"Disdainful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Monster was hideous to behold; he was cloathed with scales like a Fish (and they are his pride); he had wings like a Dragon, feet like a Bear, and out of his belly came Fire and Smoke; and his mouth was as the mouth of a Lion. When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... Mme. Rey, who played the Queen in "Ruy Blas" in 1840; it was this one who represented Venus. She was admirably shaped. Another was more than pretty: she was handsome and superb. Nothing more magnificent could be seen than her black, sad eyes, her disdainful mouth, her smile at once bewitching and haughty. She was called Maria, I believe. In a tableau which represented "A Slave Market," she displayed the imperial despair and the stoical dejection of a nude queen offered ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... me. He told me that he would do anything for me. He had a strange tact which prevented him from intruding upon me when I was occupied. He was as quick as any cultured civilised cosmopolitan to see if he was not wanted. He developed a certain cleanliness; he told me, with an air of disdainful superiority, that he had been to the public baths. I gave him an old suit of mine and a pair of boots. He very seldom asked for anything; once and again he would point to something and say that he would like to have it; if I ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... reaction of that old aristocratic spirit which had ruled the pagan world. It was an eclecticism of knowledge and culture which had originally despised the doctrines of the Cross. It united the oriental theosophy with the Platonic philosophy, both of which were proud, exclusive, disdainful. "It drew a distinction between the man of intellect, whose vocation it was to know, and the man who could not rise above blind and implicit faith." The early Christians were characterized for the simplicity of their faith. But with the triumphs of faith arose the cravings for knowledge ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... group of fishes stared at her solemnly. Then one of the remarked in a disdainful manner, "Come, my dear, let ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes—the eyes of a fanatic, in a singularly shrewd and capable face—now on Laura, now on her children. Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of liking, ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... proud bearing, nor (least of all) the utter indifference with which he treated me. Often, when conversing, I burned to contradict him, to punish his pride by confuting him, to show him that I was clever in spite of his disdainful neglect of my presence. But I was invariably prevented from doing so ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand, and from his seat The monster moving onward came as fast With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode. Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admired— Admired, not feared (God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he nor shunned), And with disdainful look thus first began:— "Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape, That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass, That be assured, without leave asked of thee. Retire; or taste thy folly, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... you," said he, but his eyes were mocking still. I saw he was a little disdainful of my rebuking him—and angry at ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... devotes himself to study, and becomes learned, yet is disdainful with those less educated than himself, and is not particular in his dealings with his fellows, then the people say of him, "Woe to the father who allowed him to study God's law; woe to those who instructed him; how censurable is his conduct; ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... had Mrs. Pennington referred to this, asking half jokingly if Margaret Elizabeth had ever discovered the identity of that person; putting a somewhat disdainful ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... not," would he exclaim, "that disdainful Apollo. Thus cold, callous, and triumphing in the work of destruction, must be the angel of death, who winged the shaft at ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... others. As his stature is short, and yet his waist very long, he appeared to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it. He took pleasure already in the part of embarrassing people by saying disagreeable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... face expanding irresistibly, bent lower over Diego's small trousers. The picture of Ana, standing disdainful among the sorrowing caballeros and waving off their pleas with an imperious hand, was one to bring a smile to lips of deadliest gravity. Ana, with her hands on her broad hips, short and thick as a squat brown ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... sympathetic and kind. It seems to them an unconscious confession of weakness to be scornful, revengeful, inconsiderate. Courtesy, they say, is the mark of a great man, discourtesy of a little one. No one who feels his position secure will lose his temper, will persecute, will be disdainful. Their word for a fool and for a hasty-tempered man is the same. To them it is the same thing, one infers the other. And so their attitude towards animals is but an example of their attitude to each other. That an animal or a man should be lower and weaker than you is the strongest claim he can ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... before her. She stooped and passed about his neck the gold chain which she held for the prize; but I think they exchanged no looks. Only one other rider brought two rings, and this was a son of Lars Trolle, Olaf by name, a tall young knight, and well-favoured, but disdainful; whom I knew Sir Borre must favour if ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... value themselves much too highly to expect depreciation. Why a proud man is often shy, as appears to be the case, is not so obvious, unless it be that, with all his self-reliance, he really thinks much about the opinion of others although in a disdainful spirit. Persons who are exceedingly shy are rarely shy in the presence of those with whom they are quite familiar, and of whose good opinion and sympathy they are perfectly assured;— for instance, a girl in the presence of ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... mouth and your teeth'll stay in," said Jake flatly. He separated a green slip from the letter and held the two covered while he read. "Well, well," he said. "Our little Shakespeare!" With a disdainful grunt Jake tossed the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... two hours without support, and seized by a fear of being blown up, they retired. He, borne along, endeavoured to disengage himself from the crowd, and there he stood, almost alone, facing round frequently to the batteries, with head erect, and with a calm, proud, disdainful eye. Hundreds of shots were aimed at him, and at last, having succeeded in rallying some men, and leading them on up the side of the ditch, he was struck by a shot and ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... by the way, so far as it availed the captain with Mrs. Tweedie, who passed him on the road as cold as ever, and received the swear-money disdainful, and never said "thank you" for it, though there was eighteen dollars in the bag and the biggest share Coe's. Afiola himself had been getting out of favor for two months. He couldn't manage to be deacon ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly—simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... mind," said Romola Borria with a disdainful toss of her pretty head. "Besides, I think the Herr Captain would have ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... harmless writer of this column are generally reduced (in their final ecstasy of anger) to calling him "brilliant;" which has long ago in our journalism become a mere expression of contempt. But I am afraid that even this disdainful phrase does me too much honour. I am more and more convinced that I suffer, not from a shiny or showy impertinence, but from a simplicity that verges upon imbecility. I think more and more that I must be very dull, and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... a corner near the cashier's steel-grilled desk, stood Ilse Dumont, calm, disdainful, confronted by Brandes, whose swollen, greenish eyes, injected with blood, glared redly at her. Stull had hold of him and was trying to drag ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... holding her by her hair. "Right, left!—Left, right!—Absalom! Absalom!—Forward! now back! To the ground! to the ground! Ha! ha! you see, I laugh already like an imbecile!" Arkel, running up, seeks to restrain him. Golaud affects a sudden and disdainful calmness. "You are free to act as you please," he says.—"It is of no consequence to me.—I am too old to care; and, besides, I am not a spy. I shall await my chance; and then.... Oh! then!... I shall simply act as custom demands." "What is the matter?—Is he drunk?" ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... and high thinking." It is always open to character and intellect to perceive and to assert their essential superiority. Why should Socrates heed Sardanapalus? Why indeed? But the average young man at college is not an ascetic, nor a devotee, nor an absorbed student unmindful of cold and heat, and disdainful of elegance and ease and the nameless magic of social accomplishment and grace. He is a youth peculiarly susceptible to the very influence that Sardanapalus typifies, and the wise parent will hesitate before sending his son to ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to remember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of their hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular character), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said the words which are written in gold upon his monument, 'Little ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... quick movement Francis thrust back Leoni's arm and walked proudly up towards Henry's chair bowing slightly once to right and left as he swept with disdainful ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... distress. On second thoughts, I went noiselessly back to my station in the great room. She had not seen me, I was sure. Nor had I long to wait. Presently she appeared, and I could have doubted the testimony of my eyes, so changed were the agonized face and figure of a few moments before. Beautiful and disdainful, she moved to the table, and took the great chair drawn before it with the air of an empress mounting a throne. I contented myself ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... then disdainful. An evil expression came into her eyes; she thrust her head forward; the whole woman collected herself for the attack like a tiger-cat, but it ended with a violent blow ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... angry? Things of your tender mould should be most gentle. Why should you frown? Good gods, what a set anger Have you forc'd into your face! Come, I must temper you. What a coy smile was there, and a disdainful! How like an ominous flash it broke out from you! Defend me, love! Sweet, who ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... absorbed the properties of Klakee-Nah. Porportuk once took it upon himself to chide El-Soo upon the wasteful way of life in the large house—it was when he had about absorbed the last of Klakee-Nah's wealth—but he never ventured so to chide again. El-Soo, like her father, was an aristocrat, as disdainful of money as he, and with an equal sense of honour ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... immortal discoverer, and there were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking or expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for the withdrawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is there not some one or other who is a little too self-confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... and gave a disdainful shrug as she answered with a look in her eyes that his lordship did not like, "Thank you. I don't want admirers or slaves, but friends and helpers. I've lived so long with a wise, good man that I am rather hard to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Meantime, the women from the fountain came, Whom soon the swine-herd follow'd, driving three His fattest brawns; them in the spacious court He feeding left, and to Ulysses' side Approaching, courteously bespake the Chief. Guest! look the Greecians on thee with respect At length, or still disdainful as before? Then, answer thus Ulysses wise return'd. 200 Yes—and I would that vengeance from the Gods Might pay their insolence, who in a house Not theirs, dominion exercise, and plan Unseemly projects, shameless as they are! Thus they conferr'd; and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... a disdainful grimace when Albina, in a huge hat, rustled past him, and would greet her ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the strong passions, the haughty and disdainful temper, which made Clarendon's great abilities a source of almost unmixed evil to himself and to the public, had no place in the character of Temple. To Temple, however, as well as to Clarendon, the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... having obtained the dominion of the world, sent legates or deputies to the Britons to demand of them hostages and tribute, which they received from all other countries and islands; but they, fierce, disdainful, and haughty, ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... Nothing is indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or fugitive muse. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... "the law should take its course." No one credited this declaration for an instant, and most persons felt that the Crown officials were indulging in an indecent piece of mockery. Amidst this universal incredulity, however—this disdainful and indignant disbelief—the prisoners' solicitor, Mr. Roberts, vigilant and untiring to the last, took the necessary steps to pray arrest of execution pending decision of the serious law points raised on the trial. ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... and with the pride and majesty habitual to her, entered the adjoining room, and, having taken three steps, stopped with a disdainful air, waiting ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... world but he had quite forsworn! For me, that I may surely keep mine oath, I will be married to a wealtlly widow Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov'd me As I have lov'd this proud disdainful haggard. And so farewell, Signior Lucentio. Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love; and so I take my leave, In resolution ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the treaty, he goes on to characterize the several parties combined in the war.—"Is it possible," says the Abbe, "that a strict union should long subsist amongst confederates of characters so opposite as the hasty, light, disdainful Frenchman, the jealous, haughty, sly, slow, circumspect Spaniard, and the American, who is secretly snatching looks at the mother country, and would rejoice, were they compatible with his independence, at the ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary accomplishment— a country in which man had often to contend against the wild beast. In civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the wild beast—but we don't hunt him!—Lord Lilburne" (and this was added with a smiling and disdainful whisper), "you must practise a ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... from the busy newsroom of the Zwingle (Iowa) Weekly Patriot," a disdainful handwave referred this description to Gootes; "some miserable castoff from a fourthrate quickie studio masquerading as a newscameraman; and a party of sheep—perhaps I could simplify my whole sentence by saying merely a party of bloody sheep—will be landed by parachute on top of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honourably and virtuously instructed to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed. These unhappy creatures repeat their lesson to their mothers, in the same manner as little girls among us repeat their catechism without understanding ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... in company with her friend and the chair, and would stick by the latter's side the whole time. It was the thought of this which was making him particularly cross this morning. There stood the chair on its high wheels; Peter seemed to see something proud and disdainful about it, and he glared at it as at an enemy that had done him harm and was likely to do him more still to-day. He glanced round—there was no sound anywhere, no one to see him. He sprang forward ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... at the Astorbilt's to-morrow night; you'd like to go to that, wouldn't you? Fat chance!" said the disdainful and seasoned cit. "D'you know what Mertoun would do to you? Set you back a hundred simoleons soon as look at you. And at that you got to have a letter of introduction like gettin' in to see the President of the United States or John D. Rockefeller. Come off, my ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... prejudice. Riding from Boston to Albany, a few years ago, I found myself in a large car, well filled with passengers. The seat next to me was about the only vacant one. At every stopping place we took in new passengers, all of whom, on reaching the seat next to me, cast a disdainful glance upon it, and passed to another car, leaving me in the full enjoyment of a hole form. For a time, I did not know but that my riding there was prejudicial to the interest of the railroad company. A circumstance occurred, however, which ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... of this fall of Rachel, without resorting to the theory of superior genius in Ristori. Undoubtedly Paris loves novelty, and has been impatient of the disdainful sway of Rachel. Her reputed avarice and want of courtesy and generosity, her total failure to charm as a woman while she fascinated as an artist, have, naturally enough, after many years, fatigued the patience and disappointed ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... those happy times when she was beloved by Demetrius. However that might be, when Puck returned with the little purple flower, Oberon said to his favorite: "Take a part of this flower; there has been a sweet Athenian lady here, who is in love with a disdainful youth; if you find him sleeping, drop some of the love-juice in his eyes, but contrive to do it when she is near him, that the first thing he sees when he awakes may be this despised lady. You will know the man ]by the Athenian garments which ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the time she could on the shoulder of Putnam's Only Gentleman. Perched up there, aloof, lofty, and disdainful, she would purr away like a ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... more than the car was the fur coat, and the haughty and fastidious manner in which Miss Ingram accepted it from the chauffeur, and the disdainful, accustomed way in which she wore it—as though it were a cheap rag—when once it was on her back. In her gestures he glimpsed a new world. He had been secretly scorning the affairs of the luncheon and all that ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... a man imbued with the genius of ancient things and disdainful of trodden paths. He was able to recognize the rests of a Roman camp, and, strangely enough, the rests of one of the camps of Caesar, who had had these stones upreared only to serve as support for the tents of his soldiers and ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... Just a disdainful sweep of her eyes she gave him as she rose from the piano-stool and rearranged the lamps. "You mean so much that never comes to pass, Mr. Bannister. The road to the nether regions is paved with good intentions, we are given to understand. Not that yours can by any ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. Thrice blessed be this last consideration, since it enables us to follow the disdainful Miggs even into the sanctity of her chamber, and to hold her in sweet companionship through the dreary watches of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... harlot's bed lies he Anointed with oblivion; Ah, ah, 'tis plain he walketh free Protected by some mightier one. But Varus! thou shalt suffer yet! Thou shalt re-seek these longing arms, And ne'er from me re-alienate Thy mind, enthrall'd by Marsan charms. A cup more powerful I for thee Will soon prepare, disdainful wretch! Ere shall the sky sink 'neath the sea, And that shall o'er the earth out-stretch, Than with my love thou shalt not burn, Like pitch, which in these flames I throw." Not with mild words their bosoms stern To melt, as erst, the boy sought now; But madly reckless he began The direst ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... a sociable fellow, and a very little of such treatment was sufficient to make him suffer keenly. Nevertheless he sought to hide the fact beneath a haughty and disdainful air, which was a course his disposition and temperament hardly qualified ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... preceding the Tuesday fixed for the execution, but it fell through on a rumor of confession. The Monday papers contained a last masterly letter from Grodman exposing the weakness of the evidence, but they knew nothing of a confession. The prisoner was mute and disdainful, professing little regard for a life empty of love and burdened with self-reproach. He refused to see clergymen. He was accorded an interview with Miss Brent in the presence of a jailer, and solemnly asseverated his respect for her dead ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... so nice as the things Mother's sending them," said Muriel, turning over the toys in a rather disdainful manner. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... had scaled the wall of the bulwark, called out to him, "Surrender! surrender to the King of Heaven! Ah, Glacidas, you have foully wronged me with your words, but I have great pity on your soul and the souls of your men." The Englishman, disdainful of her summons, was striding on across the drawbridge, when a cannon-shot from the town carried it away, and Gladsdale perished in the water that ran beneath. After his fall, the remnant of the English abandoned all further resistance. Three hundred of them had been killed in the battle and two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... forward in the chair. She looked at him with a flash of disdainful eyes in which was a touch of feminine ferocity. But she let her ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... was in danger, or whether she bore Erik a grudge, because of the sarcasms which her aristocratic air toward him inspired in the doctor, nobody knew. However, she persisted in treating him with a disdainful coldness, which no courtesy or politeness on his part could overcome. Her opportunities of displaying her disdain were fortunately rare, for Erik was always either out-of-doors, or else busy in his own ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... subject to sickness, and kept in almost total ignorance by his incompetent preceptors. The gloom and pride and stoicism of his temperament were augmented by this unnatural discipline. His spirit did not break, but took a haughtier and more disdainful tone. He became familiar with misfortunes. He learned to brood over and intensify his passions. Every circumstance of his life seemed strung up to a tragic pitch. This at least is the impression which remains upon our mind after reading in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... my studious calm, my pleasant and sufficing tasks, to listen to One who seemed so little likely to instruct me? Would not the same spirit of disdain which made me think lightly and even scornfully of persons whose lives had no resemblance to my own, have made me disdainful of the Man of Nazareth? I knew the answer and I quailed before it. I saw that the temper of my mind was the temper of the Pharisee, and had I lived two thousand years ago in Jerusalem or Galilee, I should have rejected Jesus even as the scribes ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... synonym in Elizabethan English of both 'lust' and 'obstinacy'), he derisively challenges comparison with wire-drawn conceits of rival sonnetteers, especially of Barnabe Barnes, who had enlarged on his disdainful mistress's 'wills,' and had turned the word 'grace' to the same punning account as Shakespeare turned the word 'will.' {118a} ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, their destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... proof against money, that attracts every thing; and a consul not of one year only, but as often as the good and upright magistrate has preferred the honorable to the profitable, and has rejected with a disdainful brow the bribes of wicked men, and triumphant through opposing bands has displayed his arms. You can not with propriety call him happy, that possesses much; he more justly claims the title of happy, who understands how to make a wise use of the gifts of the gods, and how to bear severe ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. I find also, that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or the same favors ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... threw her another disdainful glance and darted off into the thick of the crowd. A moment later Pollyanna heard his strident call of ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... after the fatigue of the game. Will you honor my poor house, mistress? and you, too, ma'am? Gentlemen, you must fight among yourselves for the privilege of escorting Lady Sue to the house, and if she prove somewhat disdainful this beautiful summer's afternoon, I pray you remember that faint heart never won fair lady, and that the citadel is not worth storming ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... inferiority, either physical or mental, is apt to affect the personality unfavorably. It does not necessarily produce humble behavior; far from that, it often leads to a nervous assertiveness. An apparently disdainful individual is often really shy and unsure of himself. Put a man where he can see he is equal to his job and at the same time is accomplishing something worth while, and you often see ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the commanders on the other side would come over; and accordingly, upon their first approach, they saluted them with the friendly title of fellow-soldiers. But the others returned the compliment with anger and disdainful words; which not only disheartened those that had given the salutation, but excited suspicions of their fidelity amongst the others on their side, who had not. This caused a confusion at the very first onset. And nothing else that followed was done ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Theocritus, Bion, or Virgil. Two of them contain fables told with great force and humour. The story of the Oak and the Briar, related as his friendly commentator, Kirke, says, "so lively and so feelingly, as if the thing were set forth in some picture before our eyes," for the warning of "disdainful younkers," is a first fruit, and promise of Spenser's skill in vivid narrative. The fable of the Fox and the Kid, a curious illustration of the popular discontent at the negligence of the clergy, and the popular suspicions about the arts of Roman intriguers, is told with great spirit, and ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... from much which has already passed, it might erroneously be inferred that Young Dick was a mean and money-grubbing soul. On the contrary, he was at that instant entertaining secret thoughts and plans so utterly regardless and disdainful of his twenty millions as to place him on a par with a drunken sailor sowing the beach ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... the Calenderer's horse under the its guidance of the celebrated John Gilpin, the disdainful steed now in the management of Sir Felix, "wondered what thing he'd got upon his back," we are not competent to decide; but he certainly in his progress "o'er the stones" manifested frequent impatience of restraint. These symptoms of contumaciousness were nevertheless borne ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the word with disdainful incredulity. She did not see how Faith could be tired after a day of such ease. She herself was as fresh and wide awake ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... little of the suffering and misery which emigrants must undergo, before they reach that Western Paradise of the Oriental imagination. How they are huddled like sheep on deck from Beirut to Marseilles; and like cattle transported under hatches across the Atlantic; and bullied and browbeaten by rough disdainful stewards; and made to pay for a leathery gobbet of beef and a slice of black flint-like bread: all this we know. But that New World paradise is well worth these ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... things difficult there is danger from ignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid of greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not adequate to her powers, sometimes too secure for caution, and again too anxious for ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... from me with a disdainful swirl of her short petticoat, began to descend into the depths below, seeing which, I scrambled to my feet and crossed to the trap, only to behold her standing beneath me, the ladder dragged ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... lady in blue, looking Kitty up and down with a disdainful smile on her painted face; 'where are they, I'd like ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... looked about the table that evening, after the juleps were handed around and the champagne had followed, he was still more glad. The set of old Richard's head and the tilt of his nose were enough to face. An old and pampered hound in the presence of a pack of puppies could not have been more disdainful. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... coquet and roll her fine eyes; but it is also true that she was not much of a languisher, as all her ogling was of a destructive or proudly-attacking kind. It was her habit to leave others to languish, and herself to lead them with disdainful vivacity to doing so. She was the talk, and, it must be admitted, the scandal, of the county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein she lived was a boisterous hunting shire where there were wide ditches and high hedges to leap, and rough hills ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... emerged. They did not turn his way but preceded him, so that he only saw their backs. But he had no doubt who one of the couple was. The fair hair, the tall, slim, long-limbed figure, the perverse sloppiness of dress which could not quite obscure her grace of youth, betrayed the disdainful prodigy of Rackham Park. The creator of Linda Spavinsky swam ahead of him. Had he doubted her identity, a glance at the door from which she had emerged would have dispelled the doubt. It was the entrance to a picture gallery, ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... in a curiously shy and nervous state of mind. There was perhaps no man living whose hands were more nearly at home upon the key-board of a piano, or whose mind was more disdainful of other people's opinions. But of the fact that he was suffering from incipient stage fright there could be no doubt whatever. Would this inoculate his playing, keep the soul out of it? Or worse, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... I have seen him, I can well understand why [S']akoontala should pine after such a man, in spite of his disdainful rejection of her. ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... the catastrophe, when Eugenie's most intimate friend, the music teacher, Louise d'Armilly, came to condole with her, the proud daughter of the banker repulsed her with a disdainful laugh. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... complain, knew beforehand that they were delivered up to the sword of war. While they waited for their turn at the slaughterhouse they looked on and made their judgments in silence, each one by himself, with a little surprise and a great deal of irony. Through a disdainful reaction against the mental condition of the herd they fell back into a kind of egotism, intellectual and artistic egotism, an idealistic sensualism, where the tracked and hunted ego vindicated its rights against human fellowship. Laughable ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... her husband, he should lay his case before an elder brother, Sir Robert Bowes, Warden of the Marches, who seems to have acted as head of the family. Sir Robert turned out to be more hostile to the perilous alliance proposed for his niece than even her father; and Knox wrote that 'his disdainful, yea, despiteful words have so pierced my heart that my life is bitter unto me.' When Knox was about to have 'declared his heart' in the whole matter, Sir Robert interrupted him with, 'Away with your rhetorical reasons! for I will not be persuaded with them.' Knox, indignant, predicted to ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... threw a disdainful glance at the chevalier, then pointed at an enormous trunk of a mahogany tree with gnarled roots which formed the rustic bench upon which he ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... she looked as if a proud disdain Kindled displeasure in her noble mind, The way she came she turned her steps again, With gesture sad but in disdainful kind, A tempest railed down her cheeks amain, With tears of woe, and sighs of anger's wind; The drops her footsteps wash, whereon she treads, And seems to step ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the two large vases of scarlet carnations that stood on the long, massive table in the middle of the room. She had thought them a very pleasant and appropriate decoration for the snowy day, but Blaney's glance at them was disdainful. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... that his sensitive nature chafed at the false position. Among the simple village folk he was a personality, compelling awe and admiration. Among the idlers of Aix, whom in his loftiness he despised, he was but the fiddling mountebank to whom any greasy wallower in riches could cast a disdainful franc. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... made an insulting gesture of surprise; he laughed with an air of disdainful confidence; and then drew from the casket a magnificent gold net-work for the hair, all encrusted with carbuncles. After making it sparkle in the lamp-light, he deposited the second trinket also at the feet of Meroe. Redoubling his ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... spirit! tarry thou. I know thee well, E'en thus in filth disguis'd." Then stretch'd he forth Hands to the bark; whereof my teacher sage Aware, thrusting him back: "Away! down there To the' other dogs!" then, with his arms my neck Encircling, kiss'd my cheek, and spake: "O soul Justly disdainful! blest was she in whom Thou was conceiv'd! He in the world was one For arrogance noted; to his memory No virtue lends its lustre; even so Here is his shadow furious. There above How many now hold themselves mighty kings Who here like swine shall wallow ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... confidences. She swore to help him in any way she could. Even after she received "the Crouch," once Willoughby and still Willoughby to the "nuts" who frequented the stalls of the Alhambra. She received that tall and voluptuous young woman, with her haughty face and her disdainful airs, and she bore with her horrible proprietorship of Louth. And finally she broke it to Lord Blyston at Rupert's ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... through-searching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and of Lazarus being in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly (as it were) inhabit both the memory and judgment. Truly, for myself, meseems I see before my eyes the lost child's disdainful prodigality, turned to envy a swine's dinner: which by the learned divines are thought not historical acts, but instructing parables. For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... of his rank, he entered the throne-room of the palace in Barcelona and received permission to be seated in the royal presence to relate his experiences. Around the hall stood the grandees of Spain and the magnates of the Church, as obsequious and attentive to him now as they had been proud and disdainful when, a hungry wanderer, he had knocked at the gates of La Rabida to beg bread for his son. It was the acme of the discoverer's destiny, the realization of his dream of glory, the well-earned recompense of years ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... did Miss Huntingdon; but as Walter looked towards her, with no very happy expression of countenance, she quietly laid one hand across the other. He saw it and coloured, and then, with a disdainful toss of the head, hurried away. But the arrow had hit its mark. As Miss Huntingdon was about to prepare for bed, she heard a low voice outside her door saying, "May a naughty boy come in?" and Walter was admitted. The ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... it, flung it into the middle of the fire, and stood with her back to the chimney in a threatening attitude before either of the agents recovered from their surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that he had no sword. The servants ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... too absurd," said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, "the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve me from ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... because the muscles by which it is expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally relax; so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended; thus an angry, a disdainful, a subtle and a suspicious temper, is displayed in characters that are ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Ishmael dull since his volubility had begun to desert him, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka's John-Willy into conversation—a difficult matter, since, though he had been placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's benefit, he felt the watchful eye of his mother, who was waiting at table, too frequently ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... as thou art, in trophies of my friend? To his sad soul a grateful offering go! 'Tis Pallas, Pallas gives this deadly blow!" He raised his arm aloft, and at the word, Deep in his bosom drove the shining sword. The streaming blood distained his arms around; And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound. ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... hurt him more than by ten thousand stabs. He sat erect in his chair, with his eyebrows knit, his forehead wrinkled, his eyes flashing fire, his teeth grating against each other, and breathing horrour all round him. In this posture he sat for some time silent, casting disdainful looks at his sister. At last his voice found its way through a passion which had almost choaked him, and he cried out, "Sister, what have I done to deserve the opinion you express of me? which of my actions hath made you conclude that ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... in high scorn he held E'en hell. Between the sepulchres, to him My guide thrust me, with fearless hands and prompt; This warning added: "See thy words be clear." He, soon as there I stood at the tomb's foot, Eyed me a space; then in disdainful mood Address'd me: "Say what ancestors were thine." I, willing to obey him, straight reveal'd The whole, nor kept back aught: whence he, his brow Somewhat uplifting, cried: "Fiercely were they Adverse to me, my party, and the blood From whence I sprang: ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... tremors and clumsy guiltiness. The chances are, had Jack Wentworth been in Wodehouse's place, he would have been master of the position as much as now. He was not shocked nor indignant like his brothers. He was simply contemptuous, disdainful, not so much of the wickedness as of the clumsy and shabby fashion in which it had been accomplished. As for the offender, who had been defiant in his sulky fashion up to this moment, his courage oozed out at his finger-ends ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Dio e gli uomini del mondo, non avendo operato nell'arte come si conveniva." This last accusation, it may be remarked, is above all evidence of the superficial character of the information which Vasari was in a position to give about Leonardo. It seems to imply that Leonardo was disdainful of diligent labour. With regard to the second, referring to Leonardo's morality and dealings with his fellow men, Vasari himself nullifies it by asserting the very contrary in several passages. A further refutation may be found in the following sentence from the letter in which Melsi, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... paper with more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a judge, saying, "Be so good, madam, as to accept of this part, which I take the liberty to offer." She received it in a cold and disdainful manner, with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-Gil Blas, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... rather disdainful of what Jessie had to offer her in the way of shawls. She continued to toss them to right and left, scattering them so carelessly about that one or two fell to the floor of the aisle and were retrieved by a near-by floor-walker, who ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... perjured high priest and his obsequious and insolent underling, and for Pilate the pagan, Christ had words—of comfort or instruction, of warning or rebuke, of protest or denunciation—yet for Herod the fox He had but disdainful and kingly silence. Thoroughly piqued, Herod turned from insulting questions to acts of malignant derision. He and his men-at-arms made sport of the suffering Christ, "set him at nought and mocked him"; ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... respect, but outside that they are on the same level. This is doubtless a rebellion against all the social ideas and prejudices of the old world, but it is perhaps only what might be looked for in a new country, full of robust and ambitious manhood, disdainful of all traditions which in the least savor of monarchy or hierarchy, and eager to blaze as new a path for itself in the social as it has succeeded in accomplishing in the political world. Combined with this is the American characteristic of ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... August, 1715, the Earl of Mar attended the levee of King George. One can easily suppose how cold, if not disdainful, must have been his reception; but it is not easy to divine with what secret emotions, the subject on the eve of an insurrection could have offered his obeisance to the Monarch. Grave in expression, with a heavy German countenance, hating all show, and husbanding his ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... is not altogether to your taste. Love them, and they will love you, and then they will converse with you, and will become like you, and better than you. Let not your soul coop itself up in a corner. For, instead of attaining to greater sanctity in a proud, and disdainful, and impatient seclusion, the devil will keep you company there, and will do your sequestered soul much mischief. Bury evil affections in good works. Wherefore be accessible and affable to all, and all in love. Love is an endless enchantment, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... because they did not pay for white lines. Finot, in despair, is knocking off an article against the Opera. Well now, my dear fellow, you can do this play; listen to it and think it over, and I will go to the manager's office and think out three columns about your man and your disdainful fair one. They will be in no pleasant ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... vessel in the tale of Arabian enchantment; it lays hand on the powers of storm and commotion like a god. It would be politic not to press the despotism more; but it would be a pity perhaps if some further act did not take place, just to see a nation flinging aside the shackles of superstition; disdainful of threats, determined to seek its own good, resolutely to put aside all external tradition and rule; adhering to its own judgment, though priests falsely say the hosts of the everlasting are arrayed in ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the Swede. He took seventy-five cents from his pocket and tendered it to Scully; but the latter snapped his fingers in disdainful refusal. However, it happened that they both stood gazing in a strange fashion at three silver pieces on the Swede's ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... what do words mean to me now? (Then suddenly starting to his feet and flinging off her hand with disdainful strength—violently and almost insultingly.) What damned rot! I tell you we'll win! We must! Oh, I'm a fool to waste words on you! What can you know? Love isn't in the materia medica. Your predictions—all the verdicts of all the doctors—what do ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... she who lightly scoffed was there, With jewels in her midnight hair, Her dark, disdainful eyes, And proud ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... wilfulness, presumptuous self-assertion, the curse and plague-spot of the perverted soul. Alcibiades in politics and Byron in literature are among its most conspicuous examples. Their defiance of rule was not the confident daring which comes from the vision of genius, but the disdainful audacity which springs from its wilfulness. Alcibiades, a name closely connected with those events which resulted in the ruin of the Athenian empire, was perhaps the most variously accomplished of all those young men of genius who have squandered their genius in the attempt to make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... upon. The outside of her garments were of lawn, The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; Her wide sleeves green, and border'd with a grove, Where Venus in her naked glory strove To please the careless and disdainful eyes Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath, From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: Her veil was artificial flowers ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... admittance. In the very front stood the only woman whose superb physique carried her through that trying day without smelling-salts or a friendly shoulder. She was a woman with the eyes of an angel, disdainful of men, the mouth of insatiety, the hair and skin of a Lorelei, and a patrician profile. Her figure was long, slender, and voluptuous. Every man within the bar offered her his chair, but she refused to sit while other women ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... on hearing the splash; but afterwards soon swam up to where the baited hook was towing in our wake, smelling at it cautiously as if to see whether it was advisable for him to bolt the savoury morsel or not. Then, with a disdainful swish of his screw-like tail, he turned round in the water and resumed his station further astern, as if he saw through our attempt to entrap ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... from the dipper, unseen forces dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after her. It was not only that there was something akin to association and intimacy in drinking next, but there was the fearful joy of meeting her in transit and receiving a cold and disdainful look from ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... be aware, is one of the most peculiar features of Welsh poetry. In the ode to which I allude the poet complains of the barbarity of his mistress, Morfydd, and what an unthankful task it is to be the poet of a beauty so proud and disdainful, which sentiment I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... groundlings—Rafael Joseffy—is for me the most satisfying of all the pianists. Never any excess of emotional display; never silly sentimentalizings, but a lofty, detached style, impeccable technic, tone as beautiful as starlight—yes, Joseffy is the enchanter who wins me with his disdainful spells. I heard him play the Chopin E minor and the Liszt A major concertos; also a brace of encores. Perfection! The Liszt was not so brilliant as Reisenauer; but—again within its frame—perfection! ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... again with disdainful obedience, and the red-faced man was moving forward grunting to himself, when through the open skylight the hail "On deck there!" arrested him short, attentive, and with a sudden change to amiability in the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... altogether, and talks of leaving England, - regards not "what country consumes his wicked carcass." "You shall understand," he says, "that this sixth of November, I spoke with Sir Robert Bowes" (the head of the family, his bride's uncle) "in the matter you know, according to your request; whose disdainful, yea, despiteful, words hath so pierced my heart that my life is bitter to me. I bear a good countenance with a sore troubled heart, because he that ought to consider matters with a deep judgment is become not only a despiser, but also a taunter of God's messengers - God be merciful unto him! ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... people who knew their proper place, and retainers generally, with legitimate claims to her consideration, she was all kindly courtesy, and they were devoted to her; but she met the aspiring parvenu, seeking her acquaintance on false pretences of equality, with that disdainful civility which is more exasperating than positive rudeness because a lady is only rude to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... brotherhood to be withold:* *detained But dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold, So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry. He was a shepherd, and no mercenary. And though he holy were, and virtuous, He was to sinful men not dispitous* *severe Nor of his speeche dangerous nor dign* *disdainful But in his teaching discreet and benign. To drawen folk to heaven, with fairness, By good ensample, was his business: *But it were* any person obstinate, *but if it were* What so he were of high or low ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... him to judge and arbitrate on questions affecting their material interests. Jesus rejected these proposals with haughtiness, treating them as insults.[1] Full of his heavenly ideal, he never abandoned his disdainful poverty. As to the other two conceptions of the kingdom of God, Jesus appears always to have held them simultaneously. If he had been only an enthusiast, led away by the apocalypses on which the popular imagination fed, he would have remained an obscure sectary, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... golden eyes noted the pretty courtship, and her side glance rested on the little bride to be with an odd, indefinite curiosity, partly interrogative, partly disdainful. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... for thy service!" with a disdainful gesture of his fingers. "A strapping lad like thee would be the ruin of my trade. I might as well give up ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... see, In yon fair cut designed by me, The pauper by the highwayside Vainly soliciting from pride. Mark how the Beau with easy air Contemns the anxious rustic's prayer, And, casting a disdainful eye, Goes gaily gallivanting by. He from the poor averts his head . . . He will regret it when ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him hovering in the air, And then down stooping with an hundred gyres:[196] His feet he fixed on Mount Cephalon;[197] From whence he flew and lighted on that plain, And with disdainful steps soon glided thither: Whither arrived, he suddenly unfolds A gorgeous robe and glittering ornament, And lays them all upon that hillock: This done, he wafts his wand, took wing again, And in a moment vanish'd out of sight. With that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... her back on him in disdainful silence. "Fond of her!" As she repeated those words to herself, her haggard face became almost handsome again in the magnificent ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins |
