"Ostentation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... state of superiority, and immediately began to envy, hate, and declare war against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a poor renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much dignity; and, not doubting but it arose in me from the same ostentation, they began to hate me likewise, and to turn my equipage into ridicule, asserting that my horses, which were as well matched as any in the kingdom, were of different colours and sizes, with much more of that kind of wit, the only ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... and even to bear privations, the better to help all the afflicted, without distinction of opinion, age, or sex; to measure the kindness done rather by their wants, than our own resources, and to do all that, without ostentation, habitually, in secret and unknown, with God and our conscience for sole witnesses: certainly, all that is full of moral beauty; and we know on what a large scale Lord Byron practiced it all his life. We have seen him in childhood, of which we should vainly seek one more amiable and more ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... court for the ambassador and for the present which had been sent him from Luzon, for he was anxious to see the gifts, especially the elephant, with which he was greatly delighted. He heard the embassy and replied with much ostentation and display, exculpating himself from the death of the religious upon whom he laid the blame, saying that after he had forbidden them to christianize, or teach their religion, they had disregarded his orders in his own ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... she not exceed either! Prudent in the formation, yet prompt in the execution, of her plans; severe towards guilt, yet merciful towards misfortune; unbending in her purposes, yet submissive to her husband; of rigid virtue, yet indulgent to minor frailties; devout without ostentation, and proud without haughtiness; feeling towards the pains of others, yet exhibiting no sentiment of her own, she might well command the respect, no less than the affection, of her people. Of her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... the German coast, was not large, and the whole of his slaves, of both sexes and of all ages, did not exceed thirty-two. His friends and brother conspirators, who were among the first gentlemen in the land, did not live with more ostentation. All the sequestrated property being sold, it was found that, after having distributed among the widows and other creditors what they were entitled to, and after paying the costs of the trial and inventories, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Who on mere credit his vain trophies rears, And founds his merit on our servile fears; Then we discard the workings of the heart, And nature's banish'd by mechanic art; Then, deeply read, our reading must be shown; Vain is that knowledge which remains unknown: Then Ostentation marches to our aid, And letter'd Pride stalks forth in full parade; 40 Beneath their care behold the work refine, Pointed each sentence, polish'd every line; Trifles are dignified, and taught to wear The robes ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... was therefore suspected of having purposely recommended one. The sale of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him. For the war with Holland, he was, with less justice, held accountable. His hot temper, his arrogant deportment, the indelicate eagerness with which he grasped at riches, the ostentation with which he squandered them, his picture gallery, filled with masterpieces of Vandyke which had once been the property of ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which reared its long and stately front right opposite to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Canterbury they pillaged the palace of the archbishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury, then as now, drew an immense revenue from the state, and lived in great splendor, and they justly conceived that the luxury and ostentation in which he indulged was in some degree the cause of the ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... laid ourselves down to sleep, the elder Tahitian fell on his knees, and with closed eyes repeated a long prayer in his native tongue. He prayed as a Christian should do, with fitting reverence, and without the fear of ridicule or any ostentation of piety. At our meals neither of the men would taste food, without saying beforehand a short grace. Those travellers who think that a Tahitian prays only when the eyes of the missionary are fixed on him, should have slept with us that night on the mountain-side. Before morning it rained ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... many bags and parcels and boxes of superfluous luggage and bric-a-brac that they are forced to sit down by the roadside and gasp for breath, instead of wearing themselves out in the dusty ways of ostentation and vain show or embittering their hearts because they can not succeed in getting into the weary race of wealth and fashion,—suppose instead of all this, they should turn to quiet ways, lowly pleasures, pure and simple joys, "plain living and high thinking." Suppose they should ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... pleasure in asserting its finality. For the convenience of suitors he allowed agents to practice in his court: these gentlemen had somewhat more legal knowledge than the judge, and often exasperated his antipathies by its ostentation. They would dwell on the dignity of his court: his decision was irrevocable; even the lord chancellor of England, they would say, was subject to the revision of a still higher court than his own, but the deputy judge advocate ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... hall, a bur or bedroom, and in some cases a cicen or kitchen, and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, laths, and plaster. But when we come to the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic buildings which William of Malmsbury assures us that the Normans introduced into this island; the house becomes more massive, and the rooms more numerous, and more diversified in their purposes. When we look at the furniture of the house, the difference ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... true: do you suppose the love to dazzle and mystify is not as strong with some natures as that of gold and power with others? Zicci has a moral ostentation; and the same character that makes him rival kings in expenditure makes him not disdain to be wondered at ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two ends to every stick. It was the Stapletons and others of their sort, rather than any soft-handed Musgraves, who converted a wilderness, a little by a little, into the America of to-day. The task was tediously achieved, and without ostentation; and always the ship had its resplendent figure-head, as always it had its hidden, nay! grimy, engines, which propelled the ship. And, however direfully America may differ from Utopia, to have assisted in the making of ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Seasonable for me to proceed to the Consideration of the Experiments themselves, wherein they are wont so much to Triumph and Glory. And these will the rather deserve a serious Examination, because those that Alledge them are wont to do it with so much Confidence and Ostentation, that they have hitherto impos'd upon almost all Persons, without excepting Philosophers and Physitians themselves, who have read their Books, or heard them talk. For some learned Men have been content ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... civil life; in his conversation, his servants, his traveling, his mode of living, and the relationships he formed, the modest demeanor of the citizen was always evident; for he was aware that a constant exhibition of pomp brings more envy upon its possessor than greater realities borne without ostentation. Thus in selecting consorts for his sons, he did not seek the alliance of princes, but for Giovanni chose Corneglia degli Allesandri, and for Piero, Lucrezia de' Tornabuoni. He gave his granddaughters, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... or profit such superfluity, such show, such ostentation, such extraordinary luxurious kind of life as is now come upon us? If Adam were to return to earth, and see our mode of living, our food, drink, and dress, how would he marvel. He would say: "Surely this is not the world I was in?" For Adam drank water, ate ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... judging to the American merchant (full of kindness and honorable sympathy as beneath the crust he so often is) who wants pictures and statues, not merely from ostentation, but as means of delight and improvement to himself and his friends, who has a soul to respect the genius and desire the happiness of the artist, and who, if he errs, does so from ignorance of the circumstances, I give the following ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... characterised by the expressive term—"very august," restored to her somewhat of that importance which she was desirous of renouncing through humility. But the world is ever distrustful on the score of a repentance which has some tinge of ostentation about it. One historian remarks that "the Duchess de Longueville being unable to dispense with intrigues, after she had renounced those of love and politics, found sufficient to satisfy her in devotion." This sentence, read aright, would mean that the schisms of Catholicism gave her an opportunity ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... not like to think that Christmas has been snapped up, docked of its old-world kindliness, and pressed into the service of an odious ostentation. But so it has. Alas! The thought of Father Christmas trudging through the snow to the homes of gentle and simple alike (forgive that stupid, snobbish phrase) was agreeable. But Father Christmas in red plush breeches, lounging ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Forney married Nancy, daughter of David Abernathy, a lady of great moral worth and Christian benevolence. The natural goodness of her heart made her the "cheerful giver." Her numerous acts of charity were free of all ostentation, and flowed silently forth like gentle streams from a pure fountain, imparting new vigor and refreshing everything in their course. After the close of the war, full of youthful enterprise, and anxious to engage in some ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main prison ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... showing themselves off, and actually accept the vulgar applause of unwashed crowds with a smile and a bow of gratitude! Ye gods! what has become of the superb pride of the old regime—the pride which disdained all ostentation and clung to honor more closely than life! What a striking sign of the times too, is this: let a woman taint her virtue BEFORE marriage, she is never forgiven—her sin is never forgotten; but let her do what she will when she has a husband's name to screen her, and society winks its eyes at ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... House of Commons. To these qualities was added a good-humour which was seldom ruffled,—a peculiar fascination of manner and address,—the most delightful powers of conversation,—a heart perfectly free from vindictiveness, ostentation, and deceit,—a strong sense of justice,—a thorough detestation of tyranny and oppression,—and an almost feminine tenderness of feeling for the sufferings of others. Unfortunately, however, his great talents ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the colonel, with his mouth full of brown bread, "is delightful, really delightful. The New England hospitality that we read about. So free from ostentation and conventionality." ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the next place of passages of that nature. Wherein I intend to touch only at some particulars, leaving all longer discussion, and the trimming up and furnishing them with a multitude of instances, to those who write more for display and ostentation. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... would never do so ungentlemanly a thing," said Bessie, laughing heartily. "He is too considerate a man for that; he'd starve in silence and without ostentation." ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... the North, the Russian Czar, having started with loud ostentation the movement for a world-wide peace, was swiftly completing his preparations to strike with his armies at Japan. And the other nations of Europe, jealous and suspicious of each other's every secret plan—they, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Madame Recamier's conquests, they do not appear on the surface. In her voluminous correspondence we find tender letters from husbands side by side with friendly notes from their wives. Her biographer parades the latter with some ostentation, as a proof of the friendship these women entertained for Madame Recamier. That they respected her is evident; that they loved her is not so apparent. Mere complimentary notes prove but little. He must be but a superficial judge of life who draws decided conclusions simply ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of each article by P'ing Erh, goody Liu muttered the name of Buddha, so already she had repeated Buddha's name several thousands of times. But when she saw the heap of presents which P'ing Erh too bestowed on her, and the little ostentation with which she did it, she promptly smiled. "Miss!" she said, "what are you saying? Could I ever disdain such nice gifts as these! Had I even the money, I couldn't buy them anywhere. The only thing is that I feel overpowered with shame. If ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 8, 1844, and in which he stated, "I desire that I may be interred in the vault in the parish of Drayton-Bassett, in which my father and mother were interred, and that my funeral may be without ostentation or parade of any kind." Nor did this sentiment undergo any alteration; for, not later than six weeks since, when alterations were made in that particular church to which that memorandum referred, Sir Robert Peel pointed out to Lady Peel the very ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... scarcely regard dancing as a manly accomplishment. It is necessary that a gentleman should dance, perhaps, but it appears to me that he should do so simply because it is necessary; and to pass through the measure without ostentation or offence ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... liberal to his friends; more generous than grateful; less moved by injuries than by contempt; he was framed to take the ascendant in every intercourse with others, but exerted this superiority of nature with such ostentation as exposed him to envy, and made every one willing to recall the original inferiority, or rather meanness, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... let my counsell sway you in this case, Your daughter heere the Princesse (left for dead) Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it, that she is dead indeed: Maintaine a mourning ostentation, And on your Families old monument, Hang mournfull Epitaphes, and do all rites, That appertaine ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... self-indulgence which, if carried far, is destructive of personal health and character, weakens family affection, and threatens the solidarity of society. The dwelling-house is costly and the furnishings are expensive. A retinue of servants performs many useless functions in the operation of the establishment. Ostentation often carried to the point of vulgarity marks habits of speech, of dress, and of conduct both within and outside of the home. Every member of the family has his own friends and interests and usually his own share of the family allowance. The adults of the family are unreasonably ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... ill-conditioned cur scenting a foe,—and seating himself in a high-backed chair, he arranged his garments fussily about him, rolled up his long embroidered sleeves to the elbow, and spread his writing implements all over the desk in front of him with much mock-solemn ostentation. Then, rubbing his lean hands together, he gave a stealthy glance of covert derision round at Sah-luma and Theos,—a glance which Theos saw and in his heart resented, but which Sah- luma, absorbed in his own reflections, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... close friends of Doctor Craig's, an elderly couple whose name, if the Warnes had known, was one of the old names of the city, standing for the bluest of blue Knickerbocker blood, though for only moderate wealth and for no ostentation whatever. Georgiana had begged that no other guests be asked, being anxious, on her father's account, to have the whole affair over with the least possible agitation for him. To this ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... was educated at Westminster and at Christ Church, Oxford; but his temperament rebelled against the system of education still in vogue and the public disputations of the schools, which he thought "invented for wrangling and ostentation rather than to discover truth." It was his study of Descartes that first "gave him a relish of philosophical things." From 1683 to 1689 he found it prudent to sojourn in Holland. In the latter year he returned to England, bringing ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... geography class and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... philosophers are taken upon trust, and by a sort of men who are not very likely to be at the pains of an inquiry that would employ so much time and thinking. For the usual ends why men affect this kind of discourse appear generally to be either out of ostentation, that they may pass upon the world for persons of great knowledge and observation, or, what is worse, there are some who highly exalt the wisdom of those Gentile sages, thereby obliquely to glance at and traduce Divine revelation, and more especially that of the Gospel; for the consequence they ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... declared, from the signs that they found, that he had been poisoned, which made his death more regrettable. [34] The Audiencia buried the governor in the monastery of St. Augustine at Manila, with the pomp and ostentation due to his person and offices. Then, again taking charge of the government, the Audiencia despatched the vessels to Nueva Espana, whence advice was sent to his Majesty of the taking of Maluco and the death of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... he claimed at least his share of the reverence paid by fools to rank and wealth. He was travelling this lonely coast on a tour of inspection, to visit and report upon a site where His Majesty's advisers had some design to plant a fort; and a fine ostentation coloured his progress here as through life. He had brought his coach because it conveyed his claret and his batterie de cuisine (the seaside inns were detestable); but being young and extravagantly healthy and, with all his faults, very much of a man, he preferred to ride ahead on his saddle-horse ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... honourable, high-minded, and fond husbands and fathers are echoing such questions with a sigh of agony! Poor Follett! 'twas for such reasons that he lived with an honourable economy, eschewing that extravagance and ostentation which too often, to men in his dazzling position, prove irresistible; it was for such reasons that he rose up early, and went to bed late, and ate the bread of carefulness. Had he been alone in the world—had he had none to provide for but himself, and yet had manifested the same feverish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... reduced him to a state of slavery, a condition unknown to him or his fathers, since he once served in our army as a free man. We marvel that such a man should be dragged into bondage who (on account of his infirmity) ought to have been liberated by a lawful owner. It is a new kind of ostentation to claim the services of such an one, the sight of whom shocks you, and to call that man a slave, to whom you ought rather to minister with ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... There was no ostentation or superciliousness about Mrs. Washington. She was hospitable and kind, and she put on no airs because she was a great lady from Virginia, and because she was the wife of the commander in chief of the army. The story ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... commanded to be introduced to the church. At first, almost the whole church opposed the innovation, but, by degrees, the interests of the clergy prevailed, and the popes at length made this procession of Corpus Christi obligatory. In Spain, it is celebrated with all the pomp and ostentation imaginable. In the poor towns and villages, the priest carries the consecrated host in his hands; but in rich cathedral towns, an expensive tabernacle or canopy of silver, generally a master-work of art, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... contrary, Mrs. Forrester is seen at her best, and has given us a book of lively interest. The situation in some respects suggests that of Daniel Deronda: D'Arcy is a sort of Grandcourt cheapened and made popular, acting out his instincts of tyranny and brutality with more ostentation and less good taste. What is subtly indicated by George Eliot is given with profuse effect by the present writer. Viola, if not a Gwendolen, is yet an unloving wife. Sir Douglas Roy plays a somewhat difficult ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan! No clustering ornaments to clog the pile; From ostentation, as from weakness free, It stands majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal, from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give, Stand the soul-quickening words—Believe and Live. Too many, shocked at what should charm ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... with things that were remote from her, and difficult to make real; but Veblen's theme, the idle rich, and the arts and graces whereby they demonstrate their power, was the stuff of which her life was made. The subtleties of social ostentation, the minute distinctions between the newly-rich and the anciently-rich, the solemn certainties of the latter and the quivering anxieties of the former—all those were things which Sylvia knew as a bird knows the way ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Tacitus says of Mucianus, the wisest and most active politician of his time, 'That he had a certain art of setting forth to advantage everything he said or did.' And it requires indeed some art, lest it become wearisome and contemptible; but yet it is true that ostentation, though carried to the first degree of vanity, is rather a vice in morals than in policy. For as it is said of calumny, 'Calumniate boldly, for some of it will stick,' so it may be said of ostentation (except it be in a ridiculous degree ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... lady whom Archdale looked at with pride. He was fond of his mother without recognizing a certain likeness between them. She was dressed elegantly, although without ostentation, and she came towards her guests with an ease as delightful as their own. Stephen going to meet her, led her forward and introduced her. Lady Dacre looked at her scrutinizingly, and gave a little ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... in so many different senses, but I never knew anybody who realized my conception of that ideal more perfectly than Mr. Mackay. In him, as Prince Leopold said of another, all culture and all refinement met. He was extremely simple in all his ways, and averse to every kind of vanity and ostentation. He had a sufficient fortune for a refined life, and did not care for any kind of wasteful extravagance. All belonging to him was simple and in good taste. He did not see very much society; that which he did see included several men and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... grandeur of the commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary or convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and bridges of the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under the emperors is seen principally in such works as were rather for ostentation or luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths, amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... courage to attempt the reparation of his broken fortunes by that favorite resource, the plunder of the Spanish settlements. On his return from his first voyage he sailed up the Thames in a kind of triumph, displaying a top-sail of cloth of gold, and making ostentation of the profit rather than the glory of the enterprise. He appears to have been equally deficient in the enlightened prudence which makes an essential feature of the great commander, and in that lofty ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... An unusual ostentation of magnificence appears to have attended the celebration of these august nuptials. The fondness of the king for pomp and pageantry was at all times excessive, and on this occasion his love and his pride would equally conspire to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... there be large sums given for these is within common knowledge. 1 d., 2 d., nay even 4 d., is not too great a price, if a man will have of the finest leaf, reckless of expense. In this sort of smoking, however, I find more of vainglory and ostentation than solid satisfaction; and its votaries would seem to display less a calm, healthy affection for tobacco than (as Sir T. Browne hath it) a "passionate prodigality.'' And, besides grievous wasting of ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... move in the House for a monument for Lord Collingwood in St Paul's, next to Nelson's. Of course the Body, which has arrived in the Thames, will be deposited in that Church, and the funeral must be splendid without ostentation—at the expense of the executors, or rather of the family." It was not, however, till May 8th that Mrs Stanhope was enabled to furnish her son with full details of the manner in which the intended ceremony was to ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... it rather grumpily. Most Englishmen dislike ostentation and display; and to Stafford the place seemed garish and "loud." Howard surveyed ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... "Ahem! See how well dressed and how dignified I am!" The furnishings of the room are elegant and perhaps uncomfortable and unhealthful, since the master of the house would consider not so much the comfort and health of his guests as his own ostentation, "A terrible thing is dysentery," he would say to them, "but you are sitting in European chairs and that is something you ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... checked and curbed in discourse, and would rather be subdued into silence-and even, if that proves a gratification that secures peace and gives pleasure, into apparent insensibility ; but to receive a favour through the vehicle of insolent ostentation—no! no! To submit to ill humour rather than argue and dispute I think an exercise of patience, and I encourage myself all I can to practice it : but to accept even a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think mean and unworthy ; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would elsewhere, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... he had not been quite as attentive to me as his station demanded, or wishing to let me see what a fine house he possessed, stepped up to me and asked me to look into the billiard-room, the door of which I was about to pass. After some remarks of deprecatory ostentation, in which he informed me that in building his house he thought only of comfort and convenience, and nothing of show, he carelessly invited my attention to the drawing-room, the library, the music-room, and the little sitting-room, all of which ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... enough to know this, unless we print it in our minds by daily meditation, and so bring a good will to a good habit. And we must practice what we preach, for philosophy is not a subject for popular ostentation, nor does it rest in words, but in things. It is not an entertainment taken up for delight, or to give a taste to leisure, but it fashions the mind, governs our actions, tells us what we are to do, and what not. It sits at the helm, and guides ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... gentlemen of quality. I think it may be said, without disparagement to this history, that neither Alexander, nor Napoleon, nor Wellington, nor, indeed, any of the great warriors, whose deeds historians have recorded with so much ostentation, ever met with so strange an accident, or one which led to so many embarrassments. And although Captain Luke had never had occasion to doubt the chastity of his wife, whose face, being as ugly as could well be conceived, he had always held to be an adequate protection, his first impulse ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... was jewelry worn more ornately, or with greater display, we might almost say ostentation, than in the age of Shakespeare. As a rule, in this period the precious stones were less considered than the elaborate goldsmith work in which they were placed. They were the adjuncts, rather than the principal glory of ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... world as they are, and decided that Heaven is a myth. My manners soon betrayed the effect of the enlightenment of my mind. No more arrogance, no more boasting. I did not divest myself of pride, but it became more tractable and more convenient; it renounced ostentation and vain display; the peacock changed into a man of good breeding. This, sir, is what experience has done for me, assisted by Sequere fatum. It has made me wise, an honest man and an atheist. So I said a little while afterwards ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... guided by Empson, Julian deviated from the principal door, to one which opened, with less ostentation, in an angle of the courtyard. On a modest tap from the flute-player, admittance was afforded him and his companions by a footman, who conducted them through a variety of stone passages, to a very handsome summer parlour, where a lady, or something resembling one, dressed in a style of extra ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... these words that I have spoken are no mere quibbles, and I have tried to make you understand that they have not fallen into my head for ostentation or by mere chance on the present occasion: on the contrary, from the outset I realized that this course was both suitable and advantageous for me; that is why I both think and speak thus. Consequently you may be not only of good courage with reference to ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... several cautions should be observed:—1. Avoid every appearance of ostentation. Suppress every rising of self-complacency, on account of what you do, and of the success which attends your efforts. Such feelings are abominable in the sight of God; and if indulged, will make you appear contemptible in the eyes of men. The Pharisees were active in many religious duties. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... nothing about our tastes or needs, and the builder was unable to make a comfortable flight of stairs, safe chimneys, smooth floors or tight windows. After these two came another pair, worse than the first—Ostentation and Avarice. They tried to make a grand display and at the same time a large profit on the job. How can I exorcise such demons as these except ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... to warrant him in anticipating a speedy revenge. Perhaps a further insight into the real character of Assur-bani-pal may have induced him to venture on hostilities. For the king's contemporaries had begun to realise that, beneath his apparent bravery and ostentation, he was by nature indolent, impatient of restraint, and fond of ease and luxury. When not absorbed in the routine of the court and the pleasures of the harem, he spent his leisure in hunting on the Mesopotamian plains, or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... adds to that which I call their misery; and I must needs think the savages of America live much more happy than the poorer sort of these, because as they have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud and insolent and in the main are in many parts mere beggars and drudges. Their ostentation is inexpressible; and, if they can, they love to keep multitudes of servants or slaves, which is to the last degree ridiculous, as well as their contempt of all the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... and they fancy that by acting on a certain regimen they can arrive at tranquillity of soul. It is in reality just the other way. One must become simple in soul first, and the simple setting follows as a matter of course. If a man can purge himself of ambition, and social pride, and ostentation, and the desire of praise, his life falls at once into a simple mould, because keeping up appearances is the most expensive thing in the world; to begin with eating pulse and drinking water, is as ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... strongly tempted to break his royal promises, as he had done once before, and retain so valuable a prisoner, but confined himself to hints as to what he might do, and displayed on the part of his court and his capital an ostentation of luxury almost equal to that of the Field of the Cloth of Gold twenty years before, when he had met Henry VIII of England—"that spot of blood and grease on the pages of history." The capital, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... may be regarded as having secured his dynasty. Frederick the Great described George as a prince who governed England by respecting liberty, even while he made use of the subsidies granted by Parliament to corrupt the Parliament which voted them. {271} He was a king, Frederick declares, "without ostentation and without deceit," and who won by his conduct the confidence of Europe. This latter part of the description is a little too polite. Kings do not criticise each other too keenly in works that are meant for publication. But the words form, on the whole, an epitaph for George which might ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... personal zeal that omitted no exertion or sacrifice. They showed a want of tact, however, in carrying their street demonstrations for their favorite to excess; they crowded together at the Richmond House, making that hotel the Seward headquarters; with too much ostentation they marched every day to the convention with music and banners; and when mention was made of doubtful States, their more headlong members talked altogether too much of the campaign funds they intended to raise. All this ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... the veritable grandeur of your endowment never begot itself a body of work really symbolic of itself. For if your music, as a whole, has any grandeur, it is the hollow grandeur of inflation, of ostentation, of externality. Your music is almost entirely a monstrous decor de theatre. It is forever seeking to establish tragical and satanic and passional atmospheres, to suggest immense and regal and terrific things, to gain tremendous effects. It is full of loud, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... another, much in the same way as modern business houses endeavour to outshine each other in the magnificence of their buildings. Of all the mixed motives that went to the evolution of church architecture in the middle ages, this rivalry in ostentation was probably the most fertile in the creation of new forms. A volume might be written on the economic effects of this locking up of vast capital in unproductive buildings. In Catholic countries (notably in Ireland) great churches are still built out of the savings of a poverty-stricken ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... these people are so wretched, that they have nothing but rags to cover them, which do not at all fit, and are scarcely sufficient to hide their nakedness; yet they betray their foolish taste, and vain ostentation, whenever they have in opportunity." The women are as fond of dress as the men, and equally expose themselves to the ridicule of the considerate and reflecting part ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... satisfied with seeing the country prosperous and respected abroad. He wants to dazzle. His policy, domestic and foreign, is a policy of vanity and ostentation—motives which mislead everyone both in private and ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... from such speculations, and his talents, which were unquestionably great, were wholly perverted to extravagant intrigues, or to the embellishment of a gorgeous ostentation with something of classic grace. His immense wealth, his imperious pride, his unscrupulous and daring character, made him an object of no inconsiderable fear to a feeble and timid court; and the ministers of the indolent government willingly connived ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... out-of-date traditions caused the strain. One gained nothing by pretending to be rich and important; there was no logical reason for trying to live like one's ancestors, and the effort cost the Osborns much. It meant stern private economy, public ostentation, and many small deceits. Grace was getting tired of this pretense; she wanted something simpler and dignified. For the most part, the dalesfolk looked happy and she had come to envy them. They had their troubles, but they were ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... fails him only when his subject is consciously and deliberately breaking a moral law: it is irresistible when its target is a false moral law or convention of morals set up to protect anti-social practices. Among these we may reckon bribery of politicians, oppression of the poor, vulgar ostentation, the habit of adultery and the writing of bad verse. Aristophanes, Moliere, Byron, and Dickens—these attempted to correct the social vices of ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... should be shown without ostentation." Beatrice laughed. "And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... pufft him up, when he had part; Those titles loathed, which some do too much love For truly his ambition lay above. His humble mind so lov'd humility, He left it to his race for Legacy; And oft and oft, with speeches mild and wise, Gave his in charge, that Jewel rich to prize. No ostentation seen in all his wayes, As in the mean ones of our foolish dayes. Which all they have, and more still set to view, Their greatness may be judg'd by what they shew. His thoughts were more sublime, his actions wise, Such vanityes he justly ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... when they discovered their deficiency, or that the men had more confidence in others, after a short respite at home, returned and joined their old companies as privates. Was there ever greater patriotism and unselfishness and less ostentation shown as in the example of these men! It was but natural that men selected almost at random, and in many instances unacquainted with a majority of the men at enlistment unusual to military life, or the requirements of an officer in actual service, could possibly ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... had a longing for ices, strawberry mess, oyster- patties, or any other school luxury, he would treat him, running up a score if he had not the cash in his pocket to pay with. And if there was generosity in this impulse, I fear that there was ostentation too. It added to his popularity, and popularity had become as the air he breathed. For the only real test of generosity is self-denial. If you go without something you really want in order to ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... of a puff. Hull determined to utilize it for himself, and, if possible, trick the British so that they would lose all benefit of the breeze. The clouds that were coming up to windward seemed to threaten a squall, and driving sheets of rain were rapidly advancing toward the ship. With great ostentation, the "Constitution" was made ready for a severe gale. The enemy could see the nimble sailors taking in sail, and furling all the lighter canvas. Then the driving rain swept over the ship, and she was shut out of sight. Immediately all was activity in the tops of the British ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Governments of Europe, and especially from the cabinet of Great Britain. "If sufficient time were available to me," said Peron, "it would be very easy to demonstrate to you that all our natural history researches, extolled with so much ostentation by the Government, were merely the pretext of its enterprise." The principal object was "one of the most brilliant and important conceptions," which would, if successful, have made the Government for ever illustrious. The unfortunate circumstance was, however, Peron ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... as a Prytaneum for meritorious scholars, and to reward industry through the prizes which they offer. In their idea they belong with the university, this appearing externally in the fact that most of their members are university professors. But as institutions for ostentation by which the ambition of the learned was flattered, and to surround princes with scientific glory as scientific societies attached to a court, they have lost all significance. They ceased to flourish with the Ptolemies and ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... written in ridicule of some affected ladies of the period, who pretended, with rather too much ostentation, to embrace the doctrines of Platonic Love. Mrs. Mary Astell, a learned and worthy woman, had embraced this fantastic notion so deeply, that, in an essay upon the female sex, in 1696, she proposed a sort of female college, in which the young might be instructed, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... where one gives out of pity to you, fifty give out of kindness to themselves, to rid them of your troublesome application; and for one that gives out of real compassion, five hundred do it out of ostentation. On these principles, trouble people most who are most busy, and ask relief where many see it given, and you'll succeed in your attempt. Remember that the streets were made for people to walk, and not to converse in: keep up their ancient use; and whenever you see ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... intelligence nor virtue—in just that there seemed to her some flaw of taste that was almost like a confession of failure. Surely she loved him, and was ready to forgive him much: not for worlds would she have confessed to disillusion. And yet, now and again, when the rush and ostentation of their new life, with its monotony of dinners and dances—so little like that which she had anticipated as the future lot of a painter's wife—had left her rather weary, a trifle sad, she had thought suddenly of her old friend ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... melodies, but songs of a strange land. It was 'live and let live' here: stranger guests came from far and near, the music sounded, the goblets clashed, and I was not able to drown the noise," said the Wind. "Ostentation, and haughtiness, and splendour, and display, and rule were there, but the fear of the Lord ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... finding something nice and appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening clothes, Renouard's resemblance to a duke's son was not so apparent to her. Nothing but his—ah—bohemianism remained. She rose with a sort of ostentation. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Drevet closed the classical period of portraits in engraving, as just before had closed the Augustan age of French literature. Louis XIV. decreed engraving a fine art, and established an academy for its cultivation. Pride and ostentation in the king and the great aristocracy created a demand which the genius of the age supplied. The heights that had been reached could not be maintained. There were eminent engravers still; but the zenith had been passed. Balechou, who belonged to the reign of Louis XV., and Beauvarlet, ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... judge of Carlo Cignani by his works, I should pronounce him a man of elevated character, noble by instinct, if not by descent, but simple in his habits, and a despiser of outward show and ostentation. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... praise remains. Born to magnificence, she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to Fortune's flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human; but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting, her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence but to beneficence, ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... to fall, because the scarlet petals have so fragile a hold on their receptacles; and the plant has been endowed with the sobriquet, "John Silver Pin, fair without and foul within." In the Eastern counties of England any article of finery brought out only occasionally, and worn with ostentation by a person otherwise a slattern, is called "Joan Silver Pin." After this sense the appellation has been applied to the Scarlet Poppy. Its showy flower is so attractive to the eye, whilst its inner juice is noxious, and stains the hands of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... species of dishonesty. They live within their means, and lay by something for a rainy day. They provide for the things of their own household,—yet they are not wanting in hospitality and benevolence on fitting occasions. And what they do, is done without ostentation. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... she did not sell, pledge, bestow, or otherwise make the book subservient to her temporal or corporal wants, as Mr. Rant very ingeniously argued. Neither did she take it to place in her library—for she had no library; nor for ostentation in her hall—for she had no hall, as my pious friend Counsellor Sleek has. But, gentlemen, even if this old woman by reading the Bible learned to repent, and felt conversion of heart, you are not to infer that the act which brought ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and cure. And then, that I did not fall into the ambition of ordinary sophists, either to write tracts concerning the common theorems, or to exhort men unto virtue and the study of philosophy by public orations; as also that I never by way of ostentation did affect to show myself an active able man, for any kind of bodily exercises. And that I gave over the study of rhetoric and poetry, and of elegant neat language. That I did not use to walk about the house in my long robe, nor to do any such things. Moreover ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Philadelphia was one of the finest that the town possessed; he drove about in a carriage and four; he entertained with excessive luxury and a large retinue of servants; he revelled in all sorts of pompous parade. Such ostentation would have roused adverse comment amid the simple colonial surroundings of a century ago, even if he had merely been a citizen of extraordinary wealth. But being an officer intrusted with the most important dignities ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... remain poor. His estate, Briess, near Berlin, is no Chanteloup, but a model to those patriots who would study economy. Here he, every Wednesday, enjoys recreation. The services he renders the kingdom cost it only five thousand rix-dollars yearly; he, therefore, lives without ostentation, yet becoming his state, and with splendour when splendour is necessary. He does not plunder the public treasury that he may preserve his own ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... age, which produced such editions, and for the education, which by enabling me to understand and taste the Greek and Latin writers, has thus put it in my power to collect on my own shelves, for my actual use, almost all the best books in spite of my small income. Somewhat too I am indebted to the ostentation of expense among the rich, which has occasioned these cheap editions to ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... said. "These people have neither manners nor hearts. I told Mr. Shippen as much. And where does your general get all his money? It is vulgar, this waste. Look!" she said; "look there! It is well to feed the poor after a wedding; I like the old custom; but this is mere ostentation." It was true; there was a crowd of the neighbouring farm people about the detached kitchen, eager for the food and rum which I saw given daily in absurd profusion. My ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... simple manner in which she had pronounced this name, she had infused so triumphant an expression, such manifest ostentation, that Vaudrey felt himself suddenly ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... carefully darned in many places. The silver spoons were of fine, old-fashioned patterns, worn very thin—so thin that even the colonel was struck by their fragility. How charming, he thought, to prefer the simple dignity of the past to the vulgar ostentation of a more modern time. He had once dined off a golden dinner service, at the table of a multi-millionaire, and had not enjoyed the meal half so much. The dining-room looked out upon the garden and the perfume of lilac and violet stole in through the open windows. A soft-footed, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... these drawbacks, however, the house was one that any doll agent would have been justified in describing as a "most desirable family residence"; and it had been furnished with a lavishness that bordered on positive ostentation. In the bedroom there was a washing-stand, and on the washing-stand there stood a jug and basin, and in the jug there was real water. But all this was as nothing. I have known mere ordinary, middle-class dolls' houses in which you ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... altogether. It was a very fine house, and the gardens were reported to be beautifully kept up, but the owner was almost always in Italy, and had so seldom been at Rockstone that it was understood that all this was the ostentation of a man who did not know what to do ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "In fifteen days we have finished a campaign," said the proclamation of Napoleon to his soldiers. "That which we proposed is completed. We have driven the troops of the House of Austria from Bavaria, and re-established our ally in the sovereignty of his States. That army which, with as much ostentation as imprudence, came forward to place itself on our frontiers, is annihilated. But what matters it to England? Her purpose is answered; we are not at Boulogne, and the subsidy which she grants to Austria will be neither ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... a butcher in a poor neighbourhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with their heads close together in ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... to appreciate those who dissented from him about forms of government, because he could discover in them the true love of nationality, to which Italy aspires. Wise without pretension, beneficent without ostentation, chaste in deed and word, exquisitely tender-hearted, he tempered the harsh lessons of experience by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a warrior who fought only in defense of his country, a conqueror whose laurels were never stained with cruelty, a prince never cast down by adversity, nor lifted up to insolence in the hour of triumph—there is no other name in English history ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... industrious and frugal; many of them delicately bred, their minds teeming with ideas and fertile in plans of enterprise; given to the culture of the arts; eager in the pursuit of wealth, yet employing wealth less for ostentation than for developing the resources of their country; seeking happiness in the calm of domestic life; and such lovers of peace, that for generations they had been reputed unwarlike. Now, at the cry of their country in its distress, they rose up with unappeasable patriotism; not ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... of Cassy was directly under the garret. One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change all the furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some considerable distance. The under-servants, who were called on to effect this movement, were running and bustling about with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to finish; already Rena Bonnesdel was looking at them, and there was a hint of amused surprise in Eileen Shannon's mischievous eyes, averted instantly, with malicious ostentation. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... unlike the complex works of man Heaven's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan, No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clog the pile; From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give, Stand ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... popular taste accurately enough in setting up his chariot with its fifty runners. That was a show something like a king, and, no doubt, much more approved than David's simplicity. But it was an evil omen to any one who looked below the surface. When luxury grows, devotion languishes. The senseless ostentation which creeps into the families of good men, and is sustained by their weak compliance with their spoiled children's wishes, does a world of harm. We in Lancashire have a proverb, 'Clogs, carriage, clogs,' which puts into three words the history of three generations, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine joined in a rapturous cheer, each man and woman, to show that he or she was not disappointed. The bearer spoke with Mr. Burrham, in answer to his questions, and, with a good deal of ostentation, he opened a check-book, filled a check and passed it to her, she signing a receipt as she took it, and transferring to him her ticket. So far, in dumb show, all was well. What was more to my purpose, it was rapid, for we should have been ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... of view Graeme detested Mr. Pixley, though he had never passed a word with him. He was too perfect, too immaculate. His "unco' guidness," as Lady Elspeth would have said, bordered on ostentation. The sight and sound of him aroused in some people a wild inclination towards unaccustomed profanity and wallowing in the mire. He was so undisguisedly and self-satisfiedly better than his fellows ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... for learning trades, where dangerous tools are used; and many owners, from motives of profit and advantage, breed them to be coopers, carpenters, bricklayers, smiths, and other trades. Out of mere ostentation the colonists also keep a number of them about their families, who attend their tables, and hear their conversation, which very often turns upon their own various arts, plots, and assassinations. From such open and imprudent conversation those domestics may ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... hostile The despair of the official wire-puller Blind and unreasoning opponent Ignoble strife for power Surrounded by a cohort of admiring friends In an imperative voice Marked by copiousness and vivacity Touched with sombre dignity A ridiculous misconception Habitual austerity of demeanor Ostentation and lavish expenditure A person of exquisite tact Intolerant of bumptiousness The obvious danger of dallying This was grossly overstated A mass of calumny and exaggeration Inimical to religion Fraught with peril I venture to ask Attributed to mental decrepitude A strange phenomena ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... is that attendant upon the death of relatives and friends, and it becomes us to show, in every possible way, the utmost consideration for the feelings of the bereaved, and the deepest respect for the melancholy occasion. Of late the forms of ostentation at funerals are gradually diminishing, and by some people of intelligence, even mourning habiliments are rejected ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the Shah for the first time stops his Horse—smiles—casts Largess among the Prisoners, etc. And when asked why he neglected all the Jewels, etc., and stopped with satisfaction at such a grim welcome as the Prisoners threw him, he says, 'The Jewels, etc., were but empty Ostentation—but those bloody Limbs prove that my Law has been executed, without which none of those Heads and Carcases would have parted Company, etc.' De Tassy notices a very agreeable Story of Mahmud and the Lad fishing: and I find another as pleasant about Mahmud ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... bravery, in which they excelled all nations; an open impetuous temperament, accessible to every impression; much intelligence, but at the same time extreme mobility, want of perseverance, aversion to discipline and order, ostentation and perpetual discord—the result of boundless vanity." Cato the Elder more briefly describes them, nearly to the same effect; "the Celts devote themselves mainly to two things—fighting and -esprit-."(6) Such qualities—those of good soldiers but of bad ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... witness from her window—a prisoner's window, her 'eager heart could have termed it—of a remarkable ostentation of cordiality between the colonel and Cecil, in the presence of Mr. Romfrey. Was it his humour to conspire to hand Miss Halkett to Cecil, and then to show Nevil the prize he had forfeited by his folly? The three were on the lawn a little before Colonel Halkett's departure. The colonel's arm ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... revealed two much-battered and faded stars, indicating his rank of major-general. He wore a black "slouch" hat, the brim well down over his face, and rode along with a single orderly, without the least ostentation. The men of the other regiments knew him and broke out into a cheer, at which he promptly doffed his hat and swung it at the boys. His hat off, we recognized the handsome author of the "Burnside" whiskers. He was not only very popular with his own corps—the Ninth—but ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... waxed as Peel's began to wane. Death put a sudden end to his activity. He was thrown from his horse while riding up Constitution Hill in London, and died on the second of July, 1850. In accordance with his expressed wish, his family declined the honors of a public funeral, and he was buried without ostentation in the family tomb at Drayton Bassett. His statue, voted by the House of Commons, was placed in ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Nature is the mother of us all, and only as we allow her spirit to pervade and nourish our being do we really live. The watchword, 'back to nature' may be said to have given the first impulse to the later call of the 'simple life,' which has arisen as a protest against the luxury, ostentation, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... mansion which he had built, putting to shame every other house in the place, gave an effect of ostentation to the Maddens as a family; it seemed only to accentuate the air of humility which enveloped Jeremiah as with a garment. Everybody knew some version of the many tales afloat which, in a kindly spirit, illustrated the incongruity between ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... eyes turned to Margaret, who had no eyes for him. She had forgotten his existence, with an utterness that verged on ostentation; and if it had been any one else Billy would have surmised she was in a temper. But that angel in a temper!—nonsense! And, oh, what eyes she had! and what lashes! and what hair!—and altogether, how adorable she was, and what a wonder ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell |
