"Rant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were nothing to this! Drink clean cap-out, like Sir Hildebrand; begin the blessed morning with brandy-taps like Squire Percy; rin wud among the lasses like Squire John; gamble like Richard; win souls to the Pope and the deevil, like Rashleigh; rive, rant, break the Sabbath, and do the Pope's bidding, like them a' put thegither—but merciful Providence! tak' care o' your young bluid, and gang na near ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... if the whole satire had been The oppression of virtue, not wages of sin: He began, as he bragg'd, with a rant and a roar; He bragg'd how he bounced, and he swore how he swore.[5] Knock ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... have curst the plant; Kings bade its use to cease; But all the Pontiff's rant And Royal Jamie's cant Ne'er made ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. Small 8vo, IS. (Smith). This is a satirical production calculated to throw ridicule on the bold assertions of some parliamentary declaimers. If rant may be best foiled at its own weapons, the author's design is not ill-founded; for the marvellous has never been carried to a more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had probably read the work through from one paper cover to the other. It was in fact too ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... Clutton Brock feels this surely enough, because he possesses, besides intellect, that other and rarer critical faculty, that spiritual tuning-fork by which a fine critic distinguishes between emotion and sentimentality, between rhetoric and rant. It is because Mr. Brock possesses this peculiar sensibility—part aesthetic, part ethical, and part intellectual, it seems—that he can be trusted to detect and dislike even the subtlest manifestations of that ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Godolphin," she protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity and reality in others. "Is that the way you would do it, is that the way you would say it, if it were you?" he stopped one of the men in a bit of rant. ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... be frank about it. The attitude of the public toward the theatre has changed. To-day we would not tolerate the heavy melodramas which enchained our parents and grandparents. The age of rant and fustian has passed away, and Edwin Forrest could never gain a second fortune from such a combination of these qualities as "Metamora." We are more sophisticated; we refuse to be thrilled by Ingomar, no matter ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... pas oublier que, la langue franaise diffrant compltement par ses racines de l'anglo-saxon, il ne m'a pas t permis d'luder les difficults de l'original comme on a pu le faire parfois en anglais ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... calmness of his thought shows itself in logic which, while it may invite confidence, does not compel admiration. When he is moved, however, the freedom of his utterances from exaggeration and from that tendency to rant which mars many orations makes such periods as those with which he closes his speech on the Electoral Bill models of expression for all who wish to realize the highest possibilities ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... "Rant doesn't win elections, Brydges! It has to be fought out! Sooner we accept the challenge and put 'em to bed for good, the better! Money ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... reproaches he had uttered against me in his confidential letters to Cunningham. And thus having 'no doubt' of his conjecture, he considers it as proven, goes on to suppose the contents of the letter (19, 22), makes it place Mr. Adams at my feet suing for pardon, and continues to rant upon it, as an undoubted fact. Now I do most solemnly declare, that so far from being a letter of apology, as Mr. Pickering so undoubtingly assumes, there was not a word or allusion ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... George Gordon was suffered to rant unimpeded. At last Colonel Holroyd, seizing hold of him, threatened to move for his immediate committal to Newgate, while Colonel Gordon, with a blunter and yet more efficacious eloquence, declared that if any ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to this deescendant of Warsaw's last champion, personal. Which I'm a heap like Enright in sech reespects, an' shore tol'rant. I finds out long ago that the reason we-all goes fault-findin' about people, mostly is because we don't onderstand concernin' them folk's surroundin's. Half the things we arches our necks over, an' for which mebby we feels like killin' 'em ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... it was almost with a sense of shame that he looked back upon his mad wanderings from street to street, his fierce emotional agony. The very sincerity of his sufferings made them seem unreal to him now. He wondered how he could have been so foolish as to rant and rave about the inevitable. The only question that seemed to trouble him was, whom to make away with; for he was not blind to the fact that murder, like the religions of the Pagan world, requires a victim as well as a priest. Not ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,—went on until there entered Darden's Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... man hears evil words, he be able to overlook the wickedness and injustice. Seek thus after peace, so shall you find it; when your enemy has wasted his breath and done all that he can, if you hear him, but rail and rant not back, he must subdue himself by his own violence. For thus Christ also on the cross subdued his enemies, not by the sword or by violence. Therefore is it a saying, which should be written with gold, where it says, "Striking back ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... on classic French prose. It is simple, direct, manly, genuine. It is fresh and racy of the writer. It is flexible to every turn, it is sensitive to every rise or fall, of the thought. It is a steadfast rebuke to rant and fustian. It quietly laughs to scorn the folly of that style which writhes in an agony of expression, with neither thought nor feeling present to be expressed. Montaigne's "Essays" have been a great and a beneficent ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... ign'rant, young feller, wit' all yer buke l'arnin'. 'Tis gold I mean—gold thot ye can show t' thim thot gits cur'us. But if it was me, I'd sink me shaf' in a likelier spot than what this spot is—I wuddn't be bringing up durt like this, an' be callin' the hole a mine! I kin show ye places where ye kin git ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... groun'—dey kill an' eat one anoder, an' dey'm allers at war wid one anoder. But de white man he gwoe dar, an' he buy 'em fur twenty pieces ob silver—dat's' zactly de price—twenty silver dollars—dey pay dat fur 'em up ter dis day—dem pore, ign'rant folks won't take nuffin' but silver. Well, de white man buy 'em, and he fotch 'em to dis country, which am like de lan' ob Egypt, full ob schools, ob churches, ob larnin,' an' ob all manner ob good tings. Shore, we hab to wuck hard har; some ob us hab to bear heaby burdens, an' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and out of place." I said this, with the conviction that there was a purpose in everything that Shakspeare wrote; and being still of this persuasion, allow me to protest against the terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant," which your correspondent applies to the passage in question. The poet does not present common things as they appear to all men. Shakspeare's art was equally great, {120} whether he spoke with the tongues of madmen or philosophers. H. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... too, that in this "Second Part" the reviser begins to show himself as something more than the sweet lyric poet. He transposes scenes in order to intensify the interest, and where enemies meet, like Clifford and York, instead of making them rant in mere blind hatred, he allows them to show a generous admiration of each other's qualities; in sum, we find here the germs of that dramatic talent which was so soon to bear such marvellous fruit. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... contemporaries:—and yet what contemporaries!—giant minds indeed! Think of Jonson's erudition, and the force of learned authority in that age; and yet in no genuine part of Shakspeare's works is there to be found such an absurd rant and ventriloquism as this, and too, too many other passages ferruminated by Jonson from Seneca's tragedies and the writings of the later Romans. I call it ventriloquism, because Sejanus is a puppet, out of which the poet makes his own voice appear ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... cheer but not inebriate." It came near it in our case, however. It was our first matinee at the theatre, and, oh, the joy we took of it! Years afterward did we children in our playroom, clad in "the trailing garments of the night" in lieu of togas, sink our identity for the moment and out-rant Damon and his Pythias. Thrice happy days so ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... temper completely, and waving his hand to add impression to his speech, he said, with a calmness which aggravated Sir Henry's wrath, "Nay, good friend, I prithee be still, and brawl not—it becomes not grey hairs and feeble arms to rail and rant like drunkards. Put me not to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, but listen to the voice of reason. See'st thou not that the Lord hath decided this great controversy in favour of us and ours, against thee and thine? Wherefore, render up thy stewardship peacefully, and deliver up ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, For Baal ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... in a body's pow'r To keep at times frae being sour, To see how things are shar'd,— How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And kenna how ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... heathens, but also because they were kings; for when Christian princes and lords appear on the stage, the satire is often continued. Thus Lancelot of the Lake appears unexpectedly at the Court of king Herod, and after much rant the lover of queen Guinevere draws his invincible sword and massacres ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... employed. His influence upon modern opera has been extensive. He was the real founder of the school of melodramatic opera which is now so popular. Violent contrasts with him do duty for the subtle characterisation of the older masters. His heroes rant and storm, and his heroines shriek and rave, but of real feeling, and even of real expression, there ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Simon swung back to his desk, a grim smile on his lips. "It always boils down to the same thing—they don't know what they're going to do about it. Let 'em rant all they please, in the end what ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers,—[Bewpers is the old name for bunting.]—which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... for the first time what a woman's voice could be. The girl's soul was filled and shaken with passion. She did not cry aloud nor rant, but every accent thrilled through him from head to foot. And it seemed to him that she needed no words—that, had she been speaking in an unknown tongue, the very intonation, the mere sound, the vibration of her voice, would have told him of her wounded heart, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Uncle Rufus, kindly. "Dar's a do' shet 'twixt dat leetle fice an' dem crazy cats. Dar's sho' nuff wot de papahs calls er armerstice 'twixt de berlig'rant pahties—ya-as'm! De berry wust has happen' already, so yo' folkses might's well ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... not; you know how they rant at the Base when we have to protect ourselves," I replied, not without a certain amount of bitterness. "They'd like to pacify the Universe with never a sweep of a disintegrator beam. 'Of course, Commander Hanson' some silver-sleeve will say, 'if it was absolutely vital to protect your ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... said Rupert, in a slightly wearied tone, "if you are going to rant and rave, I'll go out. My room is quite at your disposal, but I am not. I've got a headache. Why don't you go to a theatre or a music hall, and work off your superfluous energy there ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... doctrine: La carriere ouverte aux talens; 'The Tools to him that can handle them.' . . . Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant, yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom notwithstanding ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... rant too much, even in thy service; and though we do set up for prophets and the like, let us not forget occasionally to laugh at ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers—that was yet true ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... 'em up thar, an' that's a fack." He shook his head gloomily. "Folks on Misty is hongrier, and drunker, and meaner than ever—most as mean as they be in the cities. They're pison ign'rant. That's the trouble. The Word of God comes to 'em, but they're too ign'rant to onderstand. 'Tain't wrote in no language they knows, and ef it was, they couldn't read it. Take this here, now—'Love ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... from. En'sign (pro. en'sin). an officer of low rank. Fire'lock, an old-style musket, with flintlock. 7. Bran'-dish-ing, waving, flourishing. 13. Self'-pos-sessed, undisturbed, calm in mind, manner, etc. 14. Pac'i-fied, calmed, quieted. War'rant, a writ authorizing an officer to ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... once and for all," cried Mr. Cumberland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily on the table, "I tell you, once and for all, my man, that I will not have you turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impress me. The most religious people are not those who talk about it. (Applause.) You answer the questions ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... she dropped her rake on the hay, searched for a long, nail-like thorn, and thrust it through, for the good-looking, careless hussy never had any provision of pins about her. Then, taking a June rose which pricked her finger, she put the flower by the "rant", or tear, and went to join the rest of the hay-makers. The blood welled up out of the scratch in the finger more freely than would have been supposed from so small a place. She put her lips to it to suck it away, as folk do in all quarters of the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... leagues from Ushant to the Scilly Isles. Also there is a tender love-lyric called "O Tarry Trousers" which is even more English than the heart of The Midsummer Night's Dream. But our greatest bards and sages have often shown a tendency to rant it and roar it like true British sailors; to employ an extravagance that is half conscious and therefore half humorous. Compare, for example, the rants of Shakespeare with the rants of Victor Hugo. A piece of Hugo's eloquence ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... thy resistless light, Disperse those phantoms from my sight, Those mimic shades of thee: The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant, The visionary bigot's rant, The monk's philosophy. ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... mourning, sitting in a mourning chair, and attended by a mourning maid. The play was Congreve's tragedy of "The Mourning Bride," one of the best of a class of sentimental and stiltified dramatic productions which the public of our great-grandfathers meekly accepted,—quaffing the frothy small-beer of rant and affectation, in lieu of deep draughts of Nature and passion, the rich, red wine of human life, poured generously forth by the dramatists of a better era. The excesses of fashion then prevailing, hoops, high heels, powder, and patches, were not more essentially ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Holiness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are rotten with dirty pride, and dirty greed, and mean lying, and petty ambitions, and sickly sentimentality. Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at Heaven's gates and say I came from ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... He hopes to turn the mob from despising him by the grandeur of their public entertainments. He enlarges for them the circus. He calls unheard-of beasts to be baited and killed for their enjoyment. The finest actors rant, the sweetest musicians sing, that Nero may forget his mother, and that his people may ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... halls, are one thing,—and private theatricals, as they may be seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, high bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... we may fairly presume, proceeded from the pithy lecture of Ellen Connor; but the truth was, that the undefinable old squire was the greatest parental coward in the world. In the absence of his daughter he would rant and swear and vapor, strike the ground with his staff, and give other indications of the most extraordinary resolution, combined with fiery passion, that seemed alarming. No sooner, however, did he go into her presence, and contemplate ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... him who can handle them,) which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached it is true, as enthusiasts and first missionaries are wont; with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately, perhaps, as the case admitted. Or call him if you will, an American backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... sick at heart of craft and cant, Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, Profession's smooth hypocrisies, And creeds of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... The Prophet enlarged his rant. To the whites he proclaimed that he, the Open Door, Tecumseh, the Shooting Star, and the other twin brother all had come at one birth. He asserted that their father had been the son of a Shawnee chief and a princess, daughter of a great English ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward.... The highest inspirations of poetry are resolvable into three ingredients: the rant of unregulated passion, the whining of exaggerated feeling, and the cant of factitious sentiment; and can therefore serve only to ripen a splendid lunatic like Alexander, a puling driveler like Werter, or ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... of youthful genius is the tragedy of Lecrine, and this is the youth of Marlowe rather than of Shakspeare. The London Prodigal and the Puritan, Lord Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle, have no trace of youthful fire or even rant. They are the offspring of sober, contented, irreclaimable, unimprovable mediocrity, with a decided tendency to the stupid rather than the sublime. They were probably the journey-work of some of the legion playwrights connected with the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... great Hector of the glancing helm: "Ajax, brave leader, son of Telamon, Deal not with me as with a feeble child, Or woman, ign'rant of the ways of war; Of war and carnage every point I know; And well I know to wield, now right, now left, The tough bull's-hide that forms my stubborn targe: Well know I too my fiery steeds to urge, And raise the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... is ignorant of what is termed hygienic law, is more receptive of spiritual power and of faith in one 382:15 God, than is the devotee of supposed hygienic law, who comes to teach the so-called igno- rant one. Must we not then consider the so-called law 382:18 of matter a canon "more honored in the breach than the observance"? A patient thoroughly booked in medi- cal theories is more difficult to heal through Mind than 382:21 one who ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... louder, stronger, and more urgent and thrilling cry, Repent! Repent! We want more fearless plain speaking, more personal appeal. It is not refined to preach of the grave and death, judgment and hell,—it is 'ranting:' but nevertheless let us 'rant;' let us be faithful; let us tell the sinner that he must die; and that he will die in his sins and perish for ever, except he repent and be converted that his sins may be blotted out. Let us tell him that he 'is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... specious form, dread Queen! appear; Let falsehood fill the dreary waste; Thy democratic rant be here, To fire the brain, corrupt the taste. The fair, by vicious love misled, Teach me to cherish and to wed, To low-born arrogance to bend, Establish'd order spurn, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently use this indefinite term. If they told us, that in a pre-existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance. But if he only meant to say that the exercise of the faculties will produce this fondness, I deny it. It is not natural; but arises, like false ambition in men, from ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... roar like true British heroes, We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas, Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England; From Ushant to Scilly ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... father a chance to vent his vexation with himself upon his son. "I wish you wouldn't talk that walking-delegate's rant with me, Matt. If I let you alone in your nonsense, I think you may fitly take it as a sign that I wish ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... turn out, let us say, eight ill-trained children at a disadvantage, to become the servants and unsuccessful competitors of the offspring of the restrained. That fact bites us all; it does not require a search. It is all very well to rant about "race-suicide," but there are the clear, hard conditions of contemporary circumstances for all but the really rich, and so patent are they that I doubt if all the eloquence of Mr. Roosevelt and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... up to go). You rant like any common fellow. Go, then, and marshal your thousands; and make haste; for Mithridates of Pergamos is at hand with reinforcements for Caesar. Caesar has held you at bay with two legions: we shall see what he ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... Pedantry of Virtue, ascribes all good Qualifications, of what kind soever, to the virtuous Man. Accordingly [Cato][1] in the Character Tully has left of him, carried Matters so far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous Man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a Philosophical Rant than the real Opinion of a Wise Man; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the Excellence of Virtue, if they did not comprehend in the Notion of it all possible Perfection[s]; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... good. The curate was just as confident and uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and straightforward, and true—so free from rant or cant—so strong in his simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... thyself to feed a num'rous train, Or like the bee (sweet as thy blood) design'd To be destroy'd to propagate his kind, 570 Lest thy redundant and superfluous juice, Should fading leaves instead of fruits produce, The pruner's hand, with letting blood, must quench Thy heat, and thy exub'rant parts retrench: Then from the joints of thy prolific stem A swelling knot is raised (call'd a gem), Whence, in short space, itself the cluster shows, 577 And from earth's moisture mixed with sunbeams grows. I' th'spring, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... became successful; and the decadence of that empire was the fatal fruit of that day's folly. In like manner we have had the letter of the Constitution thrust between us and victory. The leaders of the Opposition carried it before them, with ostentation and loud pharisaical rant, in the late political battle. But, much as it has embarrassed and retarded our cause, terrifying and bewildering weak minds, the device has not availed in the past, and it shall avail still less in the future. The spirit of the Constitution we shall remember and obey; but the sword of justice, edged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... admitted, into a deliberation on public affairs. And here were manifested an ability and decorum which civilized nations even, have viewed with admiration and surprise. For though we might suppose their eloquence must have partaken of rant and rhapsody, presenting a mass of incoherent ideas, depending for their interest on the animation of gesture and voice, with which they were uttered, yet we would do injustice to their memory, if we did not give their orators the credit of speaking as much to the purpose, and of exhibiting ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... made a huge fire down by the shore, and left them alone. They sat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; her overtures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of the usual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence, sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, the great man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for in her mood that night his penetrating voice, which, in other moods, she found as insupportable ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... been restored, Philippina began to rage and rant: "Daniel's a dunderhead. He could live like a Kaiser if he'd mix with the right people. I know a woman who is lousy with money, and she's going to git a lot more; but Daniel, the poor bloke, ain't ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the letters eagerly read. The Journal announced them the day before publication, the newsboys cried them, and papers called attention to them, some by daring to indorse, but more by abusing Mr. Riddle for publishing such unpatriotic and "incendiary rant." In quoting the strong points, a venal press was constrained to "scatter the living coals of truth." The name was held to be a nom de plume, for in print it looked so unlike the common pronunciation of that of one of the oldest families in the county that it was not recognized. ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... we ever going into battle?" growled Jack Powell from the other side. "Here I've been at this blamed drilling until I'm stiff in every joint, and I haven't seen so much as the tail end of a fight. You may rant as long as you please about martial glory, but if there's any man who thinks it's fun merely to get dirty and eat raw food, well, he's welcome to my share of it, that's all. I haven't had so much as one of the necessities of ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... 'How little can I pay an' how much can I get?' An' yet, as I says, sech parties mighty likely holds themse'fs moral to a degree which is mountainous, an' wouldn't take a twist at faro-bank, or pick up a poker hand, more'n they'd mingle with t'rant'lers an' stingin' lizards. An' some of their moral sports is so onlib'ral! I tells you, son, I've met up with 'em who's that stingy that if they owned a lake, they wouldn't give ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... less than justice, Miss Faith. You can hear me rant about philosophical niceties,—and yet think that I would not have patience to listen to a lecture from ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... deliberately dodged my question. I asked you what you thought of my father's power with the Indians. You rant about his wickedness in bringing me here. For the last time I ask you to answer my question and finish your ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... harbouring a pharisaical presumption, that would be odious were it not ridiculous. If the state of society in Westmoreland be as corrupt as they describe, what, in the name of wonder, has preserved their purity? Away then with hypocrisy and hollow pretext; let us be no longer deafened with a rant about throwing off intolerable burthens, and repelling injuries, and avenging insults! Say at once that you disapprove of the present Members, and would have others more to your own liking; you have named your Man, or ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... bravado that distinguish the carpet warrior. On the contrary, when they were talking of the war amongst themselves they had an air of quiet determination, of good-humoured banter, and of easy, serious confidence far more ominous for an enemy than any amount of fluent rant. After the world of politics, with its hair-splitting and word-mincing, it was good to be with soldiers—the men who do the work. They knew no fine political shades, they bandied no epithets; England ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... while their fire the lightest heart enchains. Through these and all our Bards to whom belong The pow'rs transcendent of immortal song, How difficult to steer t'avoid the cant Of polish'd phrase, and nerve-alarming rant; Each period with true elegance to round, And give the Poet's meaning in the sound. But, wherefore should the Muse employ her verse, The peril of our labors to rehearse? Oft has your kind, your generous applause, E're now, convinc'd ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... capital. They are untouched by theory because they are so intent on fact. The "liberty, equality and fraternity" cry of the French Revolution—they regard as so much hot air. Canadians since 1837 have had "liberty, equality, fraternity." Why rant about it? And when they didn't have it, they fought for it and went to the scaffold for it, and got it. The day's work—that's all. Why posturize and theorize about platitudes? Canadians are not interested in the Lloyd George ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Rant was seized in his own house and shot. Clos was met by a company, and seeing Trestaillons, with whom he had always been friends, in its ranks, he went up to him and held out his hand; whereupon Trestaillons drew a pistol from his belt and blew his brains out. Calandre being chased down ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... look at. Are you still afraid. Look, more than a year has gone and nothing has changed. You are the far-away one, the dream figure, and my heart comes on wings to you.... I write with difficulty. What language is there to talk to you? How does one converse with a dream? Idiot phrases rant across the paper like little fat actors flourishing tin swords. I've come to distrust words. There are too many of them. Yet I keep fermenting with words. Interlopers. Busybody strangers. I can't think ... because of them.... Alas! if I could keep my ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... temperament, will fill the void—in a way, and for a time at least. Darby marries Joan and is content, though any other woman would have served his turn as well. With us of the finer feelings and higher standards, the only difference is that we rant more and sophisticate more, as belongs to our wider range. No one ever felt thus before—because the feeling is new to us, and newer each time it comes: so Festus protests to each successive mistress, perjuring himself in all sincerity. Nor was any mistress ever so beautiful and divine ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... why, having got rid of the committee of exasperating buffoons, he was now prolonging breakfast far beyond the usual hour. The meal was over at last; and still he felt disinclined to move. Those people had disquieted his composure with their mephitic rant about philanthropy; they had almost succeeded in spoiling his morning. And now this funeral! Would he go into the house and do some reading or write a few letters? No. He could not write letters just them. He was not feeling ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Souf, 'case he lose his money on he hoss-race. No, my chil'ren, our HEABENLY Massa am rich, RICH, I say. He own all dis worle, and all de oder worles dat am shinin' up dar in de sky. He own dem all; but he tink more ob one ob you, more ob one ob you—pore, ign'rant brack folks dat you am—dan ob all dem great worles! Who wouldn't belong to sich a Massa as dat? Who wouldn't be his nigger—not his slave—He doant hab no slaves—but his chile; and 'ef his chile, den his heir, de heir ob God, and de jined heir wid de ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... converse with the same number of men in society on the merits of the case; and his gestures were those which might be used without serious remark in animated conversation. His postures were sometimes negligent enough; he had a contempt for rant, and hated show and pomp. His voice was pleasant, and of ample compass for an ordinary court-room, and he never dealt in vociferations; indeed, his style of argument to the jury, as well as to the bench, would have ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... Tomfoolery Convention now being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches, as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their Woman's Rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men, are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind, and Christian(?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... scarcely more lax or licentious; yet if Fortune, in its caprices, had ordained our Indian subjects to be heathen Greeks, with a Whig Governor-General bringing them back in triumph to their homes, Lord Palmerston, who now, in a mingled rant of mythology, and methodism, talks of "Dii and Jupiter hostis," would himself have penned a paragraph about the restored temple of Mars or Venus, and would have held up the scruples of Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. Plumptre to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... came into play. He kindled with responsive fire at a beautiful thought, and burned with contagious enthusiasm over a phrase which struck his fancy. Yet all the while the poetic rapture was underlain by a groundwork of robust sense. Rant, and gush, and affectation were abhorrent to his nature, and even in his grandest flights of fancy ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... pleasing than the iterated nodes of a sea-shell, or the resembling difference of a group of flowers. The pairing of the birds is an idyl, not tedious as our idyls are; a tempest is a rough ode, without falsehood or rant; a summer, with its harvest sown, reaped, and stored, is an epic song, subordinating how many admirably executed parts. Why should not the symmetry and truth that modulate these, glide into our spirits, and we participate the invention ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... himself beloved," said the maiden; "but by what slight creatures!—things whose heads could be rendered giddy by a playhouse rant—whose brains were only filled with red-heeled shoes and satin buskins—and who run altogether mad on the argument of a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... created only, like the fly That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon, To sport their season and be seen no more. The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise, And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. Some write a narrative of wars, and feats Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history; describe the man, of whom His own coevals took but little note, And paint his person, character, and views, As they had known him from his mother's womb; They disentangle from the puzzled skein, In which obscurity has wrapped them up, The threads of politic and shrewd design That ran ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... The evil time's sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest's cant, Or statesman's rant. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Before Rachel came, it had been thought that the new romantic drama of MM. Hugo and Dumas, because of its greater truth to nature, had given the coup de grace to the old classic plays; but the public, at her bidding, turned gladly from the spasms and the rant of "Angelo" and "Angele," "Antony" and "Hernani," to the old-world stories, the formal tragedies of the seventeenth century poet-dramatists of France. The actress fairly witched her public. There was something of magic in her very presence upon ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... this rant and nonsense, how much finer is the speech that the Count really did make! "It is a very fine evening,—egad it is!" The "egad" did the whole business: Mrs. Cat was as much in love with him now ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rant and write letters or poetry, or marry some one else to spite himself, or take the first steamer for Burraga, or Equatorial Africa, as rejected lovers in stories do. It hurt, and he didn't enjoy it, but he bore up all right, and went about his business, just as hundreds of other sensible men ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... sporadic Social Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was ignored by the Government. The war-machine was running so smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... much, but he only emitted some effusions of the witticisms of fancy. His declamation, indeed, was better calculated for the stage of Sadler's Wells than the floor of the House of Commons. A mountebank, with but one-half of the honorable gentleman's talent for rant, would undoubtedly make his fortune. However, I am somewhat surprised he should entertain such a particular asperity against me, as I never did him a favor. But, perhaps, the honorable gentleman imagines he may talk himself into consequence; ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... take it all so horribly seriously," protested Stanton. "Why you rave and rant about it as though it was actually ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... flash of the lightning of her soul, and finished her rant, she found herself much easier in the resolves on revenge she had fixed there: she scorned by any vain endeavour to recall him from his passion; she had wit enough to have made those eternal observations, that love once gone is never to be retrieved, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... field-marshals because they were grandees, had such incapacity been shown by any restless patrician. Frederic Spinola, at the age of thirty-two, a landsman and a volunteer, thinking to measure himself on blue water with such veterans as John Rant, Joost de Moor, and the other Dutchmen and Zeelanders whom it was his fortune to meet, could hardly escape the doom which so rapidly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Bacchant arms. A vine her forehead girds; the nimble deer Clothes with his skin her sides; her shoulder bears A slender spear. Thus maddening, Procne seeks The woods in ire terrific, crowded round By all her followers: rack'd by inward pangs, The furious rant of Bacchus veils her woes. The lonely stable seen at length, she howls Aloud,—"Evoe, ho!"—and bursts the door; Drags thence her sister;—her thence dragg'd, invests I In Bacchanalian robes; her face inshrouds In ivy foliage; and astonish'd leads The trembling ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... treated his memory. "The business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had just before written a defence of the murder of a mother ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... being sorry that Shakespeare should have gone out of his way to select such a subject. It leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. The aristocrat is overdone. No true aristocrat would talk such rant as Coriolanus talks in Act i. Sc. I. Shakespeare omits Plutarch's account of the oppression of the plebeians, or only slightly alludes to it. Volumnia's contempt for the people is worse than that of Coriolanus. To her they are not ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... hardly in a body's pow'r To keep, at times, frae being sour, To see how things are shar'd; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ken na how to wair't; But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, Tho' we hae little gear; We're fit to win our daily bread, As lang's we're hale and fier: "Mair spier na, nor fear na,"^1 Auld age ne'er mind a feg; The last o't, the warst o't ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Berwick Law a league or less to sea, About its feet the breakers beat, abune the sea-maws flee, There's castle stark and dungeon dark, wherein the godly lay, That made their rant for the Covenant through mony a weary day. For twal' years lang the caverns rang wi' preaching, prayer, and psalm, Ye'd think the winds were soughing wild, when a' the winds were calm, There wad they preach, each Saint to each, and glower as the soldiers ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... and we fully coincide in the verdict. Bouffe, is one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and agreeable actors we ever saw; subtle and delicate in his conceptions of character, energetic without rant, ever true to Nature, and of a rare versatility of talent. We have known several persons who fancied, partly perhaps on account of his name, that he only acted comic parts: they should see him obtain a succes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... is the title of MASCAGNI'S new Opera. The title, anglicised, would be suitable for an old-fashioned transpontine melodramatic tragedian, who could certainly say of himself, "I rant so!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... whisper in your ear John Horne, For one great end we both were born, Alike we roar, and rant and bellow— Give us your ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... here kept in raising the expression of trifling thoughts! would not a man have thought that the poet had been bound prentice to a wheel-wright, for his first rant? and had followed a rag-man, for the clout and blanket, in the second? Fortune is painted on a wheel, and therefore the writer, in a rage, will have poetical justice done upon every member of that engine: after this execution, he bowls the nave down-hill, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... belongs to love; no pompous rhetoric about the inferiority of the "brutes," but a warm plea on their behalf against man's inconsiderateness and cruelty, and a sense of enlarged happiness from their companionship in enjoyment; no vague rant about human misery and human virtue, but that close and vivid presentation of particular sorrows and privations, of particular deeds and misdeeds, which is the direct road to the emotions. How Cowper's exquisite mind falls with the mild warmth of morning sunlight on the commonest objects, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... escaped and revealed the mother's true character. Here is a telling situation for a sensation novelist; and the minuteness with which the story is worked out, whilst we are kept in suspense, supplies the place of the ordinary rant; to say nothing of the increased effect due to apparent veracity, in which certainly few sensation novelists can even venture a distant competition. The end of the story differs still more widely from modern art. Roxana has to go abroad with her husband, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;—compare such a man with any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns—a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship—who has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself—if there be any grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or of onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit. Similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification—features which mark the histrionic nature of these employments. In all this, of course, the reminder of boyish make-believe is plain enough. The slang of athletics, by the way, is in great part made up of extremely sanguinary ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... through the avenues of professional life; and so professional life is full of "nobodies." The pulpit is crowded with goodish "nobodies"—men who have no power—no unction—no mission. They strain their brains to write common-places, and wear themselves out repeating the rant of their sect and the cant of their schools. The bar is cursed with "nobodies" as much as the pulpit. The lawyers are few; the pettifoggers are many. The bar, more than any other medium, is that through which the ambitious youth of the country seek to attain political ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... ring; it just paid for their places at the theater, where they saw the living puppets of the colony mop and mow and rant under the title of acting. This was so interesting that Robinson was thinking of his ring the whole time, and how to get it back. The girls agreed between themselves they had never ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the Duke sat lost in thought, What time Sir Pertinax did stamp and snort: "Ha, by the Mass! Now, by the Holy Rood! Ne'er heard I roguish rant so bold and lewd! He should be whipped, hanged, quartered, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... well in all his long years of sincerity and publicity as he does in this one act of deception. Having made up his mind to that act, he is not ashamed to name it; neither, on the other hand, does he rant about it, and talk about Philistine prejudices and higher laws and brides in the sight of God, after the manner of the cockney decadent. He was breaking a social law, but he was not declaring a crusade ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... romantic, equally passionate; but more than that, real, actual, modern, a thing in the very heart of the very life in which she moved. And here he sat, this Jadwin, quiet, in evening dress, listening good-naturedly to this beautiful music, for which he did not care, to this rant and fustian, watching quietly all this posing and attitudinising. How small and petty it must ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... So the very moral and the very true are not for the statesman but for the charity-boy. This perhaps may be defended as irony; hardly, but even so, in such irony the character appears as plainly as in volumes of solemn rant. To us it stands out clearly as the characteristic attitude of the English Government. The English people are used to it, practise it, and will put up with it; but the Irish people never were, are not now, and never will be used to it; and we won't put up with it. We get ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... best and all that, but her day is past, and here's plenty of young flesh and blood to fill her place. This one is rather young, but she's smart as a whip—she's full of mettle and is fresh and healthy-looking. It won't do to have pale girls around, for it gives cursed busybodies a chance to rant about women standing all day. (Out of the corner of his eye he measured Belle from head to foot.) She can stand, and stand it, too, for a long while. She's compact and stout. She's built right for the business." ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... of its gables, the splendour of its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. All these considerations ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... freaks in sober sadness Are a mere poetic madness: Pegasus is but a horse; He that follows him is worse. See, the rain soaks to the skin, Make it rain as well within. Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh, All night revel, rant, and quaff; Till the morn, stealing behind us, At the table sleepless find us. When our bones, alas! shall have A cold lodging in the grave; When swift Death shall overtake us, We shall sleep and none can wake us. Drink we then the juice o' the vine Make our breasts ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... siffling night; Monastic caverns rasp each isle; A poisoned skink croaks from a well. And mournful wraiths sob hard and loud, A smothered sigh proclaims more woe, The lounging imps grasp tomes of old And rant therefrom each damn'd one's name. And horrors, snarling at each crowd, Assail each kingdom with its show: A noctivagous dragon bold, Hastes thro' the aisles of death and shame And haunts the cajons of the dead, There fungus-tapers gleam like gold ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... rant. Don't prate. Don't fidget. Don't flatter. Don't declaim. Don't be glib. Don't hesitate. Don't be nasal. Don't apologize. Don't dogmatize. Don't be slangy. Don't antagonize. Don't be awkward. Don't ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... "There's a rest'rant in the next block," replied the clerk, instantly impressed. Here was one who obviously was not "alike." "A two-minutes' walk, Mr.—" (looking ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... "full of grace"? One would have to think about a keg "full of" beer or a purse "full of" money. So I translated it: "You gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting—and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending ...
— An Open Letter on Translating • Gary Mann
... but his tone conveyed the malice and the menace of a man who had been nursing a grudge for a long time. "Two years ago his newspaper letters and his rant killed that Consolidated project, and I had a contingent fee of fifty thousand dollars at stake; as it was, I got only a little old regular lobby fee and my expense money. And the power hasn't been developed by the infernal, dear, ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... line; the colloquial abbreviation of "in the"; not to mention the fanciful vein of the whole passage, which might lead any one unacquainted with Milton to look for this quotation among the dramas of the prime. The great hyperbolical strain of the Elizabethans, which so often broke into rant, is caught and nobly echoed ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... will be obvious, that nothing is more frivolous than the declamations of a gloomy philosophy against the desire of power; nothing more absurd than the rant of superstition against the pursuit of grandeur; nothing more inconsistent than homilies against the acquisition of riches; nothing more unreasonable than dogmas that forbid the enjoyment of pleasure. These objects are desirable for man, whenever his situation allows ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... rarest of blessings. We live in an age of morbid emotion and introspectiveness; wherein the poets, such as they are, have sunk to the level of mere pathologists engaged in the dissection of their own ultra-sophisticated spirits. The fresh touch of Nature is lost to the majority, and rhymesters rant endlessly and realistically about the relation of man to his fellows and to himself; overlooking the real foundations of art and beauty—wonder, and man's relation to the unknown cosmos. But Miss Jackson is not of the majority, and has not overlooked these things. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... female friend, in which the lady is made to be the sufferer by misplaced affection, and commencing, "Stay, my Willie, yet believe me," though published, remain likewise in obscurity. "Roy's Wife" was originally written to an old tune called the "Ruffian's Rant," but this melody is now known by the name of its favourite words. The sentiment of the song is peculiarly pleasing. The rejected lover begins by loudly complaining of his wrongs, and the broken assurances ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is combined with other elements, and in each combination altered and modified. The combination which more immediately arrests attention is that with the ludicrous. In this the genius of Hood seemed to hold a very festival of antics, oddity, and mirth; all his faculties seemed to rant and riot in the Saturnalia of comic incongruity. And it is difficult to say whether, in provoking laughter, his pen or his pencil is the more effective instrument. The mere illustrations of the subject-matter are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' One of them has yet to learn that pictures, vestments, music, processions, candlesticks, and confessionals are not religion, and the other that it does not consist in oratory, excitement, camp-meetings, rant, or novelties. There are many, very many, unobtrusive, noiseless, laborious, practical duties which clergymen have to perform; what a pity it is they won't occupy themselves in discharging them, instead of entangling themselves in controversies ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... sedate bearing, are henceforth characteristic of all her literary attitudes. It is almost a case of running from one to the other extreme. The force of style which even adverse critics acknowledged in Frankenstein was sometimes perilously akin to the most disputable kinds of romantic rant. But in the historical or society novels which followed, in the contributions which graced the 'Keepsakes' of the thirties, and even—alas—in the various prefaces and commentaries which accompanied the publication of so many poems of Shelley, his wife succumbed ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... fowk say shoo has to want, For Johnny ofttimes gets o'th spree; He spends his wages in a rant, An' leeaves his wife to pine or dee. An' monny a time aw've ligged i' bed, An' cursed my fate for bein poor, An' monny a bitter tear aw've shed, When thinkin ov sweet Mistress Moore. For shoo's mi life Is Johnny's wife, An' tho' to love her ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... proposed to send a deputation with an address to Avaux; but the Speaker pointed out the gross impropriety of such a step; and, on this occasion, his interference was successful, [219] It was seldom however that the House was disposed to listen to reason. The debates were all rant and tumult. Judge Daly, a Roman Catholic, but an honest and able man, could not refrain from lamenting the indecency and folly with which the members of his Church carried on the work of legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a Parliament: they were a mere rabble: they resembled ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... still the same cry, and dismal to my heart, "Come back!" That was what we heard by the way "about the good country we were going to." And at that very hour the Sand-lot of San Francisco was crowded with the unemployed, and the echo from the other side of Market Street was repeating the rant of demagogues. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that exuberant confidence in his own prowess, and contempt of every one else, so liberally exhibited by Almanzor. Instances of this defect are but too thickly sown through the piece; for example the following rant. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... plays the part, was excellent in his quiet moods, and when he was obliged to rant was no worse than other ranters. The superb solidity of Mr. SASS as the Russian officer served as an admirable foil to the mercurial methods of Quixano. Miss PHYLLIS RELPH as the heroine mitigated the effect of her obvious sincerity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... were to break out to-morrow with the riotous tomfoolery of Pickwick at the trial, or of Weller and Stiggins, a thousand lucid criticisms would denounce it as vulgar balderdash. Glaucus and Nydia at Pompeii would be called melodramatic rant. The House of the Seven Gables would be rejected by a sixpenny magazine, and Jane Eyre would not rise above a common "shocker." Hence the enormous growth of the Kodak school of romance—the snap-shots at everyday ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... For these the devil's devices curse, condemn and impede everywhere God's Word and his blessing. These things are evils so pernicious, so diabolical, they do not merit our love. The more we serve the ecclesiasts and the more we yield to them, the more obdurate they become. They rant and rage against the Word of God and the Spirit, against faith and love. Such conduct Christ calls blasphemy—sin—against the Holy Spirit—unpardonable sin. Mt 12, 31. And John says (1 Jn 5, 16), "There is a sin unto death; not concerning ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... why the Wanderoo[A] should rant In wild, unmeaning rhymes, Whereas the Indian Elephant Will only read ...
— More Beasts (For Worse Children) • Hilaire Belloc
... Siddhattha, spare thy monkish rant, Far better than thy cowardly submission, Far nobler and befitting it would be, To draw the sword ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forebore to ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... over in your own heart the causes that produced it and try to deliver it at white heat. It is not possible for you to put too much real feeling into it, though of course it would be quite easy to rant and fill it with false emotion. This speech, according to Thomas Jefferson, started the ball of the Revolution rolling. Men were then willing to go ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Risping, grating. Rout, rowt, to roar, to rant. Rowth, abundance. Rudas, haggard old woman. Runt, an old cow past breeding; ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no situation to rant at smug William, the linen draper. The old sea wolf who had outlived the most glorious era of the storied buccaneers, had a few gold pieces tucked away in his belt and at first he was content to loaf about the tavern, with an audience to listen to his wondrous tales which ranged ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... go right into dinnah; I'll take keer of the auto'bile; I'll see that nun of those ign'rant folk stannin' roun' lay their han's on it; they think Sambo doan know an auto'bile; didn't I see you heah befoh? an' didn't I hole de hose when you put de watah in? Me an' you are de only two pussons in dis whole town who knows about ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... how Massa Spence brung us to Texas in wagons, and the way we knowed when we hit Texas am 'cause massa 'gin to talk 'bout a norther. When dat norther done strike, all de weeds and leaves jus' starts rollin'. Us poor, ig'rant niggers thunk at first dey was rabbits, 'cause we'd never seed a rabbit den. Massa Spence rid his hoss and Missie Spence come 'long in de richer way, in a coach. De chillen walked mornin's and de older folks ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... the benches in the yard below. The rough mob of the pit inspired, as it felt, the vigorous life, the rapid transitions, the passionate energy, the reality, the lifelike medley and confusion, the racy dialogue, the chat, the wit, the pathos, the sublimity, the rant and buffoonery, the coarse horrors and vulgar bloodshedding, the immense range over all classes of society, the intimacy with the foulest as well as the fairest developements of human temper, which characterized the English stage. The new drama ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... the deplorable unhappiness of their priests, that having acted the cheat so long already, they are forced now to stand to it for fear of endangering the apostacy of their people. Going out of church after the rant was over, we saw several people gathered about the Stone of Unction, who, having got a good store of candles lighted with the holy fire, were employed in daubing pieces of linen with the wicks of them and the melting wax, which pieces of linen were designed for ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... not thought she was such an utter coquette. If ever a woman gave a man reason to think himself as good as engaged, she had given him that reason, and yet she refused him as coolly as she would have declined a second plate of soup. There must be some truth, after all, in the rant of the poets about the heartlessness and fickleness of women, although he had always been used to consider it the merest bosh. Suddenly he heard the train moving. He was perhaps fifty yards off, and, grumbling anathemas ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... dissatisfied with my terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant." I recommend a careful consideration of the scene over the grave of Ophelia; and then let any one say whether or not the "wag" of tongue between Laertes and Hamlet be not fairly described by the expressions I have used,—a paraphrase ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... anybody but Mr. Blackwood, who assured me of it.] "Then there was 'The Involuntary Experimentalist,' all about a gentleman who got baked in an oven, and came out alive and well, although certainly done to a turn. And then there was 'The Diary of a Late Physician,' where the merit lay in good rant, and indifferent Greek—both of them taking things with the public. And then there was 'The Man in the Bell,' a paper by-the-by, Miss Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... presently, in a cautious voice, laying an open hand against his trousers-pocket, 'as I've been a-doin' pretty good business lytely. Been growin' a bit—see? I'm runnin' round an' keepin' my heyes open understand? Thoughts I, now, if I could come acrosst a nicet little openin', somethink in the rest'rant line, that's what 'ud sewt me jest about down to the ground. I'm cut out for it—see? I've got the practical experience, and I've got the capital; and as soon as I got a squint of this little corner shop—understand what ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... nothing for your rant, fellow, but out of consideration for the feelings which your fancied injuries have put into your heart, I tell you that I did what I could to liberate you, and received from the keeper a promise that you should be allowed to escape. After that a certain ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... I believe I have elsewhere observed, that we male-delinquents in love-matters have of the other sex:—for while they, poor things! sit sighing in holes and corners, or run to woods and groves to bemoan themselves on their baffled hopes, we can rant and roar, hunt and hawk; and, by new loves, banish from our hearts all remembrance of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... heard a very funny specimen of rant from a gentleman of the name of Turner, who was suffering from an attack of Anglophobia. He would delight the Mortons and Conybeares whom we have to tolerate, and his pronunciation of the Old Country's ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Parallel of Bonaparte with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting foreign states? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, B[uonaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then Religion would come in; and Milton and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty suggestion, the more hasty because I want my Supper. I have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it?—it has most the continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the best young one in the world," Mrs. Foley confessed, referring to "Spotted Snake, the Witch." "Sometimes I rant at her like a good one. But she saves me a good bit, and if ever a child earned ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... conceptions, the emotions consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had the true poetical enthusiasm—the rarest faculty among players. None that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports of the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city. His voice had the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... player Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair. The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage No longer whine in love, and rant in rage; The monarch quits his throne, and condescends Humbly to court the favour of his friends; For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps, And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps. Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome, To win the mob, a suppliant's ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... calls it, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, and a torpid apathy. These must be roused by something strong and excessive, or they will never rise even to mediocrity; while the few who have a tendency to rant, are very easily reclaimed; and ought to be treated in pronunciation and action, as Quintillion advises to do in composition; that is, we should rather allow of an exuberance, than, by too much correctness, check the vigour and luxuriancy ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... call upon God to help you?" says he. "He has helped you a lot in the past, hasn't he, Roy? And He has helped her a lot, hasn't he? Helped her to stand me. Oh, that's a joke! The just and merciful One—d'you remember how old Baintree used to rant? You approved, didn't you. You agreed with old Baintree. So did I, Roy, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... which it was written. It has in the mean while a richness of melody, and a picturesqueness of action, that enables it to delude, and that even draws tears from the eyes of, persons who can be won over by the eye and the ear, with almost no participation of the understanding. And this unmeaning rant and senseless declamation sufficed for the time to throw into shade those exquisite delineations of character, those transcendent bursts of passion, and that perfect anatomy of the human heart, which render the master-pieces of Shakespear a property ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin |
