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More "Boaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the man who made such a noise in the parish, such a boaster, so quarrelsome, so litigious, no one could come near him. "The fashion changeth." He lies still as a mouse now, and can resent no ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... boaster, say "When thou hadst to thy box sneaked off, "Beneath his feet protecting lay, "And saved him ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... mock. faltar fail, be missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... the eastern sky, and the men at last discovered whither their general was leading them. With the knowledge, which spread quickly through the ranks, that they were making for the communications of the boaster Pope, the regiments stepped out with renewed energy. "There was no need for speech, no breath to spare if there had been—only the shuffling tramp of marching feet, the rumbling of wheels, the creak and clank of harness and accoutrements, with an occasional order, uttered ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most exaggerated—and when not impossible, most improbable—of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... was roaring and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' 'It's not the daring, Mark,' he says, 'it's ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and slily encouraged ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... a mocker," said Geburon, "that was not mocked, a deceiver that was not deceived, or a boaster that was ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... deserted me. Then did gladness swallow up sorrow, and I forsook my troubles; and I said, How good is it that man be proved in the night, that he may know his folly, that every mouth may become silent, until Thou makest man known unto himself, and has slain the boaster, and shown him the vanity which vexeth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... want to take it away fr'm him. Whin he's sober his bluff is on th' outside. Whin he's dhrunk he makes th' bluff to his own heart. Dhrink turns him inside out as well as upside down, an' while he's congratulatin' himsilf on th' fine man he is, th' neighbors know him f'r a boaster, a cow'rd, an' something iv a liar. That th' ladies see an' hate. They do not know that there is wan thing an' on'y wan thing to be said in favor iv dhrink, an' that is that it has caused manny a lady to be loved that otherwise ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... dare th' unknown, precarious sea, And down the unbounded winds adventurous roam, Searching the world's horizons for a home, A haven for the heart of liberty:— Boaster of freedom, found no longer free, What vaporous phantom from time's ocean-foam Blurs the translucence of th' eternal dome Where sang the burning ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... ceased her work, and was listening to the boaster. "It was all true," she said to herself; "the fairy of the water told me that he had offended her race. I will do their bidding. Cloudy Sky may boast of his power, but ere two nights have passed away, he will find ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... soldiers found worthy of death by court martial could be conveniently shot; though I think we discovered for ourselves the old woman curled up out of the wind in a sentry-box, and sweetly asleep there while the boys were playing marbles on the smooth ground before it. I must not omit the peanut-boaster in front of the palace; it was in the figure of an ocean steamer, nearly as large as the Lusitania, and had smoke coming out of the funnel, with rudder and screw complete and doll ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... a wild, uncontrolled boy, who spent most of his time in the street, played truant three days out of five, was a great boaster, and sneered at anything like goodness. He was vastly amusing, however, and generally was surrounded by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to his faults and attached great weight to every word he uttered. Phil encouraged the younger ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... when at last he became a man, he sailed on the ship Argo, with Jason and the great heroes of that day, in search of the Golden Fleece. Many brave deeds were his in foreign lands; and when he came home again to Calydon, he brought with him a fair young wife, gentle Cleopatra, daughter of Idas the boaster. ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... "Aha, boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We'll soon see which ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... and, like them, entirely misinterpreted by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the high-spirited girl with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened libertine," she thought—"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in his crime. 'She gave me her all,' I heard him say it," ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Two Lance, a long mile away, rounding up their pony herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding themselves with knives, while the warriors, singing the death-song, were painting ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... been before she went out. The fact that the bishop was going away made the matter worse, for just as she had found out that he was willing to help her, and that he might be able to keep Raybold away from them without actual violence—for she saw that the young boaster was afraid of him—he had told her he must leave, and in her heart she did not blame him. With great fear and anxiety she looked forward ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... in Laxdaela, threatened one of her three husbands with much the same treatment, and would have put her threat into execution if he had not behaved as she commanded him. In our Saga, too, the gudewife of Bjorn the boaster threatens him with a separation if he does not stand faithfully by Kari; and in another Saga of equal age and truthfulness, we hear of one great lady who parted from her husband, because, in playfully throwing a pillow of down ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... the Lion sneered. "If you think you can take us with you that far then why not to Jerusalem? The words of a boaster are a mask of doubt. Hah! Take us to ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... cried. "I knew he could do it. Boaster or not, he was a brave man. But go on. And after he had killed the three Germans there on the sand, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he is ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... cried his father more sternly. "The lad will be jist like yerself, too ready with his fists, whatever. A brave man will never be a boaster, Scotty, man." ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... livid with rage, took a darker tinge at this command. More on-lookers had now arrived, who jeered and hooted the unfortunate man. It was a great joke to see the boaster at length brought low by quaint old Captain Josh. Such a thing didn't happen every day, and they could well afford to lose any amount of time to see the fun. But it was far from fun for the victim of their sport. He made one more effort to assert himself, and turned ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... the chief, who, lost to sense of shame, Late fled the field, and yet survives his fame? O hadst thou died beneath the righteous sword Of that brave man whom once I call'd my lord! The boaster Paris oft desired the day With Sparta's king to meet in single fray: Go now, once more thy rival's rage excite, Provoke Atrides, and renew the fight: Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill'd Shouldst fall an ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... paid, he would pass the night alone in the haunted house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... he was no boaster. His great deeds came of his eagerness in all matters, and not from a desire to belittle his companions. He was kind and lowly hearted, bountiful of gifts, very glorious of attire, and before all men for high heart in battle. It may be that he also was cruel, for it is told ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... also very natural that Helen, with the intuitive discernment of a pure and upright mind, and the penetration of a quick-witted woman, should be the first to detect the falsehood and cowardice of the boaster Parolles, who ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... printing house which would entirely overshadow his own. This secrecy which was practiced also prevented any one from informing Franklin of the Governor's real character, as a vain, unreliable, gasconading boaster. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Tom Ross wuz right when he said the way them Greeks an' Trojans fought was plumb foolish. Do you think that me, Sol Hyde, is goin' to take a tin pan an' go beatin' on it down thar among the bushes, an' callin' on the biggest boaster o' all the savages to come out an' fight me? No, sir; I wouldn't go fifty yards before I'd tumble over, with a bullet ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all his future tragedies. From this depth of nothingness Turgenef, however, soon rises to at least the semblance of strength; and while Rudin is at bottom as impotent as Tchulkaturin, he at least pretends to strength. Rudin, then, is the hero of phrases, the boaster; he promises marvels, he charms, he captivates; but it all ends in words, and Rudin perishes as needlessly as he lived needlessly. In "Fathers and Sons," however, Bazarof is no longer a talker; he already rises to indignation and rebellion; he lives ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a swordsman he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... fellow was asked, "Pray, sir, what may your business be?"—"O," replied the boaster, "I am but a cork-cutter: but then it is in a very large way!"—"Indeed!" replied the other; "then I presume you are a ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... of receiving what I consider altogether undue praise. Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "the thought has just occurred to me of a way by which you can obtain confirmation of my story; and, as I value your good opinion and would not be regarded as a boaster and a liar, I entreat you to take it. I heard you tell the eight men who were rowers in my boat when I was captured, to call upon you today, that you might do ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Criticism,"[16] "follow Nature," and in order to follow Nature, learn the rules and study the ancients, particularly Homer. "Nature and Homer were the same." Contrariwise, Young says: "The less we copy the renowned ancients, we shall resemble them the more. . . Learning . . . is a great lover of rules and boaster of famed examples . . . and sets rigid bounds to that liberty to which genius often owes its supreme glory. . . Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies?. . . Let not great examples or authorities browbeat ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the errors of my youth. For coming nearer to look, I saw the maimed, the blind, and the halt enter in, the crooked and the dwarf, the ugly, the old and impotent, the man of pleasure and the man of the world, the dapper and the pert, the vain and shallow boaster, the fool and the pedant, the ignorant and brutal, and all that is farthest removed from earth's fairest-born, and the pride of human life. Seeing all these enter the courts of Love, and thinking that I also might venture ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... friend, you must not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Spot couldn't help hearing what the Rooster said. And he hadn't even heart enough to answer that impertinent boaster. ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow grew tired of ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... the bottom Sank the pike in great confusion, And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, To the bream, with scales of crimson, "Take the bait of this great boaster, ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... only to abate their pride and make them more humble, but also when they are in fear and dejection to raise them up again and give them confidence. Thus Cyrus talked big in perils and on battle-fields, though at other times he was no boaster. And the second Antigonus, though he was on all other occasions modest and far from vanity, yet in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said to him, "See you not how many more ships the enemy have got than we have?" answered, "How many do you make me equal to then?" This Homer also seems ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... heard Aiwohikupua, he said, "You are the greatest boaster in the crowd![26] I am the best man here, and yet you talk of three from this side; and what ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... the extravagant language in which Almanzor threatens his enemies, and vaunts his own importance. This is not common in the heroes of romance, who are usually as remarkable for their modesty of language as for their prowess; and still more seldom does, in real life, a vain-glorious boaster vindicate by his actions the threats of his tongue. It is true, that men of a fervent and glowing character are apt to strain their speech beyond the modesty of ordinary conversation, and display, in their language, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... sum I kept for myself, and half I divided between the gaming-house keeper and the players who were present. The latter were loud in praise of my generosity, and of the skill which I had shown in beating that boaster; the former asked me to dine with him, and I often went to his house and became very intimate with him, and obtained from him much information, especially such as had reference ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard ...
— The Republic • Plato
... noble Dolon, and to war he brought The borrowed lustre of his grandsire's name, The strength and spirit of his sire of fame, Who for his meed, when offering to explore The Danaan camp, Pelides' car would claim. Poor fool! Tydides paid the boaster's score, And for Achilles' steeds he hankers ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... different dresses." Upon this Note Colman remarks: "Though there is much good criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his 'Miles Gloriosus' from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Alazon, 'the Boaster,' and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never appearing after ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the rest, I was well content; for as I have given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises; for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be; save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... vain boaster!" exclaimed Cabell. "He has a good horse, I admit, but his spirit has become unduly inflated about it. You know, don't you, Lennox, that my colt, Cressy, has all ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rhetorician that can discourse of all arts and sciences?" There came forward a sage hight Ibrahim bin Siyyr and said to her, "Think me not like the rest." Quoth she, "It is the more assured to me that thou wilt be beaten, for that thou art a boaster; and Allah will help me to victory over thee, that I may strip thee of thy clothes. So, if thou sentest one to fetch thee wherewithal to cover thyself, 'twould be well for thee." Cried he, "By Allah, I will assuredly conquer ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... smile of whose lip thou well knowest I would lay down my life—for a touch of whose hand thou well knowest I would sell me to the Evil One—thou hast blackened me, and I will be avenged—ho! chicken-hearted boaster before women, and black-hearted traitor among men, will nothing rouse thee? Hear ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... against the fearful intruder. Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... mortal eye, have made such a noise in the world of fancy, fog, and moonshine. Though he could confine himself to facts with modest brevity when speaking of his achievements to white people—as we have already noticed—the Fighting Nigger, it must be owned, was something of a long-winded boaster, with a proneness to slide off into the fabulous, when blowing his own trumpet for the entertainment of his colored admirers, who bolted whatever monstrosity he might choose to toss into their greedy chops. But let us be just. It was with no direct intention of hoaxing or deceiving his ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... make such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war." What will this boaster produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he, who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who, after ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... he spake, a bird flew forth on the right hand, an eagle of lofty flight, and the host of the Achaians shouted thereat, encouraged by the omen, but renowned Hector answered: "Aias, thou blundering boaster, what sayest thou! Would that indeed I were for ever as surely the son of aegis-bearing Zeus, and that my mother were lady Hera, and that I were held in such honour as Apollo and Athene, as verily this day is to bring utter evil on all the Argives! ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... great and comprehensive problem he had started out to solve, and plodded steadily along the path that he had marked out, ignoring the almost universal scientific disbelief in his ultimate success. "Dreamer," "fool," "boaster" were among the appellations bestowed upon him by unbelieving critics. Ridicule was heaped upon him in the public prints, and mathematics were called into service by learned men to settle the point forever that he ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... throw the man into a chair and bind him with a rope. Then he knotted the man's beard and moustache together so that his mouth was sealed. The rest of the tavern applauded him for his neat manner of silencing the boaster. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... your daughter," said the King, "and bid her hatch them out for me. If she succeeds she shall have a bag of money for her pains, but if she fails you shall be beaten as a vain boaster." ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... crew, a garrulous Hao-man, and an inveterate boaster, declared that, about a year since, he had embarked for Angatan with a party of Chain Islanders, in a large double canoe, being tempted to incur the perils of the enterprise, by the prospect of the enormous gains ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... a discovery! all my delicate management destroyed! known all over the country! I'm off! and yet to have travelled so far, and not to have one glimpse of her! but then to be pointed at as a poor devil in love, a silly inconsistent boaster! no, that wont do—but then I may see her—yes, I'll see her once—just once—for three minutes, or three minutes and a half at most—no longer positively—Ponder, Ponder! (enter Ponder) ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... and gave Jacob their greetings. She had much to tell about them both, but Jacob thought it was queer that she had more to say about Ole than about Peter; for while Ole was a straight-forward fellow, it could not be denied that he was a bit of a boaster. ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... god of the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers is shown by Hamlet's remonstrance with the players: ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... you with the fierce words of a boaster and a bully? Test me, by looking back a little, and discovering what I have abstained from for the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, day after day, by those about me, would have called ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... crimson. One might fancy it A noble bird, that laves its graceful form, And bathes its rosy bosom in the light. Look! how it swells and rears its snowy crest With haughty grandeur; while the blue expanse, In smiling patience lets the boaster pass, And swell his train with all the lazy vapours That hover in the air: an easy prey To the gigantic phantom, whose curl'd wing, Sweeps in these worthless triflers of the sky, And wraps them in his bosom. ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... and the judge who condemned you would believe you a boaster, or out of your mind did they hear you say this, ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... glad to see that you are no boaster, Saduko," said Panda. "Would that more of the Zulus were like you in that matter, for then I must not listen to so many loud songs about little things. At least, Bangu was killed and his proud tribe humbled, and, ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... that Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious false witness against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to make known the true part he had played in the matter, preferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete justification ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... out from little Cures' garth, that unrich land of his, Unto a mighty lordship: yea, and Tullus next is this, Who breaks his country's sleep and stirs the slothful men to fight; And calleth on the weaponed hosts unused to war's delight But next unto him Ancus fares, a boaster overmuch; Yea and e'en now the people's breath too nigh his heart will touch. And wilt thou see the Tarquin kings and Brutus' lofty heart, And fasces brought aback again by his avenging part? He first the lordship consular and dreadful axe shall take; 819 The father ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... resolved his conscientious difficulties about the exchange of flags. At last I offered a bet of five hundred dollars against an equal sum; and next day a bag with the tempting thousand was tied to the end of my mainboom, with an invitation for the boaster to "follow and take." It was understood that, once clear of the harbor, the "Aguila" should have five minutes' start of the Montesquieu, after which we were to crowd sail ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... customs of this interesting people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour, little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart; and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur which display a still ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... said this boaster, "whatever I do, I cannot, upon my word, chase away this cat that threatens you without some help. But let me call together all the rats hereabouts and I'll play him a sorry ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... opening fierce, in accents bold, Like the rude ballad-monger's chaunt of old; "The fall of Priam, the great Trojan King! Of the right noble Trojan War, I sing!" Where ends this Boaster, who, with voice of thunder, Wakes Expectation, all agape with wonder? The mountains labour! hush'd are all the spheres! And, oh ridiculous! a mouse appears. How much more modestly begins HIS song, Who labours, or imagines, nothing wrong! "Say, Muse, the Man, who, after Troy's ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... drew on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... crowds were blind and heedless, Minded not the laws and records, Gathered freely of the evil, Wandered on in lusts and vices, Wandered on to spoil and plunder, Wandered on to want and sorrow, Misery, and pain, and anguish. Strange his dealings were and hidden; Oft would take the greatest boaster, Mighty in his own beholding, Who in pomp and riches loitered, In high seats of veneration, And would draw him downward, downward, Rob him of his pomp and splendor, Of his riches and his glory, Set him by the homeless ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... acknowledge that Ignatius, in his new dress, has lost nothing of his absurdity and extravagance. The passages of the Epistles, which were formerly felt to be so objectionable, are yet to be found here in all their unmitigated folly. Ignatius is still the same anti-evangelical formalist, the same puerile boaster, the same dreaming mystic, and the same crazy fanatic. These are weighty charges, and yet they can be substantiated. But we must enter into details, that we may fairly exhibit the spirit, and expose the falsehood ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he could ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... bitter. "Well, he will have the chance to prove what he can do. No gringo can come among us Californians and flap the wings and crow upon the tule thatch for naught. There has been overmuch crowing, Valencia. Me, I am glad that boaster must do something more than crow ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Fire Hornbeam, Ornament Horse, Chestnut, Luxury Hortensia, You are Cold Houseleek, Vivacity Houstonia, Content Humble Plant, Despondency Hyacinth, Sport, Game, Play Hyacinth, Purple, Adversity Hyacinth, Blue, Constancy Hydrangea, A Boaster Hyssop, Cleanliness Iceland Moss, Health Ice Plant, You Freeze Me Imbricata, Uprightness Imperial Montague, Power Indian Cress, Warlike Trophy Indian Jasmine, Attachment Iris, Common, Message Iris, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness. Notwithstanding ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... tutor's lessons, together with the opportunity of conversing with the politest and most learned gentry of different nations, that I will discourse with you in two or three languages, if you please, when I have the happiness to see you. There's a learned boaster for you, my dear friend! (if the knowledge of different languages makes one learned.)—But I shall bring you an heart as entirely English ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Duke, Brabo promised if his lord's soldiers would storm the gates of the giant's castle, that he would seek out and fight the ruffian. While they battered down the gates, he would climb the walls. "He's nothing but a 'bulle-wak'" (a bully and a boaster), said Brabo, "and we ought to call him that, instead ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... A reference to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Astolpho, an English cousin of Orlando, was a great boaster, but generous, courteous, gay, and remarkably handsome; he was carried to Alcina's island on the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... soldiers, saying that Cortes and his soldiers conducted themselves in quite a different manner, a bragging fellow called Salvatierra exclaimed, "See what fear these Indians are in for the sorry fellow Cortes!" yet this boaster, who was so ready with his tongue, was the most cowardly wretch I ever beheld, when we came afterwards to attack the army of Narvaez. About this time, Narvaez transmitted to Cortes a copy of the commission he had received from the governor ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... these words were uttered puzzled Nick and caused him to think that possibly the boaster was right after all, and he had made the shot ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... a young man who had just entered, "it is well known that Vestein and her father and mother were all fully willing. The girl could as easily have gone out of the door as the window. Snackoll is a boaster. He is as great in his talk as ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... he is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!—and he affects to say that you can't choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,—that he can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in the world,—you don't get credit for your own excellent ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... silent dog and still water"; "Misery loves company"; "Hasty love is soon hot and soon cold"; "Dogs that put up many hares kill none"; "He that will steal an egg will steal an ox"; "Idle folks have the least leisure"; "Maids say no and take"; "A boaster and a liar are cousins german"; "A young twig is easier twisted than an old tree"; "Imitation is the sincerest flattery"; "Pride joined with many virtues chokes them all"; "Offenders never pardon"; "The more wit, the less courage"; "We are more mindful of injuries ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... to constitute a gentleman. We know of but one quality which is demanded for a man of fashion,—impudence. An impudence (self-confidence "the wise it call") as impenetrable as the gates of Pandemonium—a coolness and imperturbability of self- admiration, which the boaster in Spencer might envy—a contempt of every decency, as such, and an utter imperviousness to ridicule,—these are the amiable and dignified qualities which serve to rear an empire over the weakness and cowardice ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... arguing and boasting that he knew many and various tricks. Another among the bystanders said: "I know how to play a trick which will make whomsoever I like pull off his breeches." The first man— the boaster—said: "You won't make me pull off mine, and I bet you a pair of hose on it." He who proposed the game, having accepted the offer, produced breeches and drew them across the face of him who bet the pair of hose and won the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... age. Five feet four inches or five feet high; grey (nearly white) hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in Manchester, Salford, and ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... he was dumbfounded. Though no boaster, he knew he had done a magnificently heroic thing, and to get his mouth slapped for it was an exigency which he did not know what to do with. He had staggered against the boards from the force of the stroke, ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... we must set out with minds prepared, since to-day either a glorious death awaits us or the achievement of a deed of noblest emprise in the rescue of so many Hellene lives. Maybe it is God who leads us thus, God who chooses to humble the proud boaster, boasting as though he were exceedingly wise, but for us, the beginning of whose every act is by heaven's grace, that same God reserves a higher grade of honour. One duty I would recall to you, to apply your minds to the execution of ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... been taught so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow grew tired of ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... thus the prologue, as it were, to all his future tragedies. From this depth of nothingness Turgenef, however, soon rises to at least the semblance of strength; and while Rudin is at bottom as impotent as Tchulkaturin, he at least pretends to strength. Rudin, then, is the hero of phrases, the boaster; he promises marvels, he charms, he captivates; but it all ends in words, and Rudin perishes as needlessly as he lived needlessly. In "Fathers and Sons," however, Bazarof is no longer a talker; he already rises to indignation and rebellion; he lives out ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... during the two days of the trip, as though he were fully conscious of the heavy responsibility that rested upon his young shoulders. I had called him a boaster and it had cut him to ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Thesmophoriazusae. New Kalligeneia. Name given to Ceres, meaning, "bearer of lovely children." The Toxotes. A Syrian archer in the "Thesmophoriazusae." The Great King's Eye. Mock name given to an ambassador from Persia in the Acharnians. Kompolakuthes. Bully-boaster: with a play on the name ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... says:—"Stand by, I am holier than thou. Thank God, I am not like this publican." While in God's sight, poor wretched boaster, thou art ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it between themselves. Then he took his departure, with every show of kindliness from the king, including a royal escort. The minute he was gone those courtly, crafty heads all got together and told the king that most likely the man was merely a boaster, but, lest he might have discovered territory for Spain, why not hurriedly send out a Portuguese fleet to seize the new islands ere Spain could make good her claim? Some even whispered something ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... Bauldy the boaster Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Vain boaster, said the youthful knight, I scorn thy threats and thee: I trust to force thy brazen gates, And ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... rapture self-inspired, He would prove his words by deeds, Prove himself no boaster vain But a master in ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... and am heartily sick of receiving what I consider altogether undue praise. Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "the thought has just occurred to me of a way by which you can obtain confirmation of my story; and, as I value your good opinion and would not be regarded as a boaster and a liar, I entreat you to take it. I heard you tell the eight men who were rowers in my boat when I was captured, to call upon you today, that you might ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... found swaggering so. I am sure if you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Come close that we may whisper in thine ear—while we lean our left shoulder on thine—our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood—ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling—tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent Auditress on youth's ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne's hall. He drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Green Meadows! Ho, ho, ho! Your Green Meadows!" The stranger laughed an unpleasant laugh. "How long since you owned the Green Meadows? I have just come down on to them from the Old Pasture, and I like the looks of them so well that I think I will stay. So run along, little boaster! There isn't room for both of us here, and the sooner you trot along the better." The stranger suddenly showed all his ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... brother of Aquilant; but the faithless fair one took up with Mart[a]no, a most impudent boaster and a coward. Being at Damascus during a tournament in which Gryphon was the victor, Martano stole the armor of Gryphon, arrayed himself in it, took the prizes, and then decamped with the lady. Aquilant happened to see them, bound them, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... myself at my success. Every body was surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... tenderfeet: one from Tennessee called "Daisy Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he could ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... does but follow the analogy of all nature. Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of nature from which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe them) we all sprang. Which is the boaster, the strutter, the bedizener of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox-tails and bears' claws,—the brave, or his poor little squaw? An Australian settler's wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off French bonnet; before she has ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... dresses." Upon this Note Colman remarks: "Though there is much good criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his 'Miles Gloriosus' from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Alazon, 'the Boaster,' and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... even in the Gods' despight. Neptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp'd 610 His trident, and the huge Gyraean rock Smiting indignant, dash'd it half away; Part stood, and part, on which the boaster sat When, first, the brainsick fury seiz'd him, fell, Bearing him with it down into the gulphs Of Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died. But thy own brother in his barks escaped That fate, by Juno saved; yet when, at length, He should have gain'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... spirited horse dart out from behind a sharp point on the left, and cut straight across the river. It was old Tim Fraser, as big a rogue as existed anywhere in the land. He was very fond of horses, and that winter had purchased a new flier. He was an incessant boaster, and one day swore that he could out-travel anything on the river, Midnight included. He laid a wager to that effect, which was taken up by Dave Morehouse, who imagined the race would never come off, for Mr. Westmore would have nothing to do with such sport. Old Fraser, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... specially studied the language and customs of this interesting people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour, little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart; and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur which display a still more curious blending of the two religions. Thus ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Easy to compose a sermon!—easy to compose what, when written, cannot be read; and what, when preached, cannot be listened to. We believe it; for in cases of this kind the ease is all on the part of the author. We believe further, we would fain say to the boaster, that you and such as you could scuttle and sink the Free Church with amazingly little trouble to yourselves. But is it easy, think you, to mature such thoughts as Butler matured? And yet these were embodied in sermons. Is it easy, think you, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... laughter. "You hear that, Clopin? You hear that, my good servitors? This silly French noodle is going to get the things in spite of us. Oho, but you have a fine opinion of yourself, monsieur. You need work fast, too, pretty boaster, I can tell you. For the royal jewellers will require the Rainbow Pearl very soon to fix it in its place in the crown for the coronation ceremony, and if that thing his Majesty holds is offered to them, how long, think you, will it be before all Mauravania knows that it is an imitation? ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... heady," the trapper calmly retorted. "The day has been, boy, when my blood was like your own, too swift and too hot to run quietly in my veins. But what will it profit to talk of silly risks and foolish acts at this time of life! A grey head should cover a brain of reason, and not the tongue of a boaster." ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... whereupon she turned to those present and said, 'Which of you is the rhetorician that can discourse of all kinds of knowledge?' There came forward Ibrahim ben Siyyar and said to her, 'Think me not like the rest.' Quoth she, 'It is the more sure to me that thou wilt be beaten, for that thou art a boaster, and God will help me against thee, that I may strip thee of thy clothes. So, if thou sentest one to fetch thee wherewithal to clothe thyself, it would be well for thee.' 'By Allah,' cried he, 'I will assuredly conquer thee and make thee a byword among the folk, generation after generation!' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... Sam, United States; the largest boaster of liberty and owner of slaves. Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread; heavy, most unrisen, or most ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Victor and Helene and by the very small Victor who was now nearly a year old. Victor and Helene had heard of the threats of vengeance, but knowing Rene, they had smiled. Was not Rene a great boaster? And the very young Victor, who knew nothing of the threats, thought his big uncle a very brave figure in his blue capote, his red muffler, and his ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... my delicate management destroyed! known all over the country! I'm off! and yet to have travelled so far, and not to have one glimpse of her! but then to be pointed at as a poor devil in love, a silly inconsistent boaster! no, that wont do—but then I may see her—yes, I'll see her once—just once—for three minutes, or three minutes and a half at most—no longer positively—Ponder, Ponder! (enter Ponder) Ponder, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the friend of old Nokomis, Saw in all the eyes around him, Saw in all their looks and gestures, That the wedding guests assembled, Longed to hear his ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... in the haunted house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the haunted ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, fully verified ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of the traitorous services he had rendered him, the King exclaimed to Edric, Earl of Northumberland: 'Then let him receive his deserts, that he may not betray us as he betrayed Ethelred and Edmund!' upon which the ready Norwegian disposed of all fear on that score by cutting down the boaster with his axe, and throwing ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... he would never have had himself bound to the mast; and there were already sounds of unearthly sweetness in his ears. His conferences with his lovely hostess easily consoled him for his losses. In addition, he was triumphing over the boaster, for Mr. Pedlow, with a very ill grace and swearing (not under his breath), was losing too. The Countess, reiterating for the hundredth time that Cooley was a "wicked one," sweetly constituted herself his cup-bearer; kept his glass full ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... AEtopeia, that is an expressi of maners or mylde affeccions, and hath thre kyndes: of the whych the fyrst is a significacion or expression of maners somewhat longer, as of wittes, artes, vertues, vices. Thus we expresse Thraso a boaster, and ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... 'Strik, strik, ye proud boaster, your honour is gone, Your lands we will plunder, your ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... not far from the boaster, and he determined to silence him once for all. The next time he began to speak, he had barely said "Kerrump!" when the Crane had him by the leg. He croaked and struggled in vain, and in another moment he would have gone down ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... eyes). And you Boast of a wonderful, a mighty action, That you have saved the queen, have snatched away The mask from treachery; all is known to you; You think, forsooth, that nothing can escape Your penetrating eyes. Poor, idle boaster! In spite of all your cunning, Mary Stuart Was free to-day, had ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... could satisfy her. As for young men, they are mostly fools, and they talk of love with a vast deal of swagger and bravery, laughing it to scorn, as a landsman talks of seasickness, telling you it is nothing but an impression and a mere lack of courage, till one day the land-bred boaster puts to sea in a Channel steamer, and experiences a new sensation, and becomes a very sick man indeed before he is out of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... said That he, in spite of all the gods, would come Safe from those mountain waves. When Neptune heard The boaster's challenge, instantly he laid His strong hand on the trident, smote the rock And cleft it to the base. Part stood erect, Part fell into the deep. There Ajax sat, And felt the shock, and with the falling mass Was carried headlong to the billowy depths Below, ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... Shif'less Sol, in his cheerful tones; "but Tom Ross wuz right when he said the way them Greeks an' Trojans fought was plumb foolish. Do you think that me, Sol Hyde, is goin' to take a tin pan an' go beatin' on it down thar among the bushes, an' callin' on the biggest boaster o' all the savages to come out an' fight me? No, sir; I wouldn't go fifty yards before I'd tumble over, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bears on his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and drolleries. No one ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... burgomaster and the judge who condemned you would believe you a boaster, or out of your mind did they hear you say this, ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... the most famous of this group, Sir Kay, who, alike in older and in later versions, bears the uniform character of a disagreeable person, not indeed a coward, though of prowess not equal to his attempts and needs; but a boaster, envious, spiteful, and constantly provoking by his tongue incidents in which his hands do not help him out quite sufficiently.[53] Then there is the younger and main body, of whom Lancelot and Gawain (still keeping Tristram apart) are the chiefs; and lastly the outsiders, whether the "felon" knights ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... grave citizen, a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the "jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet, devoted ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat that have we lost, and the glory of the Red Branch ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... My Lord, I am no boaster of my love, Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour, And will partake your fortunes. You may live To find one slave more true than subject myriads: But this the Gods avert! I am content To be beloved on trust for what I feel, Rather than prove it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. farce, humbug. fascinar fascinate. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... "Ha, Loki, you boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my brother, who would scorn to serve you, is ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... said, "You are the greatest boaster in the crowd![26] I am the best man here, and yet you talk of three from this side; and what are you ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... us warm, nor asked whence or why we wandered. It was their thought that Old Kinoos had lost the sight of his eyes from age; nor did Old Kinoos say otherwise, nor did I, his daughter. Old Kinoos is a brave man, but Old Kinoos was never a boaster. And now, when I tell thee of how his blindness came to be, thou wilt know, beyond question, that the daughter of Kinoos cannot mother the children of a coward such as thou ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the intriguing diplomacy, and the wild speculations of that period. But here, among the stern rebels of the Revolution and the practical statesmen of the early Republic, this trickster and shallow politician, this visionary adventurer and boaster of ladies' favors, was out of place. He has given to his country nothing except a pernicious example. The full light, which shows us that his vices may have been exaggerated, shows likewise that his talents have surely been overestimated. The contrast which gave fascination ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, and BOY.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no wit ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... will have the chance to prove what he can do. No gringo can come among us Californians and flap the wings and crow upon the tule thatch for naught. There has been overmuch crowing, Valencia. Me, I am glad that boaster must do something more than crow ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... sneered. "If you think you can take us with you that far then why not to Jerusalem? The words of a boaster are a mask of doubt. Hah! Take us to ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... "Now, thou boaster," I said, "wilt thou lead the way into yonder reeds, or shall I?" And I made as though I would lead ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... must cut his coat according to his cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has a wizard ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... command my services, I'm happy to obey. Of late your Brother Delights in hind'ring my advancement, And ev'ry boaster's rais'd above my merit, Barzaphernes alone commands his ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... said, with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "I have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... word, and up he rose; The fight—he triumphed o'er the foes Whom God's just laws abhor; And, armed in gallant faith, he took Against the boaster, from the brook, The ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... stupid dreamer at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... make them more humble, but also when they are in fear and dejection to raise them up again and give them confidence. Thus Cyrus talked big in perils and on battle-fields, though at other times he was no boaster. And the second Antigonus, though he was on all other occasions modest and far from vanity, yet in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said to him, "See you not how many more ships the enemy have got than we have?" answered, "How many do you make ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... blustering, bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the "Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... who, you know, is a great boaster and likes to brag of how smart he is and how brave he is, came with the rest of ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... Phoebus edge with tints of gold And lucid crimson. One might fancy it A noble bird, that laves its graceful form, And bathes its rosy bosom in the light. Look! how it swells and rears its snowy crest With haughty grandeur; while the blue expanse, In smiling patience lets the boaster pass, And swell his train with all the lazy vapours That hover in the air: an easy prey To the gigantic phantom, whose curl'd wing, Sweeps in these worthless triflers of the sky, And wraps them in his bosom. Go, vain shadow! Sick with the burthen of thy fancied greatness, A breath ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... live oaks, when a horseman came to the little village. He was a strange man, great in size, dressed in buckskin, very brown of countenance and with long hair, tied as the western Indians would wear it. He was something of a genial boaster, was this man, and he was known up and down the Texas border as the Ring Tailed Panther although his right name was Martin Palmer. But he had lived long among the Osage, Kiowa and Pawnee Indians, and he was renowned throughout all the Southwestern ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... were being kindled declared this Joan, who called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of Beauvais could not well hesitate in pronouncing the final sentence whereby, to avoid further ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Expectation which is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... without decision," says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... experimenting when Collinson overtook him in the hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached Marysville. But he found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune: he was naturally no boaster, he had no desire to impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed by his own understatement; and under the grave, patient eyes of his companion, told his story at best lamely. ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... foremost of his time in political genius and oratory, was not subjected to parental tyranny, but stood free to exercise her choice. Of the few who would ever have thought of attempting, a diminished number would have equalled that feat. Alvan was no vain boaster; he could gain the ears of grave men as well as mobs and women. The interview with Clotilde was therefore assured to him, and the distracting telegrams and letters forwarded to him by Tresten during his absence were consequently stabs already promising to heal. They ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas (life-boats) ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... and you would be a demon! You are a boaster! No; there is no man quite cunning enough, bold enough, thus to insinuate himself into the confidence and respect of men. It would be a frightful defiance cast in the face ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... and antics of the buffoon. It has been said that Spenser never smiles. He not only smiles, with amusement or sly irony; he wrote what he must have laughed at as he wrote, and meant us to laugh at. He did not describe with a grave face the terrors and misadventures of the boaster Braggadochio and his Squire, whether or not a caricature of the Duke of Alencon and his "gentleman," the "petit singe," Simier. He did not write with a grave face the Irish row about the false ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... reckless temper had kept him where he was. There was in him a vein of madness which often burst forth in a blind fury. It had come upon him in battle, and he had awakened many a time to learn that he had been the hero of an exploit. He was not a boaster; he was not a broken soldier. He was a man whose violent temper had strewn his path with failures. . . . In love! Silently he mocked himself. In love, he, the tried veteran, of a hundred inconstancies! He smiled grimly beneath his mask. He passed on, stealthily, till he reached a door guarded by ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... a neat, cleanly boy of twenty, or thereabouts, active, loud-voiced, a boaster, and the cowardliest of the cowardly. He will steal at every opportunity. He clings to his gun most affectionately; is always excessively anxious if a screw gets loose, or if a flint will not strike ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... son of a god? A shameless boaster and a liar art thou! Hast ever spoken to thy divine sire? Give us some proof of thy sonship! No more child of the glorious Apollo art thou than are the vermin his children, that the sun breeds in ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Gods! thou shalt not—now, nor for evermore!" she replied, in her turn growing very angry.—"Thou foolish and mendacious boaster! what? dost thou deem me mad or senseless, to assail me with such drivelling folly? Begone, fool! or I will call my slaves—I have slaves yet, and, if it be the last deed of service they do for me, they shall spurn thee, like a dog, from my doors.—Art thou insane, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster? ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... then. He dined in high places and afterwards supped at the Savoy with the coryphees; and both in the high places and among the coryphees his jewels had made him welcome. This is truth I am telling you. He was a boaster. Well, after supper that night he threw a girl down the stairs. Never mind what she was—she was of the white ruling race, she was of the race that rules in India, he comes back to India and insolently boasts. Do you approve? ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... which Almanzor threatens his enemies, and vaunts his own importance. This is not common in the heroes of romance, who are usually as remarkable for their modesty of language as for their prowess; and still more seldom does, in real life, a vain-glorious boaster vindicate by his actions the threats of his tongue. It is true, that men of a fervent and glowing character are apt to strain their speech beyond the modesty of ordinary conversation, and display, in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... not be surprising. Those who die In this most righteous cause will go to Heaven, With all their sins forgotten!" Then Kabad Went to the king, and told the speech of Tur: A smile played o'er the cheek of Minuchihr As thus he spoke: "A boaster he must be, Or a vain fool, for when engaged in battle, Vigour of arm and the enduring soul, Will best be proved. I ask but for revenge— Vengeance for Irij slain. Meanwhile, return; We shall not ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... may be of yesterday, Annie, but our land bears no marks of recent origin. The most arrogant boaster of the Old World may feel himself humbled as he stands within the shadow of our forests, and looks up to trees which we might almost fancy to have waved over the heads of 'the patriarchs of an ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... greatest figures in the drama of the world. He is everyman, like Hamlet, if only we had the wit to recognize ourselves in him. Or rather he is that element in us which we all like and despise in others, but which we will never for one moment confess to in ourselves—the coward, the boaster, the liar, but the child of nature. He, because he knows himself for all of these, can find his home in Sarostro's paradise. He does not want Sarostro's high wisdom; what he does want is a Papagena, an ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... type striking by reason of its exception to the general class. Gascon is often synonymous with boaster, liar, and blusterer. Composure or sobriety is the least of his virtues, and when found may perhaps give reason for distrust. Compare the character of de Guiche in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac: "Le Gascon souple et froid" (Act I, Sc. iii). "Rien de plus dangereux ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... a bird flew forth on the right hand, an eagle of lofty flight, and the host of the Achaians shouted thereat, encouraged by the omen, but renowned Hector answered: "Aias, thou blundering boaster, what sayest thou! Would that indeed I were for ever as surely the son of aegis-bearing Zeus, and that my mother were lady Hera, and that I were held in such honour as Apollo and Athene, as verily this day is to bring utter evil on all the Argives! And thou among them ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... no fear. I am no boaster. But we cannot fight him here in Roan Kiti, which is open to the sea, and never can we make it a strong fort, for here we have no falat,{*} nor yet any great forest trees. But at Tokolme are many thousands of the great stones and mighty trees in ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... and the beavers I ran; but where is the elk or the cabri?[80] Come!—where is the hunter will dare match his feet with the feet of Tamdoka? Let him think of Tate[AC] and beware, ere he stake his last robe on the trial." "Oho! Ho! Ho-heca!"[AD] they jeered, for they liked not the boast of the boaster; But to match him no warrior appeared, for his feet wore the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... to see that you are no boaster, Saduko," said Panda. "Would that more of the Zulus were like you in that matter, for then I must not listen to so many loud songs about little things. At least, Bangu was killed and his proud tribe humbled, and, for ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Incarnacion, throwing down the match and putting his foot on it, "if this boaster, this turkey-cock, says she did, you could put him out ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... the part I have played in bringing this disaster upon you. I had no idea that anything I could say or do would so deeply injure you—you the Wondrous One. It was incredible—their disdain of you. I was a fool, a selfish boaster, to allow you to go into this thing. The possible loss of money we both discussed, but that any words of mine could injure you as an artist never came to me. Believe me, my dearest friend, I am astounded. I am crushed with the thought, ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... expressions had been, and, like them, entirely misinterpreted by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the high-spirited girl with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened libertine," she thought—"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in his crime. 'She gave me her all,' I heard him ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fight at a tavern with a noisy braggart. He managed to throw the man into a chair and bind him with a rope. Then he knotted the man's beard and moustache together so that his mouth was sealed. The rest of the tavern applauded him for his neat manner of silencing the boaster. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... his skill in all sports and pastimes. To please the company he rose from his seat and danced his merry dances to the music of flutes and drums. Then the sweet singer, Chibiabos, sang a melodious love-song, and when this was finished, Iagoo the Boaster, jealous of the praise and applause bestowed on the musician, told one of his most marvelous stories, and well pleased the wedding-guests ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... said, and everybody would have believed him. By declaring him the winner of the bet she has cut the matter short, and she has avoided a judgment by which she would have been dishonoured. The inconsiderate boaster was guilty of a double mistake for which he paid the penalty of his life, but his adversary was as much wanting in delicacy, for in such matters rightly-minded men do not venture upon betting. If the one ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 810 Sent out from little Cures' garth, that unrich land of his, Unto a mighty lordship: yea, and Tullus next is this, Who breaks his country's sleep and stirs the slothful men to fight; And calleth on the weaponed hosts unused to war's delight But next unto him Ancus fares, a boaster overmuch; Yea and e'en now the people's breath too nigh his heart will touch. And wilt thou see the Tarquin kings and Brutus' lofty heart, And fasces brought aback again by his avenging part? He first the lordship consular and dreadful axe shall ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... come to the river the whole thing was roaring and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' 'It's not the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... that measures were in progress for the establishment in Philadelphia, of a printing house which would entirely overshadow his own. This secrecy which was practiced also prevented any one from informing Franklin of the Governor's real character, as a vain, unreliable, gasconading boaster. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a coward and a boaster, then," said Oliver, sitting down about three yards from the edge of the chasm, and unfastening the rope from about his chest. "But it isn't safe to come like that; I nearly lost my balance, the ladder bends ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... his authority will now be obeyed; while Usop, in consequence of his cowardly flight (for so they deem it), from the want of energy he has displayed, has lost character as well as wealth, and would scarce find ten men in Bruni to follow him. Unluckily for himself, he was a great boaster in the days of his prosperity; and now the contrast of his past boasting with his present cowardice is drawn with a sneer. 'His mouth was brave,' they exclaim, 'but his heart timid.' 'He should have died as other great men have died, and not have ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... manage to grow up and reach man's estate he's got something to brag of. Only he doesn't do it; because the first thing that people learn who have to live very intimately together is that bore and boaster are synonymous terms. So he never brags of what he has accomplished in the way of deeds and experiences until he is married. And then only in the privacy of his own lodge, when that big hickory stick ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... for this, vain boaster, to survey me, To descant on my strength, and give thy verdit? Come nearer, part not hence so slight inform'd; But take good heed my hand survey not thee. 1230 Har: O Baal-zebub! can my ears unus'd Hear these dishonours, and not ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... have said, however, Jim was a great boaster and blusterer, glorying in the marvelous and dangerous. Had he lived in the heroic age, I have no doubt he would have regaled the ears of his listeners with blood curdling stories of his battles with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... exalted supernaturalism which was the life and hope of blessed saints and martyrs in bygone ages, and which in "their contests with mail-clad infidelity was like the pebble which the shepherd of Israel hurled against the disdainful boaster who defied the power of Israel's God." And he was thus brought into close sympathy with the realism of the Fathers, who felt that all that is valuable in theology must radiate from the recognition of Almighty power in the renovation of society, and displayed, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... an empty business, which pleases nobody but the boaster, and I have no disposition to boast of what the Democratic Party has accomplished. It has merely done its duty. It has merely fulfilled its explicit promises. But there can be no violation of good taste in calling attention to the manner in which those promises have been carried out or ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... whispers Of the garrulous old women, Glad belief he gave unto them That the Doe on Ro-a-no-ak Was in truth the Pale-Face Maiden Wrung from him by cruel magic. He was not a gabbling boaster, He could think and act in silence; And alone he roamed the island Seeking this White Doe to capture, So that he might tame and keep her Near ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... marched, and with him The boaster brought six thousand Switzers bold, Audacious were their looks, their faces grim, Strong castles on the Alpine clifts they hold, Their shares and coulters broke, to armors trim They change that metal, cast in warlike mould, And with this band late herds and flocks that guide, Now kings ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... message by his servant, Rabshakeh, to summon Hezekiah to submit, and warning him and his people, that their God could no more protect them than the gods of the conquered nations had saved their worshippers. In answer to the prayer of Hezekiah, came, by the mouth of Isaiah, an assurance that the boaster who insulted the living God, was only an instrument in His Hands, unable to go one step against His will. Not one arrow should he shoot against the holy city, but he should hear a rumour, a blast should be sent on him, and he should fall by the ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Intimidates the brave, degrades the great; See Cali, dread of kings, and pride of armies, By treason levell'd with the dregs of men! Ere guilty fear depress'd the hoary chief, An angry murmur, a rebellious frown, Had stretch'd the fiery boaster in the grave. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... fellow-citizens, not only to abate their pride and make them more humble, but also when they are in fear and dejection to raise them up again and give them confidence. Thus Cyrus talked big in perils and on battle-fields, though at other times he was no boaster. And the second Antigonus, though he was on all other occasions modest and far from vanity, yet in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said to him, "See you not how many more ships the enemy have got than we have?" answered, "How many do you make me equal ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Then Iagoo, the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... dreamer at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— That love of me ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his 'Miles Gloriosus' from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Alazon, 'the Boaster,' and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... she must be told that Gudruna, in Laxdaela, threatened one of her three husbands with much the same treatment, and would have put her threat into execution if he had not behaved as she commanded him. In our Saga, too, the gudewife of Bjorn the boaster threatens him with a separation if he does not stand faithfully by Kari; and in another Saga of equal age and truthfulness, we hear of one great lady who parted from her husband, because, in playfully throwing a pillow of ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat that have we lost, and the glory of the Red Branch ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... are the words of a boaster, who is bold only when he sees his enemy before him disarmed. Beware of what you do; you are walking in the dark! Do you believe the paltry handful of English whom you drove out of Calcutta count ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... that the bishop was going away made the matter worse, for just as she had found out that he was willing to help her, and that he might be able to keep Raybold away from them without actual violence—for she saw that the young boaster was afraid of him—he had told her he must leave, and in her heart she did not blame him. With great fear and anxiety she ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... answered, giving ocular evidence that I was no idle boaster, making a complete gyration on my heels, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Bull Run Mountains became gradually visible in the faint light of the eastern sky, and the men at last discovered whither their general was leading them. With the knowledge, which spread quickly through the ranks, that they were making for the communications of the boaster Pope, the regiments stepped out with renewed energy. "There was no need for speech, no breath to spare if there had been—only the shuffling tramp of marching feet, the rumbling of wheels, the creak and clank of harness and accoutrements, with an occasional order, uttered ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... that others life might find, Shaming you with his toil, his bravery, Not by a word or look, no boaster he, He was always ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war." What will this boaster produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he, who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who, after the time of the destruction of Troy, surveyed the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has a wizard ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... "there rides the array of our Athenian ships. What other state in Hellas sends so many and sets better men within them? Athens still lives, though her Acropolis be wrapped in flames. 'Strong-hearted men and naught else are warp and woof of a city.' Do you forget Alcaeus's word so soon, O Boaster from Corinth? Yes, by Athena Promachos, Mistress of Battles, while those nine score ships ride on the deep, I have a city fairer, braver, than yours. And will you still deny me equal voice and vote with this noble trierarch ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... departure, with every show of kindliness from the king, including a royal escort. The minute he was gone those courtly, crafty heads all got together and told the king that most likely the man was merely a boaster, but, lest he might have discovered territory for Spain, why not hurriedly send out a Portuguese fleet to seize the new islands ere Spain could make good her claim? Some even ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... to sixty years of age. Five feet four inches or five feet high; grey (nearly white) hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... sailed on the ship Argo, with Jason and the great heroes of that day, in search of the Golden Fleece. Many brave deeds were his in foreign lands; and when he came home again to Calydon, he brought with him a fair young wife, gentle Cleopatra, daughter of Idas the boaster. ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... he said, with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "I have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... the prologue, as it were, to all his future tragedies. From this depth of nothingness Turgenef, however, soon rises to at least the semblance of strength; and while Rudin is at bottom as impotent as Tchulkaturin, he at least pretends to strength. Rudin, then, is the hero of phrases, the boaster; he promises marvels, he charms, he captivates; but it all ends in words, and Rudin perishes as needlessly as he lived needlessly. In "Fathers and Sons," however, Bazarof is no longer a talker; he already rises to indignation and ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... men, as instructed by the agent, were over at the village of Two Lance, a long mile away, rounding up their pony herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding themselves with knives, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to her vesper ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... conversation any body would have supposed that the mines of Peru were upon his plantation; and that in comparison with his the influence of the President of the United States was nothing. I was a full twelvemonth before I was convinced that he was a boaster and a fabulist; and I was another twelvemonth before I could persuade myself that he was one of the most selfish, indolent, and obstinate of human beings. He was delighted to have me always at his table to entertain him and his guests, but he had not the slightest ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... man into a chair and bind him with a rope. Then he knotted the man's beard and moustache together so that his mouth was sealed. The rest of the tavern applauded him for his neat manner of silencing the boaster. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... boasting stinks; it would be more appropriate after my death than while I am alive. That boaster moreover has a peacock's plume on his helmet, and at the very outset I made a vow to obtain three of them and afterward as many fingers of the hand. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... writ in the days of the fathers. But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt and the insult, All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish, 795 Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples. Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard, Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it. Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour, little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart; and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur which display a still more curious blending of the two religions. Thus a Tcheremiss, on one occasion, in consequence ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... boast to make, pointing to their own condition to prove their statements. I have heard of half a dozen men lying dead, or dying, at a street corner, victims to a single sword, yet was there never a corpse to be found in the morning. Your easy boaster is ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... soon discovered that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and slily encouraged ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... down the match and putting his foot on it, "if this boaster, this turkey-cock, says she did, you could put him ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... the fact, that courage and cowardice often complicate themselves with other qualifies, and so show false colors. For instance, the presence or absence of modesty may disguise the genuine character. The unpretending are not always timid, nor always brave. The boaster is not always, but only commonly, a coward. Were it otherwise, how could we explain the existence of courage in Frenchmen or Indians? Barking dogs sometimes bite, as many a small boy, too trustful of the proverb, has found to his cost. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Honeysuckle, Affection Hop, Injustice Horehound, Fire Hornbeam, Ornament Horse, Chestnut, Luxury Hortensia, You are Cold Houseleek, Vivacity Houstonia, Content Humble Plant, Despondency Hyacinth, Sport, Game, Play Hyacinth, Purple, Adversity Hyacinth, Blue, Constancy Hydrangea, A Boaster Hyssop, Cleanliness Iceland Moss, Health Ice Plant, You Freeze Me Imbricata, Uprightness Imperial Montague, Power Indian Cress, Warlike Trophy Indian Jasmine, Attachment Iris, Common, Message Iris, German, Flame Ivy, Marriage Jacob's ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... he would pass the night alone in the haunted house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the haunted house ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Don't sleep all day! Here we are at the Tower, man! I have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a young Prince in England then. He dined in high places and afterwards supped at the Savoy with the coryphees; and both in the high places and among the coryphees his jewels had made him welcome. This is truth I am telling you. He was a boaster. Well, after supper that night he threw a girl down the stairs. Never mind what she was—she was of the white ruling race, she was of the race that rules in India, he comes back to India and insolently boasts. Do you approve? ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... forces work out our deliverance in common. But if so, we must set out with minds prepared, since to-day either a glorious death awaits us or the achievement of a deed of noblest emprise in the rescue of so many Hellene lives. Maybe it is God who leads us thus, God who chooses to humble the proud boaster, boasting as though he were exceedingly wise, but for us, the beginning of whose every act is by heaven's grace, that same God reserves a higher grade of honour. One duty I would recall to you, to apply your minds to the execution of the orders ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... "I am no boaster, neither do I claim the gift of prophecy, like some of our saints yonder. But I am persuaded that a day will come when your words will be put to the proof. You will have to choose not between King and Commons, ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... war-path, ready to die for the right, and unwilling to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he is ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... employing an unbridled and excessive frankness of speech to all alike; he was in desperate pursuit of a reputation for being able to comprehend and speak as no one else could, and before all wanted to be thought a valuable citizen. As a result of this and because he was the greatest boaster alive and thought no one equal to himself, but in his words and life alike looked down on all and would not live as any one else did, he was wearisome and burdensome, and was consequently both envied and hated even by those very persons ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... am holier than thou. Thank God, I am not like this publican." While in God's sight, poor wretched boaster, thou ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... from the boaster, and he determined to silence him once for all. The next time he began to speak, he had barely said "Kerrump!" when the Crane had him by the leg. He croaked and struggled in vain, and in another moment he would have gone ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... them a great commander, but it is indisputable that they all had great parts in great wars. Benningsen can scarcely be called a good general of the second class, and he is mostly spoken of as a foolish braggart and boaster; but it is a fact that he did some things at an important time which indicated his possession of qualities that were highly desirable in a general who was bound to act against Napoleon. Having, in 1807, obtained command of the Russian army in Poland, he had what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... work. What they did you may judge of, when I tell you that, while two hundred and seventy-three Englishmen fell that day, only eighty-eight Americans were killed. I will not talk of what I myself performed, for I despise a boaster, but I did my share of ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... Tennessee called "Daisy Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Angus, the seer o' ferlies, That sits on the stane at his door, And tells about bogles, and mair lies Than tongue ever utter'd before. And there will be Bauldy, the boaster, Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' auld and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... content; for as I have given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises; for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be; save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... is a great boaster and likes to brag of how smart he is and how brave he is, came with the rest of the little ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... of Gryphon, brother of Aquilant; but the faithless fair one took up with Mart[a]no, a most impudent boaster and a coward. Being at Damascus during a tournament in which Gryphon was the victor, Martano stole the armor of Gryphon, arrayed himself in it, took the prizes, and then decamped with the lady. Aquilant happened to see them, bound them, and took them back to Damascus, where Martano was hanged, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... my honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... Cortaplumas (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas (life-boats) Sepancuantos ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... clung to that exalted supernaturalism which was the life and hope of blessed saints and martyrs in bygone ages, and which in "their contests with mail-clad infidelity was like the pebble which the shepherd of Israel hurled against the disdainful boaster who defied the power of Israel's God." And he was thus brought into close sympathy with the realism of the Fathers, who felt that all that is valuable in theology must radiate from the recognition of Almighty power ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... to awe you with the fierce words of a boaster and a bully? Test me, by looking back a little, and discovering what I have abstained from for the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, day after day, by those about ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... saw fit to bequeath me much in the hour when death came on him, sahib. I am no boaster, as he knew. Remember, then, to tell me if I fail at any time in what is due. I am ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... upon him quickly. 'Thou liest, thou drunken, useless cumberer of the earth,' he said, looking at him scornfully; 'no coward am I, nor a noisy boaster like thee. This is no place for us to quarrel. But say such a thing to me on the beach ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke
... assign to these pretensions their true value had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious false witness against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to make known the true part he had played in the matter, preferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete justification which would follow ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... this boaster, "whatever I do, I cannot, upon my word, chase away this cat that threatens you without some help. But let me call together all the rats hereabouts and I'll play him a sorry ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... beings, infinitely remote—the great landlord of the neighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole district. The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer, and make threat that the time was coming when he, the boaster, and Challis, the landlord, would have equal rights; but in public the socialist kow-towed to his master with a submission no less obsequious than that of the humblest ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Greatly moved, Doctor Fleming sat thinking about it all. He had spoken no word of all he meant to say, and he would never speak now. No word of his was needed. He sat rebuked in this man's presence—this man whom, within the hour, he had called boaster and ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... we were at thy flowering age? Come close that we may whisper in thine ear—while we lean our left shoulder on thine—our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood—ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling—tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent Auditress on youth's ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... speech. It was my first field, sir, and I am wont to speak of it too boastingly. I shall become more modest, I hope, when I shall have a better right to be a boaster." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... made us warm, nor asked whence or why we wandered. It was their thought that Old Kinoos had lost the sight of his eyes from age; nor did Old Kinoos say otherwise, nor did I, his daughter. Old Kinoos is a brave man, but Old Kinoos was never a boaster. And now, when I tell thee of how his blindness came to be, thou wilt know, beyond question, that the daughter of Kinoos cannot mother the children of a coward such as thou ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the natives of Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in English we sometimes use the word Gascon to describe a great boaster, while gasconade is now a common term for ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... which may be admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... greetings. She had much to tell about them both, but Jacob thought it was queer that she had more to say about Ole than about Peter; for while Ole was a straight-forward fellow, it could not be denied that he was a bit of a boaster. ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... is the rhetorician that can discourse of all arts and sciences?" There came forward a sage hight Ibrahim bin Siyyr and said to her, "Think me not like the rest." Quoth she, "It is the more assured to me that thou wilt be beaten, for that thou art a boaster; and Allah will help me to victory over thee, that I may strip thee of thy clothes. So, if thou sentest one to fetch thee wherewithal to cover thyself, 'twould be well for thee." Cried he, "By Allah, I will ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... touched it. To him, then, I leave it to tell how the rank of banneret was conferred on the gallant old Chandos, how the Prince prayed aloud for a blessing on his arms, how he gave the signal for the advance, and how the boaster, Tello, fled in the first encounter. The Lances of Lynwood, in the division of the Duke of Lancaster, well and gallantly did their part in the hard struggle with the brave band of French, whose resistance was not overcome ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... attention was only to raise a laugh at the expense of that boaster," said the prince, after they were gone, "or would you indeed fulfil ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Akalantis. Female names in the Thesmophoriazusae. New Kalligeneia. Name given to Ceres, meaning, "bearer of lovely children." The Toxotes. A Syrian archer in the "Thesmophoriazusae." The Great King's Eye. Mock name given to an ambassador from Persia in the Acharnians. Kompolakuthes. Bully-boaster: with a play on the name ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look at William of Cumberland, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by their Vivacities; but indeed I cannot let heedless ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and lies side by side with the glorious "Kaempe Viser," the "Ab Gwilym," and other learned translations, by means of which it may be hoped that the gifted Borrow will ere long vindicate his lasting claim to scholarship—a claim to which it is to be feared he is indifferent, for he is no boaster, and does himself no justice; or, if he boasts at all, prefers, as with a species of self-sarcasm, the mention of his lesser, on which he dwells with zest, to that of his greater and more enduring triumphs. The "Targum" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... not had horses served with champagne in pails," the old boaster, Athanase Georgevitch, protested jealously. He was an advocate, well-known for his table-feats, who claimed the hardest drinking reputation of any man in the capital, and he regretted not to have ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... taught so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow grew tired of ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... else, an' they want to take it away fr'm him. Whin he's sober his bluff is on th' outside. Whin he's dhrunk he makes th' bluff to his own heart. Dhrink turns him inside out as well as upside down, an' while he's congratulatin' himsilf on th' fine man he is, th' neighbors know him f'r a boaster, a cow'rd, an' something iv a liar. That th' ladies see an' hate. They do not know that there is wan thing an' on'y wan thing to be said in favor iv dhrink, an' that is that it has caused manny a lady to be loved that otherwise might've ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... feigned, simulated, mock. faltar fail, be missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. farce, humbug. fascinar fascinate. fatal adj. fatal, ominous, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... please the company he rose from his seat and danced his merry dances to the music of flutes and drums. Then the sweet singer, Chibiabos, sang a melodious love-song, and when this was finished, Iagoo the Boaster, jealous of the praise and applause bestowed on the musician, told one of his most marvelous stories, and well pleased the ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... his, Unto a mighty lordship: yea, and Tullus next is this, Who breaks his country's sleep and stirs the slothful men to fight; And calleth on the weaponed hosts unused to war's delight But next unto him Ancus fares, a boaster overmuch; Yea and e'en now the people's breath too nigh his heart will touch. And wilt thou see the Tarquin kings and Brutus' lofty heart, And fasces brought aback again by his avenging part? He first the lordship consular and dreadful axe shall take; 819 The father who ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... Meadows!" The stranger laughed an unpleasant laugh. "How long since you owned the Green Meadows? I have just come down on to them from the Old Pasture, and I like the looks of them so well that I think I will stay. So run along, little boaster! There isn't room for both of us here, and the sooner you trot along the better." The stranger suddenly showed all his teeth ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... mountain-tide Back to the source, when tempest-chafed, to hie? Who, when Gascogne's vexed gulf is raging wide, Shall hush it as a nurse her infant's cry? His magic power let such vain boaster try, And when the torrent shall his voice obey, And Biscay's whirlwinds list his lullaby, Let him stand forth and bar mine eagles' way, And they shall heed his voice, and at his ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... made up; for after Ben Tinker had thrashed the little boaster he was satisfied, and Tommy did not dare to be cross. By this time they had ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... nothing but brutal and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... "Mack is a man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, fully ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... such is the divinity of the epicureans; and such is the flatterer of himself. Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyrick envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums. Infamy may hiss, or contempt may growl, the hirelings of the great may follow fortune, and the votaries of truth may attend on virtue; but his pleasures still remain the same; he can always ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... "and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride in ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... ordered him to build the palace that very night, and setting a guard over him, bade the sentries be careful the young boaster did not run away. Now when evening came, the Prince lay down calmly to sleep, whereat the guard whispered amongst themselves that he must be a madman to fling away his life so uselessly. Nevertheless, with the first streak of dawn the ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... for his own impious boast In frenzy utter'd that he would escape The billows, even in the Gods' despight. Neptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp'd 610 His trident, and the huge Gyraean rock Smiting indignant, dash'd it half away; Part stood, and part, on which the boaster sat When, first, the brainsick fury seiz'd him, fell, Bearing him with it down into the gulphs Of Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died. But thy own brother in his barks escaped That fate, by Juno saved; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... receiving what I consider altogether undue praise. Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "the thought has just occurred to me of a way by which you can obtain confirmation of my story; and, as I value your good opinion and would not be regarded as a boaster and a liar, I entreat you to take it. I heard you tell the eight men who were rowers in my boat when I was captured, to call upon you today, that you ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... manufacture, and uncommonly neat; in the interior such an article is only used by the principal people, and his bridle also was of curious workmanship. The horseman had an extravagant idea of his own consequence, and seemed to be a prodigious boaster. He wore abundance of clothing, most of which was superfluous, but it made him excessively vain. He informed the travellers that he had been despatched by the king of Jenna, to meet them in the path, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and extravagance. The passages of the Epistles, which were formerly felt to be so objectionable, are yet to be found here in all their unmitigated folly. Ignatius is still the same anti-evangelical formalist, the same puerile boaster, the same dreaming mystic, and the same crazy fanatic. These are weighty charges, and yet they can be substantiated. But we must enter into details, that we may fairly exhibit the spirit, and expose the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... empty business, which pleases nobody but the boaster, and I have no disposition to boast of what the Democratic Party has accomplished. It has merely done its duty. It has merely fulfilled its explicit promises. But there can be no violation of good taste in calling ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... at my success. Every body was surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... very attractive branch of natural history, woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth, I did. Although Brandon had seen many an adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down here, he was as little of a boaster as any man I ever met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... ridicule, or, in other words, that he was not a laughable writer. That he was ineptus, indeed, but that was non aptissimus ad jocandum; but that he was ostentatious of his learning, that by Scaliger's good favour he denies. Persius showed his learning, but was no boaster of it; he did ostendere, but not ostentare; and so, he says, did Scaliger (where, methinks, Casaubon turns it handsomely upon that supercilious critic, and silently insinuates that he himself was sufficiently vain-glorious and a boaster ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... for our composure. Pierre's stolidity was largely training. Starling's quiet might mean instinctive imitation, but I feared it was something more sinister. While mine—— But I had no composure. I swaggered and shrugged and played harlequin and boaster. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... disclosed at the last day. Vengeance pursued her steps, she was lost; the villain to whom she had sacrificed herself boasted of the favours he had received. The fatal report was conveyed to her injured husband. He refused to believe what he thought impossible, but honour obliged him to call the boaster to the field. The wretch received the challenge with much more contentment than concern; as he had resolution enough to murder any man whom he had injured, so he was certain, if he had the good fortune to conquer his antagonist, he ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
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