"Epithet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them with the oracle which bade them "trust to walls of wood," showing them that walls of wood could signify nothing else but ships; and that the island of Salamis was termed in it not miserable or unhappy, but had the epithet of divine, for that it should one day be associated with a great good fortune of the Greeks. At length his opinion prevailed, and he obtained a decree that the city should be committed to the protection of Athena, "queen of Athens"; ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... several States: 1st, that which related to the payment of debts; 2d, the provision for no future confiscations; 3d, the restitution of estates already confiscated. The first could not be denied. "Those," he said, "might be branded with the epithet of disorganizers, who threatened a dissolution of the Union in case the measures they dictated were not obeyed; and he knew, although he did not ascribe it to any member of the House, that men high in ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... contradicteth his will, debaseth his authority, despiseth his sovereignty, upendeth his truth. There is a kind of infiniteness in it, nothing can express it but itself no name worse than itself to set it out, the apostle can get no other epithet to it, Rom. vii. 13, than "sinful" sin, so that it cometh in most direct opposition unto God. All that is in God, is God himself, and there is no name can express him sufficiently. If you say God, you say more than can be expressed by many thousand ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the well-known inscriptions on the rocks in the island of Thera in the Aegean sea there are many which record in deeply graven letters the friendship and devotion to each other of Spartan warrior-comrades; it seems strange at first to find how often such an epithet of praise occurs as Bathycles DANCES WELL, Eumelos is a PERFECT DANCER ([gr aristos orcestas]). One hardly in general expects one warrior to praise another for his dancing! But when one realizes what is really meant—namely the fitness of the loved comrade ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the resplendent: this is the epithet selected by the official nomenclators to describe the handsomest Dung-beetle of the pampas. The name is not at all exaggerated. Combining the fire of gems with metallic lustre, the insect, according to the incidence of the light, emits the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... picturesque and absurd. He was among the "far-off hills." How far, pray? Twenty miles? If so, then without a silver ear-trumpet he could not have heard the huzzas. If the far-off hills were so near Nineveh as to allow the lion to hear the huzzas even in his sleep, the epithet "far-off" should be altered, and the lion himself brought from the interior. But we cannot believe that lions were permitted to live in dens within ear-shot of Nineveh. Nimrod had taught them "never to come there no more"—and Semiramis looked sharp after the suburbs. But, not ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... nomenclature. It was not necessary for a citizen to exhibit his baptismal certificate in order to acquire a cognomen. A man's name was his personal property. For convenience in calling him up to the bar and in designating him among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporary appellation, title, or epithet was conferred upon him by the public. Personal peculiarities formed the source of the majority of such informal baptisms. Many were easily dubbed geographically from the regions from which they confessed to have hailed. Some announced themselves to be "Thompsons," ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... every one was shouting "Forward!" and no one was expected to inquire "Whither?" he was necessarily out of sympathy. To the shouters he seemed irrational and irrelevant. They called him "immoral" when they were solemn, and "whimsical" when they were merry; and "whimsical" is the epithet with which we are tempted to label him, if labelled he must be. Genius makes strange bedfellows; and Peacock's intellectual candour finds itself associated with the emotional capriciousness of Sterne. Truly, he is always unexpected, and as often as not superficially inconsequent. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... truths he did not wish to have his majesty reminded of, would in the sermon-time entertain the king with a merry tale, which the king would laugh at, and tell those near him, that he could not hear the preacher for the old—bishop; prefixing an epithet explicit of the character of these merry tales. Kennet has preserved for us the "rank relation," as he calls it; not, he adds, but "we have had divers hammerings and conflicts within us to leave it out."—Kennet's "History ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... XVI. military commandant of the island. Johnson, also, was gone, and the two strongest checks upon the excesses of Boswell were removed. Piteous it is to find him writing to Malone: 'that most friendly fellow Courtenay, begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet,' had taken him in hand, and had taken his word that for some months his daily allowance of wine should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it. The qualifying adjective 'good' is dangerous, and before the time for the bill was half expired, Bozzy ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... Perhaps this epithet is only one example, among many, of the extreme civility which the vulgar in Scotland use towards spirits of a, dubious, or even a determinedly mischievous, nature. The archfiend himself is often distinguished ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... and before other things, try what we can understand in this name of Frank, concerning which Gibbon tells us, in his sweetest tones of satisfied moral serenity—"The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained, the honourable epithet of Franks, or Freemen." He does not, however, tell us in what language of the time—Chaucian, Sicambrian, Chamavian, or Cattian,—'Frank' ever meant Free: nor can I find out myself what tongue of any time it first belongs to; but I doubt not that Miss Yonge ('History ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... general belief, had he found time to cultivate this department of civil exertion, the precise supremacy of Cicero would have been made questionable, or the honors would have been divided. Cicero himself was of that opinion; and on different occasions applied the epithet Splendidus to Caesar, as though in some exclusive sense, or with a peculiar emphasis, due to him. His taste was much simpler, chaster, and disinclined to the florid and ornamental, than that of Cicero. So far he would, in that condition of the Roman culture and feeling, have been less ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... enforced in the most arbitrary manner—and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne—the swindle—a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... effect his benevolent designs, which included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be the reformer of others was unable to control the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... notwithstanding all Mr Monckton had represented to the contrary, appeared to be the real obstacle; his pride might readily object to her birth, which though not contemptible, was merely decent, and which, if traced beyond her grandfather, lost all title even to that epithet. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... old texts, as a platitude enunciated by a man who discovers in it his own experience thrills us as no unfamiliar phrases can possibly do. The Greeks are filled with amazed rage when their very name is flung at them as an opprobrious epithet. Doubtless these difficulties would be much minimized in America, if we faced our own race problem with courage and intelligence, and these very Mediterranean immigrants might give us valuable help. Certainly ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... of Gloucester, amid failings that have been before alluded to, has acquired the pleasing epithet of The Good; and has been extolled for his promotion of the learned or deserving clergy. Fond of literature, and of literary conversation, he patronized men of talent and erudition. One is called, in a public record, his poet and ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... one has ever doubted, Aeschylus himself condescended to visit him at his own house: Aristotle made his works the ground work of his Art of Poetry: The eulogists of Plato compared the advancements made by that great man in philosophy, to those made by Sophocles in tragedy: Cicero gives him the epithet of "the divine"—Virgil decidedly preferred him to all writers of tragedy; and to this day, his works make a part of the course appointed for students in the Greek language in all the great colleges and seminaries of Europe. The great ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... certain something which, for want of a more precise name, we term quality, is not to be denied. But the incoherence and shapelessness of the greater part of her verse are fatal. On nearly every page one lights upon an unsupported exquisite line or a lonely happy epithet; but a single happy epithet or an isolated exquisite line does not constitute a poem. What Lowell says of Dr. Donne applies in a manner to Miss Dickinson: "Donne is full of salient verses that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty, of thoughts that ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Balliol was jolly— "Your epithet," sighed he, "means noise. Vile noise! At his age it were folly To revel with Philistine boys." Competition, the century's vulture, Devoured academical fools; For himself, utter pilgrim of Culture, He countenanced none of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... Street, destroyed by the Great Fire, stood on the north side of Oat Lane, in the Ward of Aldersgate Within. "The additional epithet of staining," says Maitland, "is as uncertain as the time of the foundation; some imagining it to be derived from the painters' stainers, who probably lived near it; and others from its being built with stone, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... a legend that Siva appeared in the Kali age, for the good of the Brahmans, as "Sveta", "the white one", and that he had four disciples, to all of whom the epithet "Sveta" is applied' (Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, p. 80, note 2). Various explanations of the legend have been offered. Professor A. Weber is inclined to think that the various references to white teachers in Indian legends allude to Christian ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... time the epithet had lost its alluring softness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money at poppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Miss Spotted Snake!" the girls from Roselawn heard the children shrieking, and without doubt this opprobrious epithet referred ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... a Query as to the meaning of this epithet in an obituary notice, quoted, in Vol. i, p. 384., your correspondent Arun suggests, in the same volume, p. 489., that it was most likely "used in its primary signification, and in the sense in which we still apply it to troops ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... the depth and the clearness of his judgment. Ah! if all those who attempt to judge books had been able to hear, what a lesson! Nothing escapes him. At the end of a passage of a hundred lines, he remembers a weak epithet! he gave me two or three suggestions of exquisite ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... the yearly payment of 1 pound 8s. 2d. In the third year of Edward VI. he accompanied Lord Russell as Provost Marshal of the army sent against the Western rebels, in which capacity his great severity obtained for him the epithet from Fuller of "the terrible Provost Marshal." His name occurs on the roll of High Sheriffs for the county in the year 1549. In 1555 Queen Mary appointed him one of the commissioners to see execution done upon that excellent prelate and martyr Bishop ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... on the golden sea around us with a shimmering radiance. I jokingly called Salome a "hayseed" when she emerged from her shelter, for her brown hair was sprinkled with wisps of straw. She ignored the epithet in her solicitation for my welfare, and proceeded straightway to place her hand upon my shoulders and back to see ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... although (like some of his betters) he did not change his name for a fortune, did, in all probability, change it with his fortune, soon answered to the deserved epithet of Faithful, and slept at the foot of the crib of his little mistress, who also was to be rechristened. "She is a treasure, which has been thrown up by the ocean," said Forster, kissing the lovely infant. "Let ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had assumed command of the armies of the Confederacy, I had some correspondence with General Lee, I never met him again, and indeed was widely separated from him, and it now behooves me to set forth an opinion of his place in Southern history. Of all the men I have seen, he was best entitled to the epithet of distinguished; and so marked was his appearance in this particular, that he would not have passed unnoticed through the streets of any capital. Reserved almost to coldness, his calm dignity repelled familiarity: not that he seemed without sympathies, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... sin; and the two who are especially distinguished and who relate their stories at length are Ulysses (Canto xxvi.) and Count Guy of Montefeltro, a great Ghibeline leader (xxvii.). The former probably owes his place here to Virgil's epithet scelerum inventor, deviser of crimes. In a passage which has deservedly become famous, he gratifies Dante's curiosity as to the manner of his end. The passage, apart from its poetic beauty, is remarkable ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... as it may, call things by their proper names, and in elegant terms where no quaint ones are sacrificed; and if you know better, never let a false epithet pass unchallenged, for I do not see why a refined, but correct, mode of expression should not be as vigorously upheld in this fine art as in speaking of any of its sisters. For surely vulgarity ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... said the better; of course, if there were nothing else, they would have been swamped thirty times over during the course of Lantenac's harangue. Again, after Lantenac has landed, we have scenes of almost inimitable workmanship that suggest the epithet "statuesque" by their clear and trenchant outline; but the tocsin scene will not do, and the tocsin unfortunately pervades the whole passage, ringing continually in our ears with a taunting accusation of falsehood. And then, when we come ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... say so lest he should be put to the door. "I love her ever so much," Grizel went on, "and she is so fond of me, she hates to see me unhappy. Don't look so sad, dearest, darlingest," she cried vehemently; "I love you, you know, oh, you sweet!" and with each epithet she kissed her reflection and looked ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... solar eclipses. This phenomenon, it seems to me, ought to account for, and will possibly satisfy, the spectroscopic conditions observed just before, during, and after totality; which has probably led to the epithet used by some leading observers—"the fickle corona." The peculiar phenomenon observed in the spectroscope, the flickering bands or lines of the solar spectrum flashing upon and across the coronal spectrum, has caused no little speculation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... from any demonstrations against the Scottish prisoners, since in the event of the city again changing hands a bloody retaliation might be dealt them. Occasionally a passing boy would shout out an epithet of contempt or hatred or throw a stone at the prisoner, but such trifles were unheeded by him. More often men or women passing would stop and gaze up at him with pitying looks, and would go away ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... colour. And we want pictures painted in words as well as on canvas. Not shallow rhapsodising of the journalese and guide-book type, but true expression in which each noun exactly fits the object, each epithet is truly applicable, and each phrase is rightly turned, and in which the emphasis is placed on the precisely right point, and the whole composed so as distinctly to bring out ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... uncle had been assassinated by order of Erchanger, as successor to the ducal throne. Arnulf withdrew to his fortress at Salzburg, and quietly awaited more favorable times. His name was branded with infamy by the people, who henceforth affixed to it the epithet of "the Bad," and the Nibelungenlied has ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... hard to improve on the brevity of the vernacular, though the admonition "to keep your end up" can be condensed from four words to two in "sursum cauda." Again the familiar eulogy, "Stout fellow," can be rendered in a single word by the Virgilian epithet "bellipotens." A distinguished Latinist recalls in this context the sentiment of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... administration, the poet has been called a traitor to the nobler principles of his youth—an obsequious flatterer of a man whom he ought to have denounced to posterity as a tyrant. Adroit esclave is the epithet applied to him in this respect by Voltaire, who idolises him as a moralist and poet. But it carries little weight in the mouth of the cynic who could fawn with more than courtierly complaisance on a Frederick or a Catherine, and weave graceful flatteries for the Pompadour, and who "dearly loved ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... darling!—and—and, such a goose!' She rubbed her cheek against his arm as though to take the edge off the epithet. 'The idea of Bridget's wanting to "look after" me! She'll want to manage me of course—and I'd much better let her do it. I don't mind!' And the speaker gave ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mr. Ewins coldly. "He's at our hotel, and he airs his peculiar opinions at the table d'hote pretty freely. He's a revolutionist of some kind, I fancy." He pronounced the epithet with an abhorrence befitting the citizen of a state born of revolution and a city that had cradled the revolt. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rubbed on to the feet and hands. After a little time it is washed off and a red dye remains on the skin. It is supposed that the similar custom which prevailed among the ancient Greeks is alluded to in the epithet of 'rosy-fingered Aurora.' The Hindus use henna dye only in the month Shrawan (July), which is a period of fasting; the auspicious kunku and mahawar are therefore perhaps not considered suitable at such a time, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... chimed in, "give her this abusive epithet? But however much she may make allowance for this, can she, when there are so many others who tell idle tales on her account, put up with your coming and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... old and new, are full of that intimation of environment which the novelist calls local color, often containing in the name alone a comprehensive suggestiveness as great as that of an Homeric epithet. Thus our familiar Cat and Mouse appears in modern Greece as Lamb and Wolf; and the French version of Spin the Platter is My Lady's Toilet, concerned with laces, jewels, and other ballroom accessories instead of our prosaic numbering of players. These changes that a game takes on in different ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586); an English courtier, soldier, and author. He stands as a model of chivalry. He was mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen. "Arcadia" was his greatest work; hence the epithet here. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... as there is every reason to believe that the term belongs to the Hamitic Babylonian, it is in vain to have recourse to Arian or Semitic tongues for its derivation. Most likely the word is a descriptive epithet, originally attached to the name Bel, in the same way as Nipru, but ultimately usurping its place and coming to be regarded as the proper name of the deity. It is doubtful whether any phonetic representative of Merodach has been found on the monuments; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... phases, and the human heart in all its changes, is the first requisite of the Dramatic Poet. The power of condensed expression—the faculty of giving vent to "thoughts that breathe in words that burn"—the art of painting, by a line, an epithet, an expression, the inmost and most intense feelings of the heart, is equally indispensable. The skill of the novelist in arranging the incidents of the piece so as to keep the attention of the spectators erect, and their interest undiminished, is not less necessary. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the emblem of intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air, at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward. Praecipitandus est liber spiritus, says Petronius Arbiter most happily. The epithet, liber, here balances the preceding verb, and it is not easy to conceive more meaning ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper play, and by keeping up the struggle in a just balance, excite a very agreeable and pleasing sensation. Let the cause be what it will, the effect is certain; for which reason, the poets ascribe to this particular colour the epithet of cheerful. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... cussedness of the bovine race is centred in the cow. In Australia the most opprobious epithet one can apply to a man or other object is "cow". In the whole range of a bullock-driver's vocabulary there is no word that expresses his blistering scorn so well as "cow". To an exaggerated feminine perversity the cow adds a fiendish ingenuity in ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... looking calmly contented, was about to reply, he observed a woman who had pushed her way through the French guardsmen, and staring hard at him, appeared anxious to get close up to him. In fact, she advanced a step or two, and the epithet that crossed her lips struck the conqueror ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the nightingale," remarks Peacock, "ceases about the time the grass is mown." The charm, however, is less in such detached beauties, however exquisite, than in the condensed opulence—"every epithet a text for a canto," says Macaulay—and in the general impression of "plain living and high thinking," pursued in the midst of every charm of nature and every refinement of culture, combining the ideal of Horton with ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... Padstow, the majestic sweep of coast, the jagged headlands and scattered rocks would certainly suggest Cornwall; but the estuary of the Camel from Wadebridge to Padstow, although beautiful, has no claim to the epithet wild. The panorama induces reflection, moves one to a mood of gentle melancholy; but it does not stimulate. Nowhere in Cornwall have I seen such sand—gold, grey and yellow, equally lovely at all tides. Looking across the river, the eye is soothed by these wastes of blown sand stretching inland from ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... be flowery—I should say florid—never mind a false epithet or two in a page, they will never be observed. A great deal depends upon the first two pages—you must not limp at starting; we will, therefore, be particular. Take ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... to what I say. I'm part of your life—I and a thousand others. You're not selfish—I can't admit that. If you were selfish, what should I be? What epithet would properly describe me?" ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... admirable man. There is one expression he—Sydney Smith—applies to Horner that struck me as strange—he speaks of "important human beings" that he has known; and, I cannot tell why, but with all my self-esteem and high opinion of human nature and its capabilities in general, the epithet "important" applied to human beings made me smile, and keeps recurring to me as comical. It must have appeared much more so to you, I should think, with your ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... its gradual growth would take in more than its original confines. "Erech of the plazas" must have come to be used as a honorific designation of this important center as early as 2000 B. C., whereas later, perhaps because of its decline, the epithet no longer seemed appropriate and was replaced by the more modest designation of "walled Erech," with an allusion to the tradition which ascribed the building of the wall of the city to Gilgamesh. At all events, all three expressions, "Erech of the plazas," "Erech ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... Seang was the son of King Hwuy. The first year of his reign is supposed to be B.C. 317. Seang's name was Hih. As a posthumous epithet, Seang has various meanings: "Land-enlarger and Virtuous"; "Successful in Arms." The interview here recorded seems to have taken place immediately after Hih's accession, and Mencius, it is said, was so disappointed by it that he soon ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... encomiums. Not content with asserting that her "able government and her wise measures had proved her to be alike the mother of the sovereign and of the state." Louis, acting under the advice of the wily minister, lavished upon her every epithet of honour and respect; apparently forgetting that he had previously exiled her from the Court, taken up arms against her, and that he even then believed her to be in secret correspondence with his enemies; while at the same period ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Samueli Theatre; of the pranks which he and his companions had played in the alleys, taverns, dancing halls, and gaming-houses of Venice—sometimes masked and sometimes unmasked. In telling the story of these riotous escapades, he was careful to avoid the use of any offensive epithet. He phrased his narrative in choice imaginative language, as if paying due regard to the presence of the young girls, who, like their elders, including Marcolina, listened with rapt attention. The hour grew late, and Amalia sent her daughters to bed. They ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... Aramis, "if I say you are not a member of a secret or mysterious society, which you like to call it, the epithet is of no consequence; if I say you are not a member of a society similar to that I wish to designate, well, then, you will not understand a word of what I am going to say, that ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... without a moment's delay to answer this mysterious summons, protecting with his hand the feeble flame of the small lamp he carried from the many draughts that threatened to blow it out. The light, shining through his slender fingers, gave them a rosy tinge, so that he merited the epithet applied by Homer, the immortal bard, to the laughing, beautiful Aurora, even though he advanced through the thick darkness with his usual melancholy mien, and followed by a black cat, instead of preceding the glorious god ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... collection at Liverpool. Near it was found a golden neck-ornament, weighing 2 dwt. 7 gr. These and other like examples, though less splendid, from the graves of Saxon ladies, are good illustrations of the poetic epithet "gold-adorned," which is repeatedly applied to women of ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... vast drawing-room after the First Empire style, hung and furnished in yellow satin, whose high white panels were decorated with trophies of antique weapons carved in wood and gilded. A dauber from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would have branded with the epithet "sham" the armchairs and sofas ornamented with sphinx heads in bronze, as well as the massive green marble clock upon which stood, all in gold, a favorite court personage, clothed in a cap, sword, and fig-leaf, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... epithet. "Blue-eyed," "white-armed," "laughter-loving," are now conventional compounds, but they were fresh enough when Homer first conjoined them. The centuries have not yet improved upon "Wheels round, brazen, eight-spoked," or "Shields smooth, beautiful, brazen, well-hammered." ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... and Salzburg. Lloyd, with some poetic license, compares this frontier to two impregnable bastions whose curtain is formed of three fine forts and whose ditch is one of the most rapid of rivers. He has exaggerated these advantages; for his epithet of "impregnable" was decidedly disproved by the bloody events of 1800, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... impress of the large ideas and quiet elegance of colonial times; but the shadow which speedily fell across it made it a marked place even in those early days. While it has always escaped the hackneyed epithet of "haunted," families that have moved in have as quickly moved out, giving as their excuse that no happiness was to be found there and that sleep was impossible under its roof. That there was some reason ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... one may give that epithet to any opinion of a father's, does not affect your real innocence; and as to the disgrace of the fact, depend on it, that, considered in all its bearings, political as well as moral, Sir Hildebrand regards it as a meritorious action—a weakening of the enemy—a spoiling of the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 'synonyma' (Milton, prose), became severally 'synonym' and 'synonyms'; 'syntaxis' (Fuller) became 'syntax'; 'extasis' (Burton) 'ecstasy'; 'parallelogrammon' (Holland) 'parallelogram'; 'programma' (Warton) 'program'; 'epitheton' (Cowell) 'epithet'; 'epocha' (South) 'epoch'; 'biographia' (Dryden) 'biography'; 'apostata' (Massinger) 'apostate'; 'despota' (Fox) 'despot'; 'misanthropos' (Shakespeare) if 'misanthropi' (Bacon) 'misanthrope'; 'psalterion' (North) 'psaltery'; 'chasma' (Henry ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... The epithet agnostic, as applied to a certain attitude of scientific mind, is just, as over against excessive claims to valid knowledge made, now by theology and now by speculative philosophy. It is hardly descriptive in any absolute sense. Spencer had coined the rather fortunate illustration ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... promise, shall come up at a single haul of the dredge, entwining their long spine- clad arms in a seemingly inextricable confusion of "kaleidoscope" patterns (thanks to Mr. Gosse for the one right epithet), purple and azure, fawn, brown, green, grey, white and crimson; as if a whole bed of China-asters should have first come to life, and then gone mad, and fallen to fighting. But pick out, one by one, specimens from the tangled mass, and you will agree that ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... In the Life Johnson says, "Expletives he very early rejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the six first lines of the "Iliad" might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... patron of Captain Trotter, of whom he wrote in 1684 that he was "an ornament to his country." Apparently the gallant captain was attached to Trinity House, where his probity and integrity earned him the epithet of "honest David," and where he attracted the notice of George, first Lord Dartmouth, when that rising statesman was appointed Master. Captain Trotter had served the Crown from his youth, "with great gallantry and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of this charter was to make the citizens "free tenants," reserving to the king the seigniory, or proprietary title. The epithet "law-worthy" is equivalent to a declaration that they were freemen, for in the feudal ages none other were entitled to the forms of law; while the right of heirship apparently exempted them from the rule of primogeniture which prevailed among the Norman conquerors;—it ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... of the starry phenomena, is the Milky Way or Whey; and, indeed, the epithet seems superfluous, for all whey is to a certain extent milky. The Band of Orion is familiar to all of us by name; but it is not a musical band, as most people are inclined to think it is. Perhaps the allusion to the music of the spheres may have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... British in the following words:—"Here is the enemy which chiefly blocks the way in the direction of restoration of peace." Conceive a "contemptible little army" being able to do that! It makes one wonder whether the first epithet was perhaps a misprint ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... our lady-loves. Young as we both were, we still admired "the woman of a certain age," that is to say, the woman between thirty-five and forty. Oh! any poet who should have listened to our talk, for heaven knows how many stages beyond Montargis, would have reaped a harvest of flaming epithet, rapturous description, and very tender confidences. Our bashful fears, our silent interjections, our blushes, as we met each other's eyes, were expressive with an eloquence, a boyish charm, which I have ceased to feel. One must remain ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... of these four lines, without an epithet or a superfluous word, we have a picture, drawn by a sure hand, of a man drawing his long bow, and driving it from steel to feathers through ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... ordinary sense of the term, he certainly is, but it is of the earlier type. Cyrenaic would be a juster epithet, the "carpe diem" doctrine of the poem is too gross and sensual to have commended itself to the real Epicurus. Intense fatalism, side by side with complete agnosticism, this is the keynote of the poem. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... he said, repeating the favourite epithet by which Homer describes Agamemnon,—"I trust, for the old Greek's sake, he had a merrier office than being King of Man—Most philosophical Julian, will nothing rouse thee—not even a bad pun on ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lower jaw forward as if to pronounce the word "pup" with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff. Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with a gesture ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... have talked to the wall for any good results it produced. Richard was moved from his lofty height of wrath and vindictiveness, but he did not believe her. How could he, with the fatal note in his hand, and the memory of the degrading epithet it contained, and which Ethie, too, had used against him, still ringing in his ears? The virgin queen of England was never more stony and inexorable with regard to the unfortunate Mary than was Richard toward ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Agentes in Rebus (King's messengers, bailiffs, sheriff's officers; we may call them by all these designations) roved through the provinces, carrying into effect the orders of the sovereign, always magnifying their "master's" dignity, (whence they derived their epithet of "Magistriani",) and seeking to depress the Praetorian Cohorts, who discharged somewhat similar duties under the Praetorian Prefect. The Master of the Offices, besides sharing the counsels of his sovereign in relation to foreign states, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... enumerated by Kuhn and others as representing the storm-cloud are likewise the wren or "kinglet" (French roitelet); the owl, sacred to Athene; the cuckoo, stork, and sparrow; and the red-breasted robin, whose name Robert was originally an epithet of the lightning-god Thor. In certain parts of France it is still believed that the robbing of a wren's nest will render the culprit liable to be struck by lightning. The same belief was formerly entertained in Teutonic countries with respect to the robin; and I suppose that ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... and blood, and beyond any war in human annals to command the interest of mankind through their sterner affections. We have said that it was eminently a romantic war; but not in the meaning with which we apply that epithet to the semi-fabulous wars of Charlemagne and his Paladins, or even to the Crusaders. Here are no memorable contests of generosity; no triumphs glorified by mercy; no sacrifices of interest the most basely selfish to martial honor; no ear on either side for the pleadings of desolate affliction; no ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... epithet of the Garuda is Gajakurmasin, "elephant-cum-tortoise-devourer," because said to have swallowed both when engaged in a contest with ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... others your own, and your own theirs, and you will then have a clear idea of the whole. Had France acted towards her colonies as you have done, you would have branded her with every epithet of abhorrence; and had you, like her, stepped in to succor a struggling people, all Europe must have echoed with your own applauses. But entangled in the passion of dispute you see it not as you ought, and form opinions thereon which suit with no interest but your own. You wonder that America ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... is an epithet pretty freely applied to Englishmen abroad, and it seems to fit the character of the Magnanimous Man. He seems a Pharisee, and worse than a Pharisee. The Pharisee's pride was to some extent mitigated by breaking out into that disease of children and silly persons, vanity: he "did all his ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... a vastly different place to the old jail from which it got its melancholy cognomen. To-day there is not the slightest justification for the lugubrious epithet applied to it, but in the old days, when man's inhumanity to man was less a form of speech than a cold, merciless fact, the term "Tombs" described an intolerable and disgraceful condition fairly accurately. Formerly the cells in which the unfortunate prisoners were confined while awaiting trial were ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... friends, I successively applied many passages and fragments of Greek writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the Oposcula Mythologica of Gale, several books of the geography of Strabo, and the entire treatise of Longinus, which, from the title and the style, is equally worthy of the epithet of sublime. My grammatical skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in the militia I acquired a just and indelible knowledge of the first of languages. On every march, in every journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand: but I should not mention his two critical ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... not necessarily inhere in the barrister's profession more than in many others, and I have known one or two who, by quiet fidelity in promoting justice, and by keeping down litigation, had acquired the epithet of the 'honest lawyer,' which appeared to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... inherited but little of her mother's character; on the contrary, her nature, like that of her father's ancestors rather than his own, was bold, firm, and self-reliant to an unusual degree. She was hard, and that is the only epithet properly to describe her—manner, voice, appearance, all were lady-like, feminine, and exceedingly attractive; but the self-possession she never seemed to lose, would have warned an experienced admirer, that beneath the white ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... though it follows the story far less closely. Day's title was probably suggested by Nashe's Isle of Dogs, a satirical play performed in 1597, which brought its author into trouble, but if it deserves Mr. Bullen's epithet of 'attractive,' it must be admitted that it is almost the only part of the play to which that epithet can be applied. Day was in no wise concerned to maintain the polished and artificial dignity of the original; his satiric purpose indeed called for a ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... to fix upon some suitable and appropriate epithet by which to commence my note, my back was turned towards the door of the garden; and so occupied was I in my meditations, that even had any one entered at the time, in all probability I should not have perceived it. At length, however, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... unkind: the significance of this epithet is amply explained by the poem of "The Cuckoo ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... already mentioned being again assembled, the Lady who had before grieved that the agreeable Mr. Lovelace should not become a Husband, now lamented that Miss Howe should be married to so insipid a Man (that was the Epithet she chose for him) as Mr. Hickman. This passed some little time without any Answer. Miss Gibson was silent; and I saw by her Looks that she thought there was some Weight in her Objection. At last an old Lady, who had three ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... ideas don't allow me to apply that epithet to young women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow happy! ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... qualifying formulae, os epos eipein, kata dunamin, and of double expressions, pante pantos, oudame oudamos, opos kai ope—these are too numerous to be attributed to errors in the text; again, there is an over-curious adjustment of verb and participle, noun and epithet, and other artificial forms of cadence and expression take the place of natural variety: thirdly, the absence of metaphorical language is remarkable—the style is not devoid of ornament, but the ornament is of a debased rhetorical kind, patched on to instead of growing out of the subject; ...
— Laws • Plato
... el Callao—though no one dared use that last epithet in his hearing—was getting on toward sixty, but was still a muscular and rather handsome man, with a weather-beaten face, blood-shot eyes, a gray mustache as stiff and long and prickly as a tom-cat's ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Iracundus, or the Acer, in the Character of Shakespear's Achilles? who is nothing but a drolling, lazy, conceited, overlooking Coxcomb; so far from being the honoured Achilles, the Epithet that Homer and Horace after him give him, that he is deservedly the Scorn and the Jest of the rest of the Characters, even to ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... tell you more," said Wamba, in the same tone; "there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner; ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... upon the susceptible nerves of the poet; nor could he help wondering what strange fatality had put into this young man's mouth an epithet, which ill-natured people had affirmed to be more proper to his merit than the one ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'Gentlemen,' is used in opposition among the old chronicles to 'simple man,' and neither in any very exalted sense. It is on record, that the French Princess, De La Roche Sur Yon, receiving a sharp reply from a Knight, to whom she gave the epithet of 'Gentilhomme,' was told by the King, to whom she complained, that she deserved all she got, for so offending, herself, in the first instance. The lower people in England were commonly 'the Rascality'—equivalent to the 'Canaille' of the French, or our own significant Rabble ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... by his Grace even more than Agnosticism. His favorite epithet for it is "dogmatic." "Surely," he cries, "the boasted enlightenment of this century will never tolerate the gross ignorance and arrogant self-conceit which presumes to dogmatise as to things confessedly beyond its ken." Quite so; but that is what the theologians are perpetually ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... Athenians are expressed by this weapon, with which they had to hew out their fortune. And you must keep in mind this agriculturally laborious character of Hephaestus, even when he is most distinctly the god of serviceable fire; thus Horace's perfect epithet for him "avidus" expresses at once the devouring eagerness of fire, and the zeal of progressive labour, for Horace gives it to him when he is fighting against the giants. And this rude symbol of his cleaving the forehead of Zeus with ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... possibly the Taurian, of whom we know little) were associated with the Moon and with child-birth, and with rites for sacrificing or redeeming the first-born. Naturally enough, therefore, they were all gradually absorbed by the prevailing worship of Artemis. Tauropolis became an epithet of Artemis, Iphigenia became her priestess and 'Keybearer.' And the word 'Tauropolis,' which had become obscure, was explained as a reference to the Tauri. The old rude image of Tauropolis had come from the Tauri, and the strange ritual was descended from ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... unhappy and inevitable length of confinement.' Mr. Morrison, one of the prisoners, gives a very different account of their treatment from that of Edwards or Hamilton. He says that Captain Edwards put both legs of the two midshipmen in irons, and that he branded them with the opprobrious epithet of 'piratical villains': that they, with the rest, being strongly handcuffed, were put into a kind of round-house only eleven feet long, built as a prison, and aptly named 'Pandora's Box,' which was entered by a scuttle in the roof, about eighteen inches square. This was done in order that they ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... It deserved the epithet, on the whole: but it was oddly proportioned—a very tall red-brick house, with a plain parapet concealing the roof almost entirely. It gave the impression of a town house set down in the country; ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... replied in a friendly manner, ordered the military salute to be returned in Ali's honour, shot for shot, and forbade that henceforth a person of the valour and intrepidity of the Lion of Tepelen should be described by the epithet of "excommunicated." He also spoke of him by his title of "vizier," which he declared he had never forfeited the right to use; and he also stated that he had only entered Epirus as a peace-maker. Kursheed's emissaries had just seized some letters sent by Prince Alexander ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... neutral tint. There was not a single one which was peculiarly picturesque or vivid; no electric phrase that sent the whole striking scene shuddering home to every hearer; no sudden light of burning epithet, no sad elegiac music. The passage was purely academic. Each word was choice; each detail was finished; it was properly cumulative to its climax; and when that was reached, loud applause followed. It was general, but not enthusiastic. No one could fail to admire the skill with which the sentence ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... pretty large sail, well aft and not balanced by any canvas at the bow, drew too heavily on the stern and made steering almost impossible. A couple of Kanakas were ordered to reef it, but could do nothing with it; the skipper cursed them for "sojers" (our infantryman smiling at the epithet) and sent two first-class hands to replace them; but these also were completely beaten by the hurricane. It was not till a whole watch was put at the job that the big, bellying sheet could be hauled in and made fast in the reef knots. The brig ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... last epithet one could have expected to see in connection with the name of Guynemer. For he rarely came home without bullet-holes in his wings or even in his clothes. The Boche, being the Boche, had shown his usual respect for truth and generosity towards ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... [He swallows the epithet and stands for a moment swearing and raging foully to himself. But he knows that his cue is to be sympathetic. He takes refuge in ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... curious points of coincidence with Montaigne's essay[41] on THE HISTORY OF SPURINA, which discusses at great length a matter of special interest to Shakspere—the character of Julius Caesar. In the course of the examination Montaigne takes trouble to show that Cato's use of the epithet "drunkard" to Caesar could not have been meant literally; that the same Cato admitted Caesar's sobriety in the matter of drinking. It is after making light of Caesar's faults in other matters of personal conduct that the essayist comes to ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... allusion to this misfortune when speaking of the countess to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects; and perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel that the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she had sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often told herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the Prince sprang up from his chair. He hurled an abusive epithet into the Colonel's face, and his right hand sought the dagger in his belt. The attendant, who was about to serve up to his master a ruddy lobster on a silver dish, recoiled in alarm. But the Colonel, without moving an inch from his place, placed the silver hunting whistle that hung ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... different, whose hopes were so small, who believed in nothing for themselves or after themselves, who regarded their own existence as that of a transient and a fortuitous being,—like the little life of a plant or a beetle,—had a glimpse of Heaven. Never did music more truly merit the epithet divine. The consoling notes, as they were poured out, enveloped their souls in soft and soothing airs. On these vapors, almost visible, as it seemed to the listeners, like the marble shapes about them in the silver moonlight, angels sat whose wings, devoutly waving, expressed ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... the strength of that same element of self-sacrifice, I will not grudge the epithet "heroic" which my revered friend Darwin justly applies to the poor little monkey who once in his life did that which was above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the great baboon, and yet, when the brute had sprung upon ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... stirring than any on the records of the Islington and Hoxton branch. The room was thoroughly full; the roof rang with tempestuous acclamations. Messrs. Cowes and Cullen were in their glory; they roared with delight at each depreciatory epithet applied to Mr. Westlake and his henchmen, and prompted the speakers with words and phrases of a rich vernacular. If anything, Comrade Roodhouse fell a little short of what was expected of him. His friends had come together prepared for gory language, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... an audacious and strong-handed! Intriguing in Trondhjem, where he gets the under-king, Greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered; intriguing with Gold Harald, a distinguished cousin or nephew of King Blue-tooth's, who had done fine viking work, and gained, such wealth that he got the epithet of "Gold," and who now was infinitely desirous of a share in Blue-tooth's kingdom as the proper finish to these sea-rovings. He even ventured one day to make publicly a distinct proposal that way to King Harald Blue-tooth ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... Mr. Lawrence's precise definition is "an obscure orange or rusty-iron color, not unlike the bark of the cinnamon-tree." Among the early discoverers, Vespucius applies to them the epithet "rougeatre." Verazzano says, "sono di color berrettini e non molto ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... exposed to all the caprices and extortions of the police. This last new tax has excited more disgust than any. 'We now know the name of our ruler,' said a fellah who had just heard of it, 'he is Mawas Pasha.' I won't translate—but it is a terrible epithet when uttered in a tone which gives it the true meaning, though in a general way the commonest word of abuse to a donkey, or a boy, or any other cattle. The wages of prostitution are unclean, and this tax renders all Government salaries unlawful according to ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... remarks: "Some readers, keeping in mind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in this verse for the grave—a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" and Mitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly,' as applied to 'bed,' occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which in poetry is called a 'lowly bed.' Of course the former is designed; but Mr. Lloyd, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... of that same element of self-sacrifice, I will not grudge the epithet heroic, which my revered friend Mr. Darwin justly applies to the poor little monkey, who once in his life did that which was above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the great baboon, and yet, when the brute had sprung upon his friend the ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... their lives. The revolution signified its displeasure by branding these devoted youths with the ignominious title of "Mercenaries of the Pope." This ungracious word proceeded from the palace of Jerome Napoleon, on whom merciless history bestows a more opprobrious epithet. As a matter of course, it was repeated ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... conquest which was destined ultimately to reach from Tuticorin to the Himalayas. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the Madras Presidency has been in the fortunate position of having no history. Its northern rivals call it despitefully the "benighted" Presidency. No epithet, however, could be more undeserved, for if its annals for the last hundred years have been unsensational, its record in respect of education, intelligent administration, material prosperity, and all that goes with peaceful continuous progress ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... with it a plethora of illustrations, in the way of simile, metaphor, or other figure of speech; he seems impotent to check the exuberant riot of his fancy till it has exhausted its whole store. The underlying thought in many passages, though not deserving Dryden's contemptuous epithet, is sufficiently obvious. Chapman was not dowered with the penetrating imagination that reveals as by a lightning flash unsuspected depths of human character or of moral law. But he has the gnomic faculty that can convey truths of general experience in aphoristic form, and he can wind into a debatable ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... persons calling themselves gentlemen, who evidently thought it manly and high-spirited to swear at their servants, and who were incapable of appreciating any anecdote which was not profane or coarse; and I have met, as all who go amongst the poor have met, men who well deserved that noble epithet in cottages and corduroy. Who has not seen illustrious snobs in satin, and sweet, modest gentlewomen in homely print and serge? A gentleman! There's no title shouted at a reception so grand in my idea as this; and yet, methinks, that any man may win and wear it who is brave, and truthful, and generous, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... nature, that it is only of late years that the French have ceased to think some of the most affecting passages in Shakespeare ridiculous. . . . Yet the English themselves, no great while since, half blushed at these criticisms, and were content if the epithet 'bizarre' ('votre bizarre Shakespeare') was allowed to be translated into 'a wild, irregular genius.' Everything was wild and irregular except rhymesters in toupees. A petty conspiracy of decorums took the place of what was becoming to humanity." In the summer of 1822 Hunt went ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of the Iliad is one of the great leaders and one of the great heroes, but he is neither the chief leader nor the chief hero. Already he appears in Book First as a member of the Council, and an epithet is applied to him which suggests his wisdom. Thus at the start of the Iliad he is designated as the man of thought, of intelligence, of many resources. But in the Second Book he shines with full glory, he is indeed ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... Snooks's last night!" your friend exclaims, when you meet him next morning. You were quite aware, by this time, that what you said was foolish; but there is something grating in hearing your name connected with the unpleasant epithet. I would strongly advise any man, who does not wish to be set down as disagreeable, entirely to break off the habit (if he has such a habit) of addressing to even his best friends any sentence beginning with "What a fool you were." Let me offer the like advice as to sentences which set out as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... person who uses it to me. But as to Sir George Galbraith, you need not be afraid that he will accept hospitality and criticise it in that spirit. He will neither grumble at a cutlet, nor describe his hostess by a vulgar epithet after eating it." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... cried, ecstatically. "You are a genius at epithet. But there's the book. Let me light a cigar for you and then you can begin. Only do take off that absurd tile. You don't know how ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... she was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet; they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even assailing the vehicle with missiles. A stone crushed through a blind, wounding Laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... History of Civil Society gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us. As the College buildings are indeed very mean, the Principal said to Dr Johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a Jesuit did when shewing a poor college abroad: Hae miseriae nostrae. Dr Johnson was, however, much pleased with the library, and with the conversation of Dr James Robertson, Professor of Oriental Languages, the Librarian. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... closes with this sentence: "He at least might spare the epithets to the party that has showered upon him every honor within its gift, except the presidency." If I have applied any disparaging epithet to the Republican Party, my error is due to my ignorance of the meaning of the word. The quotations which Mr. Moody has made from my speech at the Cooper Institute contain a declaration in two forms of expression, which may have led Mr. Moody to charge me ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... describing the flowers of this plant, calls them elegantissimi; and to one of its varieties HALLER applies the epithet pulcherrima: such testimonies in its favour will, we presume, be sufficient to ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... not see the girl's face just then, or he might have noticed a momentary change in its expression. Gregory Hawtrey was a little casual in speech, but so far most of the young women he bestowed an epithet of that kind upon had attached no significance to it. They had wisely decided that he did not mean anything. In another moment or two the Scottish fiddler's voice ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... The epithet aristocrat may become odious and fatal on the banks of the Mississippi as it was on the banks of the Seine. Let no man deceive himself! These are fearful times. Thousands of our population, by the sudden stoppage of business, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the powerful intercession of the empress, spared, and permitted to pursue his studies in Athens. In that city, where the Pagan philosophy was still publicly taught, the future emperor imbibed the doctrines of the heathens, and thus acquired the epithet of Apostate, by which he is unenviably known to posterity. Julian was soon recalled from his retirement, and elevated to the station which his unfortunate brother had enjoyed. His investiture with the royal purple took place at Milan, whither ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... of misery there was, however, in my school experience. The boys nicknamed me "Martin's pet," and sometimes called out that dreadful epithet to me as I passed along the street. I did not know all that it meant, but it seemed to me a term of the utmost opprobrium, and I know that it kept me from responding as freely as I should otherwise have done to that excellent teacher, my only ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... won't mention again the name of the old cur—, I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet; while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother's side and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely seen, alas! in members of the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and affectionate treatment that father ever gave or child could receive." Young Willard could not but remember that his parents had been most kind and tender, that his father had lavished upon him during all the years of his childhood a most prodigal wealth of affection: and the one harsh epithet he had received seemed as nothing among the multitude of kind and loving words that had never been withheld from him. His heart told him that something deeper than any ordinary woe would darken his mother's quiet face when ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... defrauded him of it; and to provide a remedy, they vote him that supply during his lifetime, and no longer. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding this last clause, all his successors for more than a century persevered in the like irregular practice; if a practice may deserve that epithet, in which the whole nation acquiesced, and which gave no offence. But when Charles I. attempted to continue in the same course which had now received the sanction of many generations, so much were the opinions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as a lance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence and epithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into from his grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from his vortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop and rapid ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... that of the later period, and individual writers show peculiarities. It displays throughout a marked contrast with the poetic style, in its freedom from parallelisms in thought and phrase, from inversions, archaisms, and the almost excessive wealth of metaphor and epithet. In its early stages, there is apparent perhaps a poverty of resource, a lack of flexibility; but this charge cannot be sustained against the best prose of the later period. In the translations from the Latin it shows a certain stiffness, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... something about speaking to Mr. Turner and seeing that I did the work I was brought on board to do, and, seeing Turner's eye on us, finished his speech with an ugly epithet. My nerves were strained to the utmost: lack of sleep and food had done their work. I was no longer in command of the Ella; I was a common sailor, ready to vent my spleen ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... speaks of the late King James, he calls him the abdicated King, and gives the same epithet even to his family. Though this weak, ill-advised, and ill-fated prince, in every sense of the word, with Romans and English, and to all intents and purposes, abdicated, yet can he, in no sense, be called abdicated; unless the people's asserting their rights, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... may be, Mr. Wilson's attitude was the subject of adverse comment throughout Europe. His implied claim to legislate for the world and to take over its moral leadership earned for him the epithet of "Dictator," and provoked such epigrammatic comments among his own countrymen and the French as this: "Louis XIV said, 'I am the state!' Mr. Wilson, outdoing him, exclaimed, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... else, for this was a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued man; but Al Woodruff stayed at the ranch and would know all the news, and even though he might give it an ill-natured twist, Lone would at least know what was going on. Al hailed him with a laughing epithet. ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... we've been very rude: we are sad blunt folks. Do come; that's a dear good man; and of course poor Mrs. Dale too." Mrs. Hazeldean's favourite epithet for Mrs. Dale was poor, and that for ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... At last she answered in muffled tones, " You know." Thereafter came a long silence full of sharpened pain. It was Marjory who spoke first. "I have saved my pride, daddy, but-I have-lost-everything —else." Even her sudden resumption of the old epithet of her childhood was an additional misery to the old man. He still said no word. He knelt, gripping her fingers and staring at ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... far did the lessening point recede in the narrowing distance, that the two ladies sat down on the sand, and fell a-talking about Florimel's most uncategorical groom, as Clementina, herself the most uncategorical of women, to use her own scarcely justifiable epithet, called him. She asked if such persons abounded in Scotland. Florimel could but answer that this was the only one she had met with. Then she told her about Richmond Park ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather—well, say shady. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... great epic was called by him a comedy because its ending was not tragical, but "happy"; and admiration gave it the epithet "divine." It is in three parts—Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (paradise). It has been made accessible to English readers in the metrical translations of Carey, Longfellow, Norton, and others, and in the excellent prose version ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Maguire," says he, "if you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had betther be walking off wid yourself; for I beg lave to give you to undherstand, that it won't be for the good ov your health if you call me by sich an outprobrious epithet again," says he. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... the epithet 'brun' as applied to a sword has been held to signify either that the sword was of bronze, or that the sword gleamed. It has further been suggested that sword-blades may have been artificially bronzed, like ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... (says the Baron, bowing his very best to the talented authoress), for one of the cheeriest, freshest, and sweetest—if I may be allowed to use the epithet—of one-volume'd stories I've read for many a day. The three daughters are delightful. I question whether you couldn't have done better with "two only, as are generally necessary;" but perhaps this is ungrateful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... the Glen and the graveyard and Rainbow Valley. But she fell asleep troubled by a disagreeable subconsciousness that Dan Reese had called her pig-girl and that, having stumbled on such a congenial epithet, he would continue to call her so whenever ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Tudor masterfulness in her, and not a little of the Tudor grossness and passion, and remember the blots that stained her glories. Think of her sister, the morbidly melancholy tool of priests, who goes down the ages branded with an epithet only too sadly earned. Think of another woman that ruled over England in name, the weak instrument of base intrigues. And then turn to this life which we are looking upon to-day. Think of the nameless scandals, the hideous immorality of the reigns that preceded ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of her who, alone among us all, was untroubled; and over the darkness and the pain I hear voice, saying, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Would, dear reader, that you might remember, and I too all ways, the importance of soft and careful words. One harsh or even thoughtlessly chosen epithet, may bear with it a weight which shall weigh down some heart through all life. There are for us all nights of sorrow, in which we feel their value. Help us, our Father, to ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... incident to the morall and politike gouernment of mans life: and to haue deliuered the same in the Phenician letters: out of which the Greekes (according to the opinion of Archilochus) [Sidenote: In epithet. temp. De aequinorus contra Appionem.] deuised & deriued the Greeke characters, insomuch that Xenophon and Iosephus doo constantlie report (although Diogenes Laertius be against it) that both the Greekes and other nations receiued ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... "Archibald, the third Earl of Douglas, was so unfortunate in all his enterprises, that he acquired the epithet of 'tine-man,' because he tined, or lost, his followers in every battle which he fought. He was vanquished, as every reader must remember, in the bloody battle of Homildon-hill, near Wooler, where he himself lost an eye, and was made prisoner by Hotspur. He was no less unfortunate ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the lady to whom you give that epithet. There are those who think it not quite safe for you to call ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald |
