"Disdain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resolved, I advanced, with a smile of disdain, to meet Margrave and his veiled companion, as they now came from the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... him, and preparing to remount his horse, he discerned a knight and a lady in the distance. The knight was in a coat of armour unknown to him, and the lady kneeling and drinking at a fountain, which was the one that had formerly quenched his own thirst; to wit, the Fountain of Disdain. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... effort to conceal her disdain, but Doctor Jack ate heartily, praised everything, and brought the blush of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... him with a disfavour which amounted to positive dislike, others with disdain and even contempt, and others thought of Wyndham and wondered what Willoughby was coming to. Even among the Sixth many an unfriendly glance was darted at him as he took his seat, and many a whispered foreboding passed from boy to boy. Only a few watched him with looks of sympathy, ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... decoration. It is true that there are some such titled persons in America, but they are not treated with any greater respect or distinction than other citizens; yet you frequently find people in America who not only would not disdain, but are actually anxious, to receive decorations from foreign governments. Once, at least, an American high official, just before leaving the country to which he had been accredited, accepted, without permission, a decoration, knowing, that if he had ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington most decidedly turned up their noses at the breakfast table when they saw Estelle sitting between Ruth and Alice. And their murmurs of disdain ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... virile; her admirers were now all, except for him, younger than herself. She liked his friendship, his society, his ready and unselfish support, but she could not bear to think of him as a suitor, and there was almost disdain ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... his new religion. Very soon he arrived at the point of searching for objections to refute, and adversaries to overthrow. Bold and enterprising, he went at once to the strongest, and Bossuet was the first Catholic author that he set himself to read. He commenced with a kind of disdain; believing that the faith which he had just embraced contained the pure truth. He despised all the attacks which could be made against it, and laughed already at the irresistible arguments which he was to find in the works of the Eagle ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for many a year; And when he smiled, if o'er his face Smile ever shone, 'twas like the grace Of moonlight rainbows, fair, but wan, The sunny life, the glory gone. Even o'er his pride tho' still the same, A softening shade from sorrow came; And tho' at times his spirit knew The kindlings of disdain and ire, Short was the fitful glare they threw— Like the last flashes, fierce but few, Seen thro' some noble pile on fire! Such was the Angel who now broke The silence that had come o'er all, When he ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... him, and Sturk looked at the back of the volume with a leisurely disdain, but finding no title there, returned to the recipe. They both stared on his face, without breathing, while he conned it over. When he came about half-way, he whistled; and when he arrived at the end, he frowned hard; and squeezed his lips together till the red disappeared ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... is no hope to 'scape us: If that against the odds we have upon you You dare come forth, and fight, receive the honour To dye like Romans, if ye faint, resolve To starve like Wretches; I disdain to change Another syllable with ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... his lordship, in high disdain. "Curse him—he must fight. I'll horsewhip him in the Park! That's all nonsense, Tom. The fellow's a gentleman. I'll say that for him. He'll see the propriety of keeping the whole thing quiet, if it was only out of regard for her. You must settle it, Tom. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... only to himself,—(but doubtless plain to the reader of this narrative),—he devoted most of his attention to the editor and his wife and to the two spinsters who were such close friends of the young lady of his dreams. As for the others, he made no attempt to conceal his disdain. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... odious arrangement. Lady Grosville and I, as you probably know, are not on terms. She says atrocious things of me—and I—" the fair head fell back a little, and the white shoulders rose, with the slightest air of languid disdain—"well, bear me witness that I don't retaliate! It's not worth while. But I know that Grosville House can help Kitty. So!—" Her gesture, half ironical, half resigned, completed ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... great to be an humble listener to Johnson. Therefore he shunned him on having experienced what manner of man he was. The surly dictator felt the mortification, and revenged it by affecting to avow his disdain of powers too distinguished to be objects of ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... Alas, that home To thee has grown so strange! Oh, Uly! Uly! I scarce do know thee now, thus deck'd in silks, The peacock's feather[45] flaunting in thy cap, And purple mantle round thy shoulders flung; Thou look'st upon the peasant with disdain; And tak'st his honest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the only one to whom the afternoon had brought trials. Chris had not been without his share of troubles. The Seminoles treated him with marked disdain and would not even permit him to eat with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... chapels of Oxford to-day, you will find inscribed on memorial tablets to the fallen not only the names of Britishers, but also the names of German Rhodes Scholars, who died fighting for their country against the men who were once their friends. Generosity, justice, disdain of animosity-these virtues were learnt on the playing-fields and race-courses. England knows their value; she treats war as a sport because so she will fight better. For her that ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... taxi, A job he'd now disdain; He's learning (on a queer machine) To drive an aeroplane. It doesn't fly—it glumps along And bumps him, ev'ry chance; His tumbling, rumbling "Penguin" Out ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... the haughtiest aristocrat who sought admission had to lay aside all pride of place or birth and acknowledge her kinship with common humanity. The Bourbon rose could not hold aside her skirts from contact with the cabbage-rose; the lavender could not disdain the companionship of sage and thyme. All must live together in the concord of a perfect democracy. Then if the great Gardener bestowed rain and sunshine when they were needed, mid-summer days would show a glorious symphony of color around the gray farmhouse, and through the enchantment of bloom ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself....The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner and would disdain, as much as a lord, to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... the vilest of men for lust. And though Martha had often desired that her sister would go with her to hear her preachers, yea, had often entreated her with tears to do it, yet could she never prevail; for still Mary would make her excuse, or reject her with disdain, for her zeal ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to be taught this fact. Tradition relates that at one time he met an insignificant-looking toad in his path which he would have passed by in disdain had it not been for its particularly ugly appearance. Thinking to do the world a service by destroying it he thumped the reptile with his club, when, to his surprise, instead of being crushed by the impact, the beast grew to twice its former size. Repeated and heavier blows only multiplied ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... awaiting his chance. "Another? Really! We're guests, Sheila, do you hear that?" He looked at Mandleco with immense disdain, gave a pert tilt of his head and surveyed the room with a grimace of distaste. "And just how long are we to ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... the wrong subject had not failed her. Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they all knew of June's predilection for 'genius' not yet on its legs, and her contempt for 'success' unless she had had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enough—and God forbid she ever should have more. France, possessed of popular enthusiasm, of party attachments, has had and still has too much influence on our politics,—any foreign influence is too much and ought to be destroyed. I detest the man and disdain the spirit that can ever bend to a mean subserviency to the views of any nation. It is enough to be American. That character comprehends our duties and ought to engross our attachments." Considering the probable influence on the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in Kings more than repeated petitioning—and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the Kings of Europe absolute: ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... its former bad habits—so powerful is the effect of a well-chosen motive! Perhaps the historian may be blamed for dwelling on such trivial anecdotes; yet a lady, who was accustomed to the conversation of deep philosophers and polished courtiers, listened without disdain to these simple annals. Nothing appeared to her a trifle that could tend to form the habits of temper, truth, honesty, order, and industry: habits which are to be early induced, not by solemn precepts, but by practical lessons. A few more examples of these shall be recorded, notwithstanding ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are dying to gobble it down—just in the same manner as you'll observe pussy, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff and turn away her head as if rejecting the morsel with disdain, affecting to make you believe it beneath her notice, only the next moment to abstract it slily from your hand, glad enough to get it! You'll see presently, Mr Marline, that our friend there will go at the pork ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the terriers being on the bed with their master. No entreaty, however, ever induced Bruno to sleep on anything softer than stone. He would remove the hearth-rug and lay on the marble. His master used to instance the dog's disdain of luxury as a ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... manage to take care of you for a few days or even weeks until she is able to come back and look after you," said the doctor, linking Rupert with himself in the matter of responsibility in a way that made the boy flush with pleasure, although Sylvia wrinkled her nose with a fine disdain. ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... handles his technical terms that he does not know the use of them. He was a smatterer of that most dangerous kind, who feel certain they have arrived at truth. Like so many other children of the eighteenth century, he rejected the past with disdain, but was blindly credulous of the future; and was ready to embrace an absurdity if it came in a new and scientific shape. The marquises and abbes he met in France had dreamed over elementary principles of society and government, until they had lost themselves in wandering ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... end of five months he was devoutly, even pathetically, hoping that his uncle was no false prophet. He loathed Thorberg; he hated the inhabitants; he smarted under the sting of royal disdain; he had no real friends, no boon companions and he was obliged to be good! What wonder, then, that the bored, suffering, vivacious Mr. Chase seized the first opportunity to leap headforemost into the very thick ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... woman of forty-five summers, which, according to her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs. In her youth she had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she had looked with the utmost disdain on her numerous Filipino adorers, even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted under her balcony by Captain Tiago. Her aspirations bore her toward ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... undergo His cold-bath treatment, spite of frost and snow. Good sooth, the town is filled with spleen, to see Its myrtle-groves attract no company; To find its sulphur-wells, which forced out pain From joint and sinew, treated with disdain By tender chests and heads, now grown so bold, They brave cold water in the depth of cold, And, finding down at Clusium what they want, Or Gabii, say, make that their winter haunt. Yes, I must change my quarters; my good horse Must pass the inns where once he stopped of course. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... curious how completely I lost interest in our new house as soon as the prospect of getting rich dawned upon me. You will not believe it, but after that talk with Colonel Doller I looked with actual disdain upon the old Schmittheimer home and its broad, velvety lawn under the noble trees. I was so possessed with the fascinating scheme suggested by Colonel Doller that I was even tempted to bid Uncle Si and his men quit work until I had consulted with Alice as to the feasibility of abandoning ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... the editorial cloak—the golden beams were brought to bear upon it. We have it for certain that an offer was made to a member of the establishment to stay all impending proceedings, and, further, to pay down a sum of L500 on the names of the actual writers being given up. It was rejected with disdain, while such were the precautions taken that it was impossible to fix Hook, though suspicion began to be awakened, with any share in the concern. In order, also, to cross the scent already hit off, and announced by sundry deep-mouthed pursuers, the following "Reply"—framed upon the principle, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... before her loomed The Goddess of Liberty—in statue-stone. Queen Roland saw, and spake the words that ring Along the centuries—"O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"—and died. And when the headsman raised her severed head To hell-dogs shouting "Vive la Liberte," Godlike disdain still sparkled in her eyes. Grim Hell herself in pity stood aghast, Clanged shut her doors and stopped her ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... of my youth are crost, My health is flown, my vigour lost; My soothing friends augment my pain, And cheerless is my native plain; Dark o'er my spirit hangs the gloom, And thy disdain has fix'd my doom. But light gales ruffle o'er the sea, Which soon shall bear me far from thee; And wherefoe'er our course is cast, I know will bear me to my rest. Full deep beneath the briny wave, Where rest ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... understood. The smile, that was half-disdain, deepened. She bowed slightly, but graciously. ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... was young and beautiful; I became enamoured of her, and ventured to ask her hand. I had preserved the secret of my receipt. Mehdad was ignorant that he owed his good fortune to me, and believed that it was through his own talent. He rejected my offer with disdain, and drove me from his house. Poor fellow! he was not the first who, without knowing it, had driven good luck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... gigantic. They may be reproached with a kind of exaggeration; but it cannot be denied that there is in this exaggeration an ideal majesty, which elevates human nature above the weak and perishing nature of reality. The Tuscan artists, satisfied with commanding admiration, seem to disdain seeking to please. The description of the Roman school we conceive to be not so fortunate. Its excellence is attributed to the antique, distinguished "by great beauty in the forms, a composition elegant, although often singular, and by expressions ideal rather than natural, of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... succession of festivities, and the whole winter was spent in gaiety and dissipation; banquets, ballets, and hunting-parties succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity; and so magnificent were several of the Court festivals that even some of the gravest historians of the time did not disdain to record them. The most brilliant of the whole, however, and that which will best serve to exemplify the taste of the period, was the ballet to which allusion has already been made as given in honour of the King by his royal consort, and in which Marie ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments, carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear could reach, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... you are wrong; And your superannuated allies, TYPE and FIGURE, whom I disdain to combat, cannot aid you ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... screened off by a row of chestnuts, which, when in its glory of flower, in the early days of May, no other row in England can surpass in beauty. Had any one told Dale of Allington,—this Dale or any former Dale,—that his place wanted wood, he would have pointed with mingled pride and disdain to his belt ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... mean—marry without knowing what a woman is! How many of the predestined proceed with their wives as the ape of Cassan did with his violin! They have broken the heart which they did not understand, as they might dim and disdain the amulet whose secret was unknown to them. They are children their whole life through, who leave life with empty hands after having talked about love, about pleasure, about licentiousness and virtue as slaves talk about liberty. Almost ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... strength and prowess, have counseled me to seek thee out. For I have wrought great deeds in the past, and now I shall do battle against this monster. Men say that so thick is his tawny hide that no weapon can injure him. I therefore disdain to carry sword or shield into the combat, but will fight with the strength of my arm only, and either I will conquer the fiend or he will bear away my dead body to the moor. Send to Higelac, if I fall in the fight, my beautiful breastplate. I have no fear of death, ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... go away with looks of hatred and disdain within his eyes, and when I called them Butterflies of Gay Nippon, he gave an ejaculation of great disgust, as at this time he is not o'erfond of the Japanese. He believes, along with others, that they are helping the rebels with their money, and we ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... wilderness, cavern, and cave, Building the citadel, fortress, and town, Fearing nor desert, the sea, nor the grave: Courage finds her a niche in the knave, Fame is not niggard with laurel or pain; Pathways with blood and bones do they pave: These are the hazards that kings disdain! ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the uneasiness felt on account of the Dauphin augmented. He himself did not conceal his belief that he would never rise again, and that the plot Pondin had warned him of had been executed. He explained himself to this effect more than once and always with a disdain of earthly grandeur and an incomparable submission and love of God. It is impossible to describe the general consternation. On Monday the 15th the King was bled. The Dauphin was no better than before. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... I must! Disgrace here weighs me down. Courage I have to bear my poverty, But in each Roman face to read disdain And frank contempt—! No, no; that is too much! In Gaul I'll live in quiet solitude; There shall I soon forget my former self, Dull all my longings for the greater things, And as the vaguest dream recall ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... rigid silence, and went through the steps of the quadrille without so much as a look at the talker, Ratman was sober enough to be annoyed at this chilly disdain. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... brought to the King, who asked him if he thought the Irish would make any further resistance, and he replied, "On my honor I believe they will, for they have still a good body of horse entire." William, eying him with a look of disdain, repeated, "Your honor, your honor!" but took no other notice of his having acted contrary to his engagement, when he was permitted to go to Ireland on promise of persuading Tyrconnel to submit to the new government. The Irish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the breaking billows, And ever the rocks' disdain; And ever a thrill in mine inmost heart That my ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... courtesy is to observe as far as practicable every national prejudice. The old proverb, to "do in Rome as Romans do," is the best rule of etiquette in foreign travel. The man who affects a supercilious disdain for all foreign customs and forms will not convince the natives of his vast superiority, but impress them with the belief that he is an ill- bred idiot. The most polite, as well as agreeable travellers are those who will smilingly devour mouse-pie and bird's-nest soup in China, dine ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... annoyances I caused him. It may be imagined whether or not this softened me. The Duc de Noailles had, in fact, behaved towards me with such infamous treachery, and such unmasked impudence, that I took pleasure at all times and at all places in making him feel, and others see, the sovereign disdain I entertained for him. I did not allow my private feelings to sway my judgment when public interests were at stake, for when I thought the Duc de Noailles right, and this often occurred, I supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... fruit, where he was well received, except by a couple of brutal cobblers, who, without any cause, took offence at the generous creature, and once or twice attempted to wound his proboscis with their awls. The noble animal, who knew it was beneath him to crush them, did not disdain to chastise them by other means. He filled his large trunk with a considerable quantity of water, not of the cleanest quality, and advancing to them as usual, covered them at once with a dirty flood. The fools were laughed ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... upon a song, to which, had it occurred in the first act, he would have given but one. He held that towards the middle of a performance success should be quietly fostered, but never forced. For the claqueurs of other theatres Auguste entertained a sort of disdain. It was, as he averred, the easiest thing in the world to obtain success at the Opera Comique, or the Vaudeville. The thing was managed there not so much by applause as by laughter. There was the less need for careful management; the less ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... pictures of power, and affluence, and domestic love, that dazzled the imagination of his hearer; and while the prisoner thought of his Isabelle, instead of rejecting the impious proposal, as at first he had done, with disdain and horror, his soul bent like iron in the breath of the furnace flame, and he wavered and became irresolute. The keen eye of the Caliph saw the working of his spirit within him, and allowed him yet another day to form his resolution. When the second day ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... representative of the stalwart vigour and the intellectual shrewdness evident in the best men of his time. The English domestic life of the period was certainly far from blameless, and anything but refined; but if we have gained in some ways, we are hardly entitled to look with unqualified disdain upon the rough vigour of our beer-drinking, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... any undue eagerness, any crude desire to affirm anddefine her hold on him. Her life had given her a certain acquaintance with the arts of defense: girls in her situation were commonly supposed to know them all, and to use them as occasion called. But Lizzie's very need of them had intensified her disdain. Just because she was so poor, and had always, materially, so to count her change and calculate her margin, she would at least know the joy of emotional prodigality, would give her heart as recklessly ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... threw out his hands in a gesture of disdain, and the nurse laughed again; but her cheeks were pink and her eyes flashing as she ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Yet, am I happy? No—far from happy! The lovely English comdienne—the beautiful Julia, whose dramatic ability is so overwhelming that our audiences forgive even her strong English accent—that rare and radiant being treats my respectful advances with disdain unutterable! And yet, who knows? She is haughty and ambitious, and it may be that the splendid change in my fortunes may work a corresponding change ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... quite like you to disdain to share your terrible responsibility. I can lighten it a little. I ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Townshend, were at different times among the hearers.[758] Horace Walpole tells us that in 1766 it was quite the rage at Bath among persons in high life to form parties to hear the different preachers who 'supplied' the chapel. The bishops themselves did not disdain to attend 'incognito;' curtained seats were placed immediately inside the door, where the prelates were smuggled in; and this was wittily called 'Nicodemus's corner.' The Duchess of Buckingham accepted an invitation from Lady Huntingdon to attend her chapel at Bath in the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... ceaseless collision of individualistic and collectivistic tendencies, they teach forbearance, and patience, and the will to face the facts—tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. And they are modern: treating problems of character and milieu, they disdain the adventitious aids of eloquence and theatrical splendor, and speak to us with the directness, often with the bluntness, of nature herself. Hebbel was no naturalist, in the sense of one who seeks but to reproduce phenomena in all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... fortunes of men, as they do of empires. Kellerman's charge at Marengo, Blucher's arrival at Waterloo, Louis XIV.'s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain,—all these great causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their own life. Consequently, observe what happens: the Duchesse de Langeais (see "History ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... grew luminous. Katahdin's mighty presence seemed to absorb such dreamy glimmers as float in limpid night-airs: a faint glory, a twilight of its own, clothed it. King of the daylit-world, it became queen of the dimmer realms of night, and like a woman-queen it did not disdain to stoop and study its loveliness in the polished lake, and stooping thus it overhung the earth, a shadowy creature of gleam and gloom, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... ardently was he invited to join the Companies the young Florentine lords were used in those days to form among themselves, feasting, supping, gaming and hunting together, and sometimes so dearly loving each other that one and all would wear garments of a like cut and colour. But with equal disdain he shunned the society of Florentine ladies and the assemblages of her young Nobles; for so proud and fierce was his humour, he took ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... fit precisely—yes: We should achieve a huge success! You should disdain and I despair With quite the true Augustan air; But ... could I love you more or ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... came from the intruder's deep chest, all eyes were turned to him. Disdain was plainly visible in ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Weaver Jimmie, with a fine assumption of disdain, "it's little I'll be carin' for the likes ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... through desire alone. Moreover, we have learned the bitter lesson that international agreements, historically considered by us as sacred, are regarded in Communist doctrine and in practice to be mere scraps of paper. The most recent proof of their disdain of international obligations, solemnly undertaken, is their announced intention to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... James, when they arrived at the playground, which lay north of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, "it looks as if they hadn't been able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub." His tone was marked by a calm, grand disdain, as of one ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not fear. I have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from this (he threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will not believe ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... frowning on the floods, Impious he roar'd defiance to the gods; To his own prowess all the glory gave: The power defrauding who vouchsafed to save. This heard the raging ruler of the main; His spear, indignant for such high disdain, He launched; dividing with his forky mace The aerial summit from the marble base: The rock rush'd seaward, with impetuous roar Ingulf'd, and to the abyss ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... cents. He ain't worth more." To look at Nack-yal had pleased Shefford very much indeed, but, once upon his back, he grew dubious. The mustang acted queer. He actually looked back at Shefford, and it was a look of speculation and disdain. Shefford took exception to Nack-yal's manner and to his reluctance to go, and especially to a habit the mustang had of turning off the trail to the left. Shefford had managed some rather spirited horses back in Illinois; and though he was willing and eager to learn all over again, he did ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... condemnation or oblivion, even though it had not the saving salt in it of an earnest and evident sincerity. The brooding anger, the resentful resignation, the impatient spirit of endurance, the bitter passion of disdain, which animate the utterance and direct the action of the hero, are something more than dramatically appropriate; it is as obvious that these are the mainsprings of the poet's own ambitious and dissatisfied intelligence, sullen in its reluctant submission and ardent in its implacable appeal, as ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... those condemned persons with great diligence and concern. What they had affirmed in the court of justice, they repeated and confessed to him in like manner in the prison. When he began to reason with them and to explain the heinous nature of their crimes, they treated him with disdain. Their motto was, Answer him not a word; who is he that should presume to teach them, who had the Spirit of God speaking inwardly to their souls. In all they had done, they said they had obeyed the voice of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... this boy!" said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! And what ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the Spanish type of Mysticism. His fame has never been so great as hers; for while Teresa's character remained human and lovable in the midst of all her austerities, Juan carried self-abnegation to a fanatical extreme, and presents the life of holiness in a grim and repellent aspect. In his disdain of all compromise between the claims of God and the world, he welcomes every kind of suffering, and bids us choose always that which is most painful, difficult, and humiliating. His own life was divided between ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Art should suffer such disdain! But what can one expect in time of war? Mayhap our minstre'sy had given pain To some tired patriot in bed next-door— Some weary soul that all day fashions fuses, To whom his sleep is more than all the Muses— And so, for England's sake we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... his hand as he had spoken and Atahualpa now asked to see it. The volume was a clasped one and he found it difficult to open. Valverde, probably thinking he could show him to unclasp the volume, stepped nearer to him. The Inca repulsed him with disdain. Wrenching open the covers he glanced rapidly at the book, and perhaps suddenly realizing the full sense of the insult which had been offered to him in the demands {83} of the dogmatic and domineering Dominican, he threw the sacred volume to the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... imperceptible mockery. Delighting in the pleasure of mystification, from the most spiritual or comic to the most bitter and melancholy, they may perhaps find in this deceptive raillery an external formula of disdain for the veiled expression of the superiority which they internally claim, but which claim they veil with the caution and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... world power. During the past five months we have heard German apologists offer the most contradictory arguments to prove, first, that Russia, next, that France and Belgium, and, finally, that England began the struggle. The Kaiser himself, with that disdain of fact which is the privilege of autocrats, declared that the sword was forced into his hands. And all the while the mere abstention of Italy from supporting Germany and Austria gave the lie to the ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... will be put on the same footing as teaching, nursing or secretarial work. That we are beginning to move in this direction is evidenced by the coming into existence of schools of domestic economy, to which "ladies" do not disdain to resort for training. This will undoubtedly result in domestic labour becoming a much higher-priced commodity than it is now, the housewife will have to pay at least as much for three hours help per day as she now does for nine hours, but the ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... slowly upon him, and then, with a sniff of disdain, called for Robeccal, who heard the stentorian shout, but did not care to be disturbed in his contemplation of the spit on which the fowls ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... said plainly. A flash of anger and disdain kindled in the eyes of the Unknown, and I had a glimpse of a terrible past in the life of this man. Not only had he put himself beyond the pale of human laws, but he had made himself independent of them, free in the strictest acceptation of the word, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... amateur would buy his watch paper representing the celebrated Miss Gunning, or possibly Mr. Garrick. The pictures were really gems, too, for great artists such as Angelica Kaufmann, Cipriani, and Bartolozzi did not disdain to engrave ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... reign, And I will reign alone; My thoughts did evermore disdain A rival on my throne: He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch To ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... thus pilloried for general contempt, yet not for a moment did she flinch. White to the lips, but with her head held up in silent self-justification, she moved slowly down the room, running the gauntlet of public disdain. Did I say all had abandoned her? No, there was one who remained faithful, one who was, not merely a fair-weather friend, but ready to believe in her and stand by her through the severest ordeal. Janie, the shyest girl at St. Chad's, who never as a rule raised her voice to venture an ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... writes the commissary of a rural canton,[51133] "is that the people en masse seem not to want any of our institutions.... It is considered well-bred, even among country folks, to show disdain for everything characteristic of republican usages... Our rich farmers, who have profited most by the Revolution, are the bitterest enemies of its forms: any citizen who depended on them for the slightest favor and thought ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I now propose to myself and to you. I remember a very learned scholar, to whom we owe one of our best Greek lexicons, a book which must have cost him years, speaking in the preface of his completed work with a just disdain of some, who complained of the irksome drudgery of such toils as those which had engaged him so long,—toils irksome, forsooth, because they only had to do with words. He disclaims any part with those who asked pity for themselves, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... that," they said, "can be easily managed; for formerly, when we confronted Manua Sera at Nguru, we offered to give him as much territory as his father governed, though not exactly in the same place; but he treated our message with disdain, not knowing then what a fix he was in. Now, however, as he has seen more, and wishes for peace himself, there can be no difficulty." I then ordered two of my men to go with two of Musa's to acquaint Manua Sera with what we were about, and to know ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... tokens of that incessant train of small cares which had never left their impertinent footprints upon the broad high brow of her brother. Mr. Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... disdain; "no, believe me, they may 'pretend' forever. They can never look like us! They imitate even our marks, but never can they look like the real thing, never can ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... himself; for the captain, being readily provided, let the bell fall, and caught the man fast, and plucked him with main force, boat and all, into his bark out of the sea. Whereupon, when he found himself in captivity, for very choler and disdain he bit his tongue in twain within his mouth; notwithstanding, he died not thereof, but lived until he came in England, and then he died of cold which he had taken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... scalp-lock, by the aid of which his conquerors can the more easily carry away the coveted trophy. The thought of cheating in such a matter never occurs to his unsophisticated mind; and as for leaving his "colors" in barracks, while he goes in the field himself, he would disdain it—nay, cannot practise it; for the obvious reason that his head would have to be left ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the darkened heavens, louder than ever mortal man had heard. The lightnings flashed, and concentrating all their force upon the grave just where the coffin lay, they tore up a huge chasm in the earth, and gripping the coffin within their fiery fingers, they tossed it with disdain upon a hillside a ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... other subordinates on board, agreeing to regard in him as pleasant eccentricities those frequent lapses in grammar and pronunciation which they would have resented in others as the evidences of a decided inferiority, to be kept at a distance by the coldest and most studied disdain. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... inclined her head in token of assent; but, as she did so, her eyes rested on the diminutive form of her son with an expression that savored of disdain. The look was unmotherly, and seemed to say, "How can a man of such insignificant appearance be the son of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... ones, who disdain to vary their meals, let us mention the eclectics, who, in a group which is generally well-defined, are able to select among different kinds of game appropriate to their bulk. The Great Cerceris (Cerceris tuberculata. Cf. "The Hunting Wasps": chapters 2 and 3.—Translator's ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... alone, but by every one of the four teachers, I was looked upon as a harmless little girl whose mother knew nothing about the fashionable world. I do not think that anything in my manner showed either my pique or my disdain; I believe I went out of doors just as usual; but these things were often in my thoughts, and taking by degrees ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... had felt but disdain for them, but gradually another feeling had come to him, they were so slow, and crawly, and helpless—and yet so indomitable. A vague pity, almost a respect, swelled within him as he watched them panting, and perspiring, and toiling up the slopes, reaching thus with ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... dashing young men of Hillport, which is the most aristocratic suburb of Bursley and set on a lofty eminence. The sons of the wealthiest earthenware manufacturers made a point of belonging to it, and, after a period of disdain, their fathers also made a point of belonging to it. It was housed in an old mansion, with extensive grounds and a pond and tennis courts; it had a working agreement with the Golf Club and with the Hillport ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a shrill laugh to point this sour-grape sentiment, and mark her disdain for Lucian, the fair Bella took herself and her lean form out ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... shoot their arrows: accustomed to being shot at, and tolerably accustomed to protect herself without making scenes in the world, or rejecting the advantageous establishments offered to her with any loud expressions of disdain. The Honourable George, therefore, had been permitted to say soft things very much as ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... and did not disdain the overtures which the discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... voice, was perfectly aware of his idealistic sentiments. She responded to the extent of gazing at him, now and then, in a most disconcerting fashion. It was as though she cared little about idealism. She did not smile. There was neither love nor disdain in that gaze; it was neither hot nor cold, nor yet lukewarm; it was something else, something he did not want at all—something that made ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... swarthy Spaniard's there you trace; 50 The mountain-loving Switzer there More freely breathed in mountain-air; The Fleming there despised the soil, That paid so ill the laborer's toil; Their rolls showed French and German name; 55 And merry England's exiles came, To share, with ill-concealed disdain, Of Scotland's pay the scanty gain. All brave in arms, well trained to wield The heavy halberd, brand, and shield; 60 In camps licentious, wild and bold; In pillage fierce and uncontrolled; And now, by holytide and feast, From rules ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... look at her again with a sneering smile that was full of significance, but beyond a fleeting glance of disdain Diana paid no attention to her. She stood rigid, one foot beating nervously into the soft rug. She noticed irrelevantly at the moment that both her spurs and the empty holster had been removed whilst she was unconscious, and with the odd detachment that transfers ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... the history, the power, and the character of the great potentate who had yielded to the demands of Sulla, the propraetor, but who now awaited the attack of Sulla, the proconsul, with proud disdain. Much, indeed, had happened since the year 92 to justify such feelings. Hardly had Sulla reinstated Ariobarzanes when Tigranes drove him out again, and restored the son of Mithridates; while in Bithynia the younger son of Nicomedes, Socrates, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... another cause for the decline of the white population. In the free states labor is reputable. The statesman, whose eloquence has electrified a nation, does not disdain in the intervals of the public service to handle the axe and the hoe. And the woman whose beauty, talents, and accomplishments have won the admiration of all deems it no degradation to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... popular need instinctively, I cannot say. At any rate, their work is a good one and a wholesome one. There still circulates, down to the lowest stratum of the people, a stream of poetry, often obscure, until now looked upon with disdain by all except scholars. I mean folklore, beliefs, traditions, legends, and popular tales. Before this source of poetry could disappear completely, the Felibres had the happy idea of taking it up, giving it a new literary form, thus giving back to the people, ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... reflection of a charming face in the water. "How beautiful I have become," she said to herself. "How ridiculous that any one as beautiful as I am should carry water on her head." She threw her water jar upon the ground in disdain and it ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... have in telling lies?" returned the Marquise, with a glance of cold disdain which annihilated him. He was so dashed by it, that the conversation dropped, for the Marquise was offended, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... of times. She had, since she left school, met many eligible young men at houses to which her mother had grudgingly taken her—young men who had been nice to her, flattered her, and flirted with her. But she had treated them all with coquettish disdain, for in the world there was but one man who was her lover and her hero—her old friend ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... in the depths of my old country. Be useful to men! Is it certain that one does more than amuse them, and that there is much difference between the philosopher and the flute-player? They listen to one and the other with pleasure or with disdain, and they remain just what they were. But there is more spleen than sense in all this, I know—and back I go to the Encyclopaedia.' And back he went—that is the great point—with courage unabated and indomitable, labouring with sword ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... work with an air of lofty disdain. "Oh, dear me, it doesn't matter," he said, in his ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... of life, and poetry, and light, The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight The shaft has just been shot; the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might And majesty flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... John, with a towering disdain, "you needn't go any further! I know just what malady is throttling you. It's reform—reform! You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... with great difficulty can she restrain herself from casting a glance toward Alexander; but she must be on her guard against her brother, my lord Gawain. Dearly she pays and atones for her great pride and disdain. Love has heated for her a bath which heats and burns her painfully. At first it is grateful to her, and then it hurts; one moment she likes it, and the next she will have none of it. She accuses her eyes of treason, and says: [211] "My ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... at them with undisguised disdain. "You can save yourselves useless work by not trying for my position. I intend to ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... grave, accusing, darkened with reproach; and he asked himself half hopefully if she cared—if it were possible for a moment that she cared. There had been humour in her smile, but, for all his effort, he could bring back no deeper emotion than pity or disdain—and it seemed to him that both the pity and the disdain were ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... strides he paced the chamber, turning the matter over in his mind. Aye, he would use the lad should the need arise. Why scruple? Had he ever received aught but disdain and scorn ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... thus Creation's charms around combine, Amidst the store should thankless pride repine? Say, should the philosophic mind disdain That good which makes each humbler bosom vain? 40 Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,[5] These little things are great to little man; And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind Exults in all the good of all mankind. Ye ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... exercise of your suffrage either at the elections or in enacting laws. On a certain condition, one of them says, ye shall re-elect us tribunes for the tenth time. What else is it, but saying, what others sue for, we disdain so thoroughly, that without some consideration we will not accept it? But in the name of goodness, what is that consideration, for which we may always have you tribunes of the commons? that ye admit collectively all our measures, whether they please ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... he had been treated with consideration by the emperor, but with disdain by many of the lords, who despised him as a traitor. Charles V. asked the Marquis de Villena to give quarters in his palace to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... remove what doubtless has been one cause of the delay in acknowledging its truth. "Those members of the profession," he says, "whom science has only perfumed, are the most apt 'to look down with proud disdain' on any discovery originating 'with individuals not indoctrinated.' They do not make the proper distinction between selfish quacks who seek publicity 'to line the pocket,' and those 'who, prompted by some mysterious power,' come forward against their interest, ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... negligent garb which is yet observable among the young men of our time; to wear my cloak on one shoulder, my bonnet on one side, and one stocking in something more disorder than the other, meant to express a manly disdain of such exotic ornaments, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... surpass the injury I have done. I take you to wife; and by that means shall punish Zobeide, who shall become the first cause of your good fortune, as she was of your past sufferings. This is not all," added he, turning towards Ganem's mother; "you are still young, I believe you will not disdain to be allied to my grand vizier, I give you to Jaaffier, and you, Fetnah, to Ganem. Let a cauzee and witnesses be called, and the three contracts be drawn up and signed immediately." Ganem would have represented to the caliph, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... went back, swaying as he walked, to his chair, and sinking into it sat there a minute with half-closed eyes; then raised his head and looked at me, with a shadow of the old arrogance, pride, and disdain upon his scarred face. "Not yet, captain?" he demanded. "To the heart, man! So I would strike an you sat here ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the great man at the magnificence of his attempt and the ridicule of the farmer at the misapplication of his paternal acres." The "sneer of the great man." is perhaps an allusion to what Dr. Johnson says of Lord Lyttelton:—that he "looked with disdain" on "the petty State" of his neighbour. "For a while," says Dr. Johnson, "the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... objects which ought to be foremost in the eyes of serious people. In truth the men who have done most for the world have taken very little heed of influence. They have sought light, and left their influence to fare as it might list. Can we not imagine the mingled mystification and disdain with which a Spinosa or a Descartes, a Luther or a Pascal, would have listened to an exhortation in our persuasive modern manner on the niceties of the politic and the social obligation of pious fraud? It is not given to many to perform the achievements of such ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it ce boisson fade et melancolique; the novelist's disdain being the better understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid, as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our merriment ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd |
