disillusion her. Could he not easily show himself in a contemptible light? But reflection taught him that the shame he had experienced on Marcella's behalf was blended with a gratification which forbade him at the moment to be altogether unamiable. It was not self-interest alone that prompted his use of her familiar name. In the secret ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... I told myself that my frame of mind was contemptible, that I should be ashamed of such weakness. Station after station was left behind, as the express sped through moonlit England towards the smoky metropolis. Assured that I was being furtively watched, I became ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... want to tell you," she said at last, "and it's hard to explain. My life is full of jealousies and disappointments, you know. You get to hating people who do contemptible work and who get on just as well as you do. There are many disappointments in my profession, and bitter, bitter contempts!" Her face hardened, and looked much older. "If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... scorn on his contemptible foe, Woodburn, having been anxiously casting about him in thought for some means of rescuing the ill-fated girl from her impending doom, now, with the air of one acting only on his own responsibility, hastily called on his companions ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... rode through the city with me to the extremity of it, cheered all the way by the people, unless it was in passing the new reading room, in Clare-street, where a few of those who had been sworn in as special constables were assembled; a little contemptible group of the abject, dependant tools of the corporation, who, as I suppose, from the appearance of their lips, attempted to raise a hiss, but their voices were instantly drowned by the cheers of the multitude; and thus the meeting ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... is very nice, no doubt; but we, your neighbours, are simply crazy to know who and what you are?" That might strike him in various ways. He might take offence, and one could not blame him. He might see humour in it, and a proof of the contemptible meanness of human nature. I decided that I lacked courage to blurt out my desire that way. He was so very much like myself that I could not rid myself of the notion that he might prefer a milder way of approach. And as I sorted out my stock of diplomacy he spoke of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... considered, is ignoble the right epithet to apply to parasitism? No doubt, in the human race, the idler who feeds at other people's tables is contemptible at all points; but must the animal bear the burden of the indignation inspired by our own vices? Our parasites, our scurvy parasites, live at their neighbour's expense: the animal never; and this changes the whole aspect ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... or falls with you. And God was behind it all; I felt it and knew it; and when I got through and the vote was called off, you would have thought it was a tropical thunderstorm that swept through that hall as the ayes were thundered, while the noes were an insignificant and contemptible minority. It had all gone on our side, and such enthusiasm I never saw. I think it was there that when I started to go down into the rooms below to get an exit, a big burly Englishman in the gallery wanted to shake hands with me, and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... reason you think I have to expect such an invitation from the gentleman who gives tea?' 'I have my own reasons (cried Mr Bramble, with some emotion) and am convinced, more than ever, that this Paunceford is a contemptible fellow.' 'Sir (said the other, laying down the paper) I have not the honour to know you; but your discourse is a little mysterious, and seems to require some explanation. The person you are pleased to treat so cavalierly, is a ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... indulgence, with a conscience satisfied with the hack routine of what is called respectability,—such a man feels no wretchedness; no inward uneasiness disturbs him, no desires which he cannot gratify; and this though he be the basest and most contemptible slave of his own selfishness. Providence will not interfere to punish him. Let him obey the laws under which prosperity is obtainable, and he will obtain it, let him never fear. He will obtain it, be he base or noble. Nature is ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... in our despair it seems that the world is crumbling under our feet, and we sit down in tears as did Adam at Eden's gate. And to cure our griefs we have but to make a movement of the hand and moisten our throats. How contemptible our sorrow since it can be thus assuaged! We are surprised that Providence does not send angels to grant our prayers; it need not take the trouble, for it has seen our woes, it knows our desires, our pride and bitterness, the ocean of evil that surrounds us, and is content ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... supporting a beloved king against the professors of those revolutionary and Jacobinical doctrines which to him were the very atheism of politics. The experience of a few years in the service of a bigot so contemptible as Ferdinand, whose highest object of patriotism was the restoration of the Inquisition, added another disappointment to those which had already embittered the life of a man who had seen in the grand hero of Cervantes no follies to satirize, but high virtues to imitate. Poor Quixote himself,—he ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... position of Pariahs, like the Akhdm "serviles", or Helots, of Maskat and El-Yemen. No clan of pure Arabs will intermarry with them; and when the Fellahs say, Tatahattim (tatamaskin or tatazalli), they mean, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible as a Hutaymi." Moreover, they must pay the dishonouring Akhwat, or "brother-tax," to all the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... told Miss Cox exactly what I think of her action in this case," and she tapped the letter before her. "She has shown plainly," said Mrs. Tellingham, with sternness, "that she is a most sly and mean-spirited girl. I am sorry that one of the young ladies of Briarwood Hall is possessed of so contemptible a disposition." ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... thankful you will come with me Mr. Lott. He'd care nothing for what I said; but when he sees you, and hears your opinion of him, it may have some effect. I beg you to tell him your mind plainly! Let him know what a contemptible wretch, what a dirty blackguard, he is in the eyes of all decent folk—let him know it, I entreat you! Perhaps even yet it isn't too late to make ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... brother Amos. I condole with him in the loss of the prize, but it is the fortune of war. The finest Greek Poem I ever wrote lost the prize, and that which gained it was contemptible. An Ode may sometimes be too bad for the prize, but very ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... went on the barrier erected between true spiritual love and insidious sensuality became more and more clearly defined; the former pervaded the erotic emotion of the whole period. Parallel with chaste love, sensuality continued to exist as something contemptible, unworthy of a noble mind; and it must be admitted that according to the contemporary "Fabliaux," later German comedies and Italian and French novels, the sexual manifestations of the period, were of incredible coarseness. As against these, spiritual love was not merely an artistic and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... contemptible traitor," he said, thrusting his face forward and speaking in German. "What are you ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... a human skull. "And is this," exclaimed he, "the mighty gift that they bestow on kings and heroes? Is this the fruit of so much toil and danger and care?" Enraged and disappointed, he threw it on the ground. "Great king," said one of the learned men who were present, "do not despise this gift. Contemptible as it may appear in thine eyes, it yet possesses some extraordinary qualities, of which thou mayest soon be convinced, if thou wilt but cause it to be weighed against gold or silver." Alexander ordered this to be done. A pair of scales were brought. The skull was placed ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... successful. They never sight the returning Texans, nor these them. The Rangers go down the river; the savages up stream. Of all Apaches, of all Indians, the Jicarillas are the most contemptible cowards. Dastards to the last degree, the young "braves" who mutilated the slain lancers will return to their tribe to tell of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I seem to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could not ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... like it, dear Tess! Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... who threw a girl over as something contemptible, and he certainly did not want to appear to himself in that light; or, for her sake, that people should think he had tired of her, or found her wanting in any one particular. He knew only too well how people would talk. How they would say he had never really cared for her; that he didn't know his ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... therefore ought we to be astonished that He has left us His example, in order that we may ourselves endure with patience all things for our own salvation? He is God, and we are His creatures; He is the Lord, and we are His servants; He is Master of the world, and we are contemptible mortals:—yet He suffered! Why, then, should we not suffer also, particularly when suffering is for us a purification? Therefore, beloved, if my death ought to contribute to His glory, pray that it may come quickly, and that He may enable me to support all my calamities with constancy. But ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... (or Hulsen's Second) coming on with menace of fire and sword upon these poor Reichspeople, found the Reichspeople wholly vanished in the mist. Gone bodily; in full march for the spurs of the Metal-Mountain Range again;—concluding, for the fourth time, an extremely contemptible Campaign. Daun, with the King ahead of him, made not the least attempt to help them in their Leipzig difficulty; but retired to his strong Camp at Torgau; feels his work to lie THERE,—as Friedrich perceives of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... body. Nor could any plan be devised more certain to arouse the fury of the pagan priesthood, than to denounce the craft by which they had their wealth, and to preach that they are no gods which are made by hands. The most degraded wretch, who perishes by the hand of the hangman is not so contemptible in our eyes, as the crucified malefactor was in the eyes of the Roman people; nor could anything more disagreeable to the Jewish nation be invented than the declaration, that the Gentiles should become partakers of the kingdom of God. What ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... spite of these contrasts the English Whigs insisted upon the political equality with themselves of the American colonists. The Tory squire, however, shared Samuel Johnson's view that colonists were either traders or farmers and that colonial shopkeeping society was vulgar and contemptible. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... you contemptible, tale-bearing sneak!" said Harry; and he accompanied his words with lash after lash of a big old-fashioned dog-whip. "How dare you come here with your miserable stories! Out with you, you dog, or I'll lash you ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... Arya), the oldest known name of the entire Indo- European family, signifies well-born, and was applied by the ancient Hindus to themselves in contradistinction to the rest of the world, whom they considered base-born and contemptible. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... sight of laborious indigence so affecting and so respectable, that it renders dissipation peculiarly contemptible, and doubles the odium of extravagance: every time Cecilia saw this poor family, her aversion to the conduct and the principles of Mr Harrel encreased, while her delicacy of shocking or shaming him diminished, and she soon acquired for them what she had ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... he went on. "Accordingly, I'll proceed to name the men who I believe must know about this contemptible action, and notify them that they will ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... instance, we decidedly object to. So, we are in favour of slang, but not of all slang. There are some slang words which are used instead of oaths, and these, besides being wicked, are exceedingly contemptible. Tempting, however, they are—too apt to slip from the tongue and from the pen, and to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "But so contemptible that the king can well despise it," replied the queen-mother. "Well, what are the flirtations which are alluded to? Do you mean ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... "A contemptible dreamer," I said. "Pity him, Sire. He has his uses. To remove him would be to remove a channel through which we can always obtain knowledge precisely of what ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... another he is contemptible, he cannot expect to escape results. This is no place to have a scene. You may send me your apology ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... to that taunt now. It was a part of his punishment, and the one which lasted longest. From any other boy he might have winced under it; but really, coming from Jones, it was too contemptible to notice. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... point for comfort and respectability is, that all the household economy should be uniform, not displaying a parade of show in one thing, and a total want of comfort in another. Besides the contemptible appearance that this must have to every person of good sense, it is often productive of fatal consequences. How common it is, in large towns especially, that for the vanity of having a showy drawing-room to receive company, the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... greatly excited. And that highly intelligent lady in her excitement said to her two husbands, Bhima and Arjuna with indignation mixed with modesty, 'If you care to do what is agreeable to me, you must slay that mean and despicable wretch, that sinful, foolish, infamous and contemptible chief of the Saindhava clan! That foe who forcibly carries away a wife, and he that wrests a kingdom, should never be forgiven on the battle-field, even though he should supplicate for mercy!' Thus admonished, those two valiant warriors went in search of the Saindhava chief. And the king ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... often baffled, that he grows contemptible. Were he here, should he see you enter into ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... ago, and yet some of those hands then clasped in amity have been clenched at each other, or have dipped furtively in one another's pockets. I know that we didn't dine together the next year, because young Barker swore he wouldn't put his feet under the same mahogany with such a very contemptible scoundrel as that Mixer; and Nibbles, who borrowed money at Valparaiso of young Stubbs, who was then a waiter in a restaurant, didn't like to ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... is essentially different from a British House of Commons. As a political body it is the most contemptible assembly in Europe. It is a mere debating club, a convenient machine to vote the Government taxes. And even the power of voting has been largely taken from it. It has become part of the German constitutional practice that the military ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... "Ungenerous, contemptible wretch!" thought I—"But such of our sex as can thus give up their virtue, ought to expect no better: for he that sticks not at one bad action, will not scruple at another to vindicate himself: and so, devil-like, become the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... did not exist for it lay open to me. I was familiar with the greatest in that world: mighty poets, painters, and musicians were my intimates. I found the world of artificial greatness founded on convention and money so repugnant and contemptible by comparison that I had no sympathetic understanding of it. People are fond of blaming valets because no man is a hero to his valet. But it is equally true that no man is a valet to his hero; and the hero, consequently, is apt to blunder very ludicrously ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... me. "The hue and cry! Contemptible! How I hate it! But you wouldn't understand—!" he broke off, and slowly regained his usual air of self-obliteration; he even seemed ashamed, and began trying to brush his moustaches higher than ever, as if aware that his heat had robbed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
