"Scoffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... narrative, are, "These accounts put me in mind of a mass of iron, weighing seventy-one pounds, which was sent to the imperial collection of natural curiosities: about the origin of which many mouths have been distorted with scoffing laughter. If, in the Eichstedt specimen, the effects of fire appear tolerably evident; they are, in this, not to be mistaken.—Its surface is full of spherical impressions, like the mass of iron, which the celebrated ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... nose ought to be full of expedients and I very much wish to become acquainted with him. One can but better one's mind by having intercourse with people of high spirit. I am only sorry that my uncle was not pleased with his words and scoffing humour. Mosaide hates him, and of his capacity for hate no ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... his own land beyond the Great Waters, the mighty animal which is called the King of Beasts is, save only when he lacks food, as mild as the dove or the song-sparrow. And thus it was with the Great Spirit, as regarded the scoffing and wickedness of the Andirondacks. Long he resisted the importunities of the subordinate Manitous, that the haughty tribe might be punished for their insolence; long he waited with the hope that their eyes might be opened, and repentance seize their hearts, and amendment ensue. He waited in vain, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... closing for the last time, what comfort has your doubting friend to give you? Not a word. He leaves you alone with your dead, and he has robbed you of the only hope which makes death bearable—the resurrection unto eternal life. You come to your own dying bed; is there one of these doubting, scoffing faith-destroying friends who can bring peace or calm to your last hours? Will it be any comfort to you to hear them say that "there is nothing new, nothing true, and that it does not signify?" They tell you one fact, which you know already, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... would promise. Marry, these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb, before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they confirm their own: I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom. So as the best title in true English they get with their merriments is to be called good fools: for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters: but that which giveth greatest scope ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Jesus Christ, made of bronze gilt, which cost a large sum of money to its founder, a Jew! There is a Latin inscription on it which explains the paradox. There stood on the same spot a wooden statue of Christ in the XVI century. One day an opulent Jew, on passing by, made some scoffing or contemptuous remark on it. He was overheard by some of the people, accused of blasphemy and condemned to die; but on expressing great contrition and offering to pay a fine to any amount, he was pardoned, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... so without exposing her weak side. She understood admirably how to attract the great men to her house, to whose houses she herself very seldom went; and as long as the appearance of fashionable infidelity and of scoffing, which was then the mode in the higher circles, was necessary to this object, she carefully concealed ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... unspoken? And an opportunity like this might never again occur in Perry's life! Here were gathered not only the people of the village, but of the valley. His words would fall not alone on the ears of a few choice spirits of the store forum, or the scoffing pedants of the literary society, for crowded into that little room were old men whose years would give weight to the declaration that it was the greatest talking they had ever heard; were young children, who in after years, when a neglected gravestone ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... full half an hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness." "In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... uttered months afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood their silent commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for their forbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in her manner which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was above their triumph and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and courageously; so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire her. We, who watched her after her disaster, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... turrets an ensign is flying, Which stout hearts are banded till death to uphold; And bold is their crying, and fierce their defying, When trench'd in their ramparts, unconquer'd of old. But lo! in the offing, To punish their scoffing, Brave Napier appears, and their triumph is done; No danger can stay him, No foeman dismay him, He conquers or dies by his colours ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... scoffing. I'm the one who is afraid. You are not so strong as you pretend. Steindor, will you hold the rope ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... shouldn't mind if you were only merry, but you know you are scoffing at the story, and I love it—so I can't be pleased ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... in the succession of inventors, Bell had to run the gantlet of scoffing and adversity. By the reception that the public gave to his telephone, he learned to sympathize with Howe, whose first sewing-machine was smashed by a Boston mob; with McCormick, whose first reaper was called "a cross between an Astley chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying-machine"; ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... and scoffed. Hers was a face made for scoffing: oval and finely lined, with a laughing mouth and dark eyes that had both the fear and the fierceness of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... these words with a scoffing air of great amusement; he looked steadily at Joan with a smile that was intolerable to her, then he raised his hat with an elaborate ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... let him through the far Steppes gallop, His horse can scarcely stand at all— His stamping hoofs in vain seek foothold, The rider dreading lest he fall! So then remain within thy paling, Read thou in Pradt or Walter Scott, Compare thy varying editions, Drink, and thy scoffing mood spare not! As the long evenings drag away So doth the ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly lapsed into the awful callousness which characterizes the relapses of confirmed guilt; he pretended to smile at his weakness, and found a sorry relief in cursing and scoffing ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... man has played out his part in the scene. Wherever he now is, I hope he's more clean. Yet give we a thought free of scoffing or ban To that Dirty Old House and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... them, if they like Our overture; and turn not back perverse: But that I doubt; however witness, Heaven! Heaven, witness thou anon! while we discharge Freely our part: ye, who appointed stand Do as you have in charge, and briefly touch What we propound, and loud that all may hear! So scoffing in ambiguous words, he scarce Had ended; when to right and left the front Divided, and to either flank retired: Which to our eyes discovered, new and strange, A triple mounted row of pillars laid On wheels (for like to pillars most they seemed, Or hollowed bodies made of oak or fir, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... I felt and thought, but only what I did. And while I did it my reason was all the time scoffing at my heart (for whose imperious behoof the wild, mad things I am about to record were done)—scoffing, as an Asiatic malefactor will sometimes scoff at the executioner whose pitiless and conquering saw is severing his bleeding body in twain. I arose ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the wingd thought, scoffing ascent, Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat 30 With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the stories that we heard could not be explained on these grounds, and the fakir and his doings were often talked over at mess, some of the officers scoffing at the whole business, others maintaining that some of these fakirs had, in some way or another, the power of foretelling the future, citing many well authenticated ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... affairs was not sufficiently settled and tranquil to foster mutual forbearance and amity. Swift, it must be granted, was not so personal as most of his contemporaries, seeking in his wit rather to amuse his friends than to wound his rivals. But his scoffing spirit made him enemies—some of whom taking advantage of certain expressions on church matters in "The Tale of a Tub" prejudiced Queen Anne, and placed an insuperable obstacle in the way of his ambition. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... great sorrow that we mothers and fathers see our boys and girls, especially those who return from abroad, neglecting and scoffing at our modes of education that have endured and done such noble work for centuries past. I know it is necessary to study things modern to keep up with the demands of the times; but they can do this and still reserve some hours for the reading of the classics. Instead of always quoting Byron, Burns, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... in all manly sports and exercises; Cleon, no less a master in physical prowess, was nurtured by a hind in the mountains; the contrast between their manners is admirably sustained: Cleon is rough, inclined to be rude and scoffing, totally without tact, even where his mistress is concerned. Lalus remembers her upbringing and her tastes; he makes no unnecessary or ostentatious display of wealth; his gifts are simple and charming, while Cleon's are so grotesquely ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... effort to delight the eye, but is a study, almost a criticism, of Christianity. All sorts of men are brought before the miraculous Babe, and their reactions, of wonder, of amazement, of devotion, of love, of skepticism, of scoffing, and of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... poet presented Comedies, has he praised himself upon the stage; but, having been slandered by his enemies amongst the volatile Athenians, accused of scoffing at his country and of insulting the people, to-day he wishes to reply and regain for himself the inconstant Athenians. He maintains that he has done much that is good for you; if you no longer allow yourselves to be too much hoodwinked by ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... and love the Bible, and owed his moral culture to it. Its events and symbols were deeply stamped upon him, so without being a pietist he was greatly moved at the scoffing spirit toward it which he met at the university. From youth he had stood on good terms with God, and at times he had felt that he had some things to forgive God for not having given better assistance to his infinite good-will. Under all this influence he turned to cabalism ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... spoken with such animation from a child of only eight years, might have provoked a smile in light, scoffing auditors, but they were understood and appreciated by the grave Scotch, who admired the courage of this young disciple, already armed for the battle. Even Paganel was stirred to the depths of his heart, and felt his warmer sympathy ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... two hours of waiting, relieved with pleas and promises from the miller, there was no word from Dylks and no token of his bodily presence. With the scoffing of the unbelievers, the prayers of the faithful rose. "Come soon, oh Lord!" "Send thy Power!" "Remember thy Little Flock!" Upon these at last broke falteringly, stragglingly, a familiar voice, the voice of Abel Reverdy, kindly ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... scoffing, high-headed Nance, who up to this time had waged successful warfare, offensive as well as defensive, against the invading masculine, forgot for one transcendent second everything in the world except the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... preach (the sermon was at Whitehall); and if so, the passage in Andrews will explain the word "jesting" to mean, not scoffing, but asking without serious purpose of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... worshippers within is to get one of the most pleasant impressions possible; somehow it always strikes me that one imagines the people within to be so much holier, indeed more spiritual, than they really are. But all this looks either like preaching or scoffing, and it is neither. It is really the result of a desire to push myself into the home life you good people are still leading, somehow or other. An excusable offence after all, my Masters! Having re-cursed the tail of the convoy, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... him; he stepped out on the balcony and his diamond buckle glittered in the sun; proudly he twirled his mustache and proudly gazed around; and it seemed to me that he mocked at me above all others, that he had recognised me and that thus he pointed his hand at me, scoffing and threatening,—I seized a carbine from a Muscovite; I barely raised it to my shoulder, scarcely aimed—it went off! You ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... with Hannah scoffing but noticeably on ahead with the lamp, they climbed the stairs and tore the room to pieces—to no avail. In a final burst of inspiration Hughie dragged the faded carpet from its tacks and filled the room with dust. Sneezing and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... day, O Voltaire, They charge you with levity, scoffing, when all that you did Was to plough up the quack grass, and turn up the roots to the sun, And let the sun kill them. For laughter is sun-light, And nothing of worth or of truth needs to fear it. But listen The strength of a nation ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... of us, except a very few who seemed careless from too much misery. One such man had a horse, covered from head to foot with sores, that he offered to sell to Ranjoor Singh. I did not overhear what price he asked, but I heard the men scoffing at such avarice as would rob the vultures. He went away saying nothing, like a man in stupor, leaving the horse to die. Nay, sahib, he had ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... voices singing, and that of the shy angel gathered confidence. With a species of scoffing humour Sir Beverley's stony eyes travelled to the window. They rested upon his boy standing there with bent head—a mute, waiting figure with a curious touch of pathos in its pose. Sir Beverley's sudden frown drew his forehead. What ailed the youngster? ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... what can he do, poor man? He will not succeed. I tell you—all's over. Once I sailed in a ship near Thessalonica, and saw Mount Olympus. I mused and was full of emotion at beholding the dwellings of the gods; and a scoffing old man told me that travellers had climbed Olympus, and seen that it was an ordinary mountain, with only snow and ice and stones on it. I have remembered those words all my life. My son, all is over; Olympus is deserted. The gods have grown weary and have departed. But the sun is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time. Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born to be a lady." (You ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A scoffing age may cry out against Christianity. To some it may be a "stumbling block; to others foolishness." Men may exclaim against the gospel, and against the doctrines and duties of it, and the means which have been ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... extended, as though frozen in the act. "You fear for the State, for the Monarchy, for liberty, you fear the socialists and the anarchists, but you should be far more afraid of your colleagues, who scoff at God! for socialism and anarchism are merely fevers, while scoffing is even as gangrene! As for you," he added, turning to the Under-Secretary, "you deride One who is silent. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... they have no stomach for their agony; but go their ways, leaving the wretched females rooted, transfixed, the picture of perfect hopelessness, and greeting them, ere they disappear from sight, with shouts of scoffing laughter, which the winds catch up and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... personality made life hard for him from first to last. Bent on testing all things for himself, he came into conflict with the authorities. He was discharged from a school in Mandal in 1848 because of his scoffing criticism of a religious schoolbook. He went then to Heltberg's School (see Note 50) in Christiania, soon after became a student in the University, and passed the state examination in law in 1856. But his life was devoted to literary pursuits, and he was most gifted as a lyric poet. In 1858 Vinje ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Jocose scoffing, and dialogue writing is the easiest of tasks; and if Mr. Rogers's co-religionists do not take the alarm, and come in strength upon Messrs. Longman, imploring them to suppress these books of Mr. Rogers, persons who despise all ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... So far as nearly coming to a rough and tumble with the fellow for his cheek in scoffing our fly at the station constitutes an acquaintance. Gifford acted as peacemaker, and we put up with the fellow's company to the town. But neither of us imbibed a particularly high opinion of the sportsman, ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... impulse of that heart struggled for clearer light and for purer air the unquiet soul. In manner, in thought, and in person as yet almost an infant, deep in her heart lay yet one woman's secret, known scarcely to herself, but which taught her, more powerfully than Hilda's proud and scoffing tongue, to shudder at the thought of the barren cloister ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... written 'my house shall be for all nations; but ye have made it a den of thieves?' Ye have what all the nations of the earth have bled for, what prophets have prayed for, and patriots died for; and all the world is looking on asking, sneering, scoffing, saying ye pervert the Ark o' the Covenant of God, saying lawlessness stalks under y'r banners, saying y' wrest the judgment to the highest bidder, aye to the supreme fountain head o' y'r courts! The fate o' this ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... prophetess, and the priests, who all declared that the omens were not in favour of the marriage. Upon this Helge assembled his people to hear the word which the messengers were to carry to their master, but unfortunately King Halfdan gave way to his waggish humour, and made scoffing reference to the advanced age of the royal suitor. These impolitic words were reported to King Ring, and so offended him that he immediately collected an army and prepared to march against the Kings of Sogn to avenge the insult with his sword. When the rumour of his approach ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... scoffing, this hath writ, Friend, that's your folly, which you think your wit: This you vent oft, void both of wit and fear, Meaning another, when ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... day for Jesus of Nazareth (dying for the sins of others), but worse for his foolish brother, the Jew shoemaker; for as punishment to the scoffing and heartless Ishmaelite, the "Son of God," bending under the weight of the cross, exclaimed to the "Son of Saint Crispin": "Tarry thou 'till I ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of thy wrongs go up in vain to Heaven? Will not the God of battles hear and help thee, in this the hour of thy peril and of thy need? O, wilt thou not, Lord, extend Thy mighty arm in her defence? O, teach the proud Britons, now thronging our shores—teach them, scoffing Goliahs as they are, that there are young Davids in our land! O, bring their counsels to nought! Scatter their fleets by thy tempests at sea, and destroy their armies on land! Sweep them off by bullet and plague! and—and"—suddenly checking himself, he meekly added, "and ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... this ancient and very dignified newspaper, George felt a sense of disappointment. He had little esteem for journalists, whom Mr. Enwright was continually scoffing at, and whom he imagined to be all poor. He had conceived Mr. Ingram as perhaps a rich cosmopolitan financier, or a rich idler—but at any rate rich, whatever ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... mere letter of Scripture he dwelt little; and, while he never obtruded opinions that might shock any person, and was far removed from scoffing or irreverence, he did not hesitate to discriminate between parts of our Sacred Books which he considered as simply legendary and parts which were to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Will that is tried, and whose gold flows Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement Breaketh Atonement's bread, and drinketh Atonement's wine cup. But he who cometh up hither, unworthy with hate in his bosom. Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ's blessed body, And the Redeemer's blood! To himself he eateth and drinketh Death and doom! And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father! Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement?" Thus with emotion he asked, and ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... those respects is qualified for the character, and out of his professional resources he was able to supply the other elements that are requisite to its constitution and fulfilment. He presented as Richard a sardonic, scoffing demon, who nevertheless, somewhere in his complex nature, retains an element of humanity. He embodied a character that is tragic in its ultimate effect, but his method was that of the comedian. His portrayal of Richard, except at those moments when it is veiled with craft and dissimulation, or at ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Shakespeare read in Plutarch that "Cassius, being a choleric man, and hating Caesar privately more than he did the tyranny openly, incensed Brutus against him." The effect of this is finely worked out by the dramatist in the man's affected scorn of Caesar, and in the scoffing humor in which he loves to speak of him. For such is the natural ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... then went on: "Well, I have confessed two blunders and think it has done me good; but I'm getting nearer what I want to say. Bob's something of a philosopher and once remarked that events and people seldom force us into coils; our passions and characters entangle us. He was scoffing at the power of the theatrical villain and ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... peculiarities of Luther and Calvin as he did ridicule them, Swift could not be thought other than constitutionally incapable of religion. Even a Pagan philosopher, if made to understand the case, would be incapable of scoffing at any form, natural or casual, simple or distorted, which might be assumed by the most solemn of problems—problems that rest with the weight of worlds upon ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... industriously and the artist was lying on his back, with a pipe between his teeth, and his half-closed eyes gazing up contentedly through the green of overhead branches, their peace was broken by a guffaw of derisive laughter. They looked up, to find at their backs a semi-circle of scoffing humanity. Lescott's impulse was to laugh, for only the comedy of the situation at the moment struck him. A stage director, setting a comedy scene with that most ancient of jests, the gawking of boobs at some new sight, could ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... grating was smashed and several stones and pearls (I don't know whether they were very precious ones) had been removed from the crown and the setting. But what was worse, besides the theft a senseless, scoffing sacrilege had been perpetrated. Behind the broken glass of the ikon they found in the morning, so it was said, a live mouse. Now, four months since, it has been established beyond doubt that the crime was committed ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... at that, for here was not the friendless churl he was scoffing at. But he tried to smile, as ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... could not show much favour to one who insisted always on thinking for himself. His works survived, but he was not read, through the Middle Ages. With the Renaissance he partly came into his own again, but still laboured under the imputations of scoffing and atheism, which confined the reading of him to ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... carry his head on one side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly happen in us. There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with, as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and goggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness. You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results that were no ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... ordered him to be hoisted on the rack, and while he was suspended in the air, said to him scoffing: "What say you now, Peter; do you begin to know what the rack is? Are you yet willing to sacrifice?" Peter answered: "Tear me with iron hooks, and talk not of my sacrificing to your devils: I have already told you, that I will sacrifice to that God ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... he admitted frankly, "that in some corner of the world, if not in this country, you might whisper a word, a scoffing or an angry sentence, which would make people wonder what grudge you had against a simple Norfolk baronet. I would not like that word to be spoken in the presence of any one who knew your history and realised ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of things, such as careless living students of divinity, who are to be the future teachers of this great nation; ministers and congregations apparently dead as stones; churches becoming idols, claiming the reverence and love of their members, and jealous of any other idol usurping their throne; scoffing infidelity among the ignorant; philosophic scepticism among the intelligent; indifference among thousands; while abroad heathen nations, with countless millions, are opened up to the Protestant Church, which can only send driblets of two or three missionaries ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... society, its actors and its crimes, with the eve of enlightened philanthropy, experienced reason, and Christian charity. He is neither a fierce, imperious Romish bigot like Bossuet, nor a relentless Calvinistic theologian like D'Aubigne, nor a scoffing infidel like Voltaire. Deeply impressed with the vital importance of religion to the temporal and eternal welfare of mankind, he is yet enlightened enough to see that all systems of religious belief have much to recommend them, and rejects the monstrous doctrine that salvation can be obtained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... rightly—or at least more rightly and approximately rightly—of the position and age of man upon this earth. The Psalmist's ancient question of devout thankfulness is too often travestied to-day into a question of scoffing or of melancholy unbelief: 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy hands; what is man? Art Thou mindful of him?' This psalm comes to answer that. 'The Lord of hosts is with us.' True, we are but of yesterday, and know nothing. True, earth is but ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Love! is love-making to be pursued if we may not kick the world out of our bower and wash our hands of it? Love that does not spurn the world when lovers curtain themselves is a love—is it not so?—that seems to the unwhipped, scoffing world to go slinking into basiation's obscurity, instead of on a glorious march behind the screen. Our hero had a strong sentiment as to the policy of scorning the world for the sake of defending his personal pride and (to his honour, be it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wedding feast for his son.' Thus did they turn into ridicule those eternal truths which he had taught under the from of parables to those whom he came from heaven to save; and whilst repeating these scoffing words, they continued to strike him with their fists and sticks, and to spit in his face. Next they put a crown of reeds upon his head, took off his robe and scapular, and then threw an old torn mantle, which scarcely reached his knees, over his shoulders; around his neck ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... of Ennius, Pacuvius, Lucilius, Horace, and the rest of their successors. "They were so called," says Casaubon in one place, "from Silenus, the foster- father of Bacchus;" but in another place, bethinking himself better, he derives their name [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] from their scoffing and petulancy. From some fragments of the "silli" written by Timon we may find that they were satiric poems, full of parodies; that is, of verses patched up from great poets, and turned into another sense than their author intended them. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... APOLLODORUS. Come: no scoffing, this is a noble scheme: in it Caesar is no longer merely the conquering soldier, but the creative poet-artist. Let us name the holy city, and consecrate it with Lesbian Wine—and Cleopatra ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... most misleading," she pointed out, to her scoffing brothers. "One would suppose that marrying was the simplest thing in the world—nothing perilous, nothing to object to about it. A man proposes to you as if he were asking you for the sixth waltz, only his manner is perfervid. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... breast pocket the withered, odorless skeleton of a bouquet, that was given him on the day he left home, and who will carry it till he returns, or till it is reddened with his blood. And when I see a man, in the face of ridicule and brutal scoffing, through long marches and weary days of dispiriting labor, clinging with fond tenacity to some little memento of the past, I set him down as a man with his heart in the right place, who will do his country ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... lives for years on end rather than hurt one hair on a Native's head,—a cry of execration, loud and deep, and even savage, arose from the Press, and was apparently joined in by the Church itself. The common witticism about the "Gospel and Gunpowder" headed hundreds of bitter and scoffing articles in the journals; and, as we afterwards learned, the shocking news had been telegraphed to Britain and America, losing nothing in force by the way, and, while filling friends of Missions with dismay, was dished up day after day with every imaginable ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... me. A scoffing smile crept into that mocking face of hers. No longer I shilly-shallied. She had brought me to dance, and she must pay ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... prompted me to risk my own. And for this I became the jest of the party; even the ladies tittered at my folly. Next evening the Governor had a large dinner-party. I was there. Having caught cold, I coughed slightly; this drew attention to me. Remarks were made, and the Governor alluded in scoffing terms to my exploit, which created much mirth. 'Were you drunk?' said one. 'Had you lost your senses, to risk your life for a brute of a negro?' said another. 'Rather than spoil my uniform, I would have ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... by a stranger while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselves. The stranger gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away the purse. He takes ducat after ducat out, but continually ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... be short, as thou answerest with scoffing only. For refusing to ferry me I will reward thee, if ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... surprise, the keeper instantly locked the door, and, in a rage of cursing, called his assistants. They however soon pacified him, by turning his attention to the strength of his own fastenings, and scoffing at ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... and a fugitive, was begging pity from strangers: he alone was free. The thought made him tremble; but admiring his own cleverness in pursuing his infernal schemes, and putting away his sad looks, he smiled again with an expression of indefinable pride. The madman at this moment was scoffing at the justice of God. But Lello of Aquila, who was waiting at the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... never before had he been more bowed down by his needy distress, the everlasting anguish of his ill-luck. On the other hand, Duthil, in spite of everything, was perorating in the centre of a group with an affectation of scoffing unconcern; nevertheless nervous twitches made his nose pucker and distorted his mouth, while the whole of his handsome face was becoming moist with fear. And even as Massot had said, there really was only Fonsegue who showed composure and bravery, ever the same with ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... long since, and crying, 'O'er the sea The Prophet cometh, princes in his train, Bearing for regal sceptres bended staffs, Which from the land's high places, cliff and peak, Shall drag the fair flowers down!'" Scoffing he heard: "Conn of the 'Hundred Battles!' Had he sent His hundred thousand kernes to yonder steep And rolled its boulders down, and built a mole To fence my laden ships from spring-tide surge, Far kinglier pattern had he shown, and given ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... Satyres, and them selues Satyricques. Such were Lucilius, Iuuenall and Persius among the Latines, & with vs he that wrote the booke called Piers plowman. Others of a more fine and pleasant head were giuen wholly to taunting and scoffing at vndecent things, and in short poemes vttered pretie merry conceits, and these men were called Epigrammatistes. There were others that for the peoples good instruction, and triall of their owne witts vsed ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... the little boys and their friends went on as scholars. All the boys talked and shouted at once, acting their idea of a school by flinging pea-nuts about, and scoffing at the master. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... utmost endeavours to be angry and look grave, provoked an immoderate fit of laughter," and, she added, from that moment Pope became her implacable enemy. Certainly by the time Pope began to write the 'Dunciad' he was so far estranged from his old friend that he permitted himself in that poem a scoffing allusion to a scandal in which she had recently become involved. The lady answered, or the poet thought that she did, with an anonymous pamphlet, 'A Pop upon Pope', describing a castigation, wholly imaginary, said to have been inflicted upon the poet as a proper reward for his satire. ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... a patent right away on the thing then, Lub," he was advised by the scoffing Ethan, "or some wise duck will be stealing ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... discreditable internal dissensions were a cause of deep humiliation and of anxious concern to all loyal Lutherans. To the Romanists and Reformed, however, who united in predicting the impending collapse of Lutheranism, they were a source of malicious and triumphant scoffing and jeering. A prominent theologian reported that by 1566 matters had come to such a pass in Germany that the old Lutheran doctrine was publicly proclaimed only in relatively few places. In the Palatinate public thanks were rendered to God in the churches that also Electoral ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... animals feel gratitude) Sobre las diez (at about ten o'clock) Tiene sobre los treinta (he is about thirty years old) Sobre mas 6 menos (a little more or less) Tras la perdida el escarnio (besides the loss the scoffing) ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... side to Villiers' temperament. It was piercing and acute in an altogether different sense—a side of forbidding pleasantry and fierce raillery. No longer was it the paradoxical mystifications of Poe, but a scoffing that had in it the lugubrious and savage comedy which Swift possessed. A series of sketches, les Demoiselles de Bienfilatre, l'Affichage celeste, la Machine a gloire, and le Plus beau diner du monde, betrayed a singularly ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... not dancing quadrilles, not sitting in pews; a time for pretending that Milton and Shelley, and all sorts of mere dead people, were greater in death than the first living Lord of the Treasury; a time, in short, for scoffing and railing, for speaking lightly of the very opera, and all our most cherished institutions. It is from nineteen to two or three and twenty perhaps that this war of the man against men is like to be waged most sullenly. You are yet in ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... of 'Christian' was not applied to themselves by the followers of Jesus before the completion of the New Testament. There were other names in currency before that designation—which owed its origin to the scoffing wits of Antioch—was accepted by the Church. They called themselves 'disciples,' 'believers, 'saints,' 'brethren,' as if feeling about ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... day the government will crown a Colyumist Laureate, some majestic sage with ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard nobly stained with nicotine, whose utterances will be heeded with shuddering respect. All minor colyumists will wear robes and sandals; they will be an order of scoffing friars; people will run to them on crowded streets to lay before them the sorrows and absurdities of men. And ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... scoffing remarks and there was no mistaking the fact that she was not troubling herself any too much about the pre-nuptial exercises and the wedding day. Mrs. von Briest had her own ideas on the subject, but did not permit herself to worry about it, as Effi's mind was, to a considerable ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... everything, no single one infallible, highly honorable as members of a guild, secretive as doctors or lawyers, chary of talking shop to the uninitiated, hardworking, conscientious, half luring, half scoffing at the glorious visions of the creative imagination granted them chiefly of all men, wonder workers, world reformers, recorders of the past and prophets of the future, comforters of prose-ridden humanity, stewards of some of God's best gifts, openers of the gates of the beautiful, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by a sense of my follies and demerit, I strove to throw the blame on others. We kept nightly orgies in Palazzo Carega. To sleepless, riotous nights, followed listless, supine mornings. At the Ave Maria we showed our dainty persons in the streets, scoffing at the sober citizens, casting insolent glances on the shrinking women. Juliet was not among them—no, no; if she had been there, shame would have driven me away, if love had not brought ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... take notes, I interviewed separately the three concerned, as well as the cook, to whom they had told the story also. It is worth while to mention that I have several times heard the kitchenmaid complained of as lacking in respect for her betters—in scoffing at their reports of phenomena. Only yesterday Mrs. Robinson told me she had not mentioned several things (bell-ringing, a knock at her door, &c.) because it upset her authority in the kitchen to exhibit interest ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... Answering the Officer with a shrill, scoffing laugh, Jane bore down upon it. Aided by the wind, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... glance there was a curious protective tenderness, the savage concern of a lioness for her whelp; but Eleanor saw only the scoffing expression in the keen eyes, and heard the note of irony ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... thought you were a Catholic," she replied, with a kindly, lurking smile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Comedie Humaine," and there was apparently nothing remarkable or precocious about the boy, as his quick temper is his most salient point in the eyes of his masters. It will be noticed, too, that the "de," about which Balzac was very particular, and which was the occasion of many scoffing remarks on the part of his enemies, does ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... law of Moses or the creed of Nicea has than the law of Mana or the text of the Zendavesta? The scepticism of our age is not so much directed against the great truths of religion as against the man-made dogmas that have usurped the sacred seat. If irreverent, scoffing scepticism were to be found anywhere to-day, it would most likely be found manifested among the throng of young men gathered at our most progressive University,—Harvard. But Dr. Lyman Abbot, after several weeks' association with the students there, and a careful study of their states ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... Medb despatch the druids [6]and the poets of the camp,[6] the lampoonists and hard-attackers,[a] for Ferdiad, to the end that they might make three satires to stay him and three scoffing speeches against him, [7]to mock at him and revile and disgrace him,[7] that they might raise three blisters on his face, Blame, Blemish and Disgrace, [8]that he might not find a place in the world to lay his head,[8] [W.3021.] ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... prick with your pin the wrong man. But the poor child from Domremy, shrinking under the gaze of a dazzling court—not because dazzling (for in visions she had seen those that were more so), but because some of them wore a scoffing smile on their features—how should she throw her line into so deep a river to angle for a king, where many a gay creature was sporting that masqueraded as kings in dress! Nay, even more than any true king would have done: for, in Southey's version ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... but denied that he did it himself, and indeed the indictment set forth that it was in company with one John Mason, then deceased, that the said conspiracy was formed. Under sentence of death, he behaved himself very sillily, laughing and scoffing at his approaching end, and saying to one of his companions, as the keeper went downstairs before them, Let us knock him down and take his keys from him. If one leads to heaven, and the other to hell, we shall at least have a chance to get the right! Yet when death with ...
— 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
... that she could never be eminent among these scoffing enthusiasts did not keep her from being proud of them, from defending them in imaginary conversations with Kennicott, who grunted (she could hear his voice), "They're simply a bunch of wild impractical theorists sittin' round chewing the rag," and "I haven't ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... home of a partial friend—at least no enemy. Reaching it after a perilous walk through a roadless, bridgeless wilderness, she stood outside the crooked gate and called "Hallo." Again and again she called till, in desperation scoffing at the risk—for it is never wise to approach the Kentucky mountaineer's home nearer than his front gate without an invitation—she walked boldly to the door. It was open, and she peered into the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the whole affair began to look serious even to a scoffing and cynical world. Darius O'Connell was missed at the Casino and in the Reading-room; the evening papers announced that he had sailed for Europe. And Miss Burton, far from appearing anxious or unhappy about this, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... highest grade of traders, the merchants, whom he defines by what he calls the vulgar expression, as being "such as trade beyond sea." Although he was eloquent in many books and pamphlets in upholding the dignity of trade, and lost no opportunity of scoffing at pretentious gentility, he never allows us to forget that this was the grade to which he himself belonged, and addresses the petty trader from a certain altitude. He speaks in the preface to the Complete Tradesman of unfortunate creatures who have blown themselves up in trade, whether "for ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... there greete With a health they desire, Of stinke, smoke and fier. But who e're doth abhorre it. The citie smookes for it; Now full of fier shop, And fowle spitting chop, So sneezing and coughing, That my ghost fell to scoffing. And to myself said: Here's filthie fumes made; Good phisicke of force ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... ends, and permits the barefaced robbery and oppression, not only of the visitor but of its own citizens—then I say the modern writer has a delicate task to perform in describing it, for in relating the facts he might seem to be railing and scoffing at religion and biblical history, whereas nothing is farther from his mind or his intention. Everything is so interwoven that it is hard to separate the serious and truthful from the ridiculous and fraudulent. This deceit is not alone of to-day; it goes back ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... death, become so fastened to it, that even if they wished, they could not rise. Believe me, you will be sorely disheartened in your efforts toward the highest good,—you will find most people callous, careless, ignorant, and forever scoffing at what they do not, and will not, understand,—you had better leave us to our dust and ashes,"—and a little mirthless laugh escaped her lips,—"for to pluck us from thence now will almost need a second ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... I swore that I was innocent; that no sin lay upon me; that I had never been the beloved of the prince; that I had never spoken to him but in the presence of my father. Then laughed they, and mocked me, and loudest of all laughed Baron Pollnitz, and his words of scoffing and insult pierced my heart like a poisoned arrow, and checked my ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... sort, convinced me of my error: and many subsequent conversations with men and women like myself incapacitated by nature for self-expression, as well as much listening to bad singers with good voices, have but forced conviction home. And now, when unfeeling relatives and scoffing friends smile the superior smile of the "musically talented" at sight of my piano which I play with one finger, and at the pile of music upon it, I let them smile, calm in the assurance that songs and instrument are mine by better right, perhaps, than theirs, who can raise voices quite on pitch ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... break-downs prevented the regularity of the road, and the Soudan military railway gained a doubtful reputation during the Dongola expedition and in its early days. Nor were there wanting those who employed their wits in scoffing at the undertaking and in pouring thoughtless indignation on the engineers. Nevertheless the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill |
