"Deprecation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost should have feared, that such large payments, collected from day to day, would have produced want in the treasury, a deprecation of all fictitious values, and consequently all the evils which befall a country that has no money, while ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... Don Jorge, with a gesture of deprecation. Then: "I told you on the boat that I had lost a wife and girl. The Church got them both. I tell you this because I know you, too, have grievances against her. Caramba! Yet I will tell you only a part. I lived in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and plough-gear which they were mending between them, opened wide mouths and became immovable save for the whites of astonished rolling eyes. Then, and this exceeded all precedent, Richard Mivane clutched his valued peruke and, with an inward plaintive deprecation of the extremity of this act of desperation, he cast it upon the hat, and looked around, bald, despairing, furious, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of you to throw our compass overboard, and to adopt caprice as our pilot. Skepticism or wayward choice, you may think, can be the only results of such a formless method as I have taken up. A few remarks in deprecation of such an opinion, and in farther explanation of the empiricist principles which I profess, may therefore appear at this point to ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... many people do have to wash their own dishes, and sweep, and scour; but that is no reason it ought not to be done. I always thought it was rather a pity that was said, just so," Mrs. Megilp proceeded, with a mild deprecation of the Scripture. "There is toiling and spinning; and will be to the end of time, for ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... very hard in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him, took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made a little bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such a subject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favourite saint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow, as ever man made. Immediately ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... she exclaimed; then, with a quick gesture of deprecation, moved again toward him; but Mr. Laudersdale had coldly passed to make his compliments ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... go the day after to-morrow," said Lady Marney, speaking in a whisper, and looking volumes of deprecation. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... "Well, you mightn't guess it from my looks," he answered with an attempt to ingratiate himself by way of self-deprecation, "but I am pretty good at working out ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was the cause, miss, an' I hope as it'll be taken into account, an' considered a lucidation of his conduct. It takes but very little, I'm sorry to say, miss, to upset his behavior—not more'n a pint at the outside.—But it don't last! bless you, it don't last!" he added, in a tone of extreme deprecation; "there's not a morsel of harm in him, poor fellow—though I says it as shouldn't! Not as the guv'nor do anything more'n his duty in puttin' of him out—nowise! I know him well, bein' my wife's brother—leastways half-brother—for I don't want to take more o' the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... with a certain inward deprecation of the grin that spread over his face, and the responsive levity of his phrase, "There was a change of hands, but the one that kep' the fire goun' the hardes' and the hottes' ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... Some may say, "Our own service is public worship." Yes, in a sense, but not such as to supersede the Church service. We never designed it should! If it were designed to be instead of the Church service it would be essentially defective, for it seldom has the four grand parts of public prayer—deprecation, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving. Neither is it, even on the Lord's Day, concluded with the Lord's Supper. If the people put ours in the place of the Church service, we hurt them that stay with us and ruin them that leave us.' In 1768, 'We are, in truth, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... are not supposed to discuss the merits of our ruler," said Popova, fairly startled at the candid tone of the other. He lifted one hand in timid deprecation. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... cautiously crept around by the wall, feeling his way, but occasionally striking and jarring a picture frame or looking glass as he passed, and muttering good-humored little growls of deprecation, and finally making the sofa creak as he struck and sat ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... hands in mock deprecation; then, dropping his bantering tone, said, as he puffed ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... But further deprecation on my part was cut short by the appearance of two of the guard, by whom I was marched to the presence of the tribunal. The day had now waned, and two or three lamps showed my weary eye the judges, whose decision was to make the difference to me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... I owe you." She made a gesture of deprecation. "It's the money you lent me," he went on. "It's a tremendous satisfaction—that at least—to be able to bring it ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... breast (a slender white staff with which he journey'd being in his right)—when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order;—and did it with so simple a grace,—and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure,—I was bewitch'd not to have been struck ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... Union," and talked of the inevitable collapse. But who ever heard of a city built by people of his way of thinking? And there was Josie Trescott, with her agreement on broad lines with the General, and her deprecation of the giving of fortunes to people who had not earned them; but Josie was only a woman, who, to be sure, knew more of most matters than the rest of us, but could not have any very valuable knowledge of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... point, which the enthusiasm of Mr. Wilberforce may be said to have forced upon him. A letter from Sir William Young touches on this matter; and alludes, also, to some unseemly conduct on the part of the Princes, which is spoken of in a similar spirit of deprecation in other letters. The circumstances that rendered their proceedings on this occasion the more conspicuous and objectionable were, that the ball at White's Club, referred to, was given in honour of His Majesty's ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... that he accepted the compliment as his due, though he waved his hand with an air of deprecation. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... off with a laugh and threw out his hands in a gesture of deprecation; for Sor Teresa had placed her two hands over that part of her cap which ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... so whilst no claimant of public notice—as being so, it is most arrogant in you to be modest. This would be the criticism applied justly to a man who, in Kant's situation, as the author of a new system, should use a language of unseasonable modesty or deprecation. To have spoken boldly of himself was a duty; we could not tolerate his doing otherwise. But to speak of himself in the exclusive terms I have described, does certainly seem, and for years did seem to myself, little short of insanity. Of this I am sure that no student of Kant, having ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... vexed about anything? What have I done?" she asked, in a tone of anxious deprecation which no other person but Harrison Cordis had ever heard ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... sally his simple visitors had no answer, and they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large bunches of roses—one of them all white, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... even through the disguise of a studio 'costume,' the finely-perceptive genius of Reynolds has managed to suggest much that is most appealing in his sitter's nature. Past suffering, present endurance, the craving to be understood, the mute deprecation of contempt, are all written legibly in this pathetic picture. It has been frequently copied, often very ineffectively, for so subtle is the art that the slightest deviation hopelessly distorts and vulgarizes what Reynolds has done supremely, once ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... instant, from what he had been he became the frank and guileless nobleman. "A slip of the tongue, Captain Percy!" he cried, his white teeth showing and his hand raised in a gesture of deprecation. "A natural thing, seeing how often, how very often, I have so addressed this lady in the days when we had not the pleasure of your acquaintance." He turned to her and bowed, until the feather in his hat swept the ground. "I won then," he said. "I shall win again—Mistress Percy," and ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... punctuated by visits to the Polish "bar" and cafe. At these it came as somewhat of a surprise to have tips refused. I paid for my dinner and added the customary ten per cent. The waiter drew himself up and waved his hand in deprecation. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Marshal answered, in accents of deprecation. There were times when the young King would show his impatience of the Italian ring, the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with whom ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... said, bowing a little in his chair, spreading out his hands in a gesture of deprecation and grinning ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... had always had an objection to the playing of cards on Sundays. "Well," said Lord Houghton, "we must get Lady Herbert to speak to him about it." Lady Herbert, hearing her name, asked what she was wanted to do. Lord Houghton explained, and she, in tones of caressing deprecation, repeated that, as to this matter, Lord Howard was afflicted with a strong Protestant prejudice. "My dear lady," said Lord Houghton, taking both her hands, "what's the good of belonging to that curious superstition of yours if one mayn't play cards on Sunday?" Through her mediation the desired indulgence ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... persons of its advocates. If there were nothing but metaphysical wickedness in the world, how effective it would be never to allude to a wicked man! If Slavery itself were the pale, thin ghost of an abstraction, how bloodless this war would be! Fine words, genteel deprecation, and magnanimous generality are the tricks of villany. Indignant Mercy works with other tools; she leaps with the directness of lightning, and the same unsparing sincerity, to the spot to which she is attracted. What rogue ever felt the clutch of a stern phrase ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Crane had not been quite so strong, quite so full of unexpressed power, he would have rebelled at the assertion that he had stuck Porter; but he answered, and his voice struggled between asperity and deprecation, "There ain't no call for me to give that stable any pointers; Porter put it to me pretty straight that the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... show of deprecation. He said he did not think the story would bear immediate repetition, or was even worth telling once, but, if we had nothing better to do, perhaps we might do worse than hear it; the most he could say for it was that the thing really happened. He wore a large, drooping, gray mustache, ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... "Compliment!" in various tones of deprecation, and Josephine added a meaning little laugh for her own share, for which Edgar gave her a kiss, and said in a bantering kind of voice, "Now, Joseph! mind what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... object he had descried. The owl still watched him, and bobbed its head and hooted after him. When he drew near the lightning-scathed tree, he paused rooted to the spot, gazing in astonishment, his hat on the back of his tow head, his eyes opened wide, one finger inserted in his mouth in silent deprecation. ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... and prevent its being longer possessed with an image that excluded every other; he assumed a look of concern and astonishment at the imputation of a crime, which was at once so horrid and so unnecessary. After a solemn deprecation of such enormous guilt, he observed, that as it was now impossible for HAMET to succeed as his rival, either in empire or in love, without the breach of a command, which he knew his virtue would implicitly obey; ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart. He made the governess, in a few but solemn words, an offer of his hand. There was something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to her—half in deprecation, knowing that he could hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young girl, and praying rather that she would reject him, even though she broke his heart by doing so, than that she should accept his offer if ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... may give points to Sahara and beat that abode of mental depression without an effort. So far as the eye could reach there was no habitation to break the line of horizon. A few stunted fir-trees, standing in a position of permanent deprecation, with their backs turned, as it were, to the north, stood sparsely on the plain. The grass did not look good to eat, though the Cossack horses would no doubt have liked to try it. The road seemed to have been drawn by some Titan engineer ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations, were every man jack of them so parented. Even William ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... defend professionally a cause that otherwise does not interest them in the least. Surely, if these holy men really believed in a just retributive God, they would never dare to utter the word war, without horror and deprecation. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... woollens, immense squares of butter, tea, and the usual et ceteras, to the utter impoverishment of his stores: these he offered to the two Sahibs, "in token of his amity with the British government, his desire for peace, and deprecation of angry discussions." The Ranee sent silk purses, fans, and such Tibetan paraphernalia, with an equally amicable message, that "she was most anxious to avert the consequences of whatever complaints had ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of business that I come to kiss the Senora's hand to-day," he replied, with a melancholy softness; "it is as her neighbor, to put myself at her disposition. Ah! what have we here fit for a lady?" he continued, raising his eyes in deprecation of the surroundings; "a house of nothing, a place of winds and dry bones, without refreshments, or satisfaction, or delicacy. The Senora will not refuse to make us proud this day to send her of that which we have in our poor ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... his wives to do mason-work. Husbands, at least when of high rank, had the power of life and death; even whites seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when they had transgressed beyond forgiveness, made haste to pronounce the formula of deprecation—I Kana Kim. This form of words had so much virtue that a condemned criminal, repeating it on a particular day to the king who had condemned him, must be instantly released. It is an offer of abasement, and, strangely enough, the reverse—the imitation—is a common vulgar insult in Great Britain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... might have figured the irregularities and obstructions of such a stream. Lord Lambeth listened to her with, it must be confessed, a rather ineffectual attention, although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and ejaculations of assent and deprecation. He had no great faculty for apprehending generalizations. There were some three or four indeed which, in the play of his own intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed convenient at the moment; but at the present time he could hardly have been said to follow ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... turning upon the assemblage a face fierce with triumph. Suspense and suspicions were past now; he was to see his desire on his enemy. But instantly a dozen men were on their feet—St. Pierre, Catou, Bonaventure himself, with a countenance full of pleading deprecation, and even ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... left her to herself, till he could bring word. Now she stood, listening to the nearing jingle that accompanied his footsteps, her hands clasped involuntarily against her breast in rigid tension. And when she saw his face through the dusk, saw the courteous deprecation of it, the solicitous sympathy, she did not need his words to tell her that it was not yet ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of the New Jersey members and proceed with the roll till the House should be formed, when the question could be decided. Plausible as appeared this abstention from an exercise of authority in so grave a dispute, it was nevertheless really an assumption and (p. 291) not a deprecation of power, and as such was altogether unjustifiable. The clerk's sole business was to call the names of those persons who presented the usual formal credentials; he had no right to take cognizance that the seats of any such persons might be the subject of a contest, which could properly ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... the men who made the French Revolution, and if the success of the Revolution is due to the teaching of Rousseau more than to that of any other French philosopher, the crimes and mistakes of the Revolution are directly to be traced to his influence, and this in spite of Rousseau's deprecation of violence.[73] ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... Martha with a bob of deprecation mingled with deference, "to come into the fields by the town's end, where is one would speak ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... in self-deprecation. "I like a good fighter," he said; "I was never one myself. If I had been I would have accomplished more. Yes, you shall go up a mile or so in the air—and a thousand miles beyond." He turned to close the door and seal ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the confused hunter, rising hurriedly to his feet, and lifting his cap, in a tremor of respectful deprecation, before the general, while his tongue began to trip and fly in the vain attempt to ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... missionaries, is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation. Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath they felt themselves exposed, from ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... strengthened again with its former unnatural strength; the demon raged within him in renewed fury as he tore his robe which Numerian held as he lay at his feet from the feeble grasp that confined it, and, striding up to the pile of idols, stretched out his hands in solemn deprecation. 'The high priest has slept before the altar of the gods!' he cried loudly, 'but they have been patient with their well-beloved; their thunder has not struck him for his crime! Now the servant returns to his service—the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... room made little sounds of pitying deprecation of old Isom's penury, and when Hammer drew from her, with evident reluctance on her part to yield it up, the story of her hard-driven, starved, and stingy life under Isom's roof, they put their ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Anointed, and vengeance shall pursue him. Tell me not, in deprecation of this sentiment "Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord." Human justice has its work and must follow the assassin, if need be, to the very gates of hell! It is God's edict that he who causelessly takes any human life, "By men shall his blood be shed"—how ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... teacher was speaking. At the close, this Chief was found sitting on the ground outside, his back to the door, his head bent forward and buried in his arms. He was weeping. When spoken to, he raised his arm with a movement of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation, said—"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one awakened chord of human ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... however, of the strange incidents of 1834; the indignant, soon to become vituperative, secession of a considerable section of the cabinet, some of them esteemed too at that time among its most efficient members; the piteous deprecation of 'pressure from without,' from lips hitherto deemed too stately for entreaty, followed by the Trades' Union, thirty thousand strong, parading in procession to Downing-street; the Irish negotiations of Lord Hatherton, strange blending of complex intrigue and almost infantile ingenuousness; ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... suppose it's a decent figure," answered Mr. Sheldon, with an air of deprecation, "or how could I afford to give you three thou' out of the share I'm ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... rapidly purling stream. She was treading out a petticoat with her bare feet, presumably on a flat stone. In a black storm-cloud above a willow tree a bearded supernatural being, with hands spread in humorous deprecation, gazes down half pleased, half horrified. And the caption is, "Did not the fairy Kume lose his supernatural powers when he saw the white legs of a girl washing clothes?" Yet be not dismayed. Kenko ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... his work the title of 'Incondita', which conveyed a certain idea of deprecation. He was, nevertheless, very anxious to see it in print; and his father and mother, poetry-lovers of the old school, also found in it sufficient merit to justify its publication. No publisher, however, could be found; and we can easily believe that he soon afterwards ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the Author of all good. They believe, also, in the existence of a bad spirit, the author of all evil. Each is believed to be served by a number of subordinate spirits. Sacrifices are offered to each; to the good, by way of supplication and gratitude; to the evil, by way of conciliation and deprecation. Their local genii are also supposed to be possessed of the power of doing good, or inflicting evil, and are likewise propitiated by sacrifices; the "men of medicine" are viewed in nearly the same light. A few of them who visit the king's ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... he is a poet and a student; he has had dreams of human good; he has reverenced great men: and never quite lost the faith in God, and the sense of nearness to Him; and he alleges some of these facts in deprecation of his too harsh verdict upon himself. But his ultimate object has been always the gratification of Self—the ministering to its pleasures and to its powers; and this egotism has become narrower and more consuming, till the thirst for even momentary enjoyment ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was lost. We could hear it gathering in the distance, then collecting, as it were, strength, rage, and speed as it advanced, it poured all its wrath and fury upon what appeared to us, the only victim with which it had to deal. The noble vessel bent, as it were, her graceful head in deprecation of such furious rage and turmoil, and shivering from bow to stern, would again rise lightly and proudly, as if appalled, but yet indignant at the rough usage she was receiving; yet far above the rattling wind the pealing thunder rolled with majestic sound, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... treated her always with a charming unconsciousness of his own attentions, and a frankness that seemed inconsistent with any insidious approach. In fact, Mr. Hamlin seldom made love to anybody, but permitted it to be made to him with good-humored deprecation and cheerful skepticism. He had once, quite accidentally, while riding, come upon her when she had strayed from her own riding party, and had behaved with such unexpected circumspection and propriety, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her to be the eventual guardian of his shrine; and it was in the name of what had so passed between them that he appealed to her not to forsake him in his age. She listened at present with shining coldness and all her habitual forbearance to insist on her terms; her deprecation was even still tenderer, for it expressed the compassion of her own sense that he was abandoned. Her terms, however, remained the same, and scarcely the less audible for not being uttered; though he was sure that secretly even more than ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... agree with you, I think we have some in very good taste. I know not in what dramatic work the facetious frenchman has discovered the introduction of his satanic majesty under the influence of a cold, and receiving, as he enters, the usual deprecation on such occasions. I rather suspect that the adventures of Punch, and his fickle lady, who are always attended by a dancing demon, have afforded the materials for ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... to break upon him like a salty, fragrant wave of the sea, he seemed to ask Miss Anne, bringing all sorts of floating richness, the outcrop of her fancies and affections? Aunt Anne would return the glance with her sweet, immovable deprecation and go on detaching, while Nan, with an equal obstinacy—though hers was protesting, vocable, sometimes shrill to the point of anguish—stuck to her self-assumed rights. It was Raven himself who involuntarily stepped over to Aunt Anne's side and finished the detaching process. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... conquered, and the magistrates suddenly became conscious that such strength as theirs need never have dreaded the power of this feeble folk, and that their institutions could never fall before an attack from any hands save those of the King himself, toward whom they now turned with an alarmed deprecation. The Puritan reign of terror for New England was over, its story to this generation seeming as incredible as it is shameful. Brutality is not quite dead even to-day, but there is cause for rejoicing that, for America at ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... in the newspapers," Yetta said, as they seated themselves in adjoining rockers, and Mrs. Gans flashed all the gems of her right hand in a gesture of deprecation. ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... throw off the transparent disguise. The presence of the two stranger captains was still a restraint upon him. At length he cast his eyes upon Captain Reud, and putting into his countenance the drollest look of deprecation mingled with fun, said plaintively, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... suit. Older than the brown one, but in it he felt he presented a more self-possessed demeanor. He could use the quality. Five foot seven, slightly underweight and with an air of unhappy self-deprecation, Josip Pekic's personality didn't exactly dominate in a group. He chose a conservative tie and a white shirt, although he knew that currently some frowned upon white shirts as a bourgeois affectation. It was all the thing, these days, to look ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... not all of it; her hearing the rest would depend upon the way she received this. She received it not only, as Rowland foresaw, without a shadow of coquetry, of any apparent thought of listening to it gracefully, but with a slight movement of nervous deprecation, which seemed to betray itself in the quickening of her step. Evidently, if Rowland was to take pleasure in hearing about her, it would have to be a highly disinterested pleasure. She answered nothing, and Rowland too, as he walked ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... me. She held out her little hand with such a pretty look of deprecation, that I could not but take it; and she said, "Mr. Titmarsh, if you please, I want to speak to you, if you please;" and, choking with emotion, I ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in which the waiter took part, suggesting various solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill came to eightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter brought it up to ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude on one side and of deprecation on the other, and when courtesies were at their height they suddenly linked arms and swung down the street, tickling each other with ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old Brent's cabbages. This is ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... fond of the books of travelers, and I remember that one day, after I had been reading Mungo Park's travels in Africa, mother said: "Weel, John, maybe you will travel like Park and Humboldt some day." Father overheard her and cried out in solemn deprecation, "Oh, Anne! dinna put sic notions in the laddie's heed." But at this time there was precious little need of such prayers. My brothers left the farm when they came of age, but I stayed a year longer, loath to leave home. Mother hoped I ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... put my finger on it, but I'm perfectly certain I've heard of the poplars and the women field labourers of Normandy somewhere before. She doesn't do it on purpose"—the Senator inclined his head with deprecation toward the sleeping form opposite, and lowered his voice—"and I don't know that I'd mention it to you under any other circumstances, but momma's a fearful plagiarist. She doesn't hesitate anywhere. I've known her do ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the floor as she held out her white hands in deprecation of his cry; the tears rushed ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... jewelled hand in his, he turned and led her toward the sofa. Halting, he bowed with an exaggerated genuflection and flourish of his free hand to Miss Madden, the while he flashed at her a glance at once of challenge and of deprecation. Through the sensitized contact of the other hand, he felt that the woman he held bowed also, and in his own spirit of confused defiance and entreaty. The laugh he gave then seemed to dispel the awkwardness which had momentarily hung over the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir! Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know, I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out, We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little. ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... stood aside to give place to him. He stooped, felt the pulse, examined the lips of the wound, estimating the locality and direction of the bullet, and his mouth made a clucking sound as of deprecation. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... no new expressman," returned the driver in scornful deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. "He only took Hill's place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that University you're runnin' here. I say—you fellers oughter get him to tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. It'd ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... incipient literary days, to be grieved with publishers' "readers;" and when promoted to the same exalted place, I resolved to be charitable, careful, and obliging—to do as I would be done by—to crush no delicate Keats, to enrage no Johnson, by slight, prejudice, or deprecation. But to suffer the infliction of a crack-brained old naturalist, repeating an interminable manuscript in my own office, went beyond my best resolve! Still there was little to do. It would be a paltry task to select a poem for illustration, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... deprecation, and picking up the canoe, put it in a better place. Its weight was nothing to him, and Robert noticed with admiration the play of the great arms and shoulders. Seen now upon the land and standing at his full height Willet was ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... he exclaimed, with a quick gesture of deprecation. "It—it was unpardonable of me . . ." His voice vibrated with some strong emotion, and ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Mrs. Munger, with intense deprecation, "that's such a very different thing. You were not brought up to it; it was ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... physical shock had been heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic turned away in ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... makes of the term human nature is significant. It is used in varied contexts with the most divergent implications but always by way of explanation of behavior that is characteristically human. The phrase is sometimes employed with cynical deprecation as, "Oh, that's human nature." Or as often, perhaps, as an expression of approbation, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the traveller, holding up his hands in deprecation; "the Junker is worse than a priest! And yet he killed old Wolfgang! But what of Gian? Hold,—did not he, when I was with him at Genoa, tell me a story of being put into a dungeon in a mountain fortress in Germany, and released by a pair of young lads with eyes beaming in the sunrise, who ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... few words in praise of the Irish troops and in deprecation of the failure to recognize some of their services; a confident assurance that, "whether they are remembered or not," the Sixteenth Division would do their duty, with an equal assurance that the Ulster men would do as well as they—and he ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... turning towards the bold, bluff speaker one of those slow, dubious glances which, accompanied by a slight motion of the hand, and a gentle depression of the head to one side, may be either interpreted as a mute assent to what is said, or as a cautious deprecation of farther prosecution of the subject. It was a keener, more scrutinizing glance, which he bent on the youth, as he said, with an ambiguous smile, "So, young man, is it the wont of Scotland to suffer your Princes to be endangered for the lack of aid in such emergencies ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... fine deprecation, being only half pacified, "I do not see who there could be to ask the Bishop except ourselves. Where should the Bishop of Carisbury lunch in Cullerne except at the Rectory?" In this unanswerable conundrum she quenched the smouldering ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the minister's fault," declared the thief in deprecation. "I went to him discouraged and out of money, and he told me I must learn to take things as ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... amusement," Basterga replied with a gesture of haughty deprecation. "A parergon, if you please. I take it, a man may dip into the mystical writings of Paracelsus without prejudice to his Latinity; and into the cabalistic lore of the school of Cordova without losing his taste for the pure oratory ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman |
