"Vainglorious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... straps and buttons—haughtily silenced Paul, Hand-bound and sent him guarded to the camp, And the poor comrade shivering stood the watch Till dawn of day and I was made aware. Among the true were some vainglorious fools Called by the fife and drum from native mire To lord and strut in shoulder-straps and buttons. Scrubs, born to brush the boots of gentlemen, By sudden freak of fortune found themselves Masters of better men, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... fall upon his eyes His boastfulness will turn to prophecy, And his device will have foreshown his doom. To cope with Tydeus and that post to guard, I send the gallant son of Astacus, Whose noble blood is loyal to the rule Of honour and abhors vainglorious words, Whose chivalry fears nothing but reproach, Sprung from that remnant of the Earth-born race, Which the sword spared, a true son of the soil, Melanippus. Ares' hand the die will cast, But nature sends our soldier to the field ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... only bring blessing to the one who was the friend of the angel's Lord, and it could bring only death to the other, who was His enemy. It could do nothing to the Apostle but cause his chains to drop from his wrists, nor anything to the vainglorious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... perfect politeness a profound antipathy to the conqueror. It required almost a formal order from her husband to bring her to Dresden. She was then a pretty woman, twenty-four years old, witty, and proud of her birth and her crown. Napoleon she looked on as an upstart, a vainglorious adventurer, the cause of all the humiliations inflicted on the Austrian monarchy; and the splendor which surrounded the hero of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Wagram, aroused in her a resentment all the keener because she was compelled to hide it. Napoleon in ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... fluttering on either side of some tangled forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground, drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old teeming soil of human aspirations. Nor was he vainglorious of his achievement. His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of the gods. Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature. He was not proud but glad—glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social position; glad, above all things, to have forged a link ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... edicts. In truth, this most vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men perhaps scarcely comprehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, however, somewhat vainglorious immediately after his return, and excessively attentive to business. "He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a Steve Girard. An' he knows it. Wherefore this yere crafty sharp starts in to cinch a play; starts in to defy fate, an' rope up an' brand the footure, for at least six months to come. An', jest as I argues, Destiny accepts the challenge of this vainglorious sharp; acccepts it with a grin. Yere's what he does, an' yere's what comes to pass. "'Our wise, forethoughtful sport seeks out the robber who keeps the tavern. "The ponies will be back in May," says he, "an' I'm perishin' of cur'osity to know how ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... thinks himself lucky, since the bond between the pair is of such a nature as to involve a real partnership—a partnership full of perplexity to the working member of it, the ordinary forensic creature of senses, passions, ambitions, and self-indulgences, the eating, sleeping, vainglorious, assertive male of common experience—and it is not to be denied that it has been fruitful, nor again that by some freak of fate or fortune the house has kept a decent front to the world at large. It is still solvent, still favourably regarded by the police. ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... not take long to decide, and a very short time saw Surbridge Hall once more in the ancient line; and old Mr Roe, in relating the means he used to expel the vainglorious descendant of his partner, generally concluded with the moral, if not the words of Shakspeare—"Men's pleasant vices make whips ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the truth of Bridgenorth's observation, he felt indignant at his ill-timed triumph. "If fortune had followed worth," he said, "the Castle of Martindale, and the name of Peveril, had afforded no room for their enemy's vainglorious boast. But those who have stood high on Fortune's wheel, must abide by the consequence of its revolutions. This much I will at least say for my father's house, that it has not stood unhonoured; nor will ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... whose hearts most generous sentiments knock in vain, who still are overawed and bowed by the magnitude of this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it, the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the swaggering braggart—the vainglorious lord of what he sees—the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of everything—to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos. He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the few, small, pitiful things ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... inwardly and outwardly, it is still under the sway of unbelief, impiety and disobedience. Man is called old, not because of his years; for it is possible for a man to be young and strong and vigorous and yet to be without faith or a religious spirit, to despise God, to be greedy and vainglorious, or to live in pride or the conceit of wisdom and power. But he is called the old man because he is unconverted, unchanged from his original condition as a sinful descendant of Adam. The child of a ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... appreciation. They were all proud of him, in so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against people who were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as "taking credit." They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulged in vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he had said, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort of frigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personal sense of right; and there can, ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... of France, of Spain, of Germany and of England, had flowed, and were destined still to flow, for the gratification of a man who wanted the vulgar courage which was found in the meanest of the hundreds of thousands whom he had sacrificed to his vainglorious ambition? ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bullying. It is true that your own lips are not soiled by the utterance of all the mean words that are spoken for you, and that you don’t even know of the sham threats, and the false promises, and the vainglorious boasts, put forth by your dragoman; but now and then there happens some incident of the sort which I have just been mentioning, which forces you to believe, or suspect, that your dragoman is habitually ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoffing and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in a den of lions, while the sensual and simoniacal Pope is to have his flesh torn with red-hot iron. And we have—although here Vicente discreetly went to the Danza de la Muerte for his satire—the vainglorious and tyrannical Emperor, the Duke who had adored himself and the King who had allowed himself to be adored. There are the careless hedonistic Count more given to love than to charity or churchgoing, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... proved, as Sanza had said, to be a genuine Muramasa. Sanza was delighted at the verdict; but the other two went home rather crestfallen. Umanojo, although he had been worsted in the argument, bore no malice nor ill-will in his heart; but Banzayemon, who was a vainglorious personage, puffed up with the idea of his own importance, conceived a spite against Sanza, and watched for an opportunity to put him to shame. At last, one day Banzayemon, eager to be revenged upon Sanza, went to the Prince, and said, "Your lordship ought to see Sanza fence; his swordsmanship ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Vainglorious bird of Gaul, or of the island contiguous, wait a moment ere you crow before the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... triumphant issue in his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Shakespeare's treatment of eccentric character like Don Armado in 'Love's Labour's Lost' and his boy Moth reads like a reminiscence of Lyly's portrayal of Sir Thopas, a fat vainglorious knight, and his boy Epiton in the comedy of 'Endymion,' while the watchmen in the same play clearly adumbrate Shakespeare's Dogberry and Verges. The device of masculine disguise for love-sick maidens was characteristic of Lyly's method before Shakespeare ventured on it for the first of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a smile on his lips. He felt he had already become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... the day he had settled for his departure, as he sat thinking how he would go down to the lake in a few hours, a letter started to his mind which, as well as he could remember, was written in a foolish, vainglorious mood—a stupid letter that must have made him appear a fool in her eyes. Had he not said something about—The thought eluded him; he could only remember the general tone of his letter, and in it he seemed to consider Nora as a sort ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... but had also been employed on the staff of General Williams, and had been for several years in the consular service. He was, in all respects, well fitted for his post; but, unfortunately for him, when he entered Abyssinia he had to deal with a fascinating, vainglorious, shrewd man, hiding his cunning under an appearance of modesty: in a word, with Theodore who had become an over-bearing despot. On his first arrival, Cameron was received with great honours, and treated by the Emperor with marked respect, and when he left in October, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... he had the most amazing self-confidence, with not a particle of reverence for any man, whatever his rank or culture. He thought no one his superior. Colonel Coffee paid very little respect to his vainglorious report. In the following characteristic strain Crockett comments ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... than I have been for a long time. Waste myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh well," I thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... all others in personal prowess and valor, in a manner very eloquent indeed, and in a style which it seems was very much admired in those days as evincing only a proper spirit and energy,—though in our times such a harangue would be very apt to be regarded as only a vainglorious and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sled of saplings, of the kind known to hunters as a "scoot," and drew the bear home; and from the vainglorious talk of Willis one might have thought us the three most valiant lads that ever ranged the forest! John and I said little. It was rather fine to be considered heroes, who would not leave a bear even to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... was opposed to the measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy. Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely remain in their city ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... disqualify themselves for the great role of world-wide emancipation, which some religion at some time will certainly have to play. It is the same difficulty which is looming large in modern World-politics, where the local selfishness and vainglorious "patriotisms" of the Nations are sadly impeding and obstructing the development of that sense of Internationalism and Brotherhood which is the clearly indicated form of the future, and which alone can give each nation deliverance from fear, and a promise of growth, and the confident ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... whose correspondence interlarded with flashes of wit, pungencies, archaisms and enigmas, allured him. He willingly re-read the panegyrics in which this bishop invokes pagan deities in substantiation of his vainglorious eulogies; and, in spite of everything, he confessed a weakness for the affectations of these verses, fabricated, as it were, by an ingenious mechanician who operates his machine, oils his wheels and invents intricate and ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and spirits, that the best-educated people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... mighty warlords, the might of three was much more in their armies than in themselves. Cruel Philip was not a warrior of any kind. Ambitious Louis and the vainglorious Kaiser were only second-rate soldiers, who would never have won their own way to the highest command. But Napoleon was utterly different. He was as great a master of the art of war on land as Nelson was by sea; and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the courageous developments of the man. He soon evinced the sagacity, cunning, perseverance, and heroic courage which constitute the admiration of the Indians. And he relied largely upon these in the gratification of an ambitious, vainglorious, and mischief-loving disposition. In wisdom and energy he was superior to any one who had ever lived before. Yet he was simple when circumstances required it, and was ever the object of tricks and ridicule in others. He could transform himself into any animal he pleased, being ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... those whose protectors and supporters are sustaining the country's honor in the field; evidences more striking than the founding of charitable institutions or benevolent societies, since the latter may, and too often does, arise from the most selfish and vainglorious motive, while in the former the individual is lost in the many who press eagerly to bear their part in a noble work, in this spontaneous outpouring of true and heartfelt benevolence. From this same spirit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... might. They are, again, fighting for their own sake. Why should not they, O Bharata, be able to slay thy troops. Thou, however, O king, art exceedingly covetous. Thou, O Kaurava, art deceitful. Thou art vainglorious and suspicious of everything. For this, thou suspectest even us. I think, O king, thou art wicked, of sinful soul, and an embodiment of sin. Mean and of sinful thoughts, thou doubtest us and others. As regards myself, fighting with resolution for thy sake, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pikes, and they fell back with heavy loss. On the 20th Bonaparte raised the siege which had cost him nearly 5,000 men by war and sickness. Smith received the thanks of parliament and a pension of L1,000 a year. Though vainglorious and arrogant, he conducted the defence of Acre with sound judgment as well as with energy and courage. By weary marches through the desert, Bonaparte led his army back to Egypt, where he defeated an invasion of Turks. Smith sent him a bundle of newspapers, and from them he received tidings ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... will. They who bid me speak now, are willing that you should learn some lesson to benefit yourselves, and your fellow men. They say to you, oh Poet, 'Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.' Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility of opening other eyes to the beauty, and other minds ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... frivolous modes of dealing with the rights of races to self-development! Because Englishmen may be classified as hard and conceited, Frenchmen as capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious, shall these therefore be slaves? And where is that model race which shall sway them all? A people may have grave defects, but it may not therefore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... prizes had been captured, and he launched forth into a long and vainglorious account (why must the French always boast of their successes?). I affected to be greatly impressed by his tale of daring, and invited him to sup with me, so that I might hear more of his adventures at length. As I had guessed, he replied, regretfully, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... his haste, in his vainglorious delight, he bore Jansoulet off so quickly that the latter had no time to present his companion, Paul de Gery, to whom he was giving his first entry into society. The young man welcomed this forgetfulness. He slipped away among the crowd of black dress-coats constantly pressed ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the Thersites of the campaign, and with one advantage over his prototype—he really wanted to fight. So he swaggered, heeding not the reproving spear; he fumed; he mocked; for no warrior affected to notice his vainglorious absurdities. He was as much in earnest as those who fought on account of elemental love, and far more so than any of the blusterers who talked big and looked small. He longed to fight, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and, it must be added, to his relief, also, his apprehensions proved to be groundless. The only emotions aroused in Noel Vanstone's mind by a perusal of the letter were a hearty admiration of his friend's idea, and a vainglorious anxiety to claim the credit to himself of being the person who carried it out. Examples may be found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found occasionally of a fool who is not cunning; but it may reasonably be doubted ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... type of criminal who is greedy—for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish—with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty—with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious—with pride in his skill to thwart justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I am the wriggling little ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... fears of the result; the Corsair city would fall at the mere sight of his immense flotilla; and in this vainglorious assurance he set out in October, 1541. He even took Spanish ladies on board to view his triumph. The season for a descent on the African coast was over, and every one knew that the chance of effecting anything before the winter storms should guard the coast from any floating enemy was more than ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... Judith, who was some years his senior, sat behind his tea-urn on most occasions and made it possible for the young things of society to flutter in as freely as they willed. The young things came to little in themselves, but some of them had vainglorious mothers and ambitious, pomp-loving fathers, and who could tell in what richly promising crevice their light-minded chatter might lodge and sprout? So Daffingdon and his sister encouraged them to come, and the young things came gladly, willing enough to meet with a break in the ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... with the commander in chief three men who died hated and scorned by their countrymen. The first was Horatio Gates, a vainglorious man, given to intrigue and treachery. Next came tall and slovenly Charles Lee of Virginia, a restless adventurer, who, by his cowardice in the battle of Monmouth, stirred even Washington to anger. Then there was a young man for whom Washington had a ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... for no vainglorious purpose. We should remind ourselves constantly that we have a history behind us, that we have a character to sustain. Are we of this generation worthy descendants of tea spillers and abolitionists? Are we living up to the traditions of the Commonwealth, to the principles of the fathers in relation ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and rendered furious by the pillage of all the houses of the patriots at Chataigneraie—to which town Chalbos with seven thousand troops had marched—it was against him that the Vendeans first moved. Chalbos, who had occupied his time in issuing vainglorious proclamations, and in writing assurances to the Convention that the Vendeans were so panic stricken that the war was virtually over, only saved his army by a long and painful night march back to Fontenay. Here the troops lay down to sleep, feeling certain that there ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... words to my companions. I told them that there would soon be a serious demand on their modesty. We had performed a great and generous exploit, and it did not become us to lessen its merit by betraying a vainglorious self-esteem. I implored them all to take pattern by me; promising, in the end, that their new friends would trebly prize their hardihood, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been accustomed to sit a horse before, his thoroughbred had flung him against a tree so severely that the taste for equitation had gone out of him for ever. Be this as it may, M. Rajon was far from being vainglorious; he knew his value as an artist, frankly and openly enjoyed his success, but remained simple, urbane, and courteous. He told us that he could only give two hours a day to original work, and that his mother (a simple woman for whom art remained an incomprehensible mystery) could not admit this ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the Island of Guernsey, and had served with the armies of Britain in many parts of the world, being also present with Nelson at Copenhagen; but had already served officially in Canada for ten years before the war. He now found himself opposed to the vainglorious Hull; nor was it long before he justified his reputation and won glory for the arms of Canada by capturing the American General at Detroit, together with 2500 troops and thirty-three cannon. Brock's ally on this occasion was the Chief Tecumseh, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... "directly" came home to me. But merely flicking the ashes from his cigarette, he glanced round the room without offering the slightest recognition, and then disappeared. How he made his change from civilian clothes so quickly I can't understand. It seemed like a vainglorious display of his uniform in order to let us take full cognizance ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... this vainglorious speech, the mountain of his merits was diminished by sixteen yojanas, and virtue and efficacy departed from him, insomuch that when he next addressed the multitude they first mocked, then ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... starvation, but the peril seemed forgotten while the dream lasted. The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be injured, and not advanced, by such outrages ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... Marechal de Biron, when, in the vainglorious hope of one day becoming the sovereign of certain of the French provinces, he voluntarily trampled under foot every obligation of loyalty and gratitude, and leagued himself with the enemies of his royal master, to wrest from him the sceptre ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the deepest sorrows I have ever known—perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I have never been so mercifully supported under it. It is a good and profitable sorrow I trust for me: it has made so much in me reveal itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious. It has, I hope, helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God's blessing the beginning of more earnest life-long repentance and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery, in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon taste. It is addressed ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... appeared to have spoken freely about our projects, greatly exalting and exaggerating their importance; indeed, he could scarcely have said more if we had been traveling as accredited agents between two belligerent powers. Such vainglorious garrulity was not only intensely provoking, but involved real peril to all parties concerned. I thought the Irishman was perfectly right in taking that blundering bull by the horns, and acting decisively ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... both cheeks, after the manner of foolish men, David gravely got him to his home and to a sound sleep that night. Next morning, the remembrance of the pleasant smiting roused him to an outwardly sedate and inwardly vainglorious courage. Going with steady steps to the Friends' meeting-house at the appointed time, the Spirit moved him, after a decorous pause, to announce his intended marriage to the prettiest Quaker in Framley, even the maid who had shocked the community's sense of decorum and had been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a swordsman ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... weakest of mortals, was, nevertheless, by a common fatality attending such men, the most vainglorious; he yielded precedence to every petty officer of the Crown, and yet in his own house would not give the right-hand to any person of quality that came to him about business. My behaviour was the reverse of his in almost ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... importance in the scheme and the honors which his position in certain companies would heap upon him, that an abyss had yawned before him of which he had been wholly unaware. He was not unaware of it now. He was a vainglorious, ignorant man, whose life had been spent in common work done under the supervision of those who knew what he did not know. He had fed himself upon the comforting belief that he had learned all the tricks of any trade. He had been openly boastful of his astuteness ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the conquering dog until now. He had so far been the victim of the sex, and in his own small way had suffered scorn and beguilement enough. What with the luncheon and the sticky champagne, he began to feel mighty and vainglorious, and he took the airs which he supposed to be appropriate to the situation. He praised the lady, therefore, with a humorous appreciation of the manner in which she accepted flatteries which were passed, so to say, upon a shovel, and he ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray |
