"Rant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Popes have curst the plant; Kings bade its use to cease; But all the Pontiff's rant And Royal Jamie's cant Ne'er ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the recent French revolutionists (I think Rollin) compared himself with the victim of Calvary. Even this profane rant is a plagiarism. Gracchus Baboeuf, who headed the extreme republican party against the Directory, exclaimed, on his trial, that his wife, and those of his fellow-conspirators, "should accompany them even to Calvary, because the cause of their punishment should not bring ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various
... imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from plunging over the border of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great statue of the great Frederic. To come to it from the simplicity and quiet of that noble work is like passing from some exquisite masterpiece of naturalistic acting to the rant and uproar of melodrama; and the Marches stood stunned and bewildered by ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... inebriate." It came near it in our case, however. It was our first matinee at the theatre, and, oh, the joy we took of it! Years afterward did we children in our playroom, clad in "the trailing garments of the night" in lieu of togas, sink our identity for the moment and out-rant Damon and his Pythias. Thrice happy days so ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... to do good is, that when a man hears evil words, he be able to overlook the wickedness and injustice. Seek thus after peace, so shall you find it; when your enemy has wasted his breath and done all that he can, if you hear him, but rail and rant not back, he must subdue himself by his own violence. For thus Christ also on the cross subdued his enemies, not by the sword or by violence. Therefore is it a saying, which should be written with gold, where it says, "Striking back again makes hatred, and whoever strikes back again is unjust." ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... new romantic drama of MM. Hugo and Dumas, because of its greater truth to nature, had given the coup de grace to the old classic plays; but the public, at her bidding, turned gladly from the spasms and the rant of "Angelo" and "Angele," "Antony" and "Hernani," to the old-world stories, the formal tragedies of the seventeenth century poet-dramatists of France. The actress fairly witched her public. There was something of magic in her very presence upon ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... while a richness of melody, and a picturesqueness of action, that enables it to delude, and that even draws tears from the eyes of, persons who can be won over by the eye and the ear, with almost no participation of the understanding. And this unmeaning rant and senseless declamation sufficed for the time to throw into shade those exquisite delineations of character, those transcendent bursts of passion, and that perfect anatomy of the human heart, which render the master-pieces ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... him issuing his cruel order for the killing of the children. But when the foul deed is done there await the murderer two kings whom he cannot slay, Death and the Devil. A banquet is in full swing, Herod's officers are about him, the customary rant and bombast is on his lips when those two steal in. 'While the trumpets are sounding, Death slays Herod and his two soldiers suddenly, and the Devil receives them'—so runs ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... as if the whole satire had been The oppression of virtue, not wages of sin: He began, as he bragg'd, with a rant and a roar; He bragg'd how he bounced, and he swore how he swore.[5] ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... speaking, which these teachers seem so much to dread, have as Dr. Johnson calls it, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, and a torpid apathy. These must be roused by something strong and excessive, or they will never rise even to mediocrity; while the few who have a tendency to rant, are very easily reclaimed; and ought to be treated in pronunciation and action, as Quintillion advises to do in composition; that is, we should rather allow of an exuberance, than, by too much correctness, check the vigour and luxuriancy ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... that in this "Second Part" the reviser begins to show himself as something more than the sweet lyric poet. He transposes scenes in order to intensify the interest, and where enemies meet, like Clifford and York, instead of making them rant in mere blind hatred, he allows them to show a generous admiration of each other's qualities; in sum, we find here the germs of that dramatic talent which was so soon to bear such marvellous fruit. No better example of Shakespeare's growth in dramatic ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers—that was yet true ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... grandees, had such incapacity been shown by any restless patrician. Frederic Spinola, at the age of thirty-two, a landsman and a volunteer, thinking to measure himself on blue water with such veterans as John Rant, Joost de Moor, and the other Dutchmen and Zeelanders whom it was his fortune to meet, could hardly escape the doom ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Witless, Warriors, Rich and Poor, Some who rich Clothes and empty Titles wore; Some who knew how to rail, some to accuse, And some who haunted Taverns and the Stews. Some roaring Bullies, who ran th'row the Town Crying, God damn 'um, they'd support the Crown: Whose wicked Oaths, and whose blasphemous Rant, Had quite put down the holy zealous Cant. Some were for War, and some on Mischief bent; And some who could, for gain, new Plots invent. Some Priests and Levites too among the rest, Such as knew how to blow the Trumpet best: Who with loud noise and cackling, cri'd like ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... house, said Hiram, summoning all the dignity he could muster to his assistance, in the name of the people; and by virtue of this war rant, and of my office, and ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Christie, "bully as ye list. Ye have been at the ordinaries, and in Alsatia, and learned the ruffian's rant, I doubt not. But I repeat, you have spoken an untruth, when you said you knew not of my wife's falsehood; for, when you were twitted with it among your gay mates, it was a common jest among you, and your lordship took all the credit they would give ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... En-sued', followed, resulted from. En'sign (pro. en'sin). an officer of low rank. Fire'lock, an old-style musket, with flintlock. 7. Bran'-dish-ing, waving, flourishing. 13. Self'-pos-sessed, undisturbed, calm in mind, manner, etc. 14. Pac'i-fied, calmed, quieted. War'rant, a writ authorizing an ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... many things in this counthry," the obscene tirade ended. "You came out of these woods with rags on your back and started at bein' a gentleman when we were only bhoys. You've made a gr-reat success av it with the ladies, we'll gr-rant you that; but you should have stuck to your soft and lily-white pastime. For when you aimed to turn this river into a gentleman's proposition you started something too big for you to finish. I'm taking it off your hands, now. Can't you even ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Miles didn't rant and write letters or poetry, or marry some one else to spite himself, or take the first steamer for Burraga, or Equatorial Africa, as rejected lovers in stories do. It hurt, and he didn't enjoy it, but he bore up all right, and went about his business, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... specious form, dread Queen! appear; Let falsehood fill the dreary waste; Thy democratic rant be here, To fire the brain, corrupt the taste. The fair, by vicious love misled, Teach me to cherish and to wed, To low-born arrogance to bend, Establish'd order spurn, and call each ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Mrs. G[rant] of L. intimates that she will take her pudding—her pension, I mean (see 30th November), and is contrite, as H[enry] M[ackenzie] vouches. I am glad the stout old girl is not foreclosed; faith, cabbing a pension in these times is like hunting ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... talk of it. She wanted to rage and rant. She was astonished at the primitiveness of her emotions. She had laughed her way through life and had prided herself on the dispassionateness of her point of view. And now it was only by the exercise of the utmost self-control that she was able ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... rant was serious, they would allow you no leadership in their revolution. Have they not already rejected your overtures? Therefore this deputation to you of the Leipzig working-men (whom they practically rejected by offering them honorary membership) is simply providential. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wrote "Histoire des Indes" and edited "Philosophic History," distinguished for its "lubricity, unveracity, loose, loud eleutheromaniac rant," saw it burnt by the common hangman, and his wish fulfilled as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the house; and, that I may not lose my temper and my spirits, I shut my ears against the sophisms and rant against the treaty, and divert my attention by writing ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Our young friend Burr made a graceful appearance; he was excelled by none, except perhaps by Bradford. Linn, too, was pretty generally approved; but, for my part, I could not forbear thinking that he took rant, and rage, and madness for true spirit—a ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Does Pa Pulsifer rant any more rants? No. He gets his perfecto goin' nicely, blows a couple of smoke rings up towards the ceilin', and then remarks in ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... said Mrs Simpson, who had not yet resumed her work, and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, 'I shall tell you the story. You will please keep it to yourself, if you don't mind? Thank you. Now it is just this. I had an old uncle, a Dr Rant. Perhaps you may have heard of him. Not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... in no situation to rant at smug William, the linen draper. The old sea wolf who had outlived the most glorious era of the storied buccaneers, had a few gold pieces tucked away in his belt and at first he was content to loaf about the tavern, with an audience ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... gabble—his dissertations about the stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not—his eternal whine about what he calls the good and the beautiful—is a fellow as mean and paltry as can be well imagined; a man of rant, and not of action; foolishly infirm of purpose, and strong only in desire; whose beautiful is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good would be crime in the eyes of an honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers: as ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... something doubtful of his fate, Made choice of me to be his advocate, Relying on my knowledge in the laws; And I as boldly undertook the cause. I left my client yonder in a rant, Against the envious, and the ignorant, Who are, he says, his only enemies: But he condemns their malice, and defies The sharpest of his censurers to say, Where there is one gross fault in all his play. The language ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches, as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their Woman's Rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men, are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind, and Christian(?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, C. C. Burleigh, and S. S. Foster. These men are all Woman's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... had not time, they say, to transcribe all that was worthy of my resentment in this letter: so I must find an opportunity to come at it myself. Noble rant, they say, it contains—But I am a seducer, and a hundred vile fellows, in it.—'And the devil, it seems, took possession of my heart, and of the hearts of all her friends, in the same dark hour, in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... gatekeepers of Baal, They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... play is, in general, very well written, and contains less rant than he usually puts in the mouths of ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... for some time—silly, And lengthy correspondences are rife. We have, alas! to read them willy-nilly; They take a deal of pleasure out of life. To flee such evils here's an easy way— Let morning dailies idly rant or vapour, At the Lyceum go and see the play, The programme there's the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... narrow shave," my friend remarked as we seated ourselves—I with a sigh of gratitude for the opportunity. "If you can't draw quicker you'd better keep your hands in your pockets. Let's have a dose of t'rant'lar juice to set you up." Whereupon he ordered whiskey from ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... pure Borrow, with a vigour excusing if not quite transmuting its rant. He creates a sort of hero in his own image, and it should be read as an introduction and invocation to "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." It is one of the few contemporary records of Borrow at about the age when he wrote "Celebrated Trials," ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... rhetoric about the inferiority of the "brutes," but a warm plea on their behalf against man's inconsiderateness and cruelty, and a sense of enlarged happiness from their companionship in enjoyment; no vague rant about human misery and human virtue, but that close and vivid presentation of particular sorrows and privations, of particular deeds and misdeeds, which is the direct road to the emotions. How Cowper's exquisite mind falls with the mild warmth of morning sunlight on the commonest objects, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... their fire the lightest heart enchains. Through these and all our Bards to whom belong The pow'rs transcendent of immortal song, How difficult to steer t'avoid the cant Of polish'd phrase, and nerve-alarming rant; Each period with true elegance to round, And give the Poet's meaning in the sound. But, wherefore should the Muse employ her verse, The peril of our labors to rehearse? Oft has your kind, your generous applause, E're now, convinc'd us, you approve our cause: ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... plant divinely nursed, Fed by the love from which it rose at first, Thrives against hope, and, in the rudest scene, Storms but enliven its unfading green; Exub'rant is the shadow it supplies, Its fruit on earth, its growth above ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... HARALD'S voice). And you—you mountebank, who can stand up in public and seek applause before your brother's corpse is cold—don't come talking rant to me! You are more contemptible than I am! I couldn't have done that; I couldn't stand there, as you are doing now, impatient to get to your champagne and pretty speeches!—Oh, how I despise all such lying ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... is ignorant of what is termed hygienic law, is more receptive of spiritual power and of faith in one 382:15 God, than is the devotee of supposed hygienic law, who comes to teach the so-called igno- rant one. Must we not then consider the so-called law 382:18 of matter a canon "more honored in the breach than the observance"? A patient thoroughly booked in medi- cal theories is more difficult to heal through Mind than ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... handiwork at his own house, teaching his sons the secrets of his trade. He is the necessary coadjutor of the machine-owner, and has no need to resort to the brutal methods of Molly Maguires and trades-unions to get a fair reward for his labor. Let demagogues rant about our danger from competition with the pauper labor of Europe! We never were, and never will be, injured by that. What we should fear is the skilled labor of well-paid, cultured and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... much for an 'Ode,' which some people think superior to the 'Bard' of Gray, and which others think a rant of turgid obscurity; and the latter are the more numerous class. It is not obscure. My 'Religious Musings' I know are, but not ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Lord George Gordon was suffered to rant unimpeded. At last Colonel Holroyd, seizing hold of him, threatened to move for his immediate committal to Newgate, while Colonel Gordon, with a blunter and yet more efficacious eloquence, declared that if any of the rioters attempted ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the vile rant I strode forward and thus presently came on a small dell or dingle full of the light of a fire that crackled right merrily; at the which most welcome sight I made shift to scramble down the steepy bank forthright and approached the blaze on eager feet. Drawing ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... to do with the question of theft in the store?" he rumbled, huffily. "That was the excuse for your coming here. And, instead of telling me something, you rant ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... delivered 'em such offal. It isn't a place for a self-respecting man, and I feel it more and more. If a shop-boy wants to take out his sweetheart and make a pretence of doing it grand, where does he go to? Why, to Chaffey's. He couldn't afford a real rest'rant; but Chaffey's looks the same, and Chaffey's is cheap. To hear 'em ordering roast fowl and Camumbeer cheese to follow—it fair sickens me. Roast fowl! a old 'en as wouldn't be good enough for a real rest'rant to make inter soup! And the Camumbeer! I've got ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... Vermont contemptuously. "Don't begin to rant—you're not on the stage now. I kept all my promises to you, at any rate. I got you on at the Rockingham and I introduced you to Leroy; and if you had only played your cards properly you would have hooked him by this time. As it is, he'll marry his ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... "Worms! Hear him rant, fellows, will you? Compares us to the lowly angleworm of commerce. And this is the reward we get for sacrificing our sleep to rescue the perishing! I call it base ingratitude, ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde; There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond; There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm, Abelards, Eloisas, and Father Anselm: There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet's power, A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour; A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint, As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint! There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie, And princes who on the stage strutted so high That Prince Hamlet they'd cut; who could pick ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... they. And how, said the monk, does the Abbot Gulligut, the good drinker,—and the monks, what cheer make they? By G— body, they'll have a fling at your wives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming rant and gadding pilgrimage. Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid of mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come to her in the night-time. Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it. Let her be as ugly as ever was ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... condemn and impede everywhere God's Word and his blessing. These things are evils so pernicious, so diabolical, they do not merit our love. The more we serve the ecclesiasts and the more we yield to them, the more obdurate they become. They rant and rage against the Word of God and the Spirit, against faith and love. Such conduct Christ calls blasphemy—sin—against the Holy Spirit—unpardonable sin. Mt 12, 31. And John says (1 Jn 5, 16), "There is ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... legitimate offspring of the dramas of Calpranede and Scuderi. But Dryden's compositions are unparalleled in any literature. Nature is systematically outraged in one and all—from beginning to end. Never was such mouthing seen and heard beneath moon and stars. Through the whole range of rant he rages like a man inspired. He is the emperor of bombast. Yet these plays contain many passages of powerful declamation—not a few of high eloquence; some that in their argumentative amplitude, if they do not reach, border on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting foreign states? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, B[uonaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then Religion would come in; and Milton and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty suggestion, the more hasty because I want my Supper. I have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it?—it has most the continuous power ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... so horribly seriously," protested Stanton. "Why you rave and rant about it as though it was actually my affections ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... that great doctrine, La carriere ouverte aux talens, (the tools to him who can handle them,) which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached it is true, as enthusiasts and first missionaries are wont; with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately, perhaps, as the case admitted. Or call him if you will, an American backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... going into battle?" growled Jack Powell from the other side. "Here I've been at this blamed drilling until I'm stiff in every joint, and I haven't seen so much as the tail end of a fight. You may rant as long as you please about martial glory, but if there's any man who thinks it's fun merely to get dirty and eat raw food, well, he's welcome to my share of it, that's all. I haven't had so much as ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... betimes and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers,—[Bewpers is the old name for bunting.]—which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... exuberant confidence in his own prowess, and contempt of every one else, so liberally exhibited by Almanzor. Instances of this defect are but too thickly sown through the piece; for example the following rant. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... into dinnah; I'll take keer of the auto'bile; I'll see that nun of those ign'rant folk stannin' roun' lay their han's on it; they think Sambo doan know an auto'bile; didn't I see you heah befoh? an' didn't I hole de hose when you put de watah in? Me an' you are de only two pussons in dis whole town who knows ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... body's pow'r To keep at times frae being sour, To see how things are shar'd,— How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... scorn, getting up to go). You rant like any common fellow. Go, then, and marshal your thousands; and make haste; for Mithridates of Pergamos is at hand with reinforcements for Caesar. Caesar has held you at bay with two legions: we shall see what he will do ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... Risping, grating. Rout, rowt, to roar, to rant. Rowth, abundance. Rudas, haggard old woman. Runt, an old cow past breeding; ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chief end of his existence is not inconsistent with the fact that the predominating element in his power is the gift of that race. It is perhaps this subconscious feeling on the part of Mr. Dixon that he is in the grasp of a power not Anglo-Saxon that causes him to rant and cry for a freedom that his own Southern brethren less affected do ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... village standing upon the Lindre, about 7 leagues from Portpile, wher I played one of the Gascons a pret[347] in the boat; wheir also I saw a reservoire of fisches. Heir I was wery sick, so that I suped none, as I had not dined, my Poictiers rant incapacitating me. Yea, I was distempered al the way after, so that I cost not wery dear to my ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... delivery is less rapid, his voice better modulated, and his enunciation more distinct .... One of his most effective peculiarities, in inviting the attention of his hearers, is the exceeding earnestness of the manner of his address. This earnestness is not like that of rant. It is the result of his own strong conviction and his desire to impress others." That is a fair and unprejudiced estimate of Froude as he appeared to a trained observer who took neither side in the dispute. Many Irishmen shook hands with him, and thanked him for his plain speaking. Bret Harte ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... his rant. To the whites he proclaimed that he, the Open Door, Tecumseh, the Shooting Star, and the other twin brother all had come at one birth. He asserted that their father had been the son of a Shawnee chief ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... much-enduring sweetheart, and follow her up with Bianca, Pauline, and several of the favourite idols of stage-struck girls; but being a shrewd little person, she suddenly saw the wisdom of Uncle Laurie's advice, and resolved to follow it. So instead of the rant Miss Cameron expected, Josie gave poor Ophelia's mad scene, and gave it very well, having been trained by the college professor of elocution and done it many times. She was too young, of course, but the white gown, the loose ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... French literature, thus characterized, there is much false morality, much depraved sentiment, and much hollow rant; but still it carries within it the germ of an excellence, which, sooner or later, must in the progress of national genius arrive at its full development. Meanwhile, it is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral is ever permanently popular, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of British citizens for slavery in the West Indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, . . . the persecution of the Anglican Church, the bacchanalian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans . . . It is universally acknowledged that no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of Charles II. . . . For ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... heart, "Come back!" That was what we heard by the way "about the good country we were going to." And at that very hour the Sand-lot of San Francisco was crowded with the unemployed, and the echo from the other side of Market Street was repeating the rant of demagogues. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the columns of the back-scene, nay, nor yet the height of its gables, the splendour of its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. All these considerations may be ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... have been the champion of his contrary, and blackened their own faults, and made light of their own virtues, when they beheld them in a master. Macconochie had soon smelled out my secret inclination, took me much into his confidence, and would rant against the Master by the hour, so that even my work suffered. "They're a' daft here," he would cry, "and be damned to them! The Master—the deil's in their thrapples that should call him sae! it's Mr. Henry should be master now! They were nane ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... puff, gasp; spout; inflate, puff up, distend; explode, shatter; (Colloq.) boast, brag, bluster, vaunt, gasconade; rant, scold, censure. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... meaninglessness, unmeaningness &c adj.^; scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin^, platitude, niaiserie^; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae [Lat.]; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, humbug; poppy-cock [U.S.]; stuff, stuff and nonsense; bosh, rubbish, moonshine, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of place." I said this, with the conviction that there was a purpose in everything that Shakspeare wrote; and being still of this persuasion, allow me to protest against the terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant," which your correspondent applies to the passage in question. The poet does not present common things as they appear to all men. Shakspeare's art was equally great, {120} whether he spoke with the tongues of madmen or philosophers. H. K. S. C. cannot conceive why each feat of daring should ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... that illustrious Line," and the "unthinking Part of the Town" followed the fashion set by royalty. Unlike "The Fair Captive," which suffered from a plethora of incidents, Mrs. Haywood's second tragedy contains almost nothing in its five acts but rant. An analysis of the plot is ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... Rupert, in a slightly wearied tone, "if you are going to rant and rave, I'll go out. My room is quite at your disposal, but I am not. I've got a headache. Why don't you go to a theatre or a music hall, and work off your superfluous energy there by clapping ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... father a chance to vent his vexation with himself upon his son. "I wish you wouldn't talk that walking-delegate's rant with me, Matt. If I let you alone in your nonsense, I think you may fitly take it as a sign that I wish ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... stay I heard a very funny specimen of rant from a gentleman of the name of Turner, who was suffering from an attack of Anglophobia. He would delight the Mortons and Conybeares whom we have to tolerate, and his pronunciation of the Old Country's language was even worse than the sentiments he expressed. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... faint, nor yet too strong: For Characteristic-Justice is to be observ'd as strictly by the Writers of this Kind, as Poetic-Justice is to be by Poets. That Medium must be copied, which Nature it self has mark'd out; whatever falls short of it is poor and insipid, whatever is above it is Rant and Extravagance. ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... man—an auld rant,' said Willie; 'naething like the music ye hae in your ballhouses and your playhouses in Edinbro'; but it's weel aneugh anes in a way at a dykeside. Here's another—it's no a Scotch tune, but it passes for ane—Oswald made it himsell, I reckon—he has ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... dress. So soon as she had got through she dropped her rake on the hay, searched for a long, nail-like thorn, and thrust it through, for the good-looking, careless hussy never had any provision of pins about her. Then, taking a June rose which pricked her finger, she put the flower by the "rant", or tear, and went to join the rest of the hay-makers. The blood welled up out of the scratch in the finger more freely than would have been supposed from so small a place. She put her lips to it ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... different degrees it is combined with other elements, and in each combination altered and modified. The combination which more immediately arrests attention is that with the ludicrous. In this the genius of Hood seemed to hold a very festival of antics, oddity, and mirth; all his faculties seemed to rant and riot in the Saturnalia of comic incongruity. And it is difficult to say whether, in provoking laughter, his pen or his pencil is the more effective instrument. The mere illustrations of the subject-matter are in themselves irresistible. They reach at once and directly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... streams, rock the cradles of our children and educate them in Disinterestedness and Intrepidity."—As to his political or economic capacity and general ideas, read his speeches and his "Institutions," (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 133; XXX., 305, XXXV., 369,) a mass of chemical and abstract rant.] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... if ye say that I gits me groob whin I wants it, we'll be A1 friends an' have no squalls atwane us," said my friend the boatswain as the Chinaman passed along the deck to the forward deck-house, entering the galley as if he knew the way well, Tim adding as he got out of hearing: "The ig'rant haythin, he nivir can spake me name roight; allers callin' me 'looney,' jist as if I wor a ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Rant was seized in his own house and shot. Clos was met by a company, and seeing Trestaillons, with whom he had always been friends, in its ranks, he went up to him and held out his hand; whereupon Trestaillons drew a pistol from his belt and blew ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the grown people scarcely could stand Isaac's speech, and prayer, and song, and that they were afraid to tell him plain out that he did more harm than good. Every meeting about the third man up was Isaac, and we had to watch him wave, and rant, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Spence brung us to Texas in wagons, and the way we knowed when we hit Texas am 'cause massa 'gin to talk 'bout a norther. When dat norther done strike, all de weeds and leaves jus' starts rollin'. Us poor, ig'rant niggers thunk at first dey was rabbits, 'cause we'd never seed a rabbit den. Massa Spence rid his hoss and Missie Spence come 'long in de richer way, in a coach. De chillen walked mornin's and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... of interest, together with law costs and expenses. The usual pro- portion of an advance on mortgage is two-thirds of the ascertained value of the property, but there might be circumstances which would war- rant some ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... fain persuade this generation to walk blindfold through the superb temple a loving God has placed us in. While every sane and earnest mind must turn, disgusted and humiliated, from the senseless rant which resolves all divinity into materialistic elements, it may safely be proclaimed that genuine aesthetics is a mighty channel through which the love and adoration of Almighty God enters the human soul. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... legs of his would soon have sped That flossy tail—that lofty head— Far, far away from danger. But—fatal error of his race— In sandy bank he hid his face, And thought by this to evade the chase Of the ostrich-bagging ranger. So he who, like the ostrich vain, Is ign'rant, and would so remain, Of what folks do, it's very plain In folly's road he's walking. For if in sand you hide your head Just to escape that which you dread, And, seeing not, say danger's fled: 'Tis worse than ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... declared Johnnie, "but I don't mind. Say, how's the cross horse?" One half of the apple scraped, Johnnie ate the red shell of it. "And have y' been to the rest'rant again? And I s'pose all them white-dressed men and ladies, they can eat all they want to of ev'ry ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... when a lady is taking his head off. I held in last night after stating facts, and stood the storm, but I don't promise to do it again. I'm tired of this nonsense. If there are high horses this morning, the tragedy queen must mount and rant alone." ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... to make a scene, you know," said Musgrave, raising his hand in protest, "and we are not here for that. We are not going to tear any passions to tatters; we are not going to rant; we are simply going to have a quiet and sensible talk. We don't happen to be characters in a romance; for you aren't Lancelot, you know, and I am not up to the part of Arthur by a great deal. I am not angry, I am not jealous, nor do I put ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... "You rant very well, Mr. Leigh!" he said, "You would make an excellent Hyde Park orator! You have all the qualities which attract the vulgar; but we—we of the Church know quite well how to deal with men of your class,—their denunciations do not affect us ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man. Even those who had heard him in all his glory in the House of Burgesses of Virginia were astonished at the manner in which his talents seemed to swell and expand themselves to fill the vaster theatre in which he was now placed. There was no rant, no rhapsody, no labor of the understanding, no straining of the voice, no confusion of the utterance. His countenance was erect, his eye steady, his action noble, his enunciation clear and firm, his mind poised on its centre, his ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... drawing-rooms transferred to the stage. They like it because it is pretty and familiar. And people pretend to be very cynical at present—they like things with 'no nonsense about them;' and I suppose this son of comedy is the natural reaction from the rant of the melodrama. Still, if you happen to be ambitious—or perhaps it is mere vanity?—if you would like to try what ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the gems of the old humbug's speech, and I mouthed it as it was made to be mouthed. The house took the burlesque with perfect seriousness and good faith—chiefly, I suppose, because it was impossible to make the vulgar rant too clap-trappy and stagy. But as I was leaving, and as the house was already in a roar of applause, I came to grief. There was a dreadful draught at the back of the stage, and one of the ladies had been so careful against it as to pin the green-baize linings ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... rejected, and which the Earl of Halifax had declared he would sooner forfeit his hand than sign."[95] When I know that the Earl of Halifax says so, the Earl of Halifax shall have an answer; but I persuade myself that his Lordship has given no authority for this ridiculous rant. In the mean time, I shall only speak of it as a common concern ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... his art. Then the higher and rarer qualities of his genius came into play. He kindled with responsive fire at a beautiful thought, and burned with contagious enthusiasm over a phrase which struck his fancy. Yet all the while the poetic rapture was underlain by a groundwork of robust sense. Rant, and gush, and affectation were abhorrent to his nature, and even in his grandest flights of fancy he ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... TOMMY ATKINS, BULL is sweet on "loyal toasts," And he spends his millions freely on his squadrons and his hosts, But there isn't much on't, messmate, not so fur as I can see, Whether 'tis rant or rhino, that gets spent on you and me. Still the Times has took our case up,—werry handsome o' the Times!— I have heard it charged with prejudice, class-hate, and similar crimes, But it shows it's got fair sperret and a buzzum as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... that as he had lived with the character of the boldest fellow of his profession he was resolved to die with it, and leave his memory to be admired by all the gentlemen of the road in succeeding ages. This was the rant which took up the poor fellow's head, and induced him to bear 250 pound weight upon his breast for upwards of seven minutes, and was much the same kind of bravery as that which induced the French lacquey to dance a ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... pleasure, delight. delicado, -a delicate, sweet. delicia f. delight. delicioso, -a delicious, delightful. delirante adj. delirious, raving. delirar rave, dote. delirio m. delirium, madness, rapture, rant, idle talk. delito m. crime. demasa f. excess. demasiado, -a too much, too great. demonio m. devil, demon. denso, -a dense, thick. dentro adv. within; —— de prep. within. denuesto m. insult, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... told, ordinarily as he would converse with the same number of men in society on the merits of the case; and his gestures were those which might be used without serious remark in animated conversation. His postures were sometimes negligent enough; he had a contempt for rant, and hated show and pomp. His voice was pleasant, and of ample compass for an ordinary court-room, and he never dealt in vociferations; indeed, his style of argument to the jury, as well as to the bench, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... justice, Miss Faith. You can hear me rant about philosophical niceties,—and yet think that I would not have patience to listen to a lecture from you upon my ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... heathens, but also because they were kings; for when Christian princes and lords appear on the stage, the satire is often continued. Thus Lancelot of the Lake appears unexpectedly at the Court of king Herod, and after much rant the lover of queen Guinevere draws his invincible sword and massacres the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... neglected; earnest passion, affecting pathos, ever-varying gestures, telling intonation of voice, and, above all, that complete identification of themselves in the part they represented—all these qualities, which had distinguished the acting of Betterton, had given way to noisy rant, formal and affected attitudes, and a heavy stilted style of declamation. Betterton died in 1710, and six years after, in 1716, Garrick was born. About twenty years after, in 1737, Samuel Johnson and his friend and pupil, David Garrick, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... this Mrs. Wilson, Hal. You would change a whole lot of your ideas. She is a thoroughbred, sure enough, and of course some of her beauty is the result of the exquisite care about which you and I—still from our Andean pinnacle—used to rant. But the fact is, she is more than that. She has fire, and pluck, no end. If you could have seen her this morning, standing in front of a cold kitchen range, determined to conquer it, and had seen the tilt of her chin when I offered to take over the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rant and cant have you expressed, Yon sordid wretch! It is the mind, And not the gold, corrupts mankind. Shall my best medium be accused Because its virtues are abused? Virtue and gold alike betrayed, When knaves demand a cloak to trade; So likewise ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... of loose and disconnected meshes when the spokesman happens to be an improvised politician or a philosophic tyro like the ordinary deputies of the Assembly and the speakers of the clubs. It is a pedantic scholasticism set forth with fanatical rant. Its entire vocabulary consists of about a hundred words, while all ideas are reduced to one, that of man in himself: human units, all alike equal and independent, contracting together for the first time. This is their concept ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... his wont; and yet his declamations always flowed with such a graceful ease,—a simple, smiling earnestness,—an unpractised melody of voice, that what would have been rant from other lips, from his showed only as the healthy enthusiasm of the passionate, all-seeing, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... untouched by theory because they are so intent on fact. The "liberty, equality and fraternity" cry of the French Revolution—they regard as so much hot air. Canadians since 1837 have had "liberty, equality, fraternity." Why rant about it? And when they didn't have it, they fought for it and went to the scaffold for it, and got it. The day's work—that's all. Why posturize and theorize about platitudes? Canadians are not interested in the Lloyd George theory of the poor plundering the prosperous, because every ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Morris his place amongst the poets. Mr. Clutton Brock feels this surely enough, because he possesses, besides intellect, that other and rarer critical faculty, that spiritual tuning-fork by which a fine critic distinguishes between emotion and sentimentality, between rhetoric and rant. It is because Mr. Brock possesses this peculiar sensibility—part aesthetic, part ethical, and part intellectual, it seems—that he can be trusted to detect and dislike even the subtlest manifestations ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... three children any opportunity in life prefer to do that than turn out, let us say, eight ill-trained children at a disadvantage, to become the servants and unsuccessful competitors of the offspring of the restrained. That fact bites us all; it does not require a search. It is all very well to rant about "race-suicide," but there are the clear, hard conditions of contemporary circumstances for all but the really rich, and so patent are they that I doubt if all the eloquence of Mr. Roosevelt and its myriad echoes has added a thousand babies to the eugenic wealth of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... so leave them also perforce in a pacific frame of mind. In time, in the absence of their dearly beloved leavings of feudalism, an enforced reliance on their own discretion and initiative, and an enforced respite from the rant and prance of warlike swagger, would reasonably be expected to grow into a popular habit. The German people are by no means less capable of tolerance and neighbourly decorum than their British or Scandinavian neighbours of the same blood,—if they can only ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... help being sorry that Shakespeare should have gone out of his way to select such a subject. It leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. The aristocrat is overdone. No true aristocrat would talk such rant as Coriolanus talks in Act i. Sc. I. Shakespeare omits Plutarch's account of the oppression of the plebeians, or only slightly alludes to it. Volumnia's contempt for the people is worse than that of Coriolanus. To her they are not human, and she does not consider that common truthfulness ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford |
