"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and prcieuses had been several times attacked before, it remained for Molire to give them their death blow, and after the performance of his comedy the name became a term of ridicule and contumely. What enhanced the bitterness of the attack was the difference between Molire's natural style and the affected tone of the would-be elegants he brought upon ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... mothers and wives and daughters in America, the most intelligent and upright and pure- minded women in the land, loaded down with their hopes, wet with their tears—if they turned their hearts', prayers and deepest desires into ridicule, throwed 'em round under their feet, they wouldn't pay no attention to Dorlesky's errents, they wouldn't notice one little vegitable widow, humbly at that, and sort o' disagreeable." And says I, "I don't want Dorlesky's errents throwed round under foot, and she made ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... VII. A Dialogue of Sentiment succeeded by the Sketch of a Character, in whose Eyes Sentiment was to Wise Men what Religion is to Fools; namely, a Subject of Ridicule ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and pairs it with Sense, Reason, Genius, and even Piety. While he is moderate in his denunciation of Wit in the Essay upon Wit, he does insist that even at its best it can never be noble. Wit is harmful, he states, because it is often employed in immoral subjects, raillery, ridicule, and satire. It is chiefly useful as ornamentation: "The Addition of Wit to Proper Subjects, is like the artful Improvement of the Cook, who by his exquisite Sauce gives to a plain Dish, ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... particular attachment to a certain abbot of Soro, who was her spiritual director. It is, however, true, that her intimacy with this monk gave room for some suspicion that her privacies with him were not all employed about the care of her soul. Afterward, to ridicule her yet more, King Albert sent her a hone to sharpen her needles, and swore not to put on his nightcap until she had yielded to him. But under perilous circumstances Margaret was never at a loss how to act. She acted here with the utmost ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... tasks are preached in the Gospel, despises the Gospel as a vulgar teaching, lacking in elegance. What noteworthy thing is it to teach that servants should obey their master and children their parents? Such a common and oft-taught doctrine the learned papists not only neglect but even ridicule. They desire rather something unique, something remarkable either for its reputed wisdom or for its apparent difficult character. Such is the madness ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... entering zealously into frivolous disputes, James gave them an air of importance and dignity which they could not otherwise have acquired; and being himself enlisted in the quarrel, he could no longer have recourse to contempt and ridicule, the only proper method of appeasing it. The church of England had not yet abandoned the rigid doctrines of grace and pre-destination: the puritans had not yet separated themselves from the church, nor openly renounced Episcopacy. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the youths who were to fight the battles of Rome might realise the presence of Rome's great protecting deity. Even in the most degenerate days of the Roman religion, though Jupiter had suffered from the ridicule of playwrights or the speculations of philosophers, an orator's appeal to the Best and Greatest looking down on the Forum from his seat above it, could not fail to move the hearers; "Ille, ille Iuppiter restitit," cried Cicero in the peril ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... the West End instituted a plan of "Free Breakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed to obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions—and very pathetic they were—I was the host, and the Saturday Review treated me to some not unkindly ridicule. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... walked the floor, thinking of those whom she would ask to sign it. She would not subject herself to ridicule by calling upon those who sided with the king, but upon those who she knew were ready to make sacrifices for justice ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... usual in a pound near the house were more than commonly their excited, and by repeated snorting and galloping, announced the presence of some object of terror. The young man was often upon the point of awakening his brother, but was as often restrained by the fear of incurring ridicule and their reproach of timidity, at that time an unpardonable blemish in the character of a Kentuckian. At length, hasty steps were heard in the yard, and quickly afterwards several knocks at the door, accompanied ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... shrines of Nippon—"Their temples? Those dirty, shabby places, without architecture or interest, the haunts of snotty, ragged children?" The sun-helmeted gentleman and lady, or collection of their kind, rush them by in haughty contempt, and with some ridicule and ridiculous comment. Good Sir and Madame, you are passing history on the road. At this Kwo[u]gwanji, in its rather shabby guest hall, Kusonoki Masashige and his devoted followers spoke their last defiance and then cut belly. Kobe? It is ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... expulsion of Wilkes from his seat, by a vote of the House of Commons, had (in 1770) thrown the nation into a ferment. Johnson was roused to take the side of the ministry; and endeavoured in a pamphlet, called the False Alarm, as much by ridicule as by argument, to support a violent and arbitrary measure. It appears, both from his conversation and his writings, that he thought there was a point at which resistance might become justifiable; and, surely it is more advisable to check the encroachments ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... and out, backward and forward, she wrought it after his pattern, and discerned continually where it fell into combinations that she had never planned,—made surprises for her of effects that were not her own. There is much ridicule of mere tapestry and broidery work, as a business for women's fingers; but I think the secret, uninterpreted charm of it, to the silliest sorters of colors and counters of stitches, is beyond the fact, as the beauty of children's ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... think that he was quite right; and she laughed very heartily, turned the first husband into ridicule in a playful fashion for the amusement of his successor, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... the lonely ones of the earth, the neglected ones at the feast, the unappreciated workers in the homes. We are met with scorn and indifference. Our way is weary and our name is ridicule. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... religion; but her labors in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... depends far more upon the moral agencies brought to bear than upon any system of rewards and punishments human ingenuity can devise; for Chinamen, like other mortals, love to have their prejudices respected, and fear of shame and dread of ridicule are as deeply ingrained in their natures as in those of any nation under the sun. They have a horror of blows, not so much from the pain inflicted, as from the sense of injury done to something more elevated than ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... there was something in the law which seemed to stick to his opponent, Mr. Freeman. He complains that the Jaw is dull—that it is trash—a bugbear, and heaps other similar epithets upon it, and yet he appears to make considerable noise about it, and why should he attempt to ridicule me, in connection with the law. Every man in this state knows that Mr. Green himself could not pass the law without the aid of the legislature. He (Mr. Freeman) goes on to take many other positions which he (the speaker) ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... would be better were we to heap less ridicule upon the institution. Matrimony cannot be "holy" and ridiculous at the same time. We have been familiar with it long enough to make up our minds in ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... occasion and the speaker, becomes only exaggerated bombast and nonsense from the lips of a student. Exaggeration, high sounding terms, flowery language, involved constructions, do not produce eloquence in the speaker. They produce discomfort, often smiles of ridicule, in the audience. Many a student intending to cover himself with glory by eulogizing the martyred McKinley or the dead Roosevelt has succeeded only in covering himself with derision. Simplicity, straightforwardness, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... imitated in every respect that were it not for what follows, no one would suppose it to be any other bird. It is called a Mocking-Bird here, and it well deserves the name, for it is a real scoffer at the sorrows of other birds, which it laughs to scorn and turns into ridicule by parodying them so exactly. I never heard it attempt to imitate any of the Larks or Thrushes, although I have listened to it ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... day Neil was in a penitent frame of mind, for, however much he might laugh at Blanche and her light eyebrows, and ridicule his mother's plans for him in that quarter, he was not at all indifferent to the ten thousand a year, and might perhaps wish to have it. Consequently he must not drive Blanche too far, for she ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... mentioned Voiture's name, I shall add a very droll "soi-disant" impromptu of his, composed to ridicule Mademoiselle Chapelain, the sister of the poet. Like her brother, she was most miserly in her habits, and not distinguished by that virtue which some say is next ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... expound my philosophy," replied the other, "but to distribute these cream tarts. If I mention that I heartily include myself in the ridicule of the transaction, I hope you will consider honour satisfied and condescend. If not, you will constrain me to eat my twenty-eighth, and I own to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mind and understanding a man has, so as to be able to foresee danger and measure it, the more chance there is of his brute courage giving way. The more feeling a man has, the more keen he is to feel pain of body, or pain of mind, such as shame, loneliness, the dislike of ridicule, and the contempt of his fellow-men; in a word, the more of a man he is, the more chance there is of his brute courage breaking down, just when he wants it more to keep him up, and leaving him to play the ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... surely, nothing in the world was ever more comic than this stately Don, without any music, and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule; therefore it said much for Moll's cajolery, or for the love he bore her even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson's rude mirth and mine in order to ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... antiquity of the Scottish Terrier is a thing which means that he who tries it must be prepared to meet all sorts of abuse, ridicule, and criticism. One man will tell you there never was any such thing as the present-day Scottish Terrier, that the mere fact of his having prick ears shows he is a mongrel; another, that he is merely an offshoot of the Skye or the ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning everything into ridicule, with bold figures and natural descriptions.' How invaluable he must have been in the Common-rooms at Oxford, then turned into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky volunteer Don, who had put off his clerkly costume for a buff jacket, and could not manage ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the celebrated Carte de Tendre (Loveland), to be found in Mlle. de Scuderi's Clelie (1654, Vol. I, p. 399), and reproduced in the English folio edition of 1678. This fantastic map, which is said to have been suggested by Chapelain, aroused unbounded ridicule. In scene iv of Moliere's Les Precieuses Ridicules (1659), Cathos cries, 'Je m'en vais gager qu'ils n'ont jamais vu la carte de Tendre, et que Billets-Doux, Petits-Soins, Billets-Galante, et Jolis-Vers sont des terres inconnues pour eux.' This imaginary land ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... frame a declaration of independence, No, 2. Just think of an army of crinolines willing to take arms against the tyrant man, and sacrifice their lives, if need be, to carry out their principles! It is easier to ridicule the woman suffrage movement than to answer the arguments advanced by some of the leading advocates of that question. It is only the innate mildness of the position of women in general that has prevented a revolution on this same subject long ago. One hundred thousand such fire-eaters as Susan ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and permitting none on the part of the lads you are with; their father says you are to be treated as their equal. But, upon the other hand, do not be ever on the lookout for small slights, and bear with perfect good temper any little ridicule your, to them foreign, ways and manners may excite. I need not tell you to be always straightforward, honest, and true, for of those qualities I think you possess a fair share. Above all things restrain any tendency ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... not to put on a grave face, and throw down the book in a passion and declare 'tis enough to turn the heads of half the girls in England; I do solemnly protest, my dear madam, I mean no more by what I have here advanced, than to ridicule those romantic girls, who foolishly imagine a red coat and silver epaulet constitute the fine gentleman; and should that fine gentleman make half a dozen fine speeches to them, they will imagine themselves so much in love as ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... Pretty gave to the less careful of the Dozen was his fondness for carrying a cane, a practice which the rest of the boys, being boys, did not affect. But Pretty was not to be dissuaded from this, nor from any of his other foibles, by ridicule, and the others finally gave him ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... history —indeed up to a comparatively recent time—if any one had suggested such a thing as a Prohibition amendment to the Federal Constitution, he would have been met not with indignation but with ridicule. It would not have been the monstrosity, but the absurdity, of such a proposal, that would have been first in the thought of almost any intelligent American to whom it might have been presented. He would have felt that ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... play the living burlesque of himself. Better to die than to face the shame of failure, the shame of reproach and ridicule; the epitaph of his business a few lines in the small type of "Business Troubles." Better to kill himself than risk the danger of going mad and killing perhaps his own children and his wife. He knew ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... what folly in me to indulge in so idle a dream," he said to himself, turning away. "I was received as Barry's friend, and treated with kindness accordingly; but I should only deservedly bring down scorn and ridicule on myself if I were ever to aspire to a greater intimacy than that which ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... half in ridicule, half in good nature, with which the crowd greeted every very gaudily dressed member, richer in symbol and obsolete finery than his neighbour, showed that the day had passed in which such things could produce their originally intended effect. Will the time ever arrive in which stars ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... distinguishing him who utters them. It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident. Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth—a ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance. What, for example, has been more valorously derided than ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... by an effort. His sharp glance at Blair made him keep quiet also. Neither was at all impressed at the story Crane told them, except to be moved to ridicule. Well they knew how a Ouija Board will make glib statements as startling as they ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... of wit through the buckler of ignorance, bigotry and tyranny, exposing their rotten bodies to the ridicule and hate of mankind. ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... each side, attracted the gaze of the beholder, and sometimes received censure and rebuke. A stranger from the old States chose to doff his ruffles, his broadcloth, and his queue, rather than endure the scoff and ridicule ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... hobby-riders, booted and spurred, who imagine they are leading a grand race to a golden goal, forgetful of the truth that their steeds are tethered to a single idea, around which they are revolving only to tread down the grass and wind themselves up, where they may stand at last amid the world's ridicule, and starve ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... qui m'a tombe sous la main m'a toujours revolte par l'emphase ridicule de l'eloge, ou par l'impudeur du blame. II semble que cette nature d'hommes ait toujours ote la raison a ses amis et a ses ennemis. Je voudrais leur consacrer dix annees d'etudes, ne fut ce que pour mon plaisir propre; mais Dieu nous donne et nous prepare une bien autre besogne, et il ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... continue the greatest for many, many years to come. It is only a little song, "I stood on a tower in the wet." I have found few men who, whether from the influence of those prints which are always on the outlook for something to ridicule, or from some other cause, did not laugh at the poem. I thought and think it a lovely poem, although I am not quite sure of the transposition of words in the last two lines. But I do not approve of the poem, just because there is no hope in it. It lacks that touch or hint ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... wrong in supposing that a serious cleft had opened between the late allies, and in the war of words with which the Forum was soon filled, Memmius seems to have been no match for his opponent. Crassus surpassed himself, and the keen but humorous invective with which he held Memmius up to the ridicule of his former followers,[1213] was balanced by the grand periods in which he formulated his detailed indictment of the methods pursued by the existing courts of justice, and of the terrible dangers to the public security produced by their methods of administration. He did not ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... instruction. Abigail says of herself, in one of her letters:—"I never was sent to any school. Female education, in the best families, went no further than writing and arithmetic; in some few and rare instances, music and dancing. It was fashionable to ridicule female learning." But the household was bookish. Her mother knew the "British Poets" and all the literature of Queen Anne's Augustan age. Her beloved grandmother Quincy, at Mount Wollaston, seems to have had both learning and wisdom, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... give the slightest indication of a change. He paid, if anything, more attention to his old friend than usual, and yet in no way held him up to that subtle ridicule which a lover in favour may so secretly practise before the mistress of his heart. If anything, he felt the injustice of the game as it stood, and was not cheap enough to add to it ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... accordingly he pays his court, as a favoured Knight, to two married ladies, who lay their heads together and agree to listen apparently to his addresses, for the sake of making him the butt of their just ridicule. The whole plan of the intrigue is therefore derived from the ordinary circle of Comedy, but yet richly and artificially interwoven with another love affair. The circumstance which has been so much admired in Moliere's School of Women, that a jealous ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... promptly belabours the idle or the stupid. Any neglect of duty or act of disobedience is inevitably Punished, sometimes by hard labour in digging trenches, sometimes by a fine, sometimes by stripping the soldier of his armour and making him stand for hours in civilian attire as a butt for ridicule in the middle of the camp, sometimes by a lowering of his rank corresponding to the modern taking away of a "man's stripes." If a soldier proves a hopeless case he is expelled with ignominy from the camp and army. If he deserts or plays ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... capricious love of rule, which nature had planted and habit had nourished in her heart, was not subdued. She could not now deny herself the gratification of tyrannizing over the innocent and helpless Emily, by attempting to ridicule the taste she could ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... had encouraged her in singing from her youth. One day, before she had received much instruction, she innocently asked me to listen to a song she was studying, when I was cruel enough to laugh at her and ridicule the idea of her ever learning to sing correctly. This rudeness made such an impression on her girlish mind that, although she forgave the offense and continued to love the offender, she could never be induced again to try her ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... the object of the cross-examining counsel is to ridicule the art and get the expert to admit the possibility of other writers possessing the same peculiarities which are said to distinguish ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... and the officer in the rear who was to relieve him that he could at any time be found at that spot. It was a matter of pride, too. If he abandoned his post he feared they would think he feared the corpse. He was no coward and he was unwilling to incur anybody's ridicule. So he again seated himself, and to prove his courage looked boldly at the body. The right arm—the one farthest from him- -was now in shadow. He could barely see the hand which, he had before observed, lay at the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... though this great master of condensed meaning and brilliant point is now less read than he was in the days of our grandfathers, you will all remember the elegant stanzas in which he states the usual claims of the species only to ridicule them. It is human pride personified that ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Parish Thornton with eyes blankly dumfounded, and the other two faces mirrored his bewilderment, then the spokesman broke into bitterly derisive laughter, and his followers parroted his mirthless ridicule. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... at by the assembled gods and goddesses for the contortions which her countenance assumed during these musical efforts, she hastily ran to a fountain in order to convince herself whether she deserved their ridicule. Finding to her intense disgust that such was indeed the fact, she threw the flute away, and never raised it ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... crowd the recognition of it. The multitudinous voices died away in the distance with a peculiar effect. No firing of guns. While on this part of the subject, I may mention my strong impression, that in no place is the government so much respected as in America. The public press may ridicule and joke upon certain acts of individuals; but whatever side is taken, there is nothing that can bring the laws, or those who administer them, into disrespect. This produces order to an extent unknown elsewhere. No one seems to question the law or the commands of its officers ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... servilely conformed to the taste of the mob, with Sordello, the true poet, who despised it. In Popularity, Browning returns to the same theme, of the public's misplaced praises, and in Pacchiarotto he outdoes himself in heaping ridicule upon his readers. Naturally the coterie of later poets who have prided themselves on their unique skill in interpreting Browning have been impressed by his contempt for his readers. Perhaps they have even exaggerated it. No less contemptuous of his readers than ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... grow on hedges, still she knew that it would be much to be a marchioness. And the man himself was good, and not only good but very handsome. There was a nobility about him beyond that of his family. Those prone to ridicule might perhaps have called him Werter-faced, but to Mary there was a sublimity in this. But then was she in love ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... partaking so much of the theatrical, that a person ignorant of the language of his address, might readily suppose that he was taking off John Kemble and Liston alternately, and therefore the uneducated Irish emigrants might very well conclude his sole object was to turn their creed into ridicule. I certainly never heard or saw a person, lecturing on sacred subjects, whose tone and manner were so ridiculously yet painfully at variance with the solemnity due to such a theme. The excitement produced, the constant calling out of the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... will have none. At the north, were it possible for a duel intended to be conducted on such savage terms to be matter of notoriety, the very horror of the thing would create a feeling of grotesqueness, and the antagonists in such a proposed encounter would simply incur an immense amount of ridicule and obloquy. But here nobody is astonished and nobody ashamed of such preliminaries to a mortal combat between two gentlemen, who propose firing at marks over each other's hearts, and cutting off each other's heads; and though this agreeable party of pleasure ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... that this false shame, inspired by an unwholesome terror of public ridicule, plays a very important part in tying people to the apron-strings of education, and warping ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... Review for December 1785 there is the following notice: "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. Small 8vo, IS. (Smith). This is a satirical production calculated to throw ridicule on the bold assertions of some parliamentary declaimers. If rant may be best foiled at its own weapons, the author's design is not ill-founded; for the marvellous has never been carried to a more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had probably read ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... warm in winter days. Unluckily, in the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the governments generally of the world, are cities and governments of the rich, and the masses are not men, but poor men, that is, men who would ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Saturday and Sunday, were devoted by the island prisoner to the sending out of further calls, for help, and these calls were met by a campaign of ridicule, similar to that begun by his nemesis on the first day of his imprisonment, according to the diary read by Hal to his companions. A few listeners-in indicated a willingness to come to his rescue, in spite of the plausible ridicule from anonymous source, but when asked where ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... and literature, and above all contemporary politics, domestic and foreign. All this farrago of miscellaneous subjects is treated in a frank, uncompromising spirit of criticism and satire, a spirit of broad fun, side-splitting laughter and reckless high spirits. Whatever lends itself to ridicule is instantly seized upon; odd, eccentric and degraded personalities are caricatured, social foibles and vices pilloried, pomposity and sententiousness in the verses of the poets, particularly the tragedians, and most particularly in Euripides—the pet ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Grant Colleges was the biggest piece of constructive legislation that Congress has enacted during the past century. By means of higher education thus redirected and vitalized, industrial independence will ultimately be realized. But the work moves slowly. However, in spite of ridicule and unmerited handicaps, and even the contempt of too many of the farming class, these institutions have grown steadily ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... of laughter and of fun, which, had it been published and explained in Locke's lifetime, would have tainted his whole philosophy with suspicion. It relates to the Aristotelian doctrine of syllogism, which Locke undertook to ridicule. Now, a flaw, a hideous flaw, in the soi-disant detecter of flaws, a ridicule in the exposer of the ridiculous—that is fatal; and I am surprised that Lee, who wrote a folio against Locke in his lifetime, and other examiners, should have failed in detecting this. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... common origin and primitive impulse, showing the crack in the gay gilding and veneer they have laboured to cover me with?... I cannot.... I could endure the disgrace myself; I cannot disgrace them. Think of the ridicule they would suffer if it became known that for two years I had been married, and now wanted a public divorce? No! No! There is nothing to do, nothing to hope for.... If it is—advisable—I will tell them, and take your name openly.... I am so uncertain, so frightened at ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... accustomed to see much that was strange in the busy streets of their crowded city; but this vehicle attracted every eye, and excited astonishment, admiration and mirth, wherever it appeared, and not unfrequently the bitterest ridicule. The handsome Roman stood in the middle of his gilt chariot, and himself drove the four white horses, harnessed abreast; on his head he wore a wreath, and across his breast, from one shoulder, a garland of roses. On the foot-board of the quadriga sat ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grabbed his trusty weapon, which he had hardly learned to shoot, strung it, nocked an arrow, and ran back to take a shot at the animal in question. His eagerness and obvious incapacity so amused the gay company in the machine, that they cheered him on with laughter and ridicule. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... from her dying grasp. As two Indian men pursued this unfortunate victim, I solicited very hard for her life; but the murderers made no reply till they had stuck both their spears through her body, and transfixed her to the ground. They then looked me sternly in the face, and began to ridicule me by asking if I wanted an Eskimo wife; and paid not the smallest regard to the shrieks and agony of the poor wretch, who was twining round their spears ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... he secure greater pains? By stern commands and threats? By going from desk to desk, scolding one, rapping the knuckles of another, and holding up to ridicule a third, making examples of such individuals as may chance to attract his special attention? No; he has learned that he is operating upon a little empire of mind, and that he is not to endeavor to drive ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... apparition," says Walpole, who was present. "The moment was so well timed, the importance of the man and his services, the languor of his emaciated countenance, and the study bestowed on his dress were circumstances that struck solemnity into a patriot mind, and did a little furnish ridicule to the hardened and insensible. He was dressed in black velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped in flannel, his feet covered with buskins of black cloth, and his hands with thick gloves." Not for the first time, he ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... blind confidence on my part, or you may cry over it. I don't pretend to know whether I am an object for ridicule or an object for pity. Of one thing only I am certain: I mean to win you back, a man vindicated before the world, without a stain on his character or his name—thanks ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... in securing a refuge for the Quakers, the most active was William Penn, who had suffered ridicule and persecution for his faith, and who now desired a clearer field than the Jerseys offered for his political and religious experiments. In 1681 he therefore procured from the king a proprietary grant of the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... I'm called.' The man's face was an unhappy one, and he seemed to be the butt of his comrades, for they poured forth such a volley of good-natured ridicule on his appearance that Teddy looked from one to the other in ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... a little indignant to think of the renown Judd was getting. Why, all the fellows were beginning to pay attention to him now. And he, a rube! Benz's one desire was to do something which might make Judd the laughing stock of the college; something which would provoke ridicule whenever ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... on us and we don't know it," remarked Heavy, who was easily angered by ridicule, too. "There! Mr. Tingley has gone off with the lawyer. I guess we'll know what it's ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... young men in our office. They liked me well enough, but used to guy me unmercifully for my simplicity and clumsiness. One of them, Harry by name, was something of a scapegrace, and soon acquired quite a power over me. I stood in much fear of his ridicule, and frequently did things for which my conscience reproached me, rather than stand the fire of his raillery. The greatest harm he did me was in firing my imagination with stories of Wall street, of the fortunes that were and could be made in ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... a disgrace, is among the deadliest errors. Without depth of thought, or earnestness of feeling, or strength of purpose, living an unreal life, sacrificing substance to show, substituting the factitious for the natural, mistaking a crowd for society, finding its chief pleasure in ridicule, and exhausting its ingenuity in expedients for killing time, fashion is among the last influences under which a human being, who respects himself or who comprehends the great end of life, would desire to be placed. I use strong language, because I would combat the disposition, too common in ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... it does, Jasper; it means fun, ridicule, jest; it is an ancient Norse word, and is found in ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... not help inwardly acknowledging the justness of the comparison. He was resolved, however, as far as he could, to check his niece's inclination to ridicule the ugliness of her intended bridegroom, although he was not a little pleased to observe that she appeared totally exempt from that mysterious dread of the stranger which, he could not disguise it from himself, considerably affected him, as also ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... possessions on the equipage. They seemed to occupy very little room in the huge structure. Murdoch, shouldering his rifle, followed it, and I, rather ashamed of the grotesque appearance of my caravan, marched on as quickly as I could in front, hoping to escape the ridicule which I knew would be heaped upon me by all ranks of my beloved brigade. A man we met told us that the battalion had gone to Steenvoorde, so thither we made our way. On our arrival I was taken to the Chateau and kindly ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... that his three brothers had resolved to act in this outrageous manner he did not hesitate to reproach them; but not being able to contend against him honourably, they met him with ridicule. "Do not attempt to rule us with your wooden staff," they cried contemptuously. "Sacrifice IT if your inside is really sincere. And, in the meanwhile, go and sit under your paper umbrella and wield your ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... assembly in which they must ultimately sit, and by conferring English titles on some Scotch and Irish Lords, he might be able to secure a majority without ennobling new men in such numbers as to bring ridicule on the coronet and the ermine. But there was no extremity to which he was not prepared to go in case of necessity. When in a large company an opinion was expressed that the peers would prove intractable, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sit out of regard to the proprieties of the occasion; but I do not expose myself to ridicule by going about among the neighbors and talking of a sitting hen! Everywhere, but in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... increased their good humour, though Tupman assisted him from within to stand up and address the mob. We are told that "all Mr. Tupman's entreaties to have the lid of the vehicle closed" were unattended to. He felt the ridicule of his position—a sedan chair carried along, and a stout man speaking. This must have produced friction. Then there was the sense of injustice in being charged with aiding and abetting his leader, which Mr. Pickwick did not attempt to clear him from. When Mr. Pickwick fell through the ice, Tupman, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... over. It was a biography of Mrs. Ada T. P. Foat, the celebrated trance-lecturer, and was embellished by a portrait representing the lady with a surprised expression and innumerable ringlets. Ransom said to himself, after reading a few pages, that much ridicule had been cast upon Southern literature; but if that was a fair specimen of Northern!—and he threw it back upon the table with a gesture almost as contemptuous as if he had not known perfectly, after so long a residence in the North, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... yo' Honah! I object!" cried the State's attorney, springing to his feet. "This is bringin' the dignity o' the law into ridicule, sah! into ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... the national manners. In his preface to "The American Spelling-Book," he says: "To diffuse an uniformity and purity of language in America, to destroy the provincial prejudices that originate in the trifling differences of dialect and produce reciprocal ridicule, to promote the interest of literature and the harmony of the United States, is the most earnest wish of the author, and it is his highest ambition to deserve the approbation and encouragement of his countrymen." His spelling-book, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honour? If you can—go—and carry with you the jest of tories, and the scorn of whigs;—the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the world. Go,—starve and be forgotten. But if your spirit should revolt at this; if you have sense enough to discover, and spirit enough to oppose, tyranny under whatever ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... off, her face was red, her eyes glared with crazy boldness. He looked mildly into them while she called him a wretch, a traitor and a murderer many times in succession. This did not annoy him so much as the conviction that in her scurries she had managed to scratch his face abundantly. Ridicule would be added to the scandal of the story. He imagined it making its way through the garrison, through the whole army, with every possible distortion of motive and sentiment and circumstance, spreading a doubt upon the sanity of his conduct and the distinction of his taste ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... positive irreverence towards the laws of the Commonwealth, and towards the occupants of high political positions. Mayor, Judge, Governor, Senator, or even President, may be the butt of such indecorous ridicule as shocks or disgusts the foreigner; but nevertheless the personal joke stops short of certain topics which Puritan tradition disapproves. The United States is properly called a Christian nation, not merely because the Supreme Court has so affirmed it, but because the phrase ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... understand me, my dear. I am speaking very seriously now. I mean, do not let Master Pawson think that you ridicule his love of music. It would be very weak and foolish, and lower you ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... he did so," was the king's reply, "for the tie that binds us is sacred in the sight of Heaven, while in the eyes of the world I am spared the ridicule of placing Scarron's widow upon the throne of Charlemagne the Great. In your own reception-room you act as queen, and I am perfectly willing that you should do so, for it proves that you are the wife of the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... matter contained in the publication. What constitutes libel is equally far-reaching. It is any published matter that tends to disgrace or degrade a person generally, or to subject him to public distrust, ridicule, or contempt. Any written article that implies or may be generally understood to imply reproach, dishonesty, scandal, or ridicule of or against a person, or which tends to subject such a person to social disgrace, public distrust, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... time to time the crowds opened before litters in which were visible the affected faces of women, or the heads of senators and knights, with features, as it were, rigid and exhausted from living. The many-tongued population repeated aloud their names, with the addition of some term of praise or ridicule. Among the unordered groups pushed from time to time, advancing with measured tread, parties of soldiers, or watchers, preserving order on the streets. Around about, the Greek language was ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... youth and manhood had been inextricably planned before they were born. Dick was in a higher grade and made the fact known to Pan. He had grown into a large boy, handsomer, bolder, with a mop of red hair that shone like a flame. He called Pan "the little skunk tamer," and incited other boys to ridicule. So the buried resentment in Pan's depths smoldered and burst into blaze again, and found fuel to burn it into hate. He told his mother what Dick had got the boys to call him. Then he was indeed surprised to see his sweet soft-eyed mother give way to quick-flashing passion. Somehow this ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... a city as London, to which the best of everything, physical and other, gravitates, I could not but pass, now and then, beautiful persons, who made me proud of those "grandes Anglaises aux joues rouges," whom the Parisiennes ridicule—and envy. But I could not help suspecting that their looks showed them to be either country-bred, or born of country parents; and this suspicion was strengthened by the fact, that when compared with their mothers, the ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the unpardonable sin of both Reviews: that mediocrity was applauded, but that, whenever a man of genius came before them, the chances were ten to one that he would be held up to ridicule and contempt. The very first number of the Edinburgh lays this down as an article of faith. Taking post on the recent appearance of Thalaba, the reviewer opens fire by a laboured parallel between poetry and religion. [Footnote: Edinburgh ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... of Euphuism. When Lodge wrote "Rosalynde," euphuism was already on the wane. Even among Lodge's contemporaries the fashion was becoming an object of frequent ridicule. Thus Warner, in his "Albion's England" (1589), complains in the preface, which, by the way, is written wholly in the euphuistic manner: "Onely this error may be thought hatching in our English, that ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... Madame de Remusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means for governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him. ... He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... verse of worth. Manuel BRETON DE LOS HERREROS (1796-1873) was primarily a humorist and satirist, who turned from page xxxix lyric verse to drama as his best medium of expression. He delighted in holding up to ridicule the excesses of romanticism. Mention should be made here of two poets who had been, like Espronceda, pupils of Alberto Lista. The eclectic poet MARQUES DE MOLINS (Mariano Roca de Togores: 1812-1889) wrote passively ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... hastily began, "I wish to Heaven I had the gift of humour! I lose my temper and grow positive. I'd kill these stupid superstitions with ridicule, if I had the gift. It's a great gift. My God, I do hate ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... water alongside. Flint told me with a chuckle, that once upon a time the English Government sent some ships of war in frame out to the lakes, and also a supply of water-tanks, forgetting that they would have a very ample one outside. A little forethought would have saved the ridicule they gained for this mistake, and the expense to which they put the country. As my intention is to describe my adventures afloat rather than those on shore, I shall be very brief with my account of the life we led in ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the spirit of the Washington press, as manifested in their reports of the Convention. The sole exception was the Daily Chronicle, which was fair and friendly. The other reports amounted to little more than a burlesque, and the editorial comments consisted chiefly of denunciation and ridicule. The N.Y. Tribune, finding nothing to ridicule in our proceedings, suppressed all mention of the Convention, not publishing even the brief notices of the Associated Press. Having charged woman suffrage with hostility to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... garden of the cotton-growing region. Beyond this point the President's description of Louisiana became less confident, as reliable sources of information failed him. His credulity, however, led him to make one amazing statement, which provoked the ridicule of his political opponents, always ready to pounce upon the slips of this philosopher-president. "One extraordinary fact relative to salt must not be omitted," he wrote in all seriousness. "There exists, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Michelet, a disciple of Hegel, followed his example, and, in a work published in 1840, strove vigorously to aggrandize the earth and man at the expense of the accepted teachings of astronomy.34 With argument and ridicule, wit and reason, he endeavored to make it out that the stars are no better than gleaming patches of vapor. We are the exclusive autocrats of all immensity. Whewell has followed up this species of thought with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... didn't know he was a tragedy. Your farmer is not given to introspection. For that matter, anyone knows that a farmer in town is a comedy. Vaudeville, burlesque, the Sunday supplement, the comic papers, have marked him a fair target for ridicule. Perhaps one should know him in his overalled, stubble-bearded days, with the rich black loam of the Mississippi bottomlands clinging to ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... against the Pharisees, his opponents forcing him, as generally happens, to adopt their tone.[3] His exquisite irony, his arch and provoking remarks, always struck home. They were everlasting stigmas, and have remained festering in the wound. This Nessus-shirt of ridicule which the Jew, son of the Pharisees, has dragged in tatters after him during eighteen centuries, was woven by Jesus with a divine skill. Masterpieces of fine raillery, their features are written in lines of fire upon the flesh of ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... its antidote. For so vast and absurd were his vain boastings, and so needless his exaggerations of his own recklessness, blood-thirstiness, and crime, that hitherto his vaporings had excited rather ridicule than fear. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... toward sarcasm touching the well-meant attempts to entertain the Governor and his lady in the provincial town of Halifax,—a disposition to turn, in short, upon the demonstrations of loyal worship the faint light of ridicule. There were those upon the boat who were journeying to Halifax to take part in the civic ball about to be given to their excellencies, and as we were going in the same direction, we shared in the feeling of satisfaction which proximity ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that not a single one of the earnest, hearty workers who would come back to us with a blessing for themselves and us, is able to go; instead, we have four representatives who will turn the whole thing into ridicule, and dish it up for the entertainment of their friends during ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... on their dirty scales to attract the attention of some possible purchaser. Smiles and quaint greetings of endearment would welcome the housewife as she came up; but if she found prices too high and passed on, a deluge of filthy epithet would follow after her, and the insolent ridicule would be taken up by the whole crew of vendors, instinctively standing together against ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... The origin of this nickname is traced to a satire written in the reign of Queen Anne, by Dr. Arbuthnot, to throw ridicule on the politics ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... was not always of the same cast. It varied as greatly as were the moods of the composer. The sublimity of Ossian had its opposite in the biting sarcasm and trenchant ridicule of some of the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... cherish animosities towards seniors in age possessed of superior qualifications, and while the latter, possessed of virtue and merit, used to speak upon proper topics in the midst of assemblies, the former began to ridicule or laugh at them. When reverend seniors in age came, the younger individuals, seated at their ease, refused to adore the former by rising up and saluting them with respect. In the presence of sires, sons began to exercise power (in matters that concerned sires alone). They ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... as with the person of the Metropolitan of Moscow, or with that of the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. She had her dignity. It was undeniable. He imagined the surprise in her large blue eyes and the torrent of ridicule of which her tongue could be capable. He had felt the sting of its humor at their first meeting. He had no wish to ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... gentlemen still continue to do, but stopped at some one:—to nudge him on the shoulder and say, as was done by the servant of a Scottish gentleman, "What ails you at her in the green gown?" It will be better to leave the lady unnoticed than for the servant thus to turn his master into ridicule. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... talk might have discouraged ordinary people, but Barnwell and his companions had long since become accustomed to it. They had learned to brave ridicule before leaving their homes, and they classed the expressions of the hunters who had called upon them with the utterances of those who failed ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... reign had adjusted themselves to meet opposition. Those of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth were prepared to meet ridicule.[77] "There are some," says the narrator of a Yorkshire story, "who are of opinion that there are no Divells nor any witches.... Men in this Age are grown so wicked, that they are apt to believe there are no greater Divells than themselves."[78] Another writer, to bolster up his story ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... depreciation &c. (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c. v.; modesty &c. 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon[obs3]; depreciate; disparage &c. (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c. 856; slight &c. (despise) 930; neglect &c. 460; slur over. make light of, make little of, make nothing of, make no account of; belittle; minimize, think nothing of; set no store by, set at naught; shake off as dewdrops from the lion's mane. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But, what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... which some of those enthusiastic men who undertake to legislate on Irish subjects so frequently commit, would excite feelings of ridicule, if the observations in which they see fit to indulge were not calculated to produce mischief in quarters where their insignificance is not known, and where their flippant fallacies may be mistaken for facts. Thus, Mr Poulett Scrope exclaims,—"What! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Amarendra Babu, with his son and an uncle named Rashbehari, arrived at Jogesh's house in a second-class cab. No procession attended them, partly because the last had cost so much money, partly owing to the fear that another hitch might cover them with ridicule. After exchanging hearty salutations with Jogesh, they asked him to exhibit the ornaments prepared for the bride-elect. He took them to a side room and left them there a while, presently introducing a well-dressed man as his family goldsmith. The latter unlocked a tin box which he was carrying ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... entirely unforeseen aspect; for those whom he approached as being the most likely to possess what he required either became very immoderately and disagreeably amused at the nature of the request, or regarded it as a new and ill-judged form of ridicule, which they prepared to avenge by blows and by base remarks of the most personal variety. At length it became unavoidably obvious to the youth that if he was to obtain the articles in question it would first be necessary that he should become adept in the art of slaying tigers, for in no other ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... advance of his boyish writing of that year. It is an interesting document, enthusiastic and gay in a manner hardly to be met with again in its author, and diversified with graceful praise of St John's College, defence of good poetry, and wholesome ridicule of those who were trying to introduce the "Thrasonical huffsnuff" style of which Phaer and ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... stone, you're a prisoner,' he replied, and seeing Ammiani coming, 'Net him, my sling-stone! my serpent!' he signalled to his wife, who threw herself right round Ammiani in a tortuous twist hard as wire-rope. Stung with irritation, and a sense of disgrace and ridicule and pitifulness in one, Ammiani, after a struggle, ceased the attempt to disentwine her arms, and dragged her clinging to him. He was much struck by hearing her count deliberately, in her desperation, numbers from somewhere about twenty to one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in any other man, with moral enthusiasm and with intellectual grasp, has held in the modern world the same rank which was accorded to him in the old; but he cannot enjoy the same appreciation. Macaulay's ridicule has rescued from oblivion the criticism which pronounced the eloquence of Chatham to be more ornate than that of Demosthenes, and less diffuse than that of Cicero. Did the critic, asks Macaulay, ever hear any speaking that was less ornamented ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... imperfect, inaccurate observer of forms and outlines, he attached himself chiefly to the idea of prominences (or bumps) at certain localities, and to his mode of presenting the subject we are mainly indebted for the ridicule of phrenology as a science of bumps. I have taken much pains to assure my students that cerebral science has little or nothing to do with bumps, that bumps upon the skull belong to its osseous structure, which presents certain protuberances with which they should ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... to find men, who in their speculations deny the reality of moral distinctions, forget in detail the general positions they maintain, and give loose to ridicule, indignation, and scorn, as if any of these sentiments could have place, were the actions of men indifferent; or with acrimony pretend to detect the fraud by which moral restraints have been imposed, as if to censure a fraud were not already ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... the various groups of men still discussing the events of the evening, Scott, followed only by Bill Dancing, made his way, nodding and patiently or pleasantly grinning as the greetings or ridicule of the crowd were thrown at him. He went to the rooms of the sheriff only to find them locked, and made his way down town again looking through the resorts in ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... supposed from this little sketch of a characteristic scene that I wish to ridicule any form of religion. I saw precisely what I state, and am in no way responsible for it. If people imagine this sort of thing does them any good, they are quite welcome to enjoy it; but they must not expect every body ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... somebody?" said Joyce trying not to let her voice betray the laughter which was choking her, for Mary showed a grief too deep to ridicule. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... question: How can God be just and not justify "him that hath faith in Jesus"? Again men may quibble and warp, and ridicule, but no one will ever answer the question. And the reason why this question will never be answered leads ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... terminate here. The political opponents of the government did not allow so favourable an opportunity to escape for launching the shafts of ridicule. The Moderados were taunted in the cortes for their avarice and credulity, whilst the liberal press wafted on its wings through Spain the story of the treasure- ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire generally; complaints of the want of high society; of the backward state of civilization in these districts; murmurings against the disrespectful conduct of the lower orders in the north toward their betters; silly ridicule of the manner of living in these parts—the want of style, the absence of elegance, as if he, Donne, had been accustomed to very great doings indeed, an insinuation which his somewhat underbred manner and aspect ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... of the Congress made a great impression at home and abroad, in spite of the attacks and ridicule with which the Spaniards tried to discredit it. On that eventful day Bolvar saw his dream of a great nation, Colombia, take shape, even though it were in danger of dying shortly after ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... reconsidered this, and negatived its vote of the previous evening; but publicity was still given to it, and it echoed through the provinces, carrying with it the disquietude, derision, and hatred attached to the Royal Veto. The constitution, handed over to ridicule and hooted in full assembly, had now become the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Could they but have turned their attention to systematic methods of investigation based upon facts logically stated, the vast intellectual energy of the Middle Ages might have been turned to more permanent account. It is idle, however, to deplore their ignorance of these conditions or to ridicule their want of learning. When we consider the ignorance that overshadowed the land, the breaking down of the old established systems of Greece and Rome, the struggle of the church, which grew naturally into its power and ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... words with that kind of low, dogged ridicule and scorn which so frequently accompany stupid and wanton brutality; and which are, besides, provoking, almost beyond endurance, when the mind is chafed by a consideration ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... than perhaps any Christian ever did. I explained to him the difference between the religion of England and Rome; and he Was pleased to hear there were Christians that did not worship images, or adore the Virgin Mary. The ridicule of transubstantiation appeared very strong to him.—Upon comparing our creeds together, I am convinced that if our friend Dr —— had free liberty of preaching here, it would be very easy to persuade the generality to Christianity, whose notions are very little different from his. Mr Whiston would ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking, and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of their serious attention. The Psalm was sung amidst the curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of mankind, upon them (so stupid are they to any sense of decency) ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Fashion, of which we have heretofore given an illustration, is said to increase, and as it is graceful and convenient it would be more popular but for the ridicule cast on all innovations by the vulgar or profligate women who expose their natural shamelessness and ambition of notoriety by appearing in what is called the Bloomer costume—a costume which, it is scarcely necessary to say, has never yet been assumed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... and oppressed; ever, with god-like fearlessness, he stood for Right against Might—for purity against corruption. In church, in state, in society— he tore the painted mask from the face of hypocrisy and exposed it, in all its festering hideousness, to the world's ridicule. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... had made her disobey her father back in Howrah City—the spirit that had kept her in Howrah City and had given Jaimihr back cool stare for stare—rallied her to resist—to ridicule—to rival Cunningham's pretensions. He saw her flush beneath his gaze, and turned away to where Mahommed Gunga ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... yourself or the simple deserts of an old man such as I am. I accepted it, sir, the more readily, because it was entirely unsolicited by me, and seemed to be the spontaneous offering of your own heart. If I have presumed upon it to express myself freely on other matters in a way that only excites your ridicule, I can but offer you an apology, sir. If I have accepted a favor I can neither renounce nor return, I must take the consequences to myself, and even beg YOU, sir, to put up ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... not to encroach on the special preserve of the Physiologists and, as he did not pay any heed to the warning, misrepresentations began. Even the evidence of his supersensitive appliances failed to convince many. And the Royal Society withheld publication of his researches. He was recompensed with ridicule and reviling. The limited facilities that he had in the prosecution of his researches were in danger of being withdrawn. But he had a burning Faith in the Vision and was not to be boggled at with these difficulties. He became stronger in his determination. Realising ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... English madrigal, deploring the loss of old instruments. Riviere, not wholly ingenuously, undertook to explain to Jimmy the triumph of the French mechanicians. The resonant voice of the Hungarian was about to prevail in ridicule of the spurious lutes of the romantic painters when Segouin shepherded his party into politics. Here was congenial ground for all. Jimmy, under generous influences, felt the buried zeal of his father wake to life within him: ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... who comes up the stairway furtively, with a manuscript he wants printed, is in dead earnest; and he has excited the ridicule, wrath or pity of editors for three hundred years. Such a one was Samuel Adams. His wife did her own work, and the grocer with bills in his hand often grew red in the face ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... object ideal or general, abstract, impersonal, or, so to speak, invisible intangible subjects, wanting all the vivacious pungent stimulus that belongs to real individual absurdity, and the direct ridicule of it, judiciously and dexterously applied; the only efficient—I had almost said legitimate—object of a rational creature's amusement. If Dorothy depends upon you for her entertainment (otherwise than as you involuntarily, unconsciously, naturally, and simply furnish it to me), I pity her; and ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... ten days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the children who would baffle him, but the caves and the woods they were using. At last they began to discuss the measure of summoning to their aid the local police; and for some time debated whether it was worth the risk of the ridicule it ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... sleeves, some eccentricity of cut, or some discord or untidiness. But these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of harmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect of disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of ridicule, that it has in the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... with the different tone in which my gradual causes was treated by all, even including De la Beche, from that which they experienced in the same room four years ago, when Buckland, De la Beche(?), Sedgwick, Whewell, and some others treated them with as much ridicule as was consistent with ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... strangers come. 'How can there,' said he, 'be a physical effect without a physical cause?' He added, laughing, 'the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion.' I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised M'Aulay 247 for putting it in his book: saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it. He said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... desk, with half studied lesson, but with bright hopes of passing the twenty minutes safely, before the slow hand of the old clock had marked but half the time, his hopes would be blasted by a call to the board where he would bring upon himself the ridicule of his schoolmates, the condemnation of the teacher, and would take his seat to hear, with burning cheeks, the awful sentence: "You may ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... God has not so ordained it. Our men sin and boast in it. Consorting with the women of the alien race to them is only an indiscretion. While even to acknowledge that in the Negro man are the elements of genuine manhood would make a Southern white women a social exile, and make her the butt of ridicule. Does not this account for the human sacrifices that have shocked the nation? If the Negro's life is cheap and a frank acknowledgement of preference for him means so much to her, and knowing that her word is judge and jury, is it not likely that she would pursue the easiest course? ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton |
