"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He cannot control a sneer. The men who are lumber-hewers, dirt-diggers, cod-fishers and factory operatives will never face the Southern chivalry. He despises the sneaking Yankees. Traders in a small way arouse all the arrogance of the planter. He cannot bring any philosophy of the past to tell him that the straining, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... an insufferable insolence in the smile, an insufferable sneer in the compliment. Ethel had half extended a timid hand—Victor had wholly extended a pleading one. She took not the slightest notice of either. She lifted the white veil, and looked down ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... are, one thing is certain—it will be long before America will have a literature. Nor am I disposed to sneer, when I think of it, at the alarm of the New York Gazette, which is afraid lest the Tories of Maga should gain a preponderating influence in the minds of educated American youth. Why is it absurd to suppose that, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... smoking room, is criticism, playful and otherwise, of others. There are people in whom the adversely critical spirit is so highly developed that they find it hard to praise any one or to hear any one praised—their criticism leaps to the surface in one way or another, in the sneer, in the "butt," in the joke, in the gibe, in the openly expressed attack. This way of being superior may be direct and open, more often it is disguised. Many a woman (and man) who denounces the sinner receives from her contemplation ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... be a precious revelation of Stacy's inner nature. Facing the wind and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though never so enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van Loo sharply for some foolish sneer about his own youthfulness. He was affectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's relations, for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, Barker, whose own father and mother had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's relations ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... not sneer so at every thing if you could help it," she said. "I am not wise enough to do so; but I don't ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... if you think that! You are not that sort. You are not, and you never were and never could be. Don't you suppose I know?"—almost with a sneer: "I won't have it—nor would you! It is you, not I, who have controlled this situation; and if you don't realise it I do. I never doubted you even when you prattled to me of moderation. I know that you were not named with your name in ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Guy seemed to have no trouble in reining in his temper in arguing with Charles, except once, when the lion was fairly roused by something that sounded like a sneer about King Charles I. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of that?' says the Lizard with a sneer. 'Now I reckons a thousand-dollar bet would scare this puerile game you deals a-screechin' up a tree or ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the British are fond of puns. It is usual to sneer at the pun as the lowest form of wit. Such, alas! it too often is, and frequently, as well, it is a form of no wit at all. But the pun may contain a very high form of wit, and may please either for its cleverness, or for its amusing quality, or for the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... notice the matter in his account of Narbon Gaul, accompanies it with the intimation that although asserted by both Greek and Roman authorities, the story was either a delusion or a fraud.[2] JUVENAL has a sneer for the rustic— ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... very good of you to tell me," said Mary. "Thank you. It's so like me! When I'm agitated I become too appallingly absent-minded for words. That's the sort of thing I do. How you must sneer—I mean, laugh at me, ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... you seek the general for some ulterior purpose," he said with a sneer, and, before Chester realized what he was about to do, the officer raised his hand and slapped him soundly across the face. "Take them ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... with this whipper-snapper. I'll go to-night beneath Eva's window and sing a serenade which will surely win her heart. I'll not lose her even if this great knight should prove to be a great singer." Every time he thought of Walther, it was with a sneer. On the whole, Beckmesser was a nasty little man, even though he was quite a singer. He was old and ugly and it was quite ridiculous of him to think ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... capable man to jilt her. Then seize your chance. All the affections which have gone out to him, unmet, ready to droop, quivering with the painful, hungry instinct to grasp some object, may possibly lay hold of you. Let the world sneer; but God pity such natures, which lack the faith and fortitude to live and die true ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... at Oxford, and one day I found that he had a Greek Euripides in his pocket, and that he needed little help from a dictionary. He sometimes brought with him a college friend, and well do I remember a sneer from this gentleman about the poor creatures whose acquaintance with AEschylus was derived from Potter. I did not look at a translation ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... fixed, but still knew that Elzevir was beside me. He would not let me risk myself in any hazard alone without he stood by me himself to help in case of need; and yet his faithfulness but galled me now, and I asked myself with a sneer, Am I never to stir hand or foot without this man to dog me? The merchant sat still for a minute as though thinking, and then he took one of the diamonds that lay on the table, and then another, and set them close beside the great stone, pitting them, as it were, with it. Yet how could ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... though the Graces never clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest. Notwithstanding his willingness to please the populace with the coarse wit current in the Agoras, I think it gratifies his equestrian pride to sneer at those who are too frugal to buy coloured robes, and fill the air with delicious perfumes as they pass. I know you seldom like the comic writers. What ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... distinction, Innŭee, or mankind. One day, for instance, in securing some of the gear of a sledge, Okotook broke a part of it composed of a piece of our white line, and I shall never forget the contemptuous sneer with which he muttered in soliloquy the word “Kabloona!” in token of the inferiority of our materials to his own. It is happy, perhaps, when people possessing so few of the good things of this life can be thus contented ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and have found out how much we owe unto our Lord, it is not likely that we shall take our brother by the throat and say, 'Pay me that thou owest.' If any treat me badly, try to rob me, harm me, sneer at me, or turn the cold shoulder to me, who am I that I should resent that? Oh, brethren, we need, for our right relation to our fellows, a deeper conviction of our sinfulness before Him. Many of us are blessed with natural tendencies to meekness, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... kick that sent him on his back to the curbstone. Almost insensible, but with the impression that something was interfering between him and his work, he returned to the door. As he laid his hand on it, it opened a little, and his master's face, with a hateful sneer upon it, shot into the crack, and spit in his. Then the door shut so sharply that his fingers caught an agonizing pinch. At last he understood: he was turned off, and ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... are not aware," with a strong sneer, "of the differences that exist between Mr. Ready and me (and which will continue to exist, as long as mind claims a superiority over matter); that we are only husband and wife in name. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Faber!" said the youth with a sneer, struggling hard to keep the advantage he had in temper. "Every body knows you don't believe there ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... notwithstanding Angelika's restlessness, which could hardly be controlled. She even began to sneer; but there was something holy in his anticipation: her words ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... fashion with a number of later Socialist writers and speakers, mind-struck with that blessed word "evolution," confusing "scientific," a popular epithet to which they aspired, with "unimaginative," to sneer at the Utopian method, to make a sort of ideal of a leaden practicality, but it does not follow because the Utopias produced and the experiments attempted were in many aspects unreasonable and absurd that the method itself is an unsound one. At a certain phase of every creative ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer, when we were alone; but with strangers, he rang the words ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a reckless rider," said Forsythe, with a sneer in his voice that Margaret did not like, as they watched the speck in the distance clear a steep descent from the mesa at a bound and disappear from ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... in the papers an account of the opera and of the dresses of the company, and hence the town, and thence, of course, the whole nation, were informed that Mr. Fitzpatrick had very little powder in his hair.' Walpole sheltered himself behind the corner of a pension to sneer at the tragi-comedy of life; but if his feelings were not profound, they were quick and genuine, and, affectation for affectation, his cynical coxcombry seems preferable to the solemn coxcombry of the men who shamelessly wrangled for plunder, while they talked ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... other that they never would have fallen out if it hadn't been for Clump-clump. She was enough to set mountains to fighting. Ah! the Boches knew her well now, they could understand how much the Lorilleuxs must suffer. And whenever she passed beneath the doorway they all affected to sneer ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... went, the tall thin man Explained the manners of Old Japan; If you pitied a thing, you pretended to sneer; Yet if you were glad you ran to buy A captive pigeon and let it fly; And, if you were sad, you took a spear To wound yourself, for fear your pain ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... busybody of Beorminster, I should say,' rejoined the man with a sneer. 'See here, my friend,' and he rapped Cargrim on the breast with a shapely hand, 'if you interfere in what does not concern you, there will be trouble. I saw Dr Pendle on private business, and as such it has nothing to do with you. Hold your tongue, you black crow, and keep away ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... whether it is common amongst servants or uncommon," spoke Lord Hartledon rather hotly, as though he would resent the covert sneer. "It is Anne Ashton's; and I love the name for her sake. But I think it a pretty name; and should, if she did not bear it; prettier than ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... He ought to help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun. It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there and sneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... This sneer of Saxon hypocrisy, of "Perfide Albion," is seldom explained to other people by men of our race, and we Americans and Englishmen have taken little pains to make it clear. We should not be surprised, therefore, if we are misunderstood. We have been ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... Northerners of the democratic class were pressing one of their frequent schemes for free land, Southerners and their sympathetic Northern henchmen were furthering a scheme that aimed at the purchase of Cuba. From the impatient sneer of a Southerner that the Northerners sought to give "land to the landless" and the retort that the Southerners seemed equally anxious to supply "niggers to the niggerless," it can be seen that American history is sometimes better summed up by angry politicians ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the truth, was easily seen. He was framed like a sky-scraping building, with the girders all plainly suggested. Not without a certain insolence of deliberation, he stared about the room before assuming his seat, and provoked himself to a sneer of opera-bouffe proportions. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... the other night after the ball you said you were prepared to carry out the suggestion, in order to save yourself," he remarked with a covert sneer. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... with a sneer. "Never mind what it is. What are you? Who are you? What the devil do you ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... trap in the center of a broad elephant trail near the drinking hole, the warriors turned back toward their village. On the morrow they would come again. Tarzan looked after them, upon his lips an unconscious sneer—the heritage of unguessed caste. He saw them file along the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verdure of leafy branch and looped and festooned creepers, brushing ebon shoulders against gorgeous blooms which inscrutable Nature has seen fit to lavish most profusely ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... more calmly than he had done hitherto, in spite of the sneer in the last sentence. He had broken down, and he felt that Paolo and Gianbattista were too much for him. He desired no repetition of the scene which had passed, and he thought the best thing to be done was ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Paul's, were brought up before them. Both were condemned as Protestants, and both were burnt at the stake, the bishop at Gloucester, the canon at Smithfield. They suffered heroically. The Catholics had affected to sneer at the faith of their rivals. There was a general conviction among them that Protestants would all flinch at the last; that they had no "doctrine that would abide the fire." Many more victims were offered. The enemies of the church were to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... this it is excessively easy to be unjust, to misjudge and to go wrong. The man who is ready with a priori opinions about all forms and means and ends of Socialism will smile if he be kindly and sneer if he be not. But most of these people are in earnest. If they represent nothing else, and however they disagree and quarrel, they do represent an enormous amount of real discontent. "I protest" is often in their mouths; as the president yells "Monsieur, vous n'avez pas la parole" they stand in the ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... chopped in with his cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily said. When Raleigh returned after his last miserable failure in May 1617, the monarch spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the seas. Of course, the King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no golden city. But the immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams were more real than reality; they existed in the future; ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... match in spite of the roaring wind, and by this wild light the brakie read the denomination of the bill with a gasp. He rolled up his face and was in time to catch the sneer on the face of Lefty before a gust snatched away the light of ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Tim! Would you throw another stone at him, boys? Would you hunt the weary old man through the streets like some wild beast? Would you taunt, and sneer, and shout in his ears, "Old crazy Tim"—"Old crazy Tim?" Oh, no—no! Pick a flower and give him, as Kitty used; take his hand—poor, harmless old man—and walk along with him; maybe he'll fancy that ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... a sneer, but it was there, all the same; she had had to ask it. And now her whole being hung trembling on the answer, though she was no less grimly resolved than before to have done with a man whom she could ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... melon-seeds, such as were then in fashion, and to have such quantities of things come out of it was in no wise short of magic. It was not for many, many years that I observed that Francis sat on this bag in his tub, as they sailed to the shore. In those later years, however, I also noticed a sneer of Ernest's which I had overlooked before. He says, "I do not see anything very wonderful in taking out of a bag the same thing you have put into it." But his wise father says that it is the presence of mind which in the midst of shipwreck put the right things into the bag which ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... suited perhaps to the serious consideration of ladies and dancing masters, but utterly unworthy of one thought from a strong-minded or intellectual man. But you tell him that without it the world will sneer at him. He then pities the world, and replies—"What do I care about the world's thoughtless sneer; have I not a priestly heart and ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... they told their colleagues that the relations of intimacy among the Roman senators surpassed all conception; that a single set of silver plate sufficed for the whole senate, and had reappeared in every house to which the envoys had been invited. The sneer is a significant token of the difference in the economic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... very successful tour de force, and represents an expenditure of brain power by no means justifiable on the part of a man who could have made so much better use of it, they are never to be spoken of disrespectfully. Those who sneer at their "Wardour Street" Old French are not usually the best qualified to do so; and it is not to be forgotten that Balzac was a real countryman of Rabelais and a legitimate inheritor of Gauloiserie. ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... this time in a tone which through its plain implication put a sudden flash into Virginia's eyes. As he looked toward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growth of beard and mustache failed to hide. Had he gone on to say, "A lady doctor, eh?" and laughed, the case would not ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... nothing of the sort," I said hotly. "I do hate you, Vere, when you sneer like that, and make out that everyone is worldly and horrible, like yourself! Will Dudley is a good man, and he wants a good woman for his wife—not a doll. He'd rather have Rachel's little finger than a dozen empty-headed fashion-plates like the girls you admire. But you ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... my marriage, I too was for leaving them alone. I developed a dread and dislike for romance, for emotional music, for the human figure in art—turning my heart to landscape. I wanted to sneer at lovers and their ecstasies, and was uncomfortable until I found the effective sneer. In matters of private morals these were my most uncharitable years. I didn't want to think of these things any more for ever. I hated the people whose talk or practice ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... by me bound, Came one who wore my lost career With star on star pinned round, And stood him by my bones to stare. With pity's ancient sneer He mocked my bleachen nudity; Then did she turn, then did she care, And pausing where I might not see She let the winds blow back her hair And ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... out a living that way,' said Wylder, with a sort of sneer or laugh. I thought he seemed put out, and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set remarkably close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing line between ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... know who that is," said Burrows, with a sneer. "Well, I can tell you what the rest of the men in that place think, and it's this: that the man in that village who doesn't drink is a mean skunk, who's betraying his own flesh and blood to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... every mood, every feeling; all pathos, joy, sorrow—the good and the evil too—all there is in life, all that one has lived." (This recalls a recently published remark of J. S. Van Cleve: "The piano can sing, march, dance, sparkle, thunder, weep, sneer, question, assert, complain, whisper, hint; in one word it is the most versatile ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... that it was no other than his grandfather who was furnishing food for merriment to half the school, and that Jim was aware of it and held this rod over him. The knowledge that this was so was not calculated to soften Theodore's animosity toward Jim. Disposed as he was to raise a laugh or a sneer at the expense of another, he could not endure them himself; and to feel that he was thus in the power of the boy whom he hated, was intolerable to him. From this time, however, it gave him a wholesome awe of Jim, and proved a check upon him; and "Jim Grant Garfield Rutherford ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Don't sneer at Knowles. Your own clear, tolerant brain, that reflects all men and creeds alike, like colorless water, drawing the truth from all, is very different, doubtless, from this narrow, solitary soul, who thought the world waited for him to fight down his one evil before it went on its slow way. An intolerant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... wisdom, inscribed on decorated scrolls or embroidered on rich crapes and brocades. They carve them on door-posts and pillars, and emblazon them on the walls and ceilings in gilt letters. The following are a few specimens of this sort of literature: As a sneer at the use of unnecessary force to crush a contemptible enemy, they say: "He rides a fierce dog to catch a lame rabbit." Similar to this is another, "To use a battle-ax to cut off a hen's head." They say of wicked associates: "To cherish ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... dignified sense of true greatness rendered him superior. Some instances of rashness have been noted by Walpole with unsparing vituperation;[1] and some self-complacent or boasting sallies, have been pointed at by Croker with a sarcastic sneer. But, admitting that these were far from being venial faults, yet it would be very uncharitable now to recall them from the forgetfulness and forgiveness in which they have long been passed over; especially as they were fully redeemed ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... any scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled in matters of science. A writer in the Open Court upon the possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined "strictly to legitimate deductions from present knowledge," exhibits an amount and variety of ignorant credulity which ought not ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... those who sneer at the communities of the West, and who classify all things rural as crude and unworthy, entitled only to tolerance, if they be spared contempt. They are but provincials themselves who are guilty of such attitude, and they proclaim only an ignorance which itself is not entitled to the dignity ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... was in ill favour at headquarters; and though most of the girls were sorry for her, with a certain number her changed fortunes undoubtedly lessened her popularity. Maude Helm never lost an opportunity of a sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... were set in an ugly sneer—but he met the steady fire of Arnold's eyes, and the words he would have spoken ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Spare her the cruel pain Of finding her whole life a prey for daws; Of hearing with quickened sense and burning brain The world's sneer-tinged applause. ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... remark with a sneer, for of all pitiable objects, he regarded an unmanly man as the most despicable. He consented, however, to sit down on a grassy bank and watch the proceedings of this Indian dandy, who had just seated himself ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... in vain to page 312 of "Household Words" for the sneer to which you call my attention. Nor have I, I assure you, the least idea where else it is ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... against the rail, buried deep in thought, Billy Byrne passed close behind her. At sight of her a sneer curled his lip. How he hated her! Not that she ever had done aught to harm him, but rather because she represented to him in concrete form all that he had learned to hate and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the snow drove outside and there was the leap of flame on the hearth! Sydney was a scholar and a gentleman. He had led a gentle and sequestered life. Here in his native village there were none to gibe and sneer. The contrast of the traveling show would be as great for him as it had been for Margaret, but he was the male of the species, and she the female. Chivalry, racial, harking back to the beginning of nobility in the human, to its earliest ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... they are," said Cranfield, with a sneer. "But there is already an obvious difference observable here in the people, which becomes more marked as you proceed toward Castile. The Spaniard is taller and yet leaner than the Portuguese. He has a ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... "always speak of it with a sneer—as though it were something disgraceful. But you can't blame us, can you? After all, who WOULD stay on a sinking ship, if he could get ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... authorities. And the offenders, while they refrain from open acts, do nevertheless conduct their petty persecutions in such a manner that one can shape no charge against them, and consequently finds himself helpless. One must endure these little tortures—the sneer, the shrug of the shoulder, the epithet, the effort to avoid, to disdain, to ignore— and thus suffer; for any of them are—to me at least— far more hard to bear than a blow. A blow I may resist or ignore. In either case I soon forget it. But a sneer, a shrug of the shoulder, mean more. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... very marked differences between the two commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one another more closely, in blood and manners, than either does any other American State; and both have too just cause for pride to make it necessary for either to sneer at the other, or indeed at any State of our mighty Federal Union. In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas the original pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession of Tennessee as long as they lived,—Jackson, at Sevier's death, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... truth the opening picture was effective. Sixteen black-robed, long-bearded Netherland envoys stalking away, discomfited and indignant upon one side; Catharine de' Medici on the other, regarding them with a sneer, painfully contorted into a pathetic smile; Henry the King, robed in a sack of penitence, trembling and hesitating, leaning on the arm of Epergnon, but quailing even under the protection of that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... latter stood but little chance in the competition, but were almost entirely deserted. To this result the comfortable cabins of the coasters, designed for passengers (spacious and satisfactory for those times, however the refined effeminacy of the present generation might sneer at them), and the good fare they furnished, not a little contributed. The Calypso was one of the finest of the line of packets to which she belonged, and provided with every convenience that could be desired. She was a sloop of some ninety ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... very generous of you." And she did not know whether that were praise or a sneer. That had been a week before. And all that week he had passed in an increasing agony at the thought that those mountains, that sea, and those sunlit plains would be between him and Maisie Maidan. That thought shook him in the burning nights: the sweat poured from him and ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... in the school that the young Christian must stand alone. He returns from the Lord's Table to his week-day duties, full of noble impulses, but finds himself the only Christian in the place where his duty leads him. His companions are ready to sneer, and they point the finger of scorn at him, with irritating epithets. Or they even persecute him in petty ways. At least they are not Christ's friends, and he, as follower of the Master, finds no sympathy among them in his new life. He must ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... plain sentence, smiled, and said with a sneer, 'The dervish is well paid for his maxim.' But the king was so well satisfied with the answer, that he ordered it to be written in golden letters in several places of his palace, and engraved on all ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... bonnie blossoms a', Ye royal lasses dainty, Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, An' gie you lads a-plenty: But sneer na British Boys awa', For kings are unco scant ay; An' German gentles are but sma', They're better just than want ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... you save the other granaries," he urged, adding, with a sneer, "and forget not to bless ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Rosenheim, with an oily sneer, "I owe the money all right, but I don't own a thing in the world. Everything in this room belongs to my wife. The amount of money I owe is really something shocking. Even what is in the safe"—he nodded to a large affair on the other side of the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... Mike," returned Joel, with a sneer—"It's a month, or more, sin' you seen it, and the priest will think you have forgotten him, and ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... sinners." Spoke and went, while her faint lips fashioned unuttered entreaties,— Went, and came again in a year at the time of the meeting, Haggard and wan of face, and wasted with passion and sorrow. Dead in his eyes was the careless smile of old, and its phantom Haunted his lips in a sneer of restless, incredulous mocking. Day by day he came to the outer skirts of the circle, Dwelling on her, where she knelt by the white-haired exhorter, her father, With his hollow looks, and never moved from ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... scarlet standard high, Beneath its shade we'll live and die; Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer We'll keep ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... destiny awaits them all. The gods created with the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and, like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next. The religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than others have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... much in earnest to be conscious of them, or, indeed, to care for anything but what she was saying. There was a moment's pause when she came to the end of her speech, and then the thread of talk was quietly taken up again where Sybil's incipient sneer had ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... the board displayed beef and pudding, the statutory dainties of Old England. A small cupboard of plate, very choicely and beautifully wrought, did not escape the compliments of some of the company, and an oblique sneer from Sir Mungo, as intimating the owner's excellence in his ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... overhead. The 200 men eating were quite noiseless—and as they rose, one by one washed their hands and went, the crowd melted away like a vision. But before all were gone, came the Bulook, or sub-magistrate—a Turkish Jack in office with the manners of a Zouave turned parish beadle. He began to sneer at the melocheea of the fellaheen and swore he could not eat it if he sat before it 1,000 years. Hereupon, Omar began to 'chaff' him. 'Eat, oh Bulook Pasha and if it swells thy belly the Lady will give thee of the physick of the English to clean thy stomach upwards and downwards of all thou hast ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... betraying you suffer at all. Lord Ormont has eyes of an eagle for a speck above the surface. All the more because the aunt is a gabbling idiot does he—I say it seeing it—fire up to defend her from the sneer of the lip or half a sign of it! No, you would be an your guard; I can trust you. Of course you'd behave like the gentleman you are where any kind of woman's concerned; but you mustn't let a shadow be seen, think what you may. The woman—lady—calling herself Lady Ormont,—poor woman, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hear any more dying requests," she said to the old negro, with a sneer. "Your prisoner will survive. Only give him a little coffee, if there is any. Here is some: I will ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... shoulders and sneered. It was Joseph's habit to sneer when he spoke, and his words were wont to ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... man of sixty. His face was emaciated and seamed, and his dark eyes shone brightly. His companion was a woman of twenty-four, obviously of the Jewish type, as was the old man; what good looks she possessed were marred by the sneer on ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... From me the circulation of warm, musical blood emanates. I stand at the back of the orchestra as high as the conductor. Ah! he knows it; he looks at me first. How about the Fifth Symphony? You now sneer no longer. It is I who outline with mystic taps the framework of the story. Wagner, great, glorious, glowing Wagner!—I kiss his memory—he appreciated the tympani and their noble ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... it, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke, and the tall thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up—the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her guest in uncomprehending wonder. Could this be the sneering, insolent Miss Wicks who was speaking? There was no sign of a sneer on her face now. She spoke with a simple directness that could not fail to impress the most sceptical. "I have been hearing about you from a source entirely outside Overton," she continued, "from a Smith College senior who lives in Oakdale. She visited a friend of mine during the holidays. I ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... laugh that had a little sneer in it, "put them to the test! I will not object to that, if you will only keep your notions to yourself. Now, Christian, give me your word for silence, and we will ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the name of stockade. To go out of life into a dungeon like that, and at noon of a day in June. That Jim made no sign was accredited to his hardness of heart. That, having registered and heard an official sneer at the name, Jim Royal, and having passed through the hands of the barber, and being duly entered at last among the State's hired help, and dropped down on his ill-smelling bunk, a rat came and gnawed his ear, and the vermin crawled unmolested over him, and still he gave ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... listened to in the settlement of the affairs of the nation. It might be very well for Chaucer to close the description of his "Merchant" with what looks very much like a fashionable writer's half sneer:— ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... comrades. My prognostication had been a correct one. A few of them had known that we were going; some had bade us good-bye. They rested on their picks now and stared at us, lifting their eyebrows, with a knowing smile for one another and a half-sneer for us. My companion had already plumbed the depths of fear and so was now lost to all shame. Myself, I found it very hard. Soldiers have, outwardly at least, but little tenderness, except perhaps in bad times, and they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... disdain which the painted old duchesse of the Restoration cast upon the youthful belles of the Chausse d'Antin, or the handsome widows of Napoleon's army of heroes, defies description. Although often responded to by a sarcastic sneer at the antediluvian charms of the emigree, yet the look of contempt and disgust often sank deep into the victim's heart, leaving there germs which showed themselves fifteen years later in the revolution of 1830. In those days, this privileged class was ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... went to Pellinaeum. Here the Athamanians surrendered first, and afterwards Philip of Megalopolis. King Philip, happening to meet the latter as he was coming out from the town, ordered his attendants, in derision, to salute him with the title of king; and he himself, coming up to him, with a sneer, highly unbecoming his own exalted station, addressed him as Brother. Having been brought before the consul he was ordered to be kept in confinement, and soon after was sent to Rome in chains. All the rest ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... never stilled, The skeptic's sneer, the bigot's hate, the din Of clashing texts, the webs of creed men spin Round simple truth, the children grown who build With gilded cards their new Jerusalem, Busy, with sacerdotal tailorings And tinsel gauds, bedizening holy things, I turn, with glad and grateful heart, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... it was there, but indistinguishable among the masses like a celebrity in a crowd; on the other hand, big A and little e were so dirt cheap, that these two scholars passed them with something very like a sneer. ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... awful! The two ladies were not on speaking terms, and I had to put on a fur overcoat to keep from freezing to death in the atmosphere that had arisen between them. It was six inches below zero—and the way those two would sniff and sneer at each ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... at themselves. It is self-love that makes people easily offended and easily wounded; and the more self-love they have, the easier they are hurt and the quicker their resentment is aroused. Self-love begets vanity; it quivers in keenest anguish at a sneer or a scornful smile; it is distressed by even a fancied slight. Self-love throws the nerves of sensation all out to the surface and makes them hyper-sensitive, and so the person feels everything keenly. He is constantly smarting under a ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... take first. They stood about the tops of basement stairs, and walked two and two along the dirty pavement, with their little hands tucked into their sleeves across their breasts, aloof in immaculate cleanliness from the filth around them, and scrutinizing the scene with that cynical sneer of faint surprise to which all aspects of our civilization seem to move their superiority. Their numbers gave character to the street, and rendered not them, but what was foreign to them, strange there; so that March had a sense of missionary ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... has gone to Rockwood, I doubt if you see him before mid-afternoon." The sneer is plainly evident here, and Grandon feels ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... perhaps the addition of an open eulogy of her handsome brother, more or less invidious in comparison to the officers. "I suppose it's an active out-of-door life gives him that perfect grace and freedom," said Emily, with a slight sneer at the smartly belted Calvert. "Yes; and he don't drink or keep late hours," responded Cicely significantly. "His sister says they always retire before ten o'clock, and that although his father left him some valuable whiskey ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... was thankful to say, and his thankfulness on the point was proof to him of how years and circumstances had estranged him from Evelyn; for, though he would not obstruct or forbid, it would be impossible for him to keep a sneer out of his face when she told him she had been to the sacraments or refrained from meat on Friday. "What a strange notion it is to think that a priest can help one," he said, thinking then that his presence would be a sneer, however he might control his ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... was to celebrate the astounding fact of Pio Nono having exceeded the days of Saint Peter. We, who had come from Rome, where thirty upstart papers were denouncing time-honored usages and formulas, where many of the people had begun to sneer at the Papacy and to take gloomy views of the Church, were not prepared for the religious fervor and devotion to the Papal See which greeted us in the Tyrol, especially at Bruneck, where from time immemorial a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... began to flag, Paul was reminded of his errand by Dawkins saying, in a tone which was half a sneer, "Have you any business with Mr. Danforth this morning, or did you merely come in ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... worse. Forsaken by th'inspiring Nine, I waited at Apollo's shrine: I told him what the world would say, If Stella were unsung to-day: How I should hide my head for shame, When both the Jacks and Robin came; How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer, How Sheridan the rogue would sneer, And swear it does not always follow, That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But, finding me so dull and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... often His Majesty's officers shave so close," the pilot answered, with a sort of sneer I did not like. "They commonly send in hands with a ship, when they find it necessary to take ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament for eighteen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to sneer. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as ne did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the flighty conquest and ephemeral possession of France? The obvious reason is, that however the governments might be disliked, neither the Austrian soldier, nor the Prussian, nor even the Russian, made himself abhorred, employed his study in vexing the feelings of the people, had a perpetual sneer on his visage, or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that coxcomb superiority to all other human beings, that pert supremacy, that grotesque and yet irritating caricature, which makes the Moi, je suis Francais, a demand for universal adoration, the concentrated essence of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... left for a government that had spent millions in war preparation but to declare war. The affair had that surface appearance, which was noisily proclaimed by Germany to the world. Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... a prayer meetin'?" inquired Waxy Collins, with a sneer. "Biff him on the boko, an' we'll finish ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... undeserved praise. Transcribing his own words, as well as I could recollect them, at the top of my letter, I added, underneath, "Is this the way you speak of your friends?" Not long after, too, when visiting him at Venice, I remember making the same harmless little sneer a subject of raillery with him; but he declared boldly that he had no recollection of having ever written such words, and that, if they existed, "he must have been half asleep ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a dark stairway they came to a door, which opened under the garret stairs, and Mary was startled by a voice which seemed to be almost over her head, and which, between a sneer and a hiss, called out, "See where the immaculate Miss ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... to have me tell you," he said, with a sneer. "I don't think Mr. Reynolds is very prudent to employ a ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... his desire to make every return in his power, if the "fortune of war" should give him an opportunity: but when he claimed the performance of his promise, his reply was, "Monsieur de Connolly, I very sorry for your misfortune; but I wish you good morning!" and left him with a sarcastic sneer. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... England particularly so. But the war at large had not gone severely enough against the French to force them to abandon a stronghold on which they had set their hearts, and for which they were ready to give up any fair equivalent. The contemporary colonial sneer, often repeated since, and quite commonly believed, was that 'the important island of Cape Breton was exchanged for a petty factory in India.' This was not the case. Every power was weary of the ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... sir, about the great unknown beyond thirty," he said. "You are in a good way to have your curiosity satisfied." And then I could not mistake the slight sneer that curved his upper lip. There must have been a trace of disrespect in his tone or manner which escaped me, for Alvarez turned upon him ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Besides those who sneer at dream study, because they have never looked into the subject, there are those who do not dare to face the facts revealed by dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth about ourselves and only very free minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception is a plant which withers ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... liberty we are positively unable to comprehend anything, because we are not in possession of it. Whenever we hear it spoken of, we draw the words down to our own meaning, or briefly dismiss it with a sneer, as nonsense. With the knowledge of liberty, the sense of another world is also lost to us. Everything of this sort floats by like words which are not addressed to us; like an ash-gray shadow without color or meaning, which we cannot by any end ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... home, to find his sister dead—slain by the ill-treatment of her stepfather, who, it was even said, had hastened her death with poison. Otto, overcome with grief, confronted her murderer, heaped abuse on his head, and demanded his share of the property. The only answer was a sneer, and the youth, maddened with grief and indignation, drew his sword and plunged it in his tormentor's heart. A moment later he saw the probable consequences of his hasty action, concealed himself in the woods, and thenceforth became a fugitive, renounced even by his own uncle, and obliged to remain ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Queen and Buckingham. By the end of that time I knew it fairly well, so I left it for a while and stealthily entered the old oak chamber—Act III, Scene I—by the secret door behind the arras. After bringing down the curtain with two ugly looks, four steps, and a sneer, I sat down on the fallen beech-tree, lighted a cigarette, and wondered why I had rejected the post of call-boy. Then I started ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... Chisholm was almost too hot to sneer. "But can't you realize how your action reflects ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt, Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt; Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance glanced in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... this volume will be found a sketch of the French revolution of 1789, as connected with persecution. It has long been the practice of infidels to sneer at christianity, because some of its nominal followers have exhibited a persecuting spirit. And although they knew that christianity condemns persecution in the most pointed manner, yet they have never had the generosity to discriminate between the system, and the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... enduring the torments of hell in Venetian dungeons ever suffered more from the torture of the boot than Birotteau did, standing there in his ordinary clothes. He felt a sneer in every word. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... betraying my informant, even how contemptible. He was inexorable. This time I should not escape, nor my accomplice either. Out with it, and at once. With a show of regretful resignation I gave in. For once I would break my rule and "tell on" my informant. I thought I detected a slight sneer on the Doctor's lip as he said that was well; for he was a gentleman, every inch of him, and I know he hated me for telling. The other ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... as he was dragged away with the rest of the gang. Through his glittering, bloodshot eyes he saw the cool, derisive sneer on her red lips. He had failed, however, to note the keen, appraising look with which she searched the faces of his baffled, glowering companions. In that long, tense look she had seen dawning comprehension change to conviction; she had read his doom, so she ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... friends, attempt to turn aside this appeal which I now make to you with a laugh or a sneer. This is the Lord's word, and the word of the Lord is not to be put aside with a sneer. Do not scoff at this as a water of salvation. You certainly will not scoff at the word of ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... assent with evil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. Pope, Prologue ...
— 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.
... millions of Americans who to-day are toiling on the farms and in the workshops of the country and who demand from the laws they obey nothing but equity and justice. It was easier, and more pleasant to those who heard him, to wrong these men with a sneer than to answer them with an argument. He might possibly have done well to relinquish this task to one who sat near him, his ex-Secretary of the Treasury, who had himself, in 1878, discovered something that he thought a crime and had thus denounced it: ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... desire philosophy, prepare yourself from the beginning to be ridiculed, to expect that many will sneer at you, and say, He has all at once returned to us as a philosopher; and whence does he get this supercilious look for us? Do you not show a supercilious look; but hold on to the things which seem to you best as one appointed by God to this station. And remember that if you abide in the ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... remembering that the sceptic is sometimes vouchsafed revelations to which the most devout believer may not aspire. It is, for instance, always the young man who scoffs at ghosts that the family spectre chooses as his audience. But it required more than a mere sneer or an empty gibe to pump information out of Bradshaw. He ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... is not bowing and smiling, a sneer is on his face. And when he speaks to the horse his voice is harsh and mean. He holds an unlighted cigar in his mouth as a terrier might hold a loathed rat; working the muscles of his lips at times viciously but saying nothing. The soft, black hat of his youthful days is replaced by ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... be avenged with hideous hate By Iroquois, swift to annihilate His vile detested captors, that now flaunt Their war clubs in his face with sneer and taunt, Not thinking, soon that reeking, red, and raw, Their scalps will deck ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... for a moment. Bland's thin lips twisted into a sneer. "We'll see," he said. "We'll settle all that in the morning." His tone took on a more friendly aspect "I'm going to pick out a downy couch in one of these rooms," he said, "and lay me down to sleep. Say, I could greet a blanket like a ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... have potentates learned to beg, and forgotten to command and to exact?" he answered with half a sneer. "See, she still extends her hand to every ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... within the mill. And for all his being there voluntarily, one might have seen by the pallor of his face that he was half afraid. There, in the shadow, just beyond the rim of his own lantern light, was the desk where Jim Ellison used to sit—and sneer at him. Did Colonel Witham recall that? Perhaps. He lifted the lantern and let the light fall on the spot. The place was ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... M. Clemenceau moved every lever to deliver his country for all time from the danger of further invasions. And, being a realist, he counted only on military safeguards. At the League of Nations he was wont to sneer until it dawned upon him that it might be forged into an effective weapon of national defense. And then he included it in the litany of abstract phrases about right, justice, and the self-determination ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... with the satirical method, shot a suspicious glance upon the stranger, but not a line was there, upon that smooth fair face, to which a sneer could for a moment have clung. Clearly he was as simple ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... dress, but flushed and overheated to an unbecoming degree. She rowed up smartly, shipped her oars in true nautical fashion, sprang from the boat, and held out her hand to her companion with a hardly repressed sneer: "Pray allow me to assist you, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... too, Stealth's slow; The sun has got as far As the third sycamore. Screams chanticleer, "Who's there?" And echoes, trains away, Sneer — "Where?" While the old couple, just astir, Fancy the sunrise ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... stooped down, turning over the various objects about the tap in my search, Sebastian's voice came to me. He had paused outside the door, and was speaking in his calm, clear tone, very low, to Hilda. "So NOW we understand one another, Nurse Wade," he said, with a significant sneer. "I know whom ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... in books, I have seen written on battlefields, with steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where,—and may the gods bear witness,—where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble, nor will my humble birth make me base. I profess no indifference ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... though?" he answered with a sneer, pushing his weather-beaten face forward until it was within a ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have judged you well," answered Soa with a sneer; "also you are wise: little work for little wage. Listen now, this is ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... his red colour, his football . . . and then he ruined that fellow Thompson. That was a poor game, but no one seemed to think anything of it . . . and indeed he and I seemed to be very good friends. He used to sneer at me behind my back, I know, but I didn't mind that. Any one's at liberty to sneer if they like. But he was really afraid of me . ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... man has ever been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic head in unsympathetic silence, behind the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sermons, set forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such justness of thought, and such energy of language, that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen and the fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer; men whose address, politeness, and knowledge of the world qualified them to manage the consciences of the wealthy and noble; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he had learned to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Prince, that on joining us he forgot to be sarcastic. Not a question, not a sneer as to our progress, not an apology for being late. He flung himself into a chair at the table, ordered the waiters about with truculence, and, having thus relieved his mind, began complaining ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... answered the King, "he hath a villainous sneer, my lord, which seems to say as much; but, my Lord Duke, we have pardoned him, and so has ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... "This, " said a naval officer of high reputation, "is the blessed effect of your game laws; your sailors never fire at a mark; whilst our free tars, from their practice in pursuit of game, can any of them split a hair." But the favourite, the constant, the universal sneer that met me every where, was on our old-fashioned attachments to things obsolete. Had they a little wit among them, I am certain they would have given us the cognomen of "My Grandmother, the British," for that is the tone they take, and it is thus they reconcile themselves ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... yet without once realizing the counterfeit. The Western country boy, whatever his Cavalier stock, had a Puritanical backbone in common with the whole American race. And without being aware of it, his personal, private bearing toward the light and airy French girl was a sneer, a tolerant, good-natured and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... prevailing Revue, one of them Celeste La Rue, an aggressive blonde with thin lips and a metallic voice, whose name was synonymous with midnight escapades and flowing wine. His contemptuous smile at the sight of them deepened into a disgusted sneer when he saw that one of the men was John Cavendish, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish |
