"Detraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... satisfaction to show the young writer, that the most celebrated ancients have been as rudely subjected to the tyranny of criticism as the moderns. Detraction has ever poured the "waters ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... hop-drying doubtless had good grounds for exasperation with the helper sent into the kiln, when he complained to the master: "Call that a man you sent me? If that's what you calls a man, I'd sooner you let me send for my old woman! Blamed if she wouldn't do better than that feller!" Detraction like this, no doubt, is often justified; but when it becomes the rule, the only possible inference is that an instinctive jealousy prompts men to it, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... and not by Fletcher. Nor is it any detraction from Fletcher to take this view. Shakespeare himself has left songs hardly finer than Fletcher wrote at his best—hardly finer, for instance, than that magnificent pair from Valentinian. Only the note of Shakespeare happens to be different from the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the statue, "may regard me with envy; but I despise the world, particularly the critics who have dared to laugh at me. (Groans.) The object of my ambition is attained—I am now the equal and representative of Shakspere—detraction cannot wither the laurels that shadow my brows—Finis coronat opus!—I have done. To-morrow I retire into private life; but though fortune has made me great, she has not made me proud, and I shall be always happy to shake hands with a friend when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... it seems that its daughters are unfittingly assigned by Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45), who says that from envy arise "hatred, tale-bearing, detraction, joy at our neighbor's misfortunes, and grief for his prosperity." For joy at our neighbor's misfortunes and grief for his prosperity seem to be the same as envy, as appears from what has been said above (A. 3). Therefore these ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's Works, vi. 288. Swift, in his Lines on ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... and was received by the ministry, and the people in general, with those marks of esteem and veneration which were due to his long services and signal success; but he was still persecuted with a spirit of envy and detraction. Philip king of Spain, alarmed at the reduction of Gibraltar, sent the marquis de Villadarias with an army to retake it. The siege lasted four months, during which the prince of Hesse exhibited many shining proofs of courage and ability. The place was supplied ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... heavy detraction, however, from the excellence of the Avignonese climate. This is the wind denominated the Vent de Bize. The peculiar situation of Avignon, at the mouth of a long avenue of mountains, gives rise to this wind: it collects in the narrow channel of the mountains, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... I send, With this let your collection end. Thus I consign you down to fame A character to praise or blame: And if the whole may pass for true, Contented rest, you have your due. Give future time the satisfaction, To leave one handle for detraction. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... assailed by almost every tongue, and pen, and press, you have fearlessly and manfully stood by me, with unsurpassed zeal and undiminished friendship. When I felt as if I should sink beneath the storm of abuse and detraction, which was violently raging around me, I have found myself upheld and sustained by your encouraging voices and approving smiles. I have doubtless, committed many faults and indiscretions, over ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... The rough features of both might be softened; but, at the worst, a stronger, more permanent and, in the long run, more profitable monopoly of the good things of the empire would be the result of the union. The admission of wealthy capitalists could not be considered a very marked social detraction to the dignity of the order. The question of pedigree might be sunk in an amiable community of taste. In point of lavish expenditure and exotic refinement, in the taste that displayed itself in the patronage of literature, the collection of objects of art, the adornment of country villas, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... themselves Stewards to the Poor, and that in a future State they are accountable for every Doit lavish'd in Equipage or superfluous Dishes. Their Tables are not nicely, but plentifully served, and always open to the honest Needy. At Court, as I have learn'd, there is neither Envy nor Detraction, no one undermines another, nor intercepts the Prince's Bounty or Favour by slandrous Reports; and neither Interest, Riches, nor Quality, but Merit only recommends the Candidate to a Post: A Bribe was never heard of there; which, together with the exact Justice practised, is the ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... put on concord, being humble, temperate; free from all whispering and detraction; and justified by our ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... than the wisest Dervise, with his venerable Beard, and pointed Bonnet: You are discreet, and yet not mistrustful; you are easy, but not weak; you are beneficent with Discretion; you love your Friends, and create yourself no Enemies. Your most sprightly Flights borrow no Graces from Detraction; you never speak a misbecoming Word, nor do an ill-natur'd Action, tho' 'tis always in your Power. In a Word, your Soul is as spotless as your Person. You have, moreover, a little Fund of Philosophy, which gives me just ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or probability, but which was in itself wholly impossible to be true. No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that class of falsehoods which, by continued repetition, through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who are already far misled, and of further fanning passion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... said the young man, detaining her as she rose. 'My hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my love for you: have undergone a change. I offer you, now, no distinction among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but real disgrace and shame; but a home—a heart and home—yes, dearest Rose, and those, and those alone, are all I have ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... producer. Moreover, along with each individual producer, are a number of others, whose productive powers and actual yield also are unknown to him. Each strives, with all the means at his command—cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly at critical moments—to drive all other competitors from the field. Production is wholly left to accident and to the judgment of individuals. Accident often ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... belong to him; as to the waistcoat, it fitted him very ill, being infinitely too big for him; and the cap was so heavy that it made his head ache. Thus these cloathes, which perhaps (as they presented the idea of their misery more sensibly to the people's eyes) brought him more envy, hatred, and detraction, than all his deeper impositions and more real advantages, afforded very little use or honour to the wearer; nay, could scarce serve to amuse his own vanity when this was cool enough to reflect with the least seriousness. And, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... with red. But an observer would have seen that this was no care-lined farmer face; that, though the man himself was small, his feet were disproportionately and absurdly small; that his toes pointed forward as he walked; and detraction might have called him bow-legged. This ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... some forty or fifty feet between the house at the stern and the forecastle, which rose considerably higher; a low bulwark was surmounted by a heavy rail supported upon turned posts painted white. Everything, in spite of the captain's boastful detraction, was in perfect trim, at least to landfolk's eyes. "Now come into the cabin," said the captain. He gave Lydia's traps, as he called them, in charge of a boy, while he led the way below, by a narrow stairway, warning ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... "Backbiting and detraction," called Cora, who had been close enough to hear the sisters' remarks. "I would not have been in your place at that table, ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... insane people were "possessed of the devil." It is no disgrace to be insane, and the feeling of chagrin at discovering disease of the brain in a relative is another absurdity. Avoidance of insanity should be studied with as much devotion as avoidance of tuberculosis. Yet there should be no detraction from the fact that the heredity is strong. No one should be allowed to marry who has been insane, for the offspring ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... smallest reason for suspecting that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to be the fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a great politician. From Disraeli, who would perhaps be less drawn to this qualification of a statesman, comes this word of praise, with many of detraction: "Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many admirable parts. In him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... me impure lacessit which impels to answering in presence of the passers by the enemy at the gate; it is also a debt which his honour and a respectful regard for the good opinion of his fellows compel the author to repay. The man who is feeble enough silently to suffer detraction and calumny at the hands of some sciolist or Halb-bildung sheltering his miserable individuality under the shadow (may it never be less!) of " King We," simply sins against himself as the Arabs say and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... "Calumny and detraction," says Boerhaave, "are sparks, which if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."—Murphy's ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... You cannot be fair, nor can your homes be fair, unless you are holy and noble. Will you sweep and garnish the house, only that it may be ready for a legion of evil spirits to enter in—for imps and demons of gossip, frivolity, detraction, and a restless fever about small ills? What is the house for, if good spirits cannot peacefully abide there? Lo! they are asking for the bill in more than one well-garnished mansion. They sought a home and found a work-house. Martha! it was ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the very same Reasons; for the Tasts of Mankind being as different as their Constitutions, they must of Consequence be often as opposite as the most absolute Contraries in Nature: A Knave loves and delights in Scandal, Detraction, Infamy, in blasting, ruining his Neighbour's Character, because these are consonant to the Depravity of humane Nature, and in themselves vile: Upon the very same Account an honest Man abominates them all, with the ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... underestimation; depreciation &c (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c v.; modesty &c 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon^; depreciate; disparage &c (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c 856; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... from high authority, I have not a thought of detraction. None can venerate the NESTORS in science who have enriched its annals, more than I, and though we reverse their judgments, their errors are confessedly our ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and innuendo; he fired up directly, and defended her of whose conduct he had been complaining the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marble under the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, and humidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood was already rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction of picturesqueness and all ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... engaged in the politics of England in the middle of the seventeenth century, he has suffered at the hands of his biographer, Anthony a Wood,{1} merely because he belonged to the opposite party—the crudest possible measure of merit For the odium politicum and the odium theologicum are twin agents of detraction, and the writing of history would be dull indeed were it not for the joy of digging out an approximation to the truth from opposing opinions. Where the material is so scanty it will be safer [30]to summarize what ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... listener was not wanting, according to the testimony of the witness who, on his own account, certainly did not object to chronicle detraction of every kind. "The speech was admired, except by Brougham, who appeared in a considerable state of excitement. He said to Peel (whom he was standing near, and with whom he was not in the habit of communicating), ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... calling sneered at by those who pursue it. There are few professions that are not similarly girded at by some of their own members, either from disappointment or some ingrained discontent. When you hear such detraction, fix your thoughts not on the paltry accidents of your art, such as the use of cosmetics and other little infirmities of its practice, things that are obvious marks for the cheap sneer, but look rather to what that art is capable of in its highest forms, to what is the essence of the actor's ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... contrarious were these two: The one a man upon whose laureled brow Gray hairs were growing! glory ever new Shall circle him in after years as now; For spent detraction may not disavow The world of knowledge with the wit combined, The elastic force no burden e'er could bow, The various talents and the single mind, Which give him moral power ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... weaned. The Toronto papers commented according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate was concerned there was lack of the material of criticism. If he had achieved little for praise he had achieved nothing for detraction. There was no inconsistent public utterance, no doubtful transaction, no scandalous paper to bring forward to his detriment. When the fact that he was but twenty-eight years of age had been exhausted in elaborate ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Detraction do its worst! for if this be not his, it deserves to be. For my part, I declare for Distributive Justice! and from this, and what follows, he certainly deserves those advantages, which he acknowledges, to have received from the opinion of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... prone to applaud the times behind us, and to vilify the present; for the concurrent of her fame carries it to this day, how loyally and victoriously she lived and died, without the grudge and grievance of her people; yet the truth may appear without detraction from the honour of so great a princess. It is manifest she left more debts unpaid, taken upon credit of her privy-seals, than her progenitors did, or could have taken up, that were a hundred years before her; which was ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... preferment as he had (it was never very great) to a chance opportunity of preaching at St. Paul's and a recommendation to Laud. That prelate—to whom all the infinite malignity of political and sectarian detraction has not been able to deny the title of an encourager, as few men have encouraged them, of learning and piety—took Taylor under his protection, made him his chaplain, and procured him incorporation at Oxford, a fellowship at All Souls, and finally ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... in fact, up to the present moment, there was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... greatly hate is the detraction of Brahmanas; without doubt, if the Brahmanas are worshipped, I regard myself worshipped. All superior Brahmanas should always be saluted with reverence, after feeding them with hospitality. One should reverence one's own feet also (in the evening). I am gratified ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... splendid reputation, you will certainly also labour more than others to enable me to retain it. You must not be guided by the opinions and judgments of the present generation only, but of those to come also: and yet the latter will be a more candid judgment, for it will not be influenced by detraction and malice. Finally, you should think of this—that you are not seeking glory for yourself alone (and even if that were the case, you still ought not to be careless of it, especially as you had determined to consecrate the memory of your name by the most ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... different? But it is in truth of base extraction, and ungenerous qualities, springing from selfishness and vanity, and low ambition; by these it subsists, and thrives, and acts; and envy, and jealousy, and detraction, and hatred, and variance, are its too faithful and natural associates. It is, to say the best of it, a root which bears fruits of a poisonous as well as of a beneficial quality. If it sometimes stimulates to great and generous ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... naturalized countrymen of mine, whose dislike of America was not lessened by their unceremonious mode of departure from it; and it is to these, the mass of whom are familiarly known in the journals of this country, that we owe the most insidious, because the best informed, detraction of us. Macmillan's Magazine did us sterling service through the papers of Edward Dicey, the best literary feuilletonist in England; and Professor Newman, J. Stuart Mill, and others, gave us the limited influence of the Westminster ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... comprehensive rule of Christian duty, on which hangs, not only the law and the prophets, but the very life and spirit of the Gospel too: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." Which rule, that we may all duly observe, by throwing aside all scandal and detraction, all spite and rancour, all rudeness and contempt, all rage and violence, and whatever tends to make conversation and commerce either uneasy, or troublesome, may the God of peace grant for Jesus Christ his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... charm of Dekker's, her wild soft glances and flashing smiles and fading traces of tears; she is no giddy girl, but a strong woman with fine irregular features, large and luminous eyes, broad intelligent forehead, eyebrows so thick and close together that detraction might call her beetle-browed, powerful mouth and chin, fine contralto voice (with an occasional stammer), expression alternately repellent and attractive, but always striking and sincere. No one has ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ancestors transmitted orally, in lines composed by the bards, the memorable sayings and deeds which they wished to hand down to generations after them. How far they were worthy of credit, and how far they were subject to the vices of flattery or detraction we cannot tell, but we may be sure that those who were accounted great in these ancient times were anxious to have their doughty deeds immortalised, and perhaps were as sensitive to the tone of public criticism thus represented as is the statesman or warrior of to-day. What would we not give ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... "The election has placed our President beyond the pale of human envy or human harm, as he is above the pale of human ambition. Henceforth all men will come to see him as we have seen him—a true, loyal, patient, patriotic, and benevolent man. Having no longer any motive to malign or injure him, detraction will cease, and Abraham Lincoln will take his place with Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and Adams and Jackson—among the benefactors of the country and of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Europe, general literature, art, science, or the events of the day. I must say that I never heard one remark that could be painful to an English ear made, even in jest. There was none of that vulgar boastfulness and detraction which is to be met with in less educated society. Most of the gentlemen whom I met, and many of the ladies, had travelled in Europe, and had brought back highly cultivated tastes in art, and cosmopolitan ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... one of his legs without injury to the other was because the fighter was blessed with a pair of bow-legs that couldn't have stopped the proverbial pig in the proverbial alley. In addition to this decided detraction from his manly beauty, he was short, squatty, thick-necked, a nose of the variety commonly known as a stub, and a couple of little eyes that had a constant twinkle, half-shrewd and half-humorous, the whole surmounted with a shock of shaggy red hair. But these detractions from his beauty did ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... and multitudinous residences there are so many who have nothing to do, and that always makes mischief. They gather in each other's rooms and spend hours in consultation about others. If they had to walk a half mile before they got to the willing ear of some listener to detraction they would get out of breath before reaching there, and not feel in full glow of animosity or slander, or might, because of the distance, not go at all. But rooms 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 are on the same corridor, and when one carrion crow goes "Caw! Caw!" all the other crows hear ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... two loves as their origins. The evils flowing from these loves are contempt of others, enmity, and hostility against those who do not favor them, envy, hatred, and revenge, and from these fierceness and cruelty; and in respect to the Divine they are denial and consequent contempt, derision, and detraction of the holy things of the church; and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things (see above, n. 562). And as these evils breathe forth continually the destruction and murder of those whom they account as enemies, and against whom ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the discharge of which, I have endeavoured to observe one steady and uniform system of conduct, which I shall invariably pursue, while I have the honour to command, regardless of the tongue of slander, or the powers of detraction. The fatal tendency of disunion is so obvious, that I have, in earnest terms, exhorted such officers as have expressed their dissatisfaction at General Conway's promotion, to be cool and dispassionate in their decision about ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... penal. There were northerners quite ready to grant these demands. Rage against abolitionism, much of it, if possible, even more unreasoning, prevailed at the North. Garrison says that he found here "contempt more bitter, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slave-owners themselves." The Church, politics, business—all interests save righteousness—seemed to bow to the false ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... his very high praise of Dryden, "a Man for Learning and universal Writing in Poetry, perhaps the greatest that England has produc'd" [p. l5], and his comment upon the critical detraction from which he suffered. He compares Pope, interestingly enough, with Dryden, remarking that Pope ("a Person tho' Inferior to Mr. Dryden, yet speaking Impartially has few Superiors in this Age") also is persecuted by envy; and he has generous praise for that poet's translation ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... Edmund! He will know better when he has outgrown this same callow trick of honesty, and learnt of the great goddess Detraction how to show himself wiser than the wise, by pointing out to the world the fool's motley which peeps through the rents in the philosopher's cloak. Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eye ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of some newspapers, but not of mine,' I answered. 'But I will do this: I will print your article separately, and furnish you with as many copies as you want, and you can distribute them where you please, but I will not lumber my columns with detraction, and insult patrons to whom I am pledged to furnish a good paper for their families.' The party did not accept my proposition, but ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the most troublesome in this plot. He had served in the campaign about Philadelphia but had been blocked in his extravagant demands for promotion; so he turned for redress to Gates, the star in the north. A malignant campaign followed in detraction of Washington. He had, it was said, worn out his men by useless marches; with an army three times as numerous as that of Howe, he had gained no victory; there was high fighting quality in the American army if properly led, but ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we can not disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness—but this we know, that whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now shines as a fixed star in the constellation of the great lights of modern times, not only because he succeeded in crossing the ocean when once ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... Marlborough's character[15] hath been so variously drawn, and is indeed of so mixed a nature in itself, that it is hard to pronounce on either side, without the suspicion of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of his military accomplishments, which the opposite reports, of his friends and enemies among the soldiers, have rendered[26] problematical: but if he be among those who delight ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Spectator. The critique in the Spectator gives that view of the book which will naturally be taken by a certain class of minds; I shall expect it to be followed by other notices of a similar nature. The way to detraction has been pointed out, and will probably be pursued. Most future notices will in all likelihood have a reflection of the Spectator in them. I fear this turn of opinion will not improve the demand for the book—but time will show. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... marvel how any great man came by his name. The particular tribute, which in the pages that follow it is desired to pay to him, consists in the careful examination of just those actions and just those qualities of his upon which candid detraction has in fact fastened, or on which candid admiration ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... entertained some dozen of the rank and file, all together, paying their railway fares and housing them from Saturday to Monday. These men, be it noted in passing, distinguished themselves from that day onwards by unsparing detraction whenever the name of Mutimer came up in private talk, though, of course, they were the loudest in applause when platform reference to their leader demanded it. Besides the expressly invited, there was naturally no lack of visitors who presented themselves voluntarily. Among ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... The furious ardour of my zeal repress'd. Canst thou, with more than usual warmth she cried, Thy malice to indulge, and feed thy pride; 60 Canst thou, severe by nature as thou art, With all that wondrous rancour in thy heart, Delight to torture truth ten thousand ways, To spin detraction forth from themes of praise, To make Vice sit, for purposes of strife, And draw the hag much larger than the life, To make the good seem bad, the bad seem worse, And represent our nature as our curse? Doth not humanity condemn that zeal Which tends to aggravate ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... aggressions, encroachments, and annoyances of the mother country. From the day when our independence was declared, America has been an eyesore to all the leading Governments of Europe—the object of detraction and bitter hostility, of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. And though these feelings have been partially concealed under the cloak of studied politeness and false, hollow-hearted friendship, occasions enough have been given ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Pisa. This circumstance was duly reported to Father Rocco by his correspondent at Florence; but, whether he was too much occupied among the statues, or whether it was one result of his cautious resolution never to expose himself unnecessarily to so much as the breath of detraction, he made no attempt to see Nanina, or even to justify himself toward her by writing her a letter. All his mornings continued to be spent alone in the studio, and all his afternoons to be occupied ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... his name that appeared in the newspapers, it was his name that headed the list of the junior officers mentioned for distinguished conduct. Standish had followed his career with an admiration and a joy that was without taint of envy or detraction. He gloried in Aintree, he delighted to know the army held such a man. He was grateful to Aintree for upholding the traditions of a profession to which he himself gave all the devotion of a fanatic. He made a god of him. This was the attitude of mind toward Aintree before he came ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... felt their loss. He finished, as we have seen, the "Iliad" in 1718; but the fifth and sixth volumes, which were the last, did not appear till 1720. Its success, which at the time was triumphant, roused against him the whole host of envy and detraction. Dennis, and all Grub Street with him, were moved to assail him. Pamphlets after pamphlets were published, all of which, after reading with writhing anguish, Pope had the resolution to bind up into volumes—a great collection of calumny, which he preserved, probably, for purposes of ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... fortunate circumstances rather above the intrigue, and detraction, and heart-burning, that attends the social struggle for life in ordinary cases. If I were envied, I did not know it, and I had small reason to envy anybody else, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... seize the opportunity of venting long secreted venom. This has appeared as well in books as in more ephemeral publications, and upon both sides, and even between writers on the same side. On every hand there has been a most deplorable impeachment of motive, accompanied by a detraction of character by imputation which is quite shocking. Petty personal slights have been insinuated as the ultimate cause of an expression of opinion upon an important literary question, and testimony has been impeached and judgment disparaged by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... including margins of books and blank pages, that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by myself, they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let fly against the luckless bird from whom they had ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... had a defeat been suffered instead. He even held this language to Egmont himself after his return to Brussels. The conqueror, flushed with his glory, was not inclined to digest the criticism, nor what he considered the venomous detraction of the Duke. More vain and arrogant than ever, he treated his powerful Spanish rival with insolence, and answered his observations with angry sarcasms, even in the presence of the King. Alva was not likely to forget the altercation, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... much is there in your magnificent country, hitherto undescribed and unexpressed, in scenery, manners, morals, that all may be wells from which he may be the first to drink. Yet it cannot be expected—for it has passed to a proverb that escape from persecution and detraction can never and nowhere be the lot of literature—that there will not be many instances, even in America, where every attempt on the part of gifted writers (and young writers especially, who are commonly regarded with eyes of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... opposes them, on the contrary, and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... study, and exalted by imagination;" this is very ambitious, but not very intelligible. He speaks of Wilkie attracting the attention of admirers and detractors. It is very absurd to consider criticism that is not always favourable, detraction. The following passage is well put. "We constantly hear the ignorant advising a student to study the great book of nature, without being biassed by what has been done by other painters; it is as absurd as if they would recommend a youth to learn astronomy by lying ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... unimpeachable propriety of conduct—unsullied by the breath of detraction—rendered her in a great measure impervious to downright ill-nature; but still she was open to teasing and bantering; and the more she was teased, and the more she was bantered, the more impenetrable she became. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... making thirty-six millions of dollars a year for twenty-five years, with insurance of peace all that time, and it is impossible to look at the question a second time. I am aware that at the end of about sixteen years, a gradual detraction from this sum will commence, from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during the remaining nine years. Calculate this deduction, and it is still impossible to look at the enterprise a second time. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... his usual Wednesday lecture at the neighbouring "college for young ladies;" where, blooming misses—in addition to their curriculum of "accomplishments" and "all the 'ologies"—were taught the noble art of family multiplication, domestic division, male detraction, feminine sedition, and, the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... I was complaining of it in your presence, that if I did not esteem myself a better Christian than they show themselves towards me, and if my life, writings, words, nay thoughts, betrayed to me one single spark of heresy, or I should in a detestable manner fall into the snares of the spirit of detraction, Diabolos, who, by their means, raises such crimes against me; I would then, like the phoenix, gather dry wood, kindle a fire, and burn myself in the midst of it. You were then pleased to say to me that King Francis, of eternal memory, had been made sensible of those false ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... that you had purified her of all stains of her past—but there may be one that remains. And that in most people's eyes would be no detraction. You look puzzled, Miss Nott—but I am coming to the explanation and the end of my story. A ship of war was sent to the island to punish the mutineers and pirates, for such they were, but they could not be found. A private ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... green conscripts in sand batteries; marching steadily to the last fight at Appomattox—far out of their element—the Confederate sailors flinched not from fire nor fled from duty. Though their country grumbled, and detraction and ingratitude often assailed them; yet at the bitter ending no man nor woman in the broad South but believed ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort which my noble friends proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance and base detraction; such a cloud hath the devil drawn over the world's judgment. Some of the stationers that had the selling of the first part of this poem, because it went not so fast away in the selling as some of their beastly and abominable trash (a shame both to our language and our nation), have despightfully ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... unexceptionable; the professors were considered unsurpassed in their several departments, and every provision was made for thorough tuition. But what a Babel reigned outside of the recitation room! One hundred and forty girls to spend their recesses in envy, ridicule, malice, and detraction. Anxious to shake off the loneliness which so heavily oppressed her, Irene at first mingled freely among her companions; but she soon became disgusted with the conduct and opinions of the majority, and endeavoured to find quiet in her own room. Early ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... their feasts, but bid them be soberly merry, and wisely free. I also advise them to get friendly Thrift to be there Caterer, and Temperance to carve at the board, and be very watchful that obscenity, detraction and scurrility be banisht the table; but let their discourse be as savoury as the meat, and so feed as though they did live to eat, and, at last, rise as full of thankfulness, as of food; this hath, this is, and this shall be ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... might have laughed at the criticisms on his wife, though the envious neighbors' wives did say that it was the old servant and not Mrs. Cheshire who produced such fine butter and cheese; for wherever she appeared, spite of envy and detraction, her lovely person and quiet good sense, and the growing rumor of her good management, did not fail to produce a due impression. And James had prepared to laugh it off; but it would not do. He found himself getting every now and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... periodical, sick of his editor, tired of his mistress, and bent on any change, from China to Peru, that would give him a new theatre for display. One grows weary of the perpetual half-truths of inveterate detraction. It is granted that Byron was restless, vain, imperious, never did anything without a desire to shine in the doing of it, and was to a great degree the slave of circumstances. Had the Liberal ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... This should strike detraction dumb, I propose also to publish a selection of congratulations from other Continental potentates, but of this, as SHAKSPEARE ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... handwriting, intercepting their letters, disconcerting their rendezvous; in one word, disturbing their amours by everything which a rival, prodigal, indefatigable, and full of artifice, can be imagined to do. The straitest ties of blood could not secure any one from his detraction. His nephew, the Count de Guiche, was a victim: he had in truth, offended the Count de Grammont, by having supplanted him in the affection of the Countess de Fiesque, whom he loved afterwards for the space of twelve ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... scuttling your own ship. Now as I am in a way a practical person, which is, I take it, a diminutive state of hard-headedness, any detraction against hard-headedness must appear as leveled against myself. Gimlet in hand, deep down amidships, it would look as if I were squatted and set on my ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... their Horses in setting Matters right which they have said during the War between the Parties; and a whole Circle of Acquaintance are put into a thousand pleasing Passions and Sentiments, instead of the Pangs of Anger, Envy, Detraction, and Malice. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... pair of glasses which were no detraction from her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... 'Summon Detraction to object the worst That may be told, and utter all it can; It cannot find a blemish to be enforced Against him, other than he was a man, And built of flesh and blood, and did live here, Within the region of infirmity; Where all perfections never did appear To meet in any one so really, But ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... relieved by expression, she became ashamed of her unsociability, and Major Fane's next topic was not uncongenial. He was airing his cherished grudge, and pronouncing a severe philippic on the belles of the Dominion. Cecil was incapable of detraction, or envy at another's greater success; but in the face of Bertie's abduction of Lilla before her eyes, she did not feel particularly in charity with any ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... commonplaces! That life is short, that marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from detraction;—these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no man ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Detraction's desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the Nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the World could tell Nought against either, and both seemed secure— She in her virtue, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... perpetuity if she realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be less ideal than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile herself to it, as Italy has reconciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France; for by submitting frankly to this detraction from her national unity she would give her brethren in the Sporades the best opportunity of developing their national individuality untrammelled ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this last stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests. But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. 'If war continues, remove into the unsettled country; ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... physical superiority, De Quincey lived in a glass house too fragile to admit of his throwing many stones at his neighbors. The very fact that he valued personal appearance at so low an estimate takes away the sting from his remarks on the deformities of other people: he could not have meant any detraction, but simply wished to present a perfect picture to the eye, preserving the ugly features with the faultless, just as we all insist on doing in regard to those we love. De Quincey and myself, therefore, are likely to part good friends. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... world had been his possession. Clara's treatment of him was a robbery of land and subjects. His grander dream had been a marriage with a lady of so glowing a fame for beauty and attachment to her lord that the world perforce must take her for witness to merits which would silence detraction and almost, not quite (it was undesireable), extinguish envy. But for the nature of women his dream would have been realized. He could not bring himself to denounce Fortune. It had cost him a grievous ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... none. If ever he had suffered injuries they were forgiven, forgotten, and buried out of sight. Even in the controversies where his strongest convictions were involved, he steadily abstained from bitterness, violence, and detraction. "Fiery hatred and malice," he said, with perfect truth, "are what I detest, and would always allay ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... succession, no dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... I have no pleasure in their conversation. I have myself no gratification in uttering detraction, and therefore none in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... required to set litigation afloat at Hong-Kong, Mr Romer was sent thither as the fittest man for such work, with rich assurance of future guerdon. Who so happy then as Mr Romer! But even among the pure there is room for envy and detraction. Mr Romer had not yet ceased to wonder at new worlds, as he skimmed among the islands of that southern ocean, before the edict had gone forth for his return. There were men sitting in that huge court of Parliament on whose breasts it lay as an intolerable ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... was, in every way, truly a self-made man. Mr. Harvey was the first to appreciate Mr. Howison's talents, and to afford scope for their display, by employing him to engrave the well-known picture of "The Curlers;" and it is no detraction from the merits of that painting to say, that the admirable skill displayed in transferring it to copper contributed in no small degree to the reputation of the painter. On the completion of "The Curlers," Mr. Howison was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... British Isles, has been lavished upon his scientific importance is being followed abroad by what may be an unnecessary amount of detraction. This is always the worst of setting up a man on too high a pinnacle; some one has to undertake the ungrateful task of pulling him down again. Justus von Liebig addressed himself to this task with some vigour in his Reden und Abhandlung (Leipzig, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... tales to me, a priest?" he asked. "Denis Quirk is a man who goes to his duties; not by any means a saint, but a good, honest Catholic. Tell the next man or woman who speaks about it that scandal and detraction are steps in the ladder down to the devil's kingdom. There are more souls lost that way than you ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... that Mr. Legg was not the meek and mild spirit of ancient opinion and that Nelly knew it; but this suggestion may be held no more than the penalty of fame—an activity of the baser sort, who ever drop vinegar of detraction into ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... and, in fact, exhausting all that poetic vein which, properly applied, might have produced epics; these and many more traits set forth in his biography bring forth his character in its true light, dispel those clouds which malice and detraction may at times have cast over it, and leave it in the full effulgence of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Detraction, twin-sister of Envy, was all the while pointing out defects in friends and neighbors. He saw their faults and hard peculiarities; but rarely their good qualities. Then Doubt and Distrust crept in through the unguarded door, and soon after their entrance Markland began to think uneasily ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... aetatis medicorum decus, as Vesalius calls him, wrote furious letters, and later spoke of him as a madman (vaesanus). The younger men were with him and he had many friends, but he had aroused a roaring tide of detraction against which he protested a few years later in his work on the "China-root," which is full of details about the "Fabrica." In a fit of temper he threw his notes on Galen and other MSS. in the fire. No sadder page exists in medical writings than the one in which Vesalius tells ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... author, Morhof, has spoken 'comme un brave homme' upon the difficulty of literary enterprizes, and the facility and venom of detraction: I support his assertion 'totis viribus'; and to beg to speak in the same person with himself. 'Non ignotum mihi est, quantae molis opus humeris meis incumbat. Oceanum enim ingressus sum, in quo portum invenire difficile est, naufragii periculum a syrtibus et scopulis ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... vision mentioned, I. Cor. xv., which again is very possibly the same as that of II. Cor. xii. For the purposes of the present investigation, however, the whole story must be set aside. At the same time it should be borne in mind, that any detraction from the historical accuracy of the writer of the Acts, is more than compensated for, by the additional weight given to the conversion of St. Paul, whom we are now able to regard as having been converted by evidence which was in itself overpowering, and ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... asked to be allowed to marry Mr. Dale? Had either of us ever hinted at the subject? Never! And yet my father was the first to cast suspicions and make insinuations, for I understood his unjust taunt. Sheep's clothing, indeed! Detraction was the surest way to make me love him; for if there was any one under the sun whose sentiments were noble and unselfish, whose motives were manly and disinterested, I believed it was Roger Dale. Why had my father ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... finds himself desperately crossed, and at once spoiled both of advancement and hope, both of fruition and possibility, all his desire is turned into rage, his thirst is now only of revenge, his tongue sounds of nothing but detraction and slander. Now the place he fought for is base, his rival unworthy, his adversary injurious, officers corrupt, court infectious; and how well is he that may be his own man, his own master, that may live safely in a mean distance, at pleasure, free from starving, free from burning? But if his ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... stand forth? This detraction through years For my people has made me an oaf, Hides my poetry's fount in the fog of its fleers, So it merely a pool of self-worship appears; Like a clumsy troll I Am contemned with affront, Whom all "cultured" folk fly, Or yet gather to ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... fit occasion to speak of that strangely violent detraction and abuse which formed so large an ingredient in Wordsworth's life,—or rather, of that which is the only element of permanent interest in such a matter,—his manner of receiving and replying to it. No writer, probably, who has ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... never grated for an instant on his high ideal. Her temper also was the sweetest in the world, eminent as her generous spirit. She spoke of others with so much kindness, and never indulged in that spirit of detraction or that love of personal gossip which Tancred had frankly told her he abhorred. Somehow or other it seemed that ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... and deadliest? Among the wicked. Yet they often hate the good. True: but not goodness, not the good man's virtues; these they envy, and hate him for possessing them. But more commonly the object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,—perhaps with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred. When a sinful act is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a part of the man; and he may then worship it ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... however he may abstract himself from publick affairs, will never want those who hint, with Shylock, that ships are but boards. The beauty, adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of detraction. The genius, even when he endeavours only to entertain or instruct, yet suffers persecution from innumerable criticks, whose acrimony is excited merely by the pain of seeing others pleased, and of hearing applauses ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... gave him the only horse he had. And seizing the yoke of the car himself, the king began to draw it. And as he did so, he said, 'There is now nothing for the Brahmanas.' The king had given away, it is true, but he had done so with detraction. And for that speech of his, he shall have to fall down from heaven. And after the Rishi had said so, of the two that remained, one asked, 'Who amongst us two shall fall down?' And the Rishi answered, 'Vasumanas.' And the enquirer asked, 'For what reason?' And Narada ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to the Well, you'll find a harvest of 'em. I just came from there. It was the high tide of Scandal. Detraction was at its height. And you may see the nymphas discentes and the aures satyrorum acutas," cries the chaplain, with a ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he was hailed as vanquisher of the hitherto-unconquered Buckingham. He bore his honours meekly, yet he did not escape calumny; for at a court, as everywhere else, distinguished success is certain to awaken a spirit of envy and detraction. These paltry feelings, however, were entirely confined to the disappointed of his own sex. By fairer and more impartial judges, who had witnessed his exploits, he was spoken of in terms of unmingled admiration; and at the grand revel at Whitehall that followed the jousts, many ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... — N. underestimation; depreciation &c. (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c. v.; modesty &c. 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon[obs3]; depreciate; disparage &c. (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c. 856; slight &c. (despise) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... one's familiar land. Before the coming of the Scientific Age this group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the equipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less amiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a usually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of change in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human life that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and separations were violently broken down. All the old settled mental habits and traditions ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Sheridan, whose manner had lost nothing of its interesting attention. He continued to visit me very frequently, and always gave me the most friendly counsel. He knew that I was not properly protected by Mr. Robinson, but he was too generous to build his gratification on the detraction of another. The happiest moments I then knew were passed in the society of this distinguished being. He saw me ill-bestowed upon a man who neither loved nor valued me; he lamented my destiny, but with such delicate propriety that it consoled while it revealed to me the unhappiness of my situation. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... rejoycing when any illiterate person hath gained any reputation for a Cure performed, especially where Physicians have been concerned, though the Patients neglect or obstinateness, have been the sole cause of this non-performance, and by their continued detraction from Physicians, and applauding themselves, hoping by the former, that people will think such Mountebanks able to do better Cures then learned Physicians, and then they can easily insinuate themselves superior to such Mountebanks, and consequently to Physicians. By the latter, they ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... pure as the chaste morning's breath, When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away, Were clothed in words. —Sir J. Suckling—Detraction Execrated ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
