"Derision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to coincide with my own, else I should infallibly have broken my neck in confronting perils which brought me neither honor nor profit, and in accepting defiances which, issue how they might, won self-reproach from myself, and sometimes a gayety of derision from him. One only of these defiances I declined. There was a horse of this same guardian B.'s, who always, after listening to Cherubini's music, grew irritable to excess; and, if any body mounted him, would seek relief to his wounded feelings in kicking, more or less violently, for an hour. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement. He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in his eye. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... from Anna's presence in her house—an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a penny on ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... of time and necessity. Time has schooled my heart to hide behind the covering I might think best to wear. Were my history known, my name would be the theme of every tongue, the derision of the stoical, the pity of the simple, and exposed to the ridicule of a heartless and unfeeling world. The head must dictate and govern my actions, all else submitting. Yet nothing can equal the wretchedness of trying to conceal with smiles the bitter ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... next moment, the world's honours, in derision, Trampled out the light for ever. Never fear but there's provision Of the devil's to quench knowledge, lest we walk the earth in ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... heard a light, gay laugh, clear and distinct-a river voice beyond question—full of raillery, and yet beneath the mocking note was something else which he could neither identify nor analyze, which he hoped was not scorn or mere derision, which he wished might be understanding and sympathy—till he thought of his ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... he, in the tone of one who corrects a misapprehension, and also tinged never so faintly by something of the derision that was ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... and sometimes unconscious sympathy when judgment regarding the causes of the arrest was expressed. She heard the words that had once frightened her—riot, socialism, politics—uttered more and more frequently among the simple folk, though accompanied by derision. However, behind their ridicule it was impossible to conceal an eagerness to understand, mingled with fear and hope, with hatred of the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... to make me anxious, for our army merely went through a course of triumphs, taking one city after another in rapid succession. I remained at Mezieres, and M. de Bellaise sometimes was able to spend a few days with me, much, I fear, to the derision of his fellow-soldiers, who could not understand a man's choosing such a form of recreation. We had been walking under the fine trees in the PLACE on a beautiful summer evening, and were mounting the stairs on our ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Chanticleer! and hark! Upraise thine eyes, and find the lark, That matutine musician, Who heavenward soars on rapture's wings, Though sought, unseen, who mounts, and sings In musical derision. ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... he knew of Alma's life. He wished he knew more, that he might better understand her. Of her childhood, her early maidenhood, what conception had he? Yet he and she were one—so said the creeds. And Harvey laughed to himself, a laugh more of melancholy than of derision. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... recalling the Weringrode's innuendo that he was in love without his knowledge, moved him to laugh outright if strangely, an unpleasant laugh that held as much of pain as of derision. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Company said, "We have more trouble with the pensioners than with all the rest of the Settlement put together." The pensioners were certainly absolutely useless for the purpose for which they had been sent, that is to preserve order in the country. The Metis, at any rate, spoke of them with derision. ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... will fade from mortal vision, So the fashion-plates ordain; Worthy subject of derision, Not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... taper, escorted by the Mayor's sergeants. There was a ducking-stool on the other side of the river, at Bank Side, in which scolds were ducked. There was the thewe, which was a chair in which women were made to sit, lifted high above the crowd, exposed to their derision. There was the pillory, which served for almost all the cases which now come before a police magistrate—adulteration, false weights and measures, selling bad meat: pretending to be an officer of the Mayor: making and selling ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... the city, and patrols of the "bloody backs," as the red-coated soldiers had been called in derision, paced to and fro at regular intervals along the streets, these boys spoke openly of their desire, and even of their intention, to avenge the wrongs under which the colonists were suffering, believing from past experience that the troops would not dare proceed ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... paint being dry, I rode forth into an unsympathetic world. Women came to their doors to stare at my machine, and as they stared they broke into laughter. When I reached the village of Cordyke the school was coming out, and I was greeted with a howl of derision. I thought it a good instance of crowd psychology; I was different from the crowd, and ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... every day around you," said Emerson to the divinity students of Harvard, "the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that your first duty is to get land and money, place and fame. 'What is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask in derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explain truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I; I renounce, I am sorry for it—my early visions; ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... serious problem in many families; the whole group sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance. Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they inflict mental pain for the ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... prematurely in midair. Except for the church, which was twice struck, and the chief's house that was set on fire, the damage done was inappreciable; and Jack, whose heart at first had been in his mouth, now grinned with derision as he watched for the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... latter that the future must look, and it can do so with confidence. In all the license which runs ahead of progress there is less danger than resides in stagnation. The men of 1830, who by ungrateful youths are now derided, had their turn at derision, and extravagances were committed in their name, according to the beliefs of their time. They carried their work, however, to its full completion, and it remains the greatest achievement of this century in painting, the greatest in landscape art of all time. What the next century ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... Royal and Noble Authors, to the Mayor of Portsmouth "reprehending him for the Townsmen not pulling off their hats to a Statue of the King Charles, which his Lordship had erected there." Such an "epistle" might well excite the derision and ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... but one such pair. They shall not be parted. Yet what I have undertaken is not so easy as I at first hoped. What can I answer when he asks me, whether I would persuade him to renounce his character, and become the derision of society? For he is right: a faithless wife is a dishonour! and to forgive her, is to share her shame. What though Adelaide may be an exception; a young deluded girl, who has so long and so sincerely repented, yet what cares an unfeeling world for this? The world! he has ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... the circle instinctively gave way for him to pass. Sime flung a jeer from the top of the canoe, the women snickered in his face, cries of derision rose in his wake, but he took no notice, pressing onward to the house of Scundoo. He hammered on the door, beat it with his fists, and howled vile imprecations. Yet there was no response, save that in the lulls Scundoo's voice rose eerily in incantation. Klok-No-Ton raged about like a madman, but ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... was as cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for scorn to point the finger of derision at: and humanity shudders as it remembers the scourge with which this man's ambition was permitted to devastate every home tie, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... treat the most stubborn cases, laying himself open to the derision of mankind if he does not instantly give relief and benefit. His whole career has been a blessing to his fellows, and his journey now through this country, fresh from his studies in the Orient, is to introduce his remedies to a suffering world, for the conquest of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... master of scoffing, that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, The Morris-Dance of Heretics. For indeed, every sect of them, hath a diverse posture, or cringe by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings, and depraved politics, who are apt to ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... became known as "Lollards" (babblers), a term applied to them in derision. They grew to be very numerous, and threatened by their excesses and imprudent zeal the peace of the state. They were ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... trappers threw away no lead. They quietly awaited the attack, and were so confident of their ability to defeat the Indians, that they were disappointed when they saw the reconnoitring party commencing to retire. They shouted to them in terms of derision, hoping to exasperate them into an attack. But the wary savages were not thus to be drawn to certain death. They retired to their camp, which as we have said was distant about a mile from the fort, but ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... they were all running loose. Although they have to come to the pass to get water, there is water for more than a mile, and some come sneaking quietly down without making the slightest noise, get a drink, and then, giving a snort of derision to let us know, off they go at a gallop. They run in mobs of twos and threes; so now we have systematically to watch for, catch, and hobble them. I set a watch during the night, and as they came, they were hobbled and put down through the north side of the pass. They could not ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... avail, he drew her into the hall; but the string by which her pockets were hung broke, the pots fell down, the soup ran out, and the scraps were scattered all about. And when the people saw it, there arose general laughter and derision, and she was so ashamed that she would rather have been a thousand fathoms below the ground. She sprang to the door and would have run away, but on the stairs a man caught her and brought her back; and when she looked at ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... Aristotelians, (at Least, those he met with,) that have written against the Chymists, seem to have had so little Experimental Knowledge in Chymical Matters, that by their frequent Mistakes and unskilfull Way of Oppugning, they have too often expos'd Themselves to the Derision of their Adversaries, for writing so Confidently against what they ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... most assailable of that of any of the professions. The slightest slip, the one misstep, and he is lost. Like Samson, shorn of his hair, he is a poor, feeble, faltering creature, the pity of his friends, the derision ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... stories for boys and girls are not plentiful. Many stories, too, are so highly improbable as to bring a grin of derision to the young reader's face before he has gone far. The name of ALTEMUS is a distinctive brand on the cover of a book, always ensuring the buyer of having a book that is up-to-date and fine throughout. No buyer of an ALTEMUS ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... so disgusted that he flew straight off, chattering all across the field and up the hedge. The bullfinch tossed his head, and asked the goldfinch to come up in the bush and see which was stronger. The greenfinch and the chaffinch shrieked with derision; the wood-pigeon turned his back and said "Pooh!" and went off with a clatter. The sparrow flew to tell his mates on the house, and you could hear the chatter they made about it right down at the brook. But the wren screamed loudest of all, and said that the goldfinch ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... abler and more experienced politician, saw that, if the imputations which the opposition had been in the habit of throwing on the Chancellor were exhibited with the precision of a legal charge, their futility would excite universal derision, and thought it more expedient to move that the House should, without assigning any reason, request the King to remove Lord Somers from His Majesty's counsels and presence for ever. Cowper defended his persecuted friend ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but that very same moment I was roughly hurled off and found myself sprawling on the ground. The horse stood perfectly still, and, stretching out his long neck, regarded me with what I took to be nothing else than derision. I was not able to rise to my feet; the driver had to come and help me; Lauretta had jumped out and was weeping and lamenting; Teresina did nothing but laugh without ceasing. I had sprained my foot, and couldn't possibly mount again. How was I to get on? My steed was fastened ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... lightly (III. iii. 119), and that the one thing perfectly obvious about him was his honesty. 'Honest' is the word that springs to the lips of everyone who speaks of him. It is applied to him some fifteen times in the play, not to mention some half-dozen where he employs it, in derision, of himself. In fact he was one of those sterling men who, in disgust at gush, say cynical things which they do not believe, and then, the moment you are in trouble, put in practice the very sentiment they had laughed at. On such occasions he showed the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... different descriptions are frequently seen practising this diversion. Our hero was ambitious of excelling at the game of goff; and, as he was not particularly adroit, he exposed himself, in his first attempts, to the derision of the spectators, and he likewise received several severe blows. Colin laughed at him without mercy; and Forester could not help comparing the rude expressions of his new companion's untutored vanity ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... derision, "he wants to be captain of our team, no doubt, the little upstart! Come on, lads, we don't want his company. See, all ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... ever wait For some unguarded pass, to cheat the walls Not all his dread artillery could breach? How is each lunge, and ward, of tart reproof, And bitter repartee—painful to friends— By th' Adversary hailed with general yell Of triumph, or derision! O, my friends! Believe me, lines of loving charity Dishearten enemies, encourage friends, And woo enlistment to your ranks, more sure Than the best weapon of the readiest wit, Whose point is venomed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... chase to stimulate them, the men flagged after their long night's work, and it was a dispirited and sulky-looking band that watched the victorious Bombay troop ride proudly by, escorting their captives. The conquerors expressed their feelings by gestures of derision, which Gerrard's men were too much crushed to return, and vanished ahead in a cloud of dust. But when the vanquished tailed dolefully into camp some hours later, they were met by their Habshiabadi comrades, eager to inform them that the triumph had not been so complete ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... too proud to acknowledge so derogatory a feeling. We had no servant with us; and when I suggested that we might as well take one of the stablemen to open the gates, my proposal was met with derision and contempt. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it. Take another pledge, old man, said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom, — Hemp only can kill thee. The gallows, ye mean. —I am immortal then, on land and on sea, cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision; — Immortal on land and on sea! Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... A response is an expected answer, one in harmony with the question or assertion, or in some way carrying the thought farther. A rejoinder is a quick reply to something controversial or calling forth opposition. A retort is a short, sharp reply, such as turns back censure or derision, or as springs from anger. A repartee is an immediate and witty reply, perhaps to a remark of similar character which it is intended ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Kora unrolled his cloth and showed the ears and tongue and claws of the Rakhas. It was at once seen that the leg which the Dome had brought wanted the claws, so his fraud was clearly proved and he was driven from the assembly with derision and had to go and humbly make his peace with the wife whom he had turned out of his house. But the nuptials of Kora and the Raja's sister took place at once and they were given a fine palace to live in and a large tract ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... the wine which had been an object of derision to Mr. Vimpany and his friends. They were gross feeders and drinkers; and it might not be amiss to put their opinions to the test. She was not searching for the taste of a drug now; her present experiment proposed to try the ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... that there is self-interest. I entreat you to reflect. The world, as you know, is a mocking world; you want to excite universal derision and injure the respect which is due to the place that ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... its whimsical derision. His blue eyes narrowed in concentration of thought. "That's good guessin', Kirby. It may be 'way off; then again it may be absolutely correct. Let's find out if Olson stayed at the Wyndham whilst he was in Denver. He'd be more apt to ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... multitude of petty interests, which were of no importance in so great a contest; but in general the conditions seemed rather those of a conqueror dictating to his enemies than of a man overwhelmed by misfortune: As may readily be imagined, they were, for the most part, received with derision ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of sheer joy, so abrupt and unexpected that it rose with a clatter and a cackle of delight, and culminated in a yell of pleasurable derision. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... ledge all day. Ugh-lomi found great flints sticking out of the cliff face, greater than any he had seen, and he dragged some to the ledge and began chipping, so as to be armed against Uya when he came again. And at one he laughed heartily, and Eudena laughed, and they threw it about in derision. It had a hole in it. They stuck their fingers through it, it was very funny indeed. Then they peeped at one another through it. Afterwards, Ugh-lomi got himself a stick, and thrusting by chance at this foolish flint, the stick went in and stuck ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... an explosion of derision and contempt among the men of Beaudoin's company. Maurice said nothing, but he shared the opinion of Chouteau and Loubet, who chaffed and blackguarded everyone without mercy. "See-saw, up and down, move as I pull the string! A fine gang they were, those generals! they understood one another; ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... eastern road: Delicious veal, and butter, every hour, From Essex lowlands, and the banks of Stour; And further far, where numerous herds repose, From Orwell's brink, from Weveny, or Ouse. Hence Suffolk dairy-wives run mad for cream, And leave their milk with nothing but its name; Its name derision and reproach pursue, And strangers tell of "three times skimm'd sky-blue." To cheese converted, what can be its boast? What, but the common virtues of a post! If drought o'ertake it faster than the knife, Most fair it bids for stubborn length ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... credulous multitude. The very tone of voice in which they pray, give out hymns, and preach, is artificial; in keeping with their artificial ideas and artificial sentiments; which, if they were expressed in natural tones, would excite universal contempt and derision. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... memory is not at fault, the people of England howled with derision when the first locomotive was built; the men who put out the first sewing machine had their stores broken into and the machines smashed; and the telephone when first installed was considered simply as a plaything and curiosity, and not as a useful improvement. It has been the history of every ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... hundreds behind him, and he continued his onward course, merely inclining to his left, so as to present a less easy mark than when bearing straight down upon the sentry. Another "halt!" immediately followed by the report of the piece, was echoed by a laugh of derision from Paco. "Stop him! bayonet him!" shouted a score of voices in his rear. The sentinel rushed forward to obey the command; but Paco, unarmed and unencumbered, was too quick for him. Dashing past within a yard of the bayonet's point, he tore along to the town, amidst a rain ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... these tidings will Medora greet?" Then—only then—his clanking hands he raised, And strained with rage the chain on which he gazed; But soon he found, or feigned, or dreamed relief, And smiled in self-derision of his grief, "And now come Torture when it will, or may— More need of rest to nerve me for the day!" This said, with langour to his mat he crept, And, whatso'er his ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... own position. Upon that the party were ordered to advance a little, and to throw in a volley, as nearly as could be judged, into the very spot pointed out by the soldier. It seemed that he had not been mistaken; for a loud laugh of derision rose immediately a little to the left of the bushes. The laughter swelled upon the silence of the night, and in the next moment was taken up by another on the right, which again was echoed by a third on the rear. Peal after peal of tumultuous and scornful laughter resounded ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Tasso's letters at this period show no signs of a diseased mind, his conduct began to strike outsiders as insane. Francesco de'Medici used the plain words matto and pazzo. The courtiers of Ferrara, some in pity, some in derision, muttered 'Madman,' when he passed. And he spared no pains to prove that he was losing self-control. In the month of January 1577, he was seized with scruples of faith, and conceived the notion that ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the roof-tree Ha-la'a-wili. Make a bundle fitting the shoulder; Lash it fast, rolled tight like a log. The bundle falls, red shows the pali; The children shout, they scream in derision. 50 The a'o bird shrieks itself hoarse In wonder at the pa-u— Pa-u with a sheen like Hi'i-lawe falls, Bowed like the rainbow arch Of the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... Mayor, Mr. William Scholefield, met the mob, and in a short and friendly speech tried to induce them to disperse, promising them, if they would refrain from meeting in the streets, they should have the use of the Town Hall once a week for their meetings. This proposal was received with shouts of derision, and the mob, by this time greatly increased in numbers, marched noisily through New Street, Colmore Bow, Bull Street, and High Street, to the Bull Ring. On the following Monday, July 1st, there was a large crowd in the ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... days. And of engravers there were but four between Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,—who, when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"—a scientific mechanic,—a leader at the Tea-party,—a soldier of the old war,—prepared to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... listened to is the first thing; to get it understood is the next. Rather than not have our cause stand out clear and unmistakable before a preoccupied, careless world, we accept the clumsy label; we wear it proudly. And it won't be the first time in history that a name given in derision has become a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... ever visited, and which, in my case, financial limitations, and in Bragdon's, lack of time, were likely always to prevent our seeing. As I remember the matter, this plan was Bragdon's own, and its first suggestion by him was received by me with a smile of derision; but the quaintness of the idea in time won me over, and after the first trial, when we made a spirit trip to Beloochistan, I was so fascinated by my experience that I eagerly looked forward to a second in the series, and was always thereafter only too glad to bear my share ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... moustache of Mr. Sandeman shot upwards, revealing a narrow line of yellow teeth. He uttered a sound that was a mingling of contempt and derision; then he drawled out: ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... traits and the languid reign of Charles IV have been treated by historians with derision. He forgot the general welfare of the empire in his eagerness to enrich his own house and aggrandize his paternal kingdom of Bohemia. The one remarkable law which emanated from him, and whereby alone his reign is distinguished in the constitutional history of the empire, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... up into the lady's face, not as though she did it with an effort, but as if she delighted in doing it. She used no glass to assist her effrontery, and needed none. The faintest possible smile of derision played round her mouth, and her nostrils were slightly dilated, as if in sure anticipation of her triumph. And it was sure. The Countess De Courcy, in spite of her thirty centuries and De Courcy castle, and the fact that Lord De Courcy was grand master ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... seemed deaf and silent to their form of communication. They were taking time out to study it. They'd been assured she would have something of genuine importance to tell them; and there was some derision about that. But they were willing to wait a little, and find out. They were curious and they liked games. At the moment, Telzey and what she might try to do to change their plans was the game on which their attention ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... ORA, and BORIA, the foolish martyrs to a wicked cause. Never was a great social wrong dignified by higher courage. Our admiration of the boldness with which these men have faced their fate is mingled with the deepest regret that the prime conspirators are safe in Paris; that one sits in derision of justice on fellow criminals—on men whose crime may have some slight extenuation from ignorance, want, or fancied cause of revenge; that the other, with the surpassing meekness of Christianity, goes to mass in her carriage, distributes her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... weep." But when the scene, opening, discovers Ajax sitting amid the slaughtered victims— when that haughty hero awakens from his delirium—when he is aware that he has exposed himself to the mockery and derision of his foes— the effect is almost too painful even for tragedy. In contrast to Ajax is the soothing and tender Tecmessa. The women of Sophocles are, indeed, gifted with an astonishing mixture of majesty and sweetness. After a very pathetic farewell with ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... converging metals, a rapidly diminishing cube, seemed to be measuring for me the isolation of the place. Clayton appeared to be two railway platforms and a row of elms across an empty road. After the last rumble of the train, which had the note of a distant cry of derision, there closed in the quiet of a place where affairs had not even begun. It was raining, there was a little luggage, I did not know the distance to the village, and the porter had disappeared. A defective gutter-spout overhead was the leaking conduit for all the sounds ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... parody or paraphrase of a well-known ballad of the period, the burden of which attracted the notice of the satirist. It afterwards became a common vehicle of derision during the civil war, as may be seen by turning over the pages of the collection entitled Rump Songs, and the folio ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 49, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1850 • Various
... toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... fancy that these sometimes exuberant expressions of a noble and far-seeing faith by your own predecessors and by a prescient foreigner have been revived in derision or even in doubt. Those were the days when, if some were for a party, at any rate all were for the State. These were great men, far-seeing, courageous, patriotic, the men of Forty-nine, who in such lofty spirit and with such high hope laid ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... testimonies we have said enough; for as to such as desire to know more of them, they may easily obtain them from his book itself. However, I shall not think it too much for me to name Agatharchides, as having made mention of us Jews, though in way of derision at our simplicity, as he supposes it to be; for when he was discoursing of the affairs of Stratonice, "how she came out of Macedonia into Syria, and left her husband Demetrius, while yet Seleueus would not marry her as she expected, but during the time of ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... Then her eyes lowered and she saw, racing toward her, a small, black, woolly dog. The animal, making a wild dash for his life, had in his anguish lost his mental balance, for he took no heed as to where he ran nor what he struck. A louder cry of derision rose up from many throats as the small beast scuttled between the legs of a farmer's horse, which gave him a moment's respite from ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... disliked anything of the kind, he knew well enough, and perhaps they would not be willing to make an exception in this case. He wished very much he could ask their permission, but that, of course, was out of the question. The mere mention of such a thing would assuredly raise a howl of derision from the other boys, and even Teter Johnston would no doubt ask contemptuously if "he was going to back out of it in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... boy. Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and a plunge of his body like a projectile, the dark face with the long, black hair plastering it turned toward his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried "How!" in derision. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... well-organized family. But there is the unspoken etiquette made chiefly by the students themselves, which fills the place like an atmosphere, and which can only be transgressed at the risk of surly glances and muttered comments and even words of derision. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... and beef-steaks; for the safe system, which takes a quarter of a year, would have swallowed up all our time. Consequently we worked too hard. Our mornings and evenings were spent in collecting, and our days in boating, or in walking instead of hammocking. Indeed, we placed, by way of derision, the Krumen in the fashionable vehicle. And we had been too confident in our past 'seasoning;' we had neglected such simple precautions as morning and evening fires and mosquito-bars at night; finally, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the dead man's chest' never was used as a chanty. It would require too much bass; but it was used as a drone, which it is. An abstracted man would use a line, or may be, the whole verse, or the first line, used as derision. For illustration: ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... he must go, like Dante's cranes, trailing his woes. It appears that she had very little mercy upon him; for all that in one place he records that she was "of all sweet sport and solace amorous," in many more than one he complains of her bringing him to "death and derision," of her being in a royal rage with her poet. At last he cries out for Pity to become incarnate and vest his lady in her own robe. It may be that he loved his misery; he is always on the point of dying, but, like the swan, he was careful to ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the furniture. A fruit-woman took possession of the queen's bed, as a stall to range her cherries on, saying that to-day it was the turn of the nation; and a picture of the king was torn down from the walls, and, after being stuck up in derision outside the gates for some time, was offered for sale to the highest bidder.[2] In the Assembly the most violent language was used. An officer whose name has been preserved through the eminence ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... with Beaumaroy filled her mind rather than the matter of it; and, more even than that, the figure of the man seemed to be with her, almost to stand before her, with his queer alternations of despair and mirth, of defiance and pleading, of derision and alarm. One moment she was intensely irritated with him; in the next she half forgave the plaintive image which the fancy of her mind conjured up before ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... industrial and commercial co-operation, so, strangely enough, have they been brought by those same forces into military co-operation. While the warrior and militarist have been talking the old jargon of nationalism and holding international co-operation up to derision as a dream, they have themselves been brought to depend upon foreigners. War itself ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... forsaken Bohio. Picking its way across the rotting spiles of culverts, it pushed on through the unpeopled jungle, all the old railroad gone, rails, ties, the very spikes torn up and carried away, while already the parrots screamed again in derision as if it were they who had driven out the hated civilization and taken possession again of their own. A few short months and the devouring jungle will have swallowed up even the place where ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... possession of an ill-natured man. There cannot be a greater gratification to a barbarous and inhuman wit, than to stir up sorrow in the heart of a private person, to raise uneasiness among near relations, and to expose whole families to derision, at the same time that he remains unseen and undiscovered. If, besides the accomplishments of being witty and ill- natured, a man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most mischievous creatures that can enter into a civil society. His satire will then chiefly ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... levity was subdued for the time, but after a while he said to me with a shrug, half in earnest, half in derision: ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... Voyt the spring of a genial derision. "That's just where I expected YOU would! One always ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... and prolonged laugh greeted this brief announcement, and some twenty pairs of gentlemanly shoulders were shrugged in token of derision. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... sight to waken pity not derision. But these people had gathered here in a bitter mood and their rancour had but scented the prey. Calls of "Oliver!" and such threats as "You saved him at a poor man's expense, but we'll have him yet, we'll have him yet!" began to ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... riding abroad in naught but his hat and shirt is a sufficiently laughable matter, or an object of derision, depends altogether upon the point of view, and I must leave your friends, namely, Sir Richard Eden and Mr. Bentley, to decide. There remains now but one more undertaking, that of putting you all—together and at the same time—at a disadvantage, which I shall confidently hope ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... Then it seemed as if those figures began to heave,—and to sweat blood,—and their beady eyes to move in their sockets. At once I beheld that they were all looking upon me, that they were all leaning towards me,—some with frightful derision, others with furious aversion. Every arm was raised against me, and they made as though they would crush me with the quivering limbs they had torn one from ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... converted; and though the lips of the scorner Spared not in after-years the subtle taunt and derision, (What time, meeker grown, his heart held his hand from its answer,) Not the less lofty and pure her love and her faith that had saved him, Not the less now discerned was her inspiration from heaven By the people, that rose, and embracing, and weeping together, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... face changed instantly to one of fearless, roguish merriment. She was her old self again. She tossed the sword contemptuously upon the floor, laughing in derision now at ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... dangers that do not appeare: Cal. Thou must sad chance by fore-cast, wise resist, Or being done say boote-les had I wist. Caes. But for to feare wher's no suspition, Will to my greatnesse be derision. Cal. There lurkes an adder in the greenest grasse, Daungers of purpose alwayes hide their face: Caes. Perswade no more Caesar's resolu'd to go. Cal. The Heauens resolue that hee may safe returne, 1630 For if ought happen to my loue but well: His danger shalbe doubled with ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... story as in the oblique vision of Foxe himself, in regarding the dramatis personae, as heroes. Thus, a madman named Collins, who, entering a church during Mass, seized his dog at the Elevation, and held it over his head, showing it to the people in derision, is accounted "as one belonging to the holy company ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... over the vessel, followed by a hundred eyes, and before long by many a coarse and jeering laugh which Bonnet supposed were directed at sturdy Ben Greenway, deeming it quite natural, though improper, that the derision of these rough fellows should be excited by the appearance among them of a prim and sedate ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... battle could be clearly forseen, and then he threw in his lot with the Taira. Such shallow fealty seldom wins its way to high place. Men did not forget Yorimasa's record. His belated admission to the ranks of the tenjo-bito provoked some derision and he was commonly spoken of as Gen-sammi (the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... liberal statesmen, heroes, and conspicuous conquerors, originated in violations of the Decalogue, and those nations and kingdoms which have been founded upon strictly ecclesiastical ideas, have all sunk beneath the shifting sands of time, or have become so degenerate as to be bywords and objects of derision. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... was in the overwrought mood in which a man damns everything. Quagmire and bramble and the derision of Olympus-that was the end of his vanity of an existence. Suppose he was elected—what then? He would be a failure-the high gods in their mirth would see to that—a puppet in Frank Ayres' hands until the next general election, when he would ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... who encouraged the absurd craze for excessive length of body and shortness of leg which not very long ago threatened to transform the whole breed into a race of cripples, and to bring it into contempt and derision among all practical men. No breed or variety of dog has suffered more from the injudicious fads and crazes of those showmen who are not sportsmen also. At one time among a certain class of judges, length and lowness was everything, and soundness, activity, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... religious feasts the robe of the Lama is rent in pieces out of respect, and the remnants highly valued. But this is the reverse of a resemblance, for the garments of Christ were not rent in pieces out of respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were not highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops. It is rather like alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword: when it taps a man's shoulder, and ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... called Alice Marwood,' said the daughter, with a laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself, 'born, among poverty and neglect, and nursed in it. Nobody taught her, nobody stepped forward to help her, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in their gait, running with their necks stiff and their heads stretched out. The contempt, conceived from their appearance, they took pains to increase; sometimes falling from their horses, and making themselves objects of derision and ridicule. The consequence was, that the enemy, who at first had been alert, and ready on their posts, in case of an attack, now, for the most part, laid aside their arms, and sitting down amused themselves with looking at them. The Numidians often rode up, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... derision. 'So!' she said, 'how can you live without eating, when you cannot live ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... and loquacious. The appearance of anything unusual, if, after contemplating it a moment, he concludes it not dangerous, excites his unbounded mirth and ridicule, and he snickers and chatters, hardly able to contain himself; now darting up the trunk of a tree and squealing in derision, then hopping into position on a limb and dancing to the music of his own cackle, and all for ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... hostile element in the crowd grew more insistent. They did not listen to her now but shouted back, in derision and defiance. Then suddenly a stone was thrown; it struck Lylda on the breast, hitting her metal breastplate with a thud and dropping ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Lady.' He heard jokes even made about the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in Latin the words 'Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' He often remarked in later years how they would apply in derision the term 'good Christian' to those who were stupid enough to believe in Christian truth, and to be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. No one, he declared, would believe what villanies and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... think y I should wooe in scorn? Scorne and derision neuer comes in teares: Looke when I vow I weepe; and vowes so borne, In their natiuity all truth appeares. How can these things in me, seeme scorne to you? Bearing the badge of faith ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... two Arabic words have both the same signification, viz., Look on us; and are a kind of salutation. Mohammed had a great aversion to the first, because the Jews frequently used it in derision, it being a word of reproach in their tongue. They alluded, it seems, to the Hebrew verb rua, which signifies ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... raising Milton's Bust, And impiously molest learn'd Johnston's Dust. Religious, he the Psalms in Latin sung, From hence the Malice of the Deist sprung. While with a just Derision we survey, Thy wretched Epitaph ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... the world will fall back into idolatry, led back into it by the delusions of a madman. The word of God is a weak thing, Paul, Jesus answered, if it cannot withstand and overcome the delusions of a madman, and God himself a derision, for he will have sent his son to die on the cross in vain. Of the value of the testimony of the twelve I am the better judge. Then thou goest to Jerusalem, Paul asked, to confute me? No, Paul, I shall not return to Jerusalem. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... their coming foe. As they marched along, the sound of their bagpipes was heard, for the first time, in the crowded and ancient streets of the borough; but the dress and bearing of these brave, but ill-accoutred men excited the derision of the thriving population of an important country town. They were, says the writer in the Derby Mercury of the day, "a parcel of shabby, pitiful looking fellows, mixed up with old men and boys, dressed in dirty plaids, and as dirty shirts, without breeches, and wore their stockings, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Snake; he cast, men say, Themis, the child of Earth, away From Pytho and her hallowed stream; Then Earth, in dark derision, Brought forth the Peoples of the Dream And all ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... him,—the very Amelia to whom he had written, declining the honour of marrying her. Of what her mood towards him might be, he could form no judgment from her looks. Her face was simply stern and impassive, and she seemed inclined to eat her dinner in silence. A slight smile of derision had passed across her face as she heard Mrs Lupex whisper, and it might have been discerned that her nose, at the same time, became somewhat elevated; but she ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... said Cameron. "I really don't know any nurse. Of course it can't be—Mandy—Miss Haley?" He laughed a loud laugh almost of derision as ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... wrappings, the angular contours that constitute a 'smart mooncalfishness.' He takes at last no interest in the deeper part of the moon; he regards all Selenites not equally versed in mooncalves with indifference, derision, or hostility. His thoughts are of mooncalf pastures, and his dialect an accomplished mooncalf technique. So also he loves his work, and discharges in perfect happiness the duty that justifies his being. And so it is with all sorts and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... was the latter. I had heard that you were happy in the solitude of the mountain-shaded valley, or on the interminable prairies that greet the horizon in the distance, where neither the derision of the proud, the malice of the envious, nor the deceptions of pretended love and friendship, could disturb your peaceful meditations: and from amid the wreck of certain hopes, which I once thought no circumstances ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Noel yelled derision. "My dear chap, you'll kill me! Why, she—she's about the worst of us. I never knew anyone lie quite like Chris ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... throwing out his arms in derision; "as well have an escort from Paris to Versailles. This is all part of the play, Monsieur Headingly. It deceives no one, but it is ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... priest!" shouted the Alcalde in derision. "It is not you that the good Bishop wants, but the girl! I have his letters demanding that I send her to him! If you will come out, you shall not be hurt. Only, Rosendo must stand trial for the harm he did in the fight this morning; and the girl must go to Cartagena. As for the rest ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... incomprehensible to him. She spoke with the utmost seriousness, and looked down at the table. "That is derision, I suppose," ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... think, we cannot prevent our countrymen from bringing that into their laps. A conviction of this determines them to make no terms of commerce with us. They say, they will pocket our carrying trade as well as their own. Our overtures of commercial arrangements have been treated with a derision, which shows their firm persuasion, that we shall never unite to suppress their commerce, or even to impede it. I think their hostility towards us is much more deeply rooted at present, than during the war. In the arts, the most striking thing I saw there, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... his sister, the mighty lady of Bruseth, on the steps. She looked at him, and there was a gleam of derision in her narrowed eyes. But he drew himself up, and said as he passed her, "You've nothing to be afraid of. I've settled things so that I'm not bankrupt yet. And you shall have ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... transfer of the slaves to Africa, as the means of mitigating those supposed evils to which they are subjected, having already established by way of derision a republic there, I deem it legitimate to make some inquiry into the nature and condition of the inhabitants of Africa, in order to ascertain if such a change would be expedient or proper, with a view to the amelioration of the condition of the slaves. Of course, to do this, we ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... volunteer soldiers was in the South greeted with a howl of derision. They knew how the arsenals had been stripped. They had also for years been quietly buying up arms not only from the North, but also from various European nations. They had for many years been preparing for just this event, and now that it came they were fully equipped. During the first months ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... any likeness for thy vision? O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gathered in the gloom? What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good? Are the fruits grey like dust or bright like blood? Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are mute And all the stars keep silence? Are there ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... outlook is a thing so simple, so obvious, so seemingly trivial, that the mention of it may almost excite derision. The kernel of the scientific outlook is the refusal to regard our own desires, tastes, and interests as affording a key to the understanding of the world. Stated thus baldly, this may seem no more than a trite truism. But to remember it consistently in matters arousing our passionate partisanship ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the barbarous privilege of trampling on the bodies. At this sight Thaddeus, impelled by despair, called out, "Courage, soldiers! The prince with artillery!" The enemy, looking forward, saw the information was true, and with a shout of derision, took to flight. Poniatowski, almost at the word, was by the side of his young friend, who, unconscious of any idea but that of filial ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter |
