"Coxcomb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come back. When he has mended what Fluellen calls his 'ploody coxcomb,' he will take out a summons against me ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... which fashionable society showed him many samples. Jo knew that 'young Laurence' was regarded as a most eligible parti by worldly mamas, was much smiled upon by their daughters, and flattered enough by ladies of all ages to make a coxcomb of him, so she watched him rather jealously, fearing he would be spoiled, and rejoiced more than she confessed to find that he still believed in modest girls. Returning suddenly to her admonitory tone, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... head of the house. He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai was not at home. His lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but, just then, he saw, walking across the yard, a man, who looked something like a Bond Street coxcomb, but not the least like a gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master, for 'Mr. Mordicai's barouche!' It appeared; and he was stepping into it when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and, pointing to the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the gallant Schemes of Politesse, For books, and buildings, politicks, and dress. This is True Taste, and whoso likes it not, Is blockhead, coxcomb, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... characterizes the dandy introduced to some one whom he doubts if he can nod to from the bow-window at White's,—none of such vulgar coxcombries had Lord Castleton; and yet a young gentleman more emphatically coxcomb it was impossible to see. He had been told, no doubt, that as the head of a house which was almost in itself a party in the state, he should be bland and civil to all men; and this duty being grafted upon a nature singularly cold ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Burgos? For what? To show my scars and hear court ladies Rail at the wars for making men so hideous? To bear the coxcomb's sneer, the minion's fawning, And see fools sweetly smile at my good fortune, Who, when my death was signed, smiled full as sweetly? No, no, I'll none on't. [Seeing Caesario.] Plagues and fiends! another! More gold and silk; more musk, fair words, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... for, suppose Jules 45 a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off—what do folks style it?—the bloom ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... exclaimed Dona Perfecta, rising suddenly to her feet. "Coxcomb, do you suppose that ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... wrath broke bounds and I cursed him for a beardless coxcomb who must needs think he stood alone in the eye of every woman he should meet. "She needs a man!" I raged, lost now to every sense of decent justice, "a man, I say! And to whom would she send if ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... in a very amiable frame of mind, altogether. In this mood, he joined the family at dinner; after which meal, a few glasses of brandy added fire to the smouldering element within him, and straightway he blazed forth: a gallant, a coxcomb. In this frame of mind, he always admired himself excessively, took stock of his burly legs and brawny shoulders, and smiled sentimentally before the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "Robber-Brothers," and a comic tale, also in verse, which, though slight in construction, is a masterpiece of graceful and elegant satire. It is entitled "Count Nulin," and describes the signal discomfiture of certain designs meditated by the count (a most delightful specimen of a young Russian coxcomb) against the virtue of his hostess, a fair chatelaine, at whose country-house the said count passes a night in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... passion when felt for a worthy object;—their eye is captivated, the exterior pleases, the heart and mind are not known, and, after six months union, they are surprised to find the beau ideal metamorphosed into a fool or a coxcomb. This is the issue of what are ordinarily called love-matches, because they are considered as such. "Cupid is indeed often blamed for deeds in which he has no share." In the opinion of the wise, the mischief is occasioned by the action of vivid imaginations upon minds ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... he spent a year in France with the double purpose of learning the language and living economically. Nelson, then a captain, was at this time by no means favourably impressed by his future friend and comrade, and spoke of him as a "great coxcomb." It was not until 1790 that Ball received a command. From that year, however, he was continuously employed. In 1798, assistance rendered by him to Nelson's ship in heavy weather caused the latter to forget ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... though?" Hite thought, a certain hope springing up with the joy of the very recollection of the simulacrum of the brilliant rural coxcomb adorning the page. "Jes' that me is Me. All he kin say 'bout me air that hyar I be goin' home from huntin' ter kerry my game. That ain't agin the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of man's life during both eras are here contrasted in every gradation. Thus we have the child as he was, the child as he is, commencing his education, and his entry into manhood; the coxcomb and dissipated man of former times, and the man of the present era, following the road leading to his own happiness and the good of others; middle age—the man struggling to draw the load up the hill with painful efforts, the other man engaged in congenial occupation; ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... mimic to devise Many grinning properties. Players there will be, and those Base in action as in clothes; Yet with strutting they will please The incurious villages. Near the dying of the day There will be a cudgel-play, Where a coxcomb will be broke, Ere a good word can be spoke: But the anger ends all here, Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer. —Happy rusticks! best content With the cheapest merriment; And possess no other fear, Than to ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... spring, mouth wide open, its crimson cavern glaring, teeth gleaming, eyes blazing, mane erect, paws spread, claws wide, the stoutest heart might well quail. Yet, after barely escaping one lion, this foolhardy coxcomb, this vainglorious madcap, joyously called for another and jauntily despatched him: whatever may be said against Commodus as a man and an Emperor, as an athlete he believed in himself and justified ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... concert night, and in the ball-room, it was curled, and then it was full of amatory conquests; and, as he was captain in the Cavalry Volunteers, on field days his hair was straight and lank—martial ardour gave him no time to attend to the fripperies of the coxcomb. These are but small particulars, but such are very important in the character of a great man. With his hair curled, he was jocular, even playful; with it lank, he was a great disciplinarian—had military subordination strong in respect—and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... and paternal character which you so obligingly recommend to my protection, without putting in some peril an honest fellow, called Philip Forester, with whom I have kept company for thirty years, and with whom, though some folk consider him a coxcomb, I have not the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... distant provinces of England, and shew the rich and changeable plumage of their fine neck to the summer sun; so from the warm and generous Briton of ancient days may be produced, and happily bred down, the clay-cold coxcomb of St. James's-street. ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of amusement. You see, she has no lover yet to fall back upon, as it were. Lots of admirers, though; but the old man wants to wed her to young Amador, son of old Catasus, the rich planter; and the sensible young lady dislikes Amador because he is a Spaniard, and a coxcomb into the bargain.' ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... annuals: Amarantus, celosia or coxcomb, cosmos, cotton, Lobelia Erinus, cobea, gourds, ice-plant, sensitive-plant, solanums, torenia, and such things as dahlias, caladiums, and acalypha used ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... once aspire to reign over all hearts—often because it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest creatures extant—the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is his sole merit; it was for such as these that women threw themselves away. The gilded wooden idols of the Restoration, for they were neither more nor less, had neither the antecedents of the petits maitres of the time of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... "This coxcomb says he was sent specially by Sir Henry to obtain from you some papers of great moment, which will ensure his immediate release. He bears Sir Henry's signet, and the knave ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... appeared under a form most pleasing to the author, was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to catch it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules. Moreover, the cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young man who was less pleased with producing ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... remembered well having seen him at an apprentices' dance at the May merrymakings, whither he had come apparelled in a rose-colored jerkin and light-hued hose, bedecked with flowers and greenery in his cap and belt; he had fooled with the daughters of the master of his guild like the coxcomb he was, and whirled them off to dance as though he did them high honor by paying court to them. It might, to be sure, have given him a lesson to find that his master's fair daughter scorned his suit; yet that sank not deep, inasmuch as it was for the sake of a Junker of high degree. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of room, house, surroundings, etc.—Frame house, front porch with two swings. Fence around yard. Chinaberry tree and Tree of Paradise, Coxcomb in yard. Southeast of Norton-Wheeler Stave ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... stationary things, we may be sure something is wrong; we are beginning to petrify. Our fresh interest in life has been arrested. There is, therefore, danger in an attempt to "size up" Shakespeare. We cannot help setting down as a coxcomb any man who has done it to his own satisfaction. He has pigeon-holed himself. He will not get lost. If you want him, you can lay your hand on him. He has written an autobiography. He has "sized ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... the "Baron de B.-W.!" Erreur! I, the Baron de B.-W., being of sound mind and body, hereby declare that the Baron himself was not present. And why? Well, do my readers remember the honest milk-maid's retort to the coxcomb who said he wouldn't marry her? Good. Then, substituting "me" for "you," and "he" for "she," the Baron can adopt the maiden's reply. After this, other ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... the kind. The King persisted, and told him he was wrong to endeavour to conceal a fact which was unquestionable. It was rumoured, also, that the Abbe de Bernis had been a favoured lover of hers. The said Abbe was rather a coxcomb; he had a handsome face, and wrote poetry. Madame de Pompadour was the theme of his gallant verses. He sometimes received the compliments of his friends upon his success with a smile which left some room ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... dare to say how warm a welcome he accorded to this suggestion, but it was dangerously sweet to him, and he had self-understanding enough to recognise that fact. But he was in no mood to struggle against whatever Fate might bring. He was not coxcomb enough to conceive himself likely to be dangerous to a witty and experienced woman of the world, and as to what might happen to himself he did not care. He was desolate enough to be desperate, and if in two short days he ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... she? Ask the son of Job. She's an adulteress. Married but a few weeks ago to the brave old son of Job, her parents' friend, she deceives him with a young coxcomb, ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... his want of personal vanity; on this account he determined on a journey to Paris, when Paris was the center of politeness; he there learnt to dress, to dance, and to move his hands gracefully in conversation; and returned a most consummate coxcomb. But after a very few years he relapsed into rusticity of dress ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... spite and passion, and an endeavor of bringing all Nonconformists into the same condition, that he is afeard matters will not go so well as he could wish.... To my office all the afternoon; Lord! how Sir J. Minnes, like a mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath still the old heart against the King that ever he had, ... and all the damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little; but, upon the whole, I find him still a foole, led by the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... away. Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my shadow. Many girls might have been taken in, for never were such attentions; but I knew the fickle sex too well. He went away to his regiment two days ago, and I trust I shall never be plagued with him again. He is the greatest coxcomb I ever saw, and amazingly disagreeable. The last two days he was always by the side of Charlotte Davis: I pitied his taste, but took no notice of him. The last time we met was in Bath Street, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... all blockheads, scholars are the worst.' BOSWELL. Johnson's meaning, however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead must be the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that all scholars are blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, 'to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.' A writer ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... of fortune and leisure should feel himself bound to employ himself in some way towards promoting the prosperity or glory of the nation. In a country where intellect and action are trammelled and restrained, men of rank and fortune may become idlers and triflers with impunity; but an English coxcomb is inexcusable; and this, perhaps, is the reason why he is the most offensive and insupportable coxcomb ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Suzanne at six o'clock this morning," the old fellow went on. "And the duke—ah, take care how you come near him, sir! Oh, it's a kettle of fish! For as I came I met that coxcomb Lafleur riding back with a message from the duke's guests that they would not come to-day! So the duchess is gone, and the ladies are not come; and the duke—he has nothing to do but curse that whippersnapper of a ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... you, you villain!" he cried. "You French coxcomb. You shall pay me for the wrong ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Colonel, putting his hand in the coxcomb's. "Meanwhile I am going to look for Soulanges; he perhaps knows the lady, as she seems interested ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... intimately. She was still living in the same house that they had inhabited together, when Mr. Mohl kindly gave them the benefit of his more practical sense in household management. Madame Mohl was rather severe about Jean Jacques Ampere, whom she called a "young coxcomb," and "an egotist." She was not sentimental, and had no sympathy with or pity for the love so long faithful to Madame Recamier; nay, I thought I could detect in her strictures the unconscious feminine jealousy of a lady whose salon had been forsaken by one of ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... an answer so little to his mind, was almost bursting with rage. "Proceed with caution!" he cried. "You talk as if the thing could be entertained, or as if I had cause to fear the coxcomb! On the contrary, I intend to teach him a lesson a little confinement will cool his temper. You must give me a letter, my friend, and we will clap him in the Bastille for a ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the strength of his genealogical tree, the old man swung himself off with a coxcomb's air, as if he himself had once made a conquest of the Marchesa di Spinola, and still possessed ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... sure that he is a great man. I am not a bit the wiser for any of his discoveries, nor I never met with any one that was. But it is in the nature of greatness to propagate an idea of itself, as wave impels wave, circle without circle. It is a contradiction in terms for a coxcomb to be a great man. A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself. I have observed that certain sectaries and polemical writers have no higher compliment to pay their most shining lights than to say that "Such a one was a considerable man ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... "You do well to draw back You are wise to avoid discomfiture. This lady is not for you. When she is won, it will be by some bold and gallant gentleman, and by no mincing squire of dames, no courtly coxcomb, no fop of the Luxembourg, be his experiences of dalliance never ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... Arabian tales of young men becoming madly enamoured of beautiful girls from seeing their portraits—though we can readily believe that an Arab as well as a Persian or Indian youth might fall in love with a pretty maid from a mere description of her personal charms, as we are told of the Bedouin coxcomb Amarah in the Romance of Antar. If the Turkish version, which recounts the adventures of the Prince Abd es-Samed in quest of the lacking image (the tenth, not the ninth, as in the Arabian) was adapted from Zayn al-Asnam, the author has made considerable modifications in re-telling ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... (roof) tegi. Cover kovrilo. Covet avidi. Covetousness avideco. Covey kovitaro. Cow bovino. Coward malkuragxulo. Cowardice malkuragxeco. Cowherd bovgardisto. Cow shed bovinejo. Cowl kapucxo. Cowslip verprimolo. Coxcomb dando. Coy rezerva. Coyness rezerveco. Cozen trompi. Crab kankro. Crack (split) fendi. Crack (noise) kraki. Crackle kraketi. Cradle lulilo. Craft ruzo. Craft (vessel) sxipeto. Crafty, to be ruzi. Crafty ruza. Cram (of food) supersatigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... nicked it. There's the devil upon devil. Oh, the pride and joy of heart 'twould be to me to have my son and heir resemble such a duke; to have a fleering coxcomb scoff and cry, 'Mr. your son's mighty like his Grace, has just his smile and air of's face.' Then replies another, 'Methinks he has more of the Marquess of such a place about his nose and eyes, though he has my Lord what-d'ye-call's mouth ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but, because he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... himself afflicted with the dreadful disease with the long Latin name, the meaning of which he does not by any means comprehend? And did not the poems of our friend Bavius Blunderbore, Esq., which were of "a low and moderate sort," cause you to giggle yourself wellnigh into an asphyxy,—calf and coxcomb as he was? Is not ——'s last novel a better antidote against melancholy, stupendously absurd as it is, than foalfoot or plantain, featherfew or savin, agrimony or saxifrage, or any other herb in old Robert Burton's pharmacopoeia? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... irregular; Where woods and palaces at once surprise, Gardens on gardens, domes on domes arise, And endless beauties tire the wand'ring eyes; So sooth my wishes, or so charm my mind, As this retreat secure from human kind. No knave's successful craft does spleen excite, No coxcomb's tawdry splendour shocks my sight; No mob-alarm awakes my female fear, No praise my mind, nor envy hurts my ear, Ev'n fame itself can hardly reach me here: Impertinence with all her tattling train, Fair-sounding flattery's delicious bane; Censorious folly, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... it all, sir,' I said with a gulp, for it was an awful knockdown to a coxcomb of a chap like I was, who had reckoned on the fine feathers and spurs and the rest ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... the children, and we never observed an instance of rudeness in any one of them, though they were as full of life and spirits as the wildest English school-boys. John the Chinaman afforded them much amusement: he was a great coxcomb, and therefore fair game for the boys; they used to surround him and pretend to pull his long tail; but they never actually pulled it, but merely teazed him a little, and then ran away. These little traits seem worthy of notice, as they belong to a style ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... Pamela, you believe all you have said, no doubt: and this matter has a black appearance, indeed, if you do. But who was your first informant?—Was that by letter or personally? That Turner, I doubt not, is at the bottom of all this. The vain coxcomb has had the insolence to imagine the Countess would favour an address of his; and is enraged to meet with a repulse; and has taken liberties upon it, that have given birth to all the scandals scattered about on this ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... obsolete; his garniture, equipment, environment all very dark to us. Probably a too restless, imponderous creature, too much of the Gundling type; structure of him GASEOUS, not solid; Perhaps a little of the coxcomb naturally; much of the sycophant on compulsion,—being sorely jammed into corners, and without elbow-room at all, in this world. Has, for the rest, a recognizable talent for "Magazine writing,"—for Newspaper editing, had ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... interesting story illustrative of the practice of carrying one's reading around with one is that which is told of Professor Porson, the Greek scholar. This human monument of learning happened to be travelling in the same coach with a coxcomb who sought to air his pretended learning by quotations from the ancients. At ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... reader suppose that he was either a superannuated coxcomb or a driveling dotard. He was a man of sense and feeling, but his passion for Julia had, for the time, changed all his manner and habits.—He saw that she was a young and lovely woman, about to give herself to the arms of a man thrice her age; and he wished to render the union ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... learning in England, his Lordship mentioned Hermes by Mr Harris of Salisbury, as the work of a living authour, for whom he had a great respect. Dr Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we were in our post-chaise, told me, he thought Harris 'a coxcomb'. This he said of him, not as a man, but as an authour; and I give his opinions of men and books, faithfully, whether they agree with my own, or not. I do admit, that there always appeared to me something of affectation in Mr Harris's manner of writing; something ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Johnson's Dict. "The greater slow worm, called also the blindworm, is commonly thought to be blind, because of the littleness of his eyes."—GREW: ib. "Oh Hocus! where art thou? It used to go in another guess manner in thy time."—ARBUTHNOT: ib. "One would not make a hotheaded crackbrained coxcomb forward for a scheme of moderation."—ID.: ib. "As for you, colonel huff-cap, we shall try before a civil magistrate who's the greatest plotter."—DRYDEN: ib., w. Huff. "In like manner, Actions co-alesce with their Agents, and Passions with their Patients."—Harris's Hermes, p. 263. "These ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Prince to the private Gentleman. I make free to tell you in a Word, if this passes, there's an End of good Manhood in the King's Dominions. How must all the Important Quarrels, which happen in Life, among men of Honour, be decided? Must a heedless sawcy Coxcomb frown, or tread upon a Gentleman's Toes with Impunity? No, I suppose, the great Cause of Honour must be determined by the womanish Revenge of Scolding; and when two Peers or Gentlemen have had some manly ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... manner hardly showed any real intimacy between them. And it was easy to see where the real authority lay. As for himself he had lately begun to ask himself seriously how much he was interested in Pamela. For in truth, though he was no coxcomb, he could not help seeing—all the more because of Pamela's variable moods towards him—that she was at least incipiently interested in him. If so, was it fair to her that they should correspond?—and that he should come to Mannering ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sailing from the shore, it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; to be threatened with desertion, in order ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... like Rastignac, the 'English system' at my finger-ends, and I very soon saw myself without a penny. I fell at once into that precarious way of life which industriously hides cold and miserable depths beneath an elusive surface of luxury; I was a coxcomb without conquests, a penniless fop, a nameless gallant. The old sufferings were renewed, but less sharply; no doubt I was growing used to the painful crisis. Very often my sole diet consisted of the scanty provision of cakes and tea ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... search for pride's eviction, A coxcomb claims a high distinction. Not to one age or sex confined Are coxcombs, but of rank and kind; Pervading all ranks, great and small, Who take and never give the wall. By ignorance is pride increased; They ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... wares of all kinds that come from England. The printer tells his hawkers that he has got "an excellent new song just brought from London." I have somewhat of a tendency that way myself; and upon hearing a coxcomb from thence displaying himself with great volubility upon the park, the playhouse, the opera, the gaming ordinaries, it was apt to beget in me a kind of veneration for his parts and accomplishments. 'Tis not many years, since I remember a person who by his style ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... between a French and an English dandy: the first is an impertinent, affected coxcomb, who makes love to every woman as a matter of course—it is his vocation. The second is a cold, contemptuous, conceited creature, intrenched in a double armour of selfishness, blase ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... heiress, once, of Bowdale Hall, A lovely lass, I knew— A Dandy paid his morning call, All dizen'd out to woo. I heard his suit the Coxcomb ply; I heard her answer—"No;" A true love knot he ne'er could tie, Who ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... peace, as a new peace may be relied on during the throes of a bloody war, to tranquillize its wounds. Consequently, when the arrogant Louvois carried a war to the credit of his own little account on the national leger of France, this coxcomb well knew that a war was at any rate due about that time. Really, says he, I must find out some little war to exhaust the surplus irritability of this person, or he'll be the death of me. But irritable or not irritable, with a puppy for his minister or not, the French king would naturally ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... coxcomb!" said Albert,—"There is a tester for thee, boy, and tell thy master to break his jests on suitable persons, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... package, and, with preter-careful hands, dropped a long white mantle over the shoulders of the ministerial coxcomb. Is light folds closed around him, and, with an Olympian nod, he turned toward the door, while the valet flew to open it. As soon as the count appeared, the other valets, who, with the hair-dresser, stood on either ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to the time of his matriculation in Chaussee d'Antin, was a romantic-looking sloven. From this to a very dashing coxcomb is but half a step, and, to be rid of the coxcombry and retain a look of fashion, is still within the easy limits of imitation. But—to obtain superiority of presence, with no apparent aid from dress and no describable manner, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... odd," for such he was when he wrote "The Egotist," unfolds his character by many lively personal touches. He declares he could not have "given the world so finished a coxcomb as Lord Foppington, if he had not found a good deal of the same stuff in himself to make him with." He addresses "A Postscript, To those few unfortunate Readers and Writers who may not have more sense than the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... instantaneous outbreak of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been wrapped, as it were, in a sort of holy trance, by the fervor of their devotion. There is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief, and brush the seat of a tight pair of black silk pantaloons, which shine as if varnished. They must have been made of the stuff called "everlasting," or perhaps ...
— Sunday at Home (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doctrine of signatures," Suggests Mr. Ellacombe, [19] that it would stop the growth of children. Thus Shakespeare, in his "Midsummer Night's Dream" (Act iii. sc. 2), alludes to it as the "hindering knot-grass," and in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Coxcomb" (Act ii. sc. 2) it is ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... Dorset; Johnson's Life of Dorset; Dryden's Essay on Satire, and Dedication of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife and his strict fidelity to her are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir George Etherege in his letters from Ratisbon, Dec. 9/19 1687, and Jan. 16/26 1688; Shadwell's Dedication of the Squire of Alsatia; Burnet, i. 264.; Mackay's Characters. Some parts of Dorset's character are well touched in his epitaph, written ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... yet handsomer than he had been, more set and manly, though still he affected his coxcomb party-coloured dress with the turned-up shoes of which the points were fastened by little golden chains beneath the knee. Still he was a fine man with his roving black eyes, his loose mouth and little pointed beard from which, as from his hair, came an odour of scents. Seeing me in my merchant's ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... to a good Genius to grasp at too much. "A certain Magistrate (says Bruyere) arriving, by his Merit, to the first Dignities of the Gown, thought himself qualified for every Thing. He printed a Treatise of Morality, and published himself a Coxcomb." Universal Genij and universal Scholars are generally excellent at nothing. He is certainly the wisest Man, who endeavours to be perfectly furnished for some Business, and regards other Matters as no ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... I don't know what is the matter with them,' said Lucy. 'Gilbert is gone out—nobody knows where—and when I told Sophy who was here, she said Captain Ferrars was an empty-headed coxcomb, and she did ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hang over its pages! What springs of feeling it has opened! Goldsmith's books are influences and friends forever, yet the five thousandth copy was never announced, and Oliver Goldsmith, M. D., often wanted a dinner! Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of literature, smiled at him contemptuously from his gilded carriage. Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Philip, frequently passed by La Blanchotte's house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house. Notwithstanding, being, like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual when she ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Imperious coxcomb! is your stomach vexed? Pray slack your rage, and hearken what comes next: I have a writ to take you up; therefore, To chafe your blood, I bid you ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... No, faith—we met—but, the lady not condescending to give me any serious reasons for having fooled me for a month, I left her in a huff. Fash. Well, well, I'll answer for it she'll soon resume her power, especially as friendship will prevent your pursuing the other too far.—But my coxcomb of a brother is an admirer of Amanda's too, is he? Col. Town. Yes, and I believe is most heartily despised by her. But come with me, and you shall see her and your old friend Loveless. Fash. I must pay my respects to his lordship—perhaps you can direct me to his lodgings. Col. ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... was extremely complex; its analysis, I fear, may baffle us. It must have seemed to you—as it certainly seemed to Mistress Winthrop—that he made a mock of her; that in truth he was the impudent, fleering coxcomb she pronounced him, and nothing more. Not so. Mock he most certainly did; but his mockery was all aimed to strike himself on the recoil—himself and the sentiments which had sprung to being in his soul, and to which—nameless as he was, pledged as he was to a task ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Thither no coxcomb comes. (Valre again bows to him). What the deuce!... (He turns and sees Ergaste bowing on the other side). Another? What a ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb enough to think—coxcomb though he was—might be ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... style, her countenance wearing a look of such innocence and candor! O father! I loved her, and I, the experienced man of the world, allowed myself to be deceived by that young girl, who knew nothing of the world, and was yet such an accomplished hypocrite! Think not that I was a mere idle coxcomb, arrogantly basing his expectations upon his wishes. No, she deceived me, she disappointed me! You should have seen her at that fete which you gave to the Electoral Prince. How tenderly she leaned upon my arm, as we walked through the greenhouse, with what glowing cheeks, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... meat: that I ordered likewise; but then he gave over shaving to look over every thing one after another; and this survey lasted almost half an hour. I raged, and stormed, and went mad, but it signified nothing, the coxcomb never troubled himself. He, however, took up his razor again, and shaved me for some moments; then stopping all on a sudden, I could not have believed, sir, that you would have been so liberal; I begin to perceive that your deceased father lives again in you: most certainly ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and gentlemen liking Wapping publicans—of course, unsentimental, unfashionable Mr. Opie denounced the degeneracy of his competitor's style. 'Lawrence makes coxcombs of his sitters, and they make a coxcomb of him.' Still 'the quality' flocked to the studios of Messrs. Hoppner and Lawrence, and the rival easels were long adorned with the most ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... disguised as pigs, for a peck of salt. Finally Dicaeopolis goes forth to a wedding banquet, from which he returns very mellow in the company of two flute girls; while Lamachus, the head of the war party, issues forth to do battle with the Boeotians in the snow, and comes back with a bloody coxcomb. This play was successfully given in Greek by the students of the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1886, and interestingly discussed in the Nation of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... occurs in a performance of our own growth, exclaim, with an air of disgust, "Was ever anything so mean! sure, this writer must have been very conversant with the lowest scenes of life;"—who, when Swift or Pope represents a coxcomb in the act of swearing, scruple not to laugh at the ridiculous execrations; but, in a less reputed author, condemn the use of such profane expletives;—who eagerly explore the jakes of Rabelais, for amusement, and even ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The redbird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act challenge the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Sir John Doddridge, judge of the Court of King's Bench, would have blushed to think that his great-grandnephew was to be a Puritan preacher. With more reason might Dr. Doddridge have blushed to think that his great-grandson was to be a coxcomb. But so it has proved. Twenty years ago Mr. John Doddridge Humphreys gave to the world five octavos of his ancestor's correspondence, which, on the whole, we deem the most eminent instance, in modern times, of editorial ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of arms, In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms; While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high, And steal from me Maria's prying eye. Blest Highland bonnet! Once my proudest dress, Now prouder still, Maria's temples press. I see her wave thy towering plumes afar, And call each coxcomb to the wordy war. I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,[110] And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze; The crafty colonel[111] leaves the tartan'd lines, For other wars, where he a hero shines; The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred, Who owns a Bushby's ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... When coxcomb waiters know their trade, Nor mix their sauces[4] with cookey's; When John's no longer chamber maid, And printed well a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... lordship, walking into a coffee-house, and taking up the evening paper, began poring over its paragraphs. A coxcomb in an adjoining box, who had frequently called to the waiter for the paper, walked over to Lord Camelford's box, and, seeing him lay down the paper for the moment while he was sipping his coffee, took it up, and walked off with it without ceremony. His lordship bore the performance without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... the young Spark his Son (miserably in want of Cash) joyn with the Slave in the Intrigue, that he may get somewhat to stop his Mistress's Mouth, whom he keeps unknown to his Father; to see a bragging Coxcomb wheadled and abus'd by some cunning Parasite; to hear a Glutton talk of nothing but his Belly, and the like. Our Plots go chiefly upon variety of Love-Intrigues, Ladies Cuckolding their Husbands most dextrously; ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... those who have feeling minds, pain and pleasure altogether computed, have the advantage; or at least they think so; for they would not change with those who have them not, were they to gain by the bargain the most robust body that the most selfish coxcomb, or the heaviest dunce extant, ever boasted. For instance, would you now, my lord, at this moment, change altogether with Major Benson, or Captain Williamson, or even with our friend, 'Eh, really now, 'pon honour'—would you?—I'm glad to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... nourished his experience on French novels; he had corrected it by various friendships; he had crowned it with the confession that one could never tell what the sex meant one way or the other. But this fact remained—he was a coxcomb, and, whenever he owned himself puzzled, it was on a single ground only—how seriously was the lady at stake affected by his charms? Feeling, as he did, the infinite inequality that existed between men, and conscious of his own reputation as a leader among ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... is by the wishes of his mother and the lady's father designed for Celinda, who loves Bellmour, nephew to Lord Plotwell. A coxcomb of the first water, Sir Timothy receives a sharp rebuff when he opens his suit, and accordingly he challenges Bellmour, but fails to appear at the place of meeting. Celinda's old nurse, at night, admits Bellmour to her mistress' chamber, where they ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... you, young girls—I do not mean you whose heart is that of an old coxcomb, though your looks have not yet lost their sunny tinge. Not of you whose whole character is tainted with vanity, inherited or taught, who have early learned the love of coquettish excitement, and whose eyes rove restlessly in search of a "conquest" ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... man to whom she had addressed this very innocent question. She thought it was at her they were laughing, whereas the fact was that Chatty was supposed by those who heard her to be a satirist of more than usual audacity, putting a coxcomb to deserved but ruthless shame. Naturally she knew nothing of this, and blushed crimson at her evidently foolish remark, and retired in great confusion into herself, not conscious even of the stumbling reply. She was almost immediately conscious, however, of a face which ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... has passed through my head! I have made this miserable coxcomb Braschi a cardinal because he was not honest enough for a treasurer, but in doing so I have paved the way for him to the papal throne! Would it not be strange, Lorenzo, if I have thus myself provided my successor? His dishonesty ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... hand to his head; "some such thought was in my mind this afternoon when I heard of your riding. Stay! I have it! I was at Ampthill, Ossory's place, just before I left. Some insupportable coxcomb was boasting a marvellous run with the hounds nigh across Hertfordshire, and Miss Manners brought him up with a round turn and a half hitch by relating one of your exploits, Richard Carvel. And take my word on't she got no small applause. She told how you had followed a fox over one of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... man and a woman slowly climbing the mound together. There was no doubt in my mind as to the identity of the Queen and De Noyan. Faith! but it would have pleased me then to put hand upon the false coxcomb and choke him back to decency and duty. The look of it was in my face, no doubt, as I stared down upon them in helplessness, for the Jesuit rested his fingers gently upon my arm, as though he would restrain ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... sprightly drama of A Marriage Ceremony, there is a scene giving a fair example of the author's style in touching passages. When Hilda, deeply in love with Rutherford Hope, hears of his union with another woman, she takes the readiest means of effacing herself by suddenly marrying a shallow coxcomb who seeks her for mercenary reasons, and going with him to Australia. Years afterwards she is so affected by the sudden reappearance of Rutherford, and by subsequent ill-treatment received from her jealous husband, that an exhausting ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... been taken with his name and standing. But with all his quickness of feeling, his manners were easy and courteous, simply because his nature was warm and kindly, and with all his natural fastidiousness there was nothing of the coxcomb about him. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... required all their natural tact to conceal from their guest the flutter of their nerves caused by his sacred presence; but they did succeed, and so well that Camors was slightly piqued. If not a coxcomb, he was at least young: he was accustomed to please: he knew the Princess de Clam-Goritz had lately applied to him her learned definition of an agreeable man—"He is charming, for one always feels ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet |
