"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disease of electricity has been for some time past almost universally conceded. While some vaunt the faradic, others prefer the galvanic current in its treatment. It appears that thus far the best results have been obtained on the one hand by galvanization of the spine, on the other by general faradization. It occurred to me, when I began to devote myself to electro-balneological ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... were the graces, Daughters of Delight, Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt Upon this hill and dance there, day and night; Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt Is borrowed of them; but that fair one That in the midst was placed paravant, Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone, That made him pipe so merrily, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these resolutions in the Illinois State Register ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... night had been profitable to Lige; it was his true aim that had brought down one of the live guerrilleros. On his asserting this, his comrades had laughed at it, as an idle vaunt; but Quackenboss proved his assertion to be correct by picking his bullet out of the man's body, and holding it up before their eyes. The peculiar "bore" of his rifle rendered the bullet easy of identification, and all agreed that Lige had ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... crack your cheeks; Rage, blow You Cataracts, and Hyrricano's spout, Till you haue drench'd our Steeples, drown the Cockes. You Sulph'rous and Thought-executing Fires, Vaunt-curriors of Oake-cleauing Thunder-bolts, Sindge my white head. And thou all-shaking Thunder, Strike flat the thicke Rotundity o'th' world, Cracke Natures moulds, all germaines spill at once That ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Let him not vaunt that gains my loss, For when that he and time hath proved her, She may him bring to Weeping-Cross: I say no ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... dark. Enough said now of this: For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me? None, I know, unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole: That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... murdered so many of the nobility; executed (as aforesaid) eighteen thousand and six hundred in six years, and most cruelly slain man, woman, and child, in Mechlin, Zutphen, Naerden, and other places: notwithstanding his Spanish vaunt, that he would suffocate the Hollanders in their own butter-barrels, and milk-tubs; he departed the country no otherwise accompanied, than with the curse and detestation of the whole nation; leaving his master's ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Cronos and the other deathless gods whom rich-haired Rhea bare from union with Cronos, brought them up again to the light at Earth's advising. For she herself recounted all things to the gods fully, how that with these they would gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. For the Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving toil, the lordly Titans from high Othyrs, but the gods, givers of good, whom rich-haired Rhea ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... some moment of passion made big boasts of what they would do "some day." Few ever made so tremendous a vaunt; fewer still ever so completely fulfilled their threats; and, perhaps, no one ever struggled so patiently, so nobly, nor against such tremendous obstacles before the goal was reached, as did this angry little Swede, known to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... its anniversary. Under the Monarchy, the very tombs were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... remain a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frederic, of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... assault below the belt. I shall deliberately destroy your credit as an essayist, as a journalist, as a critic, as a Liberal, as everything that offers your laziness a refuge, until starvation and shame drive you to serious dramatic parturition. I shall repeat my public challenge to you; vaunt my superiority; insult your corpulence; torture Belloc; if necessary, call on you and steal your wife's affections by intellectual and athletic displays, until you contribute something to the British ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and fat ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... this; it would be confiscated, doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen, as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it, that Southern officers with Yankee seamen could beat the world, testified at least ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently. I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt. I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt. My arms held nothing but the ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... diminished, for holiness resides in the soul, and this which I ask of you is but a sin of the flesh. But, however it may be, such is the might of your bewitching beauty, that love constrains me thus to act. And, let me tell you, good cause have you to vaunt you of your beauty more than other women, in that it delights the saints, who are used to contemplate celestial beauties; whereto I may add that, albeit I am an abbot, yet I am a man even as others, and, as you see, not yet old. Nor need this matter seem formidable to you, but rather to be ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Natchez, or St. Louis, he would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would have secured to them the legal ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot taste them, let them sporte ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already compared ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... than one man's lifetime after, the reign of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs was a memory recalled over the bottle at the dining-table among men, some of whom had but heard their fathers vaunt her beauties. It seemed as if in her person there was not a single flaw, or indeed a charm, which had not reached the highest point of beauty. For shape she might have vied with young Diana, mounted side ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... worthy of special mention. Coal not being much in evidence in the diamond fields—where the sun is ever shining with all its might—paraffin was an important factor in the culinary sphere. When, therefore, a few gentlemen formed a syndicate, to vaunt their loyalty in a crisis by cornering all the kerosene in town, another outcry followed. They bought all they could lay hands on at market price (sixteen and six per case), and next day imperturbably continued buying at twenty-five shillings. On Tuesday the wide-awake vendors asked fifty shillings, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... though I constantly denied the fact, she related circumstances which she could have known, as I thought, only from my mistress herself; my silence pleased her; for the Russians, when a lady had a partiality for them, never fail to vaunt of their good fortune. She wished to persuade me she had observed us in company, had read the language of our eyes, and had long penetrated our secret. I was ignorant at that time that she had then, and long before, entertained ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Smite flat the thick rotundity ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... two and one half centuries of progress and achievement, on this continent alone, may well vaunt your pride and give you the resolution which belongs to ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... as thee and I are, let us never desire to meet with an enemy, nor vaunt as if we could do better, when we hear of others that they have been foiled, Nor be tickled at the thoughts of our own manhood; for such commonly come by the worst when tried. Witness Peter, of whom I made mention before. He would swagger, ay, he would; he would, as his vain ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... form a conception of this marvellous change; and experience evinces the truth of what they affirm, and which originates in the very nature of things. It is characteristic of human perversity to disbelieve what is imperceptible to reason or invisible to sense, and to vaunt itself upon that very infidelity as a distinctive mark of pre-eminence, which is, in fact, a proof of debasement and guilt. If a system of religion were to be so constructed as to be exempt from the ridicule of the profane, it must be itself ridiculous; because their distorted minds cannot discern ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... the worldly class. When he originally met the Duke he had recognized his cultivation, and found that his eclecticism was exact, profound, and not the superficial veneer he had at first supposed. He realized that men of the world do not vaunt their knowledge, though it is often far deeper than that of certain artists who never go below the depths of but one art: ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... of penetrating into inhospitable lands or into regions encompassed by all the terrors of the unknown, will perhaps think that I was jesting when I gave the inventory of my luggage in the last chapter and that from sheer vaunt I did not mention the support of some Geographical or Commercial Society and neither the tons of goods which would follow in my wake, nor the numerous waggons and armed battalion ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... neutralize the legions by setting them to fight against one another. We were not the first to degrade Rome. Diocletian, who persecuted us, gave the example by establishing his residence at Nicomedia. As to the sentiment of patriotism of which you vaunt, was it not destroyed by your own emperors? When they had made Roman citizens of Gauls and Egyptians, Africans and Huns, Spaniards and Syrians, how could they expect that such a motley crew would remain true to the interests of an Italian town, and that town their hated oppressor. ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... other letters, written some months later, he writes, "I am tired of railing against Destiny and myself.... There are moments in which I despair of all that is good, in which I feel it has been enjoined upon me to work against everything that makes a vaunt of specious happiness." But he took no manful and resolute steps to battle against his unhappy state; he continued to correspond with the lady of his affections, to gaze upon her portrait, to write to his friend about her, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Paul lays down the principle: "Let every person do his duty in the station of life into which God has called him. No person is to vaunt himself above others or find fault with the efforts of others while lauding his own. Let ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... strive with a prince at shuffle-board." Henry observed, "Yet you gownsmen should be best at such exercises, which are not meet for men who are more stirring." The tutor, a little irritated, said, "I am meet for whipping of boys." "You vaunt, then," retorted the prince, "that which a ploughman or cart-driver can do better than you." "I can do more," said the tutor, "for I can govern foolish children." On which the prince, who, in his respect for his tutor, did not care to carry the jest farther, rose from the table, and in a low voice ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... had been born, and was alive. I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by draggin it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last. I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I would have finished ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... received his Diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... dose kopjes de good Gott made in His anger against man for his vickedness. I zay so. Dey not believe me. Dey tink dem abominable stones grow in mine house, and break out in mine plaster like de measle: dey vaunt to dig in mine wall, in mine garden, in mine floor. One day dey shall dig in mine body. I vill go. Better I love peace dan money. Here is English company make me offer for mine varm. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... appeared, and, though it was near nightfall, made an immediate attack. The commander was incited to this by taunts on his courage from some hot-headed subordinates, to whom he weakly gave way, saying, "We will fight to-night, then; and perhaps those who vaunt the loudest will be found to trust more to their spurs than to their swords,"—a prediction which was to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... Master-Weaver understands what we are here for and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not yourself O thread of purple, over your fellow-thread ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... 1863 I was serving as a private in the First Virginia Cavalry. Gettysburg was in the past, and there was not much fighting to be done, but the cavalry was not wholly idle. Raids had to be intercepted, and the enemy was not to be allowed to vaunt himself too much; so that I gained some experience of the hardships of that arm of the service, and found out by practical participation what is meant by a cavalry charge. To a looker-on nothing can be finer. To the one who charges, or is supposed to charge,—for ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... Patroclus, breathing faintly, thou didst address: "Even now, Hector, vaunt greatly, for Jove, the son of Saturn, and Apollo, have given thee the victory, who subdued me easily; for they stripped the armour from my shoulders. But if even twenty such [as thou] had opposed me, they had all perished ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... years in a state of alarming uncertainty; some are driven by fiery terrors, others by a still small voice. Reader, our anxious inquiry should be, Have we entered in by Christ the gate? Are our fruits meet for repentance? Let no one vaunt of his experience, because he go well bedaubed with the dirt of the slough. Every soul that enters the gate is equally a miracle ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of man's nobility! I never shall account it marvelous, That our infirm affection here below Thou mov'st to boasting, when I could not choose, E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire, In heav'n itself, but make my vaunt in thee! Yet cloak thou art soon shorten'd, for that time, Unless thou be eked out from day to day, Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then With greeting such, as Rome, was first to bear, But since hath disaccustom'd ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... used to say that "he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England;" and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon record, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 2. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. 3. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... any of us—are oddly dim-sighted also in regard to the civil population. For instance, we get into the empty motor-bus as it leaves the scene of the street accident, and examine the men and women who gradually fill it. Probably we vaunt ourselves as being interested in the spectacle of life. All the persons in the motor-bus have come out of a past and are moving towards a future. But how often does our imagination put itself to the trouble of realising this? We may observe ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... welcome, to use the term familiar to ourselves. This might be very brief or at considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present greatness and ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... as a genial and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good fight—let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Lilly's book, and having mentioned it in the house, it was agreed that the astrologer should be summoned. Lilly attended accordingly, when Sir Robert Brooke told him the reason of his summons, and called upon him to declare what he knew. This was a rare opportunity for the vain-glorious Lilly to vaunt his abilities; and he began a long speech in praise of himself and his pretended science. He said, that after the execution of Charles I, he was extremely desirous to know what might from that time forth happen to the parliament and to the nation in general. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... heroics. To flout the Pharisees was not reserved for Jesus. "Behold, ye fast for strife and contention," said Isaiah, "and to smite with the fist of wickedness." While some German writers, not content with the great men Germany has so abundantly produced, vaunt that all others, from Jesus to Dante, from Montaigne to Michael Angelo, are of Teuton blood, Jewish literature unflinchingly exposes the flaws even of a Moses and a David. It is this passion for veracity unknown among other peoples—is ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... her glassy scepters vaunt; Not scepters, no, but reeds, soon bruised, soon broken; And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant; All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token. Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, With furniture superfluously fair; ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... coming nigh our hills the auspices foretold, When he shall fail to vaunt his power who chain'd our sires of old, In iron bands who held them fast, but now he droops with fear; Delusion's age is past, and strife avows the smile, the tear, That sympathy or fondness ask,—and the sad world is fain To welcome its return to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might possibly be the harbinger of him, he was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!—he sometimes thought on thee—he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... later times. It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... and bed-fellow," answered Cuculain, "it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but as ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... she blazed at him. "I might have guessed that in some such cutthroat manner would your vaunt of winning me at ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... themselves on their philosophical attainments vaunt in very eloquent words the superiority of the physical instrument over mere sensation. Evidently, however, the earnestness of this eulogy leads them astray. The most perfect registering apparatus must, in the long-run, after its most ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... But that hope failed. The minister was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... for the words ascribed to Napoleon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They stand in the same category of theatrical fictions as the cry of the foundering line-of-battle ship Vengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," or as the repartees of Talleyrand.] of Marengo), "Ah! wherefore have we not time to weep over you?"—which was evidently impossible, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... "Vaunt not, poor mortal one, nor claim knowledge when the Gods know not. He who is greatest among all the sons of evil now waits for the hour to strike when he may assail us and have with him all the hosts of the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... temples, and such a strained skin to his face, that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was continually proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... replied to thunder; then The ships rasped side by side, The battle-hungry Breton men A boarding sally tried, But the stern steel of Britain flashed, And spite of Breton vaunt The lads of Morbihan were dashed ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... no hint of any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely the level-toned manner of an ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wise" must account for the conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally became the victims of this imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... report which is made by thee: but if ye, who boast thus greatly are such men and in size so great only as the Hellenes who come commonly to speech with me, thyself included, then beware lest this which has been spoken prove but an empty vaunt. For come, let me examine it by all that is probable: how could a thousand or ten thousand or even fifty thousand, at least if they were all equally free and were not ruled by one man, stand against so great an army? since, as thou ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... and well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust, they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and console, for whose sakes they ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he will know how to use the appliances, of which the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... did her season note, And she with Bacchus her camous did promote. Such rascolde drames, promoted by Thais, Bacchus, Licoris, or yet by Testalis, Or by suche other newe forged Muses nine, Thinke in their mindes for to haue wit diuine; They laude their verses, they boast, they vaunt and iet, Though all their cunning be scantly worth a pet: If they haue smelled the artes triuiall, They count them Poetes hye and heroicall. Such is their foly, so foolishly they dote, Thinking that none can their ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... too unlike man: and so not be a mediator. That deceitful mediator then, by whom in Thy secret judgments pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common with man, that is sin; another he would seem to have in common with God; and not being clothed with the mortality of flesh, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that with them he ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the maids of the Lowlands Vaunt their silks and their Hollands, In the garb of the Highlands Oh give me my dear! Such a figure for grace! For the Loves such a face! And for lightness the pace That the grass shall not stir. * * * ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... carried to fairs and races), and asked him for threepence to get a pint of yell. He pulled out ten shillings, and said I mot hae the loan of five pounds ony day; and when Doncaster races comes, I think I can raise other fifteen" (and to show this was no vaunt, thrust his hand into his bosom, and pulled out a handfull of the sinews of war—shillings and half-crowns), "that will be twenty, we'll make a match on it;" and raising his fist and his voice together, "we will then see which is the ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... meant for a counter-vaunt, the retaliation of a pang for it was evident the savages knew that among their captives were the wife and daughter of our chief. These were placed conspicuously in front, upon the very brow of ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... man tore open the letter, and, in company with his wife, read, with mingled emotions of pain and indignation, the following singular but characteristic compound of malicious vaunt and ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... in peace, O Spectres, who haunt My labouring mind, I have fought and failed. I have not quailed, I was all unmailed And naked I strove, 'tis my only vaunt. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... own ruinous way), but not to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence, Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes, Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes Above the world! where all the air grows dense With rumors of destruction and a sense, Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs Predestined; while,—like monsters in the glooms,— Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense, ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, Plinius, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... then, as none of the old bishops of Rome heretofore ever did, suffer himself to be called of his flatterers "lord of lords," as though he would have all kings and princes, who and whatsoever they are, to be his underlings? Why doth he vaunt himself to be "king of kings," and to have kingly royalty over his subjects? Why compelleth he all emperors and princes to swear to him fealty and true obedience? Why doth he boast that the "emperor's majesty's ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... come and prove, the field I grant, Nor wrong nor treason let him doubt or fear, Some here shall pay him for his glorious vaunt, Without or guile, or vantage, that I swear. The herald turned when he had ended scant, And hasted back the way he came whileare, Nor stayed he aught, nor once forslowed his pace, Till he bespake Argantes face ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... a Fouche a slighter clue would have sufficed to lead to the conviction of so besotted a traitor, than many an incautious hint of his, and many a tale-telling vaunt of his irresistible egotism, afforded her; for, like all the weak wretches of his sort, there was not a more bungling lout, to try the patience of a clever man, than Philip Withers, when his game lay between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Madge," cried Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The wayward dart ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... little wonder if the lad felt his blood run cold as he listened to the Indian's vaunt, and it is little wonder that his head swam until he was near in reality to the very faintness that he ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... had laboured in the work of destruction during the interval while Hasdrubal continued to vaunt and to gormandize, appeared so soon as the Roman army proceeded in the spring of 608 to attack the inner town. Hasdrubal gave orders to set fire to the outer harbour and made himself ready to repel the expected assault on the Cothon; but Laelius succeeded in scaling the wall, hardly ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... this dialogue, the first speech of Goliath is simple vaunt. Confident in his huge bulk and strength, he strides occasionally from side to side while speaking, elevating his arms and throwing his limbs about as if anxious to display his powerful sinews and muscular proportions. He speaks ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... richer men, why inspiration was their ordinarie familiar, and buzde in theyr eares like a Bee in a boxe euerie houre what newes from heauen, hell, and the lands of whipperginnie, displease them who durst, hee shoulde have his mittimus to damnation ex tempore, they woulde vaunt there was not a pease difference twixt them and the Apostles, they were as poore as they, of as base trades as they, and no more inspired than they, and with God there is no respect of persons, onely herein may seeme some little diuersitie ...
— 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
... they say, it is true the legislature were restrained from passing the law suspending the privilege of this writ, at such a time as that which now exists, but their mighty power has broken the bonds of the constitution, and fettered the authority of the court? I am not, sir, disposed to vaunt, but standing on this ground, I throw the gauntlet to any champion upon the other side. I call upon them to maintain, that, in a collision between a law and the constitution, the judges are bound to support the law, and annul the constitution. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the exiled heart to cheer? What matter'd it that men should vaunt ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... my love or longing are dead. Even while I write I feel dragged to her; a thousand voices cry to me that there is but one Ann, and when a few weeks ago the young Sieur de Blonay made so bold as to vaunt of his lady and her rose-red as above all other ladies and colors, my sword compelled him to yield the place of honor to blue—for whose sake you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... where the capture of a bulky carrack returning from India amply indemnified the merchants for all the expenses of the expedition, and enriched the admiral and his crews. Drake returned to England in a kind of triumph, boasting that he had "singed the whiskers" of the king of Spain: nor was his vaunt unfounded; the destruction of the store-ships, and the havoc committed by him on the magazines of every kind, was a mischief so great, and for the present so irreparable, that it crippled the whole design, and compelled ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the vaunt with a sneer. "You ought to be a detective—in a novel." He buttered his toast and ate a little of it, like a man of small ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... that a silly fool, with nothing but empty birth to boast of, should in his insolence array himself in the merits of others, and vaunt an honour which does not belong ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... scann'd by long descent From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt A lineage of the greatest; and recount, Among my fathers, names of ancient story, Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdu'd The world by arms and virtue. But that be their own praise; Nor will I borrow merit from the dead, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... 10:70 Thou alone liftest up thyself against us, and I am laughed to scorn for thy sake, and reproached: and why dost thou vaunt thy power against us in ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... is my destiny: Rosalvo knows no medium: Rosalvo can never act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove by his extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. He lives a double life: in the guise of Abellino, he joins the banditti, and by inexplicable methods rids Venice of her enemies; in the guise of a noble Florentine, Flodoardo, he woos the Doge's daughter, Rosabella. The climax of the story is reached ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... your cheeks! rage! blow! You cat[)a]r[)a]cts and hurricanoes, spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! and thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... vaunt! You know the scarf Lies with the enemy, upon the brink Of the stream,. . .the place is riddled now with shot,— No ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... his hands; but no wings grow from his temples, nor lion supports his head. A moth just issuing from his chrysalis is the only being which seems to have felt his soporific influence; whereas the other god I have mentioned may vaunt the glory of subduing the most ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... slave may want Your counsel. Let her but appear, This mighty Pallas whom you vaunt!" The ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... rebellion anew. He plunders his uncle, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, of a considerable sum of money, to fill the Scottish Usurper's not over-burdened treasury, debauches the servants of his relation, takes arms, and though repeatedly chastised in the field, still keeps his vaunt, and threatens mischief to those, who, in the name of his rightful sovereign, defend the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh, for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... equal terms away. So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:— "Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield! Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! For well I know, that did great Rustum stand Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, There would be then no talk of fighting more. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of this princess, who was the descendant of a long line of emperors. Mohammed II., having overrun all Greece, flushed with victory, was collecting his forces for the invasion of the Italian peninsula, and his vaunt, that he would feed his horse from the altar of St. Peters, had thrilled the ear of Catholic Europe. The pope, Paul II., anxious to rouse all the Christian powers against the Turks, wished to make the marriage of the Grecian princess promotive of his political views. Her beauty, her genius ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... accounted wise, when in truth they are extremely silly, what, if to give them their due, I dub them with the title of wise fools: and herein they copy after the example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion of conceitedness, as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence, if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead indifferently for either side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they crowd in at ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... with him a passion, He knows less warmly shared by other traders; But soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... For Daphne's wrongs and 'scapes in Thetis' lap, All gods are subject to the like mishap. Stars daily fall ('tis use is all in all), And men account the fall but nature's course. Vaunting my jewels hasting to the west, Or rising early from the grey-ey'd morn, What do I vaunt but your large bountyhood, And show how liberal a lord I serve? Music and poetry, my two last crimes, Are those two exercises of delight, Wherewith long labours I do weary out. The dying swan is not forbid to sing: The waves of Hebrus[46] play'd on Orpheus' strings, When he (sweet ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... good Mind, and a right inward Man, as his Behaviour upon meeting with Strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companions to him: Such a Man, when he falleth in the way with Persons of Simplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways of Men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his Superiority to them, that he may not be painful ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... deep; and therefore who can tell, since the enemy of God would not be convinced by the power of truth and the virtuous lives of some, but that God might leave them to be snared, hardened, and emboldened to run upon their unavoidable destruction by the lies and lightness of others? They begin to vaunt it already, and to say, Where is the word of the Lord as to this? let it come now. But when Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is passed," then was the time for him to be ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... rain of melody"; surpassing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... extravagance for trifles, that I like better than vanity, that I should not care to be at that expense. But I should think either the Duke or Duchess of Northumberland would rejoice at such an Opportunity of buying incense; and I will tell you what you shall do. Write to Mr. Percy, and vaunt the discovery of Duke Brithnoth's bones, and ask him to move their graces to contribute a plate. They Could not be so unnatural as to refuse; especially if the Duchess knew ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... on,— A fearful ending for Ganelon. His every nerve was stretched and torn, And the limbs of his body apart were borne; The bright blood, springing from every vein, Left on the herbage green its stain. He dies a felon and recreant: Never shall traitor his treason vaunt. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... art to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. Rejoice that thus 'tis given thee to believe,— To recognise transcending ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... then, To slay the Jutt so sure they made; But soon from them the vaunt he drove, Such heavy blows ...
— Ermeline - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... that Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of them ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... chemistry of our own days has reversed all these motions of our simple ancestors, with results in every stage that to them would have realized the most fantastic amongst the promises of thaumaturgy. Insolent vaunt of Paracelsus, that he would restore the original rose or violet out of the ashes settling from its combustion—that is now rivalled in this modern achievement. The traces of each successive handwriting, regularly effaced, as had been imagined, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various |
