"Egregious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same impertinent French action may prove a second French faux pas, to follow in the wake of the first and very egregious faux pas in Mexico. The best that we can say for the Decembriseur is, that he is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Bruxelles, Simon Renard, and Jean Baptiste Sciceio, a jurisconsult of Cremona. During the precious month of December, however, the Pope had concluded with the French monarch a treaty, by which this solemn armistice was rendered an egregious farce. While Henry's plenipotentiaries had been plighting their faith to those of Philip, it had been arranged that France should sustain, by subsidies and armies, the scheme upon which Paul was bent, to drive the Spaniards entirely out of the Italian peninsula. The king was to aid the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sole reform suggested by the Greek cousin. She had introduced flowers on the table, and so artfully had she decked out the board with fruit and ornamental plants, that she had succeeded in effecting by artifice what would have been an egregious failure if more openly attempted—the service of the dishes one by one to the guests without any being placed on the table. These, with finger-glasses, she had already achieved, nor had she in the recesses of her heart given up the hope of seeing the day that her uncle ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... a spring. Of course I was under a misapprehension: the feelers couldn't have been twined; a moment before I should have been ready to bet a thousand to one that they were. Still, one does make mistakes, and very egregious mistakes, at times. At the same time, I confess that when I saw that dreadful-looking animal poised on the extreme edge of the bowl, for all the world as though it were just going to spring at me, I was a little startled. I remembered that when I was smoking the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... abnormous^; anomalous, anomalistic; out of order, out of place, out of keeping, out of tune, out of one's element; irregular, arbitrary; teratogenic; lawless, informal, aberrant, stray, wandering, wanton; peculiar, exclusive, unnatural, eccentric, egregious; out of the beaten track, off the beaten track, out of the common, out of the common run; beyond the pale of, out of the pale of; misplaced; funny. unusual, unaccustomed, uncustomary, unwonted, uncommon; rare, curious, odd, extraordinary, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... things of legend and history in the vulgar, topical frippery that passes for a certain kind of wit. Michob Ader as an impostor, claiming nineteen hundred years, and playing his part with the decency of respectable lunacy, I could endure; but as a tedious wag, cheapening his egregious story with song-book levity, his importance as an ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... events which happened under his own eye, or were communicated to him by eyewitnesses; but he was deficient in judgment and discrimination. He took his facts without caution, and often from sources unworthy of credit. In his account of the first voyage of Columbus, he falls into several egregious errors, in consequence of taking the verbal information of a pilot named Hernan Perez Matteo, who was in the interest of the Pinzons, and adverse to the admiral. His work is not much to be depended upon in matters relative to Columbus. When he treats of ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... respect most of the prevailing histories of the United States are the most egregious offenders. They fix the idea that this or that alleged statesman, this or that President or politician or set of politicians, have been the dominating factors in the decision and sway of public affairs. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... "for all of which blessings we have cause to be thankful; but it's my opinion that you and I are a couple of egregious asses for having forsaken our kind and come to ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... the parliament knew very well who was fighting their battles. Such a mode of speech would not endanger his reputation, nor diminish from his claims; might perhaps—though we will not say this was present to his thoughts—induce the parliament to presume that he would not insist on any very egregious reward for services he was so anxious to disclaim. We will quote one instance of this self-denying style; and perhaps the following passage contains altogether as much of a certain fanatical mode of reasoning ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... impossible, your majesty," said the guardian of the inferno of etiquette. "No Queen of France has ever set foot within the precincts of a shop, or has ever appeared in a public place of that sort. It would be such an egregious breach of etiquette, that I am convinced your majesty will ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the first half of the first watch; but, as the passengers were about the deck during the whole time, I made no attempt to enter into confidential communication with him, and I had no other opportunity that night. On the following day his misdeeds were not quite so egregious, but he still contrived to behave like a man who considered himself aggrieved; and when his trick at the wheel came round again, during the first half of the afternoon watch, he steered so carelessly, and ran the ship off her course so abominably, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... rapture were we blest If Some-one gave his nimble tongue a rest And, turning Trappist, stanched the fearsome gush Of egotistic and thrasonic slush; Or if Lord X. eschewed his daily speeches And took to canning Californian peaches; Or if egregious LYNCH could but abstain From "ruining along the illimitable inane" At Question-time, and try to render PLATO'S Republic into Erse, or grow potatoes; Or if our novelists wrote cheerful books, Instead of joining those superfluous cooks Who spoil our daily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... as 1859 the egregious Chadwick nibbled at this theory in his Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, with Remarks Digressive and Discursive. The story, he says, "would be very applicable" to Defoe himself, and again, "is very likely to have been taken from his own life"; but at this point Chadwick maunders ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and I are wondering, Miss," Mary took her up with so much meaning that Miss Bilson inwardly quailed, sensible of having committed a rather egregious blunder. This she made efforts to repair by sheering off hurriedly on ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Bois,—was the salon of the Princess Lieven; and to have ever thought she could induce M. Guizot to be in the slightest degree faithless to this habit argues, on the part of Mme. Recamier, either a vanity more egregious than we had even supposed, or an ignorance of what she had to combat that seems impossible. To have imagined for a moment that she could induce M. Guizot to frequent her reunions shows that she appreciated neither Mme. de Lieven, nor M. Guizot, nor, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... can read the writings of these accomplished workmen without respect and pleasure. But it is no more true that they rival Sir Walter than it is true that they are twelve feet high, or that any one of them believes in his own private mind the egregious announcement of the reviewer. The one great sufferer by this craze for setting men of middling stature side by side with Scott is our beautiful and beloved Stevenson, who, unless rescued by some judicious hand, is likely to be buried under ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... every ship that carried food or munitions, while other boats were not molested. An investigation showed that the shipping news had been telegraphed to Prince Peter, and he in his turn handed it on to the Austrians. The Prince's egregious parent wanted to be in a position to say that, owing to the lack of food and munitions, he had been compelled to surrender. One of his final acts was to summon the Skup[vs]tina, as he did not wish to be saddled with the responsibility ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... the last of Doctor Blimber's, however. There was something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious chuckle, 'Is Dombey there?' and immediately put it up again, without waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even; for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the other window, and looking in with a precisely ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... row of egregious dwellings, squat, uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and "gambling hell" which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... attend on Wednesday night with the wampum; and two men of their nation to be in readiness to set out with us next morning. As I found it was impossible to get off without affronting them in the most egregious manner, I ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to make so egregious a mistake with regard to the comparative merits of the Shelburne districts and those of the St John river it is difficult to understand. Edward Winslow frankly accused him of jealousy of the St John settlements. Possibly he was only too well aware of the ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because the all-important element of distance is omitted. The very first question a plain man would ask about the case would be, "What were the distances involved?" The academic historian ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... "What egregious blockheads must those animals have been who discover a resemblance to my style in Latin or other quotations. I have no need of crutches. I can walk forward without anybody's arm; and if I wanted one, I should not take an old one in ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... with foreigners, the people, but especially the Christians, are exceedingly lenient, forgiving and overlooking our egregious blunders both of speech and of manner, particularly if they feel that we have a kindly heart. Yet it is the uniform experience of the missionary that he frequently hurts unawares the feelings of ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... cares, from servitude—and why should I, who had helped myself in bountiful measure to the good things in life's cornucopia, feel superior when confronted by the lusts I myself had been instrumental in arousing? I laughed at my egregious virtue ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... that we left it all to a friend W. G.—who in the first place cheated me into putting a name to them, which I did not mean, but do not repent, and then wrote a puff about their simplicity, &c., to go with the advertisement as in my name! Enough of this egregious dupery.—I will try to abstract the load of teazing circumstances from the Stories and tell you that I am answerable for Lear, Macbeth, Timon, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, for occasionally a tail piece or correction of grammar, for none of the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... was thus pinching me to the very bone! Here a vain mortal, as insolent as uninstructed, drawn by six ponies; with a postillion before and three idle fellows behind, pampered in vice, that he might thus openly insult common sense, and thus publicly proclaim the folly of his head to be as egregious as the insensibility of his heart was hateful. There trifling and imbecile creatures, who, not satisfied with the appellation woman, call themselves ladies, and expend thousands on their routs, masked-balls, whipped creams, and other froth and frippery, procured ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... for the purpose of this book in what Mr. Roosevelt's goodness is or whether it is what he thinks it is. We might all disagree about that. I am dealing quite strictly in this connection with what even his enemies would say is his almost egregious success in advertising goodness. While we might all disagree as to his goodness being the kind that he or any one ought to love, we would not fail to agree that it is his love of his own goodness, such ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the condition to enter upon your harvest. The field is before you. You are girded for the work. And will you now indolently lay aside the sickle, and let the golden grain fall to the ground ungathered? Could there be a more egregious mistake? Last week, I saw from my window two parent birds tempting their young fledglings from the nest. Day by day, week by week, I had seen the child-birds growing and gaining strength. Their muscles ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... egregious fool went on. "And why should you not believe your senses?" he asked her, between anger and entreaty. "Is it wonderful that I should ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... anger and chagrin, for he felt that he had been worsted in the encounter. He did regret the words as soon as spoken, and a certain rude sense of justice made him feel, even in his excitement, that his nephew, although an egregious fool of course, had been true to his sense of right and honor. He was assuredly the victim of a designing lot of women, but believing them to be true, his course had been manly, and the thought would come, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... tales inveigh'st, As much too pleasant for thy taste; Egregious critic, cease to scoff, While for a time I play you off, And strive to soothe your puny rage. As Esop comes upon the stage, And dress'd entirely new in Rome, Thus enters with the tragic plume.— "O that the fair Thessalian pine Had never felt the wrath divine, And fearless of the axe's ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... foregoing scientific deductions to the "Resident Physician," and the bearer told me afterwards that the venerable Esculapian only observed,—"Well, the writer of that must have been a most egregious ass. There is no such thing as 'Sulphate of Bilgerius,' or 'Silica Bilgica,' or anything like them", and then the old fellow chuckled to himself over my supposed ignorance. I was willing he should. I'm accustomed to being called ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... man, Angus had named her Beauty. She was a very cross hen, and her feather unmentionables fitted badly. Moreover, she was utterly useless, and never laid an egg, which was fortunate, for if she had laid one it would have been an egregious monstrosity. She was obviously tough. If they had slain her for the table they would have had to cut her up with a hand-saw, or grind her into meal to fit her for use. Besides all this, Beauty was a widow. When her husband died—probably of disgust—she took to crowing on her own account. She received ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... William's place. They came to him in great numbers, not only from the Six Nations, but often from far-distant tribes living beyond the Lakes and north of the St. Lawrence. They were on their best behavior with him, and no doubt had an affection for him in their way, but it was because he flattered their egregious vanity by acting and dressing in Indian fashion, and made it worth their while by constantly giving them presents and rum. Their liking seemed always to me to be that of the selfish, treacherous cat, rather than ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... so little prepared, has given me no disturbance ; for I must be a far more egregious witling than any of those I tried to draw, to imagine you could ever credit that I wrote without some remote hope of success now—though I literally did when ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... good zio, the honest uncle, began, and told Maria and Filomena the history of Napoleon I., fairly correctly. He had heard it from his master Leonardo, who taught him his trade; the man had taken part in five of the campaigns. The only egregious mistake he made was that he thought the Austrians had gradually poisoned the Duke of Reichstadt, because he threatened to become even more formidable than his father. But that the old grenadier might easily have believed. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... milk, a subtle poison. It crept into their veins, and though they might leave Ireland, yet for generations would it persist.... It gave them the gift of laughter, and contempt for physical pain, and an egregious sensitiveness.... So that the world wondered ... their wars were merry wars, and their poetry sobbed, like a bereaved woman.... They threw their lives away recklessly, and a phrase meant much to them.... Perhaps they knew that action ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... by inapplicable laws, but took for granted that the sun revolved upon its axis, and thence communicated a corresponding motion to the bodies thrown from its surface. But our author has sought to advance beyond his teacher, and in this way has shown his ignorance of physics by an egregious mistake. At this point we might stop, without following the ulterior steps by which the solar system is made to evolve out of heated vapour. Having got rotation, though by an impossible process, the author falls into the illustration already given of the theory of LAPLACE. ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... non-committal way as a work treating of "the diverse natures and properties of Divels and Spirits." Gabriel Harvey's Pierces Supererogation (London, 1593), has the following mention of it: "Scottes discoovery of Witchcraft dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in certaine principall chapters, and special passages, hitteth the nayle on the head with a witnesse; howsoever I could have wished he had either dealt somewhat more curteously with Monsieur Bodine, or confuted him somewhat more effectually." Professor ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... jewellers to consult him concerning a scarf-pin. It was a bull-dog's head, carved in lava, and not quite life-size. The eyes were rubies, the collar was of gold and brilliants. This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece with his general notions of how a millionaire should ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... beau-monde shall from the Mall survey, And hail with music its propitious ray. This the blest lover shall for Venus take, And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake. This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, {137} When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis, and the fall ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... She prefers the country, so it will not be very strange if I should; but when I see how completely, and yet how cheerfully, she has given up her favourite residence and employments, for the interests and happiness of her children, I feel ashamed at the egregious selfishness which has been mine. Oh, Mary, when shall I ever be like mamma? when can I ever be worthy of half, nay, one quarter of that respectful admiration which is bestowed upon her, even by those whose principles ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... the last ball. The Rev. Septimus covers his eyes. O wretched Duffer! O thou whose knees are as wax, and whose arms are as chop-sticks in the hands of a Griffin! O egregious Duff! O degenerate son of a noble sire, dost thou dare at such a moment as this to attack thine enemy ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... if the cosmos Sprang as I stated; an egregious don Has published pamphlets asking if it was moss, Or something else, that formed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... evils of poverty much oftener than perhaps was useful, and had thence contracted a terror—of it not easily controlled. My legacy I had always regarded as a sacred deposit,—an asylum in distress which nothing but the most egregious folly would rob or dissipate. Yet now I was called upon to transfer, by one stroke of the pen, to one who appeared to me to be engaged in ruinous vices or chimerical projects, so large a portion as ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... whom extraordinary encomiums were bestowed by all present, who believed he had actually rescued her from the jaws of death; and as he was by this time let into the secrets of the family, he found himself in a fair way of being an egregious favourite of the old gentlewoman; when, unluckily, his brother, having dismissed his country patient with uncommon despatch, entered the apartment, and eyed his rival with looks of inexpressible rage; then, surveying the patient, and the phials that stood upon the table, by turns, "What, in the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... address of matter to our senses has made it easy to pursue knowledge respecting bodies, while the invisibility of mind presents insurmountable difficulties, but this conclusion is scarcely supported by facts. If men have erred with reference to their own intellects, they have also made many and egregious blunders concerning matter and its qualities. We think the study of mind is just as easy as the study of matter. Here a man has nothing to do but look into himself. With my mind I think, reason, reflect, remember, hate, love, grieve, rejoice, imagine, contrive, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... chuckled. It was in very bad taste, of course, but I couldn't help it. I suppose George is one of the most egregious Micawbers of the English Bar, whereas I—— why, I remember noticing a brief on the mantelpiece in my chambers only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... she was supposed to buy. For two weeks the police have been pursuing the baroness across France and the continent: an easy job, as she scatters gold and jewels wherever she goes. They think they have her every moment. Two days ago, our champion detective, the egregious Ganimard, arrested a visitor at a big hotel in Belgium, a woman against whom the most positive evidence seemed to be heaped up. On enquiry, the lady turned out to be a notorious chorus-girl called Nelly Darbal. As for the baroness, she has vanished. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... was obeyed indifferently and tamely enough by all save the egregious Mrs. Satchell, who delivered so lusty a thrust with her weapon that Halfman was obliged to skip back briskly to avoid bringing his breast acquainted ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... lady who as a girl had known Mrs. Procter well, "made friendly company yesterday to a lonely meal, and brought back memories of Mr. Kinglake's kind spoiling of a raw young woman, and of the wit, the egregious vanity, the coarseness, the kindness, of that hard old worldling our Lady of Bitterness." In the presence of one man, Tennyson, she laid aside her shrewishness: "talking with Alfred Tennyson lifts me out ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... the bottomest one was for clams that Hendrik Hudson had eaten and paid for. Cypher had the power, in common with Napoleon III. and the goggle-eyed perch, of throwing a film over his eyes, rendering opaque the windows of his soul. Once when we left him unpaid, with egregious excuses, I looked back and saw him shaking with inaudible laughter behind his film. Now and then we paid ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... met them walking at odd hours in queer places, of which I imagine they were not much aware. They would turn deliberately off the Maidan and away from the bandstand to be rid of our irrelevant bows; they did their duty by the rest of us, but the most egregious among us, the Deputy-Commissioner for selection, could see that he hardly counted. I thought I understood, but that may have been my fatuity; certainly when their husbands inquired what on earth they had been talking of, it usually transpired that they had ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... me 'Mr Popham,' Englefield," responded the musical, pleading voice of the stranger. "Call me John or Johnnie, as in old days, if you don't wish to overpower me with shame and self-reproach. I have been an egregious fool, Englefield, and a most ungrateful one, and really know not in what terms to implore ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... the golden age on the river—the type, indeed, which still persists—was a triumph of adaptability to the service for which she was designed. More than this—she was an egregious architectural sham. She was a success in her light draught, six to eight feet, at most, and in her prodigious carrying capacity. It was said of one of these boats, when skilfully loaded by a gang of practical roustabouts, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Rochester Bridge, are two sixteenth-century houses, with fronts of carved oak and gables, facing each other across the street. One has figured in both Great Expectations and Edwin Drood, for it is the house of Mr. Pumblechook, the pompous and egregious corn and seedsman, and of Mr. Sapsea, the auctioneer, still more pompous and egregious. The other—Eastgate House, now converted into a museum—is the "Nun's House", where Miss Twinkleton kept school, and had Rosa Bud and Helen ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... to Heron's carried its own answer. You forbade me to write you unless I was willing to plead guilty to a certain indictment you were pleased to bring against me. As I am convinced of my own innocence, and, though conscious of high imprudence and egregious folly, can lay my hand on my breast and attest the rectitude of my heart, you will pardon me, Madam, if I do not carry my complaisance so far as humbly to acquiesce in the name of "Villain" merely out of compliment to your opinion, much as I esteem your judgment ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... unspeakable darkness, lightened by no least ray of hope. It had been bad enough to lose a comfortable living through a gigantic convulsion of Nature; but to think that he had lost all else through his own egregious folly, to find himself ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... months would have cured him of his infatuation; but he still speaks of that girl as if I were of so yielding a character that I should ever consent to his committing so egregious a folly. And I see, Julia, that he alludes to Captain Headland. Clearly understand me that if he returns to England I must prohibit his appearance at Texford. I have every reason to believe that you may become a duchess if you act wisely; and I cannot allow ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... insisted. When I had finished this silly and uncongenial task—for I am not by nature fussy, and it is hard to assume fussiness as another person's proxy—I returned to our coupe which I had arranged for in London. To my great amazement, I found the Cantankerous Old Lady and the egregious Count comfortably seated there. 'Monsieur has been good enough to accept a place in our carriage,' she observed, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... Her self-respect was for the moment crushed, and the breach made in the wholeness of personal dignity had produced a strange slackness of nerve, extending both to body and mind. She had been convicted, it seemed to her, in her own eyes, and in those of her world, of an egregious over-estimate of her own value. She walked with hung head like one ashamed, the overstrung religious sense deepening her discomfiture at every step. How rich her life had always been in the conviction of usefulness—nay, indispensableness! Her ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... strongly posted than he had imagined. He descried troops also hastening to their assistance. These were the New Hampshire troops, led on by Stark. Howe immediately sent over to General Gage for more forces, and a supply of cannon-balls; those brought by him being found, through some egregious oversight, too large for the ordnance. While awaiting their arrival, refreshments were served out to the troops, with "grog," by the bucketful; and tantalizing it was, to the hungry and thirsty provincials, to look down from their ramparts of earth, and see their invaders seated in groups ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Question with that of his two great adversaries, it is hard, in the light of all that has happened since, to resist the conclusion that Cobden and Mr. Bright were right, and Lord Palmerston was disastrously wrong. It is easy to plead extenuating circumstances for the egregious mistakes in Lord Palmerston's policy about the Eastern Question, the Suez Canal, and some other important subjects; but the plea can only be allowed after it has been frankly recognized that they really were mistakes, and that these abused men exposed and ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... Or is it that his old Allah has picked me out to tide him along for a while?" She wanted to laugh aloud, at the restlessness, superstition, weakness, and folly that had composed her life, and had now produced this egregious interview. And in the midst of this emotion she was touched by his statuesque face, with its glimmering suggestion of gentility cast down, of pride lost in a dread that she might not ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... in another quarter, Allcraft suddenly discovered that he had committed an egregious blunder. He had entrusted Planner with the secret of his critical position—had made him acquainted with the dishonest transactions of his father, and the consequent bankruptcy of the firm. Not that this disclosure had been made ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... dog had touched the cloth," said they, "and so brought defilement upon it, might not you have washed it a second time, and so have removed the stain? Or might you not have given it to some poor Sudra, rather than tear it in pieces? After such egregious folly, who will give you clothes another time?" This was all true; for ever since, when I have begged clothing of any one, the constant answer has been, that, no doubt, I wanted a piece of cloth to pull ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... ladyship's first impression should be favourable, and to effect this, she especially endeavoured to throw the two together during that visit. But in this she was unwise. Lady Lufton, however, had woman-craft enough not to be led into any egregious error by Lucy's silence. "And what day will you come and dine with us?" said Lady Lufton, turning expressly to ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... one must feign an ignorance of every kind of employment. To be a good housewife, to understand every domestic duty, is degrading in the extreme. It is thought a proof of vulgarity to be acquainted with ordinary things. Pride is taken in egregious mistakes as to certain persons, places, and pursuits. To show a knowledge of what is done beyond her own caste would be to forfeit her rank, and would expel her from the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... platform, grasping the back of his chair, a curious mocking Mephistophelian glitter about his eyes, his lips wreathed into a half smile. There was no hurry for him to get Denzil Cantercot arrested now. Wimp had made an egregious, a colossal blunder. In Grodman's heart there was a great glad calm as of a man who has strained his sinews to win in a famous match, and has heard the judge's word. He felt ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... any remarkable defect in courage, temperance, economy, industry, understanding, dignity of mind, would bereave even a very good-natured, honest man of this honourable appellation. Who did ever say, except by way of irony, that such a one was a man of great virtue, but an egregious blockhead? ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... egregious injustice to Captain Maconochie if we were to judge of him only by the instances we have given of his powers of general reasoning. The perusal of his pamphlets has left in our mind a strong impression ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... of the crown, though no excuse, was probably the cause of this egregious tyranny exercised against the Jews; but Edward also practised other more honorable means of remedying that evil. He employed a strict frugality in the management and distribution of his revenue: he engaged the parliament to vote him a fifteenth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... essential treatment of eye-strain consists in the wearing of proper glasses. It should be a rule, without any exception, to consult only a regular and competent oculist, and never an optician, for the selection of glasses. It is as egregious a piece of folly to employ an optician to choose the glasses as it would be to seek an apothecary's advice in a general illness. Considerably more damage would probably accrue from following the optician's ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... generally sang the whole time. When on foot, Donna Maria stepped gaily along and Bertie had hard work to keep pace with her. He was making rapid progress with the language, though occasionally a peal of laughter from his companion told of some egregious error. ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... pleased me much by what you say in regard to Bentham and Oliver approving of my book; for I had got a sort of nervousness, and doubted whether I had not made an egregious fool of myself, and concocted pleasant little stinging remarks for reviews, such as 'Mr. Darwin's head seems to have been turned by a certain degree of success, and he thinks that the most ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... heightened complexion and excited voice, and declare that he could not suffer an affront with equanimity—that he would rid those present of his "abhorred" society, and would never enter those doors again whilst he drew the breath of life. We paid little attention to these egregious eccentricities, merely remarking with a smile of amusement, "Poor Rugiero! how ridiculous! He must be out of his senses;" and about a fortnight later he would make his appearance, penitent, apologetic and studious to remove the ill impression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... barbarity, the most egregious roguery, or the blindest ambition could have imagined the doctrine of eternal punishments. If there is a God, whom we can offend or blaspheme, there are not upon earth greater blasphemers than those, who dare to say, that this same God is a tyrant, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... These were the egregious fruits of the truce, they said tauntingly to the discomfited Archduke. It had caused a loss of reputation, the very soul of empires, to the crown of Spain. And now, to conclude her abasement, the troops in Flanders had been shaven down with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of little or much discussion in accordance with opinions concerning the law of necessity and free will in national life. Considered in the light of its immediate effect upon its participants, it was a failure, an egregious failure, a wanton crime. Considered in its necessary relation to slavery and as contributory to making it a national issue by the deepening and stirring of the then weak local forces, that finally led to the Emancipation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... not, is grievously in the wrong. There is no more justification for, say, a purely didactic poem or descriptive poem than there is for the rhyming which begins somebody's treatise on optics with these egregious words:— ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... unabashed to repeat and repeat his pro-Nikita stuff in various newspapers. "Il y debvroit avoir," says Montaigne, "quelque corection des loix contre les escrivains ineptes et inutiles, comme il y a contre les vagabonds et faineants...." Not long ago I happened to see that this egregious person described himself as "Hon. Minister Plenipotentiary for Montenegro," but another gentleman, Sir Roper Parkington, a pompous wine-merchant, announced in the Press that he had become "Minister (Hon.) of Montenegro." ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... strange to me that Russia, a country with a world-wide reputation for diplomatic shrewdness, should have made such an egregious error as to part with Alaska at a merely nominal price,[72] the more so that when the transfer took place gold had long been known to exist in this Arctic province. Vitus Bering discovered traces of it as far back as the eighteenth century. William H. Seward, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... we explain the statement of Epiphanius? It is a simple blunder, not more egregious than scores of other blunders which deface his pages. He had not seen the Diatessaron: this our author himself says. But he had heard that it was in circulation in certain parts of Syria; and he knew ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... yet, in everyday life, he had not much regard for tricksters. Excessively fond of movement, activity, and excitement, he yet counted among his happiest days those spent in long meditations and inactive dreams. He was a strange combination of faults and good qualities, without egregious vices, but all his virtues capable of being annihilated by passion, anger, jealousy, or grief. With such a nature, everything was possible: the sublimity of devotion, or a fall into the lowest infamy. He often said, in self-analysis: "I am afraid of myself." In short, his strength ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... be permitted to plead, in excuse for his transgressions, that especial malevolence had little or no part in them. It is not recorded, that the ancient, who set fire to the temple of Diana, had a particular dislike to the goddess of chastity, or held idolatry in abhorrence: he was a fool, an egregious fool, but not the less, on that account, a most odious monster. The tyrant who is described as having rattled his chariot along a bridge of brass over the heads of his subjects, was, no doubt, inwardly ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... as to startle her by the fear of having ignorantly committed some egregious blunder; 'I'm the last ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... make an impression upon her heart Mr. Trueworth alone succeeds, but her levity and her disregard of appearances force him to think her unworthy of his attentions. Meanwhile her guardian's wife, Lady Mellasin, has been turned out of the house for an egregious infidelity, and Betsy is left to her own scant discretion. After somewhat annoying her brothers by receiving men at her lodgings, she elects under family pressure to marry a Mr. Munden, who quickly shows himself all that a husband should not be. Eventually she ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... father had made a large fortune in London as an army contractor. He seemed to emulate the manners of young Englishmen of fortune. He was a good-natured fellow, not without information or literature, but a most egregious coxcomb. He had been in the habit of attending the House of Commons; and had once spoken, as he informed me, with great applause in a debating society. For this he appeared to have qualified himself ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... numbers of perpetual annuities. Juggle, temporize, postpone, get for yourself all the time you can. Trade for the people's shares all you have that they will take. You can never strike a balance, and can never atone for the egregious error of this over-issue of stock which has no intrinsic value. Eventually you may have to declare void many of these shares and withdraw from the currency these actions for which so recently the people ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... bridge. The pupils of his eyes broadened out to the circumference of his iris, and his limbs seemed to diminish as if endowed with the contractility peculiar to the mollusca and certain of the articulate; for Frycollin, the valet, was an egregious coward. ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... who take an intellectual attitude toward all things, in the heavens above and in the earth beneath, suppose that they are prepared to understand almost anything which is understandable if it is only PUT right. This is a most egregious mistake, especially in respect to the subtle and complex spiritual experiences which the more deeply subjective poetry embodies. What De Quincey says in his paper on Kant,* of the comprehension of the higher philosophical truths, can, with still better reason, be said of the responsiveness to ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... "God's blessing is, and always has been on my father, who is a slaveholder; on his father, who was one; and on a good many more I could mention. In fact, I could bring forward quite a respectable list who have died in their beds, in spite of their egregious sin in this respect. There are Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Calhoun, Henry Clay, and not a few others. In this case, the North, as has been said, says to her sister South, 'Stand aside, for I am holier than thou!' that is, you didn't ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... it was unfathomable. Newman fought a skilful and persistent fight against liberalism, as being nothing else than the egregious doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, and that one creed is as good as another. Dr. Arnold, on the other hand, denounced Newmanism as idolatry; declared that if you let in the little ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... but more frequently declined. The division of the drawing-room set apart for the card-players served rather as a promenade for the company who did not dance; they here ranged themselves in a line along the ribbon, and criticised the several dancers. Some of these spectators seemed most egregious fops. One of them, with the exception of his linen, was dressed completely in purple silk or satin, and another in a rose-coloured silk coat, with white satin waistcoat and small clothes, and white silk stockings. The greater part of ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... the shopman. "We are very proud of the business; and the old man, let me inform you, besides being the most egregious of created beings from the point of view of ethics, is literally sprung from the loins of kings. 'De Godall je suis le fervent.' There is only one Godall.—By the way," he added, as Challoner lit his cigar, "how did you get on with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... profound" accorded with his "ignorance;" but who, until then, had only aspired to the livery of the theatre—the placing of chairs, or the presentation of a letter; yet who, in this humble display of histrionic art, generally contrived to commit some egregious blunder. He was remonstrated with, on his choice, by one of the performers, who demonstrated the excessive dulness of apprehension of the would-be Minister of State; and, like other and recent instances in that capacity, his singular aptitude to error, however ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... consequently, be true.[8] Ninety-nine out of a hundred among the Hindoos implicitly believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanskrit. If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies with the greatest naivete in the world, 'Is it not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not true?' The Hindoo religion reposes upon an entire prostration of mind, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... this employed by Plato as mere fancy and metaphor is to commit an egregious error. In studying an ancient author, we must forsake the modern stand point of analysis, and envelop ourselves in the ancient atmosphere of thought, where poetry and science were as indistinguishably blended in the personal beliefs as oxygen and nitrogen are in the common air. We have not ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... found its way into England, that it is impossible to make cigars at home as well as at the Havana; and the reason given is, the tobacco is made up at Havana during its first damping, and that, having to be re-damped in England, it loses thereby its rich flavour and aroma. Now, this is a most egregious mistake; for in some of the best houses here you will find tobacco two and even four years old, which is not yet worked up into cigars, and which, consequently, has to be re-damped for that purpose. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... there is a battery of suspicious looks directed towards him whilst murmurs arise, "What an uncultured man! To talk 'shop' like a regular musician!" The fact being that the man had read everything, but was setting a trap for the vanity of these egregious persons. The newspapers, the managers and the artists before the public are to blame for this callow, shallow attempt at culture. We read that Rosenthal is a second Heine in conversation. That he spills epigrams at his meals and dribbles proverbs at the piano. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... V. will be our compagnon de voyage to Rome. Of these two young men, the first amuses me by his follies, the latter rather fatigues de trop de raison. The first talks too much, the latter too little: the first speaks, and speaks egregious nonsense; the latter never says any thing beyond common-place: the former always makes himself ridiculous, and the latter never makes himself particularly agreeable: the first is (con rispetto parlando) a great fool, and the latter would be pleasanter were ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... After this egregious piece of villainy, Saouy turned to the king, and giving him the letter, "Sir," said he to him in a low voice, "what does your majesty intend to do?" "What the caliph has commanded me," replied the king. "Have a care, sir," said the wicked vizier, "what you do. It is true this is the caliph's ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator — and that gift should never be discarded, devalued ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... often quarrelsome, on a miserable modicum of their indigenous small beer, to a degree which would not be excusable if it were brandy. We constantly find whole parties at a pic-nic in a most prodigious state of excitement after two rounds of a bottle—jostling the peasants, and talking more egregious nonsense than before. And when they quarrel, what a Babel of words, and what a quakerism of hands! Instead of a round or two between the parties, as it would be in our own pugnacious disagreements, they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... public life, my dear reader? I don't mean by that question, to ask whether you were ever Lord Chancellor, Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, or even a member of the House of Commons. An author hopes to find readers far beyond that very egregious but very limited segment of the Great Circle. Were you ever a busy man in your vestry, active in a municipal corporation, one of a committee for furthering the interests of an enlightened candidate for your native burgh, town, or shire?—in a word, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the hopes that she had formed were annihilated. The youth was not exempt from egregious errors. In addition to this, it was manifest that the young people were disposed to regard each other in no other light than that of brother and sister. I was not unapprized of her views. I saw that their union was impossible. I was near enough to judge of the character ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of artistical rules," exclaimed Max, "after showing yourself such an egregious bungler! You had there all the elements of a capital story, and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... a great Rule of Life in general, but more especially to be consulted by the Female World, I cannot overlook the following Letter which describes an egregious Offender. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... now has a "Trafficking in persons" entry. Human trafficking connotes modern-day slavery and this important new field will include information on the most egregious countries (Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 3) as listed in the US ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... that, in addition to the victims who pay egregious rents for boarding-house beds in order that they may have a place to store their documents and demi-johns, there are other permanent occupants of these houses. As, for example, Irish chambermaids, who subtract a few moments from the morning half-hour given to drinking the remnants of your whiskey, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... it was, however, his qualities as a soldier were not called into requisition, while his want of political experience, his utter incapacity to understand the political conditions of the country, his supreme indifference to the wishes of the assembly, made his administration an egregious failure. Indeed it may he said that it was during his time that the seed was sown for the growth of that political and racial antagonism which led to the rebellion of 1837. It is not possible to exaggerate the importance of the consequences of his unjustifiable ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... late king.(1536) The list of the various minutes thus ordered to be annulled was a very long one, occupying more than ten pages of the city's Journal, and embraced a period of eighteen years (1641-1659). The municipal authorities may have thought that by this egregious act of self-stultification they might mitigate the judgment that was impending over them. If so they ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... of the earliest of the dramatic autobiographers, is also one of the most amusing. He flourished in wig and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the Augustan age of Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat later. A most egregious fop, according to all accounts, he was, but a very pleasant one notwithstanding, as your fop of parts is apt to be. Pope gained but little in the warfare he waged with him, for this plain reason—that the great poet accuses his adversary ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... write "Derelict," let him come to me like a man and say so and I'll give him a good swift stab in the eye, with my eye, and say: "You don't want to be convinced." This includes the editor of The New York Times Book Review. When he made an egregious blunder by stating that "Derelict" was an unskilled sailor's jingle, a wave of protest reached him. He then printed Walt Mason's letter describing the poem as a work of art and altered his editorial characterization of it to "famous old ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... best to plunder the public without breaking the letter of the law, and enriched people in spite of himself. No one has a word to say against him. If anybody should suggest that a big capitalist often is another word for a cut-throat, it would be a most egregious calumny. If stocks rise and fall, if property improves and depreciates, the fluctuations of the market are caused by a common movement, a something in the air, a tide in the affairs of men subject like other tides to lunar influences. The great Arago is much to blame for giving us no scientific ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... It was said that he wrote as fiercely as he fought. Archbishop Usher, with whom he had many a literary feud, appears to have been of this opinion; for, after having described O'Sullivan as an "egregious liar," he was so sensitive to any counter abuse he might receive in return, that he carefully cut out every disparaging epithet which the historian used from the copy of his reply, which at present lies, with Usher's other works, in the Library ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... pursued the egregious Mrs. Transom, "an' nice eyes an' hair. 'Why, Maria, darlin',' said William one day, when him an' me was keepin' company, 'I believe you could sit on that hair o' yours, I do reely.' 'Go along, you silly!' I said, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation, of form and quantity, is often grossly false in regard to morals, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... number of devout and wealthy patrons, a public not only capable of comprehending him, but also eager to restrict his great powers within the limits of purely devotional delineation. The feuds and passions of the Baglioni, on the other hand, implied a society in which egregious crimes only needed success to be accounted glorious, where force, cruelty, and cynical craft reigned supreme, and where the animal instincts attained gigantic proportions in the persons of splendid young athletic despots. Even the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Evans, Pinkerton, Ritson, Johnson; in 1802 Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, fit to be placed side by side with the Reliques; in 1806 Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs; then Finlay, Gilchrist, Laing, and Utterson. In 1828 the egregious Peter Buchan produced Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, hitherto unpublished. Buchan hints that he kept a pedlar or beggarman—'a wight of Homer's craft'—travelling through Scotland to pick up ballads; and one of the two—probably ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint, was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner,—with all its rich offers, and Adelaide's mind was for a while occupied with wrath against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr. Spooner,—for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were egregiously foolish,—died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... disallowed, he only anticipated in some cases, as in 'facundity', 'implete', 'attemptat' ('attentat'), the decision of a later day; other words which he condemned no less, as 'audacious', 'compatible', 'egregious', have maintained their ground. These too have done the same; 'despicable', 'destruction', 'homicide', 'obsequious', 'ponderous', 'portentous', 'prodigious', all of them by another writer a little earlier condemned as "inkhorn terms, smelling ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... because they bear no analogy to the harmony of God's dealings in the material world; and insists that they are not to be credited, since they are a violation of the laws of matter or an interruption of the course of physical causes. The orthodox portion of the Church are laboring under the egregious error of making them an essential doctrine, when they are really a mere external accessory. Reason, and not "our desires" must come to our aid in all examination of them. The key-note to Professor Powell's opposition is contained in the following statement: "From the nature ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... driven, my lord," or "A fine putt, my lord. Ah! dear me, I wish I could putt like that," though occasionally his chorus of praise betrayed him into error, and from habit he found himself saying: "Good shot, my lord," when my lord had just made an egregious mess of things. But on the whole he devised so pleasantly sycophantic an atmosphere as to procure a substantial tip for himself, and to make Lord Ashbridge conscious of being a very superior performer. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... flatly at first; but just then the grand marshal of the palace arrived, and the Emperor informed him of this request of the Empress, asking his opinion. M. le due de Frioul thought it very reasonable, and joined his entreaties to those of the Empress. "It is an egregious folly," said the Emperor; "but we are obliged to grant it, because the women wish it, so, Duroc, go to the cabinet of antiques, and ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... comparison, seem chaste and classical. The libretto deals with the vengeance wreaked by a villainous Neapolitan street loafer upon a woman who has played him false—a vengeance which takes the form of ruining her son by drink and play, and of attempting to seduce her daughter. In the end this egregious ruffian is murdered in the street by the mother of his two victims, just in time to prevent his being knifed by the members of a secret society whom he had betrayed to justice. The music is not without dramatic vigour, and it has plenty of melody of a rough and ready kind. There is technical ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... fellow. Half a head shorter than Lee, he was of stockier build, a man somewhere near thirty-five or six years of age, with hair tinged with gray above his ears. Both in manner and speech he exhibited by turns superficial gayety, latent cynicism, and an egregious assumption. When Lee had introduced him to the young ladies at Sarita Creek, he had made himself at home in three minutes. He had the latest witticisms of restaurants and theatres, the newest stories, the most ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... that the cause of that effect must happen, it therefore came to pass"—that Bertuccio Israello, Admiral of the Arsenal,[8] a person apparently of no less impetuous passions than the doge himself, and who is described as possessed also of egregious cunning, approached him to seek reparation for an outrage. A noble had dishonoured him by a blow; and it was vain to ask redress for this affront from any but the highest personage in the state. Faliero, brooding over his own imagined wrongs, disclaimed that title, and gladly seized occasion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... This essay affords an egregious instance of the predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers of eloquence. Never was penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns nothing; and, when ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... together.[513] In England, both in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he had many devoted followers and many violent opponents. Henry More speaks of him as a good and holy man, but at the same time 'an egregious enthusiast,' and regrets that he 'has given occasion to the enthusiasts of this nation in our late troublesome times to run into many ridiculous errors and absurdities.'[514] J. Wesley admitted that he was a good man, but says ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... that all true friends of the people, whether Conservatives, Liberals, or revolutionaries, ought to oppose to the utmost the development of capitalism. In the light of Karl Marx's discoveries in economic science every one must recognise this to be an egregious mistake. That great authority, it was said, had proved that the development of capitalism was irresistible, and his conclusions had been confirmed by the recent history of Russia, for all the economic progress made during the last ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... was five shekels, for females, three; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for females, ten; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels, for females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels, for females, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2-8. What egregious folly to contend that all these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they were bought and their prices regulated by law! 4. Bible saints bought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... profited much. After a time reading became almost a passion, and I was seldom without a book in my hand. But although I improved my mind, I did not render myself happier. On the contrary, I felt more and more that I had committed an act of egregious folly in thus asserting my independence. I felt that I was superior to my station in life, and that I had lived with those who were not companions—that I had thrown away, by foolish pride, those prospects of advancement which had offered themselves, and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to the full how egregious his request to call must have appeared to the Spanish girl. What a fool he had been, to be sure! For a moment he lost himself in a contemplation of the difficulties so unexpectedly presented. He was brought to ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... day, to watch a young dude stick a million-dollar dog muzzle on his own foolish pate, while his female running mate cavorted around with a dozen dudines supporting her tail-feathers! And "Jones he pays the freight"—puts up for this egregious folly. It has cost the American tax-payers a quarter of a million dollars to have their mis-representatives prancing around the Kremlin in short-stop pants and silk stockings, bowing and scraping like a Pullman porter who has just received a dollar ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... chuckle which preceded an invitation to inspect some candidate's egregious blunder; Irving would read and smile quietly, unaware that Barclay was watching him and wondering how appreciative he might be of ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... observed the lady. "Don't he look a heap more egregious by that mess of bones than he does by his own flesh and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the teachings of Christian Sci- 355:21 ence in this work are "absolutely false, and the most egregious fallacies ever offered for accept- ance," is an opinion wholly due to a misap- 355:24 prehension both of the divine Principle and practice of Christian Science and to a consequent inability to demon- strate ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... this, she looked on Leicester so expressively that, while his heart revolted against the egregious falsehood, he did himself so much violence as to reply in a whisper that Leicester's love was more lowly than her Majesty deemed, since it was settled where he could never command, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... stately Province, bordering on St. Martha; whose inhabitants did them many egregious and notable services, bestowing on them innumerable quantities of Gold besides many other gifts, but when they were upon departure, in retribution of their Civil Treating and Deportment the German Tyrant, commanded that all the Indians, with their Wives and Children if possible, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... egotism. We are all egotists, and it is right that we should be, up to a point. But I would urge the young actor or actress to be always on the watch against developing, especially in success, an extreme egotism which induces a selfishness of outlook, an egregious vanity that in the long run weakens the character, induces disappointment and discontent, and bores to extinction ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... nation to be in readiness to set out with Washington and his party in the morning. But Washington did not leave as he designed, because he found that the sachems would be greatly offended if he did. His journal says: "I found it was impossible to go off without offending them in the most egregious manner." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... no shadow of an excuse. From first to last she had never given me the remotest reason. It was simply my own egregious stupidity. To put it honestly, I acted like a bounder. I'm ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... what need I mention the Levities and Impertinencies in Comedies, or the Ranting distractions of Tragedy, were these things unconcern'd with Idolatry, Christians ought not to be at them, for were they not highly Criminal, the foolery of them is Egregious, and unbecoming the ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... the English constitution and of the general principles of free government and of liberty, of our rights founded on that constitution and on the charters of the several colonies, and of the numerous and egregious violations which had been committed of them, as must have convinced all impartial minds that the talent on this side of the Atlantic was at least equal to that on the other. The spirit in which those papers were drawn, which was known to be in strict ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... found in the similarity between this speech of Othello and the corresponding speech of Posthumus in "Cymbeline." As soon as Posthumus is convinced of his mistake, he calls Iachimo "Italian fiend" and himself "most credulous fool," "egregious murderer," and so forth. He asks for "some upright justicer" to punish him as he deserves with "cord or knife or poison," nay, he will have "torturers ingenious." He then praises Imogen as "the temple of virtue," and again shouts ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the foreground, the middle distance and the background made a synthetic whole, logically consistent, rational even—when you allow for the artist's make-up. That he will leave a full statement before the end, I venture to prophecy. His egregious vanity demands it. Nothing that he writes is likely to be sincere and he'll have his eye on the spotlight all the time; but you may expect a pretty complete account of his adventures before he's hanged; you may even expect something a little new in the suicide line if ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... "Don't try to be funny. And all I have to say, Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... then, you are two fools," said Santerre; "two egregious fools, if you cannot at once forget the angry words which you each have used. Have your own way, however, so long as you do ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... against the strictures of M. Stapfer, who, after recognising the general pertinence of his remarks, proceeds to say (Shakspere and Classical Antiquity, Eng. trans, p. 83) that Farmer "fell into the egregious folly of speaking in a strain of impertinent conceit: it is as if the little man for little he must assuredly have been—was eaten up with vanity." This is in its way as unjust as the abuse of Knight. M. Stapfer has misunderstood Farmer's tone, which is ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... increasing the number of his conquests. With this view he frequented public walks, concerts, and assemblies, became remarkably rich and fashionable in his clothes, gave entertainments to the ladies, and was in the utmost hazard of turning out a most egregious coxcomb. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... il n'a fait que de mechants vers." More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, "If the good Rabelais had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine, he would, methinks, have laughed heartily." But what shall be said of a Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was despised at Court? Was there a party at tennis when the king would not fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard was his partner? ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... is always conceited, just as the true Philistine is always fond of going to the Royal Academy. I have brought the art of preposterous conversation to the pitch of perfection; but I have been greatly handicapped in my efforts by the egregious wisdom of a world that insists upon taking me seriously. There is nothing that should be taken seriously, except, possibly, an income or the music halls, and I am not an income or a music hall, although I am intensely and strangely refined. Yet I have been ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... diseased Egregious egotism of young love there are only two identities Follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I fall, avenge me It's the people who try to be clever who never are Knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... Arctic Ocean, to say nothing of Bering Straits. Nevertheless, even at the outset of the journey I was blamed, and that by totally inexperienced persons, for abandoning stores so early in the day; a certain British merchant in Moscow expressing surprise that I should have "made such an egregious error" as to leave any provisions behind. I fancy most explorers have met this type of individual—the self-complacent Briton, who, being located for business or other purposes in a foreign or colonial city, never leaves it, and yet poses as an authority ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... f. Lofty and stately f. Ingrained f. Spitrack f. City f. Architrave f. Basely accoutred f. Pedestal f. Mast-headed f. Tetragonal f. Modal f. Renowned f. Second notial f. Rheumatic f. Cheerful and buxom f. Flaunting and braggadocio f. Solemn f. Egregious f. Annual f. Humourous and capricious f. Festival f. Rude, gross, and absurd f. Recreative f. Large-measured f. Boorish and counterfeit f. Babble f. Pleasant f. Down-right f. Privileged f. Broad-listed f. Rustical f. Duncical-bearing ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... its attendants; the Moab of ayahs is its wash-pot, over an Edom of bhearers will it cast out its shoe; it slaps the mouth of a gray-haired khansaman with its slipper, and dips its poodle's paws in a Mohammedan kitmudgar's rice; it calls a learned Pundit an asal ulu, an egregious owl; it says to a high-caste circar, "Shut up, you pig!" and to an illustrious moonshee, "Hi, toom junglee-wallah!" Whereat its fond mamma, to whom Bengalee, Hindostanee, and Sanscrit are alike sealed books of Babel, claps the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... injured him perhaps more than my assault. Meanwhile, I had made some inquiries as to the moral character of his favourite clairvoyants. I imagined that I had learned enough to justify me in treating them as flagrant cheats, and himself as their egregious dupe. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... habits than does dentition. The various epochs of life are generally spoken of as if they were paroxysmal— as though they were separated by some tremendous chasm, which had to be leapt over or fallen into. Nature makes no such egregious blunders; preparations for every change in life have been going on for a very long time before the evidences ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... For even the numbers which escaped the hands of the early and unlettered barbarians met with an equally ignominious fate from those for whom it would be impossible to hold up the darkness of their age as a plausible excuse for the commission of this egregious folly. These men over whose sad deeds the bibliophile sighs with mournful regret, were those who carried out the Reformation, so glorious in its results; but the righteousness of the means by which those results were effected are very ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... leaves you here to suffer in his stead, and you thank Heaven for it! Inez Catheron, you are the most egregious—. Give ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming |
