"Cynically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my opinion,' said the Puddin' cynically, 'them puddin'-thieves are too clever for you; and, what's more, they're better eaters than you. Why,' said the Puddin', sneering at Bill, 'I'll back one puddin'-thief to eat more in a given time than three Puddin'-owners ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... pilgrim discloses to her that he it is who is the King of Gaul, and Cordelia marries him. Instead of this scene, Lear, according to Shakespeare, offers Cordelia's two suitors to take her without dowry, and one cynically refuses, while the other, one does not know why, accepts her. After this, in the old drama, as in Shakespeare's, Leir undergoes the insults of Goneril, into whose house he has removed, but he bears these insults in a very different way from that represented ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... cadence than he intended, asking, justly enough, on what privilege his visitor rested such a demand and why he himself was disqualified from offering his wares to the highest bidder. "Surely you wouldn't hawk such things about?" cried Mr. Locket; but before Baron had time to retort cynically he added: ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... feeling an immense relief come over me as I heard. But I asked in ignorance, not cynically. Frances would know. She knew all this ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... us in America very little, and we smile cynically at the not altogether untruthful portraits of "Potash and Pearlmutter," and their vermin-like business methods. There is an undercurrent of feeling in America, that the virile blood is still there which will stop at nothing to throw ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... a person who is evidently suffering and has need of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... there were theatres here—huge extravagant places! Algernon went over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically criticizing the bill. A play was going forward within, that enjoyed great popular esteem, "The Holly Berries." Seeing that the pit was crammed, Algernon made application to learn the state of the boxes, but ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... haughty Iroquois lost patience, and throwing down their bundles made off for Quebec with the avowed purpose of raiding the Algonquins. On the way, they paused to scalp three Frenchmen at Montreal, cynically explaining that if the French persisted in taking Algonquins into their arms, the white men need not be surprised if the blow aimed at an Algonquin sometimes struck a Frenchman. That act opened the eyes of the French to the real meaning of the peace made with the Iroquois; but the little colony ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... said Helene cynically, "she will warn you to beware. She will hunt up all my offences against holy ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of the great Oliver; for Oliver, as will be presently seen, and all his tribe were fed upon no other food than the possessions of the Church. Cromwell, in his business of suppressing the great houses, embezzled quite cynically—if we can fairly call that "embezzlement" which was probably countenanced by the King, to whom account was due. Indeed, it is plainly evident from the whole story of that vast economic catastrophe which so ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... it is, though you don't mean it. When you read, you only poison your mind. It is your reading that has made you what you are, without faith, without feeling. You dissect everything, you calculate motives cynically, you have learnt to despise everyone who believes what you refuse to, you make your own intellect the centre of ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... Frumentaria.] Having satisfied his conscience by the performance of what no doubt seemed to him sacred duties, Caius at once set to work to build up his new constitution. It is commonly represented that in order to gain over the people to his side he cynically bribed them by his Lex Frumentaria. Now if this were true, and Caius were as clear-sighted as the same writers who insist on the badness of the law describe him to have been, it is hard to see how they can in the same breath eulogise his goodness ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... am not speaking cynically or trivially. The gain of women is also the gain of men. You are bitter against the average man for his low morality; but that fault, on the whole, is directly traceable to the ignobleness of women. Think, and you will ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... preferred to tea, while a vivid note of colour was added to the scene by the picturesque uniforms of a couple of officers of an Algerian regiment who were consuming unlimited cigarettes and Turkish coffee, and commenting cynically in fluent French on the paucity of pretty women to be observed in the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... unhappiness is seen, —for instance, "Moon's just a word to swear by," in which he expresses his conviction that all beauty and romance are fled from the world. At the end of the play the line, "Yes, and yet I dare say he is just as dead," must not be said flippantly or cynically, but slowly and with much philosophic concentration on the thought. From the moment when Columbine cries, "What's that there under the table?" until Pierrot calls, "Cothurnus, come drag these bodies out of here!" they both stand staring at the ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... what exactly the vile truth would have been, had she started to tell it. And he began to feel, coldly and cynically, that among all her distress there was a luxuriating in the violent emotions of the scene in hand, and the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... start railing at the culprit, while the crowd listened as silently and attentively as though he had been saying something worthy to be heard and heeded, rather than foully and cynically ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... one side of the picture, the side which friendly Chinese are painting for us. Yet when you glance at the eleven Legations, placidly living their own little lives, you will see them cynically listening to these old women's tales, while at heart they secretly wonder what political capital each of them can separately make out of the whole business, so that their governments may know that Peking ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Thomas Mann), and that the right of German might is above everything. Then, in the second place, when they discovered that in the world outside them there was something known as a "moral conscience," not understood by them, but still to be reckoned with, they cynically denied the charges. Finally, when they were driven from this second trench, when simple negation became impossible, they had ...
— Their Crimes • Various
... and repassed me, and my glance rested on her idly, even cynically. For she seemed so happy, and at that time happiness won my languid wonder, if ingenuously exhibited. To be happy seemed almost to be mindless. But by degrees I found myself watching this girl, and more closely. Another dance began. She joined it ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... thief laughed cynically. "You are right, mon vieux. I would be delighted to have the chance. But this time it is impossible. The stones are too big. They are worth—pouf!—millions of francs, so I must be content to receive my pay, ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry. No sooner on shore I would meet some acquaintance, and the first remark would be, "Did you ever hear of anything to beat this?" and according to his kind the man would smile cynically, or look sad, or let out a swear or two. Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for the sake of easing their minds on the subject: every confounded loafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over this affair: you heard of it in the harbour office, at every ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... indignation!—stigmatize as prostitution. I dont mean ever to be married, I can tell you, Marian. I would rather die than sell myself forever to a man, and stand in a church before a lot of people whilst George or somebody read out that cynically plain-spoken marriage ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... sure I did," was the answer, cynically delivered, accompanied by a short, sharp laugh. "When I have settled other accounts, and put all my affairs in order, I shall save the provost-marshal the trouble of further seeking the slayer. And you didn't know then, Sylvia, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... said, cynically. "I wonder why she came to this dull hole? A quarrel with her young man, perhaps. If I were a young man myself I might—But women are all the same. I should be a happier man if I had never ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... a little cynically. Would she have refused Rodney's offer of help, she wondered, if she had known an hour ago, that the two hundred dollars she'd relied on so confidently to pull her out of this rut and give her a fresh start whenever she was ready to attempt ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... interest and a new title by which to win soft words, admiring looks, and sympathetic pressings from pretty hands. Who could blame Lady Richard for murmuring, "There, my dear, now you see!"? Who could wonder that Aunt Maria looked cynically indifferent? Was it strange that a good many people, without going to the length of declaring that the orator had suffered nothing at all, yet were inclined to think that he knew better than to waste, and quite well how to improve, the opportunity that a trifling fatigue ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... underwent the horrible outrage of rotting in the open air; it was an outlaw of the tomb. There was no peace for it even in annihilation: in the summer it fell away into dust, in the winter into mud. Death should be veiled, the grave should have its reserve. Here was neither veil nor reserve, but cynically avowed putrefaction. It is effrontery in death to display its work; it offends all the calmness of shadow when it does its task outside its ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... accepted rather unwillingly, the objection to her being that she was too young—thirteen and a half. Mrs. Lessways had a vague humanitarian sentiment against the employment of children; as for Hilda's feeling, it was at one moment more compassionate even than her mother's, and at another almost cynically indifferent. The aunt, however, a person of powerful common sense, had persuaded Mrs. Lessways that the truest kindness would be to give Florrie a trial. Florrie was very strong, and she had been brought up to work hard, and she enjoyed working hard. "Don't you, Florrie?" "Yes, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... worship to those well dead and long gone hence, wrote of Tennyson to Emerson: "One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of dusky hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian-looking, clothes cynically loose, free and easy, smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company over a pipe! We shall see ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... RICHARD (eyeing him cynically). The magic of property, Pastor! Are even YOU civil to me now that I have succeeded to my ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... breakfast he found me in high spirits—assumed for the occasion I may say. When he pushed in the basin of skilly I picked it up and set it beside the others. Pointing to the row of untouched food I turned to him cynically and remarked, "Don't you think you're making ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... it, then," he cynically observed; "if you love your lamb better than both your father and your mother, keep it, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... credulous lot of people. Old Bismarck himself once cynically remarked that there was a special Providence that watched out for plumb fools and Americans. More recently, Von Papen, whom our Government asked to have withdrawn from his post as German military attache at Washington, ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... first roused himself with a quick, writhing movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half cynically,—"we two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment. We know both too well what life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And then—there was nothing more to do. He stopped in at the club and drank and gambled until far into the morning. He fretted gloomily about all the next day, riding alone in the Park, driving with his sister, drinking and gambling at the club again and smiling cynically to himself at the covert glances his acquaintances exchanged. He was growing used to those glances. He cared not the flip of a ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... Vermont cynically; "prophets nowadays have no liking for being stoned; and, after all, life would be unendurable, were it not for its pleasures. Let me remind you that it is nearly four o'clock, and you are due at ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... to see his friends the Tristrams with a good deal of frequency, though if you had listened to Mrs. Tristram's account of the matter you would have supposed that they had been cynically repudiated for the sake of grander acquaintance. "We were all very well so long as we had no rivals—we were better than nothing. But now that you have become the fashion, and have your pick every day of three invitations to dinner, we are tossed ...
— The American • Henry James
... had spoken rather cynically, and that he had somehow hurt and checked the girl. He did not like the thought; but he felt that he had spoken sensibly in not allowing the situation to become sentimental. There was a little silence; and then Maud said, rather timidly: "Do you like ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cynically,—"is it safe for an innocent individual to cultivate your acquaintance? Would it not be a good plan to isolate yourself from society until you feel that the guileless ones may approach you without fear of contamination? You ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... era of materialism. Force was the prime minister, self -gratification the supreme legislator. Exaggerated superstition was balanced by decaying faith. It was a time of coordinately high mental activity, an intellectuality that cynically rejoiced at its own failure to solve the riddle of the universe, maliciously suggested new difficulties, raised barriers against its own research, and prostrating itself in the name of mere brutism, worshipped nature as the ready panderer to its worst passions, while owning it as ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... away, while Harris, sprawling cynically on a solitary chair down in the parlour with straight open legs, awaited the rendezvous ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... notice, wearing the celebrated heavily enamelled plated family Holly-hocks, and several debutantes in bright arsenical Emerald Green, who had not much to recommend them in the way of good looks, came in for a fair amount of cynically disagreeable comment. The dance terminated at an early hour in the morning, it being eventually brought to a conclusion by a little riot in the hall, caused by the linkman (who, owing to his potations, had not been very steady ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... of course, that the tangled skein was unravelled by the transcendent genius of Mr. Cadbury Taylor," said the girl cynically. ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... pretty woman, with a cloud of fluffy, artificially blonde hair and large, innocent, absolutely blank blue eyes. A year ago she had resembled, if one might imagine the existence of such a being, a perfectly worldly wise and cynically minded baby, but twelve months of late suppers and many plays had already blighted her rose-leaf skin and sown three fine, nervous little wrinkles between her delicately arched eyebrows. She was very vivacious, but, as Gerty Bridewell had observed, it was a vivacity that was hardly justified, since ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Ronny snorted cynically. "Sounds good to me. The more I read about New Delos and its God-King and his priesthood, the more I think the best thing that ever happened to the planet was ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... cast me on a tussock of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend's escape. I saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stirred the Indian princes out of their melancholy indifference, and tiger hunts which had, by their duration and magnificence, threatened to disrupt the efficiency of the British military service,—whimsical excesses, not understandable by his intimate acquaintances who cynically arraigned him as the fool and ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... coming true with a vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, old, rooted belief that I shall die by drowning? I don't want that to come true, though it is an easy death; but it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front. I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically and constantly alive to its perils; I regard it as the highest form of gambling; and yet I love the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean emotions; a world all and always beautiful; air better than wine; interest ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cynically. "I have heard enough praise of Miss Georgy for one evening. Ted Hutchinson was talking about her." And with a burst of wrath he went on, retailing the gossip of the night: Ted knew nothing of her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... from the little nook which I occupy in it, and whence I and a fellow-lodger and friend of mine cynically observe it, presents a strange motley scene. We are in a state of transition. We are not as yet in the town, and we have left the country, where we were when I came to lodge with Mrs. Cammysole, my excellent landlady. I then took second-floor apartments at No. 17, Waddilove Street, and since, ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... questions about planting, and the ploughman, being deaf, answered in a forensic bellow, so that Addington, passing the brick wall in its goings to and fro, heard, and communicated to those at home that Jeffrey Blake, dear fellow, was going back to the land. Jeffrey did, as he had cynically foreseen, become a cause. All persons of social significance came to call, and were, without qualification, kind. Sometimes he would not see them, but Anne one day told him how wrong he was. If he hid himself he put a burden on his father, who stood in the breach, and talked even ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... wished to talk over this first point between the high contracting powers indefinitely, but Mr. Weeks remarked cynically, "It's double what I thought he'd offer, and you're lucky to have it in black and white. Now that everything's settled, Timothy will hitch up and take you and Jane up there ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... set well apart and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets. The trim, natty figure, the spruce and Summer-like attire, the small, wizened face with its cynically humorous and wide-awake aspect— above all, a certain jauntiness of air and cocksure expression— certainly did not suggest a comedian fresh ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... through it, but for a while there I didn't hardly think I'd last out." He prepared to taste that most delicate pleasure of the host: making fun of his guests in the relaxation of midnight. As the door closed he yawned voluptuously, chest out, shoulders wriggling, and turned cynically to his wife. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... think he'll have any objection to making that quite clear to us if he is," I replied, cynically. "I should say he'd be rather proud of it. But—I think we shall hear a good deal of him before we get ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... analyse man's love for woman, to explain it, or explain it away, belittle it, nay, even resent and befoul it, it remains an unaccountable phenomenon, a "mystery we make darker with a name." Biology, cynically pointing at certain of its processes, makes the miracle rather more miraculous than otherwise. Musical instruments are no explanation of music. "Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... not unjustly, "a cynically candid document." The "unity of the Party," and "pledges to constituents" are the only considerations alluded to in favour of the recall of a man to whose worth almost the whole of South Africa had witnessed, in spite of divided opinions ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... the forest, ardently believing in themselves; they are not hypocrites. The somewhat bedraggled figure of Joanna follows them, and the nightingale resumes his love-song. 'That's all you know, you bird!' thinks Joanna cynically. The nightingale, however, is not singing for them nor for her, but for another pair he has espied below. They are racing, the prize to be for the one who first finds the spot where the easel was put up last night. The hobbledehoy is sure to be the winner, for she is less ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... and thousands of dedicated foreign communists, people in nearly every free country who will serve Moscow's ends. Thus the masters of the Kremlin are provided with deluded followers all through the free world whom they can manipulate, cynically and quite ruthlessly, to serve the purposes of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... wire asking him to dine, he laughed bitterly. There was something so cynically entertaining in the idea of the whole situation! He was being asked out to meet the wife whom he was madly in love with, and was preparing to divorce for desertion, so that she might marry ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... instincts of the fox and the wolf and the merciless persistency of the weazel—a man who lived his code to the last letter of the law, without pity and without favoritism. At least so he was judged, and his hard, narrow eyes, his thin lips and his cynically lined face seldom betrayed the better thoughts within him, if he possessed any at all. In the Service he was regarded as a humanly perfect mechanism, a bit of machinery that never failed, the dreaded Nemesis to be set ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... of sketches or caricatures, controversial and satirical, against the Popedom, some of which are cynically coarse, one of them representing to his countrymen the murder of Conradin, the Pope himself beheading him, and another a German Emperor with the Pope standing on his neck. Luther added short verses to these pictures. But he disapproved of one of Cranach's caricatures, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... she was more reserved with the Dictator than with others of her friends. Soame Rivers saw that there was a difference in her bearing towards the Dictator and towards the courtiers of her little court, and he smiled cynically and pretended ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... cynically as he looked down toward the tent. He could not, of course, distinguish the figures as plainly as Jimmie could with the glass, but he knew from the excited manner of the boys that something ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... a word more. He returned to his chest, and cynically composed himself to slumber. The casting of the lots went on rapidly among the officers and men. In another half-hour chance had decided the question of "Go" or "Stay" for all alike. The men left the hut. The officers entered ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... dictatorship. So were the war propagandists: there was not a bestial quality in human nature they did not find everywhere east of the Rhine, or west of it if they were Germans. The bestiality was there all right. But after the victory, eternal peace. Plenty of this is quite cynically deliberate. For the skilful propagandist knows that while you must start with a plausible analysis, you must not keep on analyzing, because the tedium of real political accomplishment will soon destroy interest. So the propagandist exhausts the interest in reality by a tolerably ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of the festal board, contemplating my glass of tinto (I am unable to say whether I drank tinto because the champagne ran short or because, being feminine and educational, I was deemed unworthy of the best), I reflected somewhat cynically that if he was telling the strict truth, his childhood must have been singularly barren of the penalties which follow real childish joy, or else his was ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... quite an exact art. Not once but several times has the libertine Neptune scandalously seduced punts and dinghies from the respectable precincts of Brammo Bay, and having philandered with them for a while, cynically abandoned them with a bump on the mainland beach, and only once has he sent a punt in return—a poor, soiled, tar-besmirched, disorderly waif that was reported to the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... not cynically now, but uneasily and with embarrassment, for Clayton's blue eyes were on him, those eyes that could look into ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... beginning, have men said of women, though neither so many nor so bitter, as the witty Frenchman cynically remarks, as the things women have said of one another. Poor Eve has paid very dear for that apple: the only wonder is, that she was not made responsible also for the Flood: but we have not got the whole of that story: Noah's wife may have dropped some ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... rather sweet, since he always accompanied her to choir meeting, and when they had a dance out in the country, she invariably went with Fred. "Well, I don't know what Fred Badger has got over Steve Mullane, or Jack Winters, or even Joel Jackman," said another voice, rather cynically, as though the speaker did not wholly subscribe to Mollie's view that Fred stood out as a shining mark above the rest of ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... you, friend Huanacocha, I think you were," rejoined Xaxaguana somewhat cynically. ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... good at paying compliments, Miss Mortimer," he said cynically. "Twelve years in prison have rusted all my ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... controlling the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt. The war of liberation in the Netherlands had a twofold effect; in the first place it damaged England's best customer, and secondly, Spanish "frightfulness" shocked the English conscience. For a long time the policy of the queen herself was as cynically selfish as it could possibly be. She not only watched complacently the butcheries of Alva, but she plotted and counterplotted, now offering aid to the Prince of Orange, now betraying his cause in a way that may have been sport to her but was death to the men she played with. Her aim, as ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... perceptibly when he read the name. He was well acquainted with the episode connected with it; for Cecil had kept back none of her secrets from him, and this was among the earliest confidences. Then he had felt no inclination to sneer; but now his lip began to curl cynically. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... did you?" she asked, cynically, and her hands were clasped closely, so close the ring must have hurt her. He noticed it, and kept his eyes on her hand ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... upon society and humanity by a large proportion of our population," he would have cynically observed to any caviller, "is by dying and becoming ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... tendencies create the bold and graceful orbit on which his well-balanced books revolve. With one alone, his impetuosity would hasten to quench itself in the molten centre; and with the other alone, he would fly cynically beyond the reach of heat. This reconciling humor sometimes shakes his book with Olympic laughter; as if the postprandial nectar circulated in pools of cups, into which all incompatibilities fall and are drowned. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... stereotyped words, and ready-made phrases. A flattering murmur greeted the end of his exordium; for the French people in general, and the political world in particular, manifest a depraved taste for that sort of eloquence. Encouraged, the fine speaker entered the heart of his subject, and cynically sang his recantation. He abjured none of his opinions, he repudiated none of his acts; he would always remain liberal (a blow on his chest), but that which was good yesterday might be dangerous to-day; ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... Government was approached with respectful petitions praying for redress of the most glaring causes of discontent; but those were invariably either disdainfully rejected or ignored, or, if some matter was relieved, other more exasperating enactments were defiantly substituted. They were cynically told that they had come to their (the Boer's) country unasked, and were at liberty, and in fact invited, to leave it if the laws did not please them. This was said, well knowing that to leave would involve too great ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... cynically. "It's nothing to her discredit, far from it. You remember the night you suggested that she might live by the sale of her pictures, and I scoffed at you and said that all the pretty little pictures she could paint in a year wouldn't keep her in gowns? ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Bear Valley way,' she replied, still scrutinizing him. She marked the look of relief in his eyes and laughed cynically and withal a trifle bitterly. 'On the Red Hill trail. Going ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... artistically. Good sense, good taste, nice discrimination, he commented. He smiled, tickled by a new idea. He would not give the usual orders in such matters. When a lovely lady inclosed her cheque, begging to remind him of his thoughtful suggestion (mostly mythical) at Mrs. So-and-So's dinner, he cynically deposited the slip, and wrote out another for double the amount, if he believed the lady deserving; if not, a polite note informed the sender that his firm would gladly open an account with her, and he was sure ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... spectacle of worn, old men, after overreaching and ruining themselves, starting pitifully the race of life afresh, a sinister experience their sole advantage over the faltering novice; and that other common spectacle of democratic life, the secure and cultured rich cynically eschewing the active business of government,—with these and some social aspects still less agree able to contemplate there is ample subject-matter for any novelist who may have the disposition ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... and on till at last he came to the edge of a great stretch of what looked like primeval woodland. This surely must be part of the famous Forest of Montmorency, which his guide-book mentioned as being the great attraction of Lacville? He wondered cynically whether Sylvia had ever been so far, and then he plunged into the wood, along one of the ordered alleys which to his English eyes looked so little forest-like, and yet which made walking ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the sort of acquaintance which they had formed during dinner, rendered him unwilling to be directly uncivil towards a person of gentleman-like manners, he had also to consider that he might very possibly be mistaken in this man's character and purpose; in which case, the cynically refusing the society of a sound Protestant, would afford as pregnant matter of suspicion, as travelling in company ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... turned sick at heart when these men talked quite freely to him, thus showing conclusively that they were cynically discounting his public utterances. McDarragh, owner and manager of the "Wire-Gold" properties in the Moscow district, winked slyly when Blount cautiously inserted ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... was as doubtful as the love; we might then have stayed comfortably in Valmy," answered Commines cynically, and La Mothe's eyes twinkled as he thought how much better he had read the King in his single hour than Commines had in all his ten years of intimacy. "The woman," he went on, "must be Ursula de Vesc, and if so you can spend your hour or two's walk from Chateau-Renaud to Amboise adding ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Mern surveyed him cynically. "Say, Latisan, I hope you're not the kind who would bite a gold coin stolen from a dead man's eye. You woods fellows have too much time for joint debates with your own selves. Go find that girl and square yourself. I want her to have what ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... are very proud to be patronized by England," cynically. "It's a fine thing to have a lord tell you that you ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... that the warmest friendship prevented jealousy between men," Stephen Strong said, a little cynically—he had suffered a good ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... did occur to Bud, he was careful not to consider it a feasible plan. Cash wondered if Bud thought he was pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. Bud did not want to give up that kid, and he was tickled to death because the storm gave him an excuse for keeping it. Cash was cynically amused at Bud's transparency. But the kid was none of his business, and he did not intend to make any suggestions that probably would not be taken anyway. Let Bud pretend he was anxious to give up the baby, if that made him ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... belong to a world apart, a world of unreality which became real only on the planks of their stage, in the glare of their footlights. Good-fellowship bound them one to another; and Andre-Louis reflected cynically that this harmony amongst them might be the cause of their apparent unreality. In the real world, greedy striving and the emulation of acquisitiveness preclude such amity ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... entire party, with the exception of the duellists themselves, settled down to watch the conflict between Lady Torridon and Beatrice Atherton. Its prolongation was possible because for days together the hostess retired into a fortress of silence, whence she looked out cynically, shrugged her shoulders, smiled almost imperceptibly, and only sallied when she found she could not provoke an attack. Beatrice never made an assault; was always ready for the least hint of peace; but guarded deftly and ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... been for some weeks observing the life about her with very much disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part of her friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "If it were prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all be just as sure that I would jump up and say, 'Oh yes, do show me, Mr. Page!'" Following this moody reflection she immediately jumped up and said enthusiastically, "Oh yes, do show me, Mr. Page!" The brilliance in her eyes ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... I smiled cynically as I sat down to supper. "This doesn't surprise me in the least," I remarked. "I never yet knew a woman who could argue, or even understand the first step in an argument, and I ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... him to disappear for a little into the country, lest worse should befall. Disappear he did, remaining for the next two months concealed in the outskirts of Paris, where he practised swordsmanship against his next meeting with his enemy. The situation was cynically topsy-turvy. As M. Foulet points out, Rohan had legally rendered himself liable, under the edict against duelling, to a long term of imprisonment, if not to the penalty of death. Yet the law did not ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... tell you that," said Chip, cynically. "There's just two bunches to choose from. There's the Sweet Young Things, that faint away at sight of a six-shooter, and squawk and catch at your arm if they see a garter snake, and blush if you happen to ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... attendant. The fortune snatched from his client had procured for him the most adroit of counsel, the most exhaustive of trials. He knew that nothing had been left undone to enable him to evade the consequences of his crime, and he was cynically content. ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... he must be under forty, not much under it. One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; bright-laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy;—smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech, and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such company ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... on earth should I go back the moment I've got home? Oh, I see!" He smiled cynically. "You mean town won't be very pleasant for a bit? Well, I daresay it won't, but thank God no one will dare to say much to me!" His jaw squared itself rather aggressively. "But I don't intend to quit. On the contrary, my firm intention is to remain ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... companion. He had an enormous repertoire of anecdotes which he was never tired of telling, and every one finished in exactly the same way: "Believe me, Caruthers, some rag." Oh, a great man, forsooth, was Archie! He had cynically examined every master with whom he had anything to do, picked him to pieces, found out his faults, and then played on his weaknesses. Sometimes, however, he went a little too far. On one occasion he was doing ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... other advantages. The pack, as he cynically thought of them, would have started at the Clark ranch and the cabin. He would get to them, of course, but he meant to start on the outside of the ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... one or two lines were too long or didn't rhyme, but eventually either he or I hammered them into shape, but before that I rather shamefacedly turned them over to him, for somehow I was convinced that this work was not for me and that I was rather loftily and cynically attempting what my good brother would do in all ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... not schooled in the lore of love; cannot understand all its signs; and, above all, can no more look into your heart, than you can look into hers. How is she to know that you love her, if you stand coldly—I might say cynically—observant at a far distance. Paul! Paul! Women are not won in this way, as many a man has found to his sorrow, and as you will find in the present case, unless you act with more self-confidence and decision. Go to Miss Loring then, and show her, by signs not to be mistaken, ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... and poked the fire into a blaze. Then, throwing my hat on the table and lighting a cigarette, I regarded Julian cynically. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... monuments of piety and of learning and those sentiments of religion and national association, of which they are the permanent embodiment, even in the worst times of the most ruthless warriors, been so shamefully and cynically desecrated; and behind the actual theatre of conflict with its smoke and its carnage there are the sufferings of those who are left behind, the waste of wealth, the economic dislocation, the heritage, the long heritage of enmities and misunderstanding which war brings in its train. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... said the young man, cynically. "You have the pleasure, then, which your dear friend Joanna there never enjoyed, of seeing your own prophecy accomplished; and I, for my part, have three hundred pounds to solace myself with for what has certainly been ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... red-faced, magnificently mustached, and always a little out of breath. With a cigar in his hand, over a glass of beer, he talked most cynically about his ship, in the immemorial fashion of engineers. But in reality, Watkins was foolishly infatuated with Dierdre, idealized her, humanized her, and couldn't conceive of ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley
... And yet, for all that, he was not sorry to free himself from further intrusions of a visitor in whose glance he sometimes surprised a subtle mockery, almost as if his friend had actually detected his secret and was cynically enjoying the humour of the thing. It was only imagination on his own part, but it was not a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... pit for others and falling into it yourself," Millar remarked cynically. "However," he went on, "things are not so bad. I have reliable information that the ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... than that!" she said cynically. "It's bravely said, but how can he be a partner if he can't buy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... kindly when I am away from them"; adding cynically, "God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day, for ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Dawn would return. Now that she was gone, he was invaded with his old loneliness. The dead lords eyed him cynically from their canvases. Through leaded panes the moonlight fell. It seemed the sorcery of her spirit. The perfume of the rose-garden was her breath. How pale she had made his dream of Terry! How trivial ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... doubt was there, that he read her position. She could impose upon some: not upon masculine eyes like these. They did not scrutinize, nor ruffle a smooth surface with a snap at petty impressions; and they were not cynically intimate or dominating or tentatively amorous: clear good fellowship was in them. And it was a blessedness (whatever might be her feeling later, when she came to thank him at heart) to be in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... horrors of Bolshevik rule in Russia. In their determination to secure Southern Albania for themselves, the Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed with such success in Armenia by the Turks, who asserted cynically that "one cannot make a state ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... was possessed by a sense of anti-climax. Life had a brassy ring. She had come home with at least something of her mother's military keenness for the "campaign" of vindication, but within a day or two she was thinking, rather cynically and cheaply, that the game was not worth the candle. What difference did it all make, in her actual life? People might whisper and nudge behind her back, but their invitations seemed to come in much the same as ever, poor mamma pouncing on each ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to tell me? Why, goddamn it, we sat in that coffee shop for half an hour while I leveled with you. No chance! You held out on me." King laughed cynically. "I guess that's human nature. With a couple of bucks at stake ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... Harlan had parted with his managing editor on terms of great dignity, announcing that he had forsworn journalism and would hereafter devote himself to literature. The editor had remarked, somewhat cynically, that it was a better day for journalism than for literature, the fine, inner meaning of the retort not having been fully evident to Harlan until he was some three squares away ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... smiled cynically. "Oh, you have always been ready to rush in!" he said. "Doubtless ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... marketplace of old time, in a strangely costumed crowd, which was clamouring violently. The poor bridegroom was being held back by his friends; a handsome young man in knee-breeches and a cocked hat watched the proceedings cynically in the right-hand corner, whilst on the left a big fat man frantically endeavoured to recover his wig, that had been lost in the melee. The advertisement was headed, 'Morton and Cox's Operatic Company,' and concluded ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... of powerful faculties so generally indulge when they have allowed excessive dissipation to become a necessity. Hitherto, he had lived in style without ever being expected to entertain; and living well, for no one ever looked for a return from him, or from his friend Corentin. He was cynically witty, and he liked his profession; he was a philosopher. And besides, a spy, whatever grade he may hold in the machinery of the police, can no more return to a profession regarded as honorable or liberal, than a prisoner from the hulks can. Once branded, once matriculated, spies and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... condition, But he stands on the page of this history, a sad, enigmatical figure, a warning to all young people to take heed that the attrition of the world does not rub off the bloom of early religion, or make them cynically ashamed of the unselfishness of their early desires. There is no sadder sight than an old man whose youthful enthusiasm for goodness and belief in the super-excellency of wisdom have withered, leaving him a hard worldling or a gross ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said Tom, cynically. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it—only this—I won't run my head again ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... he continued, interpreting her action. "True, but the letters are mine, and that which you offer for them is mine also. You have nothing to offer. For the rest, Madame," he went on, eyeing her cynically, "you surprise me! You, whose modesty and virtue are so great, would corrupt your husband, would sell yourself, would dishonour the love of which you boast so loudly, the love that only God gives!" He laughed derisively as he quoted her words. "Ay, and, after showing at ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and, if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you; or quietly ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the schedule I was in a high state of irritation. The census enumerator's visit in itself I do not consider a nuisance. Like most Americans who sniff at the privileges of citizenship, I secretly delight in them. I speak cynically of boss-rule and demagogues, but I cast my vote on Election Day in a state of solemn and somewhat nervous exaltation that frequently interferes with my folding the ballot in the prescribed way. I have never been summoned for jury duty, but ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... cynically. "Come with me and I will show you the church records and the minister ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... old country fine weather means bad weather," Connie Edwards commented cynically. She had reason to be depressed. The impossible poppies dripped tears of blood over the brim of the cartwheel hat. But apart from that misfortune she had never got over her original mood of puzzled dissatisfaction, and she and Cosgrave ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... in the extent of his learning, Pierre gloated in a freedom of speech, the which no man dared deny him. He turned to eye his companion cynically for a second time, and contempt was patent in his gaze. Willard appeared slender and pallid in his furs, though his clear-cut features spoke a certain strength ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... he, and twisted his mouth cynically. "Huh! Then it's good-bye tools, I suppose. I'm no churchmember, thank God, but I've heard that once the Church gets her clamps on anything worth while all hell ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... day—Tweed and Jay Gould, for example—received large bribes for defending them and their interests in a newspaper of which he became the owner—the New York Sun —and spent his last years bitterly and cynically attacking, ridiculing and misrepresenting the labor movement, and made himself the most conspicuous editorial advocate for every ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... reproached him for not recording the history of ideal engagements, and who remarked, "You know, there are sound potatoes and rotten potatoes in this world," Ibsen cynically replied, "I am afraid none of the sound ones have come under my notice"; and when Guldstad proves to the beautiful Svanhild the paramount importance of creature comforts, the last word of distrust in the sustaining power of love had been said. The popular impression ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... frozen in the forming and replaced by some breath of the shrivelling air. Ivan came in from his morning's work, partook of a solitary luncheon, and was standing at his window, puffing at his pipe and absently staring into the street, reluctant to turn to work. He had been calculating, rather cynically, during his meal, on the meagre returns paid by the world for any labor requiring the cream of thought and talent: work priceless, indeed, so far as roubles went, but comparing badly in actual recompense with mere, mechanical labor. The subject still occupied him in its way, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... cynically. "What do you expect of a savage? When an Arab sees a woman that he wants he takes her. I only follow the customs of ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... and laughing cynically.) And yet it was but a moment ago that it seemed I heard you say there was no one whom you would not permit the world ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... shall be very glad to have you keep me in countenance. We will discourse cynically upon the follies of the day and young people ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I daresay. When he told me how things stood between you, I saw directly that there was only one thing to be done, and I made him do it. The idea is to get you married before the nurse goes, and she is off to-morrow." He paused, looking at her critically, and again half-cynically, half-sadly, smiled. "You took that well," he said. "If it had been to me, you'd have jumped sky-high. You're a wise little creature, Dinah. You've chosen the best man, and you'll never be sorry. I ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... correspondence in the Daily Mail on the subject of "The Motor Problem," there is a letter from a physician, who exposes very cynically a ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... convened, as usual, in the great parlour at Hall. All the Board was there: the Clerk, Mr. Benny, and the six Managers; two Churchmen, three Dissenters, and himself—a Gallio with a casting vote. He was used to reflecting cynically that these opponents trusted him precisely because he cared less than a tinker's curse for their creeds, and reconciled all religious differences in a broad, impartial contempt. But to-night, as Parson Endicott approached the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hall-office in great spirits and showed the letter to Callahan, the general superintendent, for congratulations. "That is right," commented Callahan cynically. "You saved them a hundred thousand dollars last month—they are going to blow ten a week on you. By the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Spaceways, Inc., had been organized and was backed to develop the Dabney faster-than-light-signalling field into a faster-than-light-travel field. The news men pumped him of all his extrapolations. Cynically, they checked to see who might be preparing to unload stock. They found no preparations for stock-sales. No registration of the company for raising funds. It wasn't going to the public for money. It wasn't selling anybody anything. Then Cochrane refused to see any ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... on a blade of grass beneath, his feet, tumbled off and gave vent to his feelings in a belated "chirr." Overhead somewhere a raven croaked dismally and cynically at intervals. Ralph's ears heard these things as he waited, with every sense on the alert, at the place of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... relatives'll turn up now," said Just, cynically. "People he never heard of. I'll bet he won't know this woman till ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the noblesse of France fallen so low that it sends its women to intercede for the lives of its men? But, perhaps," he added cynically, "it had not ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... old face trying to point the way of courage to the young one. In time, however, there came another youth, as true, I dare say, as the first, but not so well known to me, and I shrugged my shoulders cynically to see my old friend once more a matchmaker. She took him to her heart and boasted of him; like one made young herself by the great event, she joyously dressed her pale daughter in her bridal gown, and, with smiles upon her face, she cast rice after the departing ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... field of battle. Discipline is the result of an irksome educational process by which a man is taught to submit his wishes, his instincts, and, to a great extent, his personal liberty to the control of one who may be his inferior morally, mentally, and physically. It has also been cynically defined as the art of making a man more afraid of his own officers than of the enemy. Its function seems to be the formation of certain military qualities which Patriotism and the Sense of Duty are by themselves believed incapable of creating. It ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Halleck laughed cynically. "My dear friend, my steamer arrived this morning, and I'm just off the New York train. I've hurried to your office in all the impatience of friendship. I'm very lucky to find you here so late in the day! You can take me home ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Burchard's diary relating to the prince, nor anything that can in any way help the inquirer to a conclusion; whilst, on the subject of the strangling, not another word does the Master of Ceremonies add to what has above been quoted. That he should so coldly—almost cynically—state that Alfonso was strangled, without so much as suggesting by whom, is singular in one who, however grimly laconic, is seldom reticent—notwithstanding that he may have been so accounted by those who despaired of finding in his diary the confirmation of such points ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... no less true that the pagan vices spread themselves out cynically under the protecting shadow of religion. Popular souses of eating and drinking were the obligatory accompaniments of the festivals and sacrifices. A religious festival meant a carouse, loads of victuals, barrels of wine broached ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... mountain, and not a soul comes near us. I spend as much time as I can with her, however, during the day, and make up for it by working at night after she has gone to sleep, and when I question her, she only laughs, and answers that she loves to have me all to herself. (Here you will smile cynically, I know, and say, 'Humph, I wonder will she say the same when they have been married six years instead of six months.') At the rate I am working now I shall have finished my first volume by the end of August, and then, my dear fellow, you must ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... our power more deeply than even financial or military disaster. I believe that the real foundation upon which the British Empire in this country rests is neither military force alone, as some persons cynically assert' (though such power is no doubt an indispensable condition of our rule), 'nor even that affectionate sympathy with the native population, on which, according to a more amiable, though not, I think, a truer view of the matter, some ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... followed he looked at her again with grim comprehension. "P'r'aps you don't care for animals," he suggested cynically. "To change the subject, do you know we ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... which describes the poet very humanly as "one of the finest-looking men in the world, with a great shock of rough, dusky, dark hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive, aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous. I do not meet in these late decades such ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... ostrich's egg (one egg is enough for six people), on "most-bolajie" (bread made with sweet new wine instead of with water), and other local delicacies, including "mabos," or alternate slices of dry salted peaches and dry sweetened apricots. This condiment is cynically known as married life. In the voorhuis of Boschendaal lay nineteen fine leopard skins, and Mr. Louw, the courtly mannered old farmer, who would be described by his countrymen as an "oprechter Burger," explained to me in slow and laborious ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... princes and who, on sofas with the girls, talked French very loud—though sometimes with some oddity of accent—as if to show they were saying nothing improper. Pemberton wondered how the princes could ever propose in that tone and so publicly: he took for granted cynically that this was what was desired of them. Then he recognised that even for the chance of such an advantage Mrs. Moreen would never allow Paula and Amy to receive alone. These young ladies were not at all timid, but it was just the safeguards that made them so candidly free. It was a houseful of Bohemians ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... Hadley cynically; "surely you don't anticipate anything of that sort. Girls don't ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... two, three, half a dozen lovers, since men grow weary and change and women, in loneliness or desperation, change also. Never would I let myself sink to the degrading level of sex complaisance that is sadly or cynically accepted by many women, self-supporting and self-respecting, in many American cities, simply because they cannot combat conditions that have been created and perpetuated by the ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... nails almost pressed into the skin of her palms. She could not bear it. She had made Osborn burst into a big, harsh laugh one day when she had hinted to him that there were occult things to be done which might prevent ill luck. He had laughed first and scowled afterwards, cynically saying that she might as well be working ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was so cynically sprung upon a yet innocent public. At that happy time (already it seems so long ago) the literary news set before ordinary readers mostly had reference to literary work, in a reputable sense of the term, and not, as now, to the processes of "literary" ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... swaggering pose, chin up and right foot forward, despising the emotional English barbarians around him. Brassbound's eyes and the working of his mouth show that he is infected with the general excitement; but he bridles himself savagely. Redbrook, trained to affect indifference, grins cynically; winks at Brassbound; and finally relieves himself by assuming the character of a circus ringmaster, flourishing an imaginary whip and egging on the rest to wilder exertions. A climax is reached when Drinkwater, let loose without a ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw |
