"Boast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to him again in this room, so austere in its appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back—that he would win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck before this coming Christmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. "I have lost my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 'The kine, O Karna, have not yet been won, nor have they yet crossed the boundary (of their owner's dominions), nor have they yet reached Hastinapura. Why dost thou, therefore, boast of thyself? Having won numerous battles, and acquired enormous wealth, and vanquished hostile hosts, men of true heroism speak not a word of their prowess. Fire burneth mutely and mutely doth the sun shine. Mutely also doth the Earth bear creatures, both mobile and immobile. The Self-existent ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... came from Dietrich. Jost made many attempts to show Veronica how much he wished to win her favor. He often went to meet her, and he gave himself endless trouble to convince her of his attachment. He could not boast that he made himself of any use by going to meet her; for she was always accompanied by Blasi, who marched by her side with a triumphant air as if to say, "Jost can judge for himself who holds the place of honor here!" When ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... Second set aside. He declared that, in saying King of Prussia, all was said. His father had called himself King of Prussia, by the grace of God; he, therefore, would call himself simply the King of Prussia, and if he did not boast of God's grace, it was because he would prove by deeds, not words, that he ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... voice of the Churchman; "because It strewed the myriad worlds in the Dust of the The Infinite, and set the jewelled feathers in the butterfly's wing, and forged the very intellect whose power you misuse in uttering the boast that denies It. Think again. Can you assure me with truth that you have never, in the stress of some great mental or physical crisis, cried to Heaven for help when the struggle was at its worst? ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... beauty or splendour, have become serfs because they are ignorant and fear to die. And it is we who have claimed half the world and thrust upon it an all but universal domination. In thus bringing mankind under our rule, it is ever of our civilisation that we boast, that immense barbarism which in its brutality and materialism first tried to destroy the Latin Church and then the Latin world, which alone could have saved us from ourselves. Before our forests were cleared here in Italy they ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... men like these—men whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the domesticated animals; men who do not possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at least of arts consequent on that reason?' I do not believe it is possible to describe or paint the difference between a savage and civilised man. It is the difference between a wild and ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... service between England and Ireland in the first quarter of the present century were not much to boast of. According to a survey taken at Holyhead in July 1821, the vessels employed to carry the mails between that port and Dublin were of very small tonnage, as will be ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... I had, as it was natural that I should have, a strong feeling on the subject. I exerted myself, according to my station and to the measure of my abilities, on the side of the oppressed. I shrank from no personal sacrifice in that cause. I do not mention this as matter of boast. It was no more than my duty. The right honourable gentleman, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, knows that, in 1833, I disapproved of one part of the measure which Lord Grey's Government proposed on the subject ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... took possession of this huge quantity of clothing and footwear and used it to equip several of the regiments they sent against us. Although the result of this was that the increasing cold killed a large number of French soldiers, there are those who boast of our ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... manners of the shepherd, so ungodliness abounds in the profane rites of the Magi. Yet did this Corner-Stone draw both to Itself; inasmuch as He came 'to choose the foolish things that He might confound the wise,' and 'not to call the just, but sinners,'" so that "the proud might not boast, nor the weak despair." Nevertheless, there are those who say that these Magi were not wizards, but wise astronomers, who are called Magi ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... was a genial thaw. Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands' party. Mr. Inchling and Mr. Caddis were introduced. The former in Commerce, the latter in Politics, their sustaining boast was, the being our stable Englishmen; and at once, with cousinly minds, they fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously. Colney Durance forsook a set of ladies for fatter prey, and listened ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you was a great fisherman," said Aunt Lyddy, "but I had no idea you would ever come here and boast of being able to catch oysters. Poor things! How could they have got away? But why don't you bring them in? They won't be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... exceedingly keen," said I, "and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on them—even ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... other things, asked me how it was with me as to money, and how well I was furnished: I told him I could not boast of much, and yet I could not say I had none; though what I then had was indeed next to none. Whereupon he put twenty shillings into my hand, and desired me to accept of that for the present. I saw a Divine hand in thus opening his heart ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... the most affectionate mother; she can level her frowns, play with the feelings, make her mercurial sympathy touching, knows the power of her smiles: but once her feelings are enlisted, she is sincere and ardent in her responses. If she cannot boast of the bright carnatic cheek, she can swell the painter's ideal with her fine features, her classic face, the glow of her impassioned eyes. But she seldom carries this fresh picture into the ordinary years of womanhood: the bloom enlivening her face ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... renowned for its "antiquity, and pervading influence over the en- "lightened world, which having ranked a Frederick "at its head, can now boast of a Washington as a "Brother. A Brother who it justly hailed the Re- "deemer of his country, raised it to glory, and by his "conduct in public and private life has evinced to "Monarchs that true majesty consists not in splendid ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... save himself from disgrace; the twenty-four hours seemed to offer him a sure means of doing this. He had not the remotest doubt but that he could find friends who would come to his aid; for he had something of which he could boast: a blameless past and the reputation ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Dhu? He yields not, he, to man nor Fate! Thou add'st but fuel to my hate:— My clansman's blood demands revenge. Not yet prepared?—By heaven, I change My thought, and hold thy valour light As that of some vain carpet knight, Who ill deserved my courteous care, And whose best boast is but to wear A braid of his fair lady's hair."— "I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; For I have sworn this braid to stain In the best blood that warms thy vein. Now, truce, farewell! and, ruth, begone!— Yet think not that by thee alone, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... fire stood a table made of a hewn log, on which lay some pewter dishes containing the remains of he last family meal. One or two three-legged stools made up the rest of the furniture, except for the trunk in the corner and the bed. This bed was Tom Linkhorn's pride, which he used to boast about to his friends, for he was a tolerable carpenter. It was made of plank stuck between the logs of the wall, and supported at the other end by crotched sticks. By way of a curtain top a hickory post had been sunk in the floor and bent over ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... at the lights. But his mind was away with his comrades, Paul, Shif'less Sol, Long Jim and Silent Tom, the faithful four with whom he had passed through a world of dangers. Where were they now? He had no doubt that they were near Detroit. It was no idle boast that he made to Colonel de Peyster when he said they would help rescue him. He awaited the result with absolute confidence. He was in truth so lacking in nervous apprehension that when he lay down on the rude pallet he was ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... too, won him many friends, and it was so all his life. "To come within reach of the snare of his speech was to love him," and even to this day Kentucky believes that no statesman ever lived who equalled this adopted son of hers, nor doubts the entire sincerity of his famous boast that he would rather be ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... States. Gold had poured into the treasury of the great marble palace in a constant stream until its deposits had reached the unprecedented sum of $90,000,000, a sum greater than the royal bank itself could boast. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... it corrode him that even when he could boast his $100,000,000 he still persisted in haggling and huckstering over every dollar, and in tricking his friends in the smallest and most underhand ways. Friends in the true sense of the word he had none; those who regarded themselves as such were of that thrifty, congealed disposition swayed ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... to be lost. They were malefactors and vagabonds of the worst character. Two of their number had escaped before and had made it their boast that they could break away from the Russell guard at any time. Directing the sergeant to return to his guard, and hurriedly scribbling a note to the officer of the day, who had his whole troop with him in the saddle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the fire as though I was worn out entirely, listening to their talk, and more than once heard the big rough- looking Mexican boast of a pair of Yankee ears that he ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... opportunity; men from the laboring classes and the peasantry of rural sections. But it is extremely doubtful that the Jamestown settlement, after its tragic first years, continued very long to be attractive to young men seeking adventure only. Many of the families of today who boast of their generations of ancestry in Virginia descend from or married into the families of the men and women who came to the colony in these earliest years of settlement, and have ancestors buried among the unknown dead of ...
— Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - The Faith of Our Fathers • George MacLaren Brydon
... impossible either to know even natural truth in any adequate way, or to be able to untangle it from error, without becoming a believer on Christ as the first step. So let no one who has not surrendered his heart to Christ in faith boast that he either knows ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... 'Crebillon le fils'? He is a fine painter and a pleasing writer; his characters are admirable and his reflections just. Frequent these people, and be glad, but not proud of frequenting them: never boast of it, as a proof of your own merit, nor insult, in a manner, other companies by telling them affectedly what you, Montesquieu and Fontenelle were talking of the other day; as I have known many people do here, with regard to Pope and Swift, who had never been twice in company with ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... slave—till he grew tired. He not only scorned her, but he deserted her. Though a Manchu maid, the Revolution played into her tapering fingers the opportunity for the sweetest revenge that ever tempted an almond-eyed beauty. It had been the proud boast of her officer master that he could resist any attacking party and hold the City Royal for the Manchus. Alas! he reckoned without a woman. She knew a man outside the city walls—a leader of an organization—half ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... that boast may easily be perceived; it is because he thinks, like Jupiter, that it would be disparaging his own all-wiseness to swear by anything but himself. But wisdom will as little enter into a proud or a conceited mind as into a malicious one. In this sense also ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... commencement of this contest would have gladly sacrificed every thing to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. It is not the public, but private interest, which influences the generality of mankind, nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under these circumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... dinner. Crowley evidently needed an audience beyond that of his henchmen. The release of his basic character, formerly repressed, was progressing geometrically and there seemed to be an urgency to crow, to brag, to boast. ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... fairest monument of Moorish grandeur and skill, as this Capitol is the pride of American architecture, you may see cut in stone a hand holding a key, surmounting the horse-shoe arch of the main gateway. They are the three types of strength, speed, and secresy, the boast of a now fallen Saracen race, sons of that sea of sand, the desert, who carried the glory of Islam to furthest Gades. In an evil hour of civil strife and bitter hatred of faction, the Alhambra was betrayed to Spain, 'to ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... said Leone, her indignation fast rising, despite her self-control. "A wretched best, and the results have not been in any way so grand that you can boast of them." ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... declared principles of "moral theology," were such as raise no presumption against them even in unfriendly minds. But we must be content with thankfully acknowledging that divine change which has made it impossible longer to boast of or even justify such deeds, and which leaves no ground among neighbor Christians of the present day for harboring mutual suspicions which, to the Christian ministers of French and English America of two hundred years ago and less, it ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... counsel, consistent piety, and lessons of honourable ambition, which she diligently enforced on the minds of her children, he himself principally attributed his success in life. "The only inheritance," he used to say, "that I could boast of from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person; like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, it was that another and a dearer parent gave ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... de Hirsch was not unknown to the Russian Government. For a few years previously it had had occasion to carry on negotiations with him, with results of which it had scant reason to boast. This great German-Jewish philanthropist, who was resolved to spend hundreds of millions on the economic and agricultural advancement of his co-religionists in Eastern Europe, had donated in 1888 fifty million francs for the purpose of establishing ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... gave him great opportunities for both financial and political intrigues. In his Memoirs, as Meneval remarks, he or his editor is not ashamed to boast of being thanked by Louis XVIII. at St. Ouen for services rendered while he was the minister of Napoleon at Hamburg. He was recalled in 1810, when the Hanse towns were united, or, to use the phrase of the day, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the boy, and took his hand. In a soothing manner he talked to him, and drew from him by gentle degrees the whole tale, so far as Dan's memory and belief went. The boy shook in every limb as he told it. He could not boast immunity from ghostly fears ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "Don't boast, my son. You may have a sure enough chance before the sun sets," remarked Percy in the ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... may reasonably presume, this subject was by no means overlooked by the ancients, we may fairly conclude, it is deservedly the boast of modern times, to have treated it with ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... maze, (Now lost on the horizon's verge, now seen Winding through lawns, and woods, and pastures green,) May he reflect upon the waves that roll, Bearing a nation's wealth from pole to pole, And feel, (ambition's proudest boast above,) A KING'S BEST GLORY IS HIS ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... started from Plymouth on the 15th November, 1577. He had some intercourse with the Moors of Mogador, of which he had no reason to boast, made some captures of small importance before arriving at the Cape de Verd Islands, where he took in fresh provisions, and then was fifty-six days in crossing the Atlantic and reaching the coast of Brazil, which he followed as far as the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... They will do a trick, to prove how clever they are. I believe that is the way ninety per cent of the boys and girls go wrong, and instead of teaching them the Bible, why not try reducing the size of their conceit and their disposition to boast. I just wonder how far wrong ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... talke of any counterfeit birds, or hearbes or stones?... This I will proudly boast ... that the vaine which I have ... is of my own begetting and cals no man father in England but myselfe, neither Euphues, nor Tarlton, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wildfowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life—only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as they have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as it has been in other ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... seperate each from the other, and always in the Woods, and are without walls, so that the air, cooled by the shade of the Trees, has free access in whatever direction it hapens to blow. No country can boast of more delightful walks than this; the whole Plains where the Natives reside are covered with groves of Bread Fruit and Cocoa Nut Trees, without underwood, and intersected in all directions by the Paths which go ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... "Not to myself alone," The circling star with honest pride doth boast, "Not to myself alone I rise and set; I write upon night's coronal of jet His power and skill who formed our myriad host; A friendly beacon at heaven's open gate, I gem the sky. That man might ne'er forget, in every ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... you, proud castles! say (Where grandsire,[1] father,[2] and three brothers[3] lay, Who each, in turn, the crown imperial wore), Me will you own, your daughter whom you bore? Me, once your greatest boast and chiefest pride, By Bourbon and Lorraine,[4] when sought a bride; Now widowed wife,[5] a queen without a throne, Midst rocks and mountains[6] wander I alone. Nor yet hath Fortune vented all her ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... altogether the average type of beauty found in the purely bred English maiden, were not among the noticeable charms of the small creature in gloomy black, shrinking into a corner of the big room. She had very little colour of any sort to boast of. Her hair was of so light a brown that it just escaped being flaxen; but it had the negative merit of not being forced down to her eyebrows, and twisted into the hideous curly-wig which exhibits a liberal equality of ugliness on the heads of women in the present day. There was a delicacy ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... bell-towers to the skies, displaying a purity of form and a boldness of imagination which we now vainly strive to attain. The crafts and arts had risen to a degree of perfection which we can hardly boast of having superseded in many directions, if the inventive skill of the worker and the superior finish of his work be appreciated higher than rapidity of fabrication. The navies of the free cities furrowed in all directions the Northern and the ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... what I believe you capable of—you will murder him. I know it. You have no pity! The love you boast of is swallowed up ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... after, Kalee slept in Logie kirkyard. There is no stone to point out the grave of the Indian princess, who lies—as becomes, too, in our boasted land of liberty, entitled to her boast in an equality at length, which even pride cannot deny—among the humble artisans and cottars of Lochee. Did Fletcher Read, on that after day, when Panmure blew the white iron trump, not expect to see Kalee rise up and seek judgment on the house of Logie? The blood was hereditary, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... replied, with a cool irony which I was far from feeling, "the first rule of the code of honor, to which you appeal, is, as you are aware, that the combatants must be equals in birth and station. Now, you boast of being of royal blood, while I have no such claim to distinction. You see, therefore, that ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... three months in the prison of the King's Bench. Cervantes wrote his Don Quixote in a gaol; and Smollett resolved, since he was now in one, that he would write a Don Quixote too. It maybe said of the Spaniard, according to Falstaff's boast, "that he is not only witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men;" and among the many attempts at imitation, to which the admirable original has given rise, Sir Launcelot Greaves is not one of the worst. That a young man, whose brain had been slightly affected by a disappointment ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... considerations had removed from her forever. But for many years past—except Madame de Motteville, and La Molena, her Spanish nurse, a confidante in her character of countrywoman and woman too—who could boast of having given good advice to the queen? Who, too, among all the youthful heads there, could recall the past for her,—that past in which alone she lived? Anne of Austria remembered Madame de Chevreuse, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the close shadows which they threw. It was a pleasant ride, especially after mother and son had reached the main road, and other horsemen and horsewomen issued from the gates of farms on either side, taking their way to the meeting-house. Only two or three families could boast vehicles,—heavy, cumbrous "chairs," as they were called, with a convex canopy resting on four stout pillars, and the bulging body swinging from side to side on huge springs of wood and leather. No healthy man or woman, however, unless he or she were very ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... that he hed noticed with pain that them niggers alluz hed money, and wuz alluz dresst well, while we, their sooperiors, hed no money, and nothin to boast uv in the way uv ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... my nose and hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg. For eminent as, I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations, yet participation in their blood of course does not, at first sight, justify the boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs or a claim to be one of that Royal House. For what relationship is there between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or the Castle of Zenda and ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... that the Spanish ladies smoke segars. They say that a young lady will take a few puffs and hand it to her favoured lover as a mark of great kindness. This rumour, however, I cannot verify from personal observation, much less have I to boast of any such favour. But we will talk of these things if we should meet; if not, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... you, I would have protected him; as it is, he must take his punishment, and though it is only I who will benefit, he will still deny the fact! Ha! Mr. Brett, do you begin to perceive that I do not boast when I tell ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... threat,' said an old tunny. 'Well, never mind, that has happened to all of us, and it really is not a bad life. Cheer up and come with us and see our queen, who lives in a palace that is much more beautiful than any your queens can boast of.' ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... sings splendidly and is a pretty fair linguist, too. I tried her in English, however, and found her so uncertain that my somewhat limited conversation with her was carried on in French. My French is nothing to boast of, but it's ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... the fourth to the eighth verses. Mark the dramatic vigour of the description of the deliverance. There is, first, the mustering of the armies—'The kings were assembled.' Some light is thrown upon that phrase by the proud boast which the prophet Isaiah puts into the lips of the Assyrian invader, 'Are not my princes altogether kings?' The subject-monarchs of the subdued nationalities that were gathered round the tyrant's standard were used, with the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... money in his purse with the calmest air imaginable, and making no reply to the other's boast placed himself between two trees, distant about four paces from one another, and drawing two pistols from his ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fast. He knew what was coming and was dreadfully frightened, but in his fright there was a certain exultation. He had never been swished. Of course it would hurt, but it was something to boast about afterwards. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... with very little trouble ascertain who will deal fairly with him; and, if he wisely pays ready money, he will be independent of his coal merchant; a situation which few families, even in genteel life, can boast of. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Goorl could no longer boast the beauty which was hers when first we met her, but she was still a sweet and graceful woman, her figure remaining almost as slim as it had been in girlhood. The grey eyes also retained their depth and fire, only the face was worn, though more by care and the burden of memories than ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... on that journey. I was twenty-one years of age, though one would have called me older. My looks were nothing to boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the pony. I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried four precious law books, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and, instead of doing him harm, they asked him into their banqueting-halls, where he proceeded to indulge in liberal potations of the heavenly mead set before him. He soon grew so excited that he began to boast of his power, declaring he would come some day and take possession of Asgard, which he would destroy, together with the gods, save only Freya and Sif, upon whom he gazed with ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... realized that the ban had extended to the mention of his name, that he was as one dead, buried, cast down to oblivion. Even before he had accepted the physician's invitation to cross his threshold, he had resolved to turn this silence to his own profit: he, whose inward boast was his stainless honor, had resolved to act a silent lie. Was it not fair to outwit the rogues with their own weapon? He had faded from human memory—let it be so. Was he to be cut off from this sudden joy of friendship ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Mugstatt that Donald Roy was to meet the Prince late on Monday afternoon in the one public-house that Portree could boast. This public-house consisted of one large, dirty, smoky room, and people of all kinds kept going in and out, and here Donald took up his post. Flora Macdonald was the first to arrive, and she, Donald Roy, and Malcolm MacLeod sat together over the fire waiting anxiously. It was already ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... it largest are usually very particular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony. But all that you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it—above all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may laugh, children, but it is. You know I was to tell you about the words that began with V. Sibyl, ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... appears from all the books that meanwhile the Americans' great boast was that they differed from all other and former nations in that they were free and equal. One is constantly coming upon this phrase in the literature of the day. Now, you have made it clear that they were neither free nor equal in any ordinary sense ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... tools, some of which the brothers had bought with money earned at odd jobs when they were still small boys. Since, they had added to their set from time to time, as they needed this tool or that, until now few professional mechanics could boast of ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... singly might have required, they thought, for their completion, several successions and ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man's political service. Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus, the painter, boast of despatching his work with speed and ease, replied, "I take a long time." For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty; the expenditure of time allowed to a man's pains beforehand for the production ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Gledware's place, he had overheard Red Kimball boast to bring Gledware the pearl and onyx pin. Then had shot through his darkened mind the suspicion that Gledware meant to escape the one condition on which his life was to be spared. With simple cunning he had left the pin where ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... all their designs, and deceived all their expectations, he charged the nation with large sums for secret service, which were, indeed, cheerfully allowed, because the importance and reality of the service were apparent from its effects. But what advantages can our ministers boast of having obtained in twenty years by the means of their intelligence? Or by whom have they, within that period, not been deceived by false appearances? When we purchase secret service at so dear a rate, let it appear that we really obtain ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... which the nation may well be proud. From being a most unsightly place three years ago, disagreeable to pass through in summer in consequence of the dust arising from unpaved streets, and almost impassable in the winter from the mud, it is now one of the most sightly cities in the country, and can boast of being the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... against such injustice, had he chanced to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G—— had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... professor "in the first theological seminary of which New York could boast." It was considered ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... equally divided between his horse, his dog, and his wife—the two first having probably the best place in his heart. The horse, like its owner, had no external beauty to boast of, and must have numbered many years since the days of its foalhood. There was something rather knowing about its appearance, as though it had contracted a measure of cunning from constant companionship with its master. The dog, whose name was Grip, was one ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... sweet beauty of the even, Look on Orlando languishing in love. Sweet solitary groves, whereas the Nymphs With pleasance laugh to see the Satyrs play, Witness Orlando's faith unto his love. Tread she these lawnds, kind Flora, boast thy pride: Seek she for shade, spread, cedars, for her sake: Fair Flora, make her couch amidst thy flowers: Sweet crystal springs, Wash ye with roses when she longs to drink. Ah, thought, my heaven! ah, heaven, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Anything that could boast of being a hundred years old, or more, brought fabulous prices, and the girls were amazed to hear names that they had read of in the columns of the New York papers, called out by the cashier, but never dreamed they would come face to face ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... deliveries of coffee and sugar call for a fleet of thirty-five large motor trucks that are housed in the firm's own garage and kept in repair in their own shops. Although motor trucks are fast replacing the faithful horse; and the time will never come again when Arbuckle Bros. will boast of their stable of nearly two hundred horses that were generally acknowledged to be the finest string of draft horses in the city, some fifty or sixty of their faithful animals still are in harness; and so the stable, with blacksmith shop, harness shop, and wagon-repair ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... may suppose this to be rather an allurement than otherwise, as he spurs along, lance at rest, and sword on side. To the less well-equipped traveller, who has no pretensions to the name of explorer at all, no particular courage to boast of, and whose only ambition is to make the way a little plainer for some one travelling along it for the first time, it is decidedly a serious impediment, so much so as almost to scare such a one from ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... with huge tuns, each of them large enough to house a married Diogenes, or to drown a dozen Dukes of Clarence, and some of them containing five thousand gallons of the still unvexed Catawba. It was there that we made acquaintance with the "Golden Wedding" champagne, the boast of the late proprietor,—an acquaintance which we trust will ripen into an enduring friendship. If there is any better wine than this attainable in the present state of existence, it ought, in consideration of human weakness, to be all poured into the briny deep. It is a very honest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... camp or homestead, proffers To stranger guest at once a stranger host, Proudest to see accepted what he offers, Given without a boast. ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... no need of this caution, for Fanny was not one to do a generous act, and then boast of it, neither did her father ask her how she had disposed of her money. He was satisfied to know that the "four silk gowns" were purchased, as, in his estimation they constituted the essential part of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... meet the leader of all the forces of Sator. He is all-powerful here. His word must be absolutely obeyed. It would be wise if you did not unnecessarily offend him. I see from what your mind tells me that you have great power, but there are many ships on Sator, more than Nansal can boast. ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... house he seems to reign absolute, and yet he never uses any weapon more powerful than a kind word. Everybody who knows him is aware, that, in point of intelligence, ay, and in physical prowess, too—for we know few men who can boast a more athletic frame—he is strong as a lion, yet in his demeanour he is gentle as a lamb. His wife is not of the most amiable temper, his children are not the most docile, his business brings him into contact with ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... they could not protect themselves by a counter-fire, but when a man is born in Scotland, and is a direct descendant of oatmeal-eating bandits, he naturally has a keener brain than even the Jews can boast of; consequently, by spinning nose dives and other signs of lack of control the wily Scot gleefully gained the enemy's side of the lines. Here he was unmolested, although Hun aviators must have been ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... boast of having seen it before it was cooked. "You could have eaten it just as it was," she said, "its skin was so fine, like the skin of a blonde." All the men laughed at this, smacking their lips. Lorilleux and Madame Lorilleux sniffed disdainfully, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Eumolpus that he might be bitten in biting the biters. "Everything that we do," I said, "should be dictated by Prudence.) Socrates, {whose judgment was riper than that} of the gods or of men used to boast that he had never looked into a tavern nor believed the evidence of his own eyes in any crowded assembly which was disorderly: so nothing is more in keeping than ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the universal contempt which he had brought upon himself. Theagenes replies to this speech; but Lucian preferred to go to see the wrestling-match. Afterwards however he heard Peregrinus pronounce his own eulogy, and boast of his sufferings on behalf of philosophy. Then, after most of the guests had left Elis, 35, &c. Peregrinus proceeded to erect his own funeral pile, and consumed himself on it. Lucian after seeing the end went away, and added a legend about the appearance of a hawk; which story he soon afterwards ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... is known to have drank from these "rivers of Pactolus" is no less a distinguished person than Sir Wm. Johnson, Bart., who was conducted hither, in 1767, by his Mohawk friends. At that early day America could boast of little in the way of aristocracy, and it was not till 1803 that the career of Saratoga, as a fashionable watering place, was inaugurated. In this year, when the village consisted of only three or four cabins, Gideon Putnam opened the Union Hotel, ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... great deal of mud, a footman took me up, carried me along, and put me through this hole, through which I had no sooner passed my head than the drums began beating. I gave my hand to the captain, and said to him, "You will be very glad that you can boast of having managed to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said. And, Ferdinand, if I have too severely used you, I will make you rich amends, by giving you my daughter. All your vexations were but trials of your love, and you have nobly stood the test. Then as my gift, which your true love has worthily purchased, take my daughter, and do not smile that I boast she is above all praise." He then, telling them that he had business which required his presence, desired they would sit down and talk together till he returned; and this command Miranda seemed not at all disposed ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... succeeding generations is the history of the struggle between Protestantism possessed of the North of Europe, and Catholicism possessed of the South, for the doubtful territory which lay between. All the weapons of carnal and of spiritual warfare were employed. Both sides may boast of great talents and of great virtues. Both have to blush for many follies and crimes. At first, the chances seemed to be decidedly in favor of Protestantism; but the victory remained with the Church of Rome. On every point she was successful. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... peoples of both lands are beginning to awake to the fact that their countries have been living on the glories of their revolutions and traditions, rather than the substance of freedom. Behind the boast of old-age pensions, material benefits and wage regulations, behind the bombast concerning liberty in this country and tyranny in that, behind all the slogans and shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses of imperialism, woman must and will ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... and public-spirited individuals stepped forth to frustrate the levellers. The parishioners now became two parties. One contended for the restoration of the Chapel, as "one of the most chaste and elegant specimens of early pointed architecture of the thirteenth century of which this country can boast." The levellers, whose muckworm minds, and love of the arts is only shown in that of money-getting—maintained that the demolition of the Chapel would be "a pecuniary saving;" but theirs was a penny-wise and pound-foolish spirit; for, by removing the Chapel, a greater expense would be incurred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... elevating one? It is difficult to compute the value of such an influence in dollars and cents, or to measure it by any scale that the market acknowledges; but it is, nevertheless, a real, substantial, and potent one. If our large cities are the pride and boast of the republic, they also contain the greatest elements of danger to the state and the nation. Ignorance and vice, disease and crime, crowd themselves into cities. There they find their best hiding-places, their surest protection, and their most ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... the donkey-man would be recounted and laughed over, and he would be politely asked when he was planning to resume his travels. This would be the end of the episode. To Constance, it had been merely an amusing farce about which she could boast when she returned to America. In her vivacious style it would make a story, just as her first meeting with Jerry Junior had made a story. But as for the play itself, for him, she cared nothing. Tony the ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... world when men are asked for alms, they entertain contempt for him that asketh it. I therefore, ask thee, O king, with what feelings thou wilt give me what I ask and upon which I have set my heart." And the king replied saying, "Having given away a thing, I never boast of it. I never also listen to solicitations for things that cannot be given. I listen, however, to prayers for things that can be given and giving them away I always become happy. I will give thee a thousand kine. The Brahmana that asks me for a gift is always dear to me. I am never angry ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... river into whose placid depths kings and queens, princes and cardinals, have whispered state secrets, and poets have breathed immortal lines; a stream of pleasure, bearing daily on its bosom such a freight of youth and mirth and colour and music as no other river in the world can boast. ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... They are never to boast of their Intrigues with the Women. If they do, none of the Girls value them ever after, or admit of their Company in their Beds. This proceeds not on the score of Reputation, for there is no such thing (on that account) ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... be the nature of the modern and the western type of man to challenge fatalism, to defy a cross. He would almost boast that nobody could make him die on it. This spirit in men too is a religious spirit. It is the next hail of goodness. Goodness posts up its next huge notice ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... just thinking, where's the father? Where's the father? And here you are, dear friend.... Well, dear friend, the Lord be thanked! Everything is as honourable as can be! When one's arranging a match one should not boast. And I have never learnt to boast. But as you've come about the right business, so with the Lord's help, you'll be grateful to me all your life! She's a wonderful girl! There's no other like her in ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... constitutional liberty of which England may fairly boast was the work of a long series of years subsequent to the Revolution of 1688. It was the work of the whole eighteenth century, in fact, and was grounded on the fragments of old Catholic doctrines and customs. In no sense can it be called the result ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... to say he did not. The fellow has decency enough not to boast of that. Well, Redford did not know much of him personally: he said he had once been much thought of, and had considerable talent and execution, but taste changes, or he has lost something, so that, though he stands tolerably high in his profession, he is not a leader. So much for ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to conversions is the intrusion and impertinence of that Swiss fellow with the baldric—the officer who answers to the beadle of the British Islands, and is pacing about the church with an eye on the congregation. Now the boast of Catholics is that their churches are open to all; but in certain places and churches there are exceptions. At Rome I have been into St. Peter's at all hours: the doors are always open, the lamps are always burning, the faithful are for ever kneeling at one shrine or the other. But at ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mirth, how could I but be glad, Whilst that methought I justly made my boast That only I the only mistress had? But now, if e'er my face with joy be clad, Think Hannibal did ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... Andy, after they had volplaned successfully down toward the earth, until not more than a few hundred feet above the tree tops of the forest; "it would tickle me to have a turn with him again. He has forgotten his other beat, and is beginning to boast again about what great stunts he means ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... to boast, for Reddy Fox is a great boaster. "Pooh!" said Reddy Fox, "pooh! Anybody could jump if their legs were made for jumping. And what's the good of climbing trees anyway? Now I can run faster than anybody here—faster ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Beau went to his dog-pit, a corral of saplings with a shelter-shack in the centre of it. It was The Brute's boast that he had the fiercest pack of sledge-dogs between Hudson Bay and the Athabasca. It was his chief quarrel with Durant, his rival farther north; and his ambition was to breed a pup that would kill the fighting ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... he did in the New World Penn showed himself not only a great but a most just and wise man. He imitated, with happier issue, the liberality of Baltimore in the matter of religious freedom, and to this day the Catholics of Philadelphia boast of possessing the only Church in the United States in which Mass has been said continuously since the seventeenth century. But it is in his dealings with the natives that Penn's humanity and honour stand out most conspicuously. None of the other founders ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... Simmen laughed: "Only not for my girl—not for Vincenza! She can take her choice by and by—Smith—I tell you, down in Italy as well as on our side." His laugh turned into a smile. It had done him good to boast of his own property, while speaking ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... almost think he was unaware of the possibility of doing otherwise. At the same time, he had very little insight into the feelings of others, and almost no sense of the possibility that the things he was saying might affect his listeners otherwise than they affected him. If he boasted, he meant to boast, and would scorn to look as if he did not know it was a good thing he was telling of himself: why not of himself as well as of another? He had no very ready sympathy with other people, especially in any suffering ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... boast of a Superior Woman, long misprized indeed, but now, about 1836, enjoying a pretty extensive local reputation. This, too, was the period at which two Sancerrois in Paris were attaining, each in his own line, to the highest degree of glory for ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... right they had in her; and lo, said he, I shall ally myself to, perhaps, a numerous family of vagabonds; at least, whether it be so or not, the manner in which these children were exposed, being publicly known, may furnish a pretence for any wretch to boast a kindred. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... turned out into her lap the long-imprisoned animals and their round-bodied chief. Mrs. Noah and her sons had long since disappeared. But the ark-builder, hatless and one-armed, still presided over a menagerie of sorry beasts. Scarcely one could boast of being a quadruped. To few of them the years had spared a tail. From their close resemblance in their misery, it was not hard to believe in the kinship of all animal life. She took them up and examined ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... proud of one another, and of the country so wide open to the talents without cost to them, that when I asked her if she would not sometime be going to America, her husband answered almost fiercely in his determination, "I am going when I have learned English!" and to prove that this was no idle boast, he pronounced some words of our language at random, but very well. We parted in a glow of reciprocal esteem and I still think of that quarter-hour as one of my happiest; and whatever others may say, I say that to have done such a favor to one Spanish family ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... this way a short time before going to sleep, no one who might have overheard Fred's boast would have been over-persuaded thereby. Before him stretched the sloping valley of the Rio Pecos. Glancing to the right, he could just catch the glimmer of the river as it flowed by in the moonlight, the banks ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... a young man or graybeard in the village but can tell of the crags and crests of the mountain, of its crevasses and caves, of its torrents and screes, whether now he knows it from his own experience or from hearsay. The mountain is the boast of the villagers as if it were a work of theirs and one is not so sure, however high one may esteem the plain-spokenness and reputation for truth-telling of the natives, whether they do not fib, now and then, to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... that were simply enormous. It still is, of course, but I am speaking about the beginnings of things. People who never had drunk liquor in any quantities before, now would buy a case of whiskey or wine, and pay $100 a case and up for it, and consider themselves lucky to get it. They would boast quietly to friends about having obtained ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... Emperor, many essayists encounter bigotry and deceit with ridicule; or, wanting invention themselves, publish extracts from writings of the age of Luther. But I have the honour of having attacked the pillars of the Romish hierarchy in days more dangerous. I may boast of being the first German who raised a fermentation on the Upper Rhine and in Austria, so advantageous to truth, the progress of the understanding, and the happiness ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... history would require a volume of its own, if the lives of its eminent men were recorded as they should be; but the eighteenth century may boast of a host of noble Irishmen, whose fame is known even to those who are most indifferent to the history of that country. It was in this century that Burke, coming forth from the Quaker school of Ballitore, his mind strengthened by its calm discipline, his intellect cultivated by its gifted master, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... friends, they were obliged to dismiss. But this could not escape the knowledge of the managers: for the laird of Blackstoun one of their own number, upon a promise of pardon, informed against the rest, and so redeemed his own neck by accusing his neighbour.—But of this he had nothing to boast of afterwards[179]. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... came upon her entrance at the Grande Hotel. It had been Emma McChesney's boast that her ten years on the road had familiarized her with every type, grade, style, shape, cut, and mold of hotel clerk. She knew him from the Knickerbocker to the Eagle House at Waterloo, Iowa. At the ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... of economy, he managed his lodging and three meals a day, and was richer by twenty-five cents on the morning when he prepared to take his departure than he was when he arrived in the city, a fact of which few people who have been spending several days in New York can boast. ...
— Three People • Pansy
... of Punsonby's Store, was a man of simple tastes. He had a horror of extravagance and it was his boast that he had never ridden in a taxi-cab save as the guest of some other person who paid. He travelled by tube or omnibus from the Bayswater Road, where he lived what he described as his private life. He lunched in the staff dining-room, punctiliously paying ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... certainty that the brilliant gift will be safely caught and held by nine out of ten of the privileged race. They had been conspicuous judges and admirals, lawyers and servants of the State for some years before the richness of the soil culminated in the rarest flower that any family can boast, a great writer, a poet eminent among the poets of England, a Richard Alardyce; and having produced him, they proved once more the amazing virtues of their race by proceeding unconcernedly again with their usual task of breeding distinguished men. They had sailed with Sir John Franklin ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... wished to impress you it would be easy enough. I would like to test that sensitiveness which you boast that you don't possess. I think I could give you a severe shaking-up! And I will begin by telling you that I will employ mere vulgar trickery ... the trickery of any mountebank who fools people at a ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... found a democracy. They came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea, even unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so willed it. And surely, if the Greek might boast his Thermopylae, where three hundred men fell in resisting the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, women, and children not merely faced, but vanquished, winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet more invincible storge that drew them back to the ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... possession of five out of seven of our guns, but the fire kept upon them was so severe that it afterwards appeared they had not been able to carry them off; for we found them next morning on the spot they had been taken. No [We?] boast of a 'Great Victory,' but in my opinion it was ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... might have been answered normally, either in accents of apologetic sorrow or with a visibly suppressed pride, in a "I don't want to boast, but you shall see," sort of tone. There are sailors, too, who would have been roughly outspoken: "Lazy brute," or openly delighted: "She's a flyer." Two ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... I am a surgeon, but it's a long time since I practised. Fifteen years ago I was comfortably established at Wakefield; I was married and had one child. But my capital ran out, and my practice, never anything to boast of, fell to nothing. I succeeded in getting a place as an assistant to a man at Chester. We sold up, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing |
