"Cant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... embryon state. Unless the fruits, which surround the seeds of some vegetables, or the honey stolen from them by the bee, may be said to be an exception to this assertion. See Botanic Garden, P. I. Cant. I. l. 278. Note. Hence, from the necessity of our nature, we may be supposed to have a right to kill those creatures, which we want to eat, or which want to eat us. But to destroy even insects wantonly shews an unreflecting mind or a ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... kept looking at her husband, and her own face was transfigured. Mrs. Zelotes, also, seemed to radiate with a sort of harsh and prickly delight. She descanted upon the hard-earned savings which Andrew had risked, but she held her old head very high with reluctant joy, and her bonnet had a rakish cant. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... last. I cant tell you much about it yet on account of its avin been so foggy since we got here. We didnt deboat in Paris as I was expectin. We sailed up a river to a town with a wall around it and got off there. I dont know what the wall was for unless to keep people ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... on Bacchis still as much as ever, When the old gentleman began to tease him To marry, in the common cant of fathers; —"That he was now grown old; and Pamphilus His only child; and that he long'd for heirs, As props of his old age." At first my master Withstood his instances, but as his father Became more hot and urgent, Pamphilus Began to waver in his mind, and felt A conflict ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... super istis articulis praenotatis fecit Bonifacius, Cant. Arch. suorum suffraganeorum sibi subditorum universorum, praelatorum pariter et cleri procuratorum, convocationem isto anno apud Londonias semel et secundo, propter gravamina et oppressiones, de die in diem per ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... across my path, and I will call him Peter Pure; for he is one of those that, though assuming a quietness, is really rabid in politics, and has ever upon his lips "purity of election," and the like cant words. A few years ago his circumstances not being very flourishing, he got the ear of our generous friend of the Grange; through his timely assistance, and a pretty considerable loan, he overcame his difficulties, and is now pretty well to do. At the last contest for the borough, our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... Botton and Company will attend Tomorrow evening at 8 But begs to inform That the Bear being Laim am afeard cant perform But the doggs and munkees is in good condishon and will I hopes ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... took a few pulls at the strong, black tobacco, and began to reconsider his notion about smashing up the service. He found the religious skipper was as good a fisherman as anyone in the fleet; the talk was free from that horrible cant which scares wild and manly men so easily, and the copper-coloured rowdy ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... prescription of murder in Scotland. 'A jury in England would make allowance for deficiencies of evidence, on account of lapse of time: but a general rule that a crime should not be punished, or tried for the purpose of punishment, after twenty years, is bad. It is cant to talk of the King's advocate delaying a prosecution from malice. How unlikely is it the King's advocate should have malice against persons who commit murder, or should even know them at all. If the son of the murdered man should ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... very nice as a plaything for soft-'arted toffs, Kep in bounds it don't do no great 'arm. Poor old BUGGINS, he flushes and coughs; Gets hangry, he do, at my talk. I sez, keep on your hair, my good bloke, Hindignation ain't good for your chest; cut this Sosherlist cant, or you'll choke. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a good deal on the look- out for cants that he could catch and apply in season, and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy; his friends used to say that when he rose he flew like a snipe, darting several times in various directions before he settled down to a steady straight flight, but when he had once got into this he ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... defending the townlet built on the northern slope and plain. The dimensions of the work are fifty-five metres each way. The curtains, except the western, where stood the Bab el-Bahr ("Sea gate"), were supported by one central as well as by angular bastions; the northern face had a cant of 32 degrees east (mag.); and the northwestern tower was distant from the sea seventy-two me'tres, whereas the south-western numbered only sixty. The spade showed a substratum of thick old wall, untrimmed granite, and other hard materials. Further down were various ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... plunge me back in pagan night, And take my chance with Socrates for bliss, Than be the Christian of a faith like this, Which builds on heavenly cant its earthly sway, And in a convert mourns to lose ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... Doubtless it was for that very reason, in order that they might not be transparent, that the myths were employed. It is for that very reason, perhaps, that Christianity also adopted a few. Yet at least from cant they were free. Among the multiple divinities of Greece, hypocrisy was the unknown god. Consideration of the others is, to-day, usually effected through the pages of Ovid. One might as well study Christianity in the works of Voltaire. Christianity's ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and privations, they gradually grew used to one another. Duke, ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... which Knox here gives a minute and accurate description, took place on the 22d of July 1544, when Lord Gray's partizans were repulsed with a loss of upwards of sixty men.—(Adamson's Muses Threnodie, by Cant, pp. 70, 71, 112.) Lord Gray, in October that year, received from the Cardinal a grant of part of the lands of Rescobie in Forfarshire, for his "ready and faithful help and assistance in these dangerous times ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... that she fancied there might be some error in the translation of the Greek expression. I replied that, in my opinion, there was; and that I had myself always been irritated by the entire irrelevance of the English word, and by something very like cant, on which the whole burden of the passage is thrown. How was it any natural preparation for a vast spiritual revolution, that men should first of all acknowledge any special duty of repentance? The repentance, if any movement of that nature ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... verses to flow in that channel. Indeed, feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... of course, and the channel of the river be reduced to a size proportionate to its constant supply. Dear reader, you are very difficult to please. My descriptions you call slow, my imaginings frivolous, science dry. Jokes are feeble and personalities tedious morality is stale, religion is cant. What, how can I write? You have had a taste of all and if you are not content the fault is—well, let me be on the safe ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... reception. Passing through the common room, I saw a face which I thought I recollected. 'Is not that Turl?' said I to Hector—'Pshaw, d——n me, take no notice of such a raff,' replied he, and stalked away. I was too ignorant of college cant, at that time, to know that raff was the term of contempt ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... is vulgar. It has become of late unfortunately prevalent, and we know many ladies who pride themselves on the saucy chique with which they adopt certain Americanisms, and other cant phrases of the day. Such habits cannot be too severely reprehended. They lower the tone of society and the standard of thought. It is a great mistake to suppose that slang is in any way ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... English—just, industrious, and patient; true to the altar, and loyal to the throne; though haply shaken somewhat now from both those noble faiths—warped in their principles, and blunted in their feelings, by lying doctrines and harsh economies; a class—I hate the cold cant term—a race of honourable men, full of cares, pains, privations—but of pleasures next to none; whose life at its most prosperous estate is labour, and in death we count him happy who did not die a pauper. Through them, serfs of the soil, the earth yields indeed her increase, but it is ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... gesture, in bearing, and even in the character of the home, is a living and material poem, the charm of which is irresistible; imagine therefore what it is when it takes its inspiration from the heart. Politeness, dear, consists in seeming to forget ourselves for others; with many it is social cant, laid aside when personal self-interest shows its cloven-foot; a noble then becomes ignoble. But—and this is what I want you to practise, Felix—true politeness involves a Christian principle; it is the flower ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... shepherds on the Wiltshire downs are also well paid, especially in lambing-time, when the greatest watchfulness and care are required. It has been stated that the labourer has no chance of rising from his position. This is sheer cant. He has very good opportunities of rising, and often does rise, to my knowledge. At this present moment I could mention a person who has risen from a position scarcely equal to that of a labourer, not only ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... forgotten. It didn't convince. It had never worked things out. In this matter just as in every other matter that really signified things had still to be worked out. Nothing had been worked out hitherto. The wisdom of the ages was a Cant. People had been too busy quarrelling, fighting and running away. There wasn't any digested experience of the ages at all. Only the mis-remembered hankey-pankey ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... succeeded in rallying round him many of the high and generous spirits of the time. The Critic is distinguished by a more than usual proportion of thought, and by very little of the small superficial cant ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... "I cant read and I thought to myself I thought there was a change comin. I sense that. I think de Lawd he does everythin right. De Lawd open my way. I think all people should be religious and know about ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... every establishment, from the Bedford to Mother Butlers, without having his pleasures broken in upon by the irruptions of Bow-street mohawks, or his person endangered by any association he chose to mix with; but we are returning to the times of the Roundheads and the Puritans; cant, vile hypocritical cant, has bitten the ear of authority, and the great officers of the state are ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... ridicule every thing that appears so in others." Now, Sir, this Sect, as I have been told, is very frequent in the great Town where you live; but as my Circumstance of Life obliges me to reside altogether in the Country, though not many Miles from London, I cant have met with a great Number of em, nor indeed is it a desirable Acquaintance, as I have lately found by Experience. You must know, Sir, that at the Beginning of this Summer a Family of these Apes came and settled for the Season not ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the northern verge of the tropics in a very short time, owing to the favourable cant in the usual direction of the north-east trades before noted, and had been met with north-westerly winds and thick, dirty weather, which was somewhat unusual in so low a latitude. Our look-outs redoubled their vigilance, one being posted on each bow always at night, and relieved every ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... in the way of such a man is, that so many people believe in lies. My eager young friend, Philalethes, supposes that, if he can only expose this falsehood, show up this sham, or sound the emptiness of this piece of cant or pretence, he will do the state some service, that men will thank him and call him benefactor. He does the work, and lo! to his amazement, many excellent men ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... power to interest and charm in this record of his collegiate life. Mr. Hughes has the true, wholesome English love of home, the English delight in rude physical sports, the English hatred of hypocrisy and cant, the English fidelity to facts, the English disbelief in all piety and morality which are not grounded in manliness. The present work is full of illustrations of these healthy qualities of his nature, and they are all intimately connected with an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... bygone usefulness; sayings, as it were, about which there was at one time infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expression should best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouths of those who used them, though they have become such mere shibboleths and cant formulae to ourselves that we think no more of their meaning than we do of Julius Caesar in the month of July. They continue to be reproduced through the force of habit, and through indisposition to get out of any familiar groove of action until it becomes too ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... ration. And of the salt of the good God's earth are the chaplains. There was Major the Reverend John Pringle, of Yukon fame, whose only son Jack was killed in action after he had walked two hundred miles to enlist. No cant, no smug psalm-singing, mourners'-bench stuff for him. He believed in his Christianity like a man; he was ready to fight for his belief like a man; he cared for us like a father, and stood beside us in the mornings as we drank our stimulant. Again, I repeat ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... its head, and the writers for the "Courant" were among the most outspoken. The climax was reached when one day the paper appeared with a diatribe containing such words as these: "For my own part, when I find a man full of religious cant and palaver, I presently suspect him to be a knave,"—a sentiment which the religious authorities very properly took as an insult to themselves. James was arrested and imprisoned for a month, and on his release was forbidden to print the "Courant." ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... we signify unto you to be our intent, so far as God will assist us to withstand your idolatry. Take this for warning, and be not deceived."[**] With these outrageous symptoms commenced in Scotland that cant, hypocrisy, and fanaticism which long infested that kingdom, and which, though now mollified by the lenity of the civil power, is still ready to break ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... replied the singer, "but ef I hadn't a knowed it was old man Newcome as took Serlizer away, I'd be cant-hooked and pike-poled ef I wouldn't ha' sung jest them words, that's ef I had a paiun in my chaist and wanted to lay down." When they reached the third lake, through a channel similar to the last, the Captain said ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Angus! Where's yer porridge gone to? Move over, two av ye! Don't take advantage av a little man loike that!" Angus was just six feet four. "Now thin, yer pikes! Shove her along! Up she is! Steady! Cant her over! How's that, framer? More to the east, is it? Climb up on her, ye cats, an' dig in yer claws! Now thin, east wid her! Togither-r-r—heave! Aw now, where are ye goin'? Don't be too rambunctious! Ye'll be afther knockin' a hole in to-morrow mornin'. Back a ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... a lull that served us to cant the yards; then, sharp as a knife-thrust, the wind came howling out of the sou'-west. The rain ceased and the sky cleared as by a miracle. Still it blew and the seas, turned by the shift of wind, broke and shattered in a whirl of confusion. For a time we laboured through ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... boat swung into the wind, a jostling crowd of men poured out on the ice from under the flapping sail. Each man bore a tool of some sort, either ax, cant-dog, iron-shod peavey-stick, or cross-cut saw; and the moonshine flashed on the steel surfaces. It was plain that the party viewed its expedition as an opportunity for reckless roistering, and ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... Two. and I am all that is left and I am going—I tride to get out and the Big storm drov me back and all I can see is Jimmy Kelp and the parson if I had not of killed them they would killed me sure and big Brodie's gone he is crazy and cant never make it back across the mountains in this storm, and Baldy Winch he took a big nugget and went off, and he stoled what handful of grub there was. And now I can look down in the gorge and see the ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... pose as a teacher, still less as a propagandist. I do not attempt to direct the jury. The choice rests exclusively with yourself.—And here rid your mind of any cant about moral obligations. Both ways have merit, both bring rewards—of sorts—are equally commendable, equally right. Only this—whether you choose blinkers, your barrel between the shafts and another man's whip tickling your loins, or the reins in your own hands and the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... anything about Christianity but the name and a little of the form. Some had such a hatred of what they called Methodist fanaticism, that they shrank from any manifestation of religious life or earnestness. And they had such a horror of cant, that they canted on the other side. Their talk about religion was little else but cant. Their talk about cant itself was cant. They had quite a dislike of any thing like religious zeal, and had a dread of any one ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... variorum, We regard not how it goes; Let them cant about decorum Who have characters to lose. A ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of others who at this period had one of these two names. The incident (of anointing with ointment) is one quite in accordance with the customs of the time and country, and there is not the least improbability in its repetition under different circumstances. (Eccles. 9:8; Cant. 4:10; Amos 6:6.) ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... difficult task was yet to be performed—the loading of the grand piano. We found it necessary to remove the raft to a place where the bank was more shelving, so that the shore side of the structure would rest on the ground, because the weight of the piano on one side would cant it over so that we could ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first feeling is simply ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... one to cover the other." I blushed, but still could not help laughing. "You are mistaken Whiteley," said the other, "there is not a man in your company eats better than John." "Where does he get it?" said W. "he cant have above half a guinea a week for his salary, and the clothes now on his back must cost at least twenty half guineas, or perhaps half a year's pay." "Go on Whiteley," said the other, "discharge all your Irish nonsense upon his head, he has temper to bear it all; in the meantime I'll take ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... find peace and pleasure and wisdom and worth, I should find fascination and a measure of success in it—out of the din and the dust and the scramble, the world of party labels, party cries, party bargains and party treacheries: of humbuggery, hypocrisy and cant. The cleanness and quietness of it, the independent effort to do something, to leave something which shall give joy to man long after the howling has died away to the last ghost of an echo—such a vision solicits me ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... dreaming—dreaming—I begin To doubt if I be dreaming I am Fife, Who with a lad who call'd herself a boy Because—I doubt there's some confusion here— He wore no petticoat, came on a time Riding from Muscovy on half a horse, Who must have dreamt she was a horse entire, To cant me off upon my hinder face Under this tower, wall-eyed and musket-tongued, With sentinels a-pacing up and down, Crying All's well when all is far from well, All the day long, and all the night, until I dream—if what is dreaming be not ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the first plan, he purposed to put a 'clime' upon the King's leg; rightly judging that that would mortify him to the last and perfect degree; and as soon as the clime should operate, he meant to get Canty's help, and FORCE the King to expose his leg in the highway and beg for alms. 'Clime' was the cant term for a sore, artificially created. To make a clime, the operator made a paste or poultice of unslaked lime, soap, and the rust of old iron, and spread it upon a piece of leather, which was then bound tightly upon the leg. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Both Tennyson and Thackeray, it is said, got well taken notice of in this way by their comrades. But there was no plan at the bottom of it—nothing to constitute them a name. The Apostles were always inveighing against cant—always affecting much earnestness, and a hearty dislike of formalism, which rendered them far from popular with the high and dry in literature, politics, or religion. They were eyed with terror ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... were somewhere nowadays where you could flee from all this stupidity, from all this cant of governments, and this hideous reiteration of hatred, this strangling hatred ..." he would say to himself, and see himself working in the fields, copying parchments in quaint letterings, drowsing his feverish desires to calm in the deep-throated passionate ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the power of the legislature, which stamped them property, to undo its own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway, and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant required my attendance at his funeral, but it ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... it not rare to see his polite face while she bores him with that kind of cant which is the most intolerable of all, and he quietly turning ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indeed?" shouted Mr Durfy; "going with you, is he? to learn how to cant and sing psalms! Not if I know it—or if he does, you and he and your brother and your old fool ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of chance comers-in. "The Elf—da," says he, "was too exquisitely pretty; I could make no fun out of that."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 37. I doubt whether Johnson used the word fun, which he describes in his Dictionary as 'a low cant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... temptations tugging at his heart; why not extend more charity to others, and shew more candour in speaking of himself? There is either a good deal of bigoted intolerance with a deplorable want of self-knowledge in all this; or at least an equal degree of cant ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... while it quickened the life in us. She plead for the poor creatures about her, to whom Christ gave always the most abundant pity, seeing they were more sinned against than sinning. There was not a word of cant in her petition. It was full of a simple, unconscious eloquence, a higher feeling than I dare try to define. And when it was over she had won their love and confidence so that they clung to her hands and kissed them and wet them with their ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... the afternoon, yea when near evening, to run fast, and not to lie in the field, and miss his lodging, upon which he, with uplifted eyes, said, "Lord, how can I run? Lord, draw me, and I shall run," Cant. i. 4. The minister hearing this, desired him to pray, but he answered nothing; yet within an hour he prayed before him and his own lady very devoutly, and bemoaned his own weakness both inward and outward, saying, "I dare not knock at ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... past, creating a tradition of public and private action which needs no definite formula. The man who did more than any other to supply this lack in a new country, by imbuing its national consciousness—even its national cant—with high aspiration, did—it may well be—more than any strong administrator or constructive statesman to create a Union which should thereafter ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... been thinkin' all day, between times when I'm thinkin' of licker, of Polly Hawks; an' I'll say right yere she's my first an' only love. She's a fine young female, is Polly—tall as a saplin', with a arm on her like a cant-hook. Polly can lift an' hang up a side of beef, an' is as good as ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Ginnie land, away to France, the Lord we praise. And warre he proues it plaine when we entered his ship, A prisner therefore I remaine, and hence I cannot slip Till that my ramsome be agreed vpon, and paid, Which being leuied yet so hie, no agreement cant be made. And such is lo my chance, the meane time to abide A prisner for ransome in France, till God send time and tide. From whence this idle rime to England I doe send: And thus till I haue further time, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Henry Guthrie, James Hamilton, in Dumfreis, Bernard Sanderson, John Levingstoun, James Bonar, Evan Camron, David Dickson, Robort Bailzie, James Cuninghame, George Youngh, Andrew Affleck, David Lindsay, Andrew Cant, William Douglas, Murdo Mackenzie, Coline Mackenzie, John Monroe, Walter Stuart Ministers; Archbald Marquesse of Argyle, William Earle Marshall, John Earle of Sutherland, Alexander Earle of Eglingtoun, John Earle of Cassils, Charles Earl of Dumfermeling, John ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... volunteer prayer. In teaching a lesson don't spend too much time in description unless you have the rare gift of being able to make your scene live before your hearers. Talk plainly and to the point. Naturalness should characterize each lesson. Boys hate cant[1] and apologies and lack of definiteness. Your best illustrations will be drawn from the life of the camp and ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... Virginia. "Thank goodness, in these days not all the king's horses and all the king's men can make even a Princess marry against her will. I hate that everlasting cant about 'duty in marriage.' When people love each other, they're kind and good, and sweet and true, because it's a joy, not because it's a duty. And that's the only sort of loyalty worth having between men and women, according to me. I wouldn't accept anything ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... countenances 80 [Pretender's Son], its thro the influence of 51 [King of Prussia]. I have some reason to believe they dow, for 80 [Pretender's Son] is accompanied by one of that faction. I suspect its 59 [Count Maillebois] but I cant be positive untill I go to Paris, which I think a most necessary chant [jaunt] in this juncture, for if 2 [Lord Marshall] has no finger in the piy, I lost my host of all. When I am a few days at Paris, I take a trip sixty leagues farther South to meet 71 [Sir J. Graemne or ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... answered, "Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way;" an anecdote which is sometimes quoted as if it proved that Cromwell had no religion; whereas it only proved that he had at heart no cant. It was not as if he had privately avowed infidelity to his kinsman. Cromwell found cant prevalent on his stage, just as any great actor of that century found rant on his, and, like the actor, he used it occasionally as a means of gaining his own lofty ends, and ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... thought of applying for, in his distress about a Wife. These two, will they side with Prussia, will they side with Austria? It was hardly worth inquiry, had not Fortune's wheel made suddenly a great cant, and pitched them to the top, for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a man who had conceived a violent eccentric prejudice against negroes; and he was not content with chiming in with the usual cant of the prejudice that they ought not to be allowed in our churches and in our rail-road-cars, but vociferated, that, if he had his way, they should not be allowed in Africa! The advantage of grit in this respect is in its annihilating a prejudice by presenting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... merest cant," he said, "for Great Britain and France to talk about the violation of the neutrality of Belgium after what they themselves have done and are doing.... The only forum of public opinion open to me is the United States. The situation is far too vital for me to care ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... a score of times, in Greek, in the Latin version of Catullus, and in English, German, and French translations. The more I read it and compare with it the eulogies just quoted, the more I marvel at the power of cant and conventionality in criticism and opinion, and at the amazing current ignorance in regard to the psychology of love and of the emotions in general. I have made a long and minute study of the symptoms ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... raised a new Objection to Clarissa, in that she talked so much of Religion, which he call'd Canting. Nay, Sir, said Bellario, 'I cannot see how she can be said to cant; for her religious Reflections are neither nonsensical or affected, but such as naturally arise from a pious Mind in her several Situations; and if you are a Christian, Sir, I am sure you cannot, on Consideration, dislike that Part of her Character.' Mr. Dellincourt said, 'Yes, ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... "priestly cant" excite a philosopher to such a pitch of frenzy? Why not blow it away with a breath ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... much that is autobiographical, and helps us to understand Carlyle's childhood and youth; but it is so mixed up with fantasy and humour that it is difficult to separate fiction from fact. Its chief aim seems to be the overthrow of cant, the ridiculing of empty conventions, and the preaching of sincerity and independence. But not yet was Carlyle's generation prepared to listen to such sermons. Jeffrey was bewildered by the tone and offended at the style; publisher after ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... cant name given to a lady [Lady Powis], who was very fond of loo, and who had lost much money at ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... her safety gave him new reassurance, and he could even face the nights, the long hours when Tenney was at home. Tenney he took pains not to meet. He distinctly objected to being pressed into a corner by the revivalist cant of a man he could not wisely offend. Nor did he see her whom he called "the woman." Sometimes in the early dusk after Tenney had got home, he was strongly moved to walk past the house and see if their light looked cheerful, or if he could ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... foot he cast her to and frae, Whiles up, whiles down, as cant[15] as any kid; Whiles would he let her run under the strae[16] Whiles would he wink and play with her buik-hid;[17] Thus to the silly mouse great harm he did; Till at the last, through fair fortune and hap, Betwixt the dresser and the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... always and everywhere provincial. One thing about it then was different from what it is now: I mean the attitude of the stay-at-homes toward the been-abroads. They revered them and deferred to them, and they called them Hajii, or travellers, in a cant which must have been very common, since George William Curtis used the same Oriental term for his Howadji in Syria and his Nile Notes of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... O'Neill! Go and see her. Now you're off with the old love. You mark what a prophetess I was. Nelly'll receive you very differently. No cant of superiority. You'll be just a pair of jolly good fellows. You'll sit up drinking whisky together and yarning anecdotes. No uncomfortable pretences; no black bog posing as white fire; no driven snow business, London snow ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Tommy Atkins in his unanimous mood—unanimously condemning cant and at the same time unanimously courteous. Now that I come to reflect I believe that, in his best moments, these are perhaps the only two points concerning which Tommy Atkins is unanimous. Whether he lives up to them or not (and to ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... will not procure that happiness after which all are so eager in pursuit, but which none has ever yet attained? Was Christ, who is said to have been spotless, happy? No; he was a man of sorrows. Away, then, with this cant of virtue. It is a shadow, a deception; a thing, like religion, that has no existence, but takes our senses, our interests, and our passions, and works with them under its own mask. Yet why am I afraid of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Oxford, and a very clever writer, Mr. Frederic Harrison, developed, in the systematic and stringent manner of his school, the thesis which Mr. Bright had propounded in only general terms. "Perhaps the very silliest cant of the day," said Mr. Frederic Harrison, "is the cant about culture. Culture is a desirable quality in a critic of new books, and sits well on a possessor of belles lettres; but as applied to politics, it means simply a turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... "It's not that kind, General," he said. "There's no cant in the boy. He's more popular for it—that's often so with the genuine thing, isn't it? I sometimes think"—the young Captain hesitated and smiled a trifle deprecatingly—"that Morgan is much of the same ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... historical point of view. We shall judge of the present in its relations to the past. And, unquestionably, there is great satisfaction to be derived from so doing; the mere effort seems at once to take us into another atmosphere,—an atmosphere as foreign to unctuous cant as it is to what is vulgarly known as "electioneering taffy." This evening we pass away from the noisy and heated turmoil of partisan politics, with its appeals to prejudice, passion, and material interest, into ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... guardianship of the few sound and enlightened judges who thoroughly comprehend him, to the humble but honest admiration of professional performers, to the practice and imitation of effeminate amateurs, to the cant of criticism of the worthies on the free list, and to the instinctive applause of the popular voice. Even with these humbler hands to build up his monument, the great master of music has a perpetual possession within the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... will rebuke me all the way home to-night for saying it, my heart sat somewhat nearer to those old people who were perhaps a little too dumpish in their repentance and their faith and their hope that morning, than it did to those who took to the table with a light heart. I know all your flippant cant about gospel liberty and against Highland introspection, as you call it—as well as all your habitual neglect of a close and deep self-examination, as Paul called it; but I tell you all to-night that it would be the salvation of your soul if ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... she claimed England wished to fasten on her world relationships. She aimed to dominate the world with German efficiency. She aimed to demonstrate German superiority and expose what she called Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy and cant. Already possessing the world's supply of potash, she struck directly at the coal and iron region of Belgium and Northern France. And she took them on the initial advance. With potash, coal and iron, this was a ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... would strip himself or herself bare to me in a spiritual sense, and would be revealed disinterestedly, would have no axe to grind and no contemptible small ends to gain, and no tradesman's commercial morality and no grafting conventionality, no moral cant based on self-interest—some being so near the 'limit' that he was intellectually and morally fearless and did not need to pose, from whom some truth could be derived, whose sincerity and power of straight-seeing ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... at another. I hate to butt in Mable but it didnt seem right. I says I seen the Indien girl in the circus shoot the spots out of a card over her shoulder but wouldnt it be more censible to cut out the trick stuff till we was more used to the thing. You cant argue with sargents, though. ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... it. In no spirit of cant and with no desire to preach, I set down these things, simply because they are as obvious as temples or scenery to any Oriental traveller who travels with open ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... seems to have been a cant term for a certain wine. Thus Gabriel Harvey, in "Pierce's Supererogation," 1593, speaks of "the Nipitaty of the nappiest grape;" and afterwards he says, "Nipitaty will not be tied to a post," in reference to the unconfined tongues of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... father's old college, but to the more splendid foundation of Trinity. About the date of his matriculation there is a doubt. In Wood's Athenae Oxonienses there is a note to the effect that Marvell was admitted "in matriculam Acad. Cant. Coll. Trin." on the 14th of December 1633, when the boy was but twelve years old. Dr. Lort, a famous master of Trinity in his day, writing in November 1765 to Captain Edward Thompson, of whom more later on, told ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... we reach "the Father" through "the Son," and that He is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of the Divine glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24). The Gospel of "the Word made flesh" is not the meaningless cant of some petty sect nor yet the cunning device of priestcraft, though it has been distorted in both these directions; but it can give a reason for itself, and is founded upon the deepest laws of the threefold constitution of man, embracing the whole man, body, soul and spirit. ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... by Hesden Le Moyne. Several who were there have expressed the opinion that, from the manner in which the shooting was done, it must have been by a man with one arm. However, Eliab will make a good Radical show, and we shall have another dose of Puritanical, hypocritical cant about Southern barbarity. Well, we can bear it. We have got the power in Horsford, and we mean to hold it. Niggers and nigger-worshippers must take care of themselves. This is a white man's country, and white men are going to rule ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... confined government to its simple duties, while it left opinion unfettered, was especially present in Julius Caesar himself. From cant of all kinds he was totally free. He was a friend of the people, but he indulged in no enthusiasm for liberty. He never dilated on the beauties of virtue, or complimented, as Cicero did, a Providence in which he did not believe. He was too sincere to stoop to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... rouse the dullard from his dream of peace. Awake! ye hypocrites, and deign to scan The actions of your "brotherhood of Man." Could your shrill pipings in the race impair The warlike impulse put by Nature there? Where now the gentle maxims of the school, The cant of preachers, and the Golden Rule? What feeble word or doctrine now can stay The tribe whose fathers own'd Valhalla's sway? Too long restrain'd, the bloody tempest breaks, And Midgard 'neath the tread of warriors shakes. On to thy death, Berserker bold! And try In acts of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... that stirred up a man’s blood like sea-bathing; and the whole thing was clean gone from me, and I was dreaming England, which is, after all, a nasty, cold, muddy hole, with not enough light to see to read by; and dreaming the looks of my public, by a cant of a broad high-road like an avenue, and with the sign on ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them that it was past and over. You see I, in a manner, anticipated your wishes about letting you know what I think of the country, though, on reading it over, I don't really know whether I have talked a lot of rubbish or not. I have given you a lot of semi-political cant, when what you want to know is simply, how easy is it to make coin out here. Well, I think the answer to that is pretty easy. If a man is not ambitious, and would be content to be a common or garden farmer for the greater part of his life, and have, say a $1000 a year to settle down ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... that pretences of reform were held up by the designing to dazzle the eyes of the unwary, &c.; he found in short that reformation, by popular insurrection, must end in the destruction and cannot tend to the formation of a regular Government.' After a good deal more of this well-meaning cant, the Introduction concludes with the following sentence:—the writer is addressing the reformers of 1793, amongst whom—'both leaders and followers,' he says, 'may together reflect—that, upon speculative and visionary reformers,' ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... feelings and passions of men, the Honorable Member had great advantages in dwelling on this topic; because it was a subject which those who disliked everything that had the air of cant and profession on the one hand, or of indifference on the other, found it awkward to meddle with. Establishments, tests, and matters of that nature, were proper objects of political discussion in that House, but not general charges of Atheism and Deism, as pressed upon their consideration by ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Aix a very celebrated preacher named De Coq. I went to hear him, and, though much struck with his fluency of language, did not much admire his style of preaching; there was too much of cant and declamation, and at times he made a most intolerable noise, roaring as if he were addressing an army. This man, however, succeeded in drawing tears from the audience; but this did not surprise me, for it is astonishing how easily this is accomplished. This reminds me of a scene which ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... he would have laughed heartily at the fury with which the nation had on a sudden begun to persecute men for doing what every body had always done and was always trying to do. But if people would be fools, it was the business of a politician to make use of their folly. The cant of political purity was not so familiar to the lips of Wharton as blasphemy and ribaldry; but his abilities were so versatile, and his impudence so consummate, that he ventured to appear before the world as an austere patriot mourning over the venality and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... write, on the American war without any knowledge of the facts, and scorned Darwinism without ever bestowing a thought on it. Carlyle's public were long ago conscious, as one of his critics has said, that he canted prodigiously about cant, and talked voluminously in praise of silence; but then it recognized that much repetition has always the air of cant, and that to persuade men to be silent, as well as to do anything else, one must talk a great deal. ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... do it with, could be possessed of any one of the Christian virtues. Charity and kindness of heart exist, they would have us to believe, in an inverse ratio to income, and the warmest men, in city parlance, are invariably those of the coldest feelings. The sickly cant of this style of writing in a country where charity, both public and private, is so extensive and practical; and its probable ill effects in rendering the poorer classes discontented, are too evident for it to be necessary to dwell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... me whether I am correct in my estimate of her character. If I am, I do not fear. She's very clear-headed, sharp, and clever; a hater of humbug, a despiser of cant." ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... arsenal, as well as covering any vessels which might happen to be disabled in an attack where they must necessarily be so prodigiously exposed. Being now fully prepared, his lordship, with that truly Christian spirit which, in direct opposition to the puritanic cant of piety, was ever far more manifested by his actions than expressed by his lips, devoutly exclaimed—"Thank God, for having enabled me to get through this difficult and fatiguing part of my duty: which has, really, worn me down; and is infinitely more grievous to me, than any resistance ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... time. Cook all night. Corn-bread, baked tater, collard. Git to Bucksport, people gin to whoop and holler! Three flat gone round wid all the vittles." (And with the very young and very old) Easier coming home. Current helped. Going up against the current, only poles and cant hooks—tedious going. "Git 'Tip Top' (Plantation) all right. Come home den! Git to double trunk (rice-field trunk) at 'Tip Top' Whoop! Come bring flat! Mother Molly dead on flat! Bury she right to Longwood grave-yard. Nuss. (nurse) Sam'l Hemingway bury there. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... curious to see how Clarissa stands out, not only among Richardson's female characters, but among the female characters of all time; eminent she is for purity of soul, and nobility of feeling. There is no cant about her anywhere, no effort to pose or to strain after a state of mind which she cannot naturally experience. The business-like manner in which she makes her preparations for death have nothing sentimental about them, nothing ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... obnoxious. The name of this jargon varies with the country in which it is spoken. In Spain it is called 'Germania'; in France, 'Argot'; in Germany, 'Rothwelsch,' or Red Italian; in Italy, 'Gergo'; whilst in England it is known by many names; for example, 'cant, slang, thieves' Latin,' etc. The most remarkable circumstance connected with the history of this jargon is, that in all the countries in which it is spoken, it has invariably, by the authors who have treated of it, and who are numerous, been confounded with the Gypsy language, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... been derived from the doctrine of fatalism, inculcated by the story. There is something of cant in talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... engraven, and led him to the palace. Asehmedai was sitting on the throne as the real Solomon entered; but instantly he shrieked and flew away. Yet to his last day was Solomon afraid of the prince of devils, and had his bed guarded by the valiant men of Israel, as is written in Cant. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli |
