"Sneering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up that old paper long ago. It warn't no good to me," said Pepper. "I wouldn't take the farm at that price for a gift," and he departed with a sneering ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... inclined towards Weir. The refusal on the latter's part to reemploy the Mexican workmen on their own terms was purely a matter of policy, and the lawyer's first gusty anger had long been forgotten. But not so Sorenson's sneering words of that afternoon. They struck to the heart of his vanity, breeding an animosity that would last. Had not the banker stated that the lawyer should hold no political office whatever? After all his services? Had he not definitely shown ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... schoolmaster, Mr. Brice?" queried Milo, who seemed unable to avoid sneering in futile fashion at the man who was ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... "the Duke," over his shoulder, and then he turned on Presson. "That bunch of mangy pups out there for me? Why, Luke, that's opposition. And it's nasty, sneering, insulting opposition. I ought to go out there and ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... o'clock that evening, the meeting-house was filling with terrified women, and half-curious, half-sneering, men; and among them the tall figure of Major Campbell, in his undress uniform (which he had put on, wisely, to give a certain dignity to his mission), stalked in, and took his seat in ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... Edgerton. I was aroused from my hateful dream by a slight touch upon my arm. I started with a painful sense of my own weakness—with a natural dread that the secret misery under which I labored was no longer a secret. I writhed under the conviction that the cold, the sneering, and the worthless, were making merry with my afflictions. I met the gaze of the bride—the mistress of ceremonies—my wife's mother Mrs. Delaney, late Clifford. I shuddered as I beheld her glance. I could not mistake the volume of meaning ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... presumptuous and self-conceited, and gradually become incapable of admiring anything but what is like their own works. They see nothing in the works of great designers but the faults, and do harm almost incalculable in the European society of the present day by sneering at the compositions of the greatest men of the earlier ages,[62] because they do not absolutely tally with their own ideas ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the ferocious baron makes answer with a sneering laugh, "Honor?— I know it not! Virtue?—I detest it!" and attempting to pass the knight, in order to inflict fresh indignities upon his sister-in-law, he yields to the natural infirmities of rags and pasteboard, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... his hopes and his failures Adam could be silent and be calm. To Jerrem alone the cause of this alteration was apparent, and with all the lynx-eyed sharpness of vexed and wounded vanity he tried to thwart and irritate Adam by sneering remarks and covert suggestions that all must now give way to him: it was nothing but "follow my leader" and do and say what he chose—words which were as pitch upon tow to natures so readily inflamed, so headstrong against government and impatient of everything which savored of control. And ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... dislike the young clergyman beside him. He was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But he acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... most of these saddles are buckskin," she continues; "I did not, until I found myself slipping about on mine to day as if it were glazed, and lo! It was pigskin, and that made the difference. I would not have it changed, because the Texan is always sneering at English pigskin, and I wanted to learn to ride on it; but, until the last quarter of the hour, I expected to slip off. I rather think I should have," she adds, "only just as I was ready to slip off on one side, something ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... With tremulous haste she led him to the door, When, lo! the courtyard white with fallen snow, While clear the night hung over it with stars! A dozen steps, scarce that, to his own door: A dozen steps? a gulf impassable! What to be done? Their secret must not lie Bare to the sneering eye with the first light; She could not have his footsteps at her door! Discovery and destruction were at hand: And, with the thought, they kissed, and kissed again; When suddenly the lady, bending, drew Her lover towards her half-unwillingly, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... Dunsford, that when Ellesmere wants to attack us, and does not exactly see how, he mutters to himself sarcastically, sneering himself up, as it ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... middle of all that red, I compared her in my mind to a huge poppy which had grown in a cellar. She opened and closed her eyelids several times. She had a smile on her face which was like an insult. I felt myself blushing, but I did not turn my eyes away. She gave a little sneering chuckle, and said, "You know why I sent for you?" I answered that I thought it was to talk to me about Mademoiselle Maximilienne. She sneered again, "Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximilienne," she said. "Well, my child, you must undeceive yourself. We have made up our minds to place you on a ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... the two stared into each other's eyes, Harry fascinated, the man filled with wrath and a cruel, sneering humour. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I have reason to believe that Benham has made wonderful progress in the last five years. My friends there write that there are many new streets and beautiful buildings, and that the spirit of the place is enthusiastic and liberal, not luxurious and sneering. You never appreciated Benham ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... to pay no attention to the words, and swinging from the saddle, threw an arm over the horn, and surveyed the outfit with a sneering grin: "Saved up enough to start you an outfit of yer own, eh? You ought to done pretty good tendin' bar for six years, with what you got paid, an' what you could knock down. Go to it! I'm for you. The better you do, the better I'll ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... Monkeys may be infected with certain microbes to which man is peculiarly liable, such as the bacillus of tuberculosis. Darwin showed that various human gestures and facial expressions have their counterparts in monkeys. The sneering curl of the upper lip, which tends to expose the canine tooth, is a case in point, though it may be seen in many other mammals besides monkeys—in dogs, for instance, which are at some considerable distance from the simian branch to ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... world-famed Bavarian fandango, which literally took Paris by storm—it was in her dressing-room afterward that she made her celebrated remark to Maria Pippello (her only rival). Maria came ostensibly to congratulate her on her success, but in reality to insult her. "Ma petite," she said, sneering, "l'hibou est-il sur le haie?" Quick as thought Bibi turned round and replied with a gay toss of her curls, "Non, mais j'ai la plume de ma tante!" Oh, witty, sharp-tongued Bibi! A word must be said of the glorious ballets she originated ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... bench, stretched out at full length, was a short, stout negro, fast asleep. On another part of the bench lay a white man, who seemed about fifty years old, with a sneering, malicious face, and wrapped up in a shaggy black coat. The remaining occupant of the cell sat in one corner, with his head down on his knees, and his ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... Peace; has been privately taking the most unheard-of steps:—wrote to Kaunitz, "Peace at once and we will vote for your HAVING Silesia;" to which Kaunitz, suspecting trickery in artless Bute, answered, haughtily sneering, "No help needed from your Lordship in that matter!" After which repulse, or before it, Bute had applied to the Czar's Minister in London: "Czarish Majesty to have East Preussen guaranteed to him, if he will insist that the King of Prussia DISPENSE with Silesia;" which the indignant ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... absence, revisiting Paris? With face shrivelled to nothing; with 'huge peruke a la Louis Quatorze, which leaves only two eyes "visible" glittering like carbuncles,' the old man is here. (February, 1778.) What an outburst! Sneering Paris has suddenly grown reverent; devotional with Hero-worship. Nobles have disguised themselves as tavern-waiters to obtain sight of him: the loveliest of France would lay their hair beneath his feet. 'His chariot is the nucleus of a comet; whose train fills whole ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... words would have on his young leader, who again turned away and walked up and down to master the emotion which troubled him. The blow he had received seemed to smart; he pictured the faces of his men looking at him with covert smiles on their lips, and he seemed to see Scarlett sneering at him as some one so cowardly as to be utterly beneath his notice; and he was suffering all this because he believed ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... a very remarkable firmness. But as a whole, and as the world goes, BOOTSBY is a man of standing. In the altitude of six feet ten, he may be called a man of high standing. He feels proud of the fact. "Is it not better to be a mountain than a mole?" he often asks in a proudly sneering manner of his neighbor PUGGS, who is about as far up in the world as the top of a yard-stick. It is very true that size is not quality, and a seven-footer may be no better than a three-footer; but it is observed that a Short Man is rarely any thing else. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... the woods, and then a good, jolly romp, and perhaps a "spat," before they settled down to the business of strawberry-picking! She could have spats enough with that horrid, spiteful Cuban girl, but there was no fun in those; just cold, sneering hatefulness. Thinking of her cousin Rita, Peggy gave her hat a twist and a fling, and sent it flying across the green meadow on which ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... coaxed, in a cold, almost sneering propitiation, 'put your coat on and go where you're wanted—be a man, not ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... important, but there's more than that necessary when two persons think of marrying. You asked me,—I'll tell you—I never cared for you. I don't like your principles, your way of sneering at poor people, your laxity in ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... American Biography, Vol. VI. But the knight errant who has just centered the lists, brandishing his spear against all who have uttered a lisp against Cotton Mather, goes out of his way to strike at Doctor Peabody. He inserts, at the foot of one of his pages, this sneering Note: "Mr. Peabody says; 'Little did the venerable Doctor think,' etc. The venerable Doctor was twenty-nine years of age! and was ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... you, lad," he said, with a lofty style of sneering. "I have punished you enough, for most of your impertinence. For the rest I forgive you, because you have been good and gracious to my little son. Go ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... strained silence greeted the entrance of McNabb into the trading room. Jean and Murchison occupied the only two chairs the room boasted, and Wentworth leaned against the counter, a half-sneering smile on his lips. McNabb advanced to the group beneath the huge swinging lamp, and Sven Larsen lingered in the shadows near the door. The half-sneer changed to a look of open defiance, as Wentworth faced McNabb. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... that Jim turned his eyes on him now and then with sneering contempt, but said nothing. When the men had made a hasty end of their breakfast three of them started to the corral. The young man who had humorously enumerated the virtues of the All-in-One, whom the others called Spence, was of this number. He turned back, offering Lambert his ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... fifteen dreary years, nothing but jeers and oaths and sarcasms had crossed his finely sculptured lips, which had forgotten how to smile; and it was only when the mocking demon of the wine-cup looked out from his gloomy gray eyes that his ringing, sneering laugh struck like a dagger to the heart that loved him, that of his proud but anxious and miserable mother. To-night, for the first time since his desperate plunge into the abyss of vice, conscience, which he ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... this, and enable ourselves thus to review, without carping or sneering, the shapes of solemn imagination which have arisen among the inhabitants of Europe, we shall find, on the one hand, the mountains of Greece and Italy forming all the loveliest dreams, first of the Pagan, then of the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Fairfax, were both guests of mine recently at my country house. They had discovered for one another a very fierce and reasonable antipathy. With that recurrence to primitivism with which I have always been a hearty sympathiser, they agreed, instead of going round their little world making sneering remarks about each other, to fight ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... then," the faithless critic cries, With sneering lip, and wise world-knowing eyes, "While fort to fort, and post to post, repeat The ceaseless challenge of the war-drum's beat, And round the green earth, to the church-bell's chime, The morning drum-roll of the camp keeps time, To dream of peace ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... rhymster in the ring, With but the old plea to the sneering schools, That on him too, some secret night in spring Came the old ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... nothing in the world less romantic than my position in the midst of a circle of sneering footmen; and, as if to put romance for ever out of the question, I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only by the assistance of Townshend, then the prince of Bow Street officers; who, knowing every thing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... and that would have mattered little to me had not David liked them also. There were times when I could not but think less of the boy, seeing him rock convulsed over antics of Irene that have been known to every nursemaid since the year One. While I stood by, sneering, he would give me the ecstatic look that meant, "Irene is really very ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... happened so instantly. First that great hulking figure in front of him, the sneering laugh, that last sentence, "Let her rot . . . my dear Dune, your chivalry does you credit." Then that black, blinding, surging rage and the blow that followed. He did not know what he had intended ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... thing to do," he went on in the same sneering manner. "A man with business shouldn't come 'ere. You've tyken some poor man's breakfast 'ere this morning, ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Mormon camps, and addressed gatherings at Provo and Lehi. The governor bustled about everywhere, assuring every one that all the federal officers would "hold sacred the amnesty and pardon by the President of the United States, by G-d, sir, yes," and receiving from Young the sneering reply, "We know all about it, Governor." On July 4., no northward movement of the people having begun, Cumming told Young that he intended to publish his proclamation. "Do as YOU please," was the contemptuous reply; "to-morrow I shall ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... barelegged, with a very indifferent pair of breeches,—how the villain grinned in scorn at my landing-net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had assembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced at last to lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it; and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught me to kill two ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... in Norfolk jacket, pigskin puttees, and all the rest of the fashionable get-up out of a bandbox, sneering at me covered with filth and grease to the eyebrows and looking like a navvy. And, the rollers now white from the lime, I'd just seen what was wrong. The rollers were not in plumb. One side crushed the cane well, but the other side was too open. I shoved ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... indeed well he might be. But she, on her part, hardly so much as glanced at him, though he was a tall and well-grown youth enough, with nothing remarkable about him save pale hair of much the same color as his complexion, and a cut on one side of his upper lip which in certain lights gave him a sneering expression. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... aged ninety years, five months, and twenty days. His biographer Monsieur Des Maizeaux, describes him thus: "M. de St. Evremond had blue, lively, and sparkling eyes, a large forehead, thick eyebrows, a handsome mouth, and a sneering physiognomy. Twenty years before his death, a wen grew between his eye-brows, which in time increased to a considerable bigness. He once designed to have it cut off, but as it was no ways troublesome to him, and he little regarded that kind of deformity, Dr. Le Fevre advised him to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... said he. "I wasn't exalting my subjects or sneering at yours. It's obvious that you and I lead ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... have said nothing further. But Dr. Knott's expression was curiously intent and compelling, as he sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. All the ideality of Julius's nature rose in protest against the half-sneering rationalism he seemed to read in that expression. Mrs. Ormiston, who had an hereditary racial appreciation of anything approaching a fight, turned her round eyes first on one speaker and then on the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... have been given to obviate any such sneering remarks as: "What could be, pray, the size of the mouth of a child in his mother's womb, and how could it grasp such a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... does not shake your frame to its centre. What, will you stretch out your hand against the judgments of God? Methinks I see the very sparks of hell before my eyes; methinks I see an infernal fiend between you and me, writhing, hissing, and sneering; methinks I see him anxious to seize on your poor soul, as his prey for ever. I am ill; do good for once, and permit me to go home and throw myself ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... round. She felt herself surrounded, like a child at a party, by the faces of strangers all hostile to her, with hooked noses and sneering, indifferent eyes. She was by a window, she pushed it open with a jerk. She stepped out into the garden. Her eyes swam with ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... are!" said Sir Peter. "Finicky and immoral, that's what I call it! That's the way trouble begins, the more children the less nonsense. Why don't you have more children instead of sitting sneering at me like an ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... refrain from giving him a kick, while he lay thus powerless, and sneering in his face because ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... thin-lipped mouth drew into harder lines, and the cold, domineering tone, weighted heavy with sneering emphasis, grated on me till I wanted to reach over and slap his handsome, smooth-shaven face. But MacRae stood at "attention" and took his medicine dumbly. He had to. He was in the presence, and answering the catechism, of a superior ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and not thy wisdom, Not thy prudence, nor thy cunning, Do I fear a single moment. Let who may accept thy challenge, Not with thee, a puny braggart, Not with one so vain and paltry, Will I ever measure broadswords." Then the youthful Youkahainen, Mouth awry and visage sneering, Shook his golden locks and answered: "Whoso fears his blade to measure, Fears to test his strength at broadswords, Into wild-boar of the forest, Swine at heart and swine in visage, Singing I will thus transform him; I will hurl such hero-cowards, This one hither, that one thither, Stamp him ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... you, Cyprienne, and every move of your mind. We are such old friends, you see," he said, with a sneering, cynical smile. "And now, as before, ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... may well be proud of the peaceable disbandment of the two great armies. There was no evidence of remaining venom between the fighters. Not so, however, with the slimy secret society disturbers who brought on the war, and nursed its continuance. Whenever a sneering, vitriolic sound is heard, you may be sure that it emanates from ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... wholesome laws that had been enacted for the preservation of holy things, and was truly sorry that this sacrilegious old wretch could not be brought to the stake. He did not envy his learned, friend the sneering contempt for religion that ran ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and felt the ground rise up and collide with his shoulder blades. He got up and sat on the steps of the store shivering from outraged nerves, hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor lifted out a case of tobacco and wrenched off its top. Six cigarettes began to glow, bringing ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... made no answer in any just sense of the word. He contented himself with sneering at the thought that it was possible for the Supreme Court ever to make such a decision. He sneered at me for propounding the interrogatory. I had not propounded it without some reflection, and I wish now to address to this audience some remarks ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... as to comment afterwards on the display of wealth he had witnessed (Daily Herald for February 2, 1923). Yet the Daily Herald reporter had seen nothing ungentlemanly in attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace and publishing a sneering account of it afterwards under the heading of "Pomp and Farce in the Palace" (date of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... hurt to me; I see you sneering, Why take trouble then, Seeing you love me not? Look you, our house (Which, taken altogether, I love much) Had better be upon the right side now, If, once for all, it wishes to bear rule As such a house should: cousin, you're too wise To feed your hope up fat, that this fair France Will ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... without an axe and bloodstained sheets. Those jurists! Very well, I'll prove it to you! You will stop sneering at the psychological side of the affair! To Siberia with your Maria Ivanovna! I will prove it! If philosophy is not enough for you, I have something substantial for you. It will show you how correct my philosophy is. Just ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... being. He thirsted strangely for glory, and omitted no point of deed or word that might, he thought, procure him the reputation of a man of spirit or of wit. He was lean of person, somewhat slightly built, and on this account people called him Lorenzino. He never laughed, but had a sneering smile; and although he was rather distinguished by grace than beauty, his countenance being dark and melancholy, still in the flower of his age he was beloved beyond all measure by Pope Clement; in spite of which he had it in his mind (according ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... said Mrs. Holt in sneering tones. Then she changed instantly, and in suave commendation went on: "That's exactly right. That's the very thing fer you to do. After you have seen what Walden has to offer, then a pretty young thing like you can make up your ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... afflicting him both in seed-time and harvest; and none of which (excepting, perhaps, the last-mentioned gentry, who are at times slightly inclined towards a wormy diet) would touch an insect, even with the tips of their bills. Ha! ye scribblers of closet conceits! you have been sneering at "Chaw-bacon" long enough. He may turn and scoff at you; for, in very truth, the boot (of ignorance) ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... his lips to the young girl's forehead they were curled by a faint sneering smile. That smile was blended with the kiss he imprinted there. It left no sting—the poison touched no one of the delicate nerves that awoke and thrilled to the fanning of his breath, and yet it would have been perceptible ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... notwithstanding her licentious amours, she was not made like other women; and all those who courted her in marriage would in the end be disappointed; that she was so conceited of her beauty, as to swallow the most extravagant flattery from her courtiers, who could not, on these occasions, forbear even sneering at her for her folly: that it was usual for them to tell her that the lustre of Her beauty dazzled them like that of the sun, and they could not behold it with a fixed eye. She added that the countess had said, that Mary's best policy would be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... during about three years. He was poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned them away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... going on in everything: truth and lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha, and sneering. A man in life, a humourist in writing about life, sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious business ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his apparent victory, said many sneering and savage things, and clattered his knife truculently on his plate. Sproul merely looked at him with that wistful preoccupation that still ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... candles shone in the hall. The great bulk of the marquis overflowed his chair. He was dressed in fine black from head to foot save for the snowy ruffles at his wrist and throat. Even the hilt and scabbard of his sword were black. His expression was one of sneering pride. The ends of an upturned moustache reached nearly to ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief towards all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... mind, and in order that I might better study the man's style, I remained strictly on defence, giving way slightly before the confident play of his steel, content with barely turning aside the gleaming point before it pricked me. At first he mistook this for weakness, sneering at my parries, as he bore in with ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... to feel that we're sneering at some valuable archaeologic work, and that Mr. Holder did ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... of the trail and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over," Hal said in response to Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice. "They told us we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with a sneering ring of ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... man and I'll love you fast enough!" said Mabyn eagerly. His breath came thick and stertorous. "Ah! Let me once grind my heel in the smooth, sneering face of him! and you shall do what you like with me!" Rage robbed him of speech; he made mere brutish sounds in ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... themselves. And so with Hinze's deferential bearing, complimentary parentheses, and worshipful tones, which seem to some like the over-acting of a part in a comedy. He expects no appointment or other appreciable gain through Tulpian's favour; he has no doubleness towards Felicia; there is no sneering or backbiting obverse to his ecstatic admiration. He is very well off in the world, and cherishes no unsatisfied ambition that could feed design and direct flattery. As you perceive, he has had the education and other advantages of a gentleman without being conscious of marked ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... began to meet at Palazzo Pinti again. If they got on well enough together, they did not get on very far. The suave house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended Colville; he could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in art and books, which in fact was rather conventional; and no doubt Mr. Morton had his own reserves, under which he was perfectly civil, and only too deferential to Colville, as to an older man. Since his return, Mrs. Bowen had come back to her salon. She looked haggard; ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... a silence half of terror, half of awe, fell upon the chattering multitude. There was a sudden stir as the people made way for a young man to pass through their ranks—a slight, tall, rather handsome fellow, with a pale face and cold, sneering eyes. He was dressed with fastidious care and neatness in the uniform of the Bersagliere—and he elbowed his way along with the easy audacity of a privileged dandy. He came close up to the brigand and spoke carelessly, with a slightly mocking smile playing ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... have imagined themselves very witty in sneering at me for being a Christian, I would recommend the serious study of Theology, and I hope they will attain to the same comfort that I have, in the belief of a Revelation by which a SAVIOUR is proclamed ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... there should be abandoned the habit of sneering at and suspecting organized efforts by business men to educate public opinion on questions affecting business and finance as improper attempts to "manufacture" or ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... yield to my plans gracefully, for my mind is fully set on this marriage. Can't you understand that as the wife of a man in Mr. Palmer's position, nothing that has ever been connected with my previous history will be liable to touch me. Mrs. Richmond Montague," with a sneering laugh, "will have vanished, or become a myth, and Mrs. Palmer will be unassailable by any enemies ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... had returned to her cheeks, the dangerous sparkle to her eyes; her courage and spirits rose in response to his sneering pleasantries. Her nerves were tempered like steel. He little dreamed of the courage, strength and power she could pit ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a creature of the age of illumination. Many passages of his history display a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation, evolves his philosophy from within,—from the finite mind; whereas human history can only be explained in the light of revelation, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... thoroughly despised by all who knew him, a sentiment which he returned with vicious interest, and never neglected an opportunity of lodging some sneering shaft where it would cause ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... upon the period of such subjection as the most miserably morbid period of their life. On awaking from such delirium to the sane and healthful realities of manful toil, they will discover the hollowness of that sneering, scowling, wailing, declamatory, egotistical, and bombastic misanthropy, which, in the eye of their unripe judgment, wore the air of a philosophy so profound."[166] The time will also come when Carlyle will be revealed to all in his true ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... When you came into my house last night, sir, I had no intention of practising any joke upon you. You should have had the hospitality of an Irishman's house, without the consequence that has followed, had you not indulged in sneering at the Irishman's country, which, to your shame be it spoken, is your own. You vaunted your own superior intelligence and finesse over us, sir; and told us you came down to overthrow poor Pat in the trickery of electioneering movements. Under these circumstances, sir, I think what we have ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Masten, sneering, "I've had enough wettings for one day. I have no doubt that you can get the wagon out, by your own crude methods. I shall not interfere, you ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... permits himself to say that is significant. Behind every assent to excellence one feels a reservation: yes, it is good enough for a novel! Behind every criticism of untruth, of bad workmanship, of mediocrity (alas! so often deserved in America!) is a sneering implication: but, after all, it is only a novel. Not thus does he treat the stodgy play in stodgier verse, the merits of which, after all, may amount to this, that in appearance it is literary; not thus the critical essay ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... rapidly that the sovereigns of the House of Brunswick are grown far too wise, and far too noble-hearted, to fall once more into that trap. If any of them (and some do) fancy that they can better their position by sneering, whether in public or in their club, at a Reformed House of Commons and a Free Press, they will only accelerate the results which they most dread, by forcing the ultra-liberal party of the House, and, what is even worse, the most intellectual and respectable portion ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... himself. I am no follower of Tolstoi. I felt amused and sad as I saw this strong healthy lad watching me with greedy eyes when I returned from a hard day's labor, and found him waiting for me in some shady nook. But it was even more mortifying to see that he was sneering at me for working. He sneered at me because he had learned to beg, and because he looked on me as a lifeless dummy. When he first started begging, he was ashamed for me to see him, but he soon got over this; and as soon ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Only? Yes, only twenty-five cents! Pray how much did you expect to get, Miss?" retorted the clothier, in a half-sneering, half-offended voice. ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... came. He came again and again, but not to dinner. Perhaps he suspected about the potatoes, and thought that they would not even be compensated for by the pleasure of sneering at the boarders. He came in the evenings and sat in the sitting-room and drank coffee (the only thing that was well cooked in Peggy's household), and talked to Hilary, and looked at Rhoda. Rhoda, embroidering apple-boughs ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... Young men they seemed, and though I could not see them, I could tell from the fresh, fine voice of the one that he was a true man, and from the sneering, smothered tones of the other that he was not only a cynic, but of vicious tendencies. The first one was saying, 'I never suspected this,' when my attention was first called to their words, and the ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... stirs your hate? Better, my lad, if you're so fervent, Turn your cold steel against the State Instead of sneering at the servant. ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... said the stranger, in a sneering tone. "You got just the right idea. When I say 'Stick 'em up' I mean it. Never ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... had covered her face, he continued: "Well, I call upon you now to tell me which of us two is the father of this young man; he or I, your husband or your lover. Come! Come! tell us." Limousin rushed at him, but Parent pushed him back, and sneering in his fury, he said: "Ah! you are brave now! You are braver than you were that day when you ran downstairs because I was going to half murder you. Very well! If she will not reply, tell me yourself. You ought to know as well ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... undergone the trouble of really directing the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who attended him when he sate in council could not refrain from sneering at his frivolous remarks, and at his childish impatience. Neither gratitude nor revenge had any share in determining his course; for never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and transitory impressions. He wished merely to be a King such ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as he noted that his charge displayed no desire to follow the mules. "Why, if that old Skeeter isn't actually sneering at my ponies! He deserves to be kicked ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and exclaims to Varney: "Oh, if there be judgment in heaven, thou hast deserved it, and will meet it! Thou hast destroyed her by means of her best affections—it is the seething of the kid in the mother's milk!" And when, next morning, Varney was found dead of the secret poison and with a sneering sarcasm on his ghastly face, Scott dismisses him with the phrase: "The wicked man, saith the Scripture, hath no ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... Knock Castle Esmeralda's tantrums had been accepted as part of the daily life, but six years spent in the sunshine of Bridgie's home made a difference between husband and wife seem something abnormal and shocking. Imagine Dick sneering at Bridgie! Imagine Bridgie snapping back and relapsing into haughty indifference! The thing was preposterous, unthinkable! Could that be the reason of Esmeralda's unrest, that she and her husband had outgrown their love? Pixie felt it equally impossible at that moment to sit quietly alone, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... playing with the world—it's a place of work and business; and I'll do my share of it so effectually, that my children, if I have any, shall, if I do not, reach the class of landed gentry; and this you'll find, for all your sneering, will come about all the more easily that neither they nor their father will be encumbered with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... whispered to him that the child was so clever, so pretty, she would be a gold-mine to them in the future—only let them get away from Ashwood, and go to London, where she could be well trained and taught. He laughed a sneering laugh, for which, had he been any other than her husband, ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... yet he will not chase it and take it up as he would a butterfly. Such is my dislike of Vidal—I cannot help it. I could pardon the man his malicious and gloomy sidelong looks, when he thinks no one observes him; but his sneering laugh I cannot forgive—it is like the beast we heard of in Judea, who laughs, they say, before ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... a sneering glance upon the unhappy commodore while McGuffey sat down on the damp rail of the derelict and laughed until the tears coursed ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... top of it comes the Ancona[15]. The English press, practically unanimously, makes sneering remarks about our Government. After six months it has got no results from the Lusitania controversy, which Bernstorff is allowed to prolong in secret session while factories are blown up, ships supplied ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... shown himself, is to receive a new light on the character of a People chosen under a very different Dispensation! Detainers flock in, like ravens to a feast. At this moment I have endured the humiliation of meeting a sneering child of this world—Mr. Arthur Pendennis—the emissary of one {18} to whom I gave in other days the sweetest blossom in the garden of my affections—my sister—of one who has, indeed, behaved like a brother—IN ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... been proved over and over again in the fencing room, had annoyed him greatly. Knowing that he would have no chance whatever with Ronald in a duel, he had carefully abstained from open war, showing his dislike only by sneering remarks and sarcastic comments which frequently tried Ronald's patience to the utmost, and more than once called down a sharp rebuke from Colonel Hume or one or other of the majors. He did not lose the opportunity afforded by the shots fired in the wood, and was continually suggesting all ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... only miserable days of her life have been spent beneath its roof; she will hate it before long. Her very love for her husband seems to die out in bitter contempt, as she thinks of last night, when he stood by and heard his cousin's sneering insult. The gloaming is chilly, she draws her shawl closer around her, and walks slowly up and down. Slow, miserable tears trickle down her cheeks as she walks. She feels so utterly alone, so utterly forlorn, so utterly at the mercy ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... burghers persisted in their refusal he would resort to force. Their reply was that Mulhouse could not take such an important step without consulting her friends, the Swiss. "Are the cantons going to help you pay your debts?" was the sneering comment of Hagenbach. "Mulhouse is a bad weed in a rose garden, a plant that must be extirpated. Its submission would make a charming pleasure ground out of the Sundgau, Alsace, and Breisgau. The duke knew no city which he would prefer to Mulhouse for a ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... looked intently in my face, and nearer drew; But a sudden deep repugnance to his presence thrilled me through; Then I saw his face was cruel, by the look that o'er it stole, Then I felt his breath was poison, by the shuddering of my soul, Then I guessed his purpose evil, by his lip in sneering curled, And I knew he slandered mankind, by ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... Carson a blow in the face. It was as though he had suddenly plunged into cold water, and, for the moment, he could not get his breath. The sneering words of Len ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... expensive and less-respectable cafe. These young men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do, and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival. These ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... shrubs,—the young lambs in the field, and the warbling larks in the air. And now, when actually in the carriage to go (his garden tools probably gone before), he had to get out again, and stay in hot, dusty, glaring Paris; and, what was far worse, in danger of seeing every day the sneering, angry faces which had been crowded round the carriage for nearly two hours; and of hearing, wherever he walked, the cruel laugh or fierce abuse with which his parents were greeted when they attempted to do anything which the people did not ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... my friends, very good," replied Roland, sneering; "so you won't go there to-night ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... be denied, that his chief excellence lay more in diminishing, than in aggrandizing objects; in checking, not in encouraging our enthusiasm; in sneering at the extravagances of fancy or passion, instead of giving a loose to them; in describing a row of pins and needles, rather than the embattled spears of Greeks and Trojans; in penning a lampoon or a compliment, and in praising ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... not help sneering. "I don't believe I'd wager much on such a woman. To be frank with you, Thornton, I don't care to meet her, so I'll decline your invitation. I've a little wife of my own, as true as steel, and I'd rather keep out of an affair like ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... dilated as though she had been running. In the center of the room stood Konrad Nirlanger, and on his oogly face was the very oogliest look that I have ever seen on a man. He glanced at us as we stood transfixed in the doorway, and laughed a short, sneering laugh that was like a stinging blow ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... passion. No face in the world could convey more forcibly to the mind the feeling of contempt and bitter scorn, than the distorted one before me. It was dreadfully expressive, drawing up the left angle of his mouth in a parallel with his eyes, he broke silence, with a sneering, long-drawn 'Eh!' and almost choked with rage, he cursed me; and in a tone and manner, which it is infinitely out of my power to describe, he spoke to the following effect: 'You are thief, man; English captain, no will! You assured me, when I took you from the Eboe country, that he would be overjoyed ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... pause, broken only by the piteous howling of the suffering creature, and, as she began to realize what she had done, Edna's face reddened, and she put her hands over her eyes to shut out the vision of the enraged man, who was absolutely dumb with indignant astonishment. Presently a sneering laugh caused her to look through her fingers, and she saw "Ali," the dog, now released, fawning and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... brave act; and this, to churlish, thankless, and insolent natures like theirs, was the greater offense of the two; and now he had had the unpardonable impudence to eclipse them in the school. He! the object of their father's bounty, as they called him. They lost no opportunity of sneering at him whenever ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... were sped beyond recall, and the lips that had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been the merest commonplace, remained calm and faintly sneering. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... express inconsolable grief for the decease of the late Duke and ebullient joy at the accession of his successor. I am his successor. Permit me to present you to my Grand Duchess. (Indicating JULIA.) BAR. Your Grand Duchess? Oh, your Highness! (Curtseying profoundly.) JULIA (sneering at her). Old frump! BAR. Humph! A recent creation, probably? LUD. We were married only half an hour ago. BAR. Exactly. I thought she seemed new to the position. JULIA. Ma'am, I don't know who you are, but I flatter myself I can do justice ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... to Dry Bottom. He saw a man in the street, putting five bullets through a can that he had thrown into the air. He saw again the man's face as he had completed his exhibition—insolent, filled with a sneering triumph. He heard again this man's voice, as he himself had offered ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... she didn't know what to say to him. Though she believed that she hated him, she would have liked to get up some show of an affectionate farewell, some scene in which there might have been tears, and tenderness, and poetry,—and, perhaps, a parting caress. But with his jeering words, and sneering face, he was as hard to her as a rock. He was now silent, but still looking down upon her as he stood motionless upon the rug,—so that she was compelled to speak again. "I sent for you, Lord George, because I did not like the idea of parting with ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... very different matter), which jeers at travelers who profess admiration for the scenery or institutions of Europe,—an admiration that was a sham to Mark Twain because he was incapable of understanding it. So with the grotesque capers of A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, with the sneering spirit of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, with the labored attempts to be funny of Adam's Diary and with other alleged humorous works; readers of the next generation may ask not what we found to amuse us in such works but how we could tolerate such crudity or cynicism or bad taste ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... his hints and innuendoes should fail, apparently, to make Madeleine put upon the case the interpretation he would have liked, was at once a matter of secret sneering and of admiration to his ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Anne,—of being preferred to a city charge. So soon as each London furlough was expired, he returned to Ireland, jaded and dispirited, and there took delight in nursing his melancholy; in pining for the amusements of the metropolis; in shunning and sneering at the society around him; and in abusing his native bogs and his fellow-countrymen in verse. This was not manly, far less Christian conduct. He ought to have drowned his recollections of London in active duty, or in diligent study; and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... your silly heart from your soft body?" he asked. Perpetua answered him mildly, heedless of the sneering speech. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... clove to me like a pestilence. The neighbours turned their faces from me, my former friends fled from me, the timid greeted me from afar and turned aside; even a mere peasant boor or a Jew, though he bowed, would, as he passed by, smite me with a sneering laugh. The word 'traitor' rang in my ears and echoed through my house and over my fields; that word from morn till dark hovered before me like a spot before a sick man's eye. And yet I was not a traitor to ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time; and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of sneering criticism begins in the college and should be killed in its birth-place. The man who drops an icy or an acid word into the warm enthusiasm of a young heart commits a great crime. He may paralyse the purpose of a noble life. Let us reserve all ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... whatever you wish, dearest and best," he said, with a sneering laugh; "if you ever see my wicked, hateful face again, it shall be no fault of mine. Perhaps you had better go back to Canada. M. La Touche was very much in love with you last year, and may overlook this little episode in your life, and take you to his bosom ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... quantities of water, burying his face in the muddy stream; the paddle all the while urging him to move on. Along the top of the dyke he came upon three posts placed for the purpose of keeping cattle from getting off the road. These posts became sneering, laughing men, wearing cloaks flung across their breasts, Italian fashion. They were insolent, and he challenged them to fight; but they only ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... strength. Now they are taking fresh heart, determined to hold out to extremity. The Separatists—for the Corkers are Separatists au naturel—are somewhat disconcerted, and try to minimise the effect of the meeting by sneering and contumely; but it will not do. They affect hilarity, but their laughter is not real. Perhaps nothing shows the shallowness of men more than the tricks they think sufficient to deceive. And then the leaders are accustomed ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... liking, but for the captain's sake I kept my anger under as best I could, for I had the sense to know that brawling with a lot of alehouse frequenters would not advance his cause. At length, however, came in the same sneering fellow I had marked on the wharf, calling loudly for swats. "Ay, Captain Paul was noo at Mr. Curries, syne banie Alan seed him gang forbye the kirk." The speaker's name, I learned, was Davie, and he had been talking with each and every man in the long-boat. Yes, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Here the value of enthusiasm came out strongly in the case of Henri. He felt that he could not gain an inch on Tarwicadia to save his life, but just as he came up he observed the anxious faces of his comrades and the half-sneering countenances of the savages. His heart thumped against his ribs, every muscle thrilled with a gush of conflicting feelings, and he hurled himself over the score like a cannon shot, full six inches ahead of the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... with an interchange of the vicarious letters, and brief, hopeful, and disappointing meetings to Leonidas. To add to his unhappiness, he was obliged to listen to sneering disparagement of his goddess from his family, and criticisms which, happily, his innocence did not comprehend. It was his own mother who accused her of shamefully "making up" to the good-looking expressman at church last Sunday, and declared that Burroughs ought to "look after that wife ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... cap of a dead man who lay across the floor of the little room. One foot was extended underneath the bed, and the head reached to the bottom of the wall on the other side of the room. He lay upon his back, his eyes open and staring, his hands clenched, and his features twisted into a sneering smile. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... me she had no such scruple, for I had no authority over her; and my intellect she looked down upon, because I praised her own so. Thus she made herself very unpleasant to me; by little jags and jerks of sneering, sped as though unwittingly; which I (who now considered myself allied to the aristocracy, and perhaps took airs on that account) had not wit enough to parry, yet had wound ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... at him. Parent pushed him back, and, sneering in his fury, he said: "Ah! you are brave now! You are braver than you were that day when you ran downstairs because you thought I was going to murder you. Very well! If she will not reply, tell me yourself. You ought to know as well as she. Tell me, are you this young fellow's ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant |
