"Derision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is irresistible. He is strong to do good, strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up under difficulty and misfortune. When Stephen of Colonna fell into the hands of his base assailants, and they asked him in derision, "Where is now your fortress?" "Here," was his bold reply, placing his hand upon his heart. It is in misfortune that the character of the upright man shines forth with the greatest lustre; and when all else fails, he ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... able to rise to his irresponsible humour. Thus far her audacity seemed to have earned her nothing but his derision. He was not in the least afraid of her—and he was a desperate criminal. Then what was ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... personal traits and the languid reign of Charles IV have been treated by historians with derision. He forgot the general welfare of the empire in his eagerness to enrich his own house and aggrandize his paternal kingdom of Bohemia. The one remarkable law which emanated from him, and whereby alone his reign is distinguished in the constitutional history ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... curiosity, save indeed a kind of surface morbid wonderment at crepe upon a door or the coming of a well-dressed woman to their neighbourhood. The prince might have lived in McDougle Street for years without exciting more than derisive comment of the denizens, derision being no other ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... necessarily exist for me? Does not the Son of God himself say that they are his whom the Father has given to him? Have I been given to him? What if the Father will retain me for himself, as my heart sometimes suggests? I pray you, do not misinterpret this. Do not extract derision from my harmless words. I pour out my whole soul before you. Silence were otherwise preferable to me, but I need not shrink from a subject of which few know more than I do myself. What is the destiny of man, but to fill ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... the destruction by oil of the insects in the open pools. The total cost would hardly have exceeded $200,000. But there was no yellow fever in the city then; the public had recovered from its latest scare; and the bill was voted down with derision. I suppose the saving of that $200,000 cost New Orleans some forty or fifty million ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... other Divines treat and laugh at Popery. Even the solemn and grave Dr. Whitby has written a Book against Transubstantiation, under the Title of "Irrisio Dei Panarii, The Derision of the Breaden God," in Imitation of the primitive Fathers, who have written Derisions and Mockeries ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... stories for boys and girls are not plentiful. Many stories, too, are so highly improbable as to bring a grin of derision to the young reader's face before he has gone far. The name of ALTEMUS is a distinctive brand on the cover of a book, always ensuring the buyer of having a book that is up-to-date and fine throughout. No buyer of an ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... revelling; merrymaking &c (amusement) 840; jubilee &c (celebration) 883; paean, Te Deum &c (thanksgiving) 990 [Lat.]; congratulation &c 896. smile, simper, smirk, grin; broad grin, sardonic grin. laughter (amusement) 840. risibility; derision &c 856. Momus; Democritus the Abderite^; rollicker^. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, hug oneself; rub one's hands, clap one's hands; smack the lips, fling up one's cap; dance, skip; sing, carol, chirrup, chirp; hurrah; cry for joy, jump ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... against the mantel. "Can it be you have discerned at last that the highly dramatic meeting between father and son at a certain banquet, not so long ago, was entirely contrived by myself—that it was my hand drove you from society and made you the derision ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... to play the part of a clown or buffoon, acting in a very silly and stupid manner, while the others looked on laughing and pointing their fingers at him in derision. ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... to you, sir!" said the leader of the gang, with a devilish smile of derision, as he stuck his arms akimbo and squirted some tobacco-juice from his filthy mouth across the cabin table ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... that these numerous and important events were brought to so happy an issue, some persons in the palace of Constantius, disparaging Julian in order to give pleasure to the emperor, in a tone of derision called him Victorinus, because he, modestly relating how often he had been employed in leading the army, at the same time related that the Germans had received ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... arrogance of its decrees could only be surpassed by the inhumanity which executed them. By coupling the ludicrous with the terrible, and by amusing the eye with the strangeness of its processions, it weakened compassion by the gratification of another feeling; it drowned sympathy in derision and contempt. The delinquent was conducted with solemn pomp to the place of execution, a blood-red flag was displayed before him, the universal clang of all the bells accompanied the procession. First ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that year they feted its birth, and sang a hymn in the new language, celebrating the reign of unity and peace which should be brought about by its means, "All mankind must be united in one family." But the enthusiasm of its first followers died down under the derision they encountered, and for nine years more Zamenhof worked in secret at his language, translating, composing, writing original articles, improving, polishing, till in 1887 he published his first book under the title of "An International Language by Dr. Esperanto." ("Esperanto" ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... my feet at that. His derision cut me like a whip. If what I did was the act of a braggart, yet it almost seems I could do no less to bolster up my former boasting—or what ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... about his people: she had heard of him before. Hadn't he been, at Oxford, a friend of one of her nephews? Hadn't he spent the Christmas holidays precisely three years before at her brother-in-law's in Yorkshire, taking that occasion to get himself refused with derision by wilful Betty, the second daughter of the house? Her sister, who liked the floundering youth, had written to her to complain of Betty, and that the young man should now turn up as an appendage of Flora's was one of those oft-cited proofs that the world is small and that there are ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... cleanliness, but the people stop short of washing themselves, and the bath among the poorer classes is practically unknown. People of this kind may not have had one for thirty or forty years, and will receive the idea with derision and look on the practice as a 'fad,' while the case of many animals is seriously cited as an argument that it is quite unnecessary. A doctor told me once of a rich old patient of the farming class near Utrecht who, on being ordered a bath, said, 'Any amount of physic, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... bill passed the Vermont House of Representatives, with only four dissenting votes. When the bill came to a third reading and only four men stood up for the negative, there was so marked an expression of derision that the speaker called for "order," and reminded the House that "no man was to be scorned for voting alone any more than with a crowd." The action and the voting came cheerily. More than one man, to the objection of "an entering wedge," said "he was ready to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... a laugh, which made the ground shake, thundered behind the cliff. It did not sound like derision, but as if some one had sat in great fear and could not help laughing, when suddenly relieved of it. The terrible silence and oppressive heat were also at an end. Over the grass floated a cooling wind, and the pine-branches began their murmuring song. The happy huntsman felt that the whole ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace—the handcuff, the lash—the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives—the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labour of body, the despair of mind, the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... saddled and rode with his fellows for a mile or two, and called them unseemly names in a facetious tone; and the men of the Wishbone answered his taunts with shrill yells of derision when he swung out of the trail and jogged away to the south, and finally passed out of sight in the haze which still hung depressingly ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... dagoes fight it out among themselves," announced the third man with much derision. "Helping one of 'em is like picking a hornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... and dearly, Florence Vane; My life's bright dream, and early, Hath come again; I renew, in my fond vision, My heart's dear pain, My hope, and thy derision, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... with derision. "Much good that would have done your wife, you fathead! Well, well, we'll say nothing to MINE, if you please, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... governor, with a laugh of derision. "Drink less wine, I pray you! Your scheme becomes preposterous. Of what kind of man do you take him to be, this Sieur de la Tournoire, who offers a reward, in my own province, for my head and that of ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... inconsistent," cried the white domino, "that while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old! The figure now passing is not meant to ridicule any particular person, nor to stigmatize any particular absurdity; its sole view is to expose to contempt and derision the general and natural infirmities of age! and the design is not more disgusting than impolitic; for why, while so carefully we guard from all approaches of death, should we close the only avenues to happiness in long life, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... attempt to mount is greeted with shrieks of laughter. So long as a valiant fellow is seen to be steadily making his way upwards, inch by inch, he may be applauded; but let him display the slightest hint of having "shot his bolt," and begin to slip back again, howls of derision will greet his ears, so that in confusion he finally gives it ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... blind, sufferedst her to stumble at every step in Religion, and madest her seek in the dimness of her sight, to murder her mother the Church, from whose paps thou like an envious dog but yesterday pluckedst her. However, proud scorner, thy whorish impudency may happen hereafter to insist in the derision of these fearful denunciations, and sport thy jester's pen at the speech of my soul, yet take heed least despair be predominant in the day of thy death, and thou instead of calling for mercy to thy Jesus, repeat more oftener to thyself, Sic morior ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... was a zealous Episcopalian, and defended that form of government in a variety of pamphlets. In the course of this controversy he carne in collision with the mighty Milton himself, who, unable to deny the ability and learning of his opponent, tried to cover him with a deluge of derision. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... why this seeming derision!" I cried in my anguish: "O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten - ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... uncomfortable on her driving-seat, although far too proud to acknowledge so derogatory a feeling. We had no servant with us; and when I suggested that we might as well take one of the stablemen to open the gates, my proposal was met with derision and contempt. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... but had the Vision Come to him in beggar's clothing, Come a mendicant imploring, Would he then have knelt adoring, Or have listened with derision, 105 And have turned away with loathing? Thus his conscience put the question, Full of troublesome suggestion, As at length, with hurried pace, Toward his cell he turned his face, 110 And beheld the convent bright With a supernatural ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... only means they had of deprecating the injuries so frequently in his power to inflict; he had, too, from his necessity of not attending to their supplications, acquired a habit of treating them with constant derision, which they well understood and appreciated; and the contempt which he always showed for them was one of the reasons why he was so particularly hated through the country. Though now a guest of Brady's, he could not help showing the same feeling. Moreover, Ussher, who as far as the conduct ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of derision came from the boat, and Ram jumped up and waved his red cap, with the effect that it seemed as if some of the dye had been transferred to Archy's face, which a minute sooner had been rather ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... no time to wonder at this movement before a tomahawk, whirling rapidly and flashing like a ruby in the red glare, went hurling forward, and buried its shining blade deep in the post an inch from the prisoner's head, the handle quivering with the force of impact. Again and again, amid yells of derision and encouragement, they threw, twice bringing token of blood from the grazed cheek and once cleaving the ear nearest me as if by a knife-blow. In spite of all, De Croix sneered at them, mocked their efforts, taunted ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... terrible [371]: as the chorus implies, "it is to laugh and to weep." But when the scene, opening, discovers Ajax sitting amid the slaughtered victims— when that haughty hero awakens from his delirium—when he is aware that he has exposed himself to the mockery and derision of his foes— the effect is almost too painful even for tragedy. In contrast to Ajax is the soothing and tender Tecmessa. The women of Sophocles are, indeed, gifted with an astonishing mixture of majesty and sweetness. After a very pathetic farewell with his young son, Ajax affects to be reconciled ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... With speed what force is left, and all imploy In our defence, lest unawares we lose This our high place, our Sanctuarie, our Hill. To whom the Son with calm aspect and cleer 730 Light'ning Divine, ineffable, serene, Made answer. Mightie Father, thou thy foes Justly hast in derision, and secure Laugh'st at thir vain designes and tumults vain, Matter to mee of Glory, whom thir hate Illustrates, when they see all Regal Power Giv'n me to quell thir pride, and in event Know whether I be dextrous to subdue Thy Rebels, or be found ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... or your senses, or your powers of observation? You can be clever enough when it suits you!' Mrs. Berrington continued, throwing off another ripple of derision. 'And now perhaps, as the carriage is waiting, you will let me go about ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... necessity of study, combined with natural genius, to constitute a Poet; but dwelling on the peculiar danger and delusion of flattery, to a writer of rank and fortune; as well as the inestimable value of an honest friend, to rescue him from derision and contempt. The Poet, however, in reverence to the Muse, qualifies his exaggerated description of an infatuated scribbler, with a most noble encomium of the uses of Good Poetry, vindicating the dignity of the Art, and proudly asserting, that the most exalted ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... are come to an age when we ought to read and speak plainly what our discretion tells us is fit: we are not to be set in a corner for mockery and derision, with our hands hanging down motionless and ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... were often called in derision, were very sure of their victory. So were the Whigs. The other party did not really expect success. There were parades of some kind nearly every night. Even the boys turned out and marched up and down with fife and drum. There was no end of spirited campaign songs, and ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... above Star upon star, moon, Sun; And let his God-head toil To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven, Since in the end derision Shall prove his works and all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... think," said Jeekie, kneeling down and letting fly at a clump of the little men, which scattered like a covey of partridges, leaving one of its number kicking on the ground. "Ah! my boy," shouted Jeekie in derision, "how you like bullet in tummy? You not know Paradox guaranteed flat trajectory 250 yard. You remember that next time, sonny." Then off they went again up ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... thereby. When to impugn them with down-right reason, or to check them by serious discourse, would signify nothing, then representing them in a shape strangely ugly to the fancy, and thereby raising derision at them, may effectually discountenance them. Thus did the prophet Elias expose the wicked superstition of those who worshipped Baal: "Elias (saith the text) mocked them, and said, 'Cry aloud; for he is a god, either he ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Cyrus Thurston, and laughed in derision. There was something ludicrous in the futility of the attack. He stuck his head from a window into the gale they created. He sheltered his eyes to try to follow ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... and fault that injured matrimony habitually denounces; and as each item of this abusive litany was screamed in his ears, the chorus responded with a deep "amen!" They boasted of their infidelities, lauded their lovers, and producing their children, with laughs of derision, bade him note the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of such a result makes me perfectly indifferent to all else; I cheerfully expose to the derision of the whole reading world the story of my weakness and my shame, since by doing so I may possibly rehabilitate myself somewhat in the ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... the German coldly from his household and forbade the pro-German enter. From afar off the enemy propagandist could resort but to derision and ridicule. What an attempt at laughter he made when Haiti entered the side of the Allies! How he pretended to be choking with the ridiculousness of the thing when Liberia offered her services! He flouted the idea of Negro expertness in handling weapons of modern warfare. He ridiculed ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... would say that 'it is God's precept and doctrine that ye ought to prefer before your ceremonies and vain constitutions.' This saying was high disobedient, and should be grievously punished; when that lying, obloquy, flattery, ignorance, derision, contumely, discord, great swearing, drinking, hypocrisy, fraud, superstition, deceit, conspiracy to wrong their neighbour, and other of that kind, was had in special favour and regard. Laud and praise be to ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... men, seated, some at a long table, and some here and there in pairs, seemed able to recognize the new-comer through it, and hailed his appearance with a cry of welcome—a cry that had in it a ring of derision. One man who stood near the fire, impatiently kicking the logs with his spurred boots, turned, and seeing who it was moved towards him. "Welcome, M. de Bazan," he said briskly; "so you have come to resume our duel! I had given ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... FRIEND—I wish to express my deep sympathy with those brave women who are struggling against ancient prejudices and modern folly, and who will eventually elevate our sex to a position which will command the respect of those who now regard them with derision and contempt, and my gratitude to the noble-minded men who are extending a helping hand to those who have hitherto been considered the weak and dependent portion of society, and are endeavoring to raise them to their level, instead of trying to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... up and turned to the sheepman. The latter showed him a face of derision. He had gathered one thing that disquieted him, but he did not intend ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... a face at Valentine when the old man was not looking. It expressed good-humoured defiance and derision, but the only effect it produced was on himself, for it disturbed for the moment the great likeness to his grandfather that grew on him every day. John had clear features, thick light hair, and deep blue eyes. His son was dark, with bushy ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... real one, and thine! Come! Consent, and you go with us. That kingdom shall be yours. You have the head and heart and the behaviour of a brave and good man." Thus they urged him, but John only put them aside. He listened to them half in derision. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... the head of a Bald Man and bit him. In his eagerness to kill it, he hit himself a smart slap. But the Fly escaped, and said to him in derision, "You tried to kill me for just one little bite; what will you do to yourself now, for the heavy smack you have just given yourself?" "Oh, for that blow I bear no grudge," he replied, "for I never intended myself any harm; but as for you, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... people have remained silent; we have been spat upon by the enemy, slandered, harried, and treated with every possible mark of disdain and contempt. But our people, with a dignity which reminds the world of a greater and more painful example of suffering, have borne in silence the taunts and derision of their opponents; indeed, they elected out of a sense of duty to remedy the faults and abuses which had crept into their public administration during moments of relaxed vigilance. But even this ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... mental culture was enabled to produce in music, and which gives to a composition its inner and organic completeness. Dorn could thus sincerely console the young author with the hope of future success for his composition, which, instead of a favorable reception, met only with indignation and derision. ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... the wall of the valley of the Blind for two nights and days without food or shelter, and meditated upon the unexpected. During these meditations he repeated very frequently and always with a profounder note of derision the exploded proverb: "In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King." He thought chiefly of ways of fighting and conquering these people, and it grew clear that for him no practicable way was possible. He had no weapons, and now it would ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... certainly, though he found reason to change his sentiments and his measures, he changed them honestly, well weighed, always from conviction, and always for the better. He has been compared, and seemingly in no spirit of hostility or derision, with a Castlereagh, a Perceval, an Addington. a Canning. Only one of these is worthy of notice, namely Canning, whose brilliancy made his shallowness less visible, and whose graces, of style and elocution threw a vail over his unsoundness and lubricity. Sir Robert Peel was no satirist or epigrammatist: ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... asked in derision—"at Erfurt, or Wittemberg?[3] Good brethren, the Lord Vicar makes use of much art, to divert you from your purpose by his rhetorical flourishes. We inquire not how long a thing may have been in use? We would speak of the truth ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... pursuing a policy which had been so pointedly condemned, excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of representation, were fully aware, as was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the stand-point of acquired practical competence, to deride a merely imaginative life. Derision, however, is not interpretation, and the better method of overcoming erratic ideas is to trace them out dialectically and see if they will not recognise their own fatuity. The most irresponsible vision has certain principles of order and valuation by which ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Jesus answered the cry of His soul. With the rude irresoluteness of armed force, with the awkwardness of a vaguely understood purpose, the soldiers seized Him and dragged Him off—mistaking their irresoluteness for resistance, their fear for derision and mockery. Like a flock of frightened lambs, the disciples stood huddled together, not interfering, yet disturbing everybody, even themselves. Only a few of them resolved to walk and act separately. Jostled from all sides, Peter drew out the sword ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Government, in a part of the country, where, if we are to believe the statement of Governor Rabun, 'an officer who would perform his duty, by attempting to enforce the law [against the slave trade] is, by many, considered as an officious meddler, and treated with derision and contempt;' ... I have been told by a gentleman, who has attended particularly to this subject, that ten thousand slaves were in one year smuggled into the United States; and that, even for the last year, we must count ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... jostled an avenue through the innermost ring of Hillmen and leaped out in front of Terry, brandishing a short blow tube he carried and laughing in shrill derision. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by Zenobia's passion than a salamander by the heat of its native furnace. He would have been absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, tinctured strongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his intellectual perceptions could not altogether help him out. He failed to comprehend, and cared but little for comprehending, why Zenobia should put herself into such a fume; but satisfied his mind that it was all ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell me as how the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're done educating her—a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed a little lazily, with the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent derision. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... would carve their names on stone, as great givers to the public. The public will not take these things personally; the public laughs and lightly criticises. Men who have nothing but money to give away cannot hope to receive other than calculating looks and laughter that rings with derision. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... during the Revolution, and, as is the case with John Brown's Body and many other popular melodies, some obscurity hangs about its origin. The air was an old one, and the words of the chorus seem to have been adapted or {388} corrupted from a Dutch song, and applied in derision to the Provincials by the soldiers of the British army as early as 1755. Like many another nickname, the term Yankee Doodle was taken up by the nicknamed and proudly made their own. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... of the bigotry, ignorance, cunning, and roguery of a great part of mankind. He therefore concluded, like a just reasoner, that such an evidence carried falsehood upon the very face of it, and that a miracle, supported by any human testimony, was more properly a subject of derision than of argument. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... seemed as if those figures began to heave,—and to sweat blood,—and their beady eyes to move in their sockets. At once I beheld that they were all looking upon me, that they were all leaning towards me,—some with frightful derision, others with furious aversion. Every arm was raised against me, and they made as though they would crush me with the quivering limbs they had torn one ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... British arms, won so many battles, subdued such a number of towns and districts, humbled the pride and checked the ambition of France, secured the liberty of Europe, and, as it were, chained victory to his chariot wheels, was in a few weeks dwindled into an object of contempt and derision. He was ridiculed in public libels, and reviled in private conversation. Instances were every where repeated of his fraud, warice, and extortion; his insolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct; even his courage was called in question; and this consummate general was represented ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... feeds with pride his indecision, And shrinks from what will not occur, Bequeathing with infirm derision His ashes to the days that were, Before she made him prisoner; And labors to retrieve the vision That he must ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... of indignity which could be imagined. He had refused to govern as a lawful prince, and he saw himself deprived of even his legal authority. He became of no sort of consequence in his kingdom; he was held in universal contempt and derision; he fell into a profound melancholy. It was in vain that he had recourse to the Pope, whose power he had found sufficient to reduce, but not to support him. The censures of the Holy See, which had been fulminated at his desire, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... A shout of derision went up from the boys. Jim's lips tightened. "You lick the new kid first," he answered, "then tackle ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... As if in derision, fate led him first to the Hebrew quarter. A heap of dusty ruins marked the site of the house where he had spent his childhood, and for which his heart had longed; and where his loved ones had watched his departure, beggars were now greedily searching for plunder among ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thus his mother's pleading: "I will still the sneers of women, Silence all the taunts of maidens, I will crush their haughty bosoms, Smite the hands and cheeks of infants; Surely this will check their insults, Fitting ending to derision!" This the answer of' the mother: "Woe is me, my son beloved! Woe is me, my life hard-fated! Shouldst thou taunt the Sahri daughters. Or insult the maids of virtue, Shouldst thou laugh them to derision, There will rise a great contention, Fierce the battle that will follow. All the hosts ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... furniture. A fruit-woman took possession of the queen's bed, as a stall to range her cherries on, saying that to-day it was the turn of the nation; and a picture of the king was torn down from the walls, and, after being stuck up in derision outside the gates for some time, was offered for sale to the highest bidder.[2] In the Assembly the most violent language was used. An officer whose name has been preserved through the eminence which ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... had not been present hitherto in the demon chorus, but now it predominated. What it lacked in the earliness of coming it made up in the vigor of arrival. It had in it all the human qualities, that is, the wicked or menacing ones—hunger, derision, revenge, desire for blood and threat of death. Tandakora, veteran of a hundred battles, one of the fiercest warriors that ever ranged the woods, shook. His blood turned to water, ice water at that, and the bones of his ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and distrust which we had met were doubtless, in large part, due to these measures, and the fear that we were government spies. So great was the discontent, and so openly expressed, that it was said that on the Saturday preceding, in the Plaza of Tlaxcala itself, there was a riot, with cries of derision and contempt, and firing of guns upon the palace. We were told that the nearest haciendero, who was friendly to the governor, was marked for assassination and would be killed within ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... some years, until Felix was attracted by the beauty of the Lady Aurora. Proud, showy, and pushing, Thyma could not understand the feelings which led his hearth-friend to retire from the arena and busy himself with cherries and water-wheels. On the other hand, Constans rather looked with quiet derision on the ostentation of the other. Thus there was a certain distance, as ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... likeness for thy vision? O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom? What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good? Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood? Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... at him, this beautiful, heartless animal, not a smile of derision but one of deliberate allure. He felt the hot blood mount to his temples. A languid arm beckoned him to her side and the amazing creature settled back in her cushions with the drowsy, contented motions ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... tongue. While they were vainly haranguing each other the old woman appeared at the edge of the thicket above the hut. Uttering shrill exclamations, she hurried down to confront King with blazing eyes. He fell back, momentarily dismayed. Her horrid grin of derision brought a flush to his cheek; ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to provide as well for the pleasures of others. If he lacked imagination she had learned by now that he did not fail in its sister virtue, sympathy, and his keen gray eyes, which expressed so perfectly a gay derision, were not slow, she knew, to warm ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... toward him a manner in the least proprietary, but if he noticed he did not resent it. They went faster; her voice was a low thread of music running through an accompaniment of crashing dissonances. She wore a hat now—the best she could find. He considered it most "fetching", but her thrilling derision overwhelmed his expression of opinion. Though the way was so rough that they were occasionally thrown rather violently one against another, they arrived in high spirits at their destination, Mr. Heatherbloom having performed the commendable feat of preserving intact the parcels ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to suggest that they should go away and look for more venison for supper, while he kept watch on me. At that there was a general howl of derision. They seemed to me to be telling the old fellow that they were just as fond of boy as he, and that ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... with unsparing vigour, had tended to accelerate the flight of M. Riel and the members of his government, who sought in rapid retreat the safety of the American frontier. How had the mighty fallen! With insult and derision the President and his colleagues fled from the scene of their triumph and their crimes. An officer in the service of the Company they had plundered hooted them as they went, but perhaps there was a still harder note of retribution in the "still small voice" which must have ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... wondered how a fellow like Bruce Browning could come to be know as "king of the sophomores," unless such a title was applied to him in derision. Now he began to understand that Browning was something more than the lazy mischief ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... confidence of the queen whom he had served, partly by his own imperious conduct, and partly from the overbearing insolence of his wife. From the height of popular favor, he descended to the depth of popular hatred. He was held up, by the sarcasm of the writers whom he despised, to derision and obloquy; was accused of insolence, cruelty, ambition, extortion, and avarice, discharged from his high offices, and obliged to seek safety by exile. He never regained the confidence of the nation, although, when he died, parliament decreed him a splendid funeral, and a grave ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... burning of the President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent derision "wondered what Jimmy Madison would say now." "Sir," cried Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual shyness, "do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me tell you, sir, it is not now a question about Jimmy Madison or Jimmy ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... derision, and sundry distortions of countenance, listened to an Italian song; after which, he bustled back to the outer apartment, in search of Cecilia, who, ashamed of seeming a party in the disturbance he had excited, had taken the opportunity of his dispute with the Captain, to run into the next ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and sometimes it was the name of some notorious and infamous woman; but whatever it was, Chaerea was compelled by his duty as a soldier to deliver it to all the corps, and patiently to submit to the laughter and derision which his communication awakened among ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... seat, it had taken the alarm and was pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him in an expression of scornful derision. ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... was remarkable for his long red beard, and was therefore called by the English "Magnus Red-beard," but by the Scotch, in derision, "Magnus Red-mane," as if his beard had ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... his invariably proud and lofty bearing. At length Porcallo extricated himself, and, drenched with water, and covered with mud, led his equally bemired steed to the land. He was humiliated and enraged. The derision of the soldiers stung him to the quick. He had embarked in the expedition to gain glory and slaves. He had encountered disgrace; and the prospect of kidnapping the natives, under such a leader as De Soto had proved himself to be, was ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... to lead us to disaster, and when we couple with it inefficacious resistance and bigoted obstruction we cannot be surprised if, in the end, it only yields us bitter disappointment, extensive losses, enmity and derision. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... were attacked, grievously wounded, and, after being confined here for some days, carried away and confined in the wood, by order of Ben Soloman, and that he visited you there, would be treated with derision. The version given by the man who brought in the story of the Jew's death was that he himself was staying in the cottage of a charcoal burner, an acquaintance of his, and that a party of brigands, of whom you were one, arrived there, and that they were boasting of having ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... girds himself with a Spanish sword, fit for a close fight. When armed and equipped, they lead him out against the Gaul, who exhibited stolid exultation, and (for the ancients thought that also worthy of mention) thrust out his tongue in derision. They then retire to their station; and the two being armed, are left in the middle space, more after the manner of a spectacle, than according to the law of combat, by no means well matched, according to those who judged by sight and appearance. The one had ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... march—the Northmen will be unsuspicious of danger, and taken by surprise may be easily defeated." The proposition, however, was received with absolute derision. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... had no military experience, and so far as then known no capacity for the service; but his fervid partisanship commended him to Mr. Polk as a safe servant, and he received the commission, to the surprise and derision of the State. His bravery in action and his honorable wounds at Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec saved him from contempt and made his political fortune. He had received the recommendation of the Illinois Democrats in Congress, and it is altogether probable that he owed his appointment in great ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... faintest shade of derision in his voice, if they had any cause for suspecting it. As it was, however, not a man present had the slightest mistrust of him. He had ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... making war is quite secondary to the share of this universal shallow silliness of outlook. These effigies of emperors and kings and statesmen that lead men into war, these legends of nationality and glory, would collapse before our universal derision, if they were not stuffed tight and full with the unthinking folly ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... which is not lacking in emphasis: "Of course, incidentally, we have earned contempt and derision by our conduct in connection with the hundreds of Americans thus killed in time of peace without action on our part. The United States Senator or Governor of a State or other public representative who takes the position that our citizens ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... said he to the miller; "pates are the thing now." Then, to Monsieur De la Riviere: "There's nothing like hot pennies and wine to make the world love you. But it's too late, too late for my young Seigneur!" he added in mockery, and again he began to hum in a sort of amiable derision: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defense; more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... legislative body of the province) for the purpose of examining into circumstances connected with a paper entitled "The New England Courier," expresses its opinion that "the tendency of the said journal is to turn religion into derision and bring it into contempt; that it mentions the sacred writers in a profane and irreligious manner; that it puts malicious interpretations upon the conduct of the ministers of the Gospel; and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... been thinking as well as smirking, but Marice was in no mood to be just. "A fellow called Burral lives there and has a telephone. He may have some petrol. All may not yet be lost!" He continued to smile. Not that he felt cheerful—but the situation seemed to him to call for derision rather ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... placed the targets in artillery or musketry practice. This is sometimes called a "stop-butt," its purpose being to secure the ground behind the targets from stray shots. The word is used figuratively of a person or object at which derision or abuse are levelled. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... ascertained that he excused himself upon the plea of sudden illness; but he was very well again on the following day, and his excuse was not received. The ridicule growing out of the affair, and his reduction from the rank of major to that of captain, in derision, finally drove him in disgrace from ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... already passed into a law by a senate which brought no dishonour upon the British nation, by a senate which was courted and dreaded by the greatest part of the universe, and was drawn up by a ministry that have given their posterity no reason to treat them with derision and contumely. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... among the ashes, and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... of the people, and I am glad to know that he hated a table d'hote, smiled a smile of derision at all dress-coats, had small sympathy with pink teas, loved his friends, doted on babies, and was never so happy as when in the country walking along grass-grown lanes in the early summer morning, when the dew was on and the air was melodious ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... that his sentiments were just and his intention kind was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horror of derision. But he recovered his tranquillity and pursued ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... unexpected way by granting a monopoly for the free importation of grain to a favoured individual of their party in Pretoria. It is not wonderful therefore that the notification conveyed by the Collector of Customs was received with considerable derision, and the opinion was expressed that it would have redounded more to the credit of the Government's honesty and intelligence had they remitted the duties when first petitioned instead of doing so at the last moment hastily and ungracefully—so to ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... derision. "And she didn't even have to tell you so! She can't even hide its deadly intensity from the casual bystander! haw! haw! haw! And it's all the outcome of a three-days acquaintance! It beats Doctor Swiftgrow's Mustache Invigor'—aw, haw! haw!" "Oh, you think ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... feeble endeavor, The parent of terror and half-hearted work; It weakens the efforts of artisans clever, And makes of the toiler an indolent shirk. It poisons the soul of the man with a vision, It stifles in infancy many a plan; It greets honest toiling with open derision And mocks at the hopes and the dreams of ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... time since then has the same derision been awakened by this claim of Christ. He is the King of nations. But earthly kings and statesmen have ridiculed the idea that His will and His law should control them in their schemes and ambitions. Even where His authority is nominally ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... and other of our juvenile friends, who, with their usual modesty, proposed to run along with the race, and now formed part of the crowd which awaited the start, kept up a boisterous chorus of shouts, some of defiance, some of derision, some of applause, addressed alternately to foe ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... appreciative mammas those infantile specimens of humanity savour largely of the ridiculous, there can be no question that the present generation of dames de comptoir is a very sublime article indeed. I do not say this in derision, nor am I among those who decry the improvements introduced during the last few years, both into refreshment bars themselves, and notably into the class of ladies who preside over them. The discriminating ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... child, the Duck-billed Platypus A sad example sets for us: From him we learn how Indecision Of character provokes Derision. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... field! Was so great a battle to be fought with him away? And where was Buell? He had a second great army. He was to join them that day. What good would it be for him to come tomorrow? Many of them laughed in bitter derision. And there was Lew Wallace, too! They had heard that he was near the field with a strong division. Then why did he not come upon it and face the enemy? Again they laughed that fierce and bitter laugh deep ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fearing, it is said, lest some traitor should take advantage of it to give the assailants some advice, and the soldiers then conceived the idea of sticking upon the points of their pikes live cats, the cries of which seemed to show derision of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... disconcerted the fun-loving Maria, that, notwithstanding all her efforts at self-control, she could not conceal an occasional smile. The old ladies were shocked and enraged. They declared that she had treated them with derision, that she had no sense of decorum, and that not one of them would ever attend her court again. The next morning a song appeared, full of bitterness which was spread through Paris. The ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... reached the shore. Wallace raised what was left of his voice in a despairing shout. The scaler mockingly waved his hat, then turned and ran swiftly and easily toward the shelter of the woods. At their border he paused again to bow in derision. Carpenter's cry brought men to the boarding-house door. From the shadows of the forest two vivid flashes cut the dusk. Dyer staggered, turned completely about, seemed partially to recover, and disappeared. An instant later, across the open space where the scaler had stood, with rifle ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... experience, and often little better than a fool. It is an insult to every man of years, of character, and of talents, in a country. The moment we begin to reason upon the hereditary system, it falls into derision; let but a single idea begin, and a thousand will soon follow. Insignificance, imbecility, childhood, dotage, want of moral character; in fine, every defect serious or laughable unite to hold up the hereditary ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... 'the snow, the snow what falls from Heaven to earth below,' and keeps a-falling." Mr. Rucker was a poet at heart and a husband to Mrs. Rucker by profession, and his flights were regarded by Sweetbriar at large with a mixture of pride and derision. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... for about two hours of darkness in the thick of the fringe of trees which seemed to dance round us in derision. Here and there, however, it was possible to trace the outline of something just too erect and rigid to be a pine tree. By these we finally felt our way home, arriving in a ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... by tall children of whom I am not the father, and seated beside a wife I never married. I think I can feel wrinkles furrowing my brow. The fire before which I am placed crackles, as if in derision, the room is ancient in its furniture; I shudder with sudden fright as I lay my hand upon my heart, and ask myself: ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... our obligations to them. We were ashamed of the scene before us; the entrails of the moose and its young, which had been buried at our feet, bore testimony to the nocturnal revel of the wolves during the time we had slept. This was a fresh subject of derision for the Indians whose appetites however would not suffer them to waste long upon us a time so precious. They soon finished what the wolves had begun and with as little aid from the art of cookery, eating both the young moose and the contents of ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren desert, valuable only in the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in expectation and half in derision, but the Honorable Herbert, who had never made a speech in his life, rose to the cry. His figure straightened up, there was a new light in his eye, and Harley, startled, did not know Mr. Heathcote. As he advanced to the edge of ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... although they haue not left behind them such filthy and reprochful stuffe as that base rimer: yet there are many things in their writings that wil not suffer them to be excused, & altogether acquited from causing an innocent nation to be had in derision by others. Wherefore marking, reading, & weighing these things with my selfe, & considering that there dayly spring vp new writers, which offer iniury to the fame & reputation of the Islanders, being such men also as do shamelesly filtch out of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Hooniah, and the circle instinctively gave way for him to pass. Sime flung a jeer from the top of the canoe, the women snickered in his face, cries of derision rose in his wake, but he took no notice, pressing onward to the house of Scundoo. He hammered on the door, beat it with his fists, and howled vile imprecations. Yet there was no response, save that in the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... 1588, says he had been 'had in derision' by 'two gentlemen poets' because I could not make my verses get on the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bow-bell, daring God out of heaven with that atheist tamburlane, or blaspheming with the mad ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... derision, gave place suddenly to a yell of objurgation. Two young men, obviously cowboys, sprang over the low barrier, and Jackman, after a moment's hesitation, turned and ran. One of the cowboys caught the horse, and the audience, breathless and silent now, waited for events. Derrick, who had ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Mr. Quilty cried in derision. "Hear till him! And Ireland the owldest civ'lization in the wurruld, barrin' none, and the best! Faix, we was givin' lessons in it to all mankind whin th' dom raggety-britched tattherdemalions iv Scotchmen hadn't ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the tail of horses. An American soldier described long after, with regret for his own cruelty, how he had taken a British prisoner who had had his left eye shot out and mounted him on a horse also without the left eye, in derision at the captive's misfortune. The British complained that quarter was refused in the fight. For days tired stragglers, after long wandering in the woods, drifted into Burgoyne's camp. This was now near Saratoga, a name destined ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... expostulation, he was (like most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in public life) merely running through business which convention has designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom he was being stimulated to thought more than to derision. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... to tell the tale. Ye must know that after our reception—which was cold enough, for we were about as welcome to the Privy Council as the hearth-tax man is to the village housewife—we were asked, more as I guess from derision than from courtesy, to the evening levee at Buckingham Palace. We would both fain have been excused from going but we feared that our refusal might give undue offence, and so hinder the success of our mission. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interest than that described as animating the diction of feeling: it is the language of earnest or anxious interrogation, of passionate ejaculation, of powerful appeal, strong accusation, and fierce denunciation; also, of contempt, derision, scorn, loathing, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... prince,—a rising star. It is more consonant to the truth of history and the chronological series of prophecy, to apply this symbol to the downfall of Momyllus the last of the Roman emperors, who was deposed by Odoacer king of the Heruli, called in derision Augustulus,—the diminutive Augustus. Doubtless the allusion here is to the king of Babylon:—"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, (day-star,) son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" (Isa. xiv. 12.) A star may indeed signify either ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... began in a vague wonder at the scorn with which Crispin invested the notion that Kenneth should have cause for jealousy on his score. Was it, she asked herself, so monstrously unnatural? Then in a flash the answer came—and it was, that far from being a matter for derision, such an attitude in ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... said Dr. Arthur, with such supreme derision, that Wych Hazel laughed. To her own great relief, be ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... even now knew; it had taken a minute to perceive how gently she was speaking. With that perception of its being no challenge of wrath, no heat of the deceived soul, but only a free exposure of the completeness of past ignorance, inviting derision even if it must, the elder woman felt, first, a strange, barely credible relief: she drew in, as if it had been the warm summer scent of a flower, the sweet certainty of not meeting, any way she should turn, any consequence ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the shells of scooped oranges, which renders them so hideous, that one must have seen these madmen to form a notion of their appearance; particularly while dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor masses; but mumble a certain gibberish, as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in some countries obtained a complete ascendency. The Papacy was at length brought so low as to be an object of derision to infidels, and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. During the nineteenth century, this fallen Church has been gradually rising from her depressed state and reconquering her old dominion. No person who calmly reflects on what, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... disliked anything of the kind, he knew well enough, and perhaps they would not be willing to make an exception in this case. He wished very much he could ask their permission, but that, of course, was out of the question. The mere mention of such a thing would assuredly raise a howl of derision from the other boys, and even Teter Johnston would no doubt ask contemptuously if "he was going to back out of ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the meeting, but those which found favour with the Press made the representatives of the Government shiver with horror, while the official suggestions, on the other hand, were, I am afraid, greeted with polite derision by the journalists. Greatly daring, I proposed that we should do for the American correspondents what was done for them in their own country by the President. President Wilson met the correspondents at Washington every Monday for a confidential talk of twenty ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... were the words—"Ave Maria"—a device which the Garcilasos wore in commemoration of the famous single combat which one of their house had sustained against the fierce Moor Audala, who, with impious insolence, had interwoven the sacred salutation to the virgin, in token of derision, in his horse's tail. The two other champions were the Count de Urena and young Sayavedra, both equally renowned in that age of chivalry, brave and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... which the degradation of women is reduced to a systematized slavery, to meet what is openly called a necessity of nature. The comparative purity of Englishmen and Americans is still a wonder, and often a derision to foreigners. Our women are a greater power than in any other country. We still start from a ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... thought about as stolidly you sat there, A grin of faint derision on your pudgy porcelain face; I wonder if you dreamed about some cherry blossom tea house, And if the goldfish bored you in their painted ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... feeble opposition ticket for the delegates to the convention was put in the field. These were called "Co-operationists," i.e., in favor of secession, but to await a union with the other Southern States. These were dubbed by the most fiery zealots of secession, "Submissionists" in derision. The negroes, too, scented freedom from afar. The old cooks, mammas, house servants, and negro eavesdroppers gathered enough of "freedom of slaves," "war," "secession," to cause the negroes to think that a great measure was on foot somewhere, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... had been prepared for their work by long and sharp personal convictions of their own lost condition; and that they might be able to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ, they had been subjected to the fiery ordeal of scorn, derision, and persecution, both in the university and as they were entering the ministry. They and a few others who sympathized with them were contemptuously called Methodists by their ungodly fellow-students,—a name which ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... lacking in Keene's designs; nevertheless, we acknowledge that here is humour. It is also in some of his clerical figures when they are not caricatures, and certainly in 'Robert,' the City waiter of Punch. But so irresistible is the derision of the woman that all Charles Keene's persistent sense of vulgarity is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... is a sad bon jour look about the thirty-eight cents left in my vest pocket that would make a hired man weep. All day long the heavens wept, and the heavy, sombre clouds went drifting about over head, and the north wind howled in maniacal derision, and the hack drivers danced on the pavements in wild, fierce glee, for they knew too well what the stormy day betokened. The hack was to call for me at eight. At five minutes to eight I went upstairs and dressed in my usual bijou and operatic style, and rolled away to the opera. Emma ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... through the first acts of that tremendous drama, a disposition of an opposite tendency had, for some time, succeeded. Against the wit of the scoffer, not only piety, but a better taste, revolted; and had Lord Byron, in touching on such themes in Childe Harold, adopted a tone of levity or derision, (such as, unluckily, he sometimes afterwards descended to,) not all the originality and beauty of his work would have secured for it a prompt or uncontested triumph. As it was, however, the few dashes of scepticism with which he darkened his strain, far from checking his popularity, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the boatswain pining in, and Fitz winced as he heard them down by the cabin-door; but he was himself again directly, for there was no jarring note of derision in the sound. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn |
