"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wishes of those who ridicule all morality as a mere chimera of human imagination overstepping itself from vanity, than by conceding to them that notions of duty must be drawn only from experience (as from indolence, people are ready ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... he should proceed. Real uneasiness, however, respecting the fate of his master, for whom he felt that kind of attachment which the force of habitual intercourse not unfrequently engenders respecting objects not in themselves amiable, and also a latent unwillingness to expose his weakness to the ridicule of his fellow-servants, combined to overcome his reluctance; and he had just placed his foot upon the first step of the staircase which conducted to his master's chamber, when his attention was arrested ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... shaping the prodigy into significance. Why should it take place, and upon such an occasion, they could not for their lives imagine. The only persons in the family who seemed altogether indifferent to it were Woodward and his mother, both of whom treated it with ridicule and contempt. ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... down to sleep, the elder Tahitian fell on his knees, and with closed eyes repeated a long prayer in his native tongue. He prayed as a Christian should do, with fitting reverence, and without the fear of ridicule or any ostentation of piety. At our meals neither of the men would taste food, without saying beforehand a short grace. Those travellers who think that a Tahitian prays only when the eyes of the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... possibly influenced by British slang 'plonk' for cheap booze] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the bottom of a {kill file}. Used almost exclusively in the {newsgroup} talk.bizarre, this term (usually written "*plonk*") is a form of public ridicule. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... in reality of the rarest kind, though it does not seem hard to practise, and meets with little recognition—the courage of the schoolmaster, who must say the same things over and over again. We all honor the man who has shed his blood on the battlefield, as you have done; but we ridicule this other whose life-fire is slowly consumed in repeating the same words to children of the same age. There is no attraction for any of us in obscure well-doing. We know nothing of the civic virtue that led the great men of ancient times to serve ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... was more amorous of corruption; not Poe was more spellbound by the scent of graveyard earth. So Beddoes has written a new Dance of Death, in poetry; has become the chronicler of the praise and ridicule of Death. 'Tired of being merely human,' he has peopled a play with confessed phantoms. It is natural that these eloquent speakers should pass us by with their words, that they should fail to move us by their sorrows or their hates: they are not intended to be human, except, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... with allusions to a god whom we cannot help identifying with the Supreme Being and the Creator of the world; his ideas and beliefs have, in consequence, been sadly misrepresented, and by certain writers he has been made an object of ridicule. What, for example, could be a more foolish description of Egyptian worship than the following? "Who knows not, O Volusius of Bithynia, the sort of monsters Egypt, in her infatuation, worships. One ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... forward to going to school with about equal measures of delight and dread; my pride and ambition longed for this first step in life, but Rupert had filled me with a wholesome awe of its stringent etiquette, its withering ridicule, and unsparing severities. However, in his anxiety to make me modest and circumspect, I think he rather over-painted the picture, and when I got through the first day without being bullied, and made such creditable friends on the second, I began to think that Rupert's experience of school ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Christians outside of the Episcopal Church, comprising almost all the learning, the evangelistic zeal, and the charitable activity and self-denial of the American church of that time, that heard these unwonted pretensions with indignation or with ridicule; in the Episcopal Church itself they were disclaimed, scouted, and denounced with (if possible) greater indignation still. But the new party had elements of growth for which its adversaries did not sufficiently reckon. The experience of other orders in the church confirms this principle: that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Strange to say, Desargues's immortal work was heaped with the most violent abuse and held up to ridicule and scorn! "Incredible errors! Enormous mistakes and falsities! Really it is impossible for anyone who is familiar with the science concerning which he wishes to retail his thoughts, to keep from laughing!" Such were the comments of reviewers and critics. Nor were his detractors ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... that they were the object of the soldiers' ridicule, yet they were unable to make any reply, since they did not understand sufficient German to be able ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... other man, with moral enthusiasm and with intellectual grasp, has held in the modern world the same rank which was accorded to him in the old; but he cannot enjoy the same appreciation. Macaulay's ridicule has rescued from oblivion the criticism which pronounced the eloquence of Chatham to be more ornate than that of Demosthenes, and less diffuse than that of Cicero. Did the critic, asks Macaulay, ever hear any speaking that was less ornamented than that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... record of her heart and character, and to some extent a picture of the stirring times in which she lived, in the shape of letters which are of perennial value, especially to the young. "It was fashionable to ridicule female learning" in her day; and she says of herself in one of her letters, "I was never sent to any school." She adds in explanation, "I was always sick." When girls, however, were sent to school, their education seldom went beyond writing ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... me that you showed little gratitude in holding up to ridicule the institution that has done so much for you. Had you not managed to be funny I doubt if you would have been forgiven. But fortunately for you, Mr.—, that is, the gentleman who has just gone—appears to have an immoderate sense of ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... a few miles back. I've been riding since daybreak down the creek, and I'm prepared to state that the chance of crossing is as good right here as anywhere. I wanted to see your foreman, and if he'll help, we'll bridge her. I've been down to see this other outfit, but they ridicule the idea, though I think they'll come around all right. I borrowed their axe, and to-morrow morning you'll see me with my outfit cutting timber to bridge Big Boggy. That's right, boys; it's the only thing ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... expose the most important or interesting letter to the severest sarcasm and ridicule. However perfect in all other respects, no epistle that is badly spelled will be regarded as the work of an educated gentleman or lady. Carelessness will never be considered, and to be ignorant of spelling is to expose an imperfect ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... but the men also, wear much livelier descriptions of dress than we are accustomed to in the west of Europe; and whilst the frilled unmentionables of some of them would excite ridicule amongst our hardy operatives, the brocaded vests of others would perhaps be regarded by ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... help of an innate power possessed by organisms is no explanation, but is a reproduction of the absurdity, l'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique. It is contended, however, that this objection does not apply, even if it be conceded that there is that force in Moliere's ridicule which is generally attributed to it.[231] Much, however, might be said in opposition to more than one of that brilliant dramatist's smart philosophical epigrams, just as to the theological ones of Voltaire, or to the biological one of that other Frenchman who for a time discredited a cranial ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Musgroves, who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the manner of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, &c., and their surprise at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule, which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant, and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if there were, or any servant to wait, or any knife and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... streets all that night. For he fully meant to do what he had promised the child, and he did not care to go back to Charlie Swift, and face the latter's protests and ridicule. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... of its patriotic and German tendency. At Stuttgard, the festival in commemoration of the battle of Leipzig was disallowed; and in Frankfort on the Maine, the editor of a French journal ventured, unreprimanded, to turn this festival into ridicule. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... never occur again. These women on the plinth must be not alone of a different world, but of a different clay, since they not only did not shrink from disgracing themselves—women had been capable of that before—but these didn't even mind ridicule. Which was new. ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... reiterated attacks of medicine, of philosophy, of experience and of good sense.... Well, M. Servan, formerly the Attorney-General at Grenoble, has been proving that with talent we may recover from any thing, even from ridicule." ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... interpreter, made light of them. Absurd that Jemima Jane should imitate the bonnets of her mistress and secretly aspire to play the piano! 'Punch' and his artists, as you will find in his old volumes, were very merry about her, and no doubt his readers believed that his exquisite ridicule would kill, or his sound good sense cure, the malady in her soul. Poor misguided girl!—why was she flying in the face of Nature? Nature had decreed that some should command, others obey; that some should sit imperative all day in airy parlours, and others be executive in basements. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... expresses himself, "too literary,"—too largely a question of classic titles which appealed to the mid-nineteenth-century authors whose judgment of art the twentieth century finds particularly amusing. Henry James has somewhere held up to ridicule the early Beacon Hill Boston for its impassioned devotion to the "attenuated outlines" of Flaxman's art. But the work of Story will survive all transient variations of opinion, even of the present realistic age; for is not ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... against all of whatever rank who sought in any way to alter, and, as it was presumed, amend, the religious, philosophical, social, political, or literary creed and practice of the country, and held up to ridicule such men as Socrates and Euripides, as well as Cleon the tanner; wrote 54 plays, of which 11 have come down to us; of these the "Clouds" aim at Socrates, the "Acharnians" and the "Frogs" at Euripides, and the "Knights" at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... return. When I was alive, I declared that I envied Achilles because he had a Homer to celebrate his exploits; and I most bountifully rewarded Choerilus, a pretender to poetry, for writing verses on mine. But my liberality, instead of doing me honour, has since drawn upon me the ridicule of Horace, a witty Roman poet; and Lucan, another versifier of the same nation, has loaded my memory with ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... neighbor on the left. They constantly find these two doors, but not a vestige of their own: their door has disappeared—vanished! Who could have taken away their door? Terror seizes them; they ask each other if they have become demented; and dreading the ridicule which would be cast upon honest citizens who could not find their own street-door, they grope about for more than an hour, feeling, poking, inspecting, measuring; but alas! there is no door; there is nothing but a wall, an ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... denounces, launches forth, Against all systems built on abstract rights, Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims Of institutes and laws hallowed by time; Declares the vital power of social ties Endeared by custom; and with high disdain, Exploding upstart theory, insists Upon the allegiance to which men are born. .... Could a youth, and one In ancient story versed, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... their separate parts, they are fifty-six: and these with the others make ninety. I shall not particularize their faults. All of them are whimsically conceived and badly written. In short, had the author artfully designed to turn English grammar into a subject of contempt and ridicule, by as ugly a caricature of it as he could possibly invent, he could never have hit the mark more exactly than he has done in this "new theory"—this rash production, on which he so sincerely prides himself. Alone as he is, in well-nigh all his opinions, behold how prettily he ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... can yield always to earnest workers, the man who has succeeded, and the man who has failed, can turn alike, as to a common mother—the one, for refuge from mean envy and slanderous hatred, from all the sorest evils which even the thriving child of Fame is heir to; the other, from neglect, from ridicule, from defeat, from all the petty tyrannies which the pining bondman of Obscurity is ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Englishman; but as the representative of a nation it may almost be said of him that he has no skin at all. Any touch comes at once upon the net-work of his nerves and puts in operation all his organs of feeling with the violence of a blow. And for this peculiarity he has been made the mark of much ridicule. It shows itself in two ways: either by extreme displeasure when anything is said disrespectful of his country, or by the strong eulogy with which he is accustomed to speak of his own institutions and ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... It was you who laughed at my letters, and took no notice of them, except to show them to your friends and ridicule ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... heads of Ravan have provoked much ridicule from European critics. It should be remembered that Spenser tells us of "two brethren giants, the one of which had two heads, the other three;" and Milton speaks of the "four-fold visaged Four," the four Cherubic shapes each ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... that he was about to die, and must prepare for it. In vain they tried to persuade him that his health was as good as ever, that he was only the subject of a nervous fancy. The physician arrived, and laughed at his fears, but he heeded neither ridicule nor entreaties. Death was not a thing to be laughed or entreated away, and to death he was doomed. What did it signify what the world said about it? He must make ready for it. His solicitor was called in, and his worldly affairs settled. Wife and children were all provided for, houses ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... "You will merely bring ridicule upon yourself," he said, "if you assert that the man you wish to protect is Amos Kilbright. We can prove by records, still to be seen in Bixbury, that said person died in seventeen eighty-five. On the other hand, if you choose to assert that he is, or was, anybody else, ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... in his cast of character, which if left to his natural destiny would have either worn out his life early in the world, or carried him to the obscure shelter of a convent. In the novelty of the secular life, and temptations of all kinds, dread of ridicule, and the flood of excitements which came with reviving health, that very sensitiveness led him astray; and the elevated aims fell with a heavier fall when diverted from heavenly palaces to earthly ones. ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... few years ago Chavannes never sold a picture. Millet lived his life in penury and obscurity, but thirty years of persistent ridicule having failed to destroy Degas' genius, some recognition has been extended to it. The fate of all great artists in the nineteenth century is a score years of neglect and obloquy. They may hardly hope for recognition before they are fifty; ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... compromising himself. Yes, believe me, the honest man is as far from the base cowardice of Philinte as he is from the harsh virtue of Alceste. The genius of the poet is displayed in the mind of this true medium; certainly all minds do enjoy more the ridicule of virtue than the sovereign contempt of easy-going selfishness which underlies that picture of it; but all, nevertheless, are prompted to keep themselves ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... is the more to be lamented at this time, that unanimity with our ally was the only point on which we could form our expectations of success; besides the advantage that the enemy may take of it, and the ridicule they will of course throw ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... disturbing charm. Fixed in intent regard he became conscious that, strangely, rather than small the figure seemed diminished by a distance which yet left every feature clear. With this he grew satirical at himself; and, moving resolutely down the Avenue, treated his absorption with ridicule. But the vision of the face, the smile, the narrowed eyes, persisted in his mind; the truth was that they troubled him; and within three blocks he had turned. The second view intensified rather than lessened his feeling, and he walked quickly into the shop odorous ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... often accompanied by awkwardness, due to the fact that the muscles are developing faster than the bones, making delicate adjustment impossible. There is painful sensitiveness over this, especially with boys, as hands and feet must be in the open, and they will easily construe any criticism or ridicule into a desire to be rid ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... systematic hatred of D'Arc is this: There was a story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule the pauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rent rolls: viz., that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, "Chevalier, as-tu donne au cochon a manger?" Now, it ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... been expected, but he certainly lessened his influence, even among his friends and fellow-labourers, by his onslaughts upon particular individuals. There can be no manner of doubt, however, that he achieved his object of holding some of his opponents up to public ridicule, and that in at least one or two instances he was the means of affecting votes in the Assembly thereby. To what extent, if at all, his efforts in this direction contributed to the election of Mr. Willson, the Reform candidate for the Speakership in the Assembly, already ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... it a part of her education. When the Invalid has time for another essay, Ermine, it should be on the Benefits of Ridicule." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... habit were the subject of ridicule at home and abroad, even at an early period. Witness the ancient limner's jest in 1570, who, being employed to decorate the gallery of the Lord Admiral Lincoln with representations of the costumes of the different nations ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this song with the simultaneous cry: "My word!" thus winging the arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But he had his revenge with Home, Sweet Home, and Where is my Wandering Boy To-night?—ditties into which he threw the most intolerable pathos. It appeared he had no home, nor ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... crowds opened before litters in which were visible the affected faces of women, or the heads of senators and knights, with features, as it were, rigid and exhausted from living. The many-tongued population repeated aloud their names, with the addition of some term of praise or ridicule. Among the unordered groups pushed from time to time, advancing with measured tread, parties of soldiers, or watchers, preserving order on the streets. Around about, the Greek language was heard ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... rough weather, against all reason. In winter time, all is dead, and reason says: 'It is all over with it.' But the precious seed within me sprouted and grew green, oblivious of all storms, and amid disgrace and ridicule it has ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... you rude or uncivil to other women. Every woman is her sister, and should be treated with becoming respect and attention. Your special attentions to her in society should not be such as to make her or you the subject of ridicule. Make no public exhibition of ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... was too late to think of that now; but the bitter was already stealing into my cup; and vague anticipations lay, for a few minutes, heavy on my heart. It would not have taken much to make me disclose my unmanly state of mind to my lively friend Alfred Ogle, nor even to the milder ridicule of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... again presenting it; yet it is thought it will be delivered, and then be ordered to be laid before Parliament. The whole affair has already been talked of there on the army and navy-days; and Burke, they say, has shone with amazing Wit and ridicule on the late inactivity of Gage, and his losing his cannon and straw; on his being entrenched in a town with an army of observation; with that army being, as Sir William Meredith had said, an asylum for magistrates, and to secure the port. Burke said, he had heard of an asylum for debtors and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Raux gives credit to it—that in the early days of her reign as Queen of France, Richelieu had fallen deeply in love with her, and that she, with the mischief of an irresponsible young girl, had encouraged him, merely to betray him to a ridicule which his proud spirit had never been able to forgive. Be that or another the reason, the fact that Richelieu hated her, and subjected her to his vindictive persecution, is beyond dispute. And it was he who by a hundred suggestions poisoned against her the King's mind, and thus kept ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... perfectly hate to," he answered, and went off crossly, to dine at his college's local club. Here he found an old friend, who most fortunately said something derogatory of the firm of Benson & Honaton. The opinion coincided with certain phases of Wayne's own views, but he contradicted it, held it up to ridicule, and ended by quoting incidents in the history of his friend's own firm which, as he said, were probably among the crookedest things that had ever been put over in Wall Street. Lily would not have distracted his ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... now she told him. She had expected teasing, ridicule, sarcasm, anything but the psychological interest mixed with a sort of retrospective tenderness which he showed. "I wish I could have seen you; I always thought you danced well." He added: "It seems that you need a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... publisher to make a third venture. One reason possibly was that the subjects of most of the poems, even the gayest of them, were serious, and another may have been that the common tribe of reviewers, searching like other parasites, discovered in them material for ridicule—which to them meant food, and as such they made use of it. At the same time he was not left without friends: certain of his readers, who saw what he meant and cared to understand it, continued his readers; and his influence on such ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... them to the eye of a darling daughter,) let me intreat you not to put on a grave face, and throw down the book in a passion and declare 'tis enough to turn the heads of half the girls in England; I do solemnly protest, my dear madam, I mean no more by what I have here advanced, than to ridicule those romantic girls, who foolishly imagine a red coat and silver epaulet constitute the fine gentleman; and should that fine gentleman make half a dozen fine speeches to them, they will imagine themselves so much in love as to fancy it a meritorious ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... made up my mind to a plan that was almost as desperate as the conditions it sought to cure—a plan that was in some ways so absurd that I felt like keeping it concealed for fear of ridicule—and I went about my preparations for departure in a sort of hopeless hope. As the train drew out from Ogden, I looked back at the mountains from my car window, and saw again, in the spectacle of their power, the pathos of our people—as if it were the nation ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... and thus deviate from the path over which Omar had passed, and he would quickly pay for this carelessness, suddenly finding himself floundering helplessly up to the ears in the deadly quicksands. Then the whole of our party would halt and, amid broad laughter and much ridicule, the unfortunate one would be dragged forth from a certain and ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... E. SOUTHARD, Boston: Dr. Jelliffe has just brought into ridicule what he terms "pinhole psychiatry;" but as I remember it, there is a technical method in psychology whereby things may be more clearly visible ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... strength, he was still to be seen far oftener walking about with his hands in his pockets, and his gaze bent on the ground, or turned up to the clouds, than joining in any of the boyish sports of those of his own age. A nervous dread of ridicule would deter him from taking his part, even when for a moment the fountain of youthfulness gushed forth, and impelled him to find rest in activity. So the impulse would pass away, and he would relapse into his former quiescence. But this partial isolation ministered to the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... himself?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who ever defended the absent?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who ever and always took the part of the weak and defenceless against the strong and tyrannical?—why, Bryan M'Mahon. Who fought for his religion, too, when the young heretics used to turn it, or try to turn it, into ridicule—ay, and when cowardly and traicherous Hycy used to sit quietly by, and either put the insult in his pocket, or curry favor wid the young sneering vagabonds that abused it? And yet, at the time Hycy was a thousand times a greater little bigot than Bryan. The one, wid a juvenile ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Indians of French Canada when first observed, as among some Polynesians and some tribes of Western and Central Africa little trace of a supreme being is found, except a name, and that name is even occasionally a matter of ridicule. The highest religious conception has been reached, and is generally known, yet the Being conceived of as creative is utterly neglected, while ghosts, or minor gods, are served and adored. To this religious phenomenon (if correctly observed) we must attempt ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... music, and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule; therefore it said much for Moll's cajolery, or for the love he bore her even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson's rude mirth and mine in ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... been regarded as a sort of enigma. Professor Dowden asks: "With what intention and in what spirit did Shakespeare write this strange comedy? All the Greek heroes who fought against Troy are pitilessly exposed to ridicule?" And from this fact and the bitterness of "Timon" some German critics have drawn the inference that Shakespeare was incapable of comprehending Greek life, and that indeed he only realized his Romans so perfectly because the Roman was very like the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... His uncle Martin would certainly not give him the gold in the box for any such hare-brained scheme; whilst to appeal to Sir Richard, with nothing to back his statements but what would be looked upon as old wives' fables and gipsy delusions, would only be to provoke ridicule and scorn. The Trevlyns had long given up the treasure as lost beyond recall. They had no sort of hope of recovering it, and the present owner of the Chase and his lady were in particular very greatly averse to any sort of dealings with ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... repay him for his insults. To replace the crowns of Norway and Denmark, which he had sought to wear, she put upon his head a fool's cap, with a tail twenty-eight feet long, and repaid him for his insults and jests in other ways. After she had done her best to make him an object of laughter and ridicule she locked him up in a strong prison cell, where he was given six years to reflect ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... members of the existing Government, when the late Bill had been passed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignation against the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slight undercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of which only they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House was bound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices at elections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of the House, as individuals, knew very well what had ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... deal at what they jeeringly called Jack Bugbee's marrying his grandmother. But, as if it had been specially ordered on purpose to confound these ill-natured jokers, this union, the object of their ridicule, was most signally prospered, and in due time the Doctor himself put his wife to bed with a pair of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... have been a man of good nature and a kindly heart, since he received affectionate record from Gay, Pope, and Swift. Mr. Walter Sichel quotes from "an unfinished sketch of a larger poem," by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in which Disney's worst characteristics are held up to ridicule. ("Bolingbroke and his Times," pp. 288-290). Swift often refers to him ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... and loud-tongued, but have done nothing; there are no great social efforts, no organizations, no practical projects, whether successful or futile, to which they can point. The old 'book-faiths' which you venture to ridicule have been something at all events; and, in truth, I can find no other 'faith' than what is somehow or other attached to a 'book,' which has been any thing influential. The Vedas, the Koran, the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... not entitled to the credit or ridicule, whichever people may be disposed to bestow upon them, for the extraordinary phrases with which their conversation is occasionally embellished. Some of them have good classical authority. That of "pull-foot" may be traced to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... that noisy group was abusing Mr Rose. It had long been Brigson's cue to do so; he derided him on every opportunity, and delighted to represent him as hypocritical and insincere. Even his weak health was the subject of Brigson's coarse ridicule, and the bad boy paid in deep hatred the natural tribute which vice must ever ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Act of Parliament was passed taxing persons using it. Pitt was in power, and being sorely in need of money, hit upon the plan of a tax of a guinea per head on those who used hair powder. He was prepared to meet much ridicule by this movement, but he saw that it would yield a considerable revenue, estimating it at as much as L200,000 a year. Fox, with force, said that a fiscal arrangement dependent on a capricious fashion must be regarded as an absurdity, but ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... at philosophy. It is said that the intellectual gymnastics of Greece were displeasing to her traditions. It is more probable that augurs had foreseen or oracles had foretold that philosophy would divest her of the sword, and with it of her sceptre and her might. Ideas cannot be decapitated. Only ridicule can demolish them. Philosophy, mistress of irony, resisted while nations fell. It was philosophy that first undermined established creeds and then led to the pursuit of new ones. Yet it may be that a contributing cause ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... while and forcing him to run to cover like a very greenhorn. Barry visited him in his cabin from time to time and at first ridiculed his weakness; but Little was undergoing a treatment in which he had a faith proof against ridicule. He waved a cheery hand at Barry, and a sickly smile puckered his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... what is called Common Sense, which ought to teach everybody that Antipodes could not possibly exist, because they would tumble off. The best answer that astronomers could give, was, "Go and see." And I can give no better answer to those learned skeptics who try to ridicule the Science of Comparative Mythology—"Go and see!" that is, go and read the Veda, and before you have finished the first Mandala, I can promise you, you will no longer shake your wise heads at solar myths, whether in India, or in Greece, ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... as the "Little Parliament."[1] The Royalists nicknamed it "Barebone's Parliament" from one of its members, a London leather dealer named Praise-God Barebone. Notwithstanding the irregularity of its organization and the ridicule cast upon it, the "Barebone's Parliament" proposed several reforms of great value, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... moderate in his denunciation of Wit in the Essay upon Wit, he does insist that even at its best it can never be noble. Wit is harmful, he states, because it is often employed in immoral subjects, raillery, ridicule, and satire. It is chiefly useful as ornamentation: "The Addition of Wit to Proper Subjects, is like the artful Improvement of the Cook, who by his exquisite Sauce gives to a plain Dish, ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... author, in his composition, then suppose, that an air, made for the purpose of levity and ridicule, should be marked for such high destinies. In twenty years from that time, the national march—now universally recognized by the patriots—inspired the heroes of Bunker's Hill; and, in less than thirty, Lord Cornwallis and his army ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... more than fifteen members, and was the object of much ridicule at the university; but it included some men who afterward played considerable parts in the world. Among them was Charles, the younger brother of John Wesley, whose hymns became the favorite poetry of the sect, and whose gentler, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... trifled with the holy damsel, whom the King had confided to their care, and who already inspired most of them with respect? Certain of them, it is true, believing her not to be in earnest, would willingly have turned her to ridicule; but if one of them had played her the trick of representing La Beauce as La Sologne, how was it there was no one to undeceive her? How could Brother Pasquerel, her chaplain, her steward, and the honest squire d'Aulon, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... would begin by carefully pulling out the threads, and afterward tear it to pieces with his teeth. His nuts he broke with a hammer precisely as a man would have done and without being shown its use. Ridicule was not pleasant to him; he strongly resented being laughed at, and would throw anything within reach at his tormentor and with a skill and force not usual with monkeys. Taking the missile in both hands and standing erect, he would extend his long arms behind his back and ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... very much. I think it was splendid how she stood up to all the reproaches, and even ridicule; she told me that she had once, and only once, in her life been untrue to herself (she meant in accepting Charlie), and since then she has spoken the absolute truth to everybody about it all. She has been very plucky, and very ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... well. He is quick to repay such entertainment from his own inexhaustible store, and he never fails to turn anything that happens, no matter how serious it may be, into jest and farce. He has even been known to fling witticisms and ridicule at a bear that was coming at him full speed. But, no; that is not quite accurate. Posey has been known to say that he said these things to a charging bruin. But ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... That Cam-u-el's posterity Must wear divided upper lips through all their solemn lives! A prodigy astonishing Reproachfully admonishing Those, wicked, heartless married men who ridicule ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has obtained some ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'Joey' or 'Joe' a person on the diggings, or anywhere else in Australia, is to grossly insult and ridicule him." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... recall a mournful feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary. Evidently, the blighted young statesman had a daughter who, in all this storm of ridicule and contempt, stood by him, loved him, and proudly named her son ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... chastiseth you for violating the five precepts, how hath he raised up the Franks who ridicule them? If he governeth the earth by the Koran, by what did he govern it before the days of the prophet, when it was covered with so many nations who drank wine, ate pork, and went not to Mecca, whom he nevertheless permitted to raise powerful empires? ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Janissaries, how it had got there, and of the tumult it had raised, the reader may better imagine than I can describe the state of the monarch's mind. To tell the story with all its particulars he felt would be derogatory to his dignity, for it was sure to cover him with ridicule; but at the same time to let the matter rest as it now stood was impossible, because the tumult would increase until there would be no means of quelling it, and the affair might terminate by depriving him of his crown, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the hall they paused to notice the picturesque group of servants gathered near the door. There was a smile on every face, not a smile of ridicule, but ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... sit by the hour or by the day thinking out endless ultimates, for the sheer pleasure it gives him. Other men blame him, criticise him and ridicule him for this and for the most part he does fail of the practical success by which ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... is full of such persons to-day when education is too cheap. Concha steered his flock as best he could through the stormy paths of insurrection and civil war. He ruled with a rod of iron whom he could, and such as were beyond his reach he influenced by ridicule and a patient tolerance. True to his cloth, he was the enemy of all progress and distrusted ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... the new day would bring. I should have to face Cassion, and in what spirit could I meet him best? Thus far I had been fortunate in escaping his denunciation, but I realized the reason which had compelled his silence—pride, the fear of ridicule, had sealed his lips. I was legally his wife, given to him by Holy Church, yet for weeks, months, during all our long wilderness journey, I had held aloof from him, mocking his efforts, and making light of his endeavors. It had been maddening, no doubt, and rendered ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... above, she published not only her own articles and Katherine II.'s, but also the writings of many new and talented men, among them, Von Vizin and Derzhavin. This journal, "The Companion of the Friends of the Russian Language," speedily came to an end when the Princess-editor took umbrage at the ridicule heaped on some of her projects and speeches by the Empress ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... priori, are we to ridicule and condemn it? I know of none. We admit Vitruvius, Inigo Jones, Gibbs, and Chambers, into our libraries: and why not Mr. Hope's book? Is decoration to be confined only to the exterior? and, if ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... with any degree of success. It requires an individual nimble of mind and body, whose nerves are keyed to a tension, who is dominated by a mood which refuses to recognize the perils of snakes, cactus, and prairie-dog holes; forgetful of self and dignity, inured to ridicule. Such a one is ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... dismissed as contemptible chimeras. Upon the first of these dark pretensions we shall have occasion to speak at another point. Upon the other we agree with Van Dale. Yet, even here, the spirit of triumphant ridicule, applied to questions not wholly within the competence of human resources, is displeasing in grave discussions: grave they are by necessity of their relations, howsoever momentarily disfigured by levity and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... to his mother's delight. But the mother's delight lasted for just five days. She began to complain, she began to quarrel; the young wife replied, and the din of their voices greatly distressed the young man, besides making him an object of ridicule to his neighbours. One evening, in a fit of passion, both women said they would stand it no longer. They ran out of the house and up the hillside, but as there was only one path they ran away together, ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... said Nigel, who, like others of his age, was more sensible to ridicule than to reason—"Who dares laugh ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... hidden seed of things, which in time must develop or die. A garter dropt in the ballroom of Royalty gives birth to an Order of Knighthood; a movement to reform the spelling of the English language, initiated by one of the presidents of a great Republic, becomes eventually an object of ridicule. Only two instances to illustrate our point, which is applicable also to time-honoured truths and moralities. But no matter how important or trivial these, he who would give utterance to them must do so in cap and bells, if he would be ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... fear of provoking conflict with Johannesburg and the Imperial Government, however the juggling with Dr. Jameson's life afterwards and the spurious magnanimity so freely advertized, may detract from what they did and may tend to bring ridicule and suspicion upon them, one cannot review the broad facts of the Jameson invasion, and realize a position which, if only for the moment, gave the aggrieved party unlimited scope for revenge upon an aggressor who had not the semblance of personal wrong or interest nor the pretext of duty ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... light of publicity, for fear of sharing the fate of our master, Copernicus, who, although he has earned immortal fame with some, yet with very many (so great is the number of fools) has become an object of ridicule and scorn. I should certainly venture to publish my speculations if there were more people like you. But this not being the case, I refrain from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... that the King of Sweden would give him a command. The vagrant life of this general, who ran everywhere hegging employment from the enemies of his country without being able to obtain it, subjected him to general ridicule; in fact, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... much perverted, for all that one can say of the different kinds of mind meet together in the "Bel Esprit." Yet as the epithet is bestowed on an infinite number of bad poets and tedious authors, it is more often used to ridicule than to praise. ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... time, and are then sent back to the bosom of the tribes, with the elements of the knowledge of letters and history, which their parents and friends are utterly unable to appreciate, and which they, in fact, ridicule. The instructed youth is soon discouraged, and they most commonly fall back into habits worse than before, and end their course by inebriety, while the body of the tribe is nowise bettered. Whatever the defects are, there are ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... account of his being fussy in dress, when you see him face death or danger without flinching. Fine clothes seem to fit such a man, but upon one who cannot stand fire they become a proper subject for ridicule. Custer with flashing eye and flowing hair, charging at the head of his men, was a grand and picturesque figure, the more so by reason of his fantastic uniform, which made him a conspicuous mark for the enemy's bullets, but a coward in Custer's ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical imperative"—makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... transatlantic facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should be among Englishmen such an utter absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... campaign were members of the United States Senate. Calhoun sat in the Vice-President's chair; Van Buren was the leader of the Middle States group of the opposition; John Randolph was there and ever ready to turn his wonderful gifts of ridicule and sarcasm against the Puritan who sat in the "Mansion" and "wasted the money of the people"; Nathaniel Macon, one of the most popular of all the Senators, opposed the second Adams as earnestly as he had fought the first; George Poindexter, of Mississippi, ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the governments generally of the world, are cities and governments of the rich, and the masses are not men, but poor men, that is, men who would be rich; ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... N. underestimation; depreciation &c (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c v.; modesty &c 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon^; depreciate; disparage &c (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c 856; slight &c (despise) 930; neglect &c 460; slur over. make light of, make little of, make nothing of, make no account of; belittle; minimize, think nothing of; set no store by, set at naught; shake off as dewdrops from the lion's mane. Adj. depreciating, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... emotions until at last, clenching my hands, I determined I would go on and persevere in the adventure at all hazards; though I must confess I came to this final decision more from pride and fear of ridicule than ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... critic; but when he and his successors go beyond the artistic objection, one takes leave to say, they misapprehend the thing criticised. To complain that 'love' and common morality have no place in satiric comedy is either to contemplate ridicule of them or to ask comedy to be other than satiric. We know what happened when the dramatists gave way: there followed, Hazlitt says, 'those do-me-good, lack-a-daisical, whining, make-believe comedies in the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... on which the unfortunate scholar tiresomely balanced. Others sent out the suffering pupil to cut a branch of a tree, and, making a split in the large end of the branch, sprung it on the culprit's nose, and he stood painfully pinched, an object of ridicule with his spreading branch of leaves. One cruel master invented an instrument of torture which he called a flapper. It was a heavy piece of leather six inches in diameter with a hole in the middle, and ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... done by others. Now, at last, however, Trochu will have an opportunity to carry out his famous plan, by which he asserts that he will raise the blockade in fourteen days, and of which he has given the fullest details in his will. Ridicule kills in France—and since this eminent General, as an evidence that he had a plan, appealed to the will which he had deposited with his lawyer, he lost all influence. I need not say that this influence has not been restored by the absurd arrest to which he was subjected ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Parish Thornton with eyes blankly dumfounded, and the other two faces mirrored his bewilderment, then the spokesman broke into bitterly derisive laughter, and his followers parroted his mirthless ridicule. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... sacred things, to ridicule any portion of God's Word. Many professors of Christianity of to-day when asked if they believe in the ordinance of feet-washing will make some such answer as, "If your feet are dirty, you ought to wash them." The ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... never forgave Barneveld for drawing from him those famous letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and to admit the possibility of salvation under them. These epistles had brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his theological discussions a laughing-stock. He was still more incensed by the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had commenced ere they reached the church, and as Mary had no desire of again subjecting her bonnet to the ridicule of Rose Lincoln, and as Jenny had much rather stay out doors in the shade, they sat down upon the steps, wondering where Sal Furbush had taken herself. "I mean to look in and see if she is here," said Jenny, and advancing on tiptoe to the open door, ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,) wasted upon you—yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Julia, were the only topics on which these two friends disagreed: for Valentine, not being himself a lover, was sometimes a little weary of hearing his friend for ever talking of his Julia, and then he would laugh at Protheus, and in pleasant terms ridicule the passion of love, and declare that no such idle fancies should ever enter his head, greatly preferring (as he said) the free and happy life he led, to the anxious hopes and fears of ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... marriage. The work in which he had made his name distinguished had to do with the human brain—its vagaries as well as its normalities—and his thought was enough in advance of the general to be frequently misunderstood and sometimes a target for lay ridicule. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... intensified the belief that she was merely "stickin' up for Sparrell's judgment" without any reference to her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular afternoon of the picnic; ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... imputed, and their success in this wide-spread conflict helped forward their cause. Ulrich von Hutten, one of the young knights who belonged to the literary school, and others of the same class, made effective use, against their illiterate antagonists, of the weapons of satire and ridicule. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... abstracted personages. When the handkerchief or the ball is thrown, and when his bird's name is called for, the absent little philosopher is obliged to collect his scattered thoughts instantaneously, or else he exposes himself to the ridicule of naming, perhaps, a fish or a beast, or any bird but the right. To those children, who, on the contrary, are not sufficiently apt to abstract their attention, and who are what Bacon calls "birdwitted," we should recommend a solitary-board. At ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... well-merited cold douche to the extremists on either side. It is now acknowledged that what for want of a better term I may call the Federal Solution holds the field, and any attempt to expel it will only plunge the objector still deeper in the mire and cover him with ridicule from head to foot. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... all our rebukes of tyranny abroad—the criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to a{347} mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery continues to pollute ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of David. Thus he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason.—He next entered the temple courts, where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice, and—(I must say it to my friend's amusement, and in defiance of his kind but keen ridicule,) committed a breach of the peace by flogging with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such conduct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably might have been publicly scourged ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... an active one in Shakespeare's time. There was a good deal of democratic feeling in the burghers of London-town, and they resented the courtly prejudices of their playwrights and their habit of holding up plain citizens to ridicule upon the stage, whenever they deigned to present them at all. The Prolog in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle" gives sufficient evidence of this. The authors adopted the device of having a Citizen leap ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... to analyse the work before us, and to examine generally the phenomena of mesmerism, we shall do our utmost to avoid the vices of partial advocacy which we censure; we moreover agree with Mr Townshend, that ridicule is not the weapon to be used. Satire, when on the side of the majority, is persecution; it is striking from a vantage ground—fair, perhaps, when the individual contends with the mass, as when an author ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... recommendation was received and treated can never be forgotten. It must at this day be a source of great comfort to that devoted friend of science that those who yet survive of the highly-excited party which attempted to cast on him reproach and ridicule for that proposition, and especially for assimilating those establishments to light-houses of the skies, have recently admitted the wisdom of his advice by making ample appropriations to accomplish the very object ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... positive about the firearms, and thought he heard the bullets whistling past his ears, but could not swear to it. At this stage the defendants' lawyer, who had been harrowing the witnesses with many questions and heaping ridicule upon their devoted heads, called for the prisoners' arms to be produced, and the sight of the toy pistols with their mutton-boned barrels provoked yells of laughter in the court, which were presently echoed in ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... words it is, in Germany, a crime to criticise or ridicule any proposition uttered by the sacred ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... of reflection I look back on that never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification melodious. It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the sighings of a heart looking ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Nathan, "if we are for war, let us have war in earnest; we must not carry it on with pop-guns. Let us fall upon all Classicals and Liberals without distinction of age or sex, and put them all to the sword with ridicule. There ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... devotion he could never have felt for a village Gretchen. His pride in her nobility was indeed far less than his love for herself, but it made for that love a rampart against love's deadliest enemy, which is ridicule. He certainly did not tell himself so. He would have thought it an insult to Hilda to worship her for anything but her own self; but he was none the less aware that the pedestal upon which his idol ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford |
