"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... argument for the statement I am making—that into a single point of time or particle of matter may be gathered the relations of a solar system or the experiences of a life; that a universe may be compressed into an atom, or a molecule expanded into a macrocosm; therefore I expect nobody to sneer at my Rosamond as childishly nappy in her simple honeymoon, or at me for making extravagant and unsupported assertions, when I say that this hour and a half, and these four miles out to Clarendon Park and back,—the lifting and the tucking in, and the setting off, the sitting side ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... each other for a moment. Bland's thin lips twisted into a sneer. "We'll see," he said. "We'll settle all that in the morning." His tone took on a more friendly aspect "I'm going to pick out a downy couch in one of these rooms," he said, "and lay me down to sleep. Say, I could greet a blanket like ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... and woman in the South have lived in wedlock as holy as Adam and Eve and brought forth their brown and golden children, but because the darker woman was helpless, her chivalrous and whiter mate could cast her off at his pleasure and publicly sneer at the body ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... sticks closer than a brother, De Pean. Le Gardeur believes in you as his guardian angel, does he not?" asked Bigot with a sneer. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... cooks at twenty pounds a year will see to these things for us. Your work is to teach us gentleness and kindness. Lay your foolish curls just here, child. It is from such as you we learn wisdom. Foolish wise folk sneer at you. Foolish wise folk would pull up the laughing lilies, the needless roses from the garden, would plant in their places only useful, wholesome cabbage. But the gardener, knowing better, plants the silly, short-lived flowers, foolish wise folk ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... 'You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps! But I tell you this:—when that young fellow's interest is concerned, he holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is in question with that young fellow, he is ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Whatever they did do, or whatever they did not do, seemed an occasion for criticism. Evelyn, to divert attention, burst into long reminiscences of the days at Willstead. Henrietta combated each statement with a kind of sneer, as though whatever Evelyn said was bound to be worthless. Evelyn saw Herbert, who always treated her as if she were a wonderful queen, casting black looks at Henrietta. At last ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... proceeding to say something, and, I suppose, in rather an awkward and confused manner, when with a sneer on his face, the bear of a judge bellowed out, "Mr. Casberd told us, that the jury at Devizes were influenced by your persuasive eloquence! I see nothing of it here!" This insult roused me; I began now to speak as loud as his lordship, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... village girl!" But she kept it up. She detested Erik; gloated over his gaucheries—his "breaks," she called them. When he was too expressive, too much like a Russian dancer, in saluting Deacon Pierson, Carol had the ecstasy of pain in seeing the deacon's sneer. When, trying to talk to three girls at once, he dropped a cup and effeminately wailed, "Oh dear!" she sympathized with—and ached over—the insulting secret glances ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... usum Seraphinae, did not weave their usual soothing spell over the Princess. It was plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips. "What boys men are!" she said; "what lovers of big words! Courage, indeed! If you had to scour pans, Herr von Gondremark, you would call it, I suppose, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... melon-seeds, such as were then in fashion, and to have such quantities of things come out of it was in no wise short of magic. It was not for many, many years that I observed that Francis sat on this bag in his tub, as they sailed to the shore. In those later years, however, I also noticed a sneer of Ernest's which I had overlooked before. He says, "I do not see anything very wonderful in taking out of a bag the same thing you have put into it." But his wise father says that it is the presence of mind which in the midst of shipwreck ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... would become of them, if any accident was to happen to Edward or to me? Now they will be provided for. After they have been taught, they will make very nice tirewomen to some lady of quality," added Humphrey, with a sneer. "Don't you think they will, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... God, I cannot walk the Way,— The thorns, the thirst, the darkness, And bleeding feet and aching heart! I hear the songs and revels of the throng,— They sneer upon my downcast face with scorn,— Yet, O my God, I must and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... over her round, bent shoulders, and her large eyes shining with delirious light, old Hagar sat, waving back and forth, and talking of Margaret, of Hester, and "the little foolish child," who, with a sneer upon her lip, she said, "was a fair specimen of ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... than bend your pride to save me; you live like a Duke, and don't care if I should die in a debtor's prison! You only brag about 'honor' when you want to get out of helping a fellow; and if I were to cut my throat to-night you would only shrug your shoulders, and sneer at my death in the clubroom, with a jest picked out of your cursed ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Christian's creed to return good for evil," answered Girty, with a strong emphasis on the word Christian, accompanied with a sneer; "but by ——! such belongs not to me, nor to those I mate with! Hark you, Ella Barnwell! I could be induced to do much for you—for I possess for you a passion stronger than I have ever before felt for any human being—but ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... improvements. You want eggs, I said. I supply them. I will let you have so many hundred eggs a week, I said; what will you give for them? Well, their terms did not come up to my scheduled prices, I admit, but we mustn't sneer ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: "They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What? did the Hand then ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... or to "sneer at the idea of any manifestation of design in the material universe,"[III-9] is one thing; while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to certain instances, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... he glanced past her at the middle-aged maid, and surprised a peculiar expression on the face of the woman. She had been looking straight at him, and her lips were almost curled into a sneer, while her eyes were flashing with ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... cheeks became covered with brick-red spots—Ezofowich's face grew pale. The Rabbi shook his thin hands, rocking his figure backward and forward, scattering his silvery beard over both shoulders. The merchant stood erect and motionless, and in his green eyes shone an angry sneer. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... day? and why oddly enough, Millie?—I dare say you speak to him constantly about it and about other equally urgent matters." She spoke with what she meant to be a slight sneer, in reply to which Miss Westbury behaved in a manner that is sometimes described as bridling up. She gave a movement meant to be a toss of the head and placed her ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... for family re-unions," answered my friend with just the suggestion of a sneer, for which ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a bitter sneer; "ay, dreaming. Och, I wish to God I was ONLY DREAMING; but I am very much afraid it is worse than that, and that there is trouble and misfortune hanging ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... flowed in all directions, fertilizing a dry and thirsty land"—is the happily turned phrase of Mr. Birrell. If in our own day there are still persons who, looking upon criticism as a severe science, occasionally sneer at him as a "facile eulogist,"[120] those who regard it rather as a gift have seen in him "the greatest critic that England has yet produced."[121] Wherever the golden mean between these two extremes of opinion may lie, there is no doubt that for ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of my sneer at the faculty, but proceeded to strike my chest several times, with his finger tips. "Try a short cough now," said he. "Ah, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... for me at that moment to avoid the suspicion that he had led me on by his appealing confidences solely in order to score off me when I responded. It is not, indeed, surprising that that should be my reaction while the hurt of his sneer still smarted. For he had pricked me on a tender spot. I realised the weakness of what I had said; and it was a characteristic weakness. I had been absurdly unpractical, as usual, aiming like a fool, as Jervaise had said, at some "superhuman" ideal of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... is settled. I will not keep you longer from your fishing or your rowing—which is it to-day, Cardo?" and he raised his black eyebrows, and spoke with a slight sneer. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... not worth and vulgar pomp and show, Be the sum total of all good below? Shall we, then, cease for innate worth to scan? Look to the new made coat and not the man? Those who are raised in such an atmosphere Are they who have the ever-ready sneer At honest poverty, and at the road To competence which their own fathers trod If men of worth will stoop among the vain, We turn from them with sorrow and with pain Man may repent, reform, his steps retrace, But ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... Graces, though the Graces never clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest. Notwithstanding his willingness to please the populace with the coarse wit current in the Agoras, I think it gratifies his equestrian pride to sneer at those who are too frugal to buy coloured robes, and fill the air with delicious perfumes as they pass. I know you seldom like the comic writers. What did you think ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Knowledge, Brotherhood; The ignorant may sneer, The bad deny; but we rely To see their triumphs near. No widow's groans shall load our cause, Nor blood of brethren slain; We've won without such aid before, And ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... in conclusion," says Our Missis with her spitefullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction for a single month, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... happy, and what not. But passion was at the bottom of it. Real love does not feed on ideal forms and perfect complexions. The man who marries beneath himself for only a pair of bright eyes is the prime fool of the universe—the whole world loves to sneer at him and watch his prize fade on his hands. Real love is above doubt and suspicion, but you would doubt that girl's honesty at the slightest provocation. Let another man be alone with her ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... country of Memlinck and van Eyck, of Rubens and van Dyck, the country whose people in the present war have borne the first onslaught of all the Teutonic hosts, are never mentioned by Treitschke except with a sneer. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... The Yankee gibe and sneer, Till Yankee insolence and pride Know neither shame nor fear; But ready now with shot and steel Their brazen front to mar, We hoist aloft the Bonnie Blue Flag ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... course, so different, proves to us that the true scholar is always a scholar of truth. No matter what element of the public sentiment he met—the listlessness of pampered wealth; the brutal prejudice of some voting savage; the refined sneer of lettered dilettanteism; the purposed aversion of trade or pulpit fearing disturbed markets or pews;—he beat lustily and incessantly at all the parts of the iron image of wrong sitting stolidly here with close-shut eyes. No matter when it was, on holiday or working-day or Sabbath; at home ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... determined, savage, implacable trot. He caught up on the Carl at last, for the latter had stopped to eat blackberries from the bushes on the road, and when he drew nigh, Cael began to jeer and sneer angrily at ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... thought of his death, he had gone with his disciples into the garden of Gethsemane. There, in the darkness and loneliness of night, the full anguish of his situation rushed upon his spirit. He shrank from the rude scenes that opened before him,—from the mocker's sneer and the ruler's scourge; from the glare of impatient revenge, and the weeping eyes of helpless friendship; from the insignia of imposture and of shame; and from the protracted, thirsty, torturing death. He shrank from these,—he ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... this is a very great disappointment. I have always had a very high opinion of the intellectual values of the leading divines of both the Anglican and Catholic communions. The self-styled Intelligentsia of Great Britain is all too prone to sneer at their equipment; but I do not see how any impartial person can deny that Father Bernard Vaughn is in mental energy, vigour of expression, richness of thought and variety of information fully the equal of such an influential lay publicist as Mr. Horatio Bottomley. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... people who think it very wise to quarrel with this state of things. They think it philosophic to sneer at national prejudices, as they call them, to call national pride and national feeling narrow and bigoted. It is simply very silly to quarrel with any divine and unalterable order of life. Better work under it and with it. Does not love of country exalt ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... with a little sneer. "Some love affair; some girl or another who pursues him, that he wants to get ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy Bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect. Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste he seeks the bed where Misery lies, Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes; And, some habitual queries hurried o'er, Without reply, he rushes on the door: His drooping patient, long inured to pain, And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... picture Burke as with an incredulous sneer he hung up, and told the committee to clear out ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... of the shallow device of Mongolfier, nor the dubious contrivance of Marriott. A gentleman of proper aspirations would scorn to employ either, as the Man-Frog would reject a diving-bell, or the subterranean chieftain would sneer at the Mont Cenis tunnel. These "weak inventions" only emphasize our impotence to strive with the subtle element about and above. They prove nothing so conclusively as that we can't fly-a fact still more ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... Pee-wee said with a condescending sneer. "Do you think scouts use matches? They light fires by rubbing sticks. ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... anyone else, I should have turned the question aside with a sneer. But it so happens that I owe a great deal of gratitude to this particular Friend. It was he who, at a time when I was so afflicted with rheumatism that I could scarcely leap five feet into the air without pain, said to me one day quite casually: "Have you ever ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth, with a hundred varying expressions, and that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remarkable than all, her eyebrows—the actor's feature; they were jet black, strongly marked, and in repose were arched like a rainbow; but it was their extraordinary flexibility which made other ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... Let them, however, derive from the fate of Vauxhall a deep, a fearful lesson!—though we shudder as we write, it shall not be said that destruction came upon them unawares—that no warning voice had been raised—that even the squeak of Punch was silent! Let them not sneer, and call us superstitious—we do not give credence to supernatural agency as a fixed and general principle; but we did believe in Simpson, and stake our professional reputation ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... usual. Then she and Sir John quarrelled; and she left him and came to live at Deepley Walls, leaving him at Dene Folly; and here she stayed till Sir John was taken with his last illness and sent for her. He sent for her, not to make up the quarrel, but to jibe and sneer at her, and to make her wait on him day and night, as if she were a paid nurse from a hospital. While this was going on, and after Sir John had been quite given up by the doctors, news came from India of Master Charles's death. Well, her ladyship went nigh ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... concerned. No entreaties could prevail on them to quit the chamber, where they both remained, questioning, in a manner the most unfeeling and insulting, the unfortunate victim of their audacity and persecution. One of them, the client, with a barbarous and unmanly sneer, turning to his confederate, asked, "Who, to see the lady they were now speaking to, could believe that she had once been called the beautiful Mrs. Robinson?" To this he added other observations not less savage and brutal; and, after throwing ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... said Favonius, with half a sneer, "you think your forces inadequate. The two legions at Luceria are just detached from Caesar. Perhaps you ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... sneer away statements like these. It is easy to laugh them off as "mere pessimism," and to talk of persons with "green spectacles" and "disordered livers." We have learned to know the glad ring of the optimist's patriotic voice. If we all believed this voice, we should all believe that America is ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... for them to show an undying earnestness in seeking the lost. Then propriety, and reticence, and restraint, and rules of rhetoric will be thrown to the winds, and a divine passion will possess the life. The world may sneer at it as fanaticism, but it is the fanaticism of Pentecost. When the crowd saw the intensity of emotion shown by the newly-anointed disciples, they exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." Here was shown an ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... seraglii! It is in our blessed epoch that atheism, by some, and pantheism, by others, are boldly taught and vindicated, as once they were by Greeks or Orientals, and with an earnestness and enthusiasm very different from the sneer with which Encyclopaedists of Voltaire's time attacked Christianity and Deism. To prove, however, the magnificent many-sidedness of our noble times, it is we that have returned once more to pictures of the Virgin Mary with winking and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... of what I had seen. Having taken no food for more than twenty-four hours, I replied, "I am so hungry, I can think of nothing else." "How would you. like to eat those dead bodies?" he asked. "I would starve, Sir, before I would do it," I replied. "Would you?" said he, with a slight sneer. "Yes indeed," I exclaimed, striving to suppress my indignant feelings. "What! eat the flesh of a corpse? You do not mean it. I would starve to death first!" Frightened at my own temerity in speaking so boldly, I involuntarily ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... the ability of America. Within the last few days the report has come to us that our soldiers have defeated the Prussian Guard. The sneer of Germany at America is vanishing. It is true that the German high command still couple American and African soldiers together in intended derision. What they say in scorn, let us say in praise. We have fought before for the ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... a', Ye royal lasses dainty, Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, An' gie you lads a-plenty: But sneer na British Boys awa', For kings are unco scant ay; An' German gentles are but sma', They're better just than want ay ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... interwoven, fine steel rings there was nothing to move either laughter or contempt, and if the quaint velvet mask which lay beside the coat of mail was effeminate in the tinsel of its gold embroidery, it was at least no child's toy to raise a sneer or ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... heard of such a person, though only lately," said Mowbray. "Reginald Scrogie Mowbray was his name. I have reason to consider his alliance with my family as undoubted, though you seem to mention it with a sneer, sir. I believe Mr. S. Mowbray regulated his family settlements very much upon the idea that his heir was to intermarry with ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... it up and join Don Giovanni and his party," returned Del Ferice, with a sneer. "He says if a change comes he will make the best of it. Of course, we ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... resumed Massot with a sneer. "I said a really Parisian wedding, did I not? But in point of fact this wedding is a symbol. It's the apotheosis of the bourgeoisie, my dear fellow—the old nobility sacrificing one of its sons on the altar of the golden calf in order that the Divinity ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that paragraph. It could be taken either way—as a piece of congratulation or as a covert sneer. So Hal and Noll concluded to let it pass as a joke, and each clipped out the paragraph to show at ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... suffered by the Covenanters and Nonconformists from the Church of England. As the gospel spreads, it humanizes and softens the hearts even of the rebellious. The dread fire no longer consumes the cedars of Lebanon. Still there remains the contemptuous sneer, the scorn, the malice of the soul, against Christ and his spiritual seed. Not many years since the two daughters of an evangelical clergyman, a D.D., came out, from strong and irresistible conviction, and united with one of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... brainless diplomats sneer at the proclamation. So did the Herodians sneer at the star of Bethlehem; and where now are the Herodians? Oh! shallow and heartless diplomats, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Joseph with a laugh of derision. "Yes—and her love is my abhorrence and my shame. Her ogling glances make me shudder with disgust. When she turns upon me her blotched and pimpled face, and calls me by the name of husband, the courtiers sneer, and I—I feel as if I would love to forget my manhood and fell her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... positively quavered with apprehension. During this time the personage never took his eyes off the two friends, and Frobisher was on the point of losing his temper when the unknown, with a distinctly perceptible sneer, turned his back rudely and, with a curt command to his waiting attendants, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... that girl; and suppressed all, concealed every thing, borne the brand on my proud forehead, and his young life, that your tombstone might at least not have 'murderer' cut on it! And now you taunt me with my faults!—with my injudicious course toward you when your character was forming. You sneer and say that I first hated George Conway, and that the son only inherited the family feud, and struck the enemy of the family! Yes, I acknowledge those sins; I pray daily to be forgiven for them. I have borne for ten years this bitter load of dishonor. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... business. You're asking something from some one else, just now. In politics it's nothing for nothing, and d—n-d little for a dollar! You know it just as well as I do. Now suppose we have some business talk from you!" There was a sneer in ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... the rhythm of the music, and round the room they swung. More than one pair paused in the dance to watch them. Then, as they glided past the door, Stephen was disagreeably conscious of some one gazing down from above, and he recalled Eliphalet Hopper and his position. The sneer from Eliphalet's seemed to penetrate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 'Don't sneer, Ida. When a fellow is clever in one thing he is clever in other things. Genius is many-sided, universal. Carlyle says as much. If Napoleon Bonaparte had not been a great general, he would have been a great writer like Voltaire—or a ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... their colonists. That immense practical difficulties have to be overcome, in order to realize the ends towards which such sentiments point, is but a commonplace of human experience in all ages and countries. They give rise to the ready sneer of impossible, just as any project of extending the sphere of the United States, by annexation or otherwise, is met by the constitutional lion in the path, which the unwilling or the apprehensive is ever sure to find; yet, to use words ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... I doubt me the course of your love runs too smoothly to be true. And yet it was a happy thought to keep the old man's money well together." With a sneer. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... it," he answered with a sneer, "and I'll do with it what I've done with many others—see that it ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... own violence, I sat down breathless and trembling. He on the contrary had grown calm, and there was almost a sneer on his lips as he answered, "Those vulgar ruffians are relatives of the Tracys, and, for their sakes, I wished to spare them an exposure which would have been of no use to any one. I believe that they meant no more than a foolish practical joke, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... urgently besought him to let his regulars fight the Indians in their own fashion, which would the better enable them to pick off the lurking foe with less danger to their own safety. But Braddock's only answer to this was a sneer; and some of his regulars, who were already acting upon the suggestion, he angrily ordered back into the ranks, calling them cowards, and even striking them with the flat of his sword. He then caused the colors of the two regiments to be advanced in different ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... scientific sense, prevent him from divining its importance. Bacon could see nothing remarkable in the chief contributions to science of Copernicus or of Kepler or of Galileo; Gilbert, his fellow-countryman, is the subject of a sneer; while Galen is bespattered with a shower of impertinences, which reach their climax in the epithets ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's anticipations, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she felt a sense of power back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort of bloom amid the frozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... feverish exaltation of the night before had dropped, and she said to herself that he had gone away, indifferently, almost callously, and that now her life would lapse again into the narrow rut out of which he had lifted it. For a moment she was inclined to sneer at herself for not having used the arts ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... rail, and one of her people clambered up and jumped down upon our decks. He was a dandily rigged-out fellow, young and lusty, and all healthy from the land and land victual, and he looked round him with a sneer at our sea-tatteredness, and with a fine self-confidence. Then, seeing Tob, he nodded as one meets an acquaintance. "Old pot-mate," he said, "your woman waits for you up by the quay-side in Atlantis yonder, with four youngsters at ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of our 'forefathers' will appeal differently to different minds. By some they will be dismissed with a sneer; to others they will appeal as proofs of genius on the part of those who enunciated them. There are men, and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy in regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and they are sometimes intolerant of those who can. They are formed to plod ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... upon my word!" replied Congreve, with a sneer. "It strikes me that you have got as much pleasure out ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... race flowed in the veins of the "new Antinous" who could sing Greek songs so well and with so pure an accent; every insult to his people was stamped deep in his heart, every sneer at his faith revived his memory of the day when the Melchites had slain his two brothers. And these bloody deeds, these innumerable acts of oppression by which the Greek; had provoked and offended the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he went on, a sneer curling his handsome mouth, "you will comfort her yourself, instead? Well, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... liver, beautiful white bread, and a bottle of delicate wine. With these he served her like a father, coaxing and praising her to fresh exertions; and during all that time, as though silenced by the laws of hospitality, he was not guilty of the shadow of a sneer. Indeed his kindness seemed so genuine that Seraphina was ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... experience with different department heads; and she was wise beyond her years in the ways of the world. But this situation was different. Here was a girl who had been brought up "by hand," as she would have said with a sneer a few hours before, and she would have despised her for it. She raised up on one elbow and leaned over once more to watch the delicate profile of this gentle maiden, in the dim fitful light of the city night that came through the one little window. There had been something appealing in ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... beginning. But this was not the first head it had been in; far from that. Above a year ago, as Friedrich himself informed us, it had been in Friedrich's own head,—though at the time it went for absolutely nothing, nobody even bestowing a sneer on it (as Friedrich intimates), and disappeared ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. It is only bad taste. It may have been very true devotion which erected ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament for eighteen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and softens the plainest, had failed entirely to dissipate the impression of meanness in the face of the stricken man. The lips were set in a little sneer, the half-closed eyes were small, the clean-shaven jaw was long and underhung, the ears were large ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... how wretched and despised all the Irish rebels are here. O'Connor alone is an exception; and this he owes to Talleyrand, to General Valence, and to Madame de Genlis; but even he is looked on with a sneer, and, if he ever was respected in England, must endure with poignancy the contempt to which he is frequently exposed in France. When I was in your country I often heard it said that the Irish were generally considered as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... I've been all over that ground. There's no reef there, and if there had been it would have been found and skinned years ago," said dogmatic Billy, with a sneer. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Jonathan, with a slight sneer; "the ghost of some highwayman who has just breathed his last ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... were the hero of a novel. Why, that's nothing to what the adjutant discovered about him. He discovered that he had a 'lover's lips'—whatever that may be. If the adjutant meant a nice mouth, why, it was nice enough, but of course it was intended for a sneer. That adjutant of ours was not a very delicate fellow. 'Look at those lover's lips,' he would exclaim in a loud tone while Tomassov ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?—mine by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?—Your soul!" repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I assure you: at least not to-day—I feel sure of it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... character of the odors, and that is a matter of taste. In his work he is the reverse of Smollett, the latter being given over to coarse vulgarities, which are often mistaken for realism; the former to whims and vagaries and sentimental tears, which frequently only disguise a sneer at ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... of my pocket the twelve pairs of gloves which I had bought in the morning, and after I had begged her acceptance of half a dozen pairs I gave the other six to my young friend. P—— C—— rose from the table with a sneer, dragging along with him his mistress, who had likewise drunk rather freely, and he threw himself on a sofa with her. The scene taking a lewd turn, I placed myself in such a manner as to hide them from the view of my young friend, whom I led into the recess of a window. But I had not been able ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... correct, and if it is infallible, why then was it necessary to revise it, as had been done in the wonderful Jerusalem Chamber which he had once visited? Were those of his associates justified who had scoffed at that work, and, with a sneer on their lips, voiced the caustic query, "Fools! Why don't they let the Bible alone?" If the world is to be instructed out of the old sensual theology, does the Bible contain the truth with which to replace it? For to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the author of the "Magic Flute," or of any composer with pretensions to anything beyond mediocrity. They are written in a style of flashy harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt never descended to, even in those of his works at which so many persons are accustomed to sneer. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... reverse of this. I had neither simplicity of aim, nor stability of affection. One slip from the path, and I hadn't energy to take the road again. One vicious inclination, and the virtuous resolves of years melted before it. The sneer of a fool could frighten me from rectitude—the smile of a girl render me indifferent to the pangs that tear a parent's heart. Look at us both. Look at him—the man whom I treated with contemptuous derision. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... 'I think I'll choose another regiment. I'm not hungry for the cat-o'-nine tails, and I should earn it if I were under this brute's command five minutes. You'd be a handsome chap in your own way, Major, if it were not for that silly sneer you're pleased to carry about with you. But I warn you that, under any circumstances whatsoever, if you should presume upon any difference in our rank to insult me by a word, a gesture, or a look I'll spoil your ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... lovely smile, then with just a suspicion of a sneer replied, "Oh, yes, I think you do; at all events, I do not find it amusing to be called upon to look at too perfect a reflection of ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... offenders, while they refrain from open acts, do nevertheless conduct their petty persecutions in such a manner that one can shape no charge against them, and consequently finds himself helpless. One must endure these little tortures—the sneer, the shrug of the shoulder, the epithet, the effort to avoid, to disdain, to ignore— and thus suffer; for any of them are—to me at least— far more hard to bear than a blow. A blow I may resist or ignore. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Davis, you keep your mouth shut!" cried Pender. "You knew exactly what to expect. You know Mike Sherry don't run a temperance hotel," he continued, with a sneer. ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... Chicago Herald, who said: "Her futile efforts to adjust her train with the toe of her number seven boot, instead of the approved backward sweep of heel, demonstrated that she certainly was not 'to the manner born.'" He then continued to sneer at the suffrage women for "adopting the social elegancies of life inaugurated by Mrs. Ashton Dilke, at the council last winter;" evidently unaware that Miss Anthony had been wearing her velvet gown since 1883. But the same day the New York ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... mortification and anger, rose to advance upon De Montfort, but suddenly recollecting the power which he represented, he thought better of whatever action he contemplated and, with a haughty sneer, ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... extravagance, and relieves its somewhat ponderous morality. If on the other hand he echoes the joyous carelessness of the Italian tale, he tempers it with the English seriousness. As he follows Boccaccio all his changes are on the side of purity; and when the Troilus of the Florentine ends with the old sneer at the changeableness of woman Chaucer bids us "look Godward," and dwells on the unchangeableness ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... doubts of Montaigne; Julian the Apostate cross-questions Augustine; and Thomas-a-Kempis unrolls his old black letters for all to decipher. Zeno murmurs maxims beneath the hoarse shout of Democritus; and though Democritus laugh loud and long, and the sneer of Pyrrho be seen; yet, divine Plato, and Proclus, and, Verulam are of my counsel; and Zoroaster whispered me before I was born. I walk a world that is mine; and enter many nations, as Mingo Park rested in African cots; I am served like Bajazet: Bacchus my ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... men. I suppose, ye think because ye carry up the Bible, that ye ken a' that's in't," returned Meg, with a sneer of her voice that might have turned milk sour. The expression of the emotions is fine and positive in the kitchens of the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... were wicked. They are in the novels. Somehow you don't look like a baronet. You ought to have a black moustache and an eyeglass and smoke a cigar and sneer. But, say, how do you fill up the time if you ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... and don't talk sentimental rubbish. Not but what," he added, with a sneer, "it is rather amusing to hear you pitying ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... prepossessing man. To liken him to a vicious over-fed pug is more than charitable. Smug, purse-proud and evil, his bloated countenance was most suggestive. There was no pity about the coarse mouth, which he had twisted into a smile, two deep sneer lines cut into the unwholesome pallor of his cheeks, from under drooping lids two beady eyes shifted their keen appraising glance from me to Berry and, for a short second, to Adele. There was about him not a single redeeming feature, and for the brute's pompous carriage alone I could ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... taken the trouble to look at the seneschal's face, he would have seen a well-defined sneer there. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... has been the fashion since Gibbon to sneer at the Eastern Empire, it must be remembered with respect as the last treasure house of the inheritance bequeathed by Rome and Greece during the dark centuries of barbarian and Saracen. Even in ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... denying them. "The Irishman fights well everywhere except in Ireland," has passed into a commonplace: and since every effort of government has been directed to ensuring the abiding application of the sneer, Englishmen would find, in the end, the emasculating success of their rule completely justified in the physical submission of Ireland to the new force that held her down. With Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea held by German squadrons, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... nothing of the sort," I said hotly. "I do hate you, Vere, when you sneer like that, and make out that everyone is worldly and horrible, like yourself! Will Dudley is a good man, and he wants a good woman for his wife—not a doll. He'd rather have Rachel's little finger than a dozen empty-headed fashion-plates like the girls you admire. But you don't understand. ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled in matters of science. A writer in the Open Court upon the possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined "strictly to legitimate deductions from present ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... other, with a sneer. "There's nothing to make me ill that I know of. It certainly won't be drinking ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... in flames by the fire of fifty howitzers. That Marshal found that a tough resistance awaited him, although the allied commander-in-chief, Bernadotte, moved with the utmost caution, as if he were bent on justifying Napoleon's recent sneer that he would "only make a show" (piaffer). It is true that the position of the Swedish Prince, with Davoust threatening his rear, was far from safe; but he earned the dislike of the Prussians by playing the grand seigneur.[351] Meanwhile most of the defence was ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... recollect them, at the top of my letter, I added, underneath, "Is this the way you speak of your friends?" Not long after, too, when visiting him at Venice, I remember making the same harmless little sneer a subject of raillery with him; but he declared boldly that he had no recollection of having ever written such words, and that, if they existed, "he must have been half asleep ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
