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More "Spurn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent those who will not ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... calmly as she could, but her limbs were trembling and the tears were very near to falling. She knew that she should spurn the coward, whom her whole soul despised, but she could not do it; her ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... goodly thing to spare a foe And kill his hate. And I would e'en do so! For I would kill the coyness of thy face. I would enfold thee in my spurn'd embrace And kiss the kiss that gladdens as with wine. Yea, I would wrestle with those arms of thine, And, like a victor, I would vanquish thee, And, tyrant-like, I'd teach thee ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... the slavish and bestial doctrine," said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,—"I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste no ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... heavens; therefore on him he seiz'd. Leander strived; the waves about him wound, And pull'd him to the bottom, where the ground 160 Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure To spurn in careless sort the shipwreck treasure; For here the stately azure palace stood, Where kingly Neptune and his train abode. The lusty god embrac'd him, called him "Love," And swore he never should return ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? No! There go the tales! May my hand wither when it would ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the direction of Mathura and infers that the Brahmans are cooking food preparatory to making sacrifice. He asks the cowherds to tell them that Krishna is hungry and would like some of this food. The Brahmans of Mathura angrily spurn the request, saying 'Who but a low cowherd would ask for food in the midst of a sacrifice?' 'Go and ask their wives,' Krishna says, 'for being kind and virtuous they will surely give you some.' Krishna's power ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... matter of small moment; for, as Whittier reminds us: "The falsehoods which we spurn today were the truths of long ago"—and although men part reluctantly with favorite—and lucrative—fallacies, and "Faith, fantastic Faith, once wedded fast to some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last," nevertheless this false belief, like so many other sapient pronouncements ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... in his turn such crude selfishness would spurn As the wish to prove himself popular more than soft J.G., With a most becoming blush his pale cheek, I'm sure, would burn, If his uncle should cry, "Come, nephew dear, and second me!" He would hint at nepotism, and the chance of secret schism. "Let the mild ex-Liberal lead, I will be his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... She did not spurn him now—and it inflamed his jealousy that she did not. She said: "Oh, what's the good of looks? The town's full of pretty girls. And so many of them have money—which I haven't. To make a hit in New York a girl's got to have both looks and dress. But I must be going. I've an engagement ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... customs-officers of thought will cry, "great geniuses have submitted to these rules which you spurn!" Unfortunately, yes. But what would those admirable men have done if they had been left to themselves? At all events they did not accept your chains without a struggle. You should have seen how Pierre Corneille, worried and harassed at his first step in the art on account of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... silk curtains within could not entirely conceal. At this reassuring sight Leander dismissed all fear from his mind, and gave himself up to the most blissful anticipations. He was in a seventh heaven of delight; his feet seemed to spurn the earth; he would have flown into the presence of the waiting angel within if he had but known the way. How he wished, in this moment of glory and triumph, that Scapin, his mortal enemy and merciless tormentor, could see him. The tiny ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... 150 And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... them praise The moon by night, but court the warmer rays O' th' sun by day; they follow fortune still, And hate or love discreetly, as their will And the time leads them. This tumultuous fate Puts all their painted favours out of date. And yet this people that now spurn, and tread This mighty favourite's once honour'd head, Had but the Tuscan goddess, or his stars Destin'd him for an empire, or had wars, Treason, or policy, or some higher pow'r Oppress'd secure Tiberius; that same hour That he receiv'd the sad Gemonian doom, Had crown'd him ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? Or with thy beauty choose To make him blest who loves thee best of all? Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, Poor, or a cripple born, Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow With honour to our land, with pomp and power; My youth is yet in flower, And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. My lot it is to deal right royally With all the goods that fortune spreads around, For still ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... well, proceed Neighbours, I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... will it be. I have a hondrith Captains in Englonde As good as ever was he; But Perse, and I brook my lyffe Thy death well quit shall be.' This was the honting off the Cheviot 'That tear beganne this spurn:' Old men that known the ground well enough Call it the battle of Otterburn. At Otterburn began this spurn Upon a Monnynday; There was the doughtie Douglas slain, The ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Radha? she is sad in turn, Heaven foregoes its blessings, if it holds not thee, All the cooling fragrance of sandal she doth spurn, Moonlight makes her mournful with radiance silvery; Even the southern breeze blown fresh from pearly seas, Seems to her but tainted by a dolorous brine; And for thy sake discontented, with a great love overladen, Her soul comes here ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... a seaport of Lincolnshire, on the S. shore of the Humber, opposite Spurn Head, 20 m. SE. of Hull; was a port of importance in Edward III.'s time; is now noted as the largest fishing-port in the kingdom; has extensive docks, shipbuilding, tanning, brewing, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... fishing for tin automobiles in the telephone booth were a part of the procedure at a cabaret dance. But if they didn't know these things, they had much to learn, for that's what they did at our party and who were we to spurn their filthy lucre? They also danced and ate heartily of the ice cream and cake we served. Many thought the popcorn balls were a holdup, but they refrained from throwing them at us when we asked ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love; loving Him, we shall embrace virtue through the force of love, and shall hate vice and spurn it. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come to talk with mine? By Allah, I will take that stone again and kill thee with it; for ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... had fairly reopened his eyes, our Manitou butterfly, now nearly ready to spurn the chrysalis, raised himself again to his elbow and took another dreamy survey of the room. His eyes, however, seemed to find no object to rest on, until they met a pair as dreamy as themselves—the innocent, blue ones, there at the foot of his bed, through ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... there In language yet unknown to mortal ear. Their whisperings of love from morn till night Would teach us tenderly to love the right. O Love, here stay! Let chaos not return! With hate each atom would its lover spurn In air above, on land, or in the sea, O World, undone and lost that loseth thee! For love we briefly come, and pass away For other men and maids; thus bring the day Of love continuous through this glorious ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... sweet-tempered to be cross for long, however, and the way towards Brescia was so charming that she forgot her annoyance. Though the surface was not so good as it had been, it was not too bad; and our noble tyres, which had borne so much, seemed to spurn the slight irregularities. With every twenty yards we had a new view, as if the landscape slowly turned, to assume different patterns like the pieces in a kaleidoscope. On our left the mountains appeared ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... am ycleped J. Keyser—I was born at Spring, hys Garden, My father toe make me ane clerke erst did essaye, But a fico for ye offis—I spurn ye losels offeire; For I fain would be ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... raised the gun again as if to fire, but lowered it with a smile, and walked forward to spurn something with his foot, and upon Lawrence reaching him it was to find him turning over a black-looking serpent of about six feet long, with a short thin tail, the body of the reptile being very thick in ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... knowen the ground well enough call it the Battle of Otterburn. At Otterburn began this spurn upon a Monenday; There was the doughty Douglas slain, the Percy never ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... any intelligence and reflection,' I continued, 'spurn it away from them as fit but for children and slaves. Must they then be without any principle of this kind? Is it safe for a community to grow up without faith in a superintending power, from whom they come, to whom they are responsible? I think not. In any such community—and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... herself at his feet and told him all, but she feared he would spurn her—she longed to deserve the love of his manly and honest heart, but too weak, too much a coward, she shrunk from the agony and peril of a confession of her guilt. And Jerrold! was he not mad to expect to find a true and loving spouse in one who had cast ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... full minute Alvaros glared at Don Hermoso, as though he could scarcely believe that he had heard aright, could scarcely credit the fact that a "rascally Cuban", as he mentally termed Montijo, had had the unparalleled, the unspeakable audacity to spurn—ay, spurn was the correct word—an alliance with him, Don Sebastian Alvaros, Captain in the army of His Majesty the King of Spain! It was unthinkable! It was an insult that could only be wiped out ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... viper!" cried the father, stung with remorse, but not touched with penitence. "Get away, you amorous young hypocrite; get out of my house, get out of my sight, or I shall spurn you and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... flow, nor did he commit the error of mistaking self-restraint for weakness. Monarchs like himself were the necessary substitute for the dominion which the conquering State had been strong enough to spurn; and he threw himself zealously into the task of forwarding the designs of Rome in the dynastic struggles of the neighbouring nations. He helped to restore Ariarathes the Fifth to his kingdom of Cappadocia,[497] ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... To spurn the thrice blest English speech: Welsh books—there are none, save what quacks Sell the poor churls ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... waywardness; nor can there be created anything more utterly insupportable than a fortune-favored fool. There are to be seen those who previously behaved with propriety who are changed by station, power, or prosperity, and who spurn their old friendships and lavish indulgence on the new. But what is more foolish than when men have resources, means, wealth at their fullest command, and can obtain horses, servants, splendid raiment, costly vases, whatever money can buy, for ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... no balking Genius. Only death Can silence it, or hinder. While there's breath Or sense of feeling, it will spurn the sod, And lift itself to glory, and to God. The acorn sprouted—weeds nor flowers can choke The certain ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the reputation manufactured for me upon the new continent; but I am obliged, in deference to truth, to reject it with my whole energy. I spurn far from me everything which relates to that charlatanism called Homoeopathy, for these pretended doctrines cannot endure the scrutiny of wise and enlightened persons, who are guided by honorable sentiments in the practice of the noblest ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the strife of contention? Leto's offspring and Zeus'; who, in anger against Agamemnon, Issued the pestilence dire, and the leaguer was swept with destruction; For that the King had rejected, and spurn'd from the place in dishonour Chryses, the priest of the God, when he came to the warrior-galleys, Willing to rescue his daughter with plentiful gifts of redemption, Bearing the fillet divine in his hands of the Archer Apollo Twined on the sceptre of gold: and petition'd the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... took him to the sling, Thrice whirl'd the thong around his head, and threw: The heated lead half melted as it flew; It pierc'd his hollow temples and his brain; The youth came tumbling down, and spurn'd the plain. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... before, the wonderful difference between the naked foot-print of a white man and a savage. The white man leaves the impression of his whole sole, every toe being distinctly marked, while your black fellow leaves scarce any toe-marks, but seems merely to spurn the ground with the ball of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... robbers. (He begged) that they would turn away their minds from resentment for a while to examination and reflection; and rather pardon one at the intercession of so many members of the Claudian family, than through a hatred of one spurn the entreaties of many; that he himself also paid this tribute to the family and the name; nor had he been reconciled to him, whose unfortunate situation he wished to relieve; that by fortitude liberty had been recovered; by clemency the harmony of the several orders ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... These young Viominil conducts to fame, And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim. No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires, No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires; The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast; The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast, Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread, Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead. Each rival band, tho wide and distant far, Springs simultaneous ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... he will be allowed to trail the fair name of the school for propriety and correctness of deportment in the dust of a pew-floor, and spurn my reputation as a preceptor like a church hassock beneath ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... is real, this is true! It is our Father who says it; and we, unworthy ministers of His word and messengers to declare His beneficence, repeat it for Him, 'My son, give me thine heart!' Not to crush, not to spurn, not for a toy. The great God asks your hearts because He wishes your gratitude and your love. Do you believe He asks it? Yes, you do. Do you believe He asks it idly? No, you do not. What, then, does this appeal mean? It means, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... companion in the hunt. To "carry" and "fetch" were now but trifling portions of the dog's accomplishments. He could dive a fathom deep in the lake and bring up any article that might have been dropped or thrown in. His swimming powers were marvellous, and so powerful were his muscles, that he seemed to spurn the water while passing through it, with his broad chest high out of the curling wave, at a speed that neither man nor beast could keep up with for a moment. His intellect now was sharp and quick as a needle; he never required a second bidding. When Dick went out hunting ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... rarely comest now, And only to contrast my gloom, Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom A moment on some autumn bough Which, with the spurn of their farewell, Sheds its last leaves,—thou once didst dwell With me year-long, and make intense To boyhood's wisely-vacant days That fleet, but all-sufficing grace Of trustful inexperience, While yet the soul transfigured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... my ordinary, where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... and guardianship of Mistress Christian—a state of subjection, the sense of which Deborah endeavoured to lessen, by assuming as much freedom of conduct as she possibly dared, under the influence, doubtless, of the same feelings of independence, which induced her, at Martindale Hall, to spurn the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... live or die, as you should determine. I love you! Do you hear? I love you! And with such strength of love, that if I am unworthy; if, poor, ill- favored, unfortunate, the Prince of Savoy may not aspire to your hand, then call your people, and drive me hence; for whether you welcome or whether you spurn, you still must hear me, while my yearning heart cries out for judgment. Speak, beloved! I await my sentence—is it ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Reuben. "Because you can't affront the world, because you are bound by its conventionalities and respectabilities, as I am not. I spurn them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... their breasts rolling forth the flames enclosed within, and their scorched throats, resound. Yet the son of AEson goes forth to meet them. The fierce {bulls} turn their terrible features, and their horns pointed with iron, towards his face as he advances, and with cloven hoofs they spurn the dusty ground, and fill the place with lowings, that send forth clouds of smoke. The Minyae are frozen with horror. He comes up, and feels not the flames breathed forth by them, so great is the power of the incantations. He even strokes their hanging dewlaps ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Ah! anguish as yet untried! For what new tortures am I still reserved? All I have undergone, transports of passion, Longings and fears, the horrors of remorse, The shame of being spurn'd with contumely, Were feeble foretastes of my present torments. They love each other! By what secret charm Have they deceived me? Where, and when, and how Met they? You knew it all. Why was I cozen'd? You never told me of those stolen hours ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... lords, has insulted you. She has encouraged and sustained America. And whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officiousness of the French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels, are in Paris. In Paris they transact the reciprocal business of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... gospel; that they shall become truly profitable to those that shall bear them aright. What made he ready for? it was for sufferings; and why made he ready for them but because he saw they wrought out for him a 'far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?' (2 Cor 4:17). This made Moses also spurn at a crown and a kingdom; to look with a disdainful eye upon all the glory of Egypt. He saw the reward that was laid up in heaven for those that suffered for Christ. Therefore, 'he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... turned to mother o' pearl. There are horses, too; not little sand stallions like ours, but ordinary, plodding animals whose hoofs know only Fayoum dust or mud. Our desert creature, however, does not spurn them. On the contrary, though he pretends not to notice camels, cows, or buffaloes, he whinnies and prances with delight when he meets anything of his own shape, and assumes hobby-horse attitudes, much to ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... give no credit to them. We are generous enemies: we are faithful allies. We spurn from us with disgust and indignation the slanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation of the flower-de-luce on their shoulder. We have Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate; and neither his being a public ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... lips, that I do not love him. And it is true. I never should have sold myself for three weary years away from him, if I had loved him. I know it now it is done. I thought more of my poor friends and Wilfrid, than of Merthyr, who bleeds for my country! And he will not spurn me when we meet. Yes, if he lives, he will come to me gentle as a ghost that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Schumann's literary style in his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Fiesco? Where am I to seek that determined enemy of tyrants? There was a time when but to see a crown would have been torture to you. Oh, fallen son of the republic! By heaven, if time could so debase my soul I would spurn immortality. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... but to disable and disarm. Aman, when he succeeds in throwing off a woman who has attempted to marry him, always carries away a maudlin sympathy for her in her defeat and dismay. But no one ever heard of a woman who pitied the poor fellow whose honest passion she had found it expedient to spurn. On the contrary, women take delight in such clownish agonies, and exhibit them proudly, and boast ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... exercised upon him. Blind girl, I love, and—shall Julia live to say it?—am loved not in return! This humbles—nay, not humbles—but it stings my pride. I would see this ingrate at my feet—not in order that I might raise, but that I might spurn him. When they told me thou wert Thessalian, I imagined thy young mind might have learned the dark secrets ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... you gone! base domestic traitor! Get you gone, lest I call my servants, and bid them spurn you from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!—par exemple! Let her come to me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von Marwitz, varying her course, struck a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... from whose companionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tolls funeral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. What your faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurn violently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehemently despair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must bury as in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature of your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... summit of the mountain, the victim, half dead with fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity. Although the last execution is still fresh in the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... wounds of the body, over which it holds its empire; but those of the soul, like the soul itself, spurn ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... France alone a Despot spurn? Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care? Lo, round thy standard Belgia's heroes burn, Tho' Power's blood-stain'd streamers fire the air, And wider yet thy influence spread, 35 Nor e'er recline thy weary head, Till every land from pole to pole Shall boast one independent soul! And still, as erst, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the louder members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not immediately comprehend. But to me, plunged chokingly in translucent profundities of aquamarine splendour, not of a truth that in the heights above splendour resides not, chidingly offering ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... destiny and in glory! This is he with whom I hoped to share the lot of reconciling the quarrel of races and of ages! In the eye of the world he may be great, and I the bandit captain of a despised race. On the page of history he may be magnified, and I derided. But I spurn him for a hero—I reject him for a brother. My rival he may make himself. His soul is narrow, and his aims are low. He might have been a god to the world, and he is a tyrant. We have followed him with wistful eyes, to see ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW. Are you not he That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong Drink to bear no barm (Or proper profit.) You would do us harm. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sly PUCK, Are right; you always bring your friends bad luck. Are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... some elderly roue, as did so often fall to the lot of maidens in her station. But upon finding him so very handsome to behold, so very noble of bearing, so lofty and disdainful that as he walked he seemed to spurn the very earth, she fell enamoured of him out of very relief, as well as because he was the most superb specimen of the other sex that it had ever ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the total year, and then 'tis harder than beans and pebbles; nay, 'tis such that if thou dost rub and crumble it in thy hands, not a finger canst thou ever dirty. These goodly gifts and favours, O Furius, spurn not nor think lightly of; and cease thy 'customed begging for an hundred sesterces: for ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... above mine. It were vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me from a height. What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they are placed from my lowlier station—for, whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know it ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... This was the hontynge of the Cheviot, that tear[59] begane this spurn; Old men that knowen the grownde well enoughe call ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... despear precipitate, fling down. despertar awaken, arouse, break, dawn. despierto, -a awake, brisk. desplegado, -a flowing. desplegar unfold, unfurl, hoist; —se unfold, spread. despojos m. pl. remains. despreciar spurn, neglect, reject. desprender(se) fall, tear, separate, issue from, arise, relax one's hold, let go. desprendido, -a loosened, falling, torn, broken. despus adv. afterward, then. despuntar begin ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the right discerning true points of knowledge, they forthwith putting it in method, and making a school-art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides like ungrateful 'prentices, were not content to set up shops for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters. Which by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could overthrow ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... fond youth, thy sorrows hush, And spurn the sex," he said; But while he spoke, a rising ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... master of my ways, Appointing error for my page, And darkness for my days; I flung away, and with full cry Of wild affections, rid In post for pleasures, bent to try All gamesters that would bid. I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, Or that a soul could ache. Glorious deceptions, gilded mists, False joys, fantastic flights, Pieces of sackcloth with silk lists, These were my prime delights. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... fainting, scarce support the liquid weight: Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry, Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! Before that day, by some brave hero's hand May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and even taunted by the beggar as he went his rounds. But nature, that made me a thing to be contemned, gave me no feelings congenial to such a state. I was endowed with sentiments more noble, and greater powers of mind than those who affected to spurn me. I know not my father, nor was I ever anxious to learn a name to me so full of misery, and which could claim no other token from his child than a malediction. This much I learnt—that my parent was a nobleman; but what unnatural cruelty could induce him to abandon ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... your talent to express only deep and eternal truths. I have led a quiet life, as you know, and am a contented man, but if I should ever experience the exaltation that an artist feels during his moments of creation, I think I should spurn this material envelope of my soul and everything connected with it, and should soar away ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... prior," said Douglas. "I despise the childish boy too much to raise a finger against him. But I will return insult for insult. Here, any of you who love the Douglas, spurn me this quean from the monastery gates; and let her be so scourged that she may bitterly remember to the last day of her life how she gave means to an unrespective boy to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the German compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their language: those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakespeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe, and investigate the realms of Chaos and Old Night; and of dramatists, who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities and extravagance, to present life on the stage in its scenes of wildest contrast, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... beauties, and the little low heart that possesses them; which can basely descend to this despicable wench, and be ungratefully deaf to all the honours I do him. And can I then love this monster? No, I will tear his image from my bosom, tread on him, spurn him. I will have those pitiful charms, which now I despise, mangled in my sight; for I will not suffer the little jade I hate to riot in the beauties I contemn. No; though I despise him myself, though ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... upon him as an electric charge; his terror lent him wings; he was obsessed by a propelling force outside of himself. Naturally strong, lithe, and active, he likewise possessed within him the white-hot flame of youth, and now, with a nameless fear to spurn him on, he ran as any healthy, frightened young animal would run. At the second turn Skinner had not passed him, but the thud of his feet ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... your heart the restless seed was sown; The vagrant spirit fretted in your feet; We wondered could you tarry long, And brook for long the cramping street, Or would you one day sail for shores unknown, And shake from you the dust of towns, and spurn The crowded market-place—and not return? You found a sterner guide; You heard the guns. Then, to their distant fire, Your dreams were laid aside; And on that day, you cast your heart's desire Upon a burning pyre; You gave your service to the exalted need, Until at last from bondage freed, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... your work at last, and spurn her with disgust? And shall your pride blot out the past and hide her murdered trust? And will you brand upon her brow the deeds which she doth do? Speak; Will you dare to hate her now, who weeps, ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... dearly it would touch thee to the quick, Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious, And that this body, consecrate to thee, By ruffian lust should be contaminate! Wouldst them not spit at me and spurn at me, And hurl the name of husband in my face, And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot brow, And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring...? My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For, if we two be one, and thou ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... in all the majesty of her five feet three inches and commanded: "Unhand me, villain! I spurn your tempting offer." Then earnestly, "Let me go, Bupps! I've got to put these ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... them. Scant is our patience with those who preach the gospel of craven weakness. No nation under the sun ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—if it did not have the courage to be great. We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair. We know that the future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing in the struggle, and resolute so to bear ourselves that the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... of your genius to do us worship and honour—still we tell you—we tell you, in the names of liberty and country—we tell you, in the name of enthusiastic hearts, thoughtful souls, and fearless spirits—we tell you, by the past, the present and the future, we would spurn your gifts, if the condition were that Ireland should remain a province. We tell you, and all whom it may concern, come what may—bribery or deceit, justice, policy, or war—we tell you, in the name of Ireland, that Ireland shall be ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them to be sacred, is denied, so long ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Heaven we will be free! By all the stars which burn on high— By the green earth—the mighty sea— By God's unshaken majesty, We will be free or die! Then let the drums all roll! Let all the trumpets blow! Mind, heart, and soul, We spurn control ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... greatly moved. She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; he was sincere. To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have taken ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... thawed from the true quality, With that which meeteth fools; I mean, sweet words, Low, crooked courtesies, and base, spaniel fawning; Thy brother by decree is banished; If thou dost bend, and pray and fawn for him, I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. Know, Caesar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied! But I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... She was with her at last. But the girl must never know. She must never call her "mother." The thought was terrible. Her own daughter, and yet not her own. She had sold her for money, and how she would spurn her should she ever hear of it. It was almost more than she could endure. In her confusion she tried to say something, to utter words of welcome. But all in vain. A feeling of helplessness and despair swept upon ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... from my trance at last by the recollection that I was in the house of the earl, and starting up, as if to spurn contamination from me, I hurried out, to ease my heart by relating the whole story in Suffolk street, and to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... comets dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea lift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion tear him to pieces, let dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the next crumb of bread choke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to death.' ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... youth once lov'd me, and his love I spurn'd. But see the vengeance of the pow'rs above On cold indiff'rence:—now 'tis I that love, And my fond love, alas! is ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... you, and should he carry you safely to France and deliver you into the hands of your friends, yet who, in gay and skeptical Paris, would not be willing to believe the worst of both of you? The society that he has painted to you as ready to fall at your feet would be only ready to spurn you. Forgive me, Mademoiselle, for speaking thus plainly, but there is no man in the world who would not believe that the very fact of the chevalier's trying to persuade you to go with him to France proves him a villain ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... him again. Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes Like balls before me—I'll unhair thine head— Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... treasure of mankind, and when assailed always finds ready defenders. Possessed by this innate feeling of right and rankling with the injustice of the past, is it surprising that they should spurn any proffered help? They remember what they have suffered in the past and do not care to repeat the experiment. To this day the Moquis hold the mission epoch in contempt and nothing could induce them to accept voluntarily ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... When thee all honest folk will spurn, And shun thy hated form to meet, As when a corpse infects the street. Thy heart will sink in blank despair, When they shall look thee in the face! A golden chain no more thou'lt wear! Nor near the altar take in church thy place! In fair lace collar simply dight Thou'lt dance no ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... He threw them on the ground again; And hasted forward to pursue Fresh objects, fairer to his view, In hope to spring some nobler game; But all he took was just the same: Too scornful now to stop his pace, He spurn'd them in his rival's face. Possession kept the beaten road, And gather'd all his brother strew'd; But overcharged, and out of wind, Though strong in limbs, he lagg'd behind. Desire had now the goal in sight; It was a tower of monstrous height; Where on the summit Fortune stands, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... way when they objected to the purchase of Neergard's acreage adjoining the Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he wanted a little more out of him—just enough to place himself on a secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack cotillon leader, was regarded by the ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... churchmen and canting hypocrites may declaim on the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the parson and ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... strength, and watchful thought. Quick send a wether for his use: If not contented, send him more; Yes, add an ox, and see you choose The best our pastures ever bore. Thus save the rest.'—But such advice The sultan spurn'd, as cowardice. And his, and many states beside, Did ills, in consequence, betide. However fought this world allied, The beast maintain'd his power and pride. If you must let the lion grow, Don't let him live to ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... sinful age Grew master of my ways, Appointing error for my page, And darkness for my days; I flung away, and with full cry Of wild affections, rid In post for pleasures, bent to try All gamesters that would bid. I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, Or that a soul could ache. Glorious deceptions, gilded mists, False joys, fantastic flights, Pieces of sackcloth with silk lists, These were my prime delights. I sought choice ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... real servant. Just so, while dispensing with a divine appearance, behind the appearance chosen was God. And we likewise take upon ourselves the divine form, but in the form we are not divine; and we spurn the form of servants, though that is what we are irrespective of appearance. Christ disrobes himself of the divine form wherein he existed, to assume that of a servant, which did not express his essential character; but we lay aside the servant form of our ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... punishment strong enough for you." At this there shot up in Soelver a wild lust for revenge and he answered his enemy with irritating coldness: "Yes, I took what you gave. You brought her yourself into my presence, you laid her yourself in my arms. Now you may take her back again. I spurn your daughter for I have not desired her for the honor and keeping of my house, but only for the entertainment of a night. Take her back now! ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... better. She will stand by me when others fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!—par exemple! Let her come to me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von Marwitz, varying her course, struck a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... whose realm is wide as air— Thou wilt not spurn the Gipsies' prayer: Though banned and barred by all beside, Be Thou the Outcast's ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... cried, "you spurn me, then, because I am a mechanic. Well, be it so! though the time will come, Isabel Sawtelle," he added, and nothing could exceed his looks at this moment—"when you will bitterly remember the cooper you now so cruelly ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... shall some Argive loud insulting cry, Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! Before that day, by some brave hero's hand May I lie slain, and spurn the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of thunder, robber! harpy! sink of plunder! Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain, I repeat! Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated. Close around him, left and right; spit upon him, spurn and smite: Spit upon him as you see; spurn and spit at him like me. But beware, or he'll evade you! for he knows the private track Where En'crates was seen escaping with ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... third hour after midnight," said he to himself, "all is to go well; it is not till the fourth hour that signs are to appear in the sky which are of evil augury for me. Of course the sheep will play round the dead lion, and the ass will even spurn him with his hoof so long as he is merely sick. In the short space of time between the third and fourth hours all the signs of evil are crowded together. They must be visible; but"—and this "but" brought sudden illumination ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... each crooked to redress, every crooked thing. In trust of her that turneth as a ball: Fortune. Great rest standeth in little busi-ness. Beware also to spurn against a nail; nail—to kick against Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall. [the pricks. Deme thyself that demest others' deed; judge. And truth thee shall ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... 3 Spurn not the call for life and light; Regard in time the warning kind; That call thou may'st not always slight And yet the gate of ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... death was an alien misfortune, a prodigy, a monstrosity, into which man had only fallen by defect; and that even now, if a man had a reasonable portion of his original strength in him, he might live forever and spurn death. ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him stride Valleys wide: Over woods, Over floods, When he treads, Mountains' heads Groan and shake; Armies quake, Lest his spurn Overturn Man and steed: Troops take heed! Left and right, Speed your flight! Lest an host Beneath his ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... was I born to bear! 'Tis true, that, like that bird of prey, With havock have I marked my way: But this was taught me by the dove, To die—and know no second love. This lesson yet hath man to learn, Taught by the thing he dares to spurn: The bird that sings within the brake, The swan that swims upon the lake, 1170 One mate, and one alone, will take. And let the fool still prone to range,[ek] And sneer on all who cannot change, Partake his jest with boasting ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... store, Can I, can I wish for more? On my velvet couch reclining, Ivy leaves my brow entwining,[1] While my soul expands with glee, What are kings and crowns to me? If before my feet they lay, I would spurn them all away; Arm ye, arm ye, men of might, Hasten to the sanguine fight; But let me, my budding vine! Spill no other blood than thine. Yonder brimming goblet see, That alone shall vanquish me— Who think ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the management of her English ladies on these occasions; and her mother, declaring that she was becoming crazed like her father, declined having anything to do with her. Even Sir Lewis Robsart she used to spurn aside; and nothing ever seemed effectual, but for the Demoiselle de Luxemburg, with her full sweet voice, and force of will in all the tenderness of strength, caressingly to hold her still, talk to her almost as ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beyond, on time and eternity, are full of her peculiar note. Death is the "one dignity" that "delays for all;" the meanest brow is so ennobled by the majesty of death that "almost a powdered footman might dare to touch it now," and yet no beggar would accept "the eclat of death, had he the power to spurn." "The quiet nonchalance of death" is a resting-place which has no terrors for her; death "abashed" her no more than "the porter of her father's lodge." Death's chariot also holds Immortality. The setting sail for "deep eternity" brings ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... ultimately all the loss, must rest on those that survive, who are so dead to the privileges of the Gospel, as either to forget that it was ever said,—"Whosoever receivers one such little one in my name, receivers me" (Matthew 18. 5), or to neglect the opportunity, despise the honour, and spurn away the blessing, of entertaining such a guest. Oh! if we really believed our Saviour's declaration, how dearly should we value, and how warmly embrace, such an opportunity of glorifying our Master, of blessing ourselves, and of showing again to the ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... I spurn the thought with disdain Of that pool Alekoki: On the upland lingers the rain And fondly haunts Nuuanu. 5 Sharp was the cold, bootless My waiting up there. I thought thou wert true, Wert loyal to me, Whom ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... king because he has the condescension of a man of the people? No: Louis XVI., half dethroned by the nation, cannot love the nation that fetters him; he may feign to caress his chains, but all his thoughts are devoted to the idea of how he can spurn them. His only resource at this moment is to protest his attachment to the Revolution, and to lull the ministers whom the Revolution empowers to watch over his intrigues. But this pretence is the last and most dangerous of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... teach To spurn the thrice blest English speech: Welsh books—there are none, save what quacks Sell ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... should count thee her affinity. Thy look is terrible. Calm thee, my noble brother, for more thou art to me—calm thee, Chios; I fear thee for the first time. Thou wilt not also curse me. Look at me! pity me! I have bared my very soul to thee. Spurn me not. Thy look tells me thou art on the verge of doing so. Let me cling a little to thee, Chios dear. Help Nika. Cheer her, if with only one tender look. I have somewhat learned to bear the curse of ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... fishing craft dotted about here and there; the appearance of the latter indicating that they had already approached to within a short distance of the land; nor did they sight anything by which to fix their position until first the light on Flamborough Head and then that on Spurn Point flashed into view out of the murky darkness. Then indeed, having satisfactorily identified those lights, they knew exactly where they were; the course was altered and shaped anew directly for the spot of their intended descent, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... whose wings rain contagion; how they fled, When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped And smiled! The spoilers tempt no second blow; They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them as they go." ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... fascination. Repentance immediately follows, nay, even precedes the deed, and the stings of conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he dreads the prospect of the life to come [Footnote: We'd jump the life to come.], clinging with growing anxiety to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly removing ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... is dead, and buried in the rubbish of the garret. A baby of five months, filled with modern notions, would spurn to be rocked in the awkward and rustic thing. The baby spits the "Alexandra feeding-bottle" out of its mouth, and protests against the old-fashioned cradle, giving emphasis to its utterances by throwing down a rattle that cost seven dollars, and kicking ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... strange and anxious doubts, whereon My soul intent allows no other thought Or room or entrance."—"Hast thou seen," said he, "That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet The falcon first looks down, then to the sky Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food, That woos him thither; so the call I heard, So onward, far as the dividing rock ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... were desirous to have me go into the smoke; I willed them likewise to stand in the smoke, in which they by no means would do. I then took one of them, and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and to spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that we did contemn their sorcery. These people are very simple in all their conversation, but marvellous thievish, especially for iron, which they have in great account. They began through our lenity to ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... wealth is not in itself sinful, but the possession of wealth is a corollary to selfishness. He who is unselfish will spurn wealth. The individual who accumulates beyond his needs sins against Heaven when he locks up his goods in strong boxes. The act of hoarding deprives some creature of his just portion, for God has planned there should be sufficient ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... watchfulness against conformity will not lead a man to spurn the aid of other men, still less to reject the accumulated mental capital of ages. It does not compel us to dote upon the advantages of savage life. We would not forego the hard-earned gains of civil society because there is something in most of them ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... and a patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered the virtue and the pride ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... don, not doff their armor now. I bring ye news, great, glorious news, which will not brook delay. A royal messenger I come, charged by his grace my king—my country's king—with missives to his friends, calling on all who spurn a tyrant's yoke—who love their land, their homes, their freedom—on all who wish for Wallace—to awake, arise, and join their ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... said Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Ashton, was the one who acted imp to his satanic majesty in leading him to his last fall, and here he was again to tempt him. Well would it be for you, Richard Ashton, if you would contemptuously spurn him as you would kick a rabid dog from ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... longsuffering patience serves only to harden and to exasperate, if it only stirs in the lost soul deeper pangs of inexorable hatred, then,—man being man and GOD being GOD,—what can GOD do? It is they who reject GOD, not GOD Who is rejecting them. It is they who spurn Him, not He Who chastises them. He does not banish them from His Presence: it is they who banish Him from their presence. And if this defiance against GOD survives and lasts, if, as ages pass, it becomes more resolutely inveterate and set, what power can stop it, what love can soften it? And if ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... not, or right or wrong, Thy altar and its rights I spurn; Not sainted martyrs' sacred song, Not God Himself shall ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... relieved Mr. Stacey of the deck, the sun had eaten up the fog, and the shores of England stood out boldly. Spurn Head was looming up across our bows, while that of Flamborough jutted into the sea behind us. I had the starboard watch piped to dinner, and reported twelve o'clock to the commodore. And had just got permission to "make it," according ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... uncontrollably indignant through all this,—'if you mean that, very likely. I am not talking lovers' metaphysics, but practical common-sense. He does not know the one thing at present essential for him to know; and he will abandon you, spurn you,—his love turned to scorn, his passion to contempt,—when he reads what I shall write him if you refuse to do ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man who regards that liberty, and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... can make my own existence—spurn his gifts, and use my hands, Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the friendless, penniless foreign emigrant, if he will give up his present misery, his future uncertainty, his doubtful and difficult struggle for life, at once, for the secure, and as it is called, fortunate dependance of the slave: the indignation with which he would spurn the offer will prove that he possesses one good beyond all others, and that his birthright as a man is more precious to him yet than the mess of pottage for which he is told to exchange it ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... wicked thought. A fiend or an angel starts beneath every heel. They write an eternal record as they go. Their voices float forever to witness against or for us. We people space as we cleave it. The ground that is dumb as we spurn it has a memory and a revenge. I am more sensitive than my kind; and my penance to these monitors of my sin is but a realization of the terror which all must feel at the ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... been given, that great returns can justly be required. Nor should our requisitions fall below the powers of those of whom they are made. We may not claim simply a child's service, where the ability of a giant clearly exists. Achilles would spurn the light offices of Adonis. So will that woman, who regards her sex as co-equal in every part of their nature, with the opposite sex, contemn the delicate tasks, usually ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... more on Ragnor's brow the beacons blaze, The Orient Pearl to greet, On her return. Two brides wait mid a throng of friends to meet Their war-proof knights. The shades of rank they spurn; They'd vowed for each a sister's ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... belief stirs the worst elements in my nature; it swings the whip of the furies. For your own sake, do not thrust your degrading madness upon my notice. I have labored to liberate you; have subordinated all other aims to this, and now, that I have come to set you free, you repulse and spurn me!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... they feel; Our veins they drain, our land they steal; And should the vanquished Indian kneel, They spurn him from their sight! Be set for ever in disgrace The glory of the red-man's race, If from the foe we turn our face, ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... grace, and tireless strength, if ever thou didst gallop before, do thy best to-day! Spurn, spurn the dust 'neath thy fleet hoofs, stretch thy graceful Arab neck, bear me gallantly to-day, O Wings, for never shalt thou and I ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... lawfully molested. We were justified merely in repelling an attack. But suppose we should appeal to law: could this be done without the knowledge and concurrence of the lady? She would never permit it. Her heart was incapable of fear from this quarter. She would spurn at the mention of precautions against the hatred of her brother. Her inquietude would merely be ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... no great magnanimity on the queen's part to spurn such insulting proposals, the offer of which showed her capable, in the opinion of Verreycken, the man who made them, of sinking into the very depths of dishonour. And she did spurn them. Surely, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fertile brain devise? (after a pause.) In vain the truth I'd hide from mine own eyes; My heart is his—irrevocably his. To be his wife—oh rapture, heavenly bliss! Yet I must spurn his love. I will not bear All China's cold contempt; man's scoffing sneer. What glory would be mine could I but tame This bragging conqueror. Pronounce his name In high divan, and chase him from ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... untoward conditions, is without personal responsibility; but Henry experienced, in addition to his self-distrust, a sickening fear of failure in her presence. He was conscious of two dominant thoughts. Whatever happened, he must take care of his wife and spurn the advances of agreeable strangers. Also he and she must be transported by hack to the hotel they had chosen, without parting with the savings of years for the ride. He had heard of the extortions of cabmen. He bargained fiercely with a too-zealous independent who had already ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? No! There go the tales! May my hand wither when it would ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... perfect touch With folly and sorrow, even shame and crime, He lived the grief and wonder of his time! Marked for reproaches from his life's beginning; Extremely sinned against as well as sinning; Hack, spendthrift, starveling, duellist in turn; Too cross to cherish yet too fierce to spurn; Begrimed with ink or brave with wine and blood; Spirit of fire and manikin of mud; Now shining clear, now fain to starve and skulk; Star of the cellar, pensioner of the bulk; At once the child of passion and the slave; Brawling ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... between his ears, and traced between his fine eyes a figure of the crescent with his forenail, and the Horse ceased plunging, and was gentle as a colt by its mother's side, and suffered Shibli Bagarag to bestride him, and spurn him with his heel to speed, and bore him fleetly across the fair length of the golden meadows to where Noorna bin Noorka sat awaiting him. She uttered a cry of welcome, saying, 'This is achieved with diligence and skill, O my betrothed! and on thy right wrist I mark strength ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of all the kingdoms of Europe were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all.—Fenelon. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... my folly and rash ambition, but I cannot do so any longer. It were better that I knew my fate at once, even if my sentence should be my death. You will ridicule my folly, be surprised at my presumption, and, in all probability, spurn me for the avowal, but make it I must. Miss Trevannion, I have dared—to love you; I have but one excuse to offer, which is, that I have been more than a year in your company, and it is impossible for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... now And only to contrast my gloom, Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom A moment on some autumn bough That, with the spurn of their farewell Sheds its last leaves,—thou once didst dwell With me year-long, and make intense To boyhood's wisely vacant days Their fleet but all-sufficing grace Of trustful inexperience, 10 While soul ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... poor, o'erlabour'd wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, though a weeping wife ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the warning voice: oh, spurn me not, My early friend; let the bruised heart go free: Mine were high fancies, but a wayward lot Hath made my youthful dreams in sadness flee; Then chide not, I would linger yet awhile, Thinking o'er wasted hours, a weary train, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... possibility," the Reader admitted, "and one which we can neither accept or reject safely. And we must learn the truth as soon as possible. If this man is really He, we must not spurn Him on mere suspicion. If he is a man, come to help us, we must accept his help; if he is speaking the truth, the people who sent him could do wonders for us, and the greatest wonder would be to make us again a part ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... have spread my wings to my desire, The more I feel the air beneath my feet, So much the more towards the wind I bend My swiftest pinions, And spurn the world and up towards heaven I go. Not the sad fate of Daedalus's son Does warn me to turn downwards, But ever higher will I rise. Well do I see, I shall fall dead to earth; But what life is there can compare with this my death? Out on the air my heart's voice do ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... at the floods of melody you drew from the insensate strings! Only a poet's spirit, only a high-strung heart could accomplish such strains! I, too, am of a musical spirit; I, too, thrill to the notes of the great masters, if interpreted as they are by you! May I hope that you will not spurn this outburst of a sympathetic nature, and accept this tribute to your genius? Could I look for a line,—just a word,—in response to this, saying that you are glad of my appreciation? Never before have I written to a stranger. ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... my mouth as a pledge that this is done without deceit. The one asa looked at the other, and thought there now was a choice of two evils, and no one would offer his hand, before Tyr held out his right hand and laid it in the wolf's mouth. But when the wolf now began to spurn against it the band grew stiffer, and the more he strained the tighter it got. They all laughed except Tyr; he lost his hand. When the asas saw that the wolf was sufficiently well bound, they took the chain which was fixed to the fetter, and which ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... should he carry you safely to France and deliver you into the hands of your friends, yet who, in gay and skeptical Paris, would not be willing to believe the worst of both of you? The society that he has painted to you as ready to fall at your feet would be only ready to spurn you. Forgive me, Mademoiselle, for speaking thus plainly, but there is no man in the world who would not believe that the very fact of the chevalier's trying to persuade you to go with him to France proves him a villain of the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... cried Madam Bonnet, with her face in a blaze. "I send her no message at all; and if she comes here on her knees, I shall spurn her, if it ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat Down from the gallery the beaver flew, And spurn'd the one to settle in the two. How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four? Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, And gain his hat again at half-past ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... me pray Some greater god, — like thee to be conceived Within my soul, — for strength to turn away From his new altar, when, that task achieved, He, too, stands manifest. Yea, let me yearn From dream to grander dream! Let me not rest Content at any goal! Still bid me spurn Each transient triumph on the Eternal Quest, Abjuring godlings whom my hand hath made For Deity, ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... ease; 100 Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state,[3] 105 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way; 110 And, all his ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... graves along the sandy shore By feeble hands the shallow graves were made, No stone memorial o'er the corpses laid In barren sands and far from home they lie, No friend to shed a tear when passing by O'er the mean tombs insulting Britons tread, Spurn at the sand, and curse the rebel dead. When to your arms these fatal islands fall— For first or last, they must be conquered, all, Americans! to rites sepulchral just With gentlest footstep press this kindred dust, And o'er the tombs, if tombs ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... 'Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage rightly understood Gives to the tender and ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in conceit into illimitable space, and take up our rest beyond the fixed stars. We proceed without impediment from country to country, and from century to century, through all the ages of the past, and through the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... the blowing out. It has only passed out of the visible world of matter into the invisible world of Spirit, where it still exists and will ever exist, as a bright reality. Such thinkers can understand Buddha's doctrine and, while agreeing with him that soul is not immortal, would spurn the charge of materialistic nihilism, if brought against either ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... Job's intuition. But in a God-created world made for the delectation of mankind, to forego its pleasures would be to offend the Creator, if indeed stark madness could kindle His ire. But to curb one's thirst for life and to spurn its joys because one holds them to be the tap root of all evil, is an action at once intelligible and wise. And this is what Job evidently does when he practises difficult virtues and undergoes terrible sufferings without the consciousness ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... awoke to his predicament, he broke out in mixed wrath and scorn: "Of what are these people thinking? Do they not see the abyss yawning at their feet? Both the King and Queen will perish, and you will live to see the rabble spurn their corpses." ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... old, those met rewards who could excel, And such were praised who but endeavored well: Though triumphs were to generals only due, Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown, Employ their pains to spurn some others down; And, while self-love each jealous writer rules, Contending wits become the sport of fools: But still the worst with most regret commend, For each ill author is as bad a friend To what base ends, and by what ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... hatred, and hatred whispered to him of revenge. Hyacinthus excelled at all sports, and when he played quoits it was sheer joy for Apollo, who loved all things beautiful, to watch him as he stood to throw the disc, his taut muscles making him look like Hermes, ready to spurn the cumbering earth from off his feet. Further even than the god, his friend, could Hyacinthus throw, and always his merry laugh when he succeeded made the god feel that nor man nor god could ever grow old. And so there came that day, fore-ordained by the Fates, when Apollo and Hyacinthus ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... great: 'T is thou that execut'st the traitor's treason; Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season; 'T is thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason. 1285 SHAKS.: R. of ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... as much fun in the Signs of the Shops;— Here, a Louis Dix-huit—there, a Martinmas goose, (Much in vogue since your eagles are gone out of use)— Henri Quatres in shoals, and of Gods a great many, But Saints are the most on hard duty of any:— St. TONY, who used all temptations to spurn, Here hangs o'er a beer-shop, and tempts in his turn; While there St. VENECIA[6] sits hemming and frilling her Holy mouchoir o'er the door of some milliner;— Saint AUSTIN'S the "outward and visible ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... she ever receive them? Why did she enchantingly smile upon me? Why fascinate the tender powers of my soul by that winning mildness, and the favourable display of those complicated and superior attractions which she must have known were irresistible?—Why did she not spurn me from her confidence, and plainly tell me that my attentions were untimely and improper? And now she would have me dance attendance to her decision in favour of Beauman—Insulting! Let Beauman and she make, as they have formed, this farcical decision; I absolutely will never attend ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... at the sight Of what had been her god for years. She flung them from her. Then such tears As only spring from love's despair Welled from her eyes. "So, lady fair, My gifts are scorned?" quoth he, and laughed. "Like Cleopatra, you have quaffed Such lordly pearls in draughts of wine, You spurn poor simple gems like mine. Well, well, fair queen, I'll bring to you A richer gift ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with its limits, the next condition is an accurate self-knowledge. Know yourself, your weaknesses, your aptitudes, your exposures, your gifts and strength, in order that you may know what to seek or avoid, what to cherish or spurn, what to spur or curb, what to fortify or assail. For example, if your head is made of butter, it is clear that it will not do for you to be a baker. If you are a coward, you must not volunteer to lead a forlorn hope. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... affairs generally possess very little interest for others. They have enough to do in taking care of themselves, and have weaknesses, and failures, and peculiarities enough of their own; and if the world should spurn our well-meant efforts in its behalf, why, let it go. It mends nothing to get sore and sensitive over it. When a man truly learns how little important he is in the world, he is generally beyond ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... remember in the country, some here, who affect to despise what they cannot understand; such enterprising critics and fastidiously hypercritics, men of truly philosophical penetration—of a truly classical taste spurn aside the coarse beverage to be found in Gr. mss. ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... earlier time, A man of violence and crime, Whose passions brooked no curb nor check. Behold me now, in gentler mood, One of this holy brotherhood. Give me your hand; here let me kneel; Make your reproaches sharp as steel; Spurn me, and smite me on each cheek; No violence can harm the meek, There is no wound Christ cannot heal! Yes; lift your princely hand, and take Revenge, if 't is revenge you seek, Then pardon me, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow ...
— Clocks - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... hurl at the beholders of my shame; My grisly countenance made others fly; None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deem'd me not secure; So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread That they supposed I could rend bars of steel, And spurn in pieces posts of adamant: Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had, That walk'd about me every minute while; And if I did but stir out of my bed, Ready they were to shoot ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... a vast amount of stocks, A vast amount of pride insures; But Fate has picked so many locks I wouldn't like to warrant yours. Remember, then, and never spurn The one whose hand is hard and brown, For he is likely to go up, And you are likely to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... to spare a foe And kill his hate. And I would e'en do so! For I would kill the coyness of thy face. I would enfold thee in my spurn'd embrace And kiss the kiss that gladdens as with wine. Yea, I would wrestle with those arms of thine, And, like a victor, I would vanquish thee, And, tyrant-like, I'd teach thee ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... bushes as quietly as possible, he reached the open field and across this he bounded like a greyhound. He knew that every minute was precious, and the thought of Nell facing those drunken men caused his feet fairly to spurn the grass. Reaching the main road, he tore through the dust, sprang over a ditch, leaped a fence, raced through the orchard and ran plumb into Jake and Empty standing ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity. Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, the Well has no terrors for ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... you have stood, like an adverse fate, between me and peace. In all, you have ever been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your teeth, and spurn you from me as I would a ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... me. I have spoken to your grandmother, before daring to raise my eyes to you. Do you not understand me? A word from your lips will decide my future happiness or misery. Claire, mademoiselle, do not spurn ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... our cattle to keep, We see sudden sights, when other men sleep: Yet methinks my heart lights, I see shrews peep, Ye are two, all wights,[102] I will give my sheep A turn. But full ill have I meant, As I walk on this bent,[103] I may lightly repent, My toes if I spurn. Ah, sir, God you save, and master mine! A drink fain would I ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... be that no one shall thee learn: Nor do I care; for none I wot, so well As I may chant thee; so, This one behest I lay upon thee, go Hie thee to Love, and him in secret tell, How I my life do spurn, My bitter life, and yearn, That to a better harbourage he bring Me, of all might and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... observes smoke rising from the direction of Mathura and infers that the Brahmans are cooking food preparatory to making sacrifice. He asks the cowherds to tell them that Krishna is hungry and would like some of this food. The Brahmans of Mathura angrily spurn the request, saying 'Who but a low cowherd would ask for food in the midst of a sacrifice?' 'Go and ask their wives,' Krishna says, 'for being kind and virtuous they will surely give you some.' Krishna's power with women is then demonstrated ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... long, O righteous Lord! so long Bowed down, and yet so brave and strong— I think no Christian, just and true, Can spurn this ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... to this same ugly Poverty,—till they had tried what was in it too, till they had learned to make it too do for them! Money, in truth, can do much, but it cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and confine it; and even spurn it back, when ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... depend therein Whether you come as slave or lord, If they acclaim you as their kin Or spurn you ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... affairs of practical life, every man desires to make his influence felt. With persons of the highest character, the love of power is manifest in connection with the aim to be useful. Even the most modest men, while they may spurn flattery, are gladdened by knowing that they are acting upon the wills and shaping the ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... "Oh! spurn not such a suppliant's prayer!" Her tones so sad, her sighs so deep, Startled the Princess in her sleep; Wond'ring, she views with dread before her The stranger beauty, frighted hears For mercy her soft voice implore ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... women from the exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... ... We hear your flammulated owlets hoot! Turn we to nature, Webster, and we find Few creatures have a quite contented mind. Your koulan there, with dyslogistic snort, Will leave his phacoid food on worts to browse, While glactophorous Himalayan cows The knurled kohl-rabi spurn in uncouth sport; No margay climbs margosa trees; the short Gray mullet drink no mulse, nor house In pibcorns when the youth of Wales carouse ... No tournure doth the toucan's tail contort ... So I am sad! ... and yet, on Summer eves, When xebecs search the whishing scree for whelk, And the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... they spurn; But this we from the mountains learn, And this the valleys show; That never will they deign to hold Communion where the heart is cold ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... lest you think I do you wrong And part in dudgeon—I invite Your company to sup this night, For then my friends and kin I see, 'Mongst which I choose to reckon thee." Choused and chagrined, yet shunning blame, He promised, set the hour, and came; As fearful lest a favour spurn'd Should to an open breach be turn'd. The splendid banquet shone with plate, And preparations full of state Made the glad house with clamors roar— When on a sudden at the door Two youths, with sweat and dust besmear'd, Above the human form appear'd, And charged forthwith a little scout ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... passion of love, and I have to thank you, Wilhelmina—you alone, you, my wife, for this new birth. You turn away your head, Wilhelmina! You smile derisively! It is true I have not the right to call you my wife. You are free to spurn me from you, to banish me forever into that cold, desert region to which I fled in the madness and blindness of my despair. But think well, princess; if you do this, you cast a shadow over my life. It is my whole future which ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... life—the modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the shadowed window—all are poetical materials, and of a higher character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... Adelma's fertile brain devise? (after a pause.) In vain the truth I'd hide from mine own eyes; My heart is his—irrevocably his. To be his wife—oh rapture, heavenly bliss! Yet I must spurn his love. I will not bear All China's cold contempt; man's scoffing sneer. What glory would be mine could I but tame This bragging conqueror. Pronounce his name In high divan, and chase him from our city, Abashed and in despair. ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... in the same breath and in a jumble of shock and terror she saw Dudley Stackpole emerge into full sight, and standing clear a pace from his doorway return the fire; saw the thudding frantic hoofs of the nigh horse spurn Harve Tatum's body aside—the kick broke his right leg, it turned out—saw Jess Tatum suddenly halt and stagger back as though jerked by an unseen hand; saw him drop his weapon and straighten again, and with both hands clutched to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... nightly thieves and robbers. (He begged) that they would turn away their minds from resentment for a while to examination and reflection; and rather pardon one at the intercession of so many members of the Claudian family, than through a hatred of one spurn the entreaties of many; that he himself also paid this tribute to the family and the name; nor had he been reconciled to him, whose unfortunate situation he wished to relieve; that by fortitude liberty had been ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... vindictive Storri in an exultant crow, "did you little people believe you were to laugh at Storri and pass unpunished? Did you think to insult him and escape his vengeance? Bah! the super-fine Dorothy is to spurn Storri for a varlet like this Storms! She is to laugh at Storri's love, and tell how she refused a nobleman! Excellent; we shall see her laugh when her father—Mr. Harley—Mr. John Harley—the great Mr. John Harley—brother-by-law of the still greater Senator Hanway—stands in the dock ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... mood came. Was he not vain, ambitious, ridiculous in her eyes, for venturing to speak to her as he had done? Doubtless he had been wrong, but she needed not to spurn him as she had done; she might have told him so as a friend. Friend! she thought ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... safely to France and deliver you into the hands of your friends, yet who, in gay and skeptical Paris, would not be willing to believe the worst of both of you? The society that he has painted to you as ready to fall at your feet would be only ready to spurn you. Forgive me, Mademoiselle, for speaking thus plainly, but there is no man in the world who would not believe that the very fact of the chevalier's trying to persuade you to go with him to France proves him a villain ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... can justly be required. Nor should our requisitions fall below the powers of those of whom they are made. We may not claim simply a child's service, where the ability of a giant clearly exists. Achilles would spurn the light offices of Adonis. So will that woman, who regards her sex as co-equal in every part of their nature, with the opposite sex, contemn the delicate tasks, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... force me from thee. Use me reproachfully, and like a slave; Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs On my poor head; I'll bear it all with patience Shall weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty: Lie at thy feet, and kiss 'em, though they spurn me; Till, wounded by my sufferings, thou relent, And raise me to ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... "spurn his addresses;" His merits may still be as high As the sort that your hero possesses, Though they leap not so quick to the eye; At the least, you've the comfort of knowing, Since his heart at your feet he has ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... Captain West," she burst forth at last, unable to hold back the words. "I have done my best for you, and you spurn ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... come, Thy well-beloved Cyprus spurn, Haste, where for thee in Glycera's home Sweet odours burn. Bring too thy Cupid, glowing warm, Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free, And Youth, that lacking ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... gust shakes the house. As Rachael relaxes her hold, the slaves collapse again, but clutch at her skirts, mumbling and wailing. Rachael gazes at them a moment, makes a motion as if to spurn them with her foot, then shrugs her shoulders and ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... I freely poured my all, Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall, Its wages and its bitter bread." Thus whispered Love the ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... wilt not turn away, oh say we must not part, Thou would'st not spurn this aching breast, nor crush this breaking heart, Without thee, what is Life?—a name—in which no life can be, Oh give me back thy smile, thy tear—'tis ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... result might be the same. You cannot dig six feet downward anywhere into the soil, deep enough to hollow out a grave, without finding some precious relic of the past; only they lose somewhat of their value when you think that you can almost spurn them out of the ground with your foot. It is a very wonderful arrangement of Providence that these things should have been preserved for a long series of coming generations by that accumulation of dust and soil and grass ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to redress, In trust of her that turneth as a ball; Great rest standeth in little business: Beware also to spurn against a nail; Strive not as doth a crocke* with a wall; *earthen pot Deeme* thyself that deemest others' deed, *judge And truth thee shall deliver, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... waters under the earth. Yet to these savages this invisible being is just as real as the actually existing animals and men whom they perceive with their bodily senses; they not only pray to him but they propitiate him with a solemn ritual; and no doubt they would spurn with scorn the feeble attempts of shallow sceptics to question the reality of his existence or the literal truth of the myths they tell about him. Certainly these savages are far on the road to religion, if they have not already passed the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... thou meekly grovell'st low At the cross which thou didst spurn; Which not many weeks ago, Thou didst wish to crush ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... thou yet again to life return, How hard would this appear, O Agricane! In that she whilom thee was wont to spurn, With sharp repulse and insolent disdain. O Ferrau, O ye thousand more, forlorn, Unsung, who wrought a thousand feats in vain For this ungrateful fair, what pain 'twould be Could you within his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... say! shall the land of Achilles Reluctantly cherish a dastardly slave, Who can crouch at the foot of a despot, whose will is As fickle as wind, and as rude as the wave? Shall the ashes of heroes enshrouded in glory, Be spurn'd in contempt by a barbarous horde, While their sons idly tremble like boys at a story, And shudder to gaze on the point ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... what I have done for you. You admitted yourself that it was my influence that had revolutionised your character. But for me, you would now be doing worse than write poetry. You would be writing vers libre. I saved you from that. And you spurn me!" ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to go into the smoke. I desired them to go into the smoke, which they would by no means do. I then took one of them and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... dissolve the sphery frame; 'twixt whom And man no endless night can throw its gloom Till long Eternity is ended— Which ne'er shall end—to thee, my trust, I turn! To one, for whom in vain thy lamps now burn, A hearing deign; nor from thy footstool spurn The ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... you smile: There will be no room for chiding, No one's temper will you rile. And when Heaven's golden portals For you on their hinges turn, With the books for all immortals, There will be no rules to learn. Therefore heed them, Often read them, Lest your future weal you spurn. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... did I think you carried the heart of a sorak in your putrid breast. Often have you bested me in the secret councils of Issus, but now in the field of war where men are truly gauged your scabby heart hath revealed its sores to all the world. Calot, I spurn you with my foot," and with the words he turned ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pay a large sum for the privilege of kissing the most handsome lady, and for similar or more shameful indulgences, but to humbly wash a brother's feet would be shocking in the extreme. "If a man love me he will keep my words." John 14:23. Where true love exists there is no disposition to spurn any of the Lord's commandments, however humiliating ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... spontaneously at your service. Get off! I shall return home: it is folly dragging you from the hearth-stone, and pretending—what do we pretend? Let go my frock! If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn such pity. Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is. Rise, and don't degrade yourself ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... were in favor of compromises between the interests of free labor and slave labor, by which the victory just won would be turned into a defeat. This is a despicable device of dishonest men. We spurn such compromises. We firmly adhere to the principles which directed our votes in your favor. We trust that you, the self-reliant because self-made man, will uphold the Constitution and the laws against secret treachery and avowed treason. If to this end you should be in need of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... give in to fate, Herbert. I would assert my manhood. I would abide in the strength of the first output, going with the flush of the first glow into the gloom. I would spurn the calm of compromise and mediocrity and register a high claim. I would keep the peace with Romance and fly her colours to the last. You have lived? It is well, and it might have been better, but do not give over and talk of stirpiculture. You are not wiser than the ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... Nature's open book, full of inspiration. Beyond them and above them he sees the hand and hears the voice of God. And since he lives and works thus close to Nature's throbbing heart and in close communion with forces that link the finite to the Infinite, who dares to spurn the dignity of his toil or characterize his associations ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... white wall!" he cried with vehemence. "You are the gentleman, sir, and I am only a poor carpenter's son; but I spurn you with a deeper and more solemn scorn ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... in throwing off a woman who has attempted to marry him, always carries away a maudlin sympathy for her in her defeat and dismay. But no one ever heard of a woman who pitied the poor fellow whose honest passion she had found it expedient to spurn. On the contrary, women take delight in such clownish agonies, and exhibit them proudly, and boast about them ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... vastly surprised at the reputation manufactured for me upon the new continent; but I am obliged, in deference to truth, to reject it with my whole energy. I spurn far from me everything which relates to that charlatanism called Homoeopathy, for these pretended doctrines cannot endure the scrutiny of wise and enlightened persons, who are guided by honorable sentiments in the practice ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... numerous negro camp-meeting lays in which Lincoln was hailed as the coming Moses. This burlesque was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he taking the grim relish in hits at him, caricatures and sallies, which great men never spurn. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent those who will not submit to any man's dictation from leaving ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... would savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear, by that honour which crowns the upright statue of Robert Burns's Integrity, on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-pact transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you. Burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust long outlive any of his wants which the cold, unfeeling ore can supply; at least I will take care that such ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... at his feet and told him all, but she feared he would spurn her—she longed to deserve the love of his manly and honest heart, but too weak, too much a coward, she shrunk from the agony and peril of a confession of her guilt. And Jerrold! was he not mad to expect to find a true ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn, as vilest dust, The warld's wealth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... work. The quicker she saw, the slower she was reducing sight into possession. With all this, like her son Richard, she was capable of strong revulsions. Thus she had loved, then hated King Henry; thus she was to spurn, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... yellow robe Ask of the Rishi if there be a cure For that which ails thy son.' Whereon I came Trembling to thee, whose brow is like a god's, And wept and drew the face cloth from my babe, Praying thee tell what simples might be good. And thou, great sir, did'st spurn me not, but gaze With gentle eyes and touch with patient hand; Then draw the face cloth back, saying to me, 'Yea, little sister, there is that might heal Thee first, and him, if thou couldst fetch the thing; For they who seek physicians bring to them What is ordained. Therefore, I pray thee, find ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... is bright as theirs, But, oh! our hearts are cold for it; Awake! we are not slaves but heirs; Our fatherland requires our cares, Our work with man, with God our prayers. Spurn blood-stained Judas-gold for it, Let us do all that honour dares— Be earnest, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... at the other, and thought there now was a choice of two evils, and no one would offer his hand, before Tyr held out his right hand and laid it in the wolf's mouth. But when the wolf now began to spurn against it the band grew stiffer, and the more he strained the tighter it got. They all laughed except Tyr; he lost his hand. When the asas saw that the wolf was sufficiently well bound, they took the chain which ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... was she, my uncle's daughter; no unwelcome truth was plainer; For a small peculiar birth-mark was apparent on her arm. Had I lost her? Was it possible ever more now to regain her? Would he spurn me, and restrain her with ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... resolution, were to tempt me back to the blighting bowl; not for the honors a world could bestow, would I cast from me this pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the horrors that once beset my path. So help me Heaven, I would spurn beneath my feet all the gifts a universe could offer, and live and die as ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... I'll Charm you, House-wife, here lies the Charm, that conjur'd this Fellow in I'm sure on't, come out you Rascal, do so: Zounds take her from the Door, or I'll spurn her from it, and break ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... his friends at home who had denounced the military machine; he thought of Comrade Mary Allen, of Comrade Mabel Smith, and Comrade Evelyn Baskerville and Comrade Gerrity; he had rejected their advice, and now, if they could see what he was doing, how they would spurn him! Jimmie writhed at the very thought; nor was he consoled when one of the men in his company gave him an "inside" story of what was happening here—that in order to persuade the British to submit their armies to the control of a French general, and thus to save the situation ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... "I spurn it as I would your dead body if it lay before me, Carl Walraven! Sit down with you? Never, if my life depended on it! The child became an actress because I could keep her no longer—I couldn't keep myself—and because she had the voice and face of an angel—poor ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... to be stated: that the De Grapions, try to spurn it as they would, never could quite suppress a hard feeling in the face of the record, that from the two young men, who, when lost in the horrors of Louisiana's swamps, had been esteemed as good as dead, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the clergy never fail to remind women that religion is their best friend. Without our doctrines and our holy Church, they say, there would be social chaos; the wild passions of men would spurn control, marriage would be despised, wives would become mistresses, homes would disappear, and children would be treated as encumbrances. There is not a grain of truth in this, for religion has fomented, countenanced, or cloaked, more sensuality ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... dare to think or teach otherwise, or as wicked heretics dare to spurn the traditions of the Church and to invent some novelty, or else to reject some of those things which the Church hath received, to wit, the book of the Gospels, or the image of the cross, or the pictorial icons, or the holy relics of a martyr, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... hear the throstle sing, And greet the lark's high ecstasies, May learn to care no more for these, And spurn each ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... large window, which the thick crimson silk curtains within could not entirely conceal. At this reassuring sight Leander dismissed all fear from his mind, and gave himself up to the most blissful anticipations. He was in a seventh heaven of delight; his feet seemed to spurn the earth; he would have flown into the presence of the waiting angel within if he had but known the way. How he wished, in this moment of glory and triumph, that Scapin, his mortal enemy and merciless tormentor, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... de Gramont," returned M. de Bois. "Once more, I tell you that she has saved your escutcheon from a stain which could never have been effaced. And for this act you spurn her, you scorn her generosity; you tell her she is not worthy of rendering you a service, instead of bowing down before her as you,—as we all might well do, in reverence and admiration; thanking Heaven that such a woman has been placed in the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Neighbours, I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But I ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... tearing off his mask, and confronting his ruffian leader with an unquailing eye—'dare! Why, thou white-livered hound, I dare spit upon and spurn ye! And forsooth, ye call me a villain—you coward cut-throat, traitor, monster, murderer of weak women and helpless babes! I tell you, Dead Man, your Power is at an end in these Vaults. There are robbers, there may be murderers here—although thank God, I never shed human blood—but bad ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... of which Deborah endeavoured to lessen, by assuming as much freedom of conduct as she possibly dared, under the influence, doubtless, of the same feelings of independence, which induced her, at Martindale Hall, to spurn the advice ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... man who has always possessed nothing can feel for a rich merchant whose whole fortune is about to founder at sea. Do not spurn my feeble sort of pity. But do you know nothing of her, not a word, a sign? Is she alive or dead? Much less, does she still ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... how large the mind of man; A godlike force enclosed within a span! To climb the skies we spurn our nature's clog, And toil as Titans to elect ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... that might be reached and cured by ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave my heart to Thackeray, who seemed to promise ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his immediate coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country. No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation, and no prince ever gave a nobler example of gratitude. As the people everywhere ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... it was to spurn the last chance of a bottle for many a weary mile, and the prudent traveller would always rest an hour by its ample fireside, or gossip with its fantastic hostess. Now, the hostess of the little inn was Ellen Roach, friend ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... and themselves are love. Though scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride. The vile in nature worthless deeds approve, They court the vile and spurn all good beside. Poets love Nature; like the calm of Heaven, Like Heaven's own love, her gifts spread far and wide: In all her works there are no signs of leaven * * ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... and she persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is wholly owned and dominated by men spirits and I spurn the whole lot ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... philosophy or science all about him; who is it that gathers up these loose ends and puts in order the unfinished work? It is his friend. Who is it that stands by the open tomb of that fallen saint or hero and relates to the world his deeds of sacrifice and courage which spurn others on to nobler living and thereby perpetuates his goodness and valor? Who does this, if it is done? It is his friend. A friend thus becomes not only a completion of one's soul as he is by virtue of being a friend, but also ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... respect to the advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man, who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... on her coldly and was tempted to spurn her from him with his foot, but there was such anguish in voice and eye as he himself had hardly felt, and his wife's words, her last words, flashed through his bewildered brain: "We can't tell what anybody has to contend with." He stood irresolute while she ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... milkmaid who was carrying on her head a pail of milk she had been given. "I'll sell this milk for so much, and with the money buy a hen. The hen will lay so many eggs, worth so much, for which I will buy me a dress and cap. Then the young men will wish to dance with me, but I shall spurn them all with a toss of the head." Her dream at this point became so absorbing as to get hold of the motor system and call out the actual toss of the head—but we are not after the moral just now; we care simply for the dream as a very true sample ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the bushes as quietly as possible, he reached the open field and across this he bounded like a greyhound. He knew that every minute was precious, and the thought of Nell facing those drunken men caused his feet fairly to spurn the grass. Reaching the main road, he tore through the dust, sprang over a ditch, leaped a fence, raced through the orchard and ran plumb into Jake and Empty standing ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... whether he will be allowed to trail the fair name of the school for propriety and correctness of deportment in the dust of a pew-floor, and spurn my reputation as a preceptor like a church hassock beneath ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... but ask the question humbly—may I say it? I know very well your family is far above mine. It were vain to conceal it. I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... genuine portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the very faintest suspicion ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... treasure. They say the maidens in your country are calm and cold as the snow on the Appenines, and it were in vain, therefore, for you, lady, to attempt to conceive what that love is. He might abandon me—he might forget me—he might spurn me, but still I should love him, though I slew him for his perfidy; and should die happily on the tomb to which I had consigned him. Then do not speak to me again of quitting him;—he is my world, and all else I ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... not obey, he continued; "Dost thou wish me to complete the catalogue by thy death? Thy life is a worthless thing. Tempt me no more. I am but a man, and thy presence may awaken a fury which may spurn my controul. Begone!" ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... wearing socks if she thought them immoral), and I stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it, if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful. To go quit smoking, when there ain't any sufficient excuse for it!—why, my old boy, when they used to tell me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they little ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... would'st view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, and thrones, and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... weight: Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry, Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! Before that day, by some brave hero's hand May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me. Yet all this lenity will not overcome their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure. By myself, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder. I am loth to bear any other than this bastinado for them: yet I hold it good polity not to go disarmed, for though I be skilful, I may ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... said. "Think what it is to be a Jew—an outcast, a thing that the lowest may spurn and spit at, one beyond the law, one who can be hunted from land to land like a mad wolf, and tortured to death, when caught, for the sport of gentle Christians, who first have stripped him of his gains and very garments. And then think what it means to escape ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Valleys wide: Over woods, Over floods, When he treads, Mountains' heads Groan and shake; Armies quake, Lest his spurn Overturn Man and steed: Troops take heed! Left and right, Speed your flight! Lest an host ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... now. What terror can have seized thy breast To make thee frame this dire request, That Bharat o'er the land may reign, And Rama in the woods remain? Turn from thine evil ways, O turn, And thy perfidious counsel spurn, If thou would fain a favour do To people, lord, and Bharat too. O wicked traitress, fierce and vile, Who lovest deeds of sin and guile, What crime or grievance dost thou see, What fault in Rama or in me? Thy son will ne'er the throne ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Edmund Burke; "I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because they are men." "It is the great privilege of poverty" says Dr. Johnson, "to be happy unenvied, to be healthy without physic, and to be secure without guard." Is it not ridiculous for the poor man, by aping the habits of the rich, to spurn some of the greatest blessings attaching to our life? ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... cried Agnes, wildly. "Did he know all, he would curse me—he would spurn me from him—he would discard me forever! Oh! when I think of that poor old man, with his venerable white hair,—that aged, helpless man, who was so kind to me, who loved me so well, and whom I so cruelly abandoned. But tell me, signor," ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... approaches through the gloom? There arises a shriek, a heavy body falls, 'tis a lacquey who has seen and recognised The White Lady of the Grand Ducal House, that walks before the deaths of Princes. Burkard and Sauerbeck spurn the inanimate body of the menial witness. The white figure, bearing in her arms a sleeping child, glides to the tapestried wall, and vanishes through it, into the Chamber of the Crown Prince, a babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, she places it in the hands ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... public morals—the social health of a great people, inheritors of glorious antecedents, of an historic renown for those qualities of a high order, the deep-seated sentiment of personal, as of national honour and dignity, the integrity, fidelity, and gallantry, which more loftily spurn contaminating approximation with action springing out of base, sordid, and degrading motives and associations—have been sapped and corrupted by the debasing influences of that gigantic system of organized illicit trade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn as vilest dust The warld's wealth and grandeur: And do I hear my Jeanie own That equal transports move her? I ask for dearest life alone, That I may live ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... our disgrace and shame how the election was lost. Oh, well may I say to our disgrace and shame. Little did I think that any one, bearing the once respectable name of M'Mahon upon him, should turn from the interests of his holy church, spurn all truth, violate all principle, and enter into a league of hell with the devil and the enemies of his church. Yes, you apostate," he proceeded, "you have entered into a league with him, and ever since ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... enemies? Make not, my son, a shipwreck of thy wit For a woman. Thine own heart may teach thee this;— There's but cold comfort in a wicked wife Yoked to the home inseparably. What wound Can be more deadly than a harmful friend? Then spurn her like an enemy, and send her To wed some shadow in the world below! For since of all the city I have found Her only recusant, caught in the act, I will not break my word before the State. I will take her life. At this let her invoke The god of kindred blood! For if ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... emergency that imposed them has long since passed away; if we must share in the guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls of men as the price of our Union; if the slave States will haughtily spurn our assistance, and refuse to consult the general welfare, then the fault is not ours if a separation ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come to talk with mine? By Allah, I will take ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Who quits a world where strong temptations try And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state 105 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd decay, While Resignation gently slopes the way; 110 And, all his prospects bright'ning ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... with the spine, Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies. He stops—he starts—disdaining to decline: Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, Without a groan, without a struggle dies. The decorated car appears on high: The corse is piled—sweet sight for vulgar eyes; Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, Hurl the dark bull along, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... It is too late. Wouldst thou, then, break thy oath? Wouldst thou live here a prisoner, nor behold Thy father, though he die? Wouldst thou thy country Should spurn thee as the traitor whose malignance Blighted her hard-won gains? It is too late! It is ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... you, but it has only been from day to day. I knew it was not to last, and I lacked strength to end it sooner. Think how dear your kisses must have been to me, that I could endure them with the knowledge all the while that if you knew whom you were kissing, you would spurn me ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... we owe you much, old friends, Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. Who can forget? Who can spurn the ministers of joy That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf; The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... needed no great magnanimity on the queen's part to spurn such insulting proposals, the offer of which showed her capable, in the opinion of Verreycken, the man who made them, of sinking into the very depths of dishonour. And she did spurn them. Surely, for the ally, the protrectress, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... afterward, as a fleet then appeared to the southward. It was so late in the day that I could not come up with the fleet before night; at length, however, I got so near one of them as to force her to run ashore, between Flamborough Head and the Spurn. Soon after I took another, a brigantine from Holland, belonging to Sunderland; and at daylight the next morning, seeing a fleet steering towards me from the Spurn, I imagined them to be a convoy, bound from London for Leith, which had been ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... delights of spiritual progress, and while illimitable heights of glory and blessedness are beckoning them, is incredible. We are unable to believe that while his children turn to him with yearning faith and gratitude, with fervent prayer and expectation, he will spurn them into unmitigated night, blotting out those capacities of happiness which he gave them with a virtual promise of endless increase. Will the affectionate God permit humanity, ensconced in the field of being, like a nest of ground sparrows, to be trodden in by the hoof of annihilation? ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Friendly: Hold off, or I will use thee like a Dog, tread thee to Earth, and spurn thee like a Slave, base as ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... should I say to you? Should I not say, Hath a dog money? Is it possible A curre should lend three thousand ducats? or Shall I bend low, and in a bond-mans key With bated breath, and whispring humblenesse, Say this: Faire sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You cald me dog: and for these curtesies Ile ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris—in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... use of Mirabeau, but we do not take him seriously." When Mirabeau awoke to his predicament, he broke out in mixed wrath and scorn: "Of what are these people thinking? Do they not see the abyss yawning at their feet? Both the King and Queen will perish, and you will live to see the rabble spurn their corpses." ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... you've been able to pick up? Oh, no! there's a ham, and it's done to a turn So nice, that the nose of a Jew needn't stick up; And a tongue—well, a tongue I never could spurn; It's nice while the wine at our leisure we sip; And good with a cracker ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... before he had fairly reopened his eyes, our Manitou butterfly, now nearly ready to spurn the chrysalis, raised himself again to his elbow and took another dreamy survey of the room. His eyes, however, seemed to find no object to rest on, until they met a pair as dreamy as themselves—the innocent, blue ones, there at the foot of his bed, through which a soul was looking ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... rule by thought, And worth shall gain her just return, Till all shall every singer spurn Who in the ancient cycles taught That heroes rest in royal graves, But never in ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... hot countries" ("Origin," Edition VI., page 336).) But I am very glad to hear about Fuchsia, etc. I cannot make out what Hooker does believe; he seems to admit the former cooler climate, and almost in the same breath to spurn the idea. To retort Hooker's words, "it is inexplicable to me" how he can compare the transport of seeds from the Andes to the Organ Mountains with that from a continent to an island. Not to mention the much greater distance, there are no currents of water ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... he could have smashed the universe to pieces, and then re-created it merely in order to mould this one creature after his own desires. He would have made her of boundless pliability, and yet active in her love for him; he would have had her spurn venerable commandments in a spirit of self-glorification, and yet cherish unequivocal confidence in him, the creature of need and defiance; and she would be ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl, how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it to the presence of that higher Father who does not reject his children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it was otherwise, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... rock over which the rapids run is already scooped and hollowed out to a great extent by the action of the water; the edge of the precipice, too, is constantly crumbling and breaking off under the spurn of its downward leap. At the very brink the rock is not much more than two feet thick, and when I stood under it and thought of the enormous mass of water rushing over and pouring from it, it did ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We say to the white man, you are worthless, or worse. We will neither help you or be helped by you. To the black man we say, 'this cup of liberty which these, your old masters hold to your lips, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... "Mary will spurn me; she will not even look at me; and she will be right!" she cried, as we rolled away up the avenue. "An outrage like this can never be forgiven. But God knows I thought myself justified in my suspicions. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... launch ourselves in conceit into illimitable space, and take up our rest beyond the fixed stars. We proceed without impediment from country to country, and from century to century, through all the ages of the past, and through the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... hours with him which he so freely bestowed upon others. This demand Mr. Savage considered as a censure of his conduct which he could never patiently bear, and which, in the latter and cooler parts of his life, was so offensive to him, that he declared it as his resolution "to spurn that friend who should pretend to dictate to him;" and it is not likely that in his earlier years he received admonitions with more calmness. He was likewise inclined to resent such expectations, as tending to infringe his liberty, of which he was very jealous, when ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... and because I was unwilling to trust you alone with my companion. I made this choice, remember, without in the least knowing whether you were young or old, worthy of respect or unworthy. I did it because you were a woman, alone and without friends. Whether you spurn my protection or not will make no difference; I shall simply continue to do what I may on your behalf until you are again in the hands of ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... unhappy man had no idea. Nor had Priscilla. To stay in Symford seemed impossible, but to leave it seemed still more so. And sooner than go back disgraced to Kunitz and fling herself at paternal feet which would in all probability immediately spurn her, Priscilla felt she would die. But how could she stay in Symford, surrounded by angry neighbours, next door to Tussie, with Robin coming back for vacations, with Mrs. Morrison hating her, with Lady Shuttleworth hating her, with Emma's father hating her, with the blood of Mrs. Jones on her head? ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... was the hontynge off the Cheviat, that tear begane this spurn; Old men that knowen the grownde well yenoughe call it the ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... and that the soothing power of this narcotic tranquillised the soul of the aquatic patriarch, disturbed by the roar of billows and the convulsions of nature, and diffused its peaceful influence over the inmates of the ark. Yes, we are tempted to spurn the question, When and where was smoking introduced? as being equal to When and where was man introduced? Yet, as some do not consider man as a smoking animal "de natu et ab initio," the question may provoke some interesting replies from your ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out, and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the black-robed dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I—rather timidly, I confess—dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustic tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, 80 Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... woful demon from whose companionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tolls funeral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. What your faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurn violently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehemently despair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must bury as in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature of your mind to shine powerfully on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Their goods distribute, and their purses swell; When tipplers cease on wretchedness to think, Those born to sell, as well as these to drink; When every day each merry Andrew clears More cash than useful men in many years; When men to business come, or come to rake, And modest women spurn at Pope's mistake.[08] ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... severe upon him. But he has been so bad now that I am bound to tell you that you should drive him from your thoughts. When he told me, all smiling, that he had come down here to ask your cousin Mary to be his wife, I was almost minded to spurn him from the door. He can have no feeling himself of true attachment, and cannot know what it means in others. He is ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Ragnor's brow the beacons blaze, The Orient Pearl to greet, On her return. Two brides wait mid a throng of friends to meet Their war-proof knights. The shades of rank they spurn; They'd vowed for each a sister's love for aye ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... meadow; even the clouds are shaped like camels who have gone to heaven and turned to mother o' pearl. There are horses, too; not little sand stallions like ours, but ordinary, plodding animals whose hoofs know only Fayoum dust or mud. Our desert creature, however, does not spurn them. On the contrary, though he pretends not to notice camels, cows, or buffaloes, he whinnies and prances with delight when he meets anything of his own shape, and assumes hobby-horse attitudes, much to the alarm of Cleopatra and ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... scrupulous, he is, doubtless, by this time in the hands of the troops who have gone for him, and very well it is that we decided not to wait for you to lead him to us. So he had best be dismissed from your mind, as he presently will be from this life. Accept me, and your father goes free! Spurn me, and he dies in the chateau of Fleurier, and you shall still belong to me! Why not give me what I have the power and the intention ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... gav'st that Refuge and that Shrine, At which we learn to know thy ways; Father! the fatherless are thine! Thou wilt not spurn the ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... laughter to his enemies? Make not, my son, a shipwreck of thy wit For a woman. Thine own heart may teach thee this;— There's but cold comfort in a wicked wife Yoked to the home inseparably. What wound Can be more deadly than a harmful friend? Then spurn her like an enemy, and send her To wed some shadow in the world below! For since of all the city I have found Her only recusant, caught in the act, I will not break my word before the State. I will take her life. At this let her invoke The god of kindred blood! For if ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... reflection,' I continued, 'spurn it away from them as fit but for children and slaves. Must they then be without any principle of this kind? Is it safe for a community to grow up without faith in a superintending power, from whom they come, to whom they are responsible? ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... many ages seem to have elapsed since his unaccountable and perfidious disappearance! Could I still forgive him both that and the borrowed lucre that he promised to pay next week! Could I spurn him from my feet if he approached in penitence, and with a matrimonial object! Would the blandishing enchanter still weave his spells around me, or should I burst them all and turn away in coldness! I dare not trust my weakness with ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... Canaan," a parody on the numerous negro camp-meeting lays in which Lincoln was hailed as the coming Moses. This burlesque was laid before Mr. Lincoln, he taking the grim relish in hits at him, caricatures and sallies, which great men never spurn. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... for the first time, attracted my special attention. I had read it scores of times, but had never realized how strong a term was here used. No stronger is to be found in the language. It means to despise, detest, spurn, etc. I was startled, but I was at the same time glad. I could not help it, but I always did despise and detest a man who would grind the face of the poor, or who would keep back the wage of the laborer. Not that I would judge him, or take vengeance upon him; and I must forgive him and ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... regiments are already in the field; twenty more are now under drill. Will you not, in this hour of national peril, gratefully welcome the aid which they so eagerly proffer, to overthrow that slave power which has so long ruled the North, and now, that you spurn its sway, is bent on crushing YOU? Will you not abjure that vulgar hate which has conspired with slavery against liberty in our land, and thus roll from the sepulcher, where they have buried it alive, the stone which has so long imprisoned their victim? The army ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that phrase, though taste spurn it, I Fear, threatens staying with us to eternity. Who will deliver Our nerves, all a-quiver, From that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... wives. (Muses.) This night I have discover'd the base Perez Again essays his most inconstant fair, Blind as inconstant. She rejected me When, as Friar Anselmo teaching music, I offer'd her—'tis true, unholy love; And I by Perez was thrust out with shame, Spurn'd with contumely as the door was closed, With threats if ever I appear'd again, To blazon forth my impious attempt, and— Yet did she cozen me with melting eyes, And first roused up the demon in my breast, Then laugh'd in malice.——I hate her for it! Now as Don Gaspar, I've ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... thee well! I purpose no more in thy bondage to dwell; The burdens which thou hast enticed me to bear, I cast now aside with their troubles and care. I spurn thy allurements, which tempt and appall; ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... earth's brightest treasure. They say the maidens in your country are calm and cold as the snow on the Appenines, and it were in vain, therefore, for you, lady, to attempt to conceive what that love is. He might abandon me—he might forget me—he might spurn me, but still I should love him, though I slew him for his perfidy; and should die happily on the tomb to which I had consigned him. Then do not speak to me again of quitting him;—he is my world, and all else I have ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... unriddle, though I search, 150 And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How we can war, how engine our great wrath! O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's ear ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... purse all coin we spurn But gold, we may from mart return. Nor purchase what we're seeking; And if in parties we must talk Nothing but sterling wit, we balk ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... Mary Queen of Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Spurn not the nobly born With love affected, Nor treat with virtuous scorn The well connected. High rank involves no shame - We boast an equal claim With him of humble name To be respected! Blue blood! Blue blood! When virtuous love ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... friends, you add "my school." But I am ruining my temperament in trying not to have a school! A priori, I spurn them, every one. The people whom I see often and whom you designate cultivate all that I scorn and are indifferently disturbed about what torments me. I regard as very secondary, technical detail, local exactness, in short the historical and precise side of things. I am seeking above ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... after the philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the right discerning of true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a school of art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not content to set up shop for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters; which, by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could overthrow them, the more they hated them. For, indeed, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... show more than the fidelity of the sunflower to her God. The Rajah, it would appear, frowns interrogatively, in the princely fashion, accusing him of obscureness of speech:—princes and the louder members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not immediately comprehend. It is explained by the Minister: not even the flower, he says, would hold constant, as they, to the constantly unseen—a trebly cataphractic Invisible. The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mother, but Ernest had said, when gazing on her picture, he almost forgave the crime which had so much to extenuate it. The gambler, the profligate, the lost, abandoned being, who had thrown himself so abjectly on my compassion: in these characters, the high-minded Ernest would spurn him with withering indignation. Yet as the interview had been observed, and his suspicions excited, it was my duty to make an unreserved confession,—and I did. Conscious of the purity of my motives, and assured ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... rather be unknown, than so known; and even hated, than so loved. Where now are the impulses to such various and divers kinds of loves laid up in one soul? Why, since we are equally men, do I love in another what, if I did not hate, I should not spurn and cast from myself? For it holds not, that as a good horse is loved by him, who would not, though he might, be that horse, therefore the same may be said of an actor, who shares our nature. Do I then love in a man, what I hate to be, who am a man? Man himself is a great deep, whose ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... poor man who has always possessed nothing can feel for a rich merchant whose whole fortune is about to founder at sea. Do not spurn my feeble sort of pity. But do you know nothing of her, not a word, a sign? Is she alive or dead? Much less, does she still ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... inch &c. (obstinacy) 606. resist, cross; not grant &c. 762; repel, repulse, shut the door in one's face, slam the door in one's face; rebuff; send back, send to the right about, send away with a flea in the ear; deny oneself, not be at home to; discard, spurn, &c. (repudiate) 610; rescind &c. (revoke) 756; disclaim, protest; dissent &c. 489. Adj. refusing &c. v.; restive, restiff|; recusant; uncomplying, unconsenting; not willing to hear of, deaf to. refused &c. v.; ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible. Adv. no ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... violence and crime, Whose passions brooked no curb nor check. Behold me now, in gentler mood, One of this holy brotherhood. Give me your hand; here let me kneel; Make your reproaches sharp as steel; Spurn me, and smite me on each cheek; No violence can harm the meek, There is no wound Christ cannot heal! Yes; lift your princely hand, and take Revenge, if 't is revenge you seek, Then ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... roar of the wind he heard something else. Was it the tumbling of breakers? He listened, then concluded that it was his imagination. But they came nearer, louder; he sat up on his plank, his nerves tense. The board lurched sidewise, spurn around, and the swell it was riding broke over him with a force that knocked him from his position. Over and over he rolled, until, almost unconscious, he felt his body dragging along the sand. The undertow was pulling at him. He fought furiously, digging his hands into the sand, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... heed the warning voice: oh, spurn me not, My early friend; let the bruised heart go free: Mine were high fancies, but a wayward lot Hath made my youthful dreams in sadness flee; Then chide not, I would linger yet awhile, Thinking o'er wasted hours, a weary train, Cheered by the moon's soft light, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... all the loss, must rest on those that survive, who are so dead to the privileges of the Gospel, as either to forget that it was ever said,—"Whosoever receivers one such little one in my name, receivers me" (Matthew 18. 5), or to neglect the opportunity, despise the honour, and spurn away the blessing, of entertaining such a guest. Oh! if we really believed our Saviour's declaration, how dearly should we value, and how warmly embrace, such an opportunity of glorifying our Master, of blessing ourselves, ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... "Fool!" he would spurn himself. "Mad puffed-up fool! Keep in mind that she has her consolers, while you have only your wound. If she could stake her all upon the son of Lodbrok and then give him up at the turn of the wheel, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... train at your own heels, Darsie, and ask yourself whether you would not exert your legs as fast as you did in flying from the Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father's courage. I tell you he has courage enough to do what is right, and to spurn what is wrong—courage enough to defend a righteous cause with hand and purse, and to take the part of the poor man against his oppressor, without fear of the consequences to himself. This is civil ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... her words, and, as she waited for him to rise and spurn her, she wondered how she had ever brought herself to utter them. But she would not have recalled them even then. He moved at last, but not as she had anticipated. He gathered the tumbled hair back from her face, and, bending over her, ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... dream thou art the memory, My genius, in its wildest fancy, bound And petrified to immortality! A holy presence seems to hover round The deep, perpetual loveliness, as crowned With angel radiance, and plumed for flight, Thy pinioned sandals spurn the flowerless ground, Striving to gain that far Olympian height Towards which in rapturous awe upturns ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustick tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live unregarded, unlamented die. [k]For what but social guilt the friend endears? Who shares Orgilio's crimes, his fortune shares. [l]But thou, should tempting villany present All Marlb'rough ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... While coward conscience still affrights his eye, Still groans the dagger'd sound, "despair and die." And hapless Juliet's unextinguish'd flame, Gives to the tomb she mock'd, her beauteous frame; Yet diff'rent far, where Claudio sees return'd To life, and love, the maid too rashly spurn'd; Or Falstaff, in his sympathetic scroll, Forth to the Wives of Windsor pours his soul. Again, forsaking mirth's fantastic rites, The Muse to follow, through her nobler flights, Where Milton paints angelic hosts in arms, And Heaven's wide champaign ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... shall always continue to do so without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it, if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful. To go quit smoking, when there ain't any sufficient excuse for it!—why, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... behind one; not yield an inch &c (obstinacy) 606. resist, cross; not grant &c 762; repel, repulse, shut the door in one's face, slam the door in one's face; rebuff; send back, send to the right about, send away with a flea in the ear; deny oneself, not be at home to; discard, spurn, &c (repudiate) 610; rescind &c (revoke) 756; disclaim, protest; dissent &c 489. Adj. refusing &c v.; restive, restiff^; recusant; uncomplying, unconsenting; not willing to hear of, deaf to. refused &c v.; ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... so," and Mrs. Randall sighed. "You have a clear conscience, at any rate. But I, oh, you have no idea how I have sinned. I am sure that I can never be forgiven for what I have done. If you knew what I have done, you would spurn me as one unfit to stay in your ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... you can't affront the world, because you are bound by its conventionalities and respectabilities, as I am not. I spurn them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... import to those to whom false opinion and unjust institutions have denied the place which by the will of their Creator they are entitled to hold,—standing erect by the side of their fellow-men, and not crouching submissively at the feet which trample or spurn them. Alas! how few yet comprehend the law, on which the morality of every Christian people, and every Christian believer, should be built—"Thou shalt love thy neighbour," be he who he may, thou ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... That would be to lay stress on the inevitable pains and fears of commonplace humanity. He was not of that ilk. Intellect was his god; ambition his motive power. What would this casual blight upon his supreme contentment be to him, when with the wings of his air-car spread, he should spurn the earth and soar into the heaven of fame simultaneously with his flight ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Tales.] "to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise bestowed against the giver's conscience!... An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death!" This, to be sure, is a heated statement, in the mouth of a young author who is about to cast his unpublished works into the fire; but the dread expressed here is by no means unfounded. Even the publication ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... thousand oaths of such heartless slanderers as those that stab in the dark! Don't get angry, Charles, he's my father. Nobly done! How respectfully he acts when so abused and insulted! All will yet be right. Ah! I'll tell him how I spurn the accusation! How my soul burns with indignation that his fair name should be assailed! I am so glad he is coming; I know ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... don't succeed, try, try again," said Katherine optimistically. "Even if the fair Huronic did spurn us we can no doubt get the attention of a fishing boat. Some of them are always going round. Cheer up, Antha, and don't look so scared. Remember, you're with me, and I bear ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... baton must play—on rogues' shoulders.) Love's rather too apt to be left in the lurch By Orbilian smiters and scolders. Under the Mistletoe Bough A kiss is best treatment, I trow. A salute from the lips of your Punch you'll not spurn, And the young guests around you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... was known The treacherous fraud: for swift Numidian horse On every side surround them: leader, men — All see their fate in one dread moment come. No coward flees, no warrior bravely strides To meet the battle: nay, the trumpet call Stirs not the charger with resounding hoof To spurn the rock, nor galling bit compels To champ in eagerness; nor toss his mane And prick the ear, nor prancing with his feet To claim his share of combat. Tired, the neck Droops downwards: smoking sweat bedews the limbs: Dry from the squalid mouth protrudes the tongue, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... with thy beauty choose To make him blest who loves thee best of all? Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, Poor, or a cripple born, Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow With honour to our land, with pomp and power; My youth is yet in flower, And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. My lot it is to deal right royally With all the goods that fortune spreads around, For still they more abound, Shaken from her full lap, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... I remember in the country, some here, who affect to despise what they cannot understand; such enterprising critics and fastidiously hypercritics, men of truly philosophical penetration—of a truly classical taste spurn aside the coarse beverage to be found in Gr. mss. ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... more shameful indulgences, but to humbly wash a brother's feet would be shocking in the extreme. "If a man love me he will keep my words." John 14:23. Where true love exists there is no disposition to spurn any of the Lord's commandments, however humiliating they ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, though a weeping wife And helpless ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... careless hearts thy sad but precious store, And if life's struggle should thy thoughts beguile, Quicken the pulse, and tempt the cheerful smile, Should worldly shadows cross that form unseen, And duty claim a place where grief hath been, Spurn not the balm by toil o'er suffering shed, Nor fear to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming ...
— Clocks - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... away as though it were water. Opportunities which angels covet they fling away as of no consequence, and die failures, because they have "no chance in life." Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble. Scarcely a mortal returns to us who has not robbed himself of years of precious life. Scarcely a man returns to us dropping off in genuine old age, as autumn leaves drop in ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Neergard's acreage adjoining the Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he wanted a little more out of him—just enough to place himself on a secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack cotillon leader, was regarded by the ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Burke; "I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because they are men." "It is the great privilege of poverty" says Dr. Johnson, "to be happy unenvied, to be healthy without physic, and to be secure without guard." Is it not ridiculous for the poor man, by aping the habits of the rich, to spurn some of the greatest blessings attaching to our life? Thus, as ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... of a great people, inheritors of glorious antecedents, of an historic renown for those qualities of a high order, the deep-seated sentiment of personal, as of national honour and dignity, the integrity, fidelity, and gallantry, which more loftily spurn contaminating approximation with action springing out of base, sordid, and degrading motives and associations—have been sapped and corrupted by the debasing influences of that gigantic system of organized illicit trade which covers Spain with hordes of contrabandistas, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the monumental stone In coldness and stern-browed indifference, But in the paths of love, and sympathy, And lowly charity, true glory lies, The substance of all joy and happiness. Let not thy spirit spurn man's fellowship, And force the stream of kindness up life's steep, Till, 'mid the rocky peaks of Thought it flow Unmargined by the verdant bloom of Act. Shun Self! 'tis like the worm a rosy bud Folds in its young embraces till it gnaw The heart out. Nature's is no volume writ For his interpreting ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... whereon My soul intent allows no other thought Or room or entrance."—"Hast thou seen," said he, "That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet The falcon first looks down, then to the sky Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food, That woos him thither; so the call I heard, So onward, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... riches, his power, and his acquirements have corrupted. Thou hast only known him who has sacrificed his nature to thy own idol,—to vanity. Thou hast merely frequented palaces and courts, where men spurn away the unfortunate, and laugh at the complaints of the oppressed, whilst they are dissipating in revel-rout and roar that which they have robbed them of. Thou hast seen the sovereigns of the world; thou hast seen tyrants surrounded by their parasites and their infamous ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... nature; it swings the whip of the furies. For your own sake, do not thrust your degrading madness upon my notice. I have labored to liberate you; have subordinated all other aims to this, and now, that I have come to set you free, you repulse and spurn me!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... all bounteous hand descend Rare gifts in rich effusion, And with those gifts no poisons blend, Nor is their end delusion; So do not spurn if He bestow Those forms arrayed in beauty; If thus His gifts with radiance glow, Enjoyment is ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... for chiding, No one's temper will you rile. And when Heaven's golden portals For you on their hinges turn, With the books for all immortals, There will be no rules to learn. Therefore heed them, Often read them, Lest your future weal you spurn. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... now accosted Ashton, was the one who acted imp to his satanic majesty in leading him to his last fall, and here he was again to tempt him. Well would it be for you, Richard Ashton, if you would contemptuously spurn him as you would kick a rabid dog ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... some of you, and turn this strumpet forth! Spurn her into the street; there let her perish, And rot upon a dunghill. Through the city See it proclaim'd, that none, on pain of death, Presume to give her comfort, food, or harbour; Who ministers the ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... friendship that unite you with the Emperor Alexander, and oppose him as an enemy, menacing and demanding satisfaction. There must be no stain on your honor, and if you believe the statements of these papers, show to the world that you will punish the faithless wife and spurn the treacherous friend!" ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Heylin, 'that the people in many great trading towns which were near the sea, having long been discharged of the bond of ceremonies, no sooner came to hear the least noise of a conformity, but they began to spurn against it; and when they found that all their striving was in vain, that they had lost the comfort of their lecturers and that their ministers began to shrink at the very name of a visitation, it was no hard matter for those ministers and lecturers to persuade them to remove their dwellings and ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... injured—and thus the pleasure is legitimate; though bigoted churchmen and canting hypocrites may declaim on the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the parson and his ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Story Books! we owe ye much old friends, Bright coloured threads in memory's wrap, of which Death holds the ends, Who can forget ye? Who can spurn the ministers of joy That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? Talk of your vellum, gold emboss'd morocco, roan, and calf, The blue and yellow wraps of old were ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... patched up the quarrel. The Congress may be as tame as a lamb, and as subject as a foot-sole. Mr. Seward may on his knees proffer to the rebels a compromise and the most stringent safeguards for slavery; to-day the rebels will spurn all as they would have spurned it during the whole year. The rebels will act as Mason did when in the Senate hall Mr. Seward asked the traitor to be introduced ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... our language in which we delight, if the sources of our law and politics, if the great exploits of contemporary scholarship and science, are largely beyond our boundaries, yet are legitimately ours as well as all that we have ourselves achieved, why should we spurn any of our just and hereditary share in the great English traditions ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... all agleam, And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... yourself wiser than Jesus of Nazareth? Do you seriously suppose yourselves competent to amend his plan for dealing with all the evils besetting states and souls? Have you the effrontery to believe that those who spurn his Golden Rule you can bind to obedience of an act entitled an act to amend an act? Bah! you fatigue the spirit. Go get ye to your scoundrel lockouts, your villain strikes, your blacklisting, your boycotting, your speech-ing, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... propriety in giving our assent to the committee's report. We have incurred the censure of some of our own people, but we were willing to take the risk of all this censure in order to allay your apprehensions. We expected you to meet us in the path of compromise. Instead of that you reject and spurn our propositions. Take time, gentlemen, for reflection. Beware how you spurn this report, and incur the awful responsibility which will follow. Reject it, and if the country is plunged in war, and the Union endangered, you are the men ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... habitations spurn'd, Reluctant dost thou rove; Or grieve for friendship unreturn'd, Or ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their language: those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakespeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe, and investigate the realms of Chaos and Old Night; and of dramatists, who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... I'll whisper a secret now, seeing 'tis you— I have tried it, and know all about it, The chain of a debtor is heavy and cold. Its links all corrosion and rust; Gild it o'er as you will, it is never of gold, Then spurn it aside with disgust. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... others. This demand Mr. Savage considered as a censure of his conduct, which he could never patiently bear, and which, in the latter and cooler part of his life, was so offensive to him, that he declared it as his resolution, "to spurn that friend who should presume to dictate to him;" and it is not likely, that, in his earlier years, he received admonitions ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... deceive you, not all your array of domestics, not all your barred doors, can save you from a violent death, or the guilt of murder, if you do not stop this unrighteous prosecution—for your own sake I entreat you stop, ere it be too late. Spurn this grey head if you will into the dust, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... slain Cheviot hills within. 'God have mercy on his soul!' said Kyng Harry, 'Good Lord, if thy will it be. I have a hondrith Captains in Englonde As good as ever was he; But Perse, and I brook my lyffe Thy death well quit shall be.' This was the honting off the Cheviot 'That tear beganne this spurn:' Old men that known the ground well enough Call it the battle of Otterburn. At Otterburn began this spurn Upon a Monnynday; There was the doughtie Douglas slain, The Perse went ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... [Strikes him again. Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes Like balls before me—I'll unhair thine head— Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... be entered—and solicitors make more money—they well knew that there were many religious people among their constituents, and it would not do for them to act singular, or else they would find so short an account at the next ballot-box that they would not be sent back. He would spurn such legislators and keep them for ever ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... man had no idea. Nor had Priscilla. To stay in Symford seemed impossible, but to leave it seemed still more so. And sooner than go back disgraced to Kunitz and fling herself at paternal feet which would in all probability immediately spurn her, Priscilla felt she would die. But how could she stay in Symford, surrounded by angry neighbours, next door to Tussie, with Robin coming back for vacations, with Mrs. Morrison hating her, with Lady Shuttleworth hating her, with Emma's father hating her, with the blood of Mrs. Jones on ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... is so much like her that, if I knew thee less, I should count thee her affinity. Thy look is terrible. Calm thee, my noble brother, for more thou art to me—calm thee, Chios; I fear thee for the first time. Thou wilt not also curse me. Look at me! pity me! I have bared my very soul to thee. Spurn me not. Thy look tells me thou art on the verge of doing so. Let me cling a little to thee, Chios dear. Help Nika. Cheer her, if with only one tender look. I have somewhat learned to bear the curse of Hecate, the curse of loving thee without return ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... heart! To stupefy oneself with other wines, is brutal; but to raise oneself to the seventh heaven with thee, is quite ethereal. The soul appears to spurn the body, and take a transient flight without its dull associate—the—the—broke down, by Jupiter! All I meant to say was, that champagne is very pretty tipple; and so thought the dinner party, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you say so, I'll not be against it: But, sir, you might have us'd my daughter better, Than to have beat her, spurn'd her, rail'd ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... that ancient Counsellor thou wottest of, and cursed be I who wakened That which slept, and warmed That which was a-cold in my breath and in my breast! And cursed be this sin to which he led me! Spurn me, Rei; strike me on the cheek, spit upon me, on Meriamun, the Royal harlot who sells herself to win a crown. Oh, I hate him, hate him, and I will pay him in shame for shame—him, the clown in king's attire. See here,'—and from her robe she drew ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered the virtue and the pride ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in the low intervening hot countries" ("Origin," Edition VI., page 336).) But I am very glad to hear about Fuchsia, etc. I cannot make out what Hooker does believe; he seems to admit the former cooler climate, and almost in the same breath to spurn the idea. To retort Hooker's words, "it is inexplicable to me" how he can compare the transport of seeds from the Andes to the Organ Mountains with that from a continent to an island. Not to mention the much greater distance, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... please a friend who pleaseth thee * Frankly, in public practise secrecy. And spurn the slanderer's tale, who seldom[FN222] * seeks Except the severance of true love to see. They say, when lover's near, he tires of love, * And absence is for love best remedy: Both cures we tried and yet we are not cured, * Withal we judge that nearness easier be: ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... be a sable brother, treat him kindly as another! Ah, perhaps the world has scorned him for that luckless hue he wore, No such narrow prejudices can he know whom Love possesses— Whom one spark of Freedom blesses. Do not spurn him from thy door Lest ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... true, my dearest; Yet, when I call to mind, how many fair ones Make wilful shipwreck of their faiths and oaths. To fill the arms of greatness; And you, with matchless virtue, thus to hold out, Against the stern authority of a father, And spurn at honour, when it comes to court you; I am so tender of your good, that I can hardly Wish myself that right you ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... blight has come upon it all. I loved you too well—too well for either mine or your own good. Yielding to the fondness of a mother's love, I indulged almost your every wish, until now, turbulent and self-willed, you spurn my best and holiest affections as a mockery, and I find, almost too late, that I have greatly erred. I speak this in no spirit of unkindness, David. I feel it to be my duty as a Christian—my duty as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... offered my love and to be thus rejected! Would to Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... revolutionise the trade of the world. And yet Silviane appeared once more, and smacked him on both cheeks with her dainty little hand, which she had dipped in the gutter. It was only towards daybreak that he at last dozed off, while vowing in a fury that he would never see her again, that he would spurn her, and order her away, even should she come and drag herself at ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... undertaking and their own augury! What thou desirest, Trojan, shall be given; nor do I spurn your gifts. While Latinus reigns you shall not [262-294]lack foison of rich land nor Troy's own riches. Only let Aeneas himself come hither, if desire of us be so strong, if he be in haste to join our friendship and be called our ally. Let him not ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... name, And bid them, in their love, kind pity take Upon her offspring, for the father's sake. And speak my message in the monarch's ear, The last last words of mine that he shall hear: "Say, was it worthy of thy noble race Thy guiltless queen thus lightly to disgrace? For idle tales to spurn thy faithful bride, Whose constant truth the searching fire had tried? Or may I hope thy soul refused consent, And but thy voice decreed my banishment? Hope that no care could turn, no love could stay ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... we have wished to respect you as a father; but since you do not blush to treat us as vassals and as peasants—since you have forgotten that you speak to princes, we spurn your menaces. Execute them. We appeal to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... glow with either lust until she seemed incandescent—she went slowly to work. The quicker she saw, the slower she was reducing sight into possession. With all this, like her son Richard, she was capable of strong revulsions. Thus she had loved, then hated King Henry; thus she was to spurn, then ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... mud from Dives' wheel To spurn the rags of Lazarus? Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel, Confessing Heaven that ruled ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... What should I say to you? Should I not say, Hath a dog money? Is it possible A curre should lend three thousand ducats? or Shall I bend low, and in a bond-mans key With bated breath, and whispring humblenesse, Say this: Faire sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You cald me dog: and for these curtesies Ile lend ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... had unbarr'd the door, And Chanticleer went strutting out before. With royal courage, and with heart so light, As show'd he scorned the visions of the night. Now roaming in the yard, he spurn'd the ground, And gave to Partlet the first grain he found; Then often feather'd her with wanton play, And trod her twenty times ere prime of day; And took by turns, and gave, so much delight, Her sisters pined with envy at the sight. 440 He chuck'd again, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... paragon? Que diable! one does not spurn five thousand francs like that! I hum or whistle when I am thinking, and just now I am wondering how this business can be ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... shall have to change the subject. Love affects people in as many different ways as wine. Some are exalted,—their feet spurn the earth, their heads are in the clouds; some pugnacious, walking about with a chip on the shoulder; others are stupidly happy,—their faces wearing a sickly smile that becomes painful to look at; others again, like you, melancholy as a wailing tenor in the last act of 'Lucia.' Like learning, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... kind to dumb creatures, be gentle, be true, For food and protection they look up to you; For affection and help to your bounty they turn. Oh, do not their trusting hearts wantonly spurn! ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... amount of stocks, A vast amount of pride insures; But Fate has picked so many locks I wouldn't like to warrant yours. Remember, then, and never spurn The one whose hand is hard and brown, For he is likely to go up, And you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... and for days and days I heard nothing but shouting and swearing, and saw animals dripping with blood, and crying and moaning in their anguish, and now, Laura, if you'd lay down a bit of Ch o meat, and cover it with gold, I'd spurn it from me. But what am I saying? you're as white as a sheet. Come and see the cow stable. John's ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... think of receiving secret addresses from Philip Wakem. If it was not disgusting to me in every other way, I should object to my sister's name being associated for a moment with that of a young man whose father must hate the very thought of us all, and would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think it quite certain that what you witnessed just before my father's death would secure you from ever thinking again of Philip Wakem as a lover. But I don't feel certain of it ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
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