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Meanly

adverb
1.
In a nasty ill-tempered manner.  Synonym: nastily.
2.
In a despicable, ignoble manner.  Synonyms: basely, scurvily.
3.
Poorly or in an inferior manner.
4.
In a miserly manner.  Synonym: humbly.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books



... figures as being present to her spiritualized perception. One was an aged, dignified, stern-looking gentleman, clad as for a solemn festival in grave and costly attire, but with a great blood-stain on his richly wrought band; the second, an aged man, meanly dressed, with a dark and malign countenance, and a broken halter about his neck; the third, a person not so advanced in life as the former two, but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarse woollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a carpenter's rule sticking ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... time to the conduct of public business with the King; and the day ended with dinner, fetes, the opera, or the consideration of requests for patronage. This function of State generally occupied three evenings in the week; and on these occasions a crowd of some 250 suitors filled his meanly lit ante-room with jealous expectancy ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... engineers." He might also have the temerity to inquire the precise distance in which the train was pulled up, the shortest distance in which other trains have been pulled up, and the weight and velocity of the train in each case. He might also meanly suggest that putting on the brake left as little as possible to Providence. For our part, however, we will not pursue such hyper-criticism. It is applying to a miracle a test which it is not fitted to stand. Something must be left to faith, something must be reserved from reason, or the stoutest ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... was short and stockily built; his face was not at all good looking. It is said he was generally meanly dressed and was homely, but full of nobility, fine feeling and highly cultivated. The eyes were black and bright, and they dilated, when the composer was lost in thought, in a way that made him look inspired. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... is too much," Otoyo cried. "I implore you forgeeve me. It was madlee of me to listen to so much weekedness. Humble little Japanese girl is bad to entertain such meanly thoughts." ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... you should think so meanly of him for a moment! We owe you much, Miss Plowden; but we may have other duties. You know that we serve our common country, and have a superior with us, whose beck is ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... shrine which then in all the realm Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went The marshalled Order of their Table Round, And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see The maiden buried, not as one unknown, Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. And when the knights had laid her comely head Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, Then Arthur spake among them, 'Let her tomb Be costly, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... understood of knives as swords. The word arms, the generic for the specific term, is still stronger and nobler than swords; and the beautiful conception of vault, which is always indefinite to the eye, while the solidity of walls would but meanly describe the highest Heaven, gives an ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... passed out of hearing, leaving me almost desperate, both at being an eavesdropper to such a conversation, and that Madge could think so meanly of me. To say it, too, to Lord Ralles made it cut all the deeper, as any fellow who had been in love ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... not realize my meaning when I said that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual plane as myself. You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I should allow myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle. Why, then, should you think so meanly of him?" ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... administrator of colonial affairs, the English Government naturally desired a fixed and certain revenue in America, both for frontier defence against Indians and French and for the payment of colonial governors. While each stood ready to defend its own territory, the colonies were no doubt meanly slow about contributing to any common fund. They were frequently at loggerheads, too, with their governors over the question of salaries. On the other hand, the colonists made the strong plea that self-taxation was their only safeguard against tyranny ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... don't want to pile up the agony. Besides," she added, with an obvious effort, "I must be honest. I—I know I have given you reason to think meanly of me—vilely! But, don't you see, Mark, I—I have done with all that. I was never so anxious to make the best of myself. Not ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... high success Attained through wisdom and admired of men, What boundless jealousies environ you! When for this rule, which to my hand the State Committed unsolicited and free, Creon, my first of friends, trusted and sure, Would undermine and hurl me from my throne, Meanly suborning such a mendicant Botcher of lies, this crafty wizard rogue, Blind in his art, and seeing but for gain. Where are the proofs of thy prophetic power? How came it, when the minstrel-hound was here, This folk had no deliverance through thy word? Her snare could not be loosed by common wit, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable! How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... seditious crew: Thy country and thy parentage reveal, And why thou join'st in these mad orgies tell.' The captive views him with undaunted eyes, And, armed with inward innocence, replies. 'From high Meonia's rocky shores I came, Of poor descent, Acaetes is my name: 10 My sire was meanly born; no oxen ploughed His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures lowed. His whole estate within the waters lay; With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey. His art was all his livelihood; which he Thus with his dying lips bequeathed ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... too cowardly to admit his fault, and having so much at stake, he took care to make detection impossible. It may have been that, but my idea is rather that probably it was neither quite pure accident nor pure design. I can imagine Mead meanly pluming himself over the fact that the life of this man who stands in his way, and whom he must cordially dislike, lies in his power. I can imagine the idea becoming an obsession as he dwells on it. A dozen times with his hand on the lever he lets his mind explore the possibilities ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... history of Mme. de Maintenon is studied, the more one is led away from a first impression—which usually proves to be an erroneous one. Thus, M. Lavallee, in his first work, Histoire des Francais, wrote that she "was of the most complete aridity of heart, narrow in the scope of her affections, and meanly intriguing. She suggested fatal enterprises and inappropriate appointments; she forced mediocre and servile persons upon the king; she had, in fine, the major share in the errors and disasters of the reign ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... coming: and true it was that he had been a constant attender (as he said) at Timon's feasts, as he had in greater things tasted his bounty, but that he ever came with that intent, or gave good counsel or reproof to Timon, was a base unworthy lie, which he suitably followed up with meanly offering the servant a bribe, to go home to his master and tell him that he had ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... works were meanly printed, and were usually found in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... me that you fellows use me as meanly as you know how," flared Hen. "You ought to be ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... care - Would know her strength, and, if not strong, forbear. The supple slave to regal pomp bows down, Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown; The bolder villain spurns a decent awe, Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law; But he whose soul on honest truth relies, Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies. Thus timid authors bear an abject mind, And plead for mercy they but seldom find. Some, as the desperate, to the halter run, Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun; But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop, Yet hope for fame, and dare avow ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe

... adventure and that contempt of peril. But of what stamp must have been that soul which could find consolation in all this? And, as often happens, the man to whom she thus devoted herself was not wholly worthy of her. He had infinite spirit; but he was coldly calculating, profoundly selfish, meanly ambitious. He measured others by himself. He was naturally as subtle in evil, as she was disposed spontaneously to virtue. Full of finesse in his self-love and in the pursuit of his own interest, he was, in reality, the least chivalrous of his sex, although he affected all the appearance ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... birth, he answered: "It hath been judged formerly, that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be one of the noblest families on earth. And though the iniquity of late times have made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable. . . . And I will labor to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek example of my ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... believe she has it in her. You'll see, to-morrow," and with this Parthian shot Mrs Cowper quitted the room in tears, meanly leaving her mother to allay the tempest she had raised. On the morrow poor Lady Cinnamond was almost tempted to think as she did with regard to Honour, for Gerrard, putting his fortune to the touch without, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... Babe you there shall find To human view display'd, All meanly wrapt in swathing bands, And in a ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... King at Arms," says Grose, "author of the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' and several others in the 'Biographia Britannica,' was natural son of a Dr. Oldys, in the Commons, who kept his mother very privately, and probably very meanly, as when he dined at a tavern he used to beg leave to send home part of the remains of any fish or fowl for his cat, which cat was afterwards found out to be Mr. Oldys' mother. His parents dying when ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed the world will forever applaud ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... He said that these Eastern girls were not used to having any sort of attention; that there was only about a tenth or fifteenth of a fellow to every girl, and that it tickled one of them to death to have a whole man around. He was not meanly exultant at their destitution. He said he just wished one of these pretty Boston girls—nice, well dressed, cultured, and brought up to be snubbed and neglected by the tenths and fifteenths of men they had at home—could be let loose in the West, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... to regard the arrival of Mr. West as an important event. In the sequel of this work, it may be necessary to allude to the moral and political causes which affect the progress of the fine arts, and opportunities will, in consequence, arise to show how meanly they were considered, how justly, indeed, it may be said, they were rejected, not only by the British public in general, but even by the nobility. A few eminent literary characters were sensible of ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... cried the countess, "and how meanly you are dressed altogether! Is that the way you intend to go looking as the housekeeper of a rich and genteel family? Go, Trude, quickly, and put something better on, that you may receive your master and mistress in a ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... may be troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. You owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady—even the very lady that you love; and if you suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong than ever you can do me. That is why I am sorry. That is why I am ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... were about five hundred in number; but most of them were of wood, and meanly built. These had all been erected since the year 1776; when the place had been totally burnt, by order of lord Dunmore, then the British governor of Virginia. The losses sustained, on this occasion, were estimated at three hundred thousand pounds sterling. Near the harbour the streets ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... I was sick for a couple of days, meanly sick, and my arms were painfully poisoned from the barnacle scratches. For a week I could not use them, and it was a torture to put on ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... Ashton-Kirk, "that you began to prostrate yourself before your idol; and when a man takes to that, he always gets to thinking meanly of himself. The attitude has much to do with the state of mind, I imagine. Miss Vale is a courageous, capable girl; but you can never tell what sort of a man a woman will select for a husband. Girls have fancies upon the subject, and give voice to them sometimes; but it is the ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... observation of its duties and the laws, and to esteem little the mere beauty of the outward form. He would then conduct his pupil to science, so that he might look upon the loveliness of wisdom; and that contemplating thus the universal beauty, no longer would he unworthily and meanly enslave himself to the attractions of one form in love, nor one subject of discipline or science, but would turn towards the wide ocean of intellectual beauty, and from the sight of the lovely and majestic forms which it contains, would abundantly bring forth his conceptions in philosophy; ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... displeasing to the First Consul, who had no objection to flattery though he despised those who meanly made themselves the medium of conveying it to him. Duroc once told me that they had all great difficulty in preserving their gravity when the cure of a parish in Abbeville addressed Bonaparte one day while he was on his journey to the coast. "Religion," ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... meanly of me,' went on Cyril in the same heavy, monotonous voice, as though he were repeating some lesson that he had carefully conned and got by heart, 'as to suppose that I should take advantage of her promise and yours? If you will let me ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid, young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a superb court-dress; ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... wash away Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but "the damned spot" will not out at her bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so meanly, basely, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... O Prefect; dost thou think so meanly of me as to suppose that what but now I affirmed, I will now deny, and only for this show of iron toys and human demons set to play them? It is not of such stuff Aurelian's men are made, much less the soldiers of the cross. For the love I bear to ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... his head. "Well! Aramis," continued Porthos, "I have dreamed, I have imagined that an event has taken place in France. I dreamt of M. Fouquet all the night, of lifeless fish, of broken eggs, of chambers badly furnished, meanly kept. Villainous dreams, my dear ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... in a triumvirate of persecutors to defame his character and render him an outcast; the whole human race had conspired to destroy him. Again Rousseau fled, sojourned a year at Trye-Chateau under an assumed name, and after wanderings hither and thither, took refuge in Paris, where, living meanly, he completed his Confessions, wrote other eloquent pieces of self-vindication, and relieved his morbid cerebral excitement by music and botanising rambles. The hospitality of M. de Girardin at Ermenonville ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... it's their being grown up that makes one stare so. If it wasn't for that...." But this gives away her case, surrenders all claim to her equality with Laetitia's twenty-four years. The advantage is caught at meanly. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... during which they manifested the firmest attachment to the rights of mankind, can they so soon forget the principles that then governed their determinations? Can Americans, after the noble contempt they expressed for tyrants, meanly descend to take up the scourge? Blush, ye revolted colonies, for having apostatized from ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... street with a roll. And then, as now, he had announced his willingness to pay any bill, good or bad, that he owed. He stood there waiting, with the bills in his hand, and he paid every man who applied. He even paid men who slipped in meanly with stories of loans when he was drunk; but he noted them well and from that day forward they received no favors ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... as a necessary supplement to it. This instinct is more or less futile in most women because they are more or less ignorant of the realities as to wise and foolish expenditure. But it is found in the most extravagant women no less than in the most absurdly and meanly stingy. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... now. He'll wait as long as may be. He would sin, but he would not sin meanly. In his conception of himself a greatness, even in transgression, must clothe all that he does. He'll wait, gravely and decently, even though to wait is his heavy risk." He made a gesture with his hand. "Do I not know him, know him well? Sometimes ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... to Stella, in words which I would now give everything I possess to recall. A detestable jealousy took possession of me. I meanly hinted that Penrose could claim no great merit (in the matter of Romayne's conversion) for yielding to the entreaties of a beautiful woman who had fascinated him, though he might be afraid to own it. She protested against my unworthy insinuation—but she failed to make me ashamed ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... a flaccidity which meanly envied the activities and enthusiasms of other men. As a writer he was superficial; he had not the requisite energy for forming a clear or profound judgment on any question of difficulty; Johnson's comment, "He thinks justly but he thinks faintly" sums up the truth ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... be lifted up; and finding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in high indignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to the people." Berkeley accepted the rebuke, and ordered him treated with all the dignity due his position as the leader of many Indian nations. Unfortunately the life of Opechancanough was shortly after snuffed ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... opinion, had not his party been suffering; and what would have become of the church of England, what of the Protestant religion, what of christianity in general, had the apostles and primitive martyrs, and later champions for truth, meanly abandoned it like Crashaw, because the hand of power was lifted up against it. It is an old observation, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; but Crashaw took care that the church mould reap no benefit by his perseverance. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... the Winter wilde, While the Heav'n-born-childe, 30 All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in aw to him Had doff't her gawdy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... because she thought that he would like to share in her revenge. That, more than anything, hurt him, bringing him down to her base, sordid level, making him fellow-conspirator with her, plotting...ugh! How cruelly unfair that he, upright, generous, should be involved like this so meanly. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... Lady forbid!" said the prior, who, if desirous of power, had nothing meanly covetous in his temper, but was even magnificent in his generous kindness; "certainly the Dominican convent can afford to her sovereign the hospitality which the house offers to every wanderer of whatever condition who ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... You said we were taking a cruel advantage of Lucilla's blindness. You were right. It was cruel not to have told her the truth. I won't be a party to concealing the truth from her any longer! I refuse to persist in deceiving her—in meanly deceiving her—on the day ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... being caught. Jack, I'm not going to ask you to come with me. I shall think no worse of you if you say you won't come, and I cannot take advantage over you to force you against your own wish, because I lent you money. Don't think so meanly of me." ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... person could be persuaded, as he ought of this principle, that we are all originally descended from God, and that He is the Father of gods and men, I conceive he never would think meanly or degenerately concerning himself. Suppose Caesar were to adopt you, there would be no bearing your haughty looks. Will you not be elated on knowing yourself to be the son of Jupiter, of God Himself? Yet, in fact, we are not elated; but having two things in our composition, intimately ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... in the Harleian Miscellany, v. 298, and a copy of the meanly printed original is in the Ticknor Collection, Boston ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... day in Scotland (besides a great many poor families very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others, who, by living on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... pieces of eight, silver and gold. Ah! simple vanity said I whom this world so much dotes on, where is now thy virtue, thy excellency to me? You cannot procure me one thing needful, nor remove me from this desolate island to a place of plenty. One of these knives, so meanly esteemed, is to me more preferable than all this heap. E'en therefore remain where thou art to sink in the deep as unregarded, even as a creature whose life is not worth preserving. Yet, after all this exclamation, I wrapt it up in a piece of canvas, and ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... don't look much the better for it; why, I should not have known you! ha, ha, ha!" I was not in a humour to enjoy his attempts at facetiousness; I therefore told him, that he had behaved disgracefully and meanly, and that I should publish his character among the adjoining tribes as below that of the most petty chief that I had ever seen. "Never mind," he replied, "it's all over now; you really are thin, both of you;—it was your own fault; why did you ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... dar'd attempt with sacrilegious sword, To offer equal combat to a LORD, Sudden your noble limbs your coursers bore, From Berkshire's hills to Avon's distant shore: And eager to preserve from foul disgrace, Th' unsullied honors of a noble race, Rather than have it said you meanly stood To stain your faulchion with Plebeian blood, You yielded bravely to a harsher fate, And made submissions to the man you hate. To save their dignity from scandal's breath, Thousands have fearless fac'd approaching death; ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe

... impression which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country, and had not seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves, so full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children, who were grown big enough to despise their ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... in the special part of the Cartesian physics,—we can only briefly sketch it,—which embraces, first, celestial, and, then, terrestial phenomena, is the axiom that we cannot estimate God's power and goodness too highly, nor ourselves too meanly. It is presumptuous to seek to comprehend the purposes of God in creation, to consider ourselves participants in his plans, to imagine that things exist simply for our sake—there are many things which no man sees and which are of advantage ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... never controlling, never creating, events, but always yielding to them with rapid change, and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war, they saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. In the debates on the Regency, they detected the laxity of his constitutional principles, and received proofs that his eloquence consisted not in the ready application of a general system ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... Freedom's glorious Cause I've meanly quitted For the sake of pelf; But ah, the Devil has me outwitted; Instead of hanging ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... King John's wise men thought little of the plan, King John himself thought that there was something in it. But instead of helping Columbus he meanly resolved to send out an expedition of his own. This he did, and when Columbus heard of it he was so angry that he left Portugal, which for more than ten years he had made his home. He was poor and in debt, so he left the country secretly, in fear ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... room," because her sister, who has married a city man, is obliged to have a folding-bed in the cramped limits of her flat Partly because so little is done for him educationally, and partly because he must live narrowly and dress meanly, the life of the average laborer tends to become flat and monotonous, with nothing in his work to feed his mind or hold his interest. Theoretically, we would all admit that the man at the bottom, ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... thus kept for this person, it was reported that he had been seen to pass on foot through towns lying south of Denver, meanly dressed and accompanied by a young man named Linford. To all inquiries he answered that he was on his way to fast in the desert as his "Father" had commanded. His companion was even less communicative, saying somewhat irritably that his goings ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... to injure him still insist that he shares the author's views on sexual relations, and despite his reiterated contradictions, they quote detached pieces of the work, speaking against marriage, as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile and dishonest than this it would be difficult to imagine, yet such are the weapons used against Atheists in a Christian country. Unable to find in Mr. Bradlaugh's own writings anything to serve their purpose, they take isolated passages from a book he neither wrote nor published, but once ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... ones, the witless and wise Gain husbands at pleasure, while none will me prize; Ah! why should the swains think so meanly of me, And I full as comely as any ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... I have not been so meanly educated, but I know how to live, and like a Gentleman: All that afflicts me in this Misfortune, is my dear Sister Phillis, she's young; and to be left poor in this loose Town, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... years old when you knew him, wasn't he?" suggested Jason meanly. "Yes, they usually WERE young, but so kind of you to recollect them. Young Sluysdael," he continued, turning to me, "is—but of course you know that ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... distorted and exaggerated for the purpose and with the result of keeping the workingman quiet about more vital things. How say you to that? Every pretended release from his chains has been in fact a new form of tether on his limbs. What about that? I should think meanly of myself if I did not rejoice every time a workingman's hours are reduced or the place wherein he is condemned to toil is made more nearly tolerable. But what shall we conclude when these things are deliberately employed to distract his thoughts from ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... industrious baker, he now was the poet completely; he spoke with animation of the literature of his country, and expressed a wish to see the north, the scenery and intellectual life of which seemed to interest him. With great respect I took leave of a man whom the Muses have not meanly endowed, and who yet has good sense enough, spite of all the homage paid him, to remain steadfast to his honest business, and prefer being the most remarkable baker of Nismes to losing himself in Paris, after a short triumph, among hundreds ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... why should Marian have so carefully avoided telling him anything about her husband? That his friend, having betrayed him, should shrink from the revelation of his falsehood, should adopt any underhand course to avoid discovery, seemed natural enough. Yet to believe this was to think meanly of the man whom he had loved so well, whom he had confided in so implicitly until the arising of this ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... to be restor'd 240 And pardon'd for some great offence, With which be's willing to dispense, First has him laid upon his belly, Then beaten back and side to a jelly; That done, he rises, humbly bows, 245 And gives thanks for the princely blows; Departs not meanly proud, and boasting Of this magnificent rib-roasting. The beaten soldier proves most manful, That, like his sword, endures the anvil, 250 And justly's held more formidable, The more his valour's malleable: But he that fears a bastinado Will run away from his own shadow: And though I'm now in ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... that he did not know till then that a planet with a ring could affront one who had only a belt, by proposing mutual co-operation. He would now come to the subject under discussion. He should think meanly of his hon. colleagues if they consented to bestow their approbation upon a mere astronomical production. Had they forgotten that they once were considered the arbiters of fate, and the prognosticators of man's destiny? What had lost them that proud position? Was ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... word. A trifle, a thing of mere weight, I have brought you From the Assyrian camp. My apron here Is loaded now more heavily, but as meanly As an old witch's skirt, when she comes home From seeking camel's-dung for kindling; yet My burden was, an hour ago, the world Where you were ground to tortures; it was the brain Inventing your destruction.—Look you now! [Holding up the head of HOLOFERNES. This ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... helped by the severe winter-weather of Wales, gained another battle; but the King ordering a portion of his English army to advance through South Wales, and catch him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was surprised and killed—very meanly, for he was unarmed and defenceless. His head was struck off and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the Tower, encircled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow, some say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... doubtless had foundered in the storm of yesterday.—Once more I am in England; and, to use the words of a venerable though apocryphal writer, "Here will I make an end. And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... off, as she was then; and though she was somewhat advanced in years, she had the remains of a good face, which showed what she had been in her youth. The sultan, who had always seen her dressed very meanly, not to say poorly, was surprised to find her as richly and magnificently attired as the princess his daughter. This made him think Aladdin equally prudent and ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... of Damocles for many months; on and off, for years—indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things—too keenly about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair—a panoply, an armory, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his sentiment for him the more, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France. The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by their young chief, Porfirio Diaz, and they ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... you know how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... late famed plays." He relates, moreover, that these performances attracted "a great confluence of auditors," insomuch that the Red Bull, a playhouse of large size, was often so full, that "as many went back for want of room as had entered;" and that meanly as these "drolls" might be thought of in later times, they were acted by the best comedians "then and now in being." Especially he applauds the actor, author, and contriver of the majority of the farces—"the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... them all, well-girded Metaneira first began to speak: 'Hail, lady! For I think you are not meanly but nobly born; truly dignity and grace are conspicuous upon your eyes as in the eyes of kings that deal justice. Yet we mortals bear perforce what the gods send us, though we be grieved; for a yoke is set upon our necks. But now, since you are come here, you shall ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... of oblation and self-examination, surveyed the young girl. The reflection of dark colors from the hangings and tapestries softened the pallor of her face; her hair hung about her in disorder; her figure, though meanly garbed, was replete with youth and grace. Silent she continued in the posture of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... landlord. I imagined that he might have remembered prosperous days before the railway through Monte Cassino and Sparanise robbed Terracina of her robber's dues from south-bound travellers. His vast hotel, entered meanly by a little hall, was dimly lighted by candles. With another feeble creature, once a man, he preceded me, and speaking poor French said he had had my letter and had prepared me the best apartment in his ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... declined to use his exalted office to obtain any respite for the youth who had so unfortunately proved his inheritance of the old Adams' devotion to liberty. "My blood should flow upon a Spanish scaffold," wrote America's chief magistrate, "before I would meanly ask or accept a distinction in favor of my grandson." The young man's life was spared, however, and he returned ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... ability than character. Lord Chancellor Thurlow was a type of the lawyer who fights his way to success and cares for little else. But he was a true and generous friend to Johnson, for whose proposed journey to Italy he offered to provide the means. And if his career allowed any one to think meanly of his abilities, Johnson's opinion of them would be a sufficient answer. He always maintained that "to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack"; it {241} was the question and answer of conversation, he thought, that showed ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... the health of the Rector of Appleslocombe. There might be even yet a hope for him; but his chance, he thought, would be better with the present Marquis—ill-disposed towards him as the Marquis was—than with the heir. The Marquis was weary of him, and anxious to get rid of him,—was acting very meanly to him, as Mr. Greenwood thought, having offered him L1000 as a final payment for a whole life's attention. The Marquis, who had ever been a liberal man, had now, perhaps on his death-bed, become unjust, harsh, and cruel. But he was weak and forgetful, and might possibly be willing to ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... Men must propagate like other animals, by the mouth. Never did oppression light the nuptial torch; never did extortion and usury spread out the genial bed. Does any one of you think that England, so wasted, would, under such a nursing attendance, so rapidly and cheaply recover? But he is meanly acquainted with either England or India, who does not know that England would a thousand times sooner resume population, fertility, and what ought to be the ultimate secretion from both—revenue, than such a country as the Carnatic. The Carnatic ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... bigger as he listened. There were no such things as difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no—not weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... fact that, influenced by the example of our great neighbors, we reversed the natural position of the aristocratic and democratic elements in the national being. Instead of being democratic in our economic life, with the aristocracy of character and intelligence to lead us, we became meanly individualistic in our economics and meanly democratic in leadership. That is, we allowed individualism—the devilish doctrine of every man for himself—to be the keynote of our economic life; where, above all things, the general good and not the enrichment of the ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... door, they took off their rags, they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these meanly-dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how the earth's gold moves with the seasons, and the ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... mason, supposing him to have been without employment one-third of the year, would have fully equalled them. By the 12th of Queen Anne, c. 12. it is declared, "That whereas, for want of sufficient maintenance and encouragement to curates, the cures have, in several places, been meanly supplied, the bishop is, therefore, empowered to appoint, by writing under his hand and seal, a sufficient certain stipend or allowance, not exceeding fifty, and not less than twenty pounds a-year". Forty pounds a-year is reckoned at present very good pay for a curate; and, notwithstanding this ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... theme he will speak as becomes it; neither meagrely where it is copious, nor meanly where it is ample, nor in this way where it demands that; but keeping his speech level with the actual subject and adequate ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... Ellis, "for I shall be a precious long time at those curls of Corwen's and those expressive brown eyes. Shoni, I know, will stick to me like a leech, but you and Valmai, I expect, will meanly desert ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... him out. Sergeant-Major Jones was, therefore, the gentleman required. He represented the finest virtues of the British N.C.O.—a class which has made the British Army what it is to-day, and a class meanly paid and shockingly neglected by ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... answered. "I'm against all this ... this progress. We're simply eating up people's lives, and paying meanly for them. I'd destroy all these factories ... the whole lot. They aren't worth the price. And I'd go back to decent piggery. What is the good of a plate when it means that some girl has been poisoned so that it ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... moment he struck a match. The flare revealed, as he expected, the meanly appointed bedroom of a tenth rate hostelry. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... upon her distracted mind in all its seriousness. The house, garden, and field were lost—by a few hours—and with them a home for herself and her lover. She would not think so meanly of Jasper as to suppose that he would adhere to the resolution declared in a moment of impatience; but she trembled, nevertheless. Why could not her uncle have lived a couple of hours longer, since he had lived so long? It was now past three o'clock; at ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... was a great tumult and confusion, angry words, flashing eyes and an ominous surging to and fro, "and they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot," but still he pleaded the defense of the angels, and meanly offered to bring out his two young daughters and give to the howling mob—but the passion that glowed in the eyes and trembled in the voices of the raging throng was not a passion to be allayed by the clasp of a woman's hand, the flash of her azure eye, ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... this time, a Mahommedan soldier had begun to distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. His education had been neglected; his extraction was humble. His father had been a petty officer of revenue; his grandfather a wandering dervise. But though thus meanly descended, though ignorant even of the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner been placed at the head of a body of troops than he approved himself a man born for conquest and command. Among the crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a share of India, none could compare ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... reflection present itself, that to know something of the terraqueous globe, is a favourite object with every one who can taste the lowest rudiments of learning. Let us not, therefore, think so meanly of the times in which we live, as to suppose it possible that full justice will not be done to the noble plan of discovery, so steadily and so successfully carried on, since the accession of his majesty; which cannot fail to be considered, in every succeeding age, as a splendid ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show? "Why meanly bargain to believe, which only means ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... me,' said Clara, faintly, as her announcement of her purpose, when she finally sought her room, obliged to be thought meanly of, rather than do ill, denying her fondest affections, cutting herself off from all she loved, and, with but this consolation, that she was doing as grandmamma would have bidden her. Oh, how ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the preacher rose clear, dominant, arresting. "Why did he fail so abjectly, so meanly, so despicably? For there is no excuse for a failure. Listen! No man NEED fail. A man who is a failure is a mean, selfish, lazy chump." Mr. Freeman was colloquial, if anything. "Some men pity him. I don't. I have no use for him, and he is the one ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... assume all the appearances of indifferent acquaintanceship. At first, indeed, it was with an aching heart struggling in his breast, and an agony of wounded spirit tempting him to cast away all such studied pretences, and to throw himself upon her mercy, and meanly beg for even the slightest return of her former affection. But gradually, as he perceived how vain would be such self-abasement, and how its display would rather tend to add contempt to her indifference, his pride came to rescue him from such a course; and he began more and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Sophie has fallen silent in the History Books; both the Majesties may look remorsefully, but perhaps best in silence, over the breakages and wrecks this Kaiser has brought upon them. Friedrich Wilhelm does not meanly hate the Kaiser: good man, he sometimes pities him; sometimes, we perceive, has a touch of authentic contempt for him. But his thoughts, in that quarter, premature old age aggravating them, are generally of a tragic nature, not to be spoken without tears; and the tears have a flash at the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... not," she said; "but it's the first fight I've been in, and I don't like it. Still, they did receive us pretty meanly, didn't they?" ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... of the seventeenth century. Since that period what is called Roman cement has been made of the Portland stone—a useful industry, enriching the district, and disfiguring the bay. Two hundred years ago these coasts were eaten away as a cliff; to-day, as a quarry. The pick bites meanly, the wave grandly; hence a diminution of beauty. To the magnificent ravages of the ocean have succeeded the measured strokes of men. These measured strokes have worked away the creek where the Biscay hooker was moored. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... cathedral—they were not entities, they were just collections of houses covering men and women. And men were either fools or crooks, and women were either ugly bores or pretty—bitches.... Men and women, they were born crudely, as a calf is born of a cow, they lived foolishly or meanly, and they died.... And they were hustled out of the house quickly.... They thought themselves so important, and they lacked the faithfulness of the dog, the cleanliness of wild animals, the strength of horses, the beauty of tropic birds, the mathematical science of the spider, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... be said that Alexander was surly. Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies. Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him. He did his work, and achieved at least the show of equanimity. Strickland wondered. What was it that had happened? It never occurred to him that it had happened here in this dale. But in all that ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a 'life-preserver' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... having replaced the chains and fastened the huge bolts which protected the house-door, took up the lamp and led the way to a small and meanly-furnished room at ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... itinerant picnic was called "tuck-a-nuck "—a word of Indian origin, or "mitchin," while the box or hamper or bucket that held the provisions was called a "mitchin-box." I can fancy that no thrifty or loving housewife allowed the man of her household to go to market with too meanly filled a mitchin-box, but took an honest pride in sending him off with a full stock of rich doughnuts, well-baked bread, well-filled pies, and at least well-cooked porridge, which he could devour without shame before the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... who feared to give the word. Where muscles had been were unfilled folds of skin that shook; where a firm if selfish mouth had once smiled merrily beneath a pointed black mustache, a mouth still smiled, but meanly; the selfishness was there, but the firmness ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... you so meanly clad? On this account return'd he, because learning never made any ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... shall never marry a man in whose understanding I see any defects before marriage; and I promise you I would rather give up my own than see any such afterwards." "Give up your understanding!" replied Mrs Fitzpatrick; "oh, fie, child! I will not believe so meanly of you. Everything else I might myself be brought to give up; but never this. Nature would not have allotted this superiority to the wife in so many instances, if she had intended we should all of us have surrendered it to the husband. This, indeed, men of sense never expect ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... the group at seeing Toussaint instantly follow this black, who appeared in the dusk to be meanly clothed. They entered the tent, and let down the curtain at the entrance. Some saw that a woman stood within the ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... convulsions rend. Well! let their armies come, their locusts pour, Each British heart shall welcome them on shore, Each British hand is arm'd in Britain's cause, To guard their birth-right, liberty, and laws, Rise! Britons, rise! attend fair freedom's cry, The wretch who meanly fears deserves to die. His kind protection 'gainst each latent foe, Still may that Pow'r Omnipotent bestow, Which first Britannia's sov'reign flag unfurl'd So high, it flames a ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... inferior we are to the poor negroes, who fare so much better. But surely 'man liveth not by bread alone!' Our fathers who died for Christ on the hillside and the scaffold were noble men, and never, never shall slavery produce such, and yet they toiled as hard, and fared as meanly as we their children." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... meanly of ambition as when walking through a grave-yard.—To see men who have filled the world with their glory for half a century or more, reduced to a six foot mudhole, gives pride a shock which requires a long stay in a city ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... moment away from his thought of revenge. Again the bright day seemed to contract and grow chill around him, like the oncoming shadow and breath of storm. He felt that this man would return in his day to trouble him, low-devising, dark and secret and meanly covert as a wolf ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... which thousands stumble over before one finally picks it up. Wagner asked himself the meaning of the fact that an art such as music should have become so very important a feature of the lives of modern men. It is not necessary to think meanly of life in order to suspect a riddle behind this question. On the contrary, when all the great forces of existence are duly considered, and struggling life is regarded as striving mightily after conscious freedom and independence of thought, only then does music ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... resplendent as a retreat of the celestials. And there, greeted with choice creature-comforts fit for beings superior to man, he deemed himself superior even to the lord himself of the gods and thought meanly of Indra as compared with himself. And that foremost of Kshatriyas, well-pleased, asked the servants, saying, 'Where are those men of Yudhishthira, who have prepared these places of refreshment? Let those men who made these be brought to me. I deem them worthy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... girl, "for I do intend to accept Aunt Susan's bounty. I will wear her pretty dresses, and all the other things she happens to send me, and I will take her money and do my best, my very best, to get the Scholarship; but all the same, mother, I shall do it meanly, I know I shall do it meanly. It would be better for me to give up the Scholarship and go as a poor girl to Stoneley Hall. Mother, there is such a thing as lowering yourself in your own eyes, and I feel bad, bad ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... employments considered beneath the dignity of the men. These walked before erect and graceful, decked with ornaments which set off to advantage the symmetry of their well-formed persons, while the poor women followed, meanly attired, bent under the weight of the children and utensils, which they carried everywhere with them, and disfigured and degraded by ceaseless toils. They were very early married, for a Mohawk had no other servant but his wife, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... see that it may readily happen, that a man may easily think too highly of himself, or a loved object, and, contrariwise, too meanly of a hated object. This feeling is called 'pride,' in reference to the man who thinks too highly of himself, and is a species of madness, wherein a man dreams with his eyes open, thinking that he can accomplish all things that fall within the scope of ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... what they'll do," moaned Codfish. He had not forgotten how the Rover boys had sided with him on more than one perilous occasion, and it scared him half to death to think what they might do when they discovered how meanly he ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... as Florence is concerned—she is the cousin—she has no wish to deprive you of him. But is it possible that you are attached to a man who has treated you so meanly?" asked Dodger, in surprise. ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... Fred's face brightened. "Say, Nat, you're real good! I'm sorry I treated you so meanly when you ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... in my face. No, I had never pressed him; I had never even encouraged him to come. I was proud of him, proud of his handsome looks, of his kind, gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when others were happy; proud, too—meanly proud, if you like—of his great wealth and startling liberalities. And yet he would have been in the way of my Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to expose to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had told myself, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... whole, it is not good that human nature should have the road of life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity of working hard and faring meanly, than to have everything done ready to our hand and a pillow of down to repose upon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively small means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work, that it may almost be set down as one of the conditions ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... shoulder, and the sewing-machine in one hand; it was a heavy load, and the muddy road made things no easier. But for all that I walked with a light heart. It was a miserable business altogether, and I might as well admit I had acted a trifle meanly. Meanly? Not a bit! I formed myself into a little committee, and pointed out that those infernal girls had planned to entertain their sweethearts with my wine. Well and good; but was not my ill-will towards that idea male selfishness on my part? If ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... back; not to mention the insanities which, proceeding from that cold, make their way into the thoughts, which they do not make known; and this is the reason why such marriages dissolve of themselves. Moreover, it is well known, that an impious man thinks meanly of a married partner; and all who are without ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... Had he not 'gor'd his own thoughts,' revealed his innermost soul? Yet, now, his narrow-minded fellow-dramatists—but no! not fellow-dramatists: mere contemporary playwrights, immeasurably far behind him in rank—eaten up, as they were, with envy and jealous malice, meanly derided everything sacred to him; holding up his ideals to ridicule before a jeering crowd. It has long ago been surmised that Sonnet lxvi. belongs to the 'Hamlet' period. But now it will be better understood why that sonnet speaks of 'a maiden virtue rudely strumpeted; [66] of 'right ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... have a right to think meanly of his race, unless he also thinks meanly of himself. If, from a single fault or error, he judges of the character of another, and takes the single act as evidence of the whole nature of the man and of the whole course of his life, he ought to consent to be judged by the same ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... money for present emergencies," replied Mr. Pendril, "so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.' Piozzi Letters, i. 110. See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773. Spence published an Account of Blacklock, in which he meanly omitted any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... he spoke with an emphasis, and looked down on Embro with a bright vivacity of eye, which forewarned the circle of one of his eloquent flashes: a smile of expectant enjoyment passed round,—"hallucination is the dust-heap and limbo of the meanly-equipped man of science to-day, just as witchcraft was a few hundred years ago. The poor creature of science long ago, when he came upon any pathological or psychological manifestation he did not understand, ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... you think so, and I am quite ready to agree that a sailor's life is one of the best to choose, seeing that we shall have to spend the best part of ours afloat," he answered. "But what I hold is, that we shouldn't think meanly of those who have to ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... temple of Venus forgotten: viz.—upon seeing the statues sitting, as they were, in the temple (which, it seems, wanted much of its due proportion in height), he said, "if the goddesses should ever attempt to stand upon their feet, they would assuredly break their heads against the ceiling." Adrian, meanly jealous and inexcusably revengeful, banished the architect, and having caused him to be accused of various crimes, put ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... he wishes to taste all sorts of conditions: that is the act of a God who is not a fool. However mortals may regard him, I should think very meanly of him if he never quitted his redoubtable mien, and were always in the heavens, standing upon his dignity. In my opinion, there is nothing more idiotic than always to be imprisoned in one's grandeur; above all, a lofty rank becomes very inconvenient in ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere

... enigma presented in his character:—"I am unchanged,—the same man as of yore!" said he. "True, my brother's wealth—he dying intestate—is legally my own. I know it; yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding her, so beautiful,—so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of outward state,—the cursed vanity, which, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that she would not look at either of them, and then she thought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hated him, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt, that he had meanly been ashamed of and cut her because she was poor, that he had been going with another girl all the time he was going with her and that he only pursued her in order to annoy her, that she didn't love him, that she didn't even like him, that, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... to myself—at least so it seemed to me—not to let it be supposed that I, too, had meanly deserted her. Dreadful as the prospect was, I felt that I must see her once more, and for ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... The laird listened, and lifted up his heart. Not much passed between them. The memories of the English lord were not such as he felt it fit to share with the dull old Scotchman beside him, who knew nothing of the world—knew neither how pitilessly selfish, nor how meanly clever a man of this world might be, and bate not a jot of his self admiration! Men who salute a neighbour as a man of the world, paying him the greatest compliment they know in acknowledging him of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... recovering herself, 'I have much, my dear madam, to tell,' said she, 'and much to explain, 'ere you will admit me again to that esteem of which I was once so justly proud. I had no resource from misery, but in flight; and of that I could not make you a confidant, without meanly involving you in its disgrace.'—'Say no more, my love, on the subject,' replied madame; 'with respect to myself, I admired your conduct, and felt severely for your situation. Rather let me hear by what means you effected your escape, and what has since be fallen you.'—Julia ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... families carry with them extravagant habits to corrode their spirits with discontent, perchance to tempt them into crime. 'I know we are extravagant,' said one of my acquaintance, the other day; 'but how can I help it? My husband does not like to see his wife and daughters dress more meanly than those with whom they associate.' 'Then, my dear lady, your husband has not as much moral dignity and moral courage as I thought he had. He should be content to see his wife and daughters respected for neatness, good taste, and attractive manners.' 'This all sounds very well in ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... but the city stretches for several squares back from the river, being densest in the English Concession. The American quarter, Hong-Que, although not as well filled with fine houses, is the next in importance, while the French Concession, nearest to the great city within the walls, is meanly built, and has more of the native element than either of the others. For, although it is contrary to Chinese law for any native to hold property in any of the foreign possessions, in practice large numbers of Chinamen rent tenements ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... like a man's pride! Do we not all know that in such a career as you have marked out for yourself, wealth, or at any rate an easy income, is necessary? Do you think that I cannot put two and two together? Do you believe so meanly of me as to imagine that I should have said to you what I have said, if I did not know that I could help you? A man, I believe, cannot understand that love which induces a woman to sacrifice her pride simply for his advantage. I want to see you prosper. I want to see you a great ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... loss of all his property, Flemming worked hard and lived meanly. Most fortunately for him, he had a very good whaleboat, and night after night, and day after day, he and his two faithful helpers, as long as the weather held fine, toiled at the dangerous pursuit of shark-catching, cutting off the fins and tails, ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... keeping his head straight that he might the easier rob our fellow-passengers raised a pretty question of ethics. I meanly dodged it. I told him professional etiquette required I should leave ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... conference, "Eck haughtily ascended a pulpit splendidly decorated, while the humble OEcolampadius, meanly clothed, was forced to take his seat in front of his opponent on a rudely carved stool."(261) Eck's stentorian voice and unbounded assurance never failed him. His zeal was stimulated by the hope of gold as well as fame; for the defender of the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... with the shafts of ridicule, instead of being combated by serious argument. With the romantic eccentricities of Angelina are contrasted faults of a more common and despicable sort. Miss Burrage is the picture of a young lady who meanly natters persons of rank; and who, after she has smuggled herself into good company, is ashamed to acknowledge her former friends, to whom she was bound by ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... chief character of The Rehearsal, a farce by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (1671). Bayes is represented as greedy of applause, impatient of censure, meanly obsequious, regardless of plot, and only anxious for claptrap. The character ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... crucified. I knew naught of him—never heard his name Until the day they dragged him to his death; Then all tongues wagged about him and his deeds; Some said that he had claimed to be their king, Some that he had blasphemed their deity. 'Twas certain he was poor and meanly born, No warrior he, nor hero; and he taught Doctrines that surely would upset the world; And so they killed him to be rid of him. Wise, very wise, if he were only man, Not quite so wise if he were ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... some of our comrades have laid hands upon one of the leaders in the attack upon the jail," he said. "They want to lodge him here until they can send for the Sheriff's posse, and of course I could only agree. Though the State seems bent on treating us somewhat meanly, we are, I believe, still loyal citizens, and I feel quite sure you will overlook any trifling inconvenience the arrival of the ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... year and helped me so much with my studies. And there's Mrs. Martin out in Manitoba. If I could only send her something! She must be so lonely out there. And Aunt Emmy herself, of course; and poor old Aunt Kitty down the lane; and Aunt Mary and, yes—Florence too, although she did treat me so meanly. I shall never feel the same to her again. But she gave me a present last Christmas, and so out of mere politeness I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the life-blood of such a villain, and looked at his father, who expressed approval by the like proceeding. And Geoffrey Mordacks was well content at finding them made of decent stuff. It was not his manner to do things meanly; and he had only spoken so to moderate their ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... morning air is cold. [They close the door on the corridor.] [Enter the Duchess followed by a crowd of meanly ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde



Words linked to "Meanly" :   scurvily, basely, nastily, mean



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