"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assertion that he would remain had perhaps appeared to vaunt a heroism that was not true. He supposed that she had seen his selfishness of motive, and that it was her time now to let him see that she had not much admiration for him, so that he might make his ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... my love or longing are dead. Even while I write I feel dragged to her; a thousand voices cry to me that there is but one Ann, and when a few weeks ago the young Sieur de Blonay made so bold as to vaunt of his lady and her rose-red as above all other ladies and colors, my sword compelled him to yield the place of honor to blue—for whose sake ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... alluded to in Dante's "Inferno", 24. "I saw a crowd within Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape And hideous that remembrance in my veins Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands Let Libya vaunt no more: if Jaculus, Pareas, and Chelyder be her brood, Cenchris and Amphisbaena, plagues so dire Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she showed." — Carey. (See also Milton's "Paradise Lost", Book X., 520-530.) (24) The Egyptian ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... down the Illinois, the case is different. Here, he is reported to have made a statement which admits but one interpretation,—that of the discovery by him of the Mississippi prior to its discovery by Joliet and Marquette. This statement is attributed to a man not prone to vaunt his own exploits, who never proclaimed them in print, and whose testimony, even in his own case, must therefore have weight. But it comes to us through the medium of a person, strongly biased in favor of La Salle and against Marquette and ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... of darts, will it not fall unbound, Except, disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt, Thou bring it to be blessed ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... after our encounters bruised and sore, provoking indignant remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... not here produce ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... went on as calmly, coolly, and deliberately, with his bargain, on the other side, as if he were dealing with creatures utterly without feeling. Shanty turned first to one, and then to another; nodding and winking to Dymock to keep quiet on one side, whilst he continued to vaunt the merits of ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... time Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an assurance of ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... least, Sidney's world had gone to pieces about her. All her brave vaunt of service faded ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... words, Hidimva said, 'What need is there, O man, for this thy vaunt and this thy boast? Accomplish all this first, and then mayst thou vaunt indeed. Therefore, delay thou not. Thou knowest thyself to be strong and endued with prowess, so thou shalt rightly estimate thy strength today in thy encounter ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection we speak ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... hymeneal, Or triumphant chant, Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... thou the art to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. Rejoice that thus 'tis ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... passed before me some convulsion of Nature,—a storm, an earthquake,—outcries of rage, of scorn, of despair, a despot's vehemence of will, a rebel's scoff at authority; yet, ever and anon, some swell of lofty thought, some burst of passionate genius,—abrupt variations from the vaunt of superb defiance to the wail of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he will know how to use the appliances, of which the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be critics of these tear-away wits; which are, moreover, so threadbare to conceal the character! Caroline led him to vaunt his riding and his shooting, and a certain time passed before she perceived that though he responded naturally to her first sly attacks, his gross exaggerations upon them had not been the triumph of absurdity she supposed herself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... likely to appear to us even more viciousthan that of other men. To be sure, we remember Sir Philip Sidney's contention, supported by his anecdote of the loquacious horseman, that men of all callings are equally disposed to vaunt themselves. If the poet seems especially voluble about his merits, this may be owing to the fact that, words being the tools of his trade, he is more apt than other men in giving expression to his self-importance. But our specific objection to the poet is not met by this explanation. Even the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... however, was a period posterior to all the incidents of this tale, we shall continue to call the young hunter by the name under which he has been first introduced to the reader. Nor was the Iroquois less struck with the vaunt of the white man. He knew of the death of his comrade, and had no difficulty in understanding the allusion, the intercourse between the conqueror and his victim on that occasion having been seen by several savages on the shore of the lake, who ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... come and prove, the field I grant, Nor wrong nor treason let him doubt or fear, Some here shall pay him for his glorious vaunt, Without or guile, or vantage, that I swear. The herald turned when he had ended scant, And hasted back the way he came whileare, Nor stayed he aught, nor once forslowed his pace, Till he bespake ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... all disposed to have peace, but I find he is disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the result of accident, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Vaunt not its shippers, my friend, but produce it—an Actual, "forty-five," languorous Lusitan, Befitting, whate'er be its label, You, my good host, and the guest ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... about this. As Sut could not hide his personality, the best plan for him was to make an open avowal, backed up by a rather high-sounding vaunt. This was more pleasing to the Indians, who were addicted to the most extravagant ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... flung themselves before him in transports of gratitude, but he turned hastily away and strode up the mountain, his cheek glowing as he remembered, too late, that his defiance would be scoffed at, as a boy's vaunt. By and by he arrived at the hamlet, where he found a prisoner, a scowling, abject fellow, already well beaten, and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. And so Diogenes, when Plato was being praised, said, "What has he to vaunt of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never gave pain to anyone?" For one could not say, to use the words of Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to philosophy as are the emotions of young men, such as shame, desire, repentance, pleasure, pain, ambition, whereon ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... vainly do not vaunt Large demesnes, to feed my pleasure; I have favours where you want, That would buy respect with treasure. You have lands lie here and there, But my wealth is everywhere; And this addeth to my store— Fortune ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... pleasure, also if they please you well, under whose name and cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot taste them, let them ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... have, in some moment of passion made big boasts of what they would do "some day." Few ever made so tremendous a vaunt; fewer still ever so completely fulfilled their threats; and, perhaps, no one ever struggled so patiently, so nobly, nor against such tremendous obstacles before the goal was reached, as did this angry little Swede, known to history as Gustavus ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... shed stood a saddled horse, employed in eating his corn. The cottages in this part of Cumberland partake of the rudeness which characterises those of Scotland. The outside of the house promised little for the interior, notwithstanding the vaunt of a sign, where a tankard of ale voluntarily decanted itself into a tumbler, and a hieroglyphical scrawl below attempted to express a promise of 'good entertainment for man and horse.' Brown was no fastidious traveller: he stopped and entered the ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... left on a heavy heart. Give me back the child, that my eyes may not be closed by strangers, and that I may speak good counsel into his young ears, while there is hope my words may be remembered, and I care not for all the metals of the Rialto! Thou mayest see that I utter no vain vaunt, by this jewel, which I offer to the nobles with the reverence due to ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... vaunt! You know the scarf Lies with the enemy, upon the brink Of the stream,. . .the place is riddled now with shot,— No ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... the corruption of the judgment-seat in Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the Senators. One passage I will give now, in order that the reader may see by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the judgment-seat ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... translators responded to its stimulus with an enthusiasm denied to later times. It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... haue we ouer past? Both barking Scilla, and the sounding Rocks, The Cyclops shelues, and grim Ceranias seate Haue you oregone, and yet remaine aliue! Pluck vp your hearts, since fate still rests our friend, And chaunging heauens may those good daies returne, Which Pergama did vaunt ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... sign over the mean doorway almost obliterated by time and weather, there was nothing attractive about the "Punch-Bowl" tavern in Clerkenwell. It was hidden away at the end of a narrow alley, making no effort to vaunt its existence to the world at large, and to many persons, even in the near neighbourhood, it was entirely unknown. Like a gentleman to whom debauchery has brought shame and the desire to conceal himself from his fellows, so the "Punch-Bowl" seemed an outcast amongst taverns. Chance visitors ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... the man of understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I thither? or who concedes ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... sort of folk,—what shall I clepe them? what? That vaunt themselves of women, and by name, That yet to them ne'er promised this or that, Nor knew them more, in ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... position which was a sinecure. She kept her serious little room in order herself, dusting and almost polishing the reference books, arranging and re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she could—as is the vaunt of the model of orderly perfection—lay her hand upon any document "in the dark." She was punctuality's self and held herself in readiness at any moment to appear at the Duchess' side as if a magician had instantaneously transported ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... son, hast slain The meaner giants of my train: And canst thou idly vaunt thy might And claim the praise not thine by right? Not thus in self-laudation rave The truly great, the nobly brave: No empty boasts like thine disgrace The foremost of the human race. The mean of soul, unknown to fame, Who taint their warrior race with shame, Thus speak in senseless ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... be otherwise? It may be observed, however, that here, as everywhere else in this right little tight little isle, where habit is the very antithesis of the airy license of "Abroad," it is not, as it is in the artistic haunts of the Continent, en regle to vaunt one's self on the paucity of one's shekels or to acknowledge acquaintance with the Medici's pills in their modern form ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally became the victims of this imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Such a dereliction of independence would render us entirely useless for the purpose we mean to serve. On the other hand, nothing will render the work more interesting than the public learning, not from any vaunt of ours, but from their own observation, that we have access to early and accurate information on points of fact. The Edinburgh Review has profited much by the pains which the Opposition party have taken to possess the writers of all the information they could give them ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... look thou for no termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... know that you must expose yourself to contempt by failing to make your vaunt good," said Brithric; "but you shall not ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... &c v.; boast, vaunt, crake^; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade^; gasconade; blague^, bluff, gas [Slang]; highfalutin, highfaluting^; hot air, spread-eagleism [U.S.]; brag, braggardism^; bravado, bunkum, buncombe; jactitation^, jactancy^; bounce; venditation^, vaporing, rodomontade, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of them but one, and then go back and touch ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... the truth when he said, "All is vanity," than was David when he said in his heart, "All men are liars;" for if the bad man is foolish enough to boast of his error, the good man is generally inclined to vaunt his virtue after the most mature reflection, and the secret of success, whether in good or in evil, is not to allow the right hand to know the doings of the left. There are men who give lavishly with the one hand, while they steal even more freely with the other, and are ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... necessary that the blood torrent should flow at once through the Netherlands, in order that the promised golden river, a yard deep, according to his vaunt, should begin to irrigate the thirsty soil of Spain. It is obvious, from the fundamental laws which were made to define treason at the same moment in which they established the council, that any man might be at any instant summoned to the court. Every man, whether innocent or ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the manner related in the romance; for it must be recollected that at the period of 1200 were begun to be made many books, in gross and rude language, and in rhythm of all measure and style, merely for the pastime of princes, and sometimes for flattery, to vaunt beyond all reason the feats of certain knights, in order to give courage to young men to do the like and become brave; such are the said Romance of Melluzine, those of Little Arthur of Brittany, Lancelot du Lac, Tristan the Adventurous, Ogier the Dane, and others ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... vengeance now implants it selfe, Upon the hauty mountains of my brest: Plaies with her goary coulours of revenge, Whom I respect as leaves of boasting greene, That change their coulour when the winter comes, When I shall vaunt ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe
... it is only necessary to say, that as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age of Sydney and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... dost thou trust, And pompous rites in domes august? See mouldering stones and metals' rust Belie the vaunt, That man can bless one pile of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... besides its mesmeric life, which no artist can reproduce, there is a balancing of colors, a gorgeousness about it, as if he had learned coloring from the great Master himself. Even in the overpowering human effect of this piece, it is impossible not to perceive that every difficulty which artists vaunt themselves on vanquishing has in this piece been conquered with apparently instinctive ease, simply because it was habitual to do so, and without in the least distracting the attention from the great moral. Magical foreshortenings and wonderful effects of color appear to be purely incidental ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the Walpole tract that day in a spirit of new confidence which put away all weariness from him. He was armed with a powerful weapon. In his exultation, fired by youth's natural hankering to vaunt success in an undertaking where his elders had failed, he was willing to flourish ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... round another thing of beauty—a spiky agave (miscalled aloe) of monstrous dimensions which may be seen in the garden of a certain hill-side hotel. Many are the growths of this kind which I have admired in various lands; none can vaunt as proud and harmonious a development as this one. You would say it had been cast in some dull blue metal. The glaucous wonder stands by itself, a prodigy of good style, more pleasing to the eye than ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the vaunt with a sneer. "You ought to be a detective—in a novel." He buttered his toast and ate a little of it, like a man of small ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Sir Kenneth, only more so, he expanded his fine torso. His Standard—bold he swore so—flying proudly, Still supreme should flow and flaunt, its defenders none should daunt. 'Twas a very valiant vaunt. Shouted loudly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... our God for evermore Through life, through death, while clod returns to clod. For though He slay us we will trust in Him; We will flock home to Him by divers ways: Yea, though He slay us we will vaunt His praise, Serving and loving with the Cherubim, Watching and loving with the Seraphim, Our very selves His praise through ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Patroclus, breathing faintly, thou didst address: "Even now, Hector, vaunt greatly, for Jove, the son of Saturn, and Apollo, have given thee the victory, who subdued me easily; for they stripped the armour from my shoulders. But if even twenty such [as thou] had opposed me, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... the Pharisees was not reserved for Jesus. "Behold, ye fast for strife and contention," said Isaiah, "and to smite with the fist of wickedness." While some German writers, not content with the great men Germany has so abundantly produced, vaunt that all others, from Jesus to Dante, from Montaigne to Michael Angelo, are of Teuton blood, Jewish literature unflinchingly exposes the flaws even of a Moses and a David. It is this passion for veracity unknown among other peoples—is ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... sure are coming nigh our hills the auspices foretold, When he shall fail to vaunt his power who chain'd our sires of old, In iron bands who held them fast, but now he droops with fear; Delusion's age is past, and strife avows the smile, the tear, That sympathy or fondness ask,—and the sad world is fain To welcome its return to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... some sort, to divert my mind—were you not, dearest? What book, though, could now divert me? Only such books as have never existed on earth. Novels are rubbish, and written for fools and for the idle. Believe me, dearest, I know it through long experience. Even should they vaunt Shakespeare to you, I tell you that Shakespeare is rubbish, and proper only for ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... unsuccessful generals and degraded ministers. He died on the 25th of February 1850, aged sixty-nine. In his will, there appears the following notice of the English war: 'The little fools beyond the Western Ocean were chastised and quelled by our troops, and peace was soon made; but we presumed not to vaunt our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... also a minister of Salem. He had, it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he had used ill in their life-time, and consequently, it was whispered, had murdered them. This man was accustomed foolishly to vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and this was brought as a proof that he dealt with the devil. Two women, who were witnesses against him, interrupted their testimony with exclaiming that they saw the ghosts of the murdered ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... If there was any gratitude it was all mine. But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of that sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... age; Hohenfels, quite erroneously, gives me forty-eight; Josephine, with that raw alacrity in leaping at computations peculiar to the illiterate, oppressed me with fifty. Which of us three knew best? I should like to ask. But it is of little consequence. The Easterns generally vaunt themselves on not knowing the day of their birth. And wisdom comes to us from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... long-experienced to be wise In guileless youth's diviner way; Life sings not now, but prophesies; Time's shadows they no more behold, 180 But, under them, the riddle old That mocks, bewilders, and defies: In childhood's face the seed of shame, In the green tree an ambushed flame, In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, They, though against their will, divine, And dread the care-dispelling wine Stored from the Muse's mintage bright, By age imbued with second-sight. From Faith's own eyelids there peeps out, 190 Even as they look, the leer of doubt; The festal wreath their fancy loads With care ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Gentle lady, as yet you know not what this is to be; no more do I. You are troubled without cause. But know this truly: if there were in me only so much courage as your love inspires, truly I should not fear to face any man alive. But I am foolish to vaunt myself; yet I say it not from any pride, but because I wish to comfort you. So comfort yourself, and let it be! I cannot longer tarry here, nor can you go along with me; for, as the King has ordered, I must not take you beyond this point." Then he kisses her and commends ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... special mention. Coal not being much in evidence in the diamond fields—where the sun is ever shining with all its might—paraffin was an important factor in the culinary sphere. When, therefore, a few gentlemen formed a syndicate, to vaunt their loyalty in a crisis by cornering all the kerosene in town, another outcry followed. They bought all they could lay hands on at market price (sixteen and six per case), and next day imperturbably continued buying at twenty-five shillings. On Tuesday ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... vaunt with corresponding gestures, and directed his eyes to the circle of his equally confident sons while speaking, he drew their gaze from Ellen to himself; but now, when they turned together to note the succeeding movements of their female sentinel, the place which ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sense, Of greater worth and consequence! What see ye, men, in this parade, That food for wonder need be made? The bulk which makes a child afraid? In truth, I take myself to be, In all aspects, as good as he." And further might have gone his vaunt; But, darting down, the cat Convinced him that a rat Is ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without hesitation in ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... and grow To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters Become ourselves, and we would fain forget There live who need ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... and there was general satisfaction, if not in the chanting, at least in the evidence that the Dominicans were come. That loud chanting repetition of the prayer, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered," was unpleasantly suggestive to some impartial ears of a desire to vaunt confidence and excite dismay; and so was the flame-coloured velvet cope in which Fra Domenico was arrayed as he headed the procession, cross in hand, his simple mind really exalted with faith, and with the genuine intention to enter the flames for the glory ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... twain and slew them and left them in the bed and returned presently to his camp, without telling any one what had happened. Then he gave orders for immediate departure and set out a'once and travelled till he drew near his brother's capital when he despatched vaunt-couriers to announce his approach. His brother came forth to meet him and saluted him and rejoiced exceedingly and caused the city to be decorated in his honour. Then he sat down with him to converse and make merry; but King Shahzeman could not forget the perfidy of his wife and grief grew ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... King Henry's son that Margaret's love Hangs in th'uncertain balance of proud time? That death shall make a discord of our thoughts? No, stab the earl, and, 'fore the morning sun Shall vaunt him thrice over the lofty east, Margaret will meet her Lacy in ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... thousand-fold, Than pangs of hunger. 'Tis the thirst of love, The rage and rapture of the ravening dove We name Desire. Ah, pardon! I offend; My fervor blinds me to the withering end Of all good council, and, accurst thereby, I vaunt anew ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... always a thick veil. But you—I mean you, I, any of us—are oddly dim-sighted also in regard to the civil population. For instance, we get into the empty motor-bus as it leaves the scene of the street accident, and examine the men and women who gradually fill it. Probably we vaunt ourselves as being interested in the spectacle of life. All the persons in the motor-bus have come out of a past and are moving towards a future. But how often does our imagination put itself to the trouble of realising this? We may observe with some care, yet owing to a fundamental ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... allude), surely a boy up to eighteen may be pardoned for exercising his faculty if he happens to be the one among millions who can use grown men as his toys. He was an absolute and untarnished hero, but for that reckless defying vaunt. Certainly ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with decay To change your day of youth ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... upon the roof of a lofty shed, and seeing a Wolf below, loaded him with all manner of reproaches. Upon which, the Wolf, looking up, replied, "Do not vaunt yourself, vain creature, and think you mortify me; for I look upon this ill language as not coming from you, but from ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... about to expatiate on the beauties of error, for it has none; but the clank of steam-engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the struggle for gain or bread, and the loud denunciations of stupid bigots, have wellnigh smothered poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, and vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter exist? In spite of all the forms which our policy has invented to secure it—in spite of all the preachers, all the meeting-houses, and all the legislative enactments—if any person will take upon himself the painful labor of purchasing and perusing ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rebellion anew. He plunders his uncle, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, of a considerable sum of money, to fill the Scottish Usurper's not over-burdened treasury, debauches the servants of his relation, takes arms, and though repeatedly chastised in the field, still keeps his vaunt, and threatens mischief to those, who, in the name of his rightful sovereign, defend the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... That all this famous antique history Of some th' aboundance of an ydle braine Will judged be, and painted forgery, Rather then matter of just memory; Sith none that breatheth living aire dees know Where is that happy land of Faery, Which I so much doe vaunt, yet no where show, But vouch antiquities, which ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... meant for a counter-vaunt, the retaliation of a pang for it was evident the savages knew that among their captives were the wife and daughter of our chief. These were placed conspicuously in front, upon the very ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Cristo "upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... every tarnish free May boldly vaunt her purity, But ah, how keen, however bright, The sabre glitter to the sight, Its splendor's lost, its polish vain, Till some bold hand ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... very tombs were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the frightful ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... and both thoughts intensify Sennacherib's sin. The Highest, before whose transcendent height all human elevations sink to a uniform level, has so joined Israel to Himself that to touch it is to strike at Him, and to vaunt one's self against it is to be arrogant towards God. That mighty name has received wider extension now, but the wider sweep does not bring diminished depth, and lowly souls who take that name for their strong tower can still run into it and be safe ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... not be a mediator. That deceitful mediator then, by whom in Thy secret judgments pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common with man, that is sin; another he would seem to have in common with God; and not being clothed with the mortality of flesh, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that with them he should be condemned ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... that person and those virtues of which you vaunt, are with me his worst offences—they have undone my love and marred my fortunes—the easy heart of Geraldine is captivated by the stripling's specious outside, while his talents and achievements secure him with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... nobility! I never shall account it marvelous, That our infirm affection here below Thou mov'st to boasting, when I could not choose, E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire, In heav'n itself, but make my vaunt in thee! Yet cloak thou art soon shorten'd, for that time, Unless thou be eked out from day to day, Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then With greeting such, as Rome, was first to bear, But since hath disaccustom'd I began; And Beatrice, that a little space ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... perchance without a tear. Now to my theme—but from thy holy haunt Let me some remnant, some memorial bear; Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant, Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... shuffle-board." Henry observed, "Yet you gownsmen should be best at such exercises, which are not meet for men who are more stirring." The tutor, a little irritated, said, "I am meet for whipping of boys." "You vaunt, then," retorted the prince, "that which a ploughman or cart-driver can do better than you." "I can do more," said the tutor, "for I can govern foolish children." On which the prince, who, in his respect for his tutor, did not care to carry the jest farther, rose from the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... he has been, with astounding falsehood, represented as instigating his troops to the most infamous excesses; but from a people holding millions of their fellow-beings in the most horrible slavery, while they prate and vaunt of liberty until all men turn in loathing from the sickening folly, what can be expected?" (Vol. v, p. 31.) Napier possessed to a very eminent degree the virtue of being plain-spoken. Elsewhere (iii, 450), after giving a most admirably fair ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... passionate sincerity, and with all the power of his despotism over words. He has been a wandering foot—familiar with many strands; he has known shame and sorrow and striving; he has won to serene heights. He tells it all without vaunt, relating his experience to the large meanings of life for all men, to the mystic currents behind life, out of which we come, to whose great ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Percy, not by name, for that had been lost in the female line some generations before, but the pedigree in my possession shows how just was her vaunt in that respect. For vaunt it she did, to us at least, often bringing it forward to check any tendency to behavior unbefitting those ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... through the Straits of Gibraltar. The conversation of the Sheikhs at length turned upon the Turks, and the country of Gog and Magog—whence they came, whom we all agreed to abuse as much as possible, since our antipathies were pretty equal. The Sheikhs then began very naturally to vaunt of their power in The Sahara, and I may embrace this opportunity of giving some outline of the Touarick nations of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson |
