... some praises with his reproaches, he says: Isagoras the son of Tisander was of a noble family, but I cannot tell the original of it; his kinsmen, however, sacrifice to the Carian Jupiter. (Herodotus, v. 66.) O this pleasant and cunning scoffer of a writer, who thus disgracefully sends Isagoras to the Carians, as it were to the ravens. As for Aristogiton, he puts him not forth at the back door, but thrusts him directly out of the gate into Phoenicia, saying that he had ... — Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch Read full book for free!
... over. He leaned back and went on again, having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the ... — Ulysses • James Joyce Read full book for free!
... thought of Goethe's completed Faust. The keynote is struck in the "Prologue in Heaven." Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason, the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God's own lips, that the tempter will not succeed. God allows the devil free play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will be led astray—"man errs while he strives"; but he will not abandon ... — The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke Read full book for free!
... there needed nothing farther; but they pushed forward by main force and fell a-crying out and saying, 'Seize yonder traitor and scoffer at God and His saints, who, being whole of his body, hath come hither, in the guise of a cripple, to make mock of us and of our saint!' So saying, they laid hold of Martellino and pulled him down from the place where he lay. Then, taking him by the hair of his head and ... — The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio Read full book for free!
... to trust This sceptre of Seven Realms to magic snare That puissance hath—who knows not?—greater thrice In house than open field. I therefore chose For audience hall this precinct.' Muttered low Murdark, the scoffer with the cave-like mouth And sidelong eyes, 'Queen Bertha's voice was that! A woman's man! Since first from Gallic shores That dainty daughter of King Charibert Pressed her small foot on England's honest ... — Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere Read full book for free!
... histories prophane and horrible vntrueths, some of which kind shal now immediately be discussed. As for others, whatsoeuer they be, who vpbraid the nation of Islanders with daily reproches, they are to haue that answere in a readinesse which such men deserue. In the number of whom, that scoffer is to be accounted, who by a company of rimes published in the Germane tongue, to the disgrace of our countrey, hath brought his name ... — The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt Read full book for free!
... thought and great practical wisdom," says Sedgwick,[2] "one whose piety and benevolence have for many years been shining before the world, and of whose sincerity no scoffer (of whatever school) will dare to start a doubt, recorded his opinion in the great assembly of the men of science who during the past year were gathered from every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, 'that Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to ... — Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson Read full book for free!
... salon, and by dint of cursing Marat, they applauded Trestaillon. Some deputies of the undiscoverable variety played their whist there; M. Thibord du Chalard, M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated scoffer of the right, M. Cornet-Dincourt. The bailiff de Ferrette, with his short breeches and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de Talleyrand. He had been M. le Comte d'Artois' companion in pleasures and unlike Aristotle crouching ... — Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo Read full book for free!
... Sometimes he would continue drinking for several days, until every penny was exhausted. Then he would make demands at home for more money, which if refused, he was sure to abuse his wife and family. He was not only a drunkard; he was a scoffer at religion, and considered it a mark of honor to take the name of God ... — The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon Read full book for free!
... writings of the former at some length and with much dulness. Dulness is certainly not the characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century under the title of 'Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.' 'We bring you here,' said Cotton, 'a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of Greece'—'a piece of raillery writ,' as he went on to say, ... — By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams Read full book for free!
... attention. Holman remarked in a whisper that Soma could probably outpoint the Professor if it came to an array of facts concerning the probable uses of the gigantic table, and when I glanced at the Kanaka, as he stopped to listen to the scientist's discourse, I felt inclined to agree with the scoffer. Soma had an intelligence that lifted him above his class, and I was convinced that many of the Professor's ... — The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer Read full book for free!
... intellects. No one writer of past years unsettled the already shallow-rooted faith of the people to such an extent as Voltaire. Yet he was by no means the man many of his enemies suppose him to have been. No mere scoffer or reviler of the bible could have obtained such an influence in France as Voltaire did. He was really a great man, and gained the affections of the people by his advocacy of liberty. It is more than probable that under a system ... — Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett Read full book for free!
... about it, Sam," said he, "but mind my words, and apply your experience to it afterwards in life, and see if I ain't right. Crime has but two travelling companions. It commences its journey with the scoffer, and ends it with the blasphemer: not that talking irreverently ain't very improper in itself, but it destroys the sense of right and wrong, and prepares ... — Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton Read full book for free!
... parents; and I remember we all stopped before a chapel, and I read upon its front, I knew Latin enough to understand it, I am pleased to say,—Deo erexit Voltaire. I never forgot it; and knowing what a sad scoffer he was at most sacred things, I could not but be impressed with the fact that even he was not satisfied with himself, until he had shown his devotion in a ... — The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Read full book for free!
... Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the heart. He had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible, and the succession ... — Shirley • Charlotte Bronte Read full book for free!
... himself at last in the parlor on an old sofa which he had dragged in from another room watched the deepening of the gloom as night came on. Before it was altogether dark the curious crowd had collected in the street, silent, as a rule, and expectant, with here and there a scoffer uttering his incredulity and courage with scornful remarks or ribald cries. None knew of the anxious watcher inside. He feared to make a light; the uncurtained windows would have betrayed his presence, subjecting ... — Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce Read full book for free!
... cynic would rejoice mirthfully at topped or sliced drives or the wild swing that spends all its vicious intent upon the imponderable air. His presence came to be a trial to beginning players, who took no real pleasure in the game until they reached the second tee, beyond the ken of the scoffer. ... — The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson Read full book for free!
... the strange interview of which contemporary historians have left us a curious narrative, exhibited much more of the spirit of the scoffer than of the convert, and evidently had no faith in Abbott Joachim's theories and his mission, it was otherwise with the world at large. At the close of the twelfth century a very general belief, the result of a true instinct, pervaded all classes that European society was passing through a tremendous ... — The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp Read full book for free!
... heathen scoffer Answered: "I disdain thine offer; Neither fear I God nor Devil; Thee and thy Gospel ... — The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read full book for free!
... daughter. The mania had not taken such deep hold of the light-hearted young painter as of Philip, the poring and gloomy philosopher; and she was glad as she heard her friend Ino call Alexander a faithless butterfly, while her sister Helena declared that he was a godless scoffer. ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers Read full book for free!
... teacher and a great philosopher, though none ever placed him among the heroic in action or in character. His cynical contemporary, Voltaire, still has some veil of vague obscurity which hides his brilliance from the world apt to reckon him a mere scoffer and destroyer of beliefs. He has more profound faith perhaps than many who took up the sword to defend religion, but he covered his spirit of tolerance with many cloaks of mockery, ashamed to be a hero in conventional trappings, ... — Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead Read full book for free!
... the nearness of Christ's coming. But those who desired only an excuse to reject the truth closed their ears to this explanation; and the words, "No man knoweth the day nor the hour," continued to be echoed by the bold scoffer, and even by the professed minister of Christ. As the people were roused, and began to inquire the way of salvation, religious teachers stepped in between them and the truth, seeking to quiet their fears by falsely interpreting the word of God. Unfaithful watchmen united in the work of the great ... — The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White Read full book for free!
... true that, to the licence on religious subjects, which revelled through the first acts of that tremendous drama, a disposition of an opposite tendency had, for some time, succeeded. Against the wit of the scoffer, not only piety, but a better taste, revolted; and had Lord Byron, in touching on such themes in Childe Harold, adopted a tone of levity or derision, (such as, unluckily, he sometimes afterwards descended to,) not all the originality and beauty of his work would ... — Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore Read full book for free!
... to be interrupted in his pleasures. He was governed by his favorites and his women. He had not sufficient moral elevation to be earnest in any thing, even to be a bigot in religion. He vacillated between the infidelity of Hobbes and the superstitions of Rome. He lived a scoffer, and died a Catholic. His temper was easy, but so easy as not to prevent the persecution and ruin of his best supporters, when they had become odious to the nation. If he was incapable of enmity, he was also incapable of friendship. ... — A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord Read full book for free!
... is that the real rule of a university—its spirit of humility, and of reverence for antiquity—begins. The true university man, born and bred in the century, not in the years, in the race halls, not those alone in his Alma Mater, is neither a scoffer nor an atheist, nor a critic, sceptic, or cynic. He is a man of simple and exalted faith. God, who hath brought such great things to pass in science, nature, and art, in human character, in the destiny of nations, and the history of humble men and women, is a God before whom ... — The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown Read full book for free!
... and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?' We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake. It was a grand sentence of ... — Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson Read full book for free!
... used, not to conquer evil, but to make up for it, and thus sin became as safe as it was easy. Inevitably also such a theory of worship often degenerated into an utter formalism which made hyprocrisy and unreality patent, until the hoc est corpus of the mass became the hocus-pocus of the scoffer. ... — Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch Read full book for free!
... opened by prayer, and the reverend gentleman prayed fervently that "the Liberals might hang a' thegither." He was interrupted by a loud and irreverent "Amen" from the back of the hall. "Not, O Lord," went on the clergyman, "in the sense which that profane scoffer would have ye to understand, but that they may hang thegither in accord and concord." "I dinna care so much what kind of a cord it is," struck in the voice, "sae lang as it is a ... — Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various Read full book for free!
... had married the earl. She had no wish to be a mother; but that prospect, and the dread attaching to it at her time of life, she could have submitted to for Lord Romfrey's sake. It struck her like a scoffer's blow that she, the one woman on earth loving Nevil, should have become the instrument for dispossessing him. The revulsion of her feelings enlightened her so far as to suggest, without enabling her to fathom him, that instead of having cleverly swayed Lord Romfrey, she had been his ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... London which we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us like ... — The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw Read full book for free!
... I'll build a temple to your name; And the first offering shall be Gloster's head, Thy altars shall be sprinkled with the blood, Whose wanton current his mad humour fed; He was a rhymer and a riddler, A scoffer at my mother, prais'd my father: I'll fit him now for all—escape ... — A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various Read full book for free!
... floridly, about sighting the cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at last. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, ... — Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps Read full book for free!
... Christ should be least understood. It is an exception to all the world has ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a simple grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind. The most hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at everything in the temple of Christianity, stands for a moment uncovered and breathless when he comes to the object of its adoration and feels how awful goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely. Yet, after all, the character ... — The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe Read full book for free!
... idea, however, proved—impracticable—which, in some respects, is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks with a hide like leather, and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark in ... — Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss Read full book for free!
... excellent order to take with the friars, seeing that they were the veriest vagabonds that be; a friar thereupon took the jest in very ill part, and could not refrain himself from calling the fellow ribald, villain, and the son of perdition; whereat the jester became a scoffer indeed, for he could play a part in that play, no man better, making the friar ... — The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various Read full book for free!
... he approached the young scoffer, his hand on an exact level with the latter's ear, his right foot raised to indicate a possible means of enforcing obedience to ... — The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy Read full book for free!
... disseminate the doctrines which they believe to be its formative essentials, and there is nothing which the enemies of religion seize on so gladly as any inconsistency between the conduct and the professions of such persons. Though utterly indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, the scoffer would not fail to remark upon the hollowness of a Christianity which was horror-stricken at a dance or a Sunday drive, while it was blandly silent about the separation of families, the putting asunder whom God had joined, the selling Christian girls for Christian harems, and the thousand ... — The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell Read full book for free!
... Mephistopheles sits down between the solemn antique Sphinxes, and boldly questions them, and reads their riddles. The red light of innumerable watch-fires glares all round about, and shines upon the terrible face of the arch-scoffer; while on either side, severe, majestic, solemnly serene, we behold the gigantic forms of the children of Chimera, half buried in the earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly, as if they heard through the midnight, the swift-rushing wings of the Stymphalides, striving to outstrip ... — Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read full book for free!
...scoffer at faith goes about Pouring into the ears of his fellows each doubt Which assails him. One truth he fails wholly to heed; That a doubt oft repeated may bore ... — Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox Read full book for free!
... This graceful young scoffer reappeared a couple of evenings later, and confirmed the friendly feeling he had provoked on Rowland's part. He was in an easier mood than before, he chattered less extravagantly, and asked Rowland a number of rather ... — Roderick Hudson • Henry James Read full book for free!
... building up the Junker dream. A court official—the Oberhofprediger—was set up, and from that time on the Hohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. Frederick the Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: "If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks." And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells with jocular approval how he kept them ... — The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... standing-point, one test, as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes, may be supposed to guide our decision. 'Imagine the Tale of a Tub to be read by Bishop Butler and by Voltaire, who called Swift a Rabelais perfectionne. Can anyone doubt that the believer would be scandalized, and the scoffer find himself in a thoroughly congenial element? Would not any believer shrink from the use of such weapons, even though directed ... — The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis Read full book for free!
... often begins with the chue, chue of the House-Sparrow, so exactly imitated in every respect that were it not for what follows, no one would suppose it to be any other bird. It is called a Mocking-Bird here, and it well deserves the name, for it is a real scoffer at the sorrows of other birds, which it laughs to scorn and turns into ridicule by parodying them so exactly. I never heard it attempt to imitate any of the Larks or Thrushes, although I have listened to it ... — Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett Read full book for free!
... were the keeper of the cafe, a stupid and silent beer-cask, always in his sleeved vest, and remarkable only for his carved pipe; the bailiff, a scoffer, dressed invariably in black, scorned for his inelegant habit of carrying off what remained of his sugar; the town-clerk, the gentleman of acrostics, a person of much amiability and a feeble constitution, who sent to the illustrated journals solutions ... — Ten Tales • Francois Coppee Read full book for free!
... was the signal for an orgy of Philistine rancour such as even London had never known before. The puritan middle class, which had always regarded Wilde with dislike as an artist and intellectual scoffer, a mere parasite of the aristocracy, now gave free scope to their disgust and contempt, and everyone tried to outdo his neighbour in expressions of loathing and abhorrence. This middle class condemnation ... — Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris Read full book for free!
... the couch of the infidel and blasphemer. The same beam glitters on the blessed Altar of the faithful, and on the cell of the impenitent murderer. Look at the sunshine and the shower in the country. The fields of the earnest, prayerful man, and those of the unbelieving, prayerless scoffer lie golden under the same sunlight, are watered by the same showers. And why is this so? Surely it is a type of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Surely it teaches us the wondrous height, and depth, and breadth of divine love. It warns us not to be ... — The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton Read full book for free!
... not of much use talking in this wise to a scoffer. He that maun to Cupar maun to Cupar. We're all in the same express train, plunging towards ... — Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham Read full book for free!
... state of mind about it; but as it's only mine, you know, I'm sure it really doesn't matter." And then they'd only go off worse than ever,—mother doing hysterics, and so forth—and say I was a wicked, bad, abominable scoffer, and that it made them horribly frightened even to listen to me. As if I wasn't more likely to know the real value of my own soul than ... — Philistia • Grant Allen Read full book for free!
... well-nigh healed of his wound, healed also of his love, I trust, at least headed off from it. M. de Fontelles was gone also, on that quest of his which made my Lord Rochester so merry; indeed I fear that in this case the scoffer had the best of it, for he whom I have called M. de Perrencourt was certainly served again by his indignant subject, and that most brilliantly. Well, had I been a Frenchman, I could have forgiven King Louis much; and I suppose ... — Simon Dale • Anthony Hope Read full book for free!
... for their health?" queried a scoffer, with what he was pleased to consider fine irony. "Undoubtedly," responded the hitherto veracious one, with unabated good humour, "though perhaps one might more truthfully say they were walking less to gain an appetite than to find the means wherewith to satisfy it." He then described ... — A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel Read full book for free!
... not converted in the least. A really converted African is a very beautiful form of Christian; but those Africans who are the chief mainstay of missionary reports and who afford such material for the scoffer thereat, have merely had the restraint of fear removed from their minds in the mission schools without the greater restraint of love being put in ... — Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley Read full book for free!
... you believe in it?" asked Lil Artha, who was known to be pretty much of a scoffer in ... — Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas Read full book for free!
... neyther lernynge nor prudence, and was a man mete for nothynge but to scoffe and ieste; but yet with his mery toyes, he so moued the sayd Can, that he dydde greatly enryche hym. And, bycause Dantes dispised his foolysshenes, this scoffer sayd to hym: how cometh it, Dantes, that thou art helde[273] so wyse and so well lerned, and yet arte poore and nedy? I am an vnlerned man and am an ignorant fole, and yet I am farre richer than thou art. To whom Dantes answered: if I may fynde a lord lyke ... — Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown Read full book for free!
... we perceive from the first that it is so or not, there is a solidarity of womanhood that men and women must reckon with. The man who wrongs another's daughter perceives afterwards that he wronged his own daughter thereby. We cannot, without sin against humanity, ask the scoffer's question, "Am I my sister's keeper?"—not even concerning the poorest and meanest foreign woman, for the reason that she is our sister. The conditions that surround the Hong Kong slave girl in California are bound ... — Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell Read full book for free!
... reviler and scoffer of goodness!" said Birch, moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the road, followed by the imaginary Caesar. "But I leave thee, and that behind me that will prove thy condemnation, and take from thee a hearty and ... — The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... description of the "intelligent and religious persons" who belonged to the "Transcendentalist" communion, the reader must remember that it is Emerson who draws the portrait,—a friend and not a scoffer:— ... — Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes Read full book for free!
... M. Ohnet's because of its bad taste, and all of them were delighted to discover in M. Halevy's interesting and artistic work a story written by a French gentleman for young ladies. Here and there a scoffer might sneer at the tale of the old French priest and the young women from Canada as innocuous and saccharine; but the story of the good Abbe Constantin and of his nephew, and of the girl the nephew loved in spite of her American millions—this story had the rare good fortune of pleasing at once ... — Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy Read full book for free!
... Frenchman, testified to its destructive consequences; of how Edmund Massey, lecturer at St. Albans, preached against sinfully endeavoring to alter the course of nature by presumptuous interposition, which he would leave to the atheist and the scoffer, the heathen and unbeliever, while in the face of his sermon, afterwards reprinted in Boston, many of our New England clergy stood up boldly in defence of the practice,—all this has been told so well and so often that ... — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) Read full book for free!
... that his world should see in him an incorrigible scoffer at moral conventions. He rather enjoyed being the object of maternal warnings to young daughters, but in financial affairs no stern moralist could have been more observant of rigid integrity, and in that, as in other things, he reversed the usual order. The business involved in the letter ... — A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck Read full book for free!
... tombs we have acquired in this summer jaunt. Here we see the tomb of one recorded proudly as "descended from the noble families of Stuart and Bruce", who, tradition says, was supposed to have held the position of servant to said scions of nobility. One who was known as a scoffer during life here is virtuously represented ah "a sincere worshipper of Eternal, Almighty and ever just God"; reminding us of the popular adage, "lying like an epitaph". Twice have we seen one stone made to ... — Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase Read full book for free!
... Newton rushed upon him with flashing eye and uplifted bucket, a picture of fiery wrath that was too much for the thoughtless scoffer, who fled in terror amid the laughter of the crowd. The vanquished son of Belial had no sympathy from anybody, and the plucky preacher was none the less esteemed because he was ready to defend his Master's cause with carnal weapons. The early Californians left scarcely any path of ... — California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald Read full book for free!
... cheapman, with a smile; "my treasure will find small price with Baldwin the scoffer, and Tostig the vain! Nor need ye look at me so sternly, my fathers; but rather vie with each other who shall win this wonder of wonders for his own convent; know, in a word, that it is the right thumb of St. ... — Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... hall door ready to greet the incomer, before she was halfway up the stairs. The cat never got down for the wrong person, and she never neglected to meet any and every member of our family who might be entering. The irreverent scoffer may call it "instinct," or talk about the "sense of ... — Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow Read full book for free!
... seem so, because in the midst of the world I know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked myself whether it were not better to ... — Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert Read full book for free!
... still imperfect, and what is grandly and unwontedly successful. There is no great work of art, not excepting even the Iliad or the Parthenon, which is not open, especially in point of ornament, to the scoff of the scoffer, or to the injustice of those who do not mind being unjust. But all art belongs to man; and man, even when he is greatest, is always ... — Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church Read full book for free!
... ribbon coming diagonally from the shoulder to the belt, marked "Jesus is My Helper." I did wish she had not felt called to make a guy of herself with that thing; but she seemed so unconscious of it herself that I should have forgotten it too if Mr. Flint had not been coming; but I hate to see a scoffer like him get hold of anything ridiculous in religion. Now we Unitarians stand midway between scepticism and superstition. I wonder everybody can't see ... — Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin Read full book for free!
... general notion, unhappily but too well founded, that the wits and poets who congregated at Will's were a most profane and licentious set; and, being himself a man of orthodox opinions and regular life, he was not disposed to give his confidence to one whom he supposed to be a ribald scoffer. Prior, with much address, and perhaps with the help of a little hypocrisy, completely removed this unfavourable impression. He talked on serious subjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely, ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay Read full book for free!
... than which nothing in our language is worse: here he gives us one of poetry, in honour of Love, for which the god has taken ample vengeance on him, by perverting his taste and feelings. The grossest of all the absurdities in this dialogue is, attributing to Aristophanes, so much of a scoffer and so little of a visionary, the silly notion of male and female having been originally complete in one person, and walking circuitously. He may ... — Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor Read full book for free!
... of his father's steadfastness. Brought up in the profligate court of Charles the Second he became an atheist, a scoffer at morality, and a republican. At the same time he had many redeeming points. He was brilliant, witty, energetic, and brave. He was generous and strictly honorable to his word. He was filled with a burning desire for adventure, ... — The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... am fifty, renders me conservative and disposed, metaphorically speaking, to draw in my horns a little. I am beginning to go to church again, for instance. You may have taken it for granted that I have been regular in my attendance at the sanctuary. Certainly I have never been a scoffer; but, on the other hand, I must confess that somehow it has come to pass since Josephine and I plighted our troth that our pew has stood empty on the Lord's day oftener than the orthodox consider fitting. And the ... — The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant Read full book for free!
... mind that vile scoffer. Set an example to Europe, Madam, by doing what I am going to do. Marry again. Marry some good man who will be a strength and support to your ... — Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw Read full book for free!
... surrounded by mysteries. The invisible world enshrouds us. Spirits have their regards intently fixed on us, and a very slight vail divides us. Spurn the vulgar error," said the old veteran stoutly, "that a soldier must be a scoffer. I remember the holy record, and its thrilling declaration; 'We are a spectacle unto angels and unto men.'" A pause ensued, which neither of the listeners cared to terminate. At length he spoke again. "The dews are falling. The last pleasure-boat ... — International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various Read full book for free!
... misunderstood your father," Francis, declared, "and I admit that I have, it has been to some extent his own fault. To me he was always the deliberate scoffer against any code of morals, a rebel against the law even if not a criminal in actual deeds. I honestly believed that The Walled House was the scene of disreputable orgies, that your father was behind Fairfax in that cold-blooded murder, and that he ... — The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... prophet, and step by step it has foretold the progress it would make. It comes, too, most triumphant. No faith before it ever took so victorious a stand in its infancy. It has swept like a hurricane of fire through the land, compelling faith from the baffled scoffer and the most ... — The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith Read full book for free!
... pretentious and unlucky inscription, that reckless wit, Bonnel Thornton, instantly wrote a squib, under the obvious pseudonym of the "Rev. Busby Birch." In these critical and political remarks (which he entitled "City Latin") the gay scoffer professed in his preface to prove "almost every word and every letter to be erroneous and contrary to the practice of both ancients and moderns in this kind of writing," and appended a plan or pattern for a new inscription. The ... — Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury Read full book for free!
... impression of all the sides of Byron's versatile nature, and from its very completeness is the less likely to be injurious. There is no edition of his poems which we could more safely commend to the reader, as it exhibits Byron the poet, Byron the scoffer, Byron the roue, in his true colors and real dimensions; and if, after reading it, a person should adopt the old cant about his brilliant rascalities, and the old drivel about his sentimental misanthropy, the fault is in the ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various Read full book for free!
... this relic of bygone ages in mystery. From time immemorial its practice has been the subject of disputes, and its literature finds oftentimes its friends and foes ranged side by side. At one time a noted Israelite and Voltaire, the scoffer of Judaism, may be consulted on the question as to whether Israelite or Egyptian is entitled to priority as to its original practice with a like answer; and, again, Christians are found who, after a careful investigation, will accord this to the Israelites. In Rome, the persecuted Hebrew ... — History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino Read full book for free!
... by your desire, and for what is its purpose? An African slave, whom I met in the public walks, and who calls himself Diogenes, tells me that you desired to speak with me; he hath somewhat the humour of the old scoffer, and so he may have lied. If so, I will even forgive him the beating which I owe his assurance, and make my excuse at the same time for having broken in upon your retirement, which I ... — Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... Mr. Crane; I am inexperienced, but I assure you I am not a scoffer. And of course, ... — The Come Back • Carolyn Wells Read full book for free!
... exists, he will have reaped a fair reward for his efforts, for he has long been thoroughly convinced that a strict and faithful examination of the facts which bear upon the case is alone requisite for converting the incredulous scoffer into ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... the genial certainty in this answer, said: "I thank you, sir. I shall go back and refute that common scoffer, that caster of doubts. I have seen the Truth face, to face, and am greatly encouraged to further public effort. With many apologies I can now get out," he added, as the train stopped at South Croydon. "Blink!" And, followed by his dog, he ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy Read full book for free!
... absolutely deficient. Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained, systematic labour, another important condition of internal government. He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and of serving without the appearance of servility; ready for everything, and capable of any pliability that might assist his fortune, preserving always the mien, and recurring ... — Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot Read full book for free!
... is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as much as they do, only generally in the inverse ratio: I am, I think, as honest as they can be in what I hold. I have not come hastily to my views. I reserve (as I told them) many points ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... he, "is not that Don Federico, the young advocate, well known in the coffee-houses as a virulent Exaltado, a determined scoffer, a propagator ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various Read full book for free!
... should relate a circumstance bordering a little on the supernatural line, that happened to me, as connected with the business of the bairns of which I have just been speaking; and, were it for no other reason, but just to plague the scoffer that sits in his elbow-chair, I have determined to jot down the whole miraculous paraphernally in black and white. With folk that will not listen to the voice of reason, it is needless to be wasterful of words; so them that like, may either ... — The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir Read full book for free!
... interested in doing so can but too easily demonstrate that English social life is no purer than that of most other countries. Scandals of peculiar grossness, at no long intervals, give rich opportunity to the scoffer. The streets of our great towns nightly present an exhibition the like of which cannot be seen elsewhere in the world. Despite all this, your average Englishman takes for granted his country's moral superiority, ... — The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... flushed like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know your place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill Read full book for free!
... circle about the tree, just as Bluff says; and—yes, that's blood on the ground, as sure as you live! I guess I'm on the wrong track. He did have a merry circus. He did shoot an elk, but where has the blooming thing gone?" exclaimed the scoffer. ... — The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen Read full book for free!
... and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day—constitute to a thinking mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) should have had such free course and been glorified, ... — The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper Read full book for free!
... still face down The spitefullest of talkers in our town. 125 How we talk in the little town below! But love, love, love—there's better love, I know! This foolish love was only day's first offer; I choose my next love to defy the scoffer; For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 130 Out of Possagno church at noon? Their house looks over Orcana valley— Why should not I be the bride as soon As Ottima? For I saw, beside, Arrive last night that little bride— 135 Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash Of ... — Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning Read full book for free!
... gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. Wit—sophist—songster—Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! For such thou art by day—but all night long Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song, Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, Musing on falsehood, violence, and ... — Birds and Poets • John Burroughs Read full book for free!
... resumed their journey, the relationship between them had undergone a change; nay, you might have said that their characters were also changed. For Tom found himself pouring out his turbulent heart to Kenelm, confiding to this philosophical scoffer at love all the passionate humanities of love,—its hope, its anguish, its jealousy, its wrath,—the all that links the gentlest of emotions to tragedy and terror. And Kenelm, listening tenderly, with softened eyes, uttered not ... — Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... in His name I can bear, with patient frame, All these vain ones offer; While for them He suffereth long, Shall I answer wrong with wrong, Scoffing with the scoffer? ... — Selections From American Poetry • Various Read full book for free!
... good deal of a scoffer. "Heaven had nothing to do with it," said he, with unnecessary asperity. "I knew you 'd be wanting to see him; I was hunting for you. Beggar speaks English fairly well, and he let out a word or two that made me think he knew ... — The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk Read full book for free!
... levity again, thou scoffer, or even your years may prove a feeble protection!" said a stern, startling voice from behind. All eyes turned involuntarily at the unexpected sounds, and the muscular form of the Pilot was seen resuming its attitude of repose against the wall, though every fibre of his frame was working ... — The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... Featherstone, "you're a volatile youth. You mustn't mind him, doctor. He's a professional cynic, sceptic, and scoffer. Oxenden and I, however, are open to conviction, and want to know more about those birds and beasts. Can you make anything out ... — A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille Read full book for free!
... wonderful man who has appeared in the world for centuries is their leader, and by land his success has been almost unbroken. If we must have war again, as I fear we must, and very speedily, our chief hope must be that the Lord will support His cause against the scoffer and the infidel, the ... — Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore Read full book for free!
... you who thus great Pele do defy, Here, upon her sacred mountain, of a surety you shall die! Pele, mighty Pele, Vengeance! Strike her with thy dreadful doom! So let every scoffer perish!—Pele! Pele! Pele! come!" And Kapiolani answered—"Pele! ... — Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham Read full book for free!
... are the refutation of that nonsense." Lord Beaconsfield did not believe in the slap-dash words which he put into the mouth of Mr. Phoebus, nor did he believe that the greatness of the English aristocracy arises from the facts that "they don't read books, and they live in the open air." The great scoffer once read for twelve hours every day during an entire year, and his general knowledge of useful literature was quite remarkable. But, while rejecting epigrammatic fireworks, I am bound to say that the habit of reading has become harmful in many cases; it ... — Side Lights • James Runciman Read full book for free!
... religious professions were all identified with her fits of intoxication, and why should he not grow up as he did, without any counteracting influence? why should he not settle down with the conviction that religion is a matter of no moment? nay, why should he not become what he actually did become,—a scoffer and an atheist? Whenever I meet him, I see in his face, not only a reproduction of his mother's features, but that which tells of the reproduction of his mother's character. I pity him that he should ... — Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various Read full book for free!
... solemn sentiments, O Rae, In your last Journey-Work, perchance you ravage, Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say I'm but a heedless, creedless, godless savage; A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots,— A Scoffer, always on the grin, And sadly given to the mortal sin Of liking ... — The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood Read full book for free!
... and frost; and in stormy weather the old woman was seen to rise out of the woods and stir and push the clouds before her with a broom. For a hundred yards around Witch Rock the ground is still accursed, and any attempt to break it up is unavailing. Nearly a century ago a scoffer named Reynolds declared that he would run his plough through the enchanted boundary, and the neighbors watched the attempt ... — Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner Read full book for free!
... and the terrific information that he was damned. But the Carbuccia of old was a riotous, joyful, foul-tongued, pleasure-loving atheist, a typical commercial traveller, with a strain of Alsatia and the mountain-brigand. How came this red-tied scoffer so far on the road of religion as to be damned? Some foolish fancy had made the ribald Gaetano turn a Mason. When one of his boon companions had suggested the evil course, he had refused blankly, apparently because he was asked, rather than because it was evil; ... — Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite Read full book for free!
... extract we see the optimism which runs through Carlyle's earlier writings,—the faith in creation which is to succeed destruction, the immortal hopes which sustain the soul. He believed in the God of Abraham, and was as far from being a scoffer as the heavens are higher than the earth. He had renounced historical Christianity, but he adhered to its ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord Read full book for free!
... to which this parasol had been put, and of the associations connected with it. Nevertheless, I found this bit of sacred church property in the hands of a Jew broker, exposed to sale for a few francs to the first comer, heretic, scoffer or infidel, that might take a fancy to buy it. This would hardly have been the case when the pope was absolute master of Rome and of all in it. The thing could not have happened save by the dishonesty and cynical disbelief of some priest, ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various Read full book for free!
... absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any form or shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life, without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided by death. At the same time, he was no scoffer; for although he declared that "the study of the supernatural is injurious indeed," and somewhat cynically bade his followers "show respect to spiritual beings, but keep them at a distance," yet in another passage we read: ... — The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles Read full book for free!
... beast," Keith went on. "And a typical Hebrew—a scoffer. Have you noticed what a disruptive and irreverential brood they are? They move up and down society like some provocative fluid, insensible to our ideals; they take a diabolical pleasure in shattering our old-established conceptions of right and wrong. ... — South Wind • Norman Douglas Read full book for free!
... great issue, involving the fundamental principles of Christianity. A brave man, who is not a scoffer, attacks the doctrine of non-resistance, and lays down his life for the faith that is in him. A martyr, then. Martyrdom in itself cannot establish a principle; but we respect martyrdom. Turn the argument around: ... — Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall Read full book for free!
... remembered," said Mr. Vancouver, whose delicate features betrayed neither pleasure nor interest, however. "But," he continued, "I am not particularly flattered at being called a scoffer at ... — An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford Read full book for free!
... Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing, half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out of the window!" ... — The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo Read full book for free!
... drawing-room, or in his wife's boudoir. When he goes to other parts of the country on a retainer he takes them in the carriage with him. I do not wonder that he should be a good husband, for his wife is a very amiable woman. But I was surprised to see a man so keen and sarcastic, so much of a scoffer, pouring himself out with such simplicity and tenderness in all sorts of affectionate nonsense. Through our whole journey to Perth he kept up a sort of mock quarrel with his daughter; attacked her about novel-reading, laughed her into a pet, kissed her out of it, and laughed her into it again. She ... — Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan Read full book for free!
... "Listen, scoffer; if you will behave with a decorum consistent with the gravity of the subject, I will explain how I became the possessor of this wonderful powder. Perhaps in your life of seclusion and deep toil you may not have noticed this advertisement which has appeared for ... — Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory Read full book for free!
... Kirk, remained a dead letter. The Duke, Arran, Lord James, and a few barons, including the ruffian Andrew Ker of Faldonside, with Glencairn and Ochiltree, signed it, in token of approval, but little came of it all. Lethington, probably, was the scoffer who styled these provisions "devout imaginations." The nobles and lairds, many of them, were converted, in matter of doctrine; in conduct they were the most avaricious, bloody, and treacherous of all the generations which had banded, revelled, ... — John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... should I have them, villain? And if I had them, idiot! why should I give them to thee? What care I for Miguel Terra, or for the whole race of the Perlerinos? Begone, I say! or, by the life of my lord duke, I will be as good as my word. Thou art no native of Miguel Terra, but some scoffer sent from the devil to tempt me. Impudent scoundrel! I have not yet had the government a day and a half, and you expect I should ... — Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Read full book for free!
... I betray the safeguards of my honor, that thou mayest cover me with shame at will, what have I less to lose than all? Wouldst thou know more, scoffer? Shall I confess that the whole secret wisdom of our sex is but a sorry precaution for the defence of this weak fortress, which in the end is the sole object of assault by all your vows and protestations, and which (I blush to own it) is so willingly surrendered—so often ... — The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller Read full book for free!
... motives that had brought most of the adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish, and so impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to the darkness, instead of heavenward, and who, could they but distinguish the lights which God hath kindled ... — The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions—Thus much for the book Jonah. [The story of Abraham and the Fire-worshipper, ascribed to Franklin, is from Saadi. (See my "Sacred Anthology," p. 61.) Paine has often been called a "mere scoffer," but he seems to have been among the first to treat with dignity the book of Jonah, so especially liable to the ridicule of superficial readers, and discern in it the highest conception of Deity known to ... — The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine Read full book for free!
... d'Assise." Of course, the missioners saw water-monsters in the Congo River. A child "came from his mother's womb with a beard and all his teeth, perhaps to show he was born into the world grown old in vice." A certain scoffer "being one day to pass a river with two companions, was visibly taken up by an invisible hand into the air. One of his companions, going to take hold of him by the feet, had such a cuff given him that he fell down ... — Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... does not indulge in these two, viz., Pride and Unrighteousness! Abstain from companionship with him that is intoxicated (with pride), him that is heedless (of the dictates of honesty), him that is a scoffer of religion, him that is insensate, and forbear to pay court to all of them when united. Keep thyself aloof from the company of ministers whom thou hast once punished and especially of women, as also from mountains ... — The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown Read full book for free!
... as you class it, with the appetites of brutes; much less to be threatened, as you threaten it, with infinite and eternal misery by I know not what necessary laws of Zeus, and to be put off at last with some myth or other about Prometheus. Surely your mother bare you a scoffer and pitiless, Socrates, and not, as you boast, a man-midwife fit ... — Phaethon • Charles Kingsley Read full book for free!
... that Mitchell dropped his mask of cynicism; that Donald Macdonald ate no longer of the tree of knowledge and ceased to worry himself with psychological problems, and was happy; and that Tom Hall was no longer a scoffer. That no one sneaked round through the scrub after dusk to certain necessary establishments in weather-board cottages on the outskirts of the town; and that the broad-minded and obliging ladies thereof became Salvation ... — Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson Read full book for free!
... especially beautiful, the deep basses of the men mingling with the altos and thin sopranos of the women and forming a combination of sound that irresistibly reminded one of an organ. In fact, "kanaka organ" is the scoffer's description of the himine. On the other hand, some of the chants or ballads were very barbaric, having come down from pre- ... — The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London Read full book for free!
... an artful and traitorous idea. A smart notion," vociferated the clerk, "thrown out as an apple of discord. But it is just. You are a scoffer, a man of the world, a cavalry officer, and, though not without brains, you do not realize how profound is your thought, nor how true. Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction are equally powerful in this world. The devil ... — The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky Read full book for free!
... but a weak and ignorant disciple; and he expected, therefore, that he would find it anything but smooth sailing at first in his Christian course. Still, what a marvellous change, to see one so lately a sceptic and a scoffer now humbly studying ... — True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson Read full book for free!
... sensitive to everything, this inevitable act of hypocrisy was not merely painful to Levin, it seemed to him utterly impossible. Now, in the heyday of his highest glory, his fullest flower, he would have to be a liar or a scoffer. He felt incapable of being either. But though he repeatedly plied Stepan Arkadyevitch with questions as to the possibility of obtaining a certificate without actually communicating, Stepan Arkadyevitch maintained that it was ... — Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy Read full book for free!
... felon swords Partial success may fondly smile, Till bleeds the patriot's honest heart, And flames the martyr's pile. Yet not in vain the patriot bleeds; Yet not in vain the martyr dies; From ashes mute, and voiceless blood, What stirring memories rise! The scoffer owns the bigot's creed, Though keen the secret gibe may be; The sceptic seeks the tyrant's dome. And bends the ready knee. But oh! in dark oppression's day. When flares the torch, when flames the sword. Who are the brave in freedom's cause? The ... — My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller Read full book for free!
... But, says the scoffer, these limited editions and so forth foster the vile passions of competition. Well, and if they do? Is it not meet that men should strive together for such possessions? We compete for the allotments ... — Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne Read full book for free!
... calmative cloud the while, "I states ag'in: Thar's no sooperstition ridin' the ranges of my breast. Yet I sees enough in a long an' more or less eventful life— not to say an ill-employed life—to know that Providence packs a gun; an', as more than one scoffer finds out, she don't go heeled for fun. Thar's that Gene Watkins, who gets killed by lightnin' over by the Eagle Claw that time; downed for ... — Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis Read full book for free!
... hearing that supernatural sound that told her of the hopelessness of love, Aurora dropped the hollow, mocking scoffer, clutched spasmodically at her heart, and, with an agonizing shriek, ... — The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field Read full book for free!
... here, and you can't help its bending, if you break your back trying to hold it." So he gave me the twig, and awaited, with a smile which was meant to express withering sarcasm, the discomfiture of the supposed scoffer. But when I proceeded to walk four or five times across the mysterious place, the rod pointing steadfastly toward the zenith all the while, our friend became grave and began to philosophize. "Well," said he, "you see, your temperament is peculiar; the conditions ain't favourable in your case; there ... — Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske Read full book for free!
... Presently the scoffer continued: "The Duvarneys would remain in the city, and on that very night, as they sit at dinner, a shell disturbs them, a splinter strikes Madame, and two days after she is carried ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker Read full book for free!
... "Oh, quite. More than convinced. I never should question them. Mine is the fate of the scoffer. The most rabid persecutor is merely the reverse side of the bigoted proselyter. Upon me rests not the curse that follows the tolerant. They get nowhere. 'Because thou art neither hot nor cold I spew ... — The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow Read full book for free!
... afterward begat seven healthy children. But Klok-No-Ton! They shuddered with dire foreboding at thought of him, and each one felt himself the centre of accusing eyes, and looked accusingly upon his fellows—each one and all, save Sime, and Sime was a scoffer whose evil end was destined with a certitude ... — Children of the Frost • Jack London Read full book for free!
... he would reform that incorrigible tippler into a "teetotal Falstaff," and protested against the enthusiast mixing water so copiously with the milk of his human kindness. So Cruikshank set off in great wrath towards Fleet Street to seek out the scoffer, and, meeting Blanchard Jerrold, sputtered out his purpose and declared that he was on the trail of that scoundrel Punch to "knock his old wooden head about." When he died, Punch announced that "England is the poorer by what she can ill spare—a man of genius. Good, kind, ... — The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann Read full book for free!
... to jousts; and in came Dinadan, and met with Sir Gerin, a good knight, and he threw him down over his horse's croup; and Sir Dinadan overthrew four knights more; and there he did great deeds of arms, for he was a good knight, but he was a scoffer and a japer, and the merriest knight among fellowship that was that time living. And he had such a custom that he loved every good knight, and every good knight loved him again. So then when the haut ... — Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory Read full book for free!
... and there are strange creatures that haunt the bush, some tell, in places where no human foot is wont to tread. So that nothing of this sort comes upon me with an air of newness, at least! I mayn't quite trust it, as you do, but I am no scoffer. Look, now, Mr. St. Aubyn, I have a proposal to make. You are alone, and purpose undertaking a bitter and, it may be, a perilous journey in mountain ground at this season. What say you to taking me along with you? May be, I shall ... — Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford Read full book for free!
... The scoffer rails at ancient tales Of lake and stream and river; The wise man owns that in his bones The kelpie makes ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various Read full book for free!
... the maneres of great men. Me. Tell me now what that same honest ma saynt Iames dothe, and howe he farythe. Ogy. Moche colder tha he was wontyd to do. Me. What is the cause of it? His age? Ogy. Oh you scoffer, yow || A iij.|| know wel enoghe that sayntes wax nat olde. But this new learnynge, whiche runnythe all the world ouer now a dayes, dothe cause hym to be vysytyd moche lesse than he was wontyd to be, for if any doo come thay salute ... — The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus Read full book for free!
... hand, the contemners of such a sentiment will be found most fitly represented by Thersites, who continued to ridicule Achilles for the tender- heartedness he showed towards the dead queen of the Amazons, until the hero killed the rancorous scoffer with ... — The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger Read full book for free!
... political purposes, without a creed, yet never could it have arisen without some creed, however mistaken, earnestly held of old. A firm interior conviction is the starting-point of all outward worship. But if the modern living worshipper is without creed and conviction; if he be a scoffer at heart, or at least a doubter; what a hollow, horrid skeleton thing is his religion,—all the more horrid, the grander its dress! That is ... — Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J. Read full book for free!
... blasphemies, amid oaths from the vile, and revilings from the scoffer, had the boy first learned that name, and never before had it possessed aught of import for him. But now he knew it was the name of the Great Father that loved him, and again he asked very earnestly, "Where is the way to God in heaven? I am going to ... — Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur Read full book for free!
... from being a scoffer. He attended the Episcopal service regularly, and was liberal in his donations to religious enterprises. Nor do we think that this conformity arose from weakness or hypocrisy, but rather from a profound respect for opinions so generally ... — The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various Read full book for free!
... went a procession of horsemen and wagons. Those who could travel no other way filled syrup cans with water and started for the Tecolotes on foot. A railroad! Well, why had they never thought of that in the long, wasted days before? Even L. W., the scoffer, caught the sudden contagion; but Andrew McBain did not stir. He was a cautious man and good friends had told him that Rimrock Jones had threatened his life. He stayed in town—and Rimrock stayed also—and soon the procession came back. It was led by L. W. in his cactus-proof automobile, ... — Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge Read full book for free!
... going and returning,' relates Flaxman, with an air of indignation; 'stayed three days in Rome, and laughed at the sublime remains of ancient sculpture!' Positively laughed! To Flaxman, who was certainly a bigot in regard to the beauties of the antique, if Roubiliac was something of a scoffer in that respect, this seemed flat blasphemy. Yet it was hardly to be expected that Roubiliac, at the height of a successful career, would admit his whole system of art to have been founded on error—would consent ... — Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook Read full book for free!
... attitude of the Suitors toward such a view? Eurymachus is the name of their speaker now, manifestly a representative man of their kind. He derides the prophet: "Go home, old man, and forecast for thy children!" He is a scoffer and skeptic; truly a spokesman of the Suitors in their relation to the Gods, in whom they can have no living faith; through long wickedness they imagine that there is no retribution, they have come to believe their own lie. Impiety, then, is the chief fact of this speech, which really ... — Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider Read full book for free!
... utterly worthless and hollow, as contemptible as they were odious. This was the service he rendered to truth and mankind! His Candide is a masterpiece of wit. It has been called "the dull product of a scoffer's pen"; it is indeed the "product of a scoffer's pen"; but after reading the Excursion, few people will think it dull. It is in the most perfect keeping, and without any appearance of effort. Every sentence tells, and the whole reads like ... — Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt Read full book for free!
... all the principles of the scientific spirit of today, were the targets for thousands of years of the most profound contempt; if a man inclined to them he was excluded from the society of "decent" people—he passed as "an enemy of God," as a scoffer at the truth, as one "possessed." As a man of science, he belonged to the Chandala[2].... We have had the whole pathetic stupidity of mankind against us—their every notion of what the truth ought to be, of what the service of the truth ought to be—their every "thou shalt" was ... — The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche Read full book for free!
... thou escape sin? Think of three things: whence thou comest, whither thou goest, and before whom thou must appear. The scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer can have no share in the future world of bliss. To slander is ... — Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various Read full book for free!
... dissyllables, formed by affixing a termination, the former syllable is commonly accented, as childish, kingdom, actest, acted, toilsome, lover, scoffer, fairer, foremost, zealous, fulness, godly, ... — A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson Read full book for free!
... way tracks in forest and prairie; aye, and there are strange creatures that haunt the bush, some tell, in places where no human foot is wont to tread. So that nothing of this sort comes upon me with an air of newness, at least! I mayn't quite trust it, as you do, but I am no scoffer. Look, now, Mr. St. Aubyn, I have a proposal to make. You are alone, and purpose undertaking a bitter and, it may be, a perilous journey in mountain ground at this season. What say you to taking me along with ... — Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford Read full book for free!
... like to see the Titan who would dare to laugh at the First Consul!" exclaimed Marianne, eagerly. "You would do like Jove; you would hurl down the audacious scoffer into the abyss with a flash from ... — LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... which he studies the air and deportment characteristic of a modern Seneschal. He is a man of few words, off as well as on the stage; but his eyes flash fury if he hears his favourite Art derided by the scoffer. HORATIO SPUFFIL is also in the cast. He has dabbled in literature, but has lately abandoned such frivolity, and been elected a Member of the London County Council. A few rising Amateur Supers complete the male portion of ... — Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various Read full book for free!
... Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing, half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out of the window!" "Kick him downstairs!" ... — The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo Read full book for free!
... Dickens was an "Unbeliever," or a "Unitarian," or an "Episcopalian," or whether "he ever went to church in his life," or "used improper language," or "drank enough to hurt him." He was human, very human, but he was no scoffer or doubter. His religion was of the heart, and his faith beyond questioning. He taught the world, said Dean Stanley over his new-made grave in Westminster Abbey, great lessons of "the eternal value of generosity, of purity, of kindness, ... — Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields Read full book for free!
... Brighton that he might live looking out upon the sea, which appealed to and soothed him. I never met a man who seemed to weigh so carefully every action, every word—even the pettiest—and so completely to find guidance through his own conscience. He was no scoffer in religious matters. In the domain of theology, however, he had little regard for decorum. It was to him a very faulty system hindering true growth, and the idea of rewards and punishments struck him as an appeal to very low natures indeed. ... — Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie Read full book for free!
... and be at the hall door ready to greet the incomer, before she was halfway up the stairs. The cat never got down for the wrong person, and she never neglected to meet any and every member of our family who might be entering. The irreverent scoffer may call it "instinct," or talk about the "sense of smell." I call ... — Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow Read full book for free!
... short laugh. "Oh, quite. More than convinced. I never should question them. Mine is the fate of the scoffer. The most rabid persecutor is merely the reverse side of the bigoted proselyter. Upon me rests not the curse that follows the tolerant. They get nowhere. 'Because thou art neither hot nor cold I ... — The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow Read full book for free!
... Let the scoffer scoff on, while I hereby proclaim, That flight may be courage, and fear but a name; That boasting is good, when 'tis good for the cause, But, in sight of cold steel, we should honour the laws; That powder and shot make ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various Read full book for free!
... THE STRANGER.—We urge you, gentle maiden, to beware of the silken enticements of the stranger, until your love is confirmed by protracted acquaintance. Shun the idler, though his coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first ... — Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols Read full book for free!
... quality of the man who advocates it. George Fox had personality—character—and so people flocked to hear him speak. His plea was so earnest, so direct, so vivid, so irrefutable, that as the listeners listened, some trembled with emotion. "Quakers," a scoffer called them, and this word, flung by an unknown hoodlum, stuck like a mud-ball. The name of the particular hoodlum, like the man who fired the Alexandrian Library, still lies mired in the mud from which he formed the ... — Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard Read full book for free!
... The matter with the man, I think, was the greatness of the opportunity; he reeled under his good fortune; and whether he did ill or well, the exposure of these pious 'phantoms' did as a matter of fact silence in all that part of the island the voice of the scoffer. 'Why then,' the word went round, 'why then, the Bible is true!' And on our return afterwards we were told the impression was yet lively, and those who had seen might be heard telling those who had not, 'O ... — In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... compared with that of other literatures, is singularly unexceptionable; but who is there that holds a place among its writers so historical and important, who is so copious, so versatile, so brilliant, as that Voltaire who is an open scoffer at every thing sacred, venerable, or high-minded? Nor can Rousseau, though he has not the pretensions of Voltaire, be excluded from the classical writers of France. Again, the gifted Pascal, in the work on which his literary fame is mainly founded, does not approve himself to ... — The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman Read full book for free!
... of deep thought and great practical wisdom," says Sedgwick,[2] "one whose piety and benevolence have for many years been shining before the world, and of whose sincerity no scoffer (of whatever school) will dare to start a doubt, recorded his opinion in the great assembly of the men of science who during the past year were gathered from every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, ... — Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson Read full book for free!
... not reproach himself as for a crime. His efforts were successful. Nor was this the only cause in which he was engaged on the side of the weak and the wronged against the powerful and the persecuting. His whole life, though maligned as an Infidel and a-scoffer, was one long act of benevolence. On learning that a young niece of Corneille languished in a condition unworthy of his name, Voltaire, in the most delicate manner, invited her to his house, and she there received ... — Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts Read full book for free!
... by hail and frost; and in stormy weather the old woman was seen to rise out of the woods and stir and push the clouds before her with a broom. For a hundred yards around Witch Rock the ground is still accursed, and any attempt to break it up is unavailing. Nearly a century ago a scoffer named Reynolds declared that he would run his plough through the enchanted boundary, and the neighbors watched the attempt ... — Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner Read full book for free!
... lifetime. And was not my life filled? Filled to overflowing with bitterness and misery! For I loved you, proud Olaf!—I loved you—" The bonde uttered an exclamation of incredulous astonishment. Lovisa fixed her eyes on him with a dark scorn. "Yes, I loved you,—scoffer and unbeliever as you were and are!—accursed of God and man! I loved you in spite of all that was said against you—nay, I would have forsaken my creed for yours, and condemned my soul to the everlasting ... — Thelma • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... occasions) that poetry has so far not given to science any acknowledgment worthy of its distinguished position in the popular mind. Except that Tennyson looked down the throat of a foxglove, that Erasmus Darwin wrote The Loves of the Plants and a scoffer The Loves of the Triangles, poets have been supposed to be indecorously blind to the progress of science. What tribute, for instance, has poetry paid to electricity? All I can remember on the spur of the moment ... — Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad Read full book for free!
... is, I've got the hole whar I s'posed the mine was. Most o' my money went into it an' stayed thar. Then I got a chance to tend light and ketch lobsters, an' hev stuck to it ever since. I take some comfort livin' and try an' pass it along. The widder Leach calls me a scoffer, but she allus comes to me when she's needin', an' don't allus have to cum, either. My life's been like most everybody else's—a streak o' lean an' a streak o' fat, with lean predominatin'. 'Twas a streak o' fat when I found a good woman an' she said 'yes,' an' a streak o' lean ... — Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn Read full book for free!
... shook his head mockingly. "Who will conquer with the spirit! Well, I won't play the scoffer. You are an orator, and that's something. Listen, son of man; I like you. I, too, desire the new kingdom; ... — I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger Read full book for free!
... Magnetic energy slowly disperses, and a sacred object or place becomes gradually demagnetised if put aside or deserted. It becomes more magnetised as it is used or frequented. But the presence of the ignorant scoffer injures such objects and places, by setting up antagonistic vibrations which weaken those already existing there. As a wave of sound may be met by another which extinguishes it, and the result is silence, so do the vibrations of the scoffing ... — Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant Read full book for free!
... his hands. For Pete Sweeney was not drunk now. As swiftly as that horrible thing had been done he had gone sober. Yet no man who saw him that instant feared him one whit less. Not a man present, believer or scoffer, but breathed a silent prayer. And there was reason. If Pete Sweeney, Long Pete, had possessed a real friend on earth, he possessed that one no more. Disciples he had, imitators a-plenty; but friends—there had been but one, and now there ... — Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge Read full book for free!
... and with much dulness. Dulness is certainly not the characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century under the title of 'Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.' 'We bring you here,' said Cotton, 'a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of Greece'—'a piece of raillery writ,' as he went on to say, ... — By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams Read full book for free!
... gentleman prayed fervently that "the Liberals might hang a' thegither." He was interrupted by a loud and irreverent "Amen" from the back of the hall. "Not, O Lord," went on the clergyman, "in the sense which that profane scoffer would have ye to understand, but that they may hang thegither in accord and concord." "I dinna care so much what kind of a cord it is," struck in the voice, "sae lang as it ... — Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various Read full book for free!
... have misunderstood your father," Francis, declared, "and I admit that I have, it has been to some extent his own fault. To me he was always the deliberate scoffer against any code of morals, a rebel against the law even if not a criminal in actual deeds. I honestly believed that The Walled House was the scene of disreputable orgies, that your father was behind ... — The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... thou'rt free to act without control; I ne'er have cherished hate for such as thee. Of all the spirits who deny, The scoffer is least wearisome to me. Ever too prone is man activity to shirk, In unconditioned rest he fain would live; Hence this companion purposely I give, Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work. But ye, the genuine ... — Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Read full book for free!
... in the drama which was of deepest significance to the author himself? The answer is to be found in the title, with its allusion to the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles of the journey of Saul, the persecutor, the scoffer, who, on his way to Damascus, had an awe-inspiring vision, which converted Saul, the hater of Christ, into Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Strindberg's drama describes the progress of the author right up to his conversion, ... — The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg Read full book for free!
... said Manteuffel, laughing, "beware that the color of your hair is not changed by this lovely scoffer—that it does not become a venerable gray. She is sufficiently accomplished in the art of enchantment to do that; I assure you that Madame von Brandt plays a most important role in the history of ... — Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... friend of the family. Now go and practice your mimesis in order to receive a welcome from the Anthophora or the Chalicodoma! A few hours spent with the insects themselves will turn any one into a hardened scoffer at these ... — The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre Read full book for free!
... for something to please and interest his grandfather he could not have hit the mark nearer the center. Cap'n Lote, of course, pretended a certain measure of indifference, but that was for Olive and Rachel's benefit. It would never do for the scoffer to become a convert openly and at once. The feminine members of the household clamored each evening to have the author read aloud his day's installment. The ... — The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln Read full book for free!
... in the Delaware only some twenty years earlier, the fact did not seem to be generally known. People had all along spoken of Fulton as a half-crazy dreamer and had called his boat "Fulton's Folly." "Of course, the thing will not move," said one scoffer. "That any man with common sense well knows," another replied. And yet they all stood watching for Fulton's signal to ... — Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy Read full book for free!
... them at bay, while the Abbot, horror-struck at the violence, implored, with uplifted hands, pardon for blood-shed committed within the sanctuary. Magdalen Graeme alone expressed triumph in the blow her descendant had dealt to the scoffer, mixed, however, with a wild and anxious expression of terror for her grandson's safety. "Let him perish," she said, "in his blasphemy—let him die on the holy pavement ... — The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... efforts of men who, like yourself, see your way to the combination of the practice of the Church with the spirit of science. Understand that all the younger men of science whom I know intimately are ESSENTIALLY of my way of thinking. (I know not a scoffer or an irreligious or an immoral man among them, but they all regard orthodoxy as you do Brahmanism.) Understand that this new school of the prophets is the only one that can work miracles, the only one that can constantly appeal to nature for evidence that it is ... — The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley Read full book for free!
... page over. He leaned back and went on again, having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on ... — Ulysses • James Joyce Read full book for free!
... magnificent; it gave him a glorious exultation. A few hot words with the clerical caretaker of the Chisley conscience over the question of Sabbath observance exposed the young man—the gaol-bird—as an infidel and a scoffer. Jim was no infidel, but communities like Chisley do not under stand subtle distinctions in theology. Here was fresh occasion to fear and abhor Jim o' Mill End; here was justification ... — In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson Read full book for free!
... health?" queried a scoffer, with what he was pleased to consider fine irony. "Undoubtedly," responded the hitherto veracious one, with unabated good humour, "though perhaps one might more truthfully say they were walking less to gain an appetite than to find the means wherewith ... — A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel Read full book for free!
... uncalled-for vehemence, "but you can't stop it; there's water below here, and you can't help its bending, if you break your back trying to hold it." So he gave me the twig, and awaited, with a smile which was meant to express withering sarcasm, the discomfiture of the supposed scoffer. But when I proceeded to walk four or five times across the mysterious place, the rod pointing steadfastly toward the zenith all the while, our friend became grave and began to philosophize. "Well," said he, "you see, your temperament is peculiar; the conditions ain't ... — Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske Read full book for free!
... apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been talking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at last. Then, and not till then, I broke ... — Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps Read full book for free!
... 'Shoo' says I. 'An optical delusion, my excellent Wick. A Christian man would be incapable of such a villainy. The billiard-room, that darksome cavern, on a heaven-sent day like this? Shucks,' says I. Yet"—his attitude became exhortative—"see how mighty is truth, see how she prevails, see how the scoffer is confounded. To the billiard-room I transport myself, sceptically, on the off-chance, ... — The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland Read full book for free!
... concerning the unwritten laws of God that 'know no change and are not of to-day nor yesterday, but must be obeyed in preference to the temporary commandments of men,'[3] is a protest on behalf of conscience against human oppression. And even in Euripides, regarded as an impious scoffer by some scholars,[4] there are not wanting, especially in the example of Alcestis, evidence of belief in that divine justice and moral order of which the virtues of self-devotion and sacrifice in the soul of ... — Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander Read full book for free!
... only; that Mitchell dropped his mask of cynicism; that Donald Macdonald ate no longer of the tree of knowledge and ceased to worry himself with psychological problems, and was happy; and that Tom Hall was no longer a scoffer. That no one sneaked round through the scrub after dusk to certain necessary establishments in weather-board cottages on the outskirts of the town; and that the broad-minded and obliging ladies ... — Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson Read full book for free!
... hand on his thigh with more glee than one would have expected him to feel; for this man posed as a cynic—a despiser of men, a scoffer at charity. ... — The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman Read full book for free!
... jaunt. Here we see the tomb of one recorded proudly as "descended from the noble families of Stuart and Bruce", who, tradition says, was supposed to have held the position of servant to said scions of nobility. One who was known as a scoffer during life here is virtuously represented ah "a sincere worshipper of Eternal, Almighty and ever just God"; reminding us of the popular adage, "lying like an epitaph". Twice have we seen one stone made to do service for two in an amusing manner: on the upper part ... — Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase Read full book for free!
... and of the Kirk, remained a dead letter. The Duke, Arran, Lord James, and a few barons, including the ruffian Andrew Ker of Faldonside, with Glencairn and Ochiltree, signed it, in token of approval, but little came of it all. Lethington, probably, was the scoffer who styled these provisions "devout imaginations." The nobles and lairds, many of them, were converted, in matter of doctrine; in conduct they were the most avaricious, bloody, and treacherous of all the generations which had banded, ... — John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... opinions with every mark of regret. He even showed me letters that had passed between them, and in which every horrid and immoral tenet was defended by one and denied by the other. These letters showed Colden as the advocate of suicide; a scoffer at promises; the despiser of revelation, of Providence and a future state; an opponent of marriage, and as one who denied (shocking!) that any thing but mere habit and positive law stood in the way of marriage, nay, of intercourse without marriage, between ... — Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown Read full book for free!
... "Don't you let that scoffer, Will, have another one. I'll bring back another bucketful in about ten minutes. There's millions of 'em. They set me wild to think of such riches going to waste. I'll dream ... — The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen Read full book for free!
... burden of the State,— Alike each duty challenged at man's hand. Life is built up of smallest atomics, Pile upon pile the ramparts still increase, And as those, Roman walls, o'er which in scorn The scoffer leapt, soon held the world at bay, So shall thy deeds of duty, lowly born, Be thy strong tower and glory ere the ... — Poems • Walter R. Cassels Read full book for free!
... things. Writing calmly now I still hold to my attitude concerning style. I love a book written in fine style, but I refuse to impose style on children. In every child there is a gigantic protest. Thus the son of praying parents often turns out to be a scoffer. I had a good instance of the danger ... — A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill Read full book for free!
... subservient to the conversion of many. Thus we find St. Justin, the martyr, all his life long glorying in the name of philosopher, and continuing to wear, even after his conversion, the philosopher's cloak so much derided by the scoffer, Lucian. ... — Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud Read full book for free!
... awhile, it often begins with the chue, chue of the House-Sparrow, so exactly imitated in every respect that were it not for what follows, no one would suppose it to be any other bird. It is called a Mocking-Bird here, and it well deserves the name, for it is a real scoffer at the sorrows of other birds, which it laughs to scorn and turns into ridicule by parodying them so exactly. I never heard it attempt to imitate any of the Larks or Thrushes, although I have listened ... — Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett Read full book for free!
... that they were the veriest vagabonds that be; a friar thereupon took the jest in very ill part, and could not refrain himself from calling the fellow ribald, villain, and the son of perdition; whereat the jester became a scoffer indeed, for he could play a part in that play, no man better, making the friar more foolishly ... — The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various Read full book for free!
... concluding chapter, that in many of his most startling doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's temperament, too cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a certain tepid geniality to save him from becoming a scoffer. The character which he claims for himself, and somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or general doubter—a character in which, when rightly understood, there is nothing to be ashamed of. To take nothing on trust, to believe nothing ... — Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton Read full book for free!
... over his own mind, and the immense improvements of which, by the extinction of certain moral superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible. Without concealing the evil in the world he is for ever speculating how good may be made superior. He is a complete infidel, and a scoffer at all things reputed holy; and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his taunts against religion. What Maddalo thinks on these matters is not exactly known. Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess some good qualities. How far this is ... — The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley Read full book for free!
... You are an old scoffer, I know, and therefore I am not surprised that an account of things above the comprehensions of the vulgar should appear like a fable to you; but, let me tell you, I wanted no ladders, nor an eagle's beak, to transport me thither, for I had wings of ... — Trips to the Moon • Lucian Read full book for free!
... were less like eyes than holes through which light was pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had forgotten his sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands. Thorkel left off laughing to grasp the Jotun's arm and ... — The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz Read full book for free!
... from a single well; and that the butchery of two hundred thousand Midianites by twelve thousand Israelites, "exceeding infinitely in atrocity the tragedy at Cawnpore, had happily only been carried out on paper." There was nothing of the scoffer in him. While preserving his own independence, he had kept in touch with the most earnest thought both among European scholars and in the little flock intrusted to his care. He evidently remembered what had resulted ... — History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White Read full book for free!
... generally devoted to the worship of Bacchus. Sometimes he would continue drinking for several days, until every penny was exhausted. Then he would make demands at home for more money, which if refused, he was sure to abuse his wife and family. He was not only a drunkard; he was a scoffer at religion, and considered it a mark of honor to take the name ... — The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon Read full book for free!
... the deductions drawn from it by phrenologists, than at present exists, he will have reaped a fair reward for his efforts, for he has long been thoroughly convinced that a strict and faithful examination of the facts which bear upon the case is alone requisite for converting the incredulous scoffer into ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... Barlow's "Vision"; but he closes the chapter sadly, with a touch of Johnson's vigor:—"The annals of American literature are short and simple. The history of poverty is usually neither very various nor very interesting." Farther South the voice of the scoffer was heard. Mr. Robert Morris ventured to say in the Assembly of Pennsylvania, that America had not as yet produced a good poet. Great surprise and indignation, when this speech reached the eyes of ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various Read full book for free!
... She thought it a virtue to say "hell" with unction and emphasis, by way of alarming the consciences of sinners. Mrs. Anderson's prayer is not reportable. That sort of profanity is too bad to write. She capped her climax—even as I have heard a revivalist pray for a scoffer that had vexed his righteous soul—by asking God to convert her daughter, or if she could not be converted to take her away, that she might not heap up wrath against the day of wrath. For that sort of religious excitement which does ... — The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston Read full book for free!
... approached the young scoffer, his hand on an exact level with the latter's ear, his right foot raised to indicate a possible means of ... — The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy Read full book for free!
... else's, I could understand your being in such a fearful state of mind about it; but as it's only mine, you know, I'm sure it really doesn't matter." And then they'd only go off worse than ever,—mother doing hysterics, and so forth—and say I was a wicked, bad, abominable scoffer, and that it made them horribly frightened even to listen to me. As if I wasn't more likely to know the real value of my own ... — Philistia • Grant Allen Read full book for free!
... parents, he was at first rigidly orthodox. He is now pastor of the Walloon Church at Rotterdam. His early writings were touchingly beautiful and attractive, for it was in them that he laid open his inner life. But in his later works he assumes the air of the censor and scoffer. He was long the personal friend of La Saussaye, but, owing to doctrinal differences, they have parted and now pursue different paths. He is an orator of the American type. His opinions are elaborated in his two works, The ... — History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst Read full book for free!
... so, because in the midst of the world I know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked myself whether it were not better ... — Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert Read full book for free!
... for the Bible, about Abraham and the stranger, ends against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions—Thus much for the book Jonah. [The story of Abraham and the Fire-worshipper, ascribed to Franklin, is from Saadi. (See my "Sacred Anthology," p. 61.) Paine has often been called a "mere scoffer," but he seems to have been among the first to treat with dignity the book of Jonah, so especially liable to the ridicule of superficial readers, and discern in it the highest conception of Deity known ... — The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine Read full book for free!
... was accepted as the political critic of the de Marsays, the Rastignacs, and the Roche-Hugons, who had stepped into power. Emile Blondet, the victim of incurable hesitation and of his innate repugnance to any action that concerned only himself, continued his trade of scoffer, took sides with no one, and kept well with all. He was friendly with Raoul, friendly ... — A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... my humiliations!" said Meadows, putting an arm round the scoffer. "I tell you, she proposes to write my next set of lectures for me. She gave me an outline of them ... — A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward Read full book for free!
... citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch meets knight; the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the procuress; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist, and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with the noble lady. And the characters are "finished and quickened by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams." ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various Read full book for free!
... zealot is a man who not only defends his own right of worship, wherein he hath justice, but wishes to impose upon the consciences of others, by which he falls into the very error against which he fights. The mere brainless scoffer is, on the other hand, lower than the beast of the field, since he lacks the animal's self-respect ... — Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... when he came near. Her eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with fond pleasure. "Ah, if she could have had a son like that, how she would have loved him!" "Wait," says Conscience, the dark scoffer mocking within her, "wait, Beatrix Esmond! You know you will weary of this inclination, as you have of all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that the boy may perish, and you won't have a tear for him; or talk, and you weary of his stories; and that your lot in ... — The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray Read full book for free!
... like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know your place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill Read full book for free!
... for their rude and wild simplicity, ventured to call the songs of Autolycus, "two nonsensical songs," the musician called down on himself one of the bitterest notes from Steevens that ever commentator penned against a profane scoffer.[62] ... — Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli Read full book for free!
... part, along with the Mass and the Confessional, in building up the Junker dream. A court official—the Oberhofprediger—was set up, and from that time on the Hohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. Frederick the Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: "If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks." And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells with jocular approval how he ... — The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... opinyn," said the leading female, "that you're a scoffer and a wretch! Your mind is in a wusser beclouded state than the poor nergoes' we are seeking to aid. You are a groper in the dark cellar ... — The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne Read full book for free!
... kittens, whereas their own rulers had never gone beyond crockery—and broken at that—were showing a desire to break line on their own trail. In fact, there was the promise of a schism. A second round robin was drafted to the Englishman, beginning: "Oh, Scoffer," and ending with a selection of curses from the rites of Mizraim and Memphis and the Commination of Jugana; who was a "fifth rounder," upon whose name an upstart "third rounder" once traded. A papal excommunication ... — The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various Read full book for free!
... his habitual silence. "Scoffer," he said, "you did not realize when you offered me poison that my life is one with your own. Except for my knowledge that God is present in my stomach, as in every atom of creation, the lime would have killed me. Now that you know the divine meaning ... — Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda Read full book for free!
... Cartagena that the characteristics which he transmitted to his posterity were, in general, quite the reverse of those which he himself had manifested so abundantly in early life. Whereas, he had formerly been atrociously cruel, boastingly impious, and a scoffer at matters religious, his later descendants were generally tender of heart, soft of manner, and of great piety. Whereas, in early manhood he had been fiery and impulsive, quick of decision and immovable of opinion, his progeny were increasingly inclined to be deliberate in judgment and ... — Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking Read full book for free!
... western world;—these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of triumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day—constitute to a thinking mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called ... — The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper Read full book for free!
... to the stars, John Markham? They're a merry congregation. They're laughing at you—as I am. A sermon by moonlight with only the stars and a scoffer to listen!" ... — Madcap • George Gibbs Read full book for free!
... His throne." You may be scorning His message—lulling yourself into a dream of guilty indifference. You may see in His daily dealings no sign or symbol of coming retribution; you may be echoing the old challenge of the presumptuous scoffer—"Where is the promise of His coming?" The fig leaves may have lost none of their verdure—the sky may be unfretted by one vengeful cloud—nature, around you, may be hushed and still. You can hear ... — Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff Read full book for free!
... and poets who congregated at Will's were a most profane and licentious set; and, being himself a man of orthodox opinions and regular life, he was not disposed to give his confidence to one whom he supposed to be a ribald scoffer. Prior, with much address, and perhaps with the help of a little hypocrisy, completely removed this unfavourable impression. He talked on serious subjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely, vindicated ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay Read full book for free!
... the doctrines which they believe to be its formative essentials, and there is nothing which the enemies of religion seize on so gladly as any inconsistency between the conduct and the professions of such persons. Though utterly indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, the scoffer would not fail to remark upon the hollowness of a Christianity which was horror-stricken at a dance or a Sunday-drive, while it was blandly silent about the separation of families, the putting ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various Read full book for free!
... the rules of morality publicly upheld in England are the best known in the world. Any one interested in doing so can but too easily demonstrate that English social life is no purer than that of most other countries. Scandals of peculiar grossness, at no long intervals, give rich opportunity to the scoffer. The streets of our great towns nightly present an exhibition the like of which cannot be seen elsewhere in the world. Despite all this, your average Englishman takes for granted his country's moral superiority, and ... — The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... subject to be chosen should at least be such as would admit of any treatment. One member suggested we should try the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, as being both abstract and historical—but he was deemed to be a scoffer. Eventually Stray said, why not take a simple nursery rhyme and work upon it, just as musicians take some simple melody as the ... — Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed Read full book for free!
... hand has never swept, The song I cannot offer: My humbler service pray accept— I'll help to kill the scoffer. The water-drinkers and the cranks Who load their skins with liquor— I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks And tap them ... — The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce Read full book for free!
... pp. 12 and 16 is Democritus of Abdera, of whom the anecdote is told. He was a man whose knowledge and wisdom won even the respect of Timon, the universal scoffer. The tradition that he deprived himself of sight with a view to philosophic abstraction is mentioned by Cicero, Aulus Gellius, and others, but it is hardly necessary to account for a too uncommon calamity by a supposition ... — Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton Read full book for free!
... captain of the men-at-arms, smiled in derision. A great belief in dreams and omens was abroad in the land: and nowhere had it a more devoted adherent than in Humphrey, the Saxon serving-man, and nowhere a greater scoffer than in ... — A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger Read full book for free!
... insinuating and satirical, and pretended to think she had proved all and a great deal more than she wanted to prove; but his exaggeration, and the way he rung all the changes on two or three of the points she had made at Mrs. Burrage's, were just the sign that he was a scoffer of scoffers. He wouldn't do anything but laugh; he seemed to think that he might laugh at her all day without her taking offence. Well, he might if it amused him; but she didn't see why she should ramble round New York with him ... — The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James Read full book for free!
... I am fifty, renders me conservative and disposed, metaphorically speaking, to draw in my horns a little. I am beginning to go to church again, for instance. You may have taken it for granted that I have been regular in my attendance at the sanctuary. Certainly I have never been a scoffer; but, on the other hand, I must confess that somehow it has come to pass since Josephine and I plighted our troth that our pew has stood empty on the Lord's day oftener than the orthodox consider fitting. ... — The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant Read full book for free!
... dramatically enough by a burst of tears, and the terrific information that he was damned. But the Carbuccia of old was a riotous, joyful, foul-tongued, pleasure-loving atheist, a typical commercial traveller, with a strain of Alsatia and the mountain-brigand. How came this red-tied scoffer so far on the road of religion as to be damned? Some foolish fancy had made the ribald Gaetano turn a Mason. When one of his boon companions had suggested the evil course, he had refused blankly, ... — Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite Read full book for free!
... Lisa was always resentful of long words. "Be silent, you black scoffer, and do not allude to such disgraceful things in the presence of respectable people! For I am a decent Christian woman, I would have you understand. But everybody knows your reputation! and a very fit companion you are for that scamp yonder! and volumes ... — Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell Read full book for free!
... sentiments or assertions that would be fatal to others. His controversial daring is backed by his bodily prowess; and by bringing his intellectual pretensions boldly into a line with his physical accomplishments, he, indeed, presents a very formidable front to the sceptic or the scoffer. Take a cubit from his stature, and his whole manner resolves itself into an impertinence. But with that addition, he overcrows the town, browbeats their prejudices, and bullies them out of their senses, and is not afraid of being contradicted ... — The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt Read full book for free!
... impending dangers, delight me with your presence, and enchant me with your eye; but claim me in the guise of a gentleman and a hero, that no envious tongue may probe the secrets of our love, nor any profane scoffer ridicule those sensitive pleasures that he is too unsentimental to enjoy." With these, and similar thoughts, did Julia occupy herself, until Charles pointed out to her the majestic entrance to the Highlands. Our heroine, who was truly alive to all the charms of nature, gazed with ... — Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... me joy that in His name I can bear, with patient frame, All these vain ones offer; While for them He suffereth long, Shall I answer wrong with wrong, Scoffing with the scoffer? ... — Selections From American Poetry • Various Read full book for free!
... contention as circumcision; nor does the Sphynx surpass this relic of bygone ages in mystery. From time immemorial its practice has been the subject of disputes, and its literature finds oftentimes its friends and foes ranged side by side. At one time a noted Israelite and Voltaire, the scoffer of Judaism, may be consulted on the question as to whether Israelite or Egyptian is entitled to priority as to its original practice with a like answer; and, again, Christians are found who, after a careful investigation, will accord this to the Israelites. In Rome, the persecuted Hebrew ... — History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino Read full book for free!
... Another scoffer was Democritus of Abdera, who was so firmly convinced of the non-existence of ghosts that he took up his abode in a tomb and lived there night and day for a long time. Classical ghosts seem to have affected black rather than white as their favourite colour. Among the features of the gruesome ... — Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley Read full book for free!
... were to trust a devil, who might palm upon me his own fiendish performances for the works of men, how would the scoffer laugh? ... — Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger Read full book for free!
... them seem utterly worthless and hollow, as contemptible as they were odious. This was the service he rendered to truth and mankind! His Candide is a masterpiece of wit. It has been called "the dull product of a scoffer's pen"; it is indeed the "product of a scoffer's pen"; but after reading the Excursion, few people will think it dull. It is in the most perfect keeping, and without any appearance of effort. Every sentence tells, and the whole reads like one sentence. There ... — Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt Read full book for free!
... for a reviler and scoffer of goodness!" said Birch, moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the road, followed by the imaginary Caesar. "But I leave thee, and that behind me that will prove thy condemnation, and take from thee ... — The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... Plonville to make two resolutions; first, to mention his scheme to no one; second, to persevere and perfect his invention, thus causing confusion to the scoffer. There were several sub-resolutions dependent on these two. He would not enter a club, he would abjure society, he would not speak to a woman—he would, in short, be a hermit until his invention stood ... — The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr Read full book for free!
... not hear of his being put to such a death. On the morrow, as a scoffer and denier of the high gods, he was to be offered up as a sacrifice to them upon the blood stone in the sacred grove. He was to be the first human sacrifice ... — The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen Read full book for free!
... and the Bar. The idea, however, proved—impracticable—which, in some respects, is rather a pity. It has seemed to me that a man who can work off cough cures and cosmetics on to healthy folks with a hide like leather, and talk a scoffer off the field, ought to have made his mark in ... — Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss Read full book for free!
... felt instinctively that in this scepticism and insurrection they could not abide, and they have struggled more or less blindly after explanation; determined not to desist till they had found it, and reaching a result embodied in a multitude of shapes irrational and absurd to the superficial scoffer, but of profound interest to the thoughtful. I may observe, in passing, that this is a reason why all great religions should be treated with respect, and in a certain sense preserved. It is nothing less than a wicked waste of accumulated ... — Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford Read full book for free!
... If the King was a Lutheran, his people must be Lutheran; if the King was Catholic, his people must be Catholic. But now this principle was suddenly thrown overboard. The new King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, was a scoffer. For religion Frederick the Great cared nothing; for the material welfare of his people he cared a good deal. He had recently conquered Silesia; he desired to see his land well tilled, and his ... — History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton Read full book for free!
... "It's all that. But I don't know if you're calling it justice. I'm not myself. It isn't my tally. Blasphemy? I lave it with you. A scoffer, am I? So be it. The Lord's licked me, and I've had enough. But I'm not going down on my knees for it, anyway. The Almighty and me is ... — The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine Read full book for free!
... intricate shuttle is weaving—is always something in which the human being is vitally, not merely aesthetically interested. It deals with no shadows, and indeed with few abstractions, except those that form a part of vital problems—a statement which may provoke the scoffer, but will be found to ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various Read full book for free!
... turning upon me, looked in my face, and fancied I laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was very seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned from me, called me profane fellow, and a scoffer; told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgements were approaching, and that despisers such as I should ... — A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe Read full book for free!
... trust This sceptre of Seven Realms to magic snare That puissance hath—who knows not?—greater thrice In house than open field. I therefore chose For audience hall this precinct.' Muttered low Murdark, the scoffer with the cave-like mouth And sidelong eyes, 'Queen Bertha's voice was that! A woman's man! Since first from Gallic shores That dainty daughter of King Charibert Pressed her small foot on England's honest shore The whole land dwindles!' In ... — Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere Read full book for free!
... kind of poetry, the incomparable author of Hudibras excepted. Mr. Cotton likewise translated several of Lucian's Dialogues into burlesque verse, printed in 8vo. London 1675, under the title of the Scoffer Scoff'd. In 1689 a volume of poems, with Mr. Cotton's name prefixed, was published in London: on these poems colonel Lovelace, Sir Alton Cockaine, Robert Harrick, esq; and Mr. Alexander Brome, complimented the author by copies of verses prefixed; but Mr. Langbain observes, that ... — The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber Read full book for free!
... following description of the "intelligent and religious persons" who belonged to the "Transcendentalist" communion, the reader must remember that it is Emerson who draws the portrait,—a friend and not a scoffer:— ... — Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes Read full book for free!
... They have a horror of any one who ventures to think for himself and to enquire for himself at twenty-five years of age. They want, like an old hen, to mother the young mind as long as possible. They will not let it find its own feet, till very late, and till, as the scoffer might well say, its limbs are absolutely atrophied. I do not say that they are wrong. The man who has taught himself is apt to be a vain, conceited fellow who takes pleasure in thinking for himself, ... — The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet Read full book for free!
... we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us like weeds sown in the rank ... — The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw Read full book for free!
... I held my peace. Whether it be an oxide or a carbonate, or some salt that is formed by the combustion, I am not chemist enough to know, but I saw man after man relieved by this application. Even the scoffer was convinced there was merit in the treatment, though stoutly protesting that "them letters" had nothing to do with it; which nobody took the trouble to argue with him. My own custom—we are all of us doctors of ... — Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck Read full book for free!
... the proper technical term, or "potted"? The articles were intended to be the real thing—racy of the soil, don't you know? and full of "go" and atmosphere. Let it be said here that they achieved raciness. The London print in which they appeared came to be christened by the scoffer and the incredulous the Daily Whale—it swallowed and disgorged so many of the Jonahs rejected by other editors. But the profits increased, and the proprietors could afford ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves Read full book for free!
... of eugenics is too far-reaching in its beneficent purpose to be fettered by the querulous triflings of the ancient or intellectual prude; nor should it be belittled by the superficial insight of the habitual scoffer. It is not a fantasy nor an idle dream. It is not even an inspiration. The destiny of the race has brought us face to face with conditions unparalleled in the history of this civilization, and the very existence of the race itself may be wholly dependent ... — The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D. Read full book for free!
... could it have arisen without some creed, however mistaken, earnestly held of old. A firm interior conviction is the starting-point of all outward worship. But if the modern living worshipper is without creed and conviction; if he be a scoffer at heart, or at least a doubter; what a hollow, horrid skeleton thing is his religion,—all the more horrid, the grander its dress! That is not worship, ... — Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J. Read full book for free!
... what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in. Even his unbelief instinctively placed Sister Giovanna higher in the scale of goodness than Angela Chiaromonte; he was an unbeliever, but not a scoffer, for somehow the rule of honour influenced him there, too. Nuns could really be saints, and were often holy women, and the fact that they were mistaken, in his opinion, only made their sacrifice more complete, since they were to receive no reward where they hoped for an eternal ... — The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford Read full book for free!
... that; do you believe in it?" asked Lil Artha, who was known to be pretty much of a scoffer in his way. ... — Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas Read full book for free!
... came to an array of facts concerning the probable uses of the gigantic table, and when I glanced at the Kanaka, as he stopped to listen to the scientist's discourse, I felt inclined to agree with the scoffer. Soma had an intelligence that lifted him above his class, and I was convinced that many of the Professor's ... — The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer Read full book for free!
... with a smile; "my treasure will find small price with Baldwin the scoffer, and Tostig the vain! Nor need ye look at me so sternly, my fathers; but rather vie with each other who shall win this wonder of wonders for his own convent; know, in a word, that it is the right thumb of St. Jude, which a worthy man bought at Rome for me, for 3000 lb. weight ... — Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... through. He was red-blooded, but at the same time his heart was clean. Once more he found himself contrasting the honest-eyed, pure-hearted Ruth with this sensual scoffer. There was no denying the physical appeal of the lithe, sinuous Russian; there was no gainsaying the call of the blood. On the other hand, the American girl stood for everything his own mother ... — West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon Read full book for free!
... cheered by the genial certainty in this answer, said: "I thank you, sir. I shall go back and refute that common scoffer, that caster of doubts. I have seen the Truth face, to face, and am greatly encouraged to further public effort. With many apologies I can now get out," he added, as the train stopped at South Croydon. "Blink!" And, ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy Read full book for free!
... which that prophet had brought to pass, was practically lacking. Neither the hostility of his father to religion, nor his own experiences with the Jesuits, could, however, entirely eradicate a superstition which passed in his mind for faith. Sometimes he was a scoffer, as many with weak convictions are; but in general he preserved a formal and outward respect for the Church. He was, however, a stanch opponent of Roman centralization and papal pretensions. His theoretical ... — The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane Read full book for free!
... felt! Bertie was only a lip-deep scoffer. Her heart was open to conviction yet, and, when the time came, I believed that the seed sown in old days would germinate and bear good harvest. All was ... — Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield Read full book for free!
... maneres of great men. Me. Tell me now what that same honest ma saynt Iames dothe, and howe he farythe. Ogy. Moche colder tha he was wontyd to do. Me. What is the cause of it? His age? Ogy. Oh you scoffer, yow || A iij.|| know wel enoghe that sayntes wax nat olde. But this new learnynge, whiche runnythe all the world ouer now a dayes, dothe cause hym to be vysytyd moche lesse than he was wontyd to be, for if any doo come thay salute ... — The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus Read full book for free!
... other Florentyne, that hadde neyther lernynge nor prudence, and was a man mete for nothynge but to scoffe and ieste; but yet with his mery toyes, he so moued the sayd Can, that he dydde greatly enryche hym. And, bycause Dantes dispised his foolysshenes, this scoffer sayd to hym: how cometh it, Dantes, that thou art helde[273] so wyse and so well lerned, and yet arte poore and nedy? I am an vnlerned man and am an ignorant fole, and yet I am farre richer than thou art. To whom ... — Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown Read full book for free!
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