"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stolen." The witness, with great sufficiency and knowledge, as if to prove his own correctness, pointed them out upon the table before him. "And what else?" said he. He was answered that they were the whole. "And you, Mr. Witness," said he, with a sneer, "are the man of great trust, of accredited honour and honesty; and, full of your own consequence, and in high feather, you come here to follow up a prosecution against a fellow-servant, and a confidential one (you tell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... sneer in his voice which he did not try to hide. It flicked Ruth like a whip. Her painfully preserved restraint ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... D'y' hear? Steady, my lads! None of that 'ere! Grinning like a set of Cheshire cats! What have you got to sneer at? My word! My word! And a boy like that! That's what I call genuine British pluck! ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... are a very sagacious young man, I make no question," said the other, with a sneer—"but you'll have to pay ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... themselves, by way of distinction, Innŭee, or mankind. One day, for instance, in securing some of the gear of a sledge, Okotook broke a part of it composed of a piece of our white line, and I shall never forget the contemptuous sneer with which he muttered in soliloquy the word “Kabloona!” in token of the inferiority of our materials to his own. It is happy, perhaps, when people possessing so few of the good things of this life can be thus contented ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... the triumphant Obed, with a sneer, "I guess that settles it, don't it? Maybe you'd be willin' to turn your bills over to ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Doe treated as though he had not heard it; and Penny, certain that his victory was won, and that he had no further need of my support, kicked it away with the sneer: "Hit Doe, and Ray's bruised! What a David and Jonathan we're going to be! How we agree like steak and kidney!... Rather a nice ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "But perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... him, and in an authoritative tone called to him to drive with more care. He was obliged to slacken his pace before he could understand what I said. When he had heard me repeat my injunction, which I did with no little vehemence, he looked at me first in astonishment, then with a sneer, and was raising his whip to lash the horses forward with fresh fury. Olivia caught him by the arm, and I immediately called with a voice of thunder, 'By G——, Sir, if you either injure or terrify the lady, I will pull you head ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... person of Columbus' rank in the haughty and ceremonious court of Castille. It was, indeed, the proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. After a brief interval the sovereigns requested from Columbus a recital of his adventures; and when he had done so, the King and Queen, together with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while the solemn ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... persons. They are usually found quite credulous regarding matters beyond their everyday field of work and thought, and accept without question the most ridiculous teachings and dogmas reaching them from the voice of some claimed authority, while they sneer at some advanced teaching which their minds are incapable of comprehending. Anything which seems unusual to them is deemed "flighty," and lacking in appeal to their much ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... living couldn't tell what either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke thinks about anything," answered Neale. "You know what Gabriel's face is like—a stone image! And Joseph always looks as if he was sneering at you, a sort of soft, smiling sneer. No, I couldn't say they showed surprise, and I don't know what they've found out—they're the closest, most reserved men about their own affairs ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... till doomsday, but they will never get a response from him! Let them rake the Susquehanna if they can! Perhaps, deep in its mud, they may find what the fishes have left of him!" she said, with a sneer. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... shall see," said the king with a sneer. Then he called to his guard and added, "Let this man and his companions be taken to the place prepared ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... bear, who was too stupid to perceive the genius of Pope. The grace and discrimination lavished by Francis Jeffrey over a thousand pages, weigh like a feather beside one sentence about Wordsworth's Excursion, and one tasteless sneer at Charles Lamb. Even the mighty figure of Sainte-Beuve totters at the whisper of the name Balzac. Even Matthew Arnold would have been wiser to have taken counsel with himself before he laughed at Shelley. And the very unimportant but sincere and interesting writer, whose book occupies ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... had entered his sister's carriage, in company with Madame Desvanneaux and Madame Thomery, and during the drive home, these two gentle dames—for the daughter was worthy of the mother—did not fail to sneer at the fair stranger, dilating particularly upon the impropriety of the challenging salute she had given to the General, with ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... of with a sneer. A toss of the head and a cry of "humbug," will not suffice to meet its claims and the testimony of careful, conservative men who have studied thoroughly into the genuineness of its manifestations, and have sought for the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... girl steeped to the lips in poverty might be willing to marry Mr. Smithson's houses and yachts,' answered Lesbia, in her low sweet voice, with a faint sneer even amidst the sweetness, 'but, I think it must have been a happy release for any one to be let off the sacrifice at ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... notes] If it please your lordship—Gentlemen of the Jury,—My friend in cross-examination has shown a disposition to sneer at the defence which has been set up in this case, and I am free to admit that nothing I can say will move you, if the evidence has not already convinced you that the prisoner committed this act in a moment when to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... monks as, with their prey, they vanished back into the arcade where they had lurked; Margaret's wild cry and ashen face as her father was torn away from her, and she sank fainting on to Betty's bejewelled bosom; the cruel sneer on Morella's lips; the king's hard smile; the pity in the queen's eye; the excited murmurings of the crowd; the quick, brief comments of the lawyers; the scratching of the clerk's quill as, careless of everything save his work, he recorded ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... moment, grew as dark as a thunder-cloud, but it passed away in a sneer, and he contented himself with saying, "Are you so proud, also, my young sir?—It matters not, however. What did the Duke say to you? He showed no reluctance, I trust. We will bring his pride down farther, if ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... of Mobiles, with a scarcely concealed sneer, "so you have come out from Paris to serve? I should have imagined that there were plenty of opportunities to distinguish yourselves, there. However, you must have had good interest, to get ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband, clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his face, and the lurid glow of drunkenness, that made a savage brute of a bad man, gleaming in his deep-set eyes. Hitty neither shrieked nor ran; despair nerved her,—despair turned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the weather grows colder and the streets get more sloppy. When Lavinia laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall, I thought of something to say all in a flash—and I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back at people like that—if you are a princess. But you have to bite your tongue to hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, Melchisedec. And it's ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bright grey day. Paul came into the yard with his bicycle, which glittered as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house. To-day he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and could tell from that keen-looking, aloof young body of his what was happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in its place, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... be exemplified. The moral and political aphorisms are just and sensible, the irony in which his personal satire is conveyed is fine, yet always intelligible; but it approaches too nearly to the nature of a sneer; the sentences are cautiously constructed without the forms of connection; the 'he' and 'it' everywhere substituted for the 'who' and 'which'; the sentences are short, laboriously balanced, and ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... church-yard!' said the white gentleman, with an ambiguous playfulness, very like a sneer. 'I'm too old to play Horatio; but standing at his elbow, if the Prince permits, I have a friendly word or two to say, in my own ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a flash in her eyes. "It was an Austrian court. The Count—my husband, I should say—is an Austrian subject. His interests must be protected." She said this with a sneer on her pretty lips. "You see, my father, knowing him now for what he really is, has refused to pay over to him something like a million dollars, still due for the marriage settlement. The Count contends that it is a just and legal debt ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit, and because he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess that he, a provincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into West End theatrical enterprise and sneer at ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... were set in an ugly sneer—but he met the steady fire of Arnold's eyes, and the words he would ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... went for nothing, however. My rival, and with him my lady love, continued to sneer at ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... against the dishonouring suspicion of not rightly appreciating pictures, even when the very phrases they use betray their ignorance and insensibility. Many will avow their indifference to music, and almost boast of their ignorance of science; will sneer at abstract theories, and profess the most tepid interest in history, who would feel it an unpardonable insult if you doubted their enthusiasm for painting and the "old masters" (by them secretly identified with the brown masters). It is an insincerity ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... Passage is a manifest Burlesque on the Invocations with which the Ancients began their Poems. Not very different is that Sneer at ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... a sneer, "are you so little skilled in the ways of the woods, as to mistake the voice of a vile animal for that of the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... whipper-in, was riding along in search of a gap to lead the horses through. Before I put spurs to Badger to face the hill, I turned one look towards Hammersley. There was a slight curl, half-smile, half-sneer, upon his lip that actually maddened me, and had a precipice yawned beneath my feet, I should have dashed at it after that. The ascent was so steep that I was obliged to take the hill in a slanting direction; and even thus, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... highest flight sublime Exalt the mind, by tenderest pathos' art, Dissolve, in purifying tears, the heart, Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; The fond illusions of the youth and maid, At which so many world-formed sages sneer, When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, Our natural religion must appear. All things in thee tend to one polar star, Magnetic ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... mean yourself, I suppose. I can believe in such inconstancy' (he could not help, in his own mind, giving a slight sneer at the instance before him), 'but I should be very sorry to think that Miss Kirkpatrick could ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... high-bred cruelty. Like Lamb, he "loved a fool," but it was in a mortar; and pleasant it was to see the spectacle when he really took a man in hand for the chastisement of irony. It is thus that "the seraphim illuminati sneer." And in all his controversial writing there was a brilliancy and unsparingness that will appeal to the deepest instincts of a fighting race, willy-nilly; and as one had only to read the words to feel himself among the children of light, so that our withers ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to celebrate the astounding fact of Pio Nono having exceeded the days of Saint Peter. We, who had come from Rome, where thirty upstart papers were denouncing time-honored usages and formulas, where many of the people had begun to sneer at the Papacy and to take gloomy views of the Church, were not prepared for the religious fervor and devotion to the Papal See which greeted us in the Tyrol, especially at Bruneck, where from time immemorial ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... was Hunt-Goring's turn to look surprised. He did so with an accompanying sneer. "How did you describe me, I wonder? You ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... I have the honor of knowing who it is that favors my poor dwelling, and with company like that!" said the Mayor, pointing to the child, while his upper lip contracted and the corners of his mouth drooped into a cold sneer. ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... the Church was, 'Feed my lambs,'" Ernest sneered. And then, the next moment, "Pardon my sneer, Bishop. But can you wonder that we lose patience with you? When have you protested to your capitalistic congregations at the working of children in the Southern cotton mills?* Children, six and seven years of age, working every night at twelve-hour ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Buenos Ayres I had the good luck to visit the independent province of Paraguay, which my readers must have heard spoken of, sometimes with admiration, sometimes with sneers, as the hot-bed of Jesuitism. Those who sneer say that the Jesuit fathers who left Spain under Martin Garcia formed this colony in the River Plate entirely in accordance with the principles their egotism and love of power dictated. It may be so; it is possible that the Jesuits were wrong in the conclusions they ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... would be so distinctly our inferior, so hopelessly unworthy of her, so helplessly incapable of appreciating her. I think we conceived of him as tall, with drooping fair moustaches, and contemptibly meticulous in his dress. He would probably not be of the Quarter; he would sneer at us. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... whiff behind was that sailor. He left the savour of Probity and Simplicity behind, though he took the things themselves away again. Why, why couldn't he leave us what is more wanted here than even his money? His integrity: the pearl of price, that my father, whom I used to sneer at, carried to his grave; and died simple, but wise; honest, but rich—rich in money, in credit, in honour, and eternal hopes. Oh, Skinner! Skinner! I wish ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... lodges, the practical workers of the working-girls' clubs, and the humanitarian agnostics like Dr. Leigh, who were literally giving their lives without the least expectation of reward. Even the refined ethical-culture groups had no sneer for Father Damon. The little chapel of St. Anselm was well known. It was always open. It was plain, but its plainness was not the barrenness of a non-conformist chapel. There were two confessionals; a great bronze ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high repute. {255b} Like its predecessor 'A Winter's Tale,' 'The Tempest' long maintained its first popularity in the theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a passing sneer from Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, he wrote: 'If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who can help it he [i.e. the author] says? nor a nest of Antics. He is loth ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... her heart, to parade while her entrails were torn with grief, forced to feign and to wear a mask in the presence of all who were there, and to lie to all the invited guests, indifferent and inimical, as Ramel said, and who were looking about ready at any moment to sneer and ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... disparate genres in The Dunciad, lifting it above satire that is merely "rugged" or "mischievously gay" (p. 8). (The epithet is also, perhaps, a thrust at Edward Ward, who had pinned it on The Dunciad with a sneer.)[22] Harte's claim that ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Hegel at a window, I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee, Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars. Something I said about "those high Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper. "Abodes? The stars?" He froze me with a sneer, "A light eruption on the firmament." "But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere Where virtue is rewarded when we die?" And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim. So you demand a bonus since you spent One lifetime and refrained from poisoning ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... your admirers in suspense till the last moment?" said Bertie, with a covert sneer, for he was angry at her slighting behaviour to Bluebell. "What a scramble there ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... their grandchildren waiting for them. I told how I had seen them, in our New England coast towns, covered, as a ship is covered with barnacles, by grandchildren who rode on their shoulders and sat astride of their necks as they walked down the village streets. And now at last the sneer left my old man's loose lips. He had grandchildren somewhere. He twisted uneasily in his seat, coughed, and finally took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his eyes. The episode ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... is my true opinion that your understanding is one of the strongest, most manly, and clearest I ever knew; and, as I hold my own to be of a very inferior kind and know it to be incapable of sound, deep application, I should have been very foolish if I had attempted to sneer at you or your pursuits. Mine have always been light and trifling, and tended to nothing but my casual amusement; I will not say, without a little vain ambition of showing some parts but never with industry sufficient to make me ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... it displays itself in dalliance with coquettes, in susceptibility to the blandishments of a courtesan! See this fiery genius, how in six short years it hath burnt out the oil of life, and reduced his body to a living skeleton; so that passing scoffers point at him with a sneer and exclaim—"C'est l'amour qui a fait cela." Behold this bold, enterprising spirit—how it conceives and executes plans, compared to which the deeds of a Cartouche or a Howard sink into insignificance. And presently, when these precious germs of excellence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... unfeigned respect for the memory of Falkland. Carlyle's sneer at him has always seemed to us about the most painful thing in the writings of Carlyle. Our knowledge of his public life is meagre, and is derived mainly from a writer under whose personal influence he acted, who is specially ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... getting uneasy, said nothing in answer to this. Their faces, which had become impassive, seemed made of wax behind their long whiskers. Then, the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still, lolling back, he began to sneer. He sneered at the downfall of France, insulted the prostrate enemy; he sneered at Austria which had been recently conquered; he sneered at the furious but fruitless defense of the departments; he sneered at the Garde Mobile and at the useless artillery. He ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... sufficient to batter in the forehead of a bullock. But the listless implement bounced off the head of the shark as a stick from a drum, provoking merely a contemptuous wave of the tail which seemed to signify a sneer. The axe was also employed with negative results, for the difficulty of delivering an effective blow from the boat could not ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... right-minded persons. The press joined in the cry for remedial legislation. Ashley's speech in support of his Mines and Collieries Bill made an unusual impression in the House of Commons. Even Cobden, who had been ready to sneer at the "philanthropists" who opposed the repeal of the tax on bread, came over to the orator's side at the conclusion of his two hours' plea, and wringing his hand heartily, declared, "I don't think I have ever been put into such a frame of mind ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... of abuse and of adulation. Daily, semi-weekly, or weekly did Fenno, Porcupine Cobbett, Dennie, Coleman, and the other Federal journalists, not content with proclaiming him an ambitious, cunning, and deceitful demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage, and allude coarsely to his private morals in a manner more discreditable to themselves than to him; crowning all their accusations and innuendoes with a reckless profusion of epithet. While at the same times and places the whole company ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... one hand and taking the bridle of the horse by the other, he lashed the trembling beast for some seconds. Mrs. Ellwell slipped out of the rear seat and half ran into the house. Bradley got out of the carriage slowly, with a sneer on his face, and nodded to Thornton. He smiled, as if to say: "Badly jagged, ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... Kieff's sneer deepened. It was Kelly's privilege always to speak his mind, and no one took offence however extravagantly he expressed himself. "Can't we have a drink?" he suggested, in the indulgent tone of one humouring a ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... knack for self-advertising that infuriated Nelson. To read this anybody would think that he was one of the dominant figures in the oil industry, and that his enterprises were immensely successful. With a sneer Nelson flung the paper aside. So, that was how it had happened. The well had been fired—Henry believed he could account for that—but a miracle had quenched the flame. Falling drill stems! Who ever ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... guests, repudiating debts, and distributing embassies in Washington, May 1, 1861. And as to La' Davis, there seems to be documentary evidence that she meant to be "At Home" in the capital, bringing the first strawberries with her from Montgomery for her May-day soiree. Bah! one does not like to sneer at people who have their necks in the halter; but one happy result of this disturbance is that the disturbers have sent themselves to Coventry. The Lincoln party may be wanting in finish. Finish comes with use. A little roughness of manner, the genuine simplicity of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... quit the chamber, where they both remained, questioning, in a manner the most unfeeling and insulting, the unfortunate victim of their audacity and persecution. One of them, the client, with a barbarous and unmanly sneer, turning to his confederate, asked, "Who, to see the lady they were now speaking to, could believe that she had once been called the beautiful Mrs. Robinson?" To this he added other observations ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... him for an undecided moment and replied, "I'm not paid to think, Mr. Barclay," and went past him with her work. But he knew the truth. He went to his bed, and threw himself upon it, a-tremble with remorse and fear, and the sneer in his heart stilled his lips and he could not look outside himself for help. So the morning came, and another day, bringing its thousand cares, faced him, like a ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... learned in life, and next him, Elliott Hawkins And Lambert Hutchins; next him Thomas Rhodes And Editor Whedon; next him Garrison Standard, A traitor to the liberals, who with lip Upcurled in scorn and with a bitter sneer: "Such strife about an insult to a woman— A girl of eighteen "—Christian Dallman too, And others unrecorded. Some there were Who frowned not on the cup but loathed the rule Democracy achieved thereby, the freedom And lust of ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... constitutional weakness, yet it has humiliated me that I had not the power to enable him to overcome so strange a failing. Why, I could face death for you, and he can't stand beside one whom he used to sneer at as 'little Strahan.' Yet, such is his idea of my woman's soul that he still gives me his thoughts and therefore his hopes;" and she almost stamped her ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... she was than for her to have the opportunity of worming herself into favour! Those modest airs and her way of peeping up under her eyelashes seem to make a great impression,' said Mrs. Nesbit, with a sneer. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wounded hand, then with an astounding oath he hurried up the court to the Plaza. I went up to the woman and said, "What is the cause of this? I hope the ruffian has not seriously injured you." She turned her countenance upon me with the glance of a demon, and at last with a sneer of contempt exclaimed, "Carals, que es eso? Cannot a Catalan gentleman be conversing with his lady upon their own private affairs without being interrupted by you?" She then bound up her hand with a handkerchief, and going into the room brought a small table to the door, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... peculiar. But why shouldn't she try to keep young for the sake of her dream? I think it's romantic and beautiful, and all one with her efforts to become the intellectual equal of her lost husband. Grandma and Heppie sneer after Mrs. James has been and gone, at the long words she uses, and condemn her for wanting to deceive people into thinking she's much younger than she is. But that is because they've no romance in them, and ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... lonely, too, and cold; And youth lay all behind him, a tattered funeral pall, For he was very tired, and he was growing old. It was a glowing ruby that lay upon the breast Of one who had not earned it, who wore it with a sneer; The thief was very weary, he only longed for rest; He was too wan for caring, he was too numb ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... sort. 'He must die,' he said, when the relatives of Catulus pleaded for his life. It is not unlikely that disease, and drinking, and his late hardships had made the old man insane. He had been occasionally good-natured in former days; now he seemed to gloat in carnage. For every sneer cast at him, for every wrong done to him in past years, he took a horrible revenge. When Cinna had summoned him, he had said that he would settle the question of enrolment in the tribes once for all. He wished not to select victims, but to massacre all the leading ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... to be very busy with the roses, and not to have heard him. Her uncle's sneer was not lost on her, however; she resented it but chose to ignore it for the present; and when at length she had finished arranging the flowers, she changed the conversation adroitly by questioning her relative anent the opportunities for shopping in Sequoia. The Colonel, who could ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... the truth. In the exercise of that duty which presses heavily upon every reviewer, to seem, if not to be wiser than his author, many of the English periodicals, even those most favorable to America, undertook to doubt his statements of fact, to sneer at his prophecies of the future as ludicrous exaggerations, and to term them striking and whimsical instances of Yankee braggadocio, and of the love of building castles in the air. Cooper could not well overstate the material prosperity and progress of the country, nor the inability of ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest. Notwithstanding his willingness to please the populace with the coarse wit current in the Agoras, I think it gratifies his equestrian pride to sneer at those who are too frugal to buy coloured robes, and fill the air with delicious perfumes as they pass. I know you seldom like the comic writers. What ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... how she does,' replied the settler, with an eagerness that betrayed his conviction that the bait had taken; 'but Mr. Grantham,'—and I could detect a lurking sneer, 'I expect at least that when you have lick'd the prize you will make my loyalty stand a little higher than it seems to be at this moment, for I guess, puttin' the dollars out of the question, it's a right loyal act I am guilty ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... win this marvellous city for England. James I. chopped in with his cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily said. When Raleigh returned after his last miserable failure in May 1617, the monarch spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the seas. Of course, the King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no golden city. But the immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams were more real than reality; ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... her," was the contemptuous Cornelius. Even Vavasor, who soon became a frequent caller, if he chanced to utter some admiring word concerning the pretty deft creature that had just flitted from the room like a dark butterfly, would not in reply draw from him more than a grunt and a half sneer. Yet now and then he might have been caught glowering at her, and would sometimes, seemingly in spite of himself, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... said to Natalie, "is Madame Estelle. You see, I have provided a chaperone," he remarked with something like a sneer. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... was thinking of Sylvia and smiling still at her implication that while there were larger colleges than Madison there was none better. He turned to look again at the college buildings closely clasped by their strip of woodland. Madison was not a college to sneer at; he had scanned the bronze tablet on the library wall that published the roll of her Sons who had served in the Civil War. Many of the names were written high in the state's history and for a moment they filled the young ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... libelous in that paragraph. It could be taken either way—as a piece of congratulation or as a covert sneer. So Hal and Noll concluded to let it pass as a joke, and each clipped out the paragraph to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... temporary drawback to the contentment of the party was the shower of tears which fell at Dulcie's forcible separation from her relatives. It was forcible in the end; all the blessings had been given in the house—don't sneer, they did her no harm, no harm, but a vast deal of good—and only the kisses and tears were finished off in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... dishonor, insult, indignity, outrage, discourtesy &c. 895; practical joking; scurrility, scoffing, sibilance, hissing, sibilation; irrision[obs3]; derision; mockery; irony &c. (ridicule) 856; sarcasm. hiss, hoot, boo, gibe, flout, jeer, scoff, gleek|, taunt, sneer, quip, fling, wipe, slap in the face. V. hold in disrespect &c. (despise) 930; misprize, disregard, slight, trifle with, set at naught, pass by, push aside, overlook, turn one's back upon, laugh in one's sleeve; be disrespectful &c. adj., be discourteous &c. 895; treat with disrespect &c.n.; set ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... last "Atlantic." If anything could make John Bull blush, I should think it might be that; but he is a hardened and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he cared nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him a vantage- ground on which to parade his own virtue and sneer at ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Strefford, and of revealing to him that Nick had left her for that very reason. She was not afraid that the discovery would diminish her in Strefford's eyes: he was untroubled by moral problems, and would laugh away her avowal, with a sneer at Nick in his new part of moralist. But that was just what she could not bear: that anyone should cast a doubt on the genuineness of Nick's standards, or should know how far ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... he at the end said, "Evson, you are not yourself to-day, and I forgive you," Walter would have been in a moment as docile and as humble as a child. But as it was, he left the room quite coolly, with a sneer on his lips, and banged the door; yet the next moment, when he found himself in the court alone, unsupported by the countenance of those who enjoyed his rebelliousness, he seated himself on a bench in the courtyard, hung his head on his breast, and burst into a flood of tears. If ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... an attempt to conceal the sneer with which the young man glanced at the brown loaf gracing the platter on the Hegumen's knees. Seeing then a look of pain on the paternal countenance, he continued: "No, I have had breakfast, and came to see how you are, and to apprise you that the city is being stirred from ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Mrs. Tallboys, "that men are so much afraid of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment under which is couched a covert sneer." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a contemptuous sneer, "Mr. Fairlegh is most fortunate in possessing such a steady and useful friend: first, when he dictates to Lawless what toasts he is to propose at his own table, and threatens the company generally with the weight of his displeasure should ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Burns, "what have we got here—a gold brick?" He rose with a vivid sneer on his red face, plunged his hands in his pockets, and took two or three nervous strides across the room. Kittrell looked at him, and slowly his eyes blazed out of a face that had gone white ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... course, the easy fashion now to sneer at Victorian standards. To my mind they embody all that is clean and sound in the nation. It does not follow that because Victorians revelled in hideous wall-papers and loved ugly furniture, that therefore ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... vapid talk could possibly accomplish. Why tie these millstones around your neck? They came yesterday to demand the head of Albert Sidney Johnston. They are organizing to drive Lee out of the army. They allow no opportunity to pass to sneer at his position as your chief military adviser since his return from Western Virginia. You know and I know that Albert Sidney Johnston and R. E. Lee ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... added as with studied sneer, his face flushing darkly, his thin mouth twisted in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... which all out of Christ are exposed, it will be the most natural thing in the world for them to show an undying earnestness in seeking the lost. Then propriety, and reticence, and restraint, and rules of rhetoric will be thrown to the winds, and a divine passion will possess the life. The world may sneer at it as fanaticism, but it is the fanaticism of Pentecost. When the crowd saw the intensity of emotion shown by the newly-anointed disciples, they exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." Here was shown an enthusiasm that leaps over all difficulties and rises above every discouragement—the ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... said, "will you answer me truly? Do you find anything at the Thorn and Thistle better than you found in the young men's class? You sneer at religion, but religion does no one any harm; rather it always does good; anyhow, it's everything to me, and you ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... not only with Kenelm, but with the "inmate." If she, Hannah, were to marry and leave the pair instead of being herself left! Oh, the glory of it—the triumphant glory of it! How she could crush her brother! How she could gloat over and sneer at Imogene! The things she might say—she, the wife of a rich man! ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... half-playful sneer graduates into one of great ferocity when, together with a heavily frowning brow and fierce eye, the canine tooth is exposed. A Bengalee boy was accused before Mr. Scott of some misdeed. The delinquent did not dare to give vent to his wrath in words, but it was plainly ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... official than Clancy. Shrewd judge of character as he was, he could hardly be expected to guess, after such a momentary glimpse of a man of extraordinary genius in unraveling crime, that Clancy was never more discursive, never more prone to chaff and sneer at his special friend, Steingall, than when hot on the trail of some particularly acute and daring malefactor. The Chief of the Bureau, of course, knew by these signs that his trusted aide had obtained information of a really startling nature, but neither Curtis nor Devar was aware of Clancy's ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... captives—for Beatrice, too, now suddenly appeared, thrust forward through another lane among the Folk—Kamrou's keenly cruel face grew hard. His lips curled with a sneer of scorn and hate. His pinkish eyes glittered with anticipation. Full on his face the flare of the great flame fell; Stern could see every line and wrinkle, and he knew that to beg mercy from this huge barbarian (even though he ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... a sneer turned proverb, "is a brevet of mediocrity." Manzoni must rest under this damaging applause, which was not too freely bestowed upon other Italian poets of his time, or upon Italy at all, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of spite because he was forced to come; and when we got back he would be one of the first to grin and sneer at us. I want to run back as fast as I can, but you'll stand by ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the thin lips hardened as he noted the sudden pallor of her face and the look of wild terror that flashed for a moment from her eyes. And then, almost on the instant, the girl's eyes narrowed, the firm white chin thrust forward, and the red lips curled into a sneer of infinite loathing and contempt. Instinctively, Lapierre knew that the hands within the heavy mittens had clenched into fighting fists. For an instant she faced him, and then, drawing away as if he were some grizzly, loathsome thing poisoning ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... not alone Citizen-Deputy, I see," he said, with a sneer, as his snakelike eyes lighted ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... would have complained of the tears of Coriolanus or Othello; and, with Coriolanus, he could say, "It is no little thing to make mine eyes to sweat compassion." It was the presence of the sorrow of the world which made him silent. Who dares to sneer at that? When I think of my mother,—naturally hopeful, gently merry, ever smiling,—who, while my father lived, was so glad a woman that her sparkling glance was never dimmed, and when I have to acknowledge that even she did not fill us children ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... feel, even, that I might safely claim, from Mr. Hoffman, the right, which every author has, of replying to his critic tone for tone—that is to say, of answering your correspondent, flippancy by flippancy and sneer by sneer—but in the first place, I do not wish to disgrace the World; and, in the second, I feel that I never should be done sneering, in the present instance, were I once to begin. Lamartine blames Voltaire for ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... do useful work—oh yes, you may sneer—you always have sneered! If a woman tries to do something sensible with her life, instead of cuddling and kissing you all day, she's cold and cruel. We've drifted apart—well, your fault as much as mine. More, perhaps—but it's no good going into ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... you'd be so kind," said the other, with a sneer. "But we'll be going of ourselves at the new year," he said, and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... away who never saw Lazarus and only heard of him. With an audacious curiosity which is stronger than fear and feeds on fear, with a secret sneer in their hearts, some of them came to him one day as he basked in the sun, and entered into conversation with him. At that time his appearance had changed for the better and was not so frightful. At first the visitors snapped their fingers and thought disapprovingly of the foolish inhabitants ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... fleet, if not divided, would certainly not be led towards the main body of the enemy. Concentration of purpose, singleness of aim, was more than ever necessary, now that time pressed and a decision had been reached; but the sneer of the French officer reproduces the idle chatter of the day in London streets and drawing-rooms. These, in turn, but echoed and swelled the murmurs of insubordination and envy in the navy itself, at the departure from the routine methods of officialism, by passing over the claims of undistinguished ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... The sneer was bitter and strong. In it seemed now to lie Carford's only hope. Barbara met his glance an instant, and her ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... comparison), the high mountain scenery acts the part of the champagne. Unluckily, too, the teetotalers are very apt, in this case also, to sit in judgment upon their more adventurous neighbours. Especially are they pleased to carp at the views from high summits. I have been constantly asked, with a covert sneer, "Did it repay you?"—a question which involves the assumption that one wants to be repaid, as though the labour were not itself part of the pleasure, and which implies a doubt that the view is really enjoyable. People ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... this time I really did not know what I knew. Boys are greatly influenced by their surroundings, and in those days every one about me never spoke of Transcendentalism or "Germanism," or even "bookishness," without a sneer. I was borne by a mysterious inner impulse which I could not resist into this terrible whirlpool of belles- lettres, occulta, facetiae, and philosophy; but I had, God knows, little cause for pride that I read so much, for it was on every hand in some way turned against ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... men have taken their departure—one to gold-digging in California, the other to the happy hunting grounds of the Redskin, or elsewhere. Luck, in short, seems to have forsaken us. Pious folk," he added, with something of a sneer, "would say, no doubt, that God ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... would have proceeded according to law," replied Perez, with a bitter sneer. "They have been proceeding according to law for the past six years here in Berkshire, and that's why the people are in rebellion. I'm no lawyer, but I know that Perez Hamlin is as good as Jahleel Woodbridge, whatever ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... him, stopped as quickly, and let his anger vent itself in a sneer. It had occurred to him that Baumberger was not goading him without purpose—because Baumberger was not that kind of man. Oddly enough, he had a short, vivid, mental picture of him and the look on his face when he was playing the trout; it seemed to him that there was ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... sermons; and there is a disposition in mankind that would ennoble it beyond much that is more ostentatious; for men, whether lay or clerical, suffer better the flame of the stake than a daily inconvenience or a pointed sneer, and will not readily be martyred without some external circumstance and a concourse looking on. And you need not fear that your virtue will be thrown away; the people of Scotland will be quick to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fears, believing that, while protesting her friendship, she is secretly fomenting opposition to legitimate Italian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in the Middle Sea. (Again let me remind you that I am giving you not my own, but Italy's point of view.) You will sneer at this, perhaps, as a phantasm of the imagination, but I assure you, with all the earnestness and emphasis at my command, that this distrust of one great Latin nation for another, whether it is justified or not, forms a deadly ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... indifference to a platform with another, especially as Yancey and his own followers had seceded on the platform and not on the man; but he did not press his adversary to the wall, as he might have done, on the insincerity which Davis's sneer exposed. He was hampered by his own attitude as a candidate. Douglas, who had received 150 votes at Charleston, and who expected the whole at Baltimore, could not let his tongue wag as freely as Davis, who had received only one vote and a half at Charleston, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... law, and have found out how much we owe unto our Lord, it is not likely that we shall take our brother by the throat and say, 'Pay me that thou owest.' If any treat me badly, try to rob me, harm me, sneer at me, or turn the cold shoulder to me, who am I that I should resent that? Oh, brethren, we need, for our right relation to our fellows, a deeper conviction of our sinfulness before Him. Many of us are blessed with natural tendencies to meekness, but these are insufficient. Many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... attention of the house to public affairs was more imperatively demanded, and he boldly maintained that it was the duty of their lordships to lay the true state and condition of the country before his majesty. After indulging in a quiet sneer at the care the council had bestowed upon horned cattle, he remarked, that he was glad to hear that the king had reason to believe the peace of the country would be preserved, since peace could never be more desirable to a kingdom, than when it was torn to pieces by divisions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... gun! Why the blazes couldn't you have come home and brought me a bit of peat from the pit? A fine hunter you are! I might as well have married the devil.—And his wife turned from him with a sneer. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... only master. If Augustus desired to do anything by "post-obits," let him ruin himself after his own fashion. "It is not very likely that Augustus can raise money by post obits, circumstanced as the property is," he had written to Mr. Grey, with a conveyed sneer and chuckle as to the success of his own villany. It was as though he had declared that the money-lenders had been too well instructed as to what tricks Mr. Scarborough could play with his property to risk a ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... delicate distinctions," Dr. Merrick interposed with a polite sneer. "I gather from what you said just now that the lady is shortly expecting her confinement; and as she isn't married, you tell me, I naturally infer that SOMEBODY must have seduced her—either you, or ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... laughter told me about the King's retreat, making tremendous fun of him, despite my youth, for he had confidence in me. I was astonished. We soon after met the whole company coming back; and the great people went aside to talk and sneer. I then proceeded to pay my respects to the King, by whom I was honourably received. Surprise, however, was expressed by all faces, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... any one like you, Charles," said Herbert, with a sneer; "one would think you never had seen a hen or a cow before. If you were at our school they would call you 'lady;' for you clap your hands just as a girl does over these things. I like horses and dogs, but who cares ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... this instance," the sea-captain struck in with a sneer, contempt for the first time mastering ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... creed to return good for evil," answered Girty, with a strong emphasis on the word Christian, accompanied with a sneer; "but by ——! such belongs not to me, nor to those I mate with! Hark you, Ella Barnwell! I could be induced to do much for you—for I possess for you a passion stronger than I have ever before felt for any human being—but ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... to attribute to Irishmen the very qualities their critics unite in denying them. "The Irishman fights well everywhere except in Ireland," has passed into a commonplace: and since every effort of government has been directed to ensuring the abiding application of the sneer, Englishmen would find, in the end, the emasculating success of their rule completely justified in the physical submission of Ireland to the new force that held her down. With Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea held by German squadrons, no power from within could maintain any effective resistance ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... impatiently with a shrug, she went into the nursery. The nurse had been so glad to get back that most of her old hostility toward Ethel had vanished. Still there were signs now and then of a sneer which said, "You'll soon be paying no more attention to this poor bairn than her mother did before you." And it was as well to show the woman how blind and ignorant she was—to make her see ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... remarked Mendouca, with a sneer, "so far as you can with honour, refrain, I pray you, from thrusting your nationality into my face; for I may as well tell you that I have the utmost hatred and contempt for the English; I would sweep every one of them off the face of the earth if I could; and some day, when ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... asked for business talk, General. I've given you straight business. You're asking something from some one else, just now. In politics it's nothing for nothing, and d—n-d little for a dollar! You know it just as well as I do. Now suppose we have some business talk from you!" There was a sneer in ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Cadogan Cavendish, sneer as you like. But I tell you that's love that I've been describing. That's all. It's love. It's the realest, purest, finest thing that can happen to a man. And I know what I'm talking about. ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... his abnormal deficiency in what I may call the scientific sense, prevent him from divining its importance. Bacon could see nothing remarkable in the chief contributions to science of Copernicus or of Kepler or of Galileo; Gilbert, his fellow-countryman, is the subject of a sneer; while Galen is bespattered with a shower of impertinences, which reach their climax in the epithets "puppy" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the coat? Ah! true, the colour is lilac.' He held it out at arm's length. Doubtless I had been staring at the coat, but I had not even given it a thought. 'The lilac shadow!' he went on, with a sneer. 'Believe me, it is the purest coincidence.' And as he prepared to slip his arm into the sleeve I flashed the knife out of my belt. He was too quick for me, however. He flung the coat over my head. I felt the knife twisted out of my hand; he stumbled over the chair; we ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... things to my house!" repeated the miser with a sneer. "Mebbe he does. What sort of things does he kerry there? Chickens and turkeys, and surlines and ribs of beef, and sech truck! He knows I don't want sech things, and he does it jest to aggravate me. If he wants to do anything ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the goblin school—for he kept a goblin school— declared everywhere that a wonder had been wrought. For now, they asserted, one could see, for the first time, how the world and the people in it really looked. Now they wanted to fly up to heaven, to sneer and scoff at the angels themselves. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more it grinned; they could scarcely hold it fast. They flew higher and higher, and then the mirror trembled so terribly amid its grinning that it fell down out of their hands to the earth, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Oh, no, Senorita, not until the hour that you have exchanged vows and, intoxicated by love's first kiss, he presses you to his heart, then—then, Senorita, will I lay him dead at your feet in order that you also may realize what it is to live without the one you love," he said with a sneer, a faint smile wreathing his cruel lips as he watched the effect his words had upon her. There was a malicious gleam of exultation in his eyes as he saw her draw herself together suddenly and shudder as though struck by ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... determined, savage, implacable trot. He caught up on the Carl at last, for the latter had stopped to eat blackberries from the bushes on the road, and when he drew nigh, Cael began to jeer and sneer angrily at the Carl. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... Jackson," the sheriff remarked with a sneer, for he was out of temper at the ill success of the day's work, "that he has already laid hands on your son. It seems to me quite as likely that he will lay hands on you as you ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... no more magical lantern than a man's head," I replied, a little disconcerted by his sneer. "Chemists say there's more phosphorus in the brain than anywhere else; and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... ever impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I am doing his behests. The honours of men I value so far as they are evidences of power, but with the cynical mistrust of their judgment and my own worthiness, which always haunts me, I put very little faith in them. Their praise makes me sneer inwardly. God forgive me if I do ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... trying to show you I'm not a beast," Keith urged at last. "But a human being. It takes a woman to be something above a human being." He was sneering, and the sneer chilled her. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... wonted effect. In the natural course of things they had recourse to remonstrances, but their appeals were equally fruitless. The delicate creatures tried reproaches, but the boyish cynics received them with a scowl and answered them with a sneer. ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... the morning air. It seemed to press downward like an enormous invisible bat; or like the shade of buried cities, vain outcroppings of a vanished civilization, brooding menacingly over this recent flimsy accomplishment of man that Nature could obliterate with a sneer. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... on the more quickly to make war. They came to a great wood. While they were going through it, the Bladder was heard to sneer and to say, "He! you should rise above these, brothers." With these words he went upward among the tree-tops; and the thorn apple pricked him. He fell through the branches and was nothing! "You see this!" said the four, "this one could ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... down, a sly old fellow rose, and waving his long brush with a graceful air, said, with a sneer, that if, like the last speaker, he had been so unfortunate as to lose his tail, nothing further would have been needed to convince him; but till such an accident should happen, he should certainly vote in favour ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... and helping himself to a whisky-and-soda. Austin bore very little resemblance to his grim and dominant elder brother. He had a slight frail figure, very carefully dressed, and one of those thin-lipped faces which seem, to wear a perpetual sneer of superiority over commoner humanity. The movements of his white hands, the inflection of his voice, the double eyeglass which dangled from his vest by a ribbon of black silk, revealed the type of human being which considers itself something rarer and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... contracted her eyebrows. Was Mr. Copping indulging in a sneer? Possibly some vague idea of the same kind grated on the nerves ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... phrase: 'It is nothing'. If you win a battle, 'It is nothing' If you lose one, 'It is nothing'. If you are nearly killed in an air-raid, 'It is nothing'. And if you were killed outright and could yet speak, you would say, with your eternal sneer, 'It is nothing'. You other men, you make love with the air of turning on a tap. As for your women, god knows—! But I have a horror of Englishwomen. Prudes but wantons. Can I not guess? Always hypocrites. Always holding themselves in. My god, that pinched smile! ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... question, and did it shrewdly. With the Jewish maiden and the Roman centurion going to see the strange man perform the novel rite of baptism in the river of Jordan, he looked back upon the city of Jerusalem; and further along he pointed out Judas, plodding the dusty road—squat, sullen, and with a sneer at the marvel he ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... men of the type of Gordon, but that privilege is only for the few. As the great majority of our fellow-creatures are denied it, the next best thing for them is to be able to read about these heroes, and thus endeavour to catch their spirit. Some are inclined to sneer at biographies, and to say that, speaking generally, they set forward only the good part of the character of their subjects, omitting all that is faulty. To a certain extent this is undoubtedly ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Ben, with a sneer. "If he hadn't come up to the pasture the other day, you wouldn't thought anything 'bout him, an' he'd been out to the poor-farm where ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... of the world in caves, and on platforms fastened to columns, had not well-furbished knives and forks, nor carefully folded linen, nor, as a rule, nicely behaved nice little boys and girls, waiting with eager patience for a second helping of pudding. There is a distressing sneer at soap ("scented soap" it is always called), even in the great Tolstoi's writings, ever since he has allowed himself to be hag-ridden by the thought of death. And one speculates whether the care true saints have bestowed upon their souls, if ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... encircled by open-worked embroidery. He would find out that the ladies sometimes wore Knickerbockers. And this is what the ladies like. Exaggerate their follies as much as you please; but woe be to you, if you wrongfully accuse them! You may sneer at, you may censure, you may castigate them for what they really do, but beware of reprehending them for that which they have never done. Even Sir John Falstaff revolted at the imputation of having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various |
