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More "Spurn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is he with whom I hoped to share the lot of reconciling the quarrel of races and of ages! In the eye of the world he may be great, and I the bandit captain of a despised race. On the page of history he may be magnified, and I derided. But I spurn him for a hero—I reject him for a brother. My rival he may make himself. His soul is narrow, and his aims are low. He might have been a god to the world, and he is a tyrant. We have followed him with wistful eyes, to see him loosen bonds with a divine touch; and we find him busy forging new ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... either by smoke or snuff, was a nuisance to others, thus infringing the very primary principles of civil liberty—that it led to drunkenness and debauch—that snuff spoiled the complexion—stopped the nose to the perception of odours—and that as to the ladies, they would positively spurn any approach of familiar friendship from a snuff-taker. This raised the concealed anger of the snuff-takers, who had hitherto maintained a stubborn neutrality while the argument was kept to smoke. They replied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... an avowal of love. I was spurned without a moment's hesitation; all her modesty risen in arms, she reduced me to a mere nothing. What is it? Am I a fool without brains, or has she no heart? What am I fighting against? What are the obstacles in my way? Why does she spurn me? My head is in such a chaotic state that I can neither think, write, nor reason. I only repeat to myself, over and over again, "What is it that ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... by his death; and, for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crown'd:— How that might change his nature, there's the question. —And, to speak truth of Caesar, I have not known when his affections sway'd More than his reason.—So Caesar may; Then, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... to remember that it is just as criminal to attempt to extract money from a guilty as from an innocent person. It is of no use attempting to deal with these cases single-handed. You must not only deny the allegation, but 'spurn the allegator.' Put the matter into the hands of a good sharp criminal solicitor, and instruct him to rid you of the nuisance ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... not kneel to me. If it were not unmanly, I could spurn you with my foot. Do you know, girl, you who swore to love me till time had passed—yes, and for all eternity, you who do love me at this moment—and therein lies your shame—that you have killed me? You have murdered my heart. I trusted ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... sense of which Deborah endeavoured to lessen, by assuming as much freedom of conduct as she possibly dared, under the influence, doubtless, of the same feelings of independence, which induced her, at Martindale Hall, to spurn the advice of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... ye our lives oppress Who sojourn in the wilderness. Sent hither by the hermits' prayer With bow and darts unused to spare, For vengeance am I come to slay Your sinful band in battle fray. Rest as ye are: remain content, Nor try the battle's dire event. Unless your offered lives ye spurn, O rovers ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... unjust, constitutional provisions, when the emergency that imposed them has long since passed away; if we must share in the guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls of men as the price of our Union; if the slave States will haughtily spurn our assistance, and refuse to consult the general welfare, then the fault is not ours if a separation ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... bland BALFOUR in his turn such crude selfishness would spurn As the wish to prove himself popular more than soft J.G., With a most becoming blush his pale cheek, I'm sure, would burn, If his uncle should cry, "Come, nephew dear, and second me!" He would hint at nepotism, and the chance of secret schism. "Let the mild ex-Liberal lead, I will be his henchman ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... you're older each year than the last; That we all must grow gray, and the wrinkles come fast. Reflect, ere you spurn me, that youth at his sides Wears wings; and once gone, all pursuit he derides: Nor are men over keen to catch charms as they fly. Think of this and be gentle, be loving as I: When your years are maturer, we two shall be then The pair in the Iliad over ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, since ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... spurn the rage of gain, Teach him that states of native strength possest, Though very poor, may ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... secret of his wives. (Muses.) This night I have discover'd the base Perez Again essays his most inconstant fair, Blind as inconstant. She rejected me When, as Friar Anselmo teaching music, I offer'd her—'tis true, unholy love; And I by Perez was thrust out with shame, Spurn'd with contumely as the door was closed, With threats if ever I appear'd again, To blazon forth my impious attempt, and— Yet did she cozen me with melting eyes, And first roused up the demon in my breast, Then laugh'd in malice.——I hate her for it! Now as ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... I could wander earth a' o'er, nor care for aught o' bliss, If I might share, at my return, a joy sae pure as this; And I could spurn a' earthly wealth—a palace and a queen, For my bonnie, bonnie lassie, in the wild glen ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... intelligence. She must escape. Every iota of cleverness must be given to find a way out of Schloss Szolnok. What if, in spite of all, the things that Leo Goritz had confessed were true! She doubted it and yet—if he loved her—! Here was a woman's revenge, to bait, to charm, to spurn; and then to outwit him! A test of the sincerity of his professions, and of her own feminine art—a dangerous game which she had once before thought of playing, until his cruelty ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... a sable brother, treat him kindly as another! Ah, perhaps the world has scorned him for that luckless hue he wore, No such narrow prejudices can he know whom Love possesses— Whom one spark of Freedom blesses. Do not spurn him from thy door Lest Love ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... inspiration. Beyond them and above them he sees the hand and hears the voice of God. And since he lives and works thus close to Nature's throbbing heart and in close communion with forces that link the finite to the Infinite, who dares to spurn the dignity of his toil or characterize ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... marshalling all our facts and all out literary discernment, so as to convince our interlocutor of his error. But why should we not do our task urbanely? The cyphers, certainly, are stupid and tedious things, deserving no patience. But the more intelligent Baconians spurn them as airily as do you or I. Our case is not so strong that the arguments of these gentlemen can be ignored; and naughty temper does but hamper us in the task of demolition. If Bacon were proved to have written Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, would mankind be robbed of one of those illusions ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... existence—ask the friendless, penniless foreign emigrant, if he will give up his present misery, his future uncertainty, his doubtful and difficult struggle for life, at once, for the secure, and as it is called, fortunate dependance of the slave: the indignation with which he would spurn the offer will prove that he possesses one good beyond all others, and that his birthright as a man is more precious to him yet than the mess of pottage for which he is told to exchange it ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... help an unnecessary parade. The world finds him out, and this is why vanity is ever looked on with contempt. So soon as we let men see that we are suppliants for their admiration, we are at their mercy. We have given them the privilege of feeling that they are above us. We have invited them to spurn us. And therefore vanity is but a thing for scorn. But it is very different with pride. No man can look down on him that is proud, for he has asked no man for anything. They are forced to feel respect for pride, because it is thoroughly independent of them. It ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... the Creator will not give a second moment until the first is gone, they throw away as though it were water. Opportunities which angels covet they fling away as of no consequence, and die failures, because they have "no chance in life." Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble. Scarcely a mortal returns to us who has not robbed himself of years of precious life. Scarcely a man returns to us dropping off in genuine old age, as autumn leaves ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... need to be filled daily. They have imagination, and, if bread be scarce, they fear that they may not get enough of it. They prefer to keep their money rather than to give it away. For this reason they spurn the claims which the State and individuals have upon them as much as possible. They avoid paying their debts. They willingly lay their hands on public property which is badly protected; finally they are disposed to regard gendarmes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... her children. She springs to the corner, and while he feels for the heavy mass with his club, she raises it with her tender hands, and supports the drooping head upon her loving breast, while a cry of anguish goes out from the heart that could never spurn him, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... be that ancient Counsellor thou wottest of, and cursed be I who wakened That which slept, and warmed That which was a-cold in my breath and in my breast! And cursed be this sin to which he led me! Spurn me, Rei; strike me on the cheek, spit upon me, on Meriamun, the Royal harlot who sells herself to win a crown. Oh, I hate him, hate him, and I will pay him in shame for shame—him, the clown in king's attire. See here,'—and from her ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on, to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to be cross for long, however, and the way towards Brescia was so charming that she forgot her annoyance. Though the surface was not so good as it had been, it was not too bad; and our noble tyres, which had borne so much, seemed to spurn the slight irregularities. With every twenty yards we had a new view, as if the landscape slowly turned, to assume different patterns like the pieces in a kaleidoscope. On our left the mountains appeared to march on with us always, white and majestic, with strange, violet ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... or an angel starts beneath every heel. They write an eternal record as they go. Their voices float forever to witness against or for us. We people space as we cleave it. The ground that is dumb as we spurn it has a memory and a revenge. I am more sensitive than my kind; and my penance to these monitors of my sin is but a realization of the terror which all must feel at the accusation ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Twice-Told Tales.] "to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise bestowed against the giver's conscience!... An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death!" This, to be sure, is a heated statement, in the mouth of a young author who is about to cast his unpublished works into the fire; but the dread expressed here is by no means unfounded. Even the publication of Hawthorne's Note-Books ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... which his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator in so ardent ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... aristocracy with the tenacity of leeches, as purveyors des menus plaisirs, and whose interests are vitally concerned in excluding English talent, and negotiating the concerns of foreign artists, that raise the cry of "pronunciation." It is these gentry who, in phrase that a Tuscan would spurn at, and in a brogue from which a Roman, ear would be averted with disgust, assure our fashionable opera goers that we poor Englishers cannot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... patiently all your idle talk, because you seemed for a moment to interest yourself in those poor children. But since you have neither soul, nor pity, nor justice—I tell you that, burgomaster though you are—I will spurn you as I would spurn that dog," pointing again to the Prophet, "if you have the misfortune to mention those two young girls, in any other way than you would speak of your own ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Shakespeare's words, thick and fast, as if he were not an actor, but Othello himself, and while his audience listen with bated breath and quick-beating hearts, he hurls him to the ground, and in the uncurbed fury of his mood raises his foot to spurn him like a dog,—then he rises far above ordinary dramatic effect: his art does "hold the mirror up to Nature." We feel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... gone! base domestic traitor! Get you gone, lest I call my servants, and bid them spurn you from my premises!" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... to parley with them. That icy sarcasm, that haughty indifference, told him how man must ever regard his miserable act. He had already refused the love of God, and dared not expect anything more from it. He foresaw how coming ages would spurn and abhor him. There seemed, therefore, nothing better than to leap into the awful abyss of suicide. It could bring nothing worse than he was suffering. Oh, if he had only dared to believe in the love of God, and had fallen even then at the feet of Jesus, he might have become a pillar in ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... o'erlabour'd wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, though a weeping wife And helpless ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... thought them immoral,) and I stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so, without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they use to tell me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... However, to return it would savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear, by that honour which crowns the upright statue of Robert Burns's Integrity, on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-pact transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you. Burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust long outlive any of his wants which the cold, unfeeling ore can supply; at least I will take care ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Spurn not the nobly born With love affected, Nor treat with virtuous scorn The well-connected. High rank involves no shame— We boast an equal claim With him of humble name To be respected! Blue blood! blue blood! When virtuous love is sought Thy ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, even in the event of possible recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful elasticity is to be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them. And so, through a brilliant cycle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Bagarag ran to him, and grasped strongly the tuft of hair hanging forward between his ears, and traced between his fine eyes a figure of the crescent with his forenail, and the Horse ceased plunging, and was gentle as a colt by its mother's side, and suffered Shibli Bagarag to bestride him, and spurn him with his heel to speed, and bore him fleetly across the fair length of the golden meadows to where Noorna bin Noorka sat awaiting him. She uttered a cry of welcome, saying, 'This is achieved with diligence and skill, O my betrothed! and on thy right ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hero shows a prouder heart, Than he who proudly acts a hero's part; Nor without cause; the boards, we know, can yield Place for fierce contest, like the tented field. Graceful to tread the stage, to be in turn The prince we honour, and the knave we spurn; Bravely to bear the tumult of the crowd, The hiss tremendous, and the censure loud: These are their parts,—and he who these sustains, Deserves some praise and profit for his pains. Heroes at least of gentler kind are they, Against whose swords no weeping widows pray, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... those who preach the gospel of craven weakness. No nation under the sun ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—if it did not have the courage to be great. We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair. We know that the future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing in the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... by me, Whom wealth and fortune raise to power; But he, alone who will be free From sordid shame, or live no more. Let him with wreaths of song be crown'd, Who life, deflower'd of glory, spurn'd, And breaking from his kindred round, To Carthage and ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... other parts of it, and with their general condition, is the disposition of the lower orders in France, even in their intercourse with one another, to ape the manners of their superiors. "An English peasant," as Mr Scott has well remarked, "appears to spurn courtesy from him, in a bitter sense of its inapplicability to his condition." This feeling is unknown in France. A French soldier hands his "bien aimee" into a restaurateur's of the lowest order and supplies her with ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... and distempers abound, While there is a glutton in camp to be found, To spurn at the counsel kind Heaven did give— And guzzle up all, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... hath not glow'd above the page where Fame Hath fix'd high Caledon's unconquer'd name; The mountain-land which spurn'd the Roman chain, And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane, Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand No foe could tame—no ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... fare thee well! I purpose no more in thy bondage to dwell; The burdens which thou hast enticed me to bear, I cast now aside with their troubles and care. I spurn thy allurements, which tempt and ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... precious gift, And such a gift was mine; And now whatever might betide A happy man was I, In any strait I knew to whom I freely might apply. A strait soon came: my friend I try'd; He heard, and spurn'd my moan; I hied me home, and tuned my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... groans the dagger'd sound, "despair and die." And hapless Juliet's unextinguish'd flame, Gives to the tomb she mock'd, her beauteous frame; Yet diff'rent far, where Claudio sees return'd To life, and love, the maid too rashly spurn'd; Or Falstaff, in his sympathetic scroll, Forth to the Wives of Windsor pours his soul. Again, forsaking mirth's fantastic rites, The Muse to follow, through her nobler flights, Where Milton paints angelic hosts in arms, And Heaven's wide champaign rings with dire alarms, Till ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... And part in dudgeon—I invite Your company to sup this night, For then my friends and kin I see, 'Mongst which I choose to reckon thee." Choused and chagrined, yet shunning blame, He promised, set the hour, and came; As fearful lest a favour spurn'd Should to an open breach be turn'd. The splendid banquet shone with plate, And preparations full of state Made the glad house with clamors roar— When on a sudden at the door Two youths, with sweat ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Something told me she would hasten to you. They came, and I had the agony of seeing him—her father—returning from his visit to you; Rix told me of it afterwards. Then I strove madly to see her; to tell her the truth, though I knew she would only despise and spurn me. I scrawled a note confessing my crime, but sending no name; gave it to the woman to give to the doctor, and then tore myself away. I was the rebel spy the colonel nearly caught, and from that time I have been a ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... immediately afterward, as a fleet then appeared to the southward. It was so late in the day that I could not come up with the fleet before night; at length, however, I got so near one of them as to force her to run ashore, between Flamborough Head and the Spurn. Soon after I took another, a brigantine from Holland, belonging to Sunderland; and at daylight the next morning, seeing a fleet steering towards me from the Spurn, I imagined them to be a convoy, bound from London for Leith, which had been for some time expected; one ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... like the horse, They treat man with disdain; They spurn the rider and his whip, His bridle, bit ...
— The Tiny Picture Book. • Anonymous
... carelessly about after he had destroyed the Persian host in the battle of Salamis, and seeing a number of golden armlets and chains lying on the ground, said to one of his companions who was by—"You may take up these things because you are not Themistocles," thinking it became a magnanimous general to spurn any ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... commandant, to get out of your power, nothing more," said Vanderdecken. "She would spurn a contemptible withered wretch like yourself, were she ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... as she was in appearance, struggled gallantly with and overcame an army of furious waves that rose to greet her as she rounded Spurn Head, and long ere Thelma closed her weary eyes in an effort to sleep, was plunging, shivering, and fighting her slow way through shattering mountainous billows and a tempest of sleet, snow, and tossing foam ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... revel, regarding the golden choir of the stars at evening, nor do I spurn the dances of others; but garlanding my hair with flowers that drop their petals over me, I waken the melodious harp into passion with musical hands; and doing thus I lead a well-ordered life, for the order of the heavens too has ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... the taste which dictated the German compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their language: those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakespeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe, and investigate the realms of Chaos and Old Night; and of dramatists, who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities and extravagance, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... re-stated his faith in the imperative need of the due recognition of social rank and grade in civilised communities. In Cymbeline (IV., ii., 246-9) "a queen's son" meets his death in fight with an inferior, and the conqueror is inclined to spurn the lifeless corpse. But a wise veteran solemnly uplifts his voice to forbid the insult. Appeal is made to the sacred principle of social order, which must be ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... proceeds of the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means, prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents more on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly, to the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... monks who have taken vows of modest competency (about 1000 pounds a year, derived from consols), who spurn popularity as medieval monks spurned money—and with about as much sincerity. Their great object is to try and find out what they like and then get it. They do not live in one building, and there are no vows of celibacy, but, in practice, when any member marries he drifts away from the society. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... Nay, any where that not adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Time hath to silver turn'd; O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd, But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by increasing: Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... like these A youth of labour with an age of ease; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state, To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way; And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His Heaven ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... see, as I have, how orderly her life is, how pure and pious her whole conduct, you would—as I do—yes, as I do"—(with a savage look at the Doctor)—"spurn the slanderer who dared to do her wrong. Her father was an officer, and distinguished himself in Spain. He was a friend of His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, and is intimately known to the Duke of Wellington, and some of the first officers of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... being is just as real as the actually existing animals and men whom they perceive with their bodily senses; they not only pray to him but they propitiate him with a solemn ritual; and no doubt they would spurn with scorn the feeble attempts of shallow sceptics to question the reality of his existence or the literal truth of the myths they tell about him. Certainly these savages are far on the road to religion, if they have not already passed ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... contemptuously at the muddle of ancient finery on the floor and spurn it with her foot. 'How can I sell that?' she would inquire. 'Last time I gave you too much—I lost by you.' And having wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking silver ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... scorn a suppliant meet, Or from the door untended spurn A dog; an outcast kindly treat; And so thou shalt ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... the same breath and in a jumble of shock and terror she saw Dudley Stackpole emerge into full sight, and standing clear a pace from his doorway return the fire; saw the thudding frantic hoofs of the nigh horse spurn Harve Tatum's body aside—the kick broke his right leg, it turned out—saw Jess Tatum suddenly halt and stagger back as though jerked by an unseen hand; saw him drop his weapon and straighten again, and with both hands clutched to his throat run forward, head thrown back and feet drumming; ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... passeth in the yellow robe Ask of the Rishi if there be a cure For that which ails thy son.' Whereon I came Trembling to thee, whose brow is like a god's, And wept and drew the face cloth from my babe, Praying thee tell what simples might be good. And thou, great sir, did'st spurn me not, but gaze With gentle eyes and touch with patient hand; Then draw the face cloth back, saying to me, 'Yea, little sister, there is that might heal Thee first, and him, if thou couldst fetch the thing; For they ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... tyrannize, yet exclaims against tyranny! It grasps at wealth, and pants after power; yet clamours aloud, against the powerful and the wealthy! It hourly starts out into all the insolence of pride; yet hates and endeavours to spurn at ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... can see their eyes with blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! what's my country to me ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... her orphan child spurn the shelter of your roof, and shun you with disgust and loathing. Your kindred renounce you, for they know no shame but the ties of blood which bind them in name ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... sisters had laid their heads on the pillow Jean was tossing, sometimes sobbing; and to her sister's consolations she replied, 'Oh, Elleen, he can never forgive me! Why did my hard, dour, ungrateful nature so sport with his leal loving heart? Will he spurn me the now? Geordie, Geordie, I shall never see your like! It would but be my desert if I were left behind to that treacherous spiteful prince,—I wad as soon be a mouse in ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sententiously, "how many people not only refuse to catch pleasure as it flies, but spurn it when it sits up and begs at them. Laddie," he turned to Doggie, "the more one wallows in hedonism, the more one ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... wild young Southern pedestrian, pausing suddenly at her approach, with considerable excitement of manner, "scorn me, spurn me, if you will; but do not let sectional embitterment blind you to the fact that I am here by the request ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule and promotion here, after a shameful end in this life (which God grant them), shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulf of Hell, where, under the despiteful control, the trample and spurn of all the other damned, that in the anguish of their torture, shall have no other ease than to exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over them as their slaves and negroes, they shall remain in that plight for ever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... Each was rending lion, a furious foe: And thou stolest the wits of me, all of them * And shotst me with shaft of thy magic bow: Thou hast boasted of slaves and of steeds and wealth; * And of beauteous lasses ne'er man did know; How presents in mighty store didst spurn, * And disdainedst lovers both high and low: Then I followed their tracks in desire for thee, * With naught save my scymitar keen of blow; Nor slaves nor camels that run have I; * Nor slave-girls the litters enveil, ah, no! But grant me union and soon shalt sight * My trenchant ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... raised the gun again as if to fire, but lowered it with a smile, and walked forward to spurn something with his foot, and upon Lawrence reaching him it was to find him turning over a black-looking serpent of about six feet long, with a short thin tail, the body of the reptile being very thick in proportion to its length. Upon turning it over the Muslim pointed ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... already I discern, When thee all honest folk will spurn, And shun thy hated form to meet, As when a corpse infects the street. Thy heart will sink in blank despair, When they shall look thee in the face! A golden chain no more thou'lt wear! Nor near the altar take in church thy place! In fair lace collar simply dight Thou'lt dance no ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... greatly moved. She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; he was sincere. To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have taken ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... name! A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, And, like a steadfast planet, mount and burn— And though its crown of flame Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone— By all the fiery stars! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... thought Or room or entrance."—"Hast thou seen," said he, "That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet The falcon first looks down, then to the sky Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food, That woos him thither; so ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... his reservation, on the waters of the Alleghany river, within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, where he devoted himself, during the remainder of his long life, to the elevation and improvement of his people. He did not, after the example of his great rival Red Jacket, spurn the improvements of civilization, but engaged in agriculture after the example of the whites, and welcomed to his abode the teachers of christianity, and himself openly avowed ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... be that no one shall thee learn: Nor do I care; for none I wot, so well As I may chant thee; so, This one behest I lay upon thee, go Hie thee to Love, and him in secret tell, How I my life do spurn, My bitter life, and yearn, That to a better harbourage he bring Me, of all might and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... would be, sirrah. She knows, you lying whelp of perdition, that I would pursue herself and her paramour to the uttermost ends of the earth; that I would shoot them both dead—that I would trample upon and spurn their worthless carcasses, and make an example of them to all time, and through all eternity. And you—you prying, intermeddling scoundrel—how durst you—you petty, beggarly tyrant—hated and despised by poor and rich—was it to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... is you who are pitiless. You scout my penitence; you scorn and spurn me, and you ask me, forsooth, to be merciful. I give you your choice—commit the boy to my care within one week, or I will find means to take him whether you will or no. I give ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... but the wise and considerate have long since seen that some comprehensive improvement in their condition is needed. Their resources must be enlarged and made available. It will increase their self-respect, and make them spurn dependence on the charity of friends. I am inclined to think that all true women are working-women,—at least they would be such, if they could obtain the proper employment. American girls cannot all become house-servants, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... thus: No, no-where can unriddle, though I search, 150 And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How we can war, how engine our great ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... inconveniences; These, saner, frown upon unmeaning rites And go to church for rational delights. So all are suited, shallow and profound, The prophets prosper and the world goes round. For me—unread in the occult, I'm fain To damn all mysteries alike as vain, Spurn the obscure and base my faith upon The Revelations of the good ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... ways, Appointing error for my page, And darkness for my days; I flung away, and with full cry Of wild affections, rid In post for pleasures, bent to try All gamesters that would bid. I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, Or that a soul could ache. Glorious deceptions, gilded mists, False joys, fantastic flights, Pieces of sackcloth with silk lists, These were my prime delights. I sought choice bowers, haunted the spring, Culled flowers and made ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... only thing we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said her husband. "Scottish as I take it. The rogues seem to have taken to their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child. I trust they met their deserts and were swamped. We saw the fluttering of her coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques in the boat ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this desperate measure. Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling, nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most profound contempt. My aunt will, of course, accompany us; for yourself, you will do as you please; but in any event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and hideous obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you in order to be Queen ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... light-arm'd scouts, the grenadiers of France; These young Viominil conducts to fame, And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim. No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires, No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires; The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast; The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast, Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread, Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead. Each rival band, tho wide and distant far, Springs simultaneous to this task of war; For here a twofold ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... patches was a secret expedition to the end of Montauk Point. I thought at first it was remarkable of him not only to consent but to applaud the idea that Ed Caspian should lead the way. Earlier, he had seemed to do all he could to spurn and outdistance the Wilmot with the Grayles-Grice. Mr. Caspian is very proud of the Wilmot (though I hear a rumour that he's been taking mysterious lessons how to drive a G.-G.), so proud that he suspected nothing when, without dissent from ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... great land to be obliged to admit, that there are at home a few craven-hearted, mean-spirited men—shall I call them men? No, nor even women—there are creatures, I say, who disapprove of our glorious deeds, who spurn the flag and the noble principles for which it stands and to which I have alluded, who say that we have no business to take away land which belongs to other people, and that we have not the right to slaughter rebels and ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... my paragon? Que diable! one does not spurn five thousand francs like that! I hum or whistle when I am thinking, and just now I am wondering how this business can be arranged. Who is ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... if there be a cure For that which ails thy son.' Whereon I came Trembling to thee, whose brow is like a god's, And wept and drew the face cloth from my babe, Praying thee tell what simples might be good. And thou, great sir, did'st spurn me not, but gaze With gentle eyes and touch with patient hand; Then draw the face cloth back, saying to me, 'Yea, little sister, there is that might heal Thee first, and him, if thou couldst fetch the thing; For they who seek physicians bring ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... Mildmay. "The air is not very clear this morning, but I have just managed to make out Spurn Point and the mouth of the Humber in the far distance, astern. I have no doubt, therefore, that your reckoning is absolutely correct. It is just in the single matter of keeping a 'dead reckoning' that an ocean ship has the advantage of this craft. In the ocean ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... poet, man "nascitur non fit" a smoker); and that the soothing power of this narcotic tranquillised the soul of the aquatic patriarch, disturbed by the roar of billows and the convulsions of nature, and diffused its peaceful influence over the inmates of the ark. Yes, we are tempted to spurn the question, When and where was smoking introduced? as being equal to When and where was man introduced? Yet, as some do not consider man as a smoking animal "de natu et ab initio," the question may provoke some interesting replies from your ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... and where such disdain, Such conduct improper, Was shown by this Hopper." "I then was a worm: 'Tis a fact, I affirm," The Butterfly said, With a toss of her head. "In my humble condition, Your bad disposition Made you spurn me as mean, And not fit to be seen. In my day of small things You dreamed not that wings Might one day be mine,— Wings handsome and fine, That help me soar up To the rose's full cup, And taste of each flower In garden and bower. This moral now take For your own better sake: ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity. Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... Lorge would not dare! With my scorn—what De Lorge could compare! And the endless descriptions of death He would brave when my lip formed a breath, I must reckon as braved, or, of course, Doubt his word—and moreover, perforce, 130 For such gifts as no lady could spurn, Must offer my love in return. When I looked on your lion, it brought All the dangers at once to my thought, Encountered by all sorts of men, Before he was lodged in his den— From the poor slave whose club or bare hands Dug the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... well! I purpose no more in thy bondage to dwell; The burdens which thou hast enticed me to bear, I cast now aside with their troubles and care. I spurn thy allurements, which tempt and ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... said Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover, Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me goddess, nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you forgot our schoolday friendship? How ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... where you lie, Would you, beloved, give your little span Of life remaining unto tear and sigh? No!—setting every tender memory Within your breast, as faded roses kept For giver's sake, of giver when bereft, Still to the last the lamp of work you'd burn For purpose high, nor any moment spurn. So, as you would have done, I fain would do In poorer fashion. Ah, how oft I try, Try to fulfil your wishes, till at length The scent of those dead roses steals ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... O Prince of Hoheneck! Have known me in that earlier time, A man of violence and crime, Whose passions brooked no curb nor check. Behold me now, in gentler mood, One of this holy brotherhood. Give me your hand; here let me kneel; Make your reproaches sharp as steel; Spurn me, and smite me on each cheek; No violence can harm the meek, There is no wound Christ cannot heal! Yes; lift your princely hand, and take Revenge, if 't is revenge you seek, Then pardon me, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... comes the call, "All join hands and circle round," "Grand train back," and "Balance all," Footsteps lightly spurn the ground. "Take your lady and balance down the middle" To the merry strains of ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... John's eyes. With a quick movement of his hands he seemed to spurn the entire materialism of Sussex. After a ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... in "The Devil in Manuscript," [Footnote: See the Snow Image, and other Twice-Told Tales.] "to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise bestowed against the giver's conscience!... An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death!" This, to be sure, is a heated statement, in the mouth of a young author who is about to cast his unpublished works into the fire; but the dread expressed here is by no means unfounded. Even the publication of Hawthorne's ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... applause: What ken not men thou kennest thou! Spurn every idol others raise: Before ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... all restraint completely giving way, "do you know what I could do just now more willingly than anything else in the world? I could thrust out my foot and spurn you with it as you might any surly cur which barred your way. I tell you I'm hot with every feeling of contempt for your crazy attitude. You dare to set yourself and your moral scruples between my welfare and ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... mingling their sweet fragrance there In language yet unknown to mortal ear. Their whisperings of love from morn till night Would teach us tenderly to love the right. O Love, here stay! Let chaos not return! With hate each atom would its lover spurn In air above, on land, or in the sea, O World, undone and lost that loseth thee! For love we briefly come, and pass away For other men and maids; thus bring the day Of love continuous through this glorious life. Oh, hurl away those weapons fierce of strife! We here a moment, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... surrender it to the first smile from the king because he has the condescension of a man of the people? No: Louis XVI., half dethroned by the nation, cannot love the nation that fetters him; he may feign to caress his chains, but all his thoughts are devoted to the idea of how he can spurn them. His only resource at this moment is to protest his attachment to the Revolution, and to lull the ministers whom the Revolution empowers to watch over his intrigues. But this pretence is the last and most dangerous of the conspiracies of the throne. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... greatly believe in the birch, (Though sometimes my baton must play—on rogues' shoulders.) Love's rather too apt to be left in the lurch By Orbilian smiters and scolders. Under the Mistletoe Bough A kiss is best treatment, I trow. A salute from the lips of your Punch you'll not spurn, And the young guests around you shall each take ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... had fairly reopened his eyes, our Manitou butterfly, now nearly ready to spurn the chrysalis, raised himself again to his elbow and took another dreamy survey of the room. His eyes, however, seemed to find no object to rest on, until they met a pair as dreamy as themselves—the innocent, blue ones, there at the foot ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... command they spurn; But this we from the mountains learn, And this the valleys show; That never will they deign to hold Communion where the heart is cold To human ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... shall the land of Achilles Reluctantly cherish a dastardly slave, Who can crouch at the foot of a despot, whose will is As fickle as wind, and as rude as the wave? Shall the ashes of heroes enshrouded in glory, Be spurn'd in contempt by a barbarous horde, While their sons idly tremble like boys at a story, And shudder to gaze on the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... long, O righteous Lord! so long Bowed down, and yet so brave and strong— I think no Christian, just and true, Can spurn this ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... Spurn not the nobly born With love affected, Nor treat with virtuous scorn The well connected. High rank involves no shame - We boast an equal claim With him of humble name To be respected! Blue blood! Blue blood! When virtuous ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... roused from my trance at last by the recollection that I was in the house of the earl, and starting up, as if to spurn contamination from me, I hurried out, to ease my heart by relating the whole story in Suffolk street, and to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... dagger'd sound, "despair and die." And hapless Juliet's unextinguish'd flame, Gives to the tomb she mock'd, her beauteous frame; Yet diff'rent far, where Claudio sees return'd To life, and love, the maid too rashly spurn'd; Or Falstaff, in his sympathetic scroll, Forth to the Wives of Windsor pours his soul. Again, forsaking mirth's fantastic rites, The Muse to follow, through her nobler flights, Where Milton paints angelic hosts in arms, And Heaven's wide ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... please a friend who pleaseth thee * Frankly, in public practise secrecy. And spurn the slanderer's tale, who seldom[FN222] * seeks Except the severance of true love to see. They say, when lover's near, he tires of love, * And absence is for love best remedy: Both cures we tried and yet we are not cured, * Withal we judge that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... our nature. The distinction in this case is not between vice and virtue, but between the various positions in which we are placed. Money will do with some men; others, who would be shocked at the idea of taking money, will accept of something it has bought; others, again, who would spurn at both these, will have no objection to a snug little place for themselves or their dependents. The English, as a practical, straightforward people, take money—five to ten pounds being considered a fair thing for a vote, and no shame about it. The Scotch, as more calculating, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... dear land is bright as theirs, But, oh! our hearts are cold for it; Awake! we are not slaves but heirs; Our fatherland requires our cares, Our work with man, with God our prayers. Spurn blood-stained Judas-gold for it, Let us do all that honour dares— Be earnest, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... the clouds are shaped like camels who have gone to heaven and turned to mother o' pearl. There are horses, too; not little sand stallions like ours, but ordinary, plodding animals whose hoofs know only Fayoum dust or mud. Our desert creature, however, does not spurn them. On the contrary, though he pretends not to notice camels, cows, or buffaloes, he whinnies and prances with delight when he meets anything of his own shape, and assumes hobby-horse attitudes, much to the alarm of Cleopatra and Miss Hassett-Bean. Also, just to remind ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Theresa, in a commanding voice. "I have spoken, it is for you to obey; for my word has been given, and I cannot retract. If, as your mother, I feel my heart grow weak with sympathy for your weakness, as your empress, I spurn its cowardly promptings; for my imperial word shall be held sacred, if it cost me my life. Rise, both of you. It ill becomes the Queens of France and Naples to bow their knees like beggars. Obedience is more praiseworthy than humiliation. Go ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the wind he heard something else. Was it the tumbling of breakers? He listened, then concluded that it was his imagination. But they came nearer, louder; he sat up on his plank, his nerves tense. The board lurched sidewise, spurn around, and the swell it was riding broke over him with a force that knocked him from his position. Over and over he rolled, until, almost unconscious, he felt his body dragging along the sand. The undertow was pulling at him. He fought furiously, digging his hands ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... found, And by excursions lost his ground: No sooner got, than with disdain He threw them on the ground again; And hasted forward to pursue Fresh objects, fairer to his view, In hope to spring some nobler game; But all he took was just the same: Too scornful now to stop his pace, He spurn'd them in his rival's face. Possession kept the beaten road, And gather'd all his brother strew'd; But overcharged, and out of wind, Though strong in limbs, he lagg'd behind. Desire had now the goal ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... with old armorial lists o'erspread, In records destined never to be read. Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes, Exalted more among the good and wise, A glorious and a long career pursue, As first in rank, the first in talent too: Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun; Not Fortune's minion, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... poured my all, Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall, Its wages and its bitter bread." Thus whispered Love the ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... is the very thought that had occurred to me, and caused me to spurn the aid he proffered ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... my price. Oh, cursed be the fate of woman who only by her beauty can be great. Oh, cursed be that ancient Counsellor thou wottest of, and cursed be I who wakened That which slept, and warmed That which was a-cold in my breath and in my breast! And cursed be this sin to which he led me! Spurn me, Rei; strike me on the cheek, spit upon me, on Meriamun, the Royal harlot who sells herself to win a crown. Oh, I hate him, hate him, and I will pay him in shame for shame—him, the clown in king's attire. See here,'—and from ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... vile ingratitude in them To act so wickedly, And spurn the mercy of the Lord, The great, the ...
— The Flood • Anonymous
... wander earth a' o'er, nor care for aught o' bliss, If I might share, at my return, a joy sae pure as this; And I could spurn a' earthly wealth—a palace and a queen, For my bonnie, bonnie lassie, in the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said her husband. "Scottish as I take it. The rogues seem to have taken to their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child. I trust they met their deserts and were swamped. We saw the fluttering of her coats as we made for the Humber, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the golden choir of the stars at evening, nor do I spurn the dances of others; but garlanding my hair with flowers that drop their petals over me, I waken the melodious harp into passion with musical hands; and doing thus I lead a well-ordered life, for the order of the heavens too has ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... Parliament with this audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for her is so profound I'd serve her, spurn and scorn despite Ere with another I'd be found— Yet ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... his face and said, "Edward, it is home where the heart is, and it seems to me we should not spurn a present for a future good. This life is short and uncertain, and I feel a gloomy foreboding when I think of your departure, I have been so accustomed to seeing you every day, to leaning on your arm in every ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... so, that I would much rather that I had once existed, than that I still exist; now do my hopes, my resources, and my succour, desert me and spurn themselves. This is that day, when, for my life, no safety can be hoped; nor yet is death my end; nor hope is there, in fact, to dispel this fear for me; nor cloak have I anywhere for my deceitful stratagems; nor for my devices or my subterfuges is there anywhere a screen presented to ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... between the really high-class man and us commonplace, workaday men is the difference between, say, the eagle and the barnyard chicken. I am the barnyard chicken. I have my wings. There are ecstatic moments when I feel I want to spurn the sordid earth and soar into the realms of art. I do fly a little, but my body is heavy, and I only get as far as the fence. After a while I find it lonesome on the fence, and I hop down ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:- Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat - "Naught shelters thee, ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... man to spurn the rage of gain, Teach him that states of native strength possest, Though very poor, may still ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... and broke it in his powerful hands. "You might have been first and most favored in the cave of the ancestors of Es-sat; but now shall you be last and least and when I am done with you you shall belong to all of the men of Es-sat's cave. Thus for those who spurn the love ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to lay stress on the inevitable pains and fears of commonplace humanity. He was not of that ilk. Intellect was his god; ambition his motive power. What would this casual blight upon his supreme contentment be to him, when with the wings of his air-car spread, he should spurn the earth and soar into the heaven of fame simultaneously with his flight ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We say to the white man, you are worthless, or worse. We will neither help you or be helped by you. To the black man we say, 'this cup of liberty which these, your old masters hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... the wind, silent as its own shadow, enduring as the long hot- season of its home, the trained Bikaniri swings into sandy distances with a gait that is a gallop really—the only saddle-beast of all that lifts his four feet from the ground at once, seeming to spurn the very ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... It is presented to them and inculcated without disguise. I almost shudder when I think of it. Were all the wealth of this great city offered to me for the privilege of teaching this doctrine to my children, with the understanding that I would withhold counter-instruction, I would spurn the offer. At least, I would do so until my mind had become reconciled to the proposition by a slow and painful process of self-depravation, which, I acknowledge, would not be an impossibility. The ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... river, within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, where he devoted himself, during the remainder of his long life, to the elevation and improvement of his people. He did not, after the example of his great rival Red Jacket, spurn the improvements of civilization, but engaged in agriculture after the example of the whites, and welcomed to his abode the teachers of christianity, and himself openly avowed his belief ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... proofs—unless that villain Dalton has betrayed me," he added, in a lower tone; "but I did not the act, the blood is on his head, and not on mine. Constance, my child, the only thing on earth now that can love me, do not curse—do not spurn me. I ask not your sacrifice, that I may be saved;—but do not curse me—do ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... in the brick-yard as workman; but Lionel, in the anger of the moment, when these things came out, felt inclined to spurn him from the land. He would have done it but for his promise to the man himself; and for the pale, sad face of Mrs. Roy. In the hour when his anger was at its height, the woman came up to Verner's Pride, stealthily, as it seemed, and craved him to write ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammer'd, and roll'd; Heavy to get, and light to hold; Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold, Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled: Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old To the very verge of the churchyard mould; Price of many a crime untold; Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Good or bad a thousand-fold! How widely its agencies vary— To save—to ruin—to curse—to ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... you spurn the truth," replied David. "By the way, I have an invitation to deliver. Miriam wants all of you to come up to our house the minute the exercises are over to-night. Never mind if it is late. Commencement comes but once ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... of mankind, and when assailed always finds ready defenders. Possessed by this innate feeling of right and rankling with the injustice of the past, is it surprising that they should spurn any proffered help? They remember what they have suffered in the past and do not care to repeat the experiment. To this day the Moquis hold the mission epoch in contempt and nothing could induce them to accept voluntarily ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... hand, the clergy never fail to remind women that religion is their best friend. Without our doctrines and our holy Church, they say, there would be social chaos; the wild passions of men would spurn control, marriage would be despised, wives would become mistresses, homes would disappear, and children would be treated as encumbrances. There is not a grain of truth in this, for religion has fomented, countenanced, or cloaked, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... it! The very fact that their cases had been so suddenly and so marvellously reversed made her the more strong in her determination to spurn any gift from him. She was now sitting on the lowest rung of Fortune's ladder, whilst he stood at the top; but, for all that, she would take nothing from him. Rylton wrote to Margaret, who scolded Tita vigorously to no end; and so the matter stood. The first ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... strength they feel; Our veins they drain, our land they steal; And should the vanquished Indian kneel, They spurn him from their sight! Be set for ever in disgrace The glory of the red-man's race, If from the foe we turn our face, Or safety seek ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... he snarled hoarsely. "It is a forgery—a tissue of lies! Believe me, Madge! Don't spurn me! Don't cast me off! I ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... touch With folly and sorrow, even shame and crime, He lived the grief and wonder of his time! Marked for reproaches from his life's beginning; Extremely sinned against as well as sinning; Hack, spendthrift, starveling, duellist in turn; Too cross to cherish yet too fierce to spurn; Begrimed with ink or brave with wine and blood; Spirit of fire and manikin of mud; Now shining clear, now fain to starve and skulk; Star of the cellar, pensioner of the bulk; At once the child of passion and the slave; ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... the honors a world could bestow, would I cast from me this pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the horrors that once beset my path. So help me Heaven, I would spurn beneath my feet all the gifts a universe could offer, and live and die as ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... This night I have discover'd the base Perez Again essays his most inconstant fair, Blind as inconstant. She rejected me When, as Friar Anselmo teaching music, I offer'd her—'tis true, unholy love; And I by Perez was thrust out with shame, Spurn'd with contumely as the door was closed, With threats if ever I appear'd again, To blazon forth my impious attempt, and— Yet did she cozen me with melting eyes, And first roused up the demon in my breast, Then laugh'd in malice.——I ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... you of affectation, my dear. Therefore honestly tell me, if Clarence Hervey were at your feet this instant, would you spurn ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... any I remember in the country, some here, who affect to despise what they cannot understand; such enterprising critics and fastidiously hypercritics, men of truly philosophical penetration—of a truly classical taste spurn aside the coarse beverage to be found in Gr. mss. scholiasts and ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... credit to them. We are generous enemies: we are faithful allies. We spurn from us with disgust and indignation the slanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation of the flower-de-luce on their shoulder. We have Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate; and neither his being a public proselyte to Judaism, nor his having, in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... minute Alvaros glared at Don Hermoso, as though he could scarcely believe that he had heard aright, could scarcely credit the fact that a "rascally Cuban", as he mentally termed Montijo, had had the unparalleled, the unspeakable audacity to spurn—ay, spurn was the correct word—an alliance with him, Don Sebastian Alvaros, Captain in the army of His Majesty the King of Spain! It was unthinkable! It was an insult that could only be wiped out by blood! And yet it would be exceedingly ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... with contempt. So soon as we let men see that we are suppliants for their admiration, we are at their mercy. We have given them the privilege of feeling that they are above us. We have invited them to spurn us. And therefore vanity is but a thing for scorn. But it is very different with pride. No man can look down on him that is proud, for he has asked no man for anything. They are forced to feel respect for pride, because it is thoroughly ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... us as they would blood thirsty savages upon the plains. They spurn us with their feet as dogs, and then they spit upon us. They mock at our customs, they regard with contempt that which to us is sacred and above price. They are not even deterred by the virtue of our women. Now witness, you God who made ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... rounds. But nature, that made me a thing to be contemned, gave me no feelings congenial to such a state. I was endowed with sentiments more noble, and greater powers of mind than those who affected to spurn me. I know not my father, nor was I ever anxious to learn a name to me so full of misery, and which could claim no other token from his child than a malediction. This much I learnt—that my parent was a nobleman; but what unnatural cruelty could induce him to abandon ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... tuft of hair hanging forward between his ears, and traced between his fine eyes a figure of the crescent with his forenail, and the Horse ceased plunging, and was gentle as a colt by its mother's side, and suffered Shibli Bagarag to bestride him, and spurn him with his heel to speed, and bore him fleetly across the fair length of the golden meadows to where Noorna bin Noorka sat awaiting him. She uttered a cry of welcome, saying, 'This is achieved with diligence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn, as vilest dust, The ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... as one of them, and I, Paullus Caecilius, are slaves one and all; abject and base and spirit-fallen slaves, lacking the courage even to spurn against our fetters, to the proud tyrannous ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... self-conceit: it is the aristocracy of achievement and of nature—the solid superiority of having done the brightest and best deeds that could be done in his time and of being the greatest man of his generation. It is as if a Washington, having made and saved a nation, were to spurn it from him with his foot, in lofty and by no means groundless contempt for the ignorance, pettiness, meanness, and filth of mankind. The story of Coriolanus, as it occurs in Plutarch, is thought to be fabulous, but it is very far from being fabulous ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... field-mice, and squirrels, are more or less active and forage freely on whatever they can find, eating many things which in summer they would spurn with scorn. To this class belongs that intelligent but injurious animal the musquash or muskrat. Those which inhabit the rivers and larger streams live in burrows dug deep beneath the banks, but those inhabiting sluggish streams and ponds usually construct a conical winter house about three feet ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... from one large window, which the thick crimson silk curtains within could not entirely conceal. At this reassuring sight Leander dismissed all fear from his mind, and gave himself up to the most blissful anticipations. He was in a seventh heaven of delight; his feet seemed to spurn the earth; he would have flown into the presence of the waiting angel within if he had but known the way. How he wished, in this moment of glory and triumph, that Scapin, his mortal enemy and merciless tormentor, could see him. The tiny page stepped on before him, and after ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... below the bridge Foxhall was wading out of the water, disdaining assistance. Snead, however, did not spurn the hands extended to him when he came floundering ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... "I spurn it as I would your dead body if it lay before me, Carl Walraven! Sit down with you? Never, if my life depended on it! The child became an actress because I could keep her no longer—I couldn't keep myself—and because she had the voice and face of an angel—poor little wretch! The ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... robbers. (He begged) that they would turn away their minds from resentment for a while to examination and reflection; and rather pardon one at the intercession of so many members of the Claudian family, than through a hatred of one spurn the entreaties of many; that he himself also paid this tribute to the family and the name; nor had he been reconciled to him, whose unfortunate situation he wished to relieve; that by fortitude liberty had been recovered; by ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the rapids run is already scooped and hollowed out to a great extent by the action of the water; the edge of the precipice, too, is constantly crumbling and breaking off under the spurn of its downward leap. At the very brink the rock is not much more than two feet thick, and when I stood under it and thought of the enormous mass of water rushing over and pouring from it, it did not seem at all improbable that at any moment ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... decidedly beyond the date he had originally set for his return, and still there was much to be done. He had not borne the separation from his wife without pain, and he looked forward to prolonging it with much more than reluctance; but he felt that to leave now would be to spurn the hand of Providence, the more so because, though Ellen had many times anxiously inquired for the date of his return, she had never failed, whenever she wrote, to assure him of her own content so long as he was successful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the child that did ascend, Striving in vain to take the crown from John, Were Constance and her son the Duke of Britain, Heir to the elder brother of the king: Yet he sleeps on, and with a little spurn The mother and the prince doth overturn. Again, when Insurrection them assists, Stirr'd by the French king and the wronged earl, Whose troth-plight wife King John had ta'en to wife, He only claps ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... breath and in a jumble of shock and terror she saw Dudley Stackpole emerge into full sight, and standing clear a pace from his doorway return the fire; saw the thudding frantic hoofs of the nigh horse spurn Harve Tatum's body aside—the kick broke his right leg, it turned out—saw Jess Tatum suddenly halt and stagger back as though jerked by an unseen hand; saw him drop his weapon and straighten again, and with both hands clutched ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... which young men have erected for them. Young men who have any respect for themselves will not associate with women that chew, and smoke, and swear, and get drunk—those whose morals are low and base. They spurn such associates from them. Let young women do the same. Let them say to the young men, "You shall not do the things you prohibit us from doing; you shall not, behind our backs, do things you would despise us for doing; you shall not bring into our society ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... know! If a man is prosperous, he may hold out his hand to a maid and say 'Come,' and all her relatives will cry 'Go,' and the marriage bells will ring. If he is a happy Irishman with a shrunken purse, let his heart be loving and true and open as the day, they will spurn him forth. For food and raiment will they sell a soul, and for household gear will they clip the wings of the little god, and set him out in ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the tooth Of deep remorse, and stings Of joys that I did spurn: Oh, spare the gnawing ruth Of memories' torturings, Yea proudly did I turn From earth to snatch at wings To soar and ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... and entreating him not to leave her. "Oh Montraville," said she, "kill me, for pity's sake kill me, but do not doubt my fidelity. Do not leave me in this horrid situation; for the sake of your unborn child, oh! spurn not the wretched mother ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... me, and his love I spurn'd. But see the vengeance of the pow'rs above On cold indiff'rence:—now 'tis I that love, And my fond love, alas! ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... ycleped J. Keyser—I was born at Spring, hys Garden, My father toe make me ane clerke erst did essaye, But a fico for ye offis—I spurn ye losels offeire; For I fain would be ane butcher by'r ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... if I knew thee less, I should count thee her affinity. Thy look is terrible. Calm thee, my noble brother, for more thou art to me—calm thee, Chios; I fear thee for the first time. Thou wilt not also curse me. Look at me! pity me! I have bared my very soul to thee. Spurn me not. Thy look tells me thou art on the verge of doing so. Let me cling a little to thee, Chios dear. Help Nika. Cheer her, if with only one tender look. I have somewhat learned to bear the curse of Hecate, the curse of loving ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... all because they have forgot What 'tis to be a man—to curb and spurn The tyrant in us: the ignobler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute; And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed. Ah, loving God, Are we as creeping things, ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... be a sable brother, treat him kindly as another! Ah, perhaps the world has scorned him for that luckless hue he wore, No such narrow prejudices can he know whom Love possesses— Whom one spark of Freedom blesses. Do not spurn him from thy door Lest ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... father had suffered for him, and he had honestly lived down that distant past. 'If there is a man in this world who has the right to marry you,' cried Adrian, 'I am that man. And if there is a man in this world whom you have the right to spurn, I am that man also.' The extreme subtlety of the thing must be obvious to every reader. Enid forgave and accepted Adrian. They were married in a snowy January at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and the story ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... (certainly not then possessed,) he endured the cross." Were man always to act from a sense of what he has received, and the hope of what he may receive, he would never do wrong. He, on the other hand, that attempts to serve God out of pure benevolence, and without expectation of advantage, will soon spurn archangels, and may set up for a God himself, on any day he shall think he has succeeded in accomplishing such super-eminent disinterestedness. On the whole, it may be remarked, that the Dr seems correct enough in his notions of religion, considered as founded on reason; but is far from being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... I find one? I know no woman that I could trust now." Then, after a pause, he added, "And yet there is one I could trust. Yes, those blue eyes could be trusted. I would spurn the man who dared to ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... to the advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man, who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the porter's lodge? O fie! Such a fine gentleman as Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, doesn't condescend to walk up to my garret, or to sit in a laundress's kitchen, but for reasons of his own. And my belief is that you came to steal a pretty girl's heart away, and to ruin it, and to spurn it afterward, Mr. Arthur Pendennis. That's what the world makes of you young dandies, you gentlemen of fashion, you high and mighty aristocrats that trample upon the people. It's sport to you, but what is it, to the poor, think you the toys of your ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for let not your proud heart deceive you, not all your array of domestics, not all your barred doors, can save you from a violent death, or the guilt of murder, if you do not stop this unrighteous prosecution—for your own sake I entreat you stop, ere it be too late. Spurn this grey head if you will into the ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... when a cur doth grin For one to thrust his band between his teeth, When he might spurn him ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... quit wearing socks if she thought them immoral,) and I stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so, without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they use to tell me I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... did not obey, he continued; "Dost thou wish me to complete the catalogue by thy death? Thy life is a worthless thing. Tempt me no more. I am but a man, and thy presence may awaken a fury which may spurn my controul. Begone!" ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... with thy slender grace, and tireless strength, if ever thou didst gallop before, do thy best to-day! Spurn, spurn the dust 'neath thy fleet hoofs, stretch thy graceful Arab neck, bear me gallantly to-day, O Wings, for never shalt thou and I ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... spiritual forces in one fertilizing stream. They are bent on joining incompatible elements in a political synthesis. In the name of national independence and by way of a telling protest against the vassalage which binds Austria to Germany, the Entente nations spurn the notion of any common accord which requires the practice of self-surrender as a base, and are resolved under the strain of circumstance to present such a loosely-joined front to the enemy as will not involve their foregoing one iota of their freedom or one tittle ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... flattered fellow uncomfortable. It is a nice thing, flattery, and causes one to feel good all over, if it is delicately applied with a camel's-hair brush, as it were. But Gould laid it on with a trowel. He only courted success; if anyone were down he would be the first to spurn him. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their language; those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakspere and Milton became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe and investigate the realms of Chaos and old Night; and of dramatists who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... off, or I will use thee like a Dog, tread thee to Earth, and spurn thee like a Slave, ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... cradle is dead, and buried in the rubbish of the garret. A baby of five months, filled with modern notions, would spurn to be rocked in the awkward and rustic thing. The baby spits the "Alexandra feeding-bottle" out of its mouth, and protests against the old-fashioned cradle, giving emphasis to its utterances by throwing down a rattle that cost seven dollars, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Get you gone! base domestic traitor! Get you gone, lest I call my servants, and bid them spurn you ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... company standing by, they desired us to go into the smoke. I desired them to go into the smoke, which they would by no means do. I then took one of them and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that we did contemn ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... of France; These young Viominil conducts to fame, And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim. No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires, No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires; The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast; The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast, Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread, Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead. Each rival band, tho wide and distant far, Springs simultaneous to this task ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Andean genera were found by Gardner, which did not exist in the low intervening hot countries" ("Origin," Edition VI., page 336).) But I am very glad to hear about Fuchsia, etc. I cannot make out what Hooker does believe; he seems to admit the former cooler climate, and almost in the same breath to spurn the idea. To retort Hooker's words, "it is inexplicable to me" how he can compare the transport of seeds from the Andes to the Organ Mountains with that from a continent to an island. Not to mention the much greater distance, there are no currents ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... limit their destiny to that of being beautiful and charming, but the wise and considerate have long since seen that some comprehensive improvement in their condition is needed. Their resources must be enlarged and made available. It will increase their self-respect, and make them spurn dependence on the charity of friends. I am inclined to think that all true women are working-women,—at least they would be such, if they could obtain the proper employment. American girls cannot all become house-servants, and few ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... according to the evidence, you were willing, to please them, to decide against the evidence, and let perjury rest on your souls. I know that you [pointing to one of the jurors] have been approached. Did you spurn the wretch away who made a corrupt proposal to you, or did you hold counsel, sweet counsel with him? I know that you [pointing to another juror] talked over this case with one of the other side at the house on the hill last night, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... closing eyes, And number all his days by miseries! Who dies in youth and vigor, dies the best, Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast. But when the Fates* in fulness of their rage Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, In dust the reverend lineaments deform, And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm: This, this is misery! the last, the worst, That man can feel! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... and early, troops of knights rode into Brunhild's castle, till Hagen said, "Alack! What have we done? Some hurt will befall us from Brunhild's men. We know not her real intent. What if she spurn us when her forces are gathered together? Then were we all dead men, and this maiden were born to ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... dare to think or teach otherwise, or as wicked heretics dare to spurn the traditions of the Church and to invent some novelty, or else to reject some of those things which the Church hath received, to wit, the book of the Gospels, or the image of the cross, or the pictorial icons, or the holy relics of a martyr, or evilly and sharply to devise ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... the wild young Southern pedestrian, pausing suddenly at her approach, with considerable excitement of manner, "scorn me, spurn me, if you will; but do not let sectional embitterment blind you to the fact that I am here by the request ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... afoot early and late. In spite of the cold and stormy weather of winter he made two or three trips to London in his collier brig, always to report on his return a notable addition to his trade. Once, too, on his homeward voyage, he had had himself put ashore a little north of Spurn, and had trudged the five and twenty miles to Hull, the rising port on the east coast. Then, after appointing an agent and starting what seemed likely to grow into a big business, he had tramped the hundred and twenty miles or more that separated him from Newcastle and his ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... Champlain to Superior, south by the Delaware and Susquehanna, west by the Alleghany, Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi, and her great city with an unrivalled location, what an imperial destiny lies before her, with the Union preserved? Oh! if she would only fully realize these great truths, and spurn from her embrace the wretched traitors who, while falsely professing peace, mean the degradation of the North and the dissolution of this Union, who can assign limits ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nor insolent of word alone, Spurn'd with his rustic heel his king unknown; Spurn'd, but not moved: he like a pillar stood, Nor stirr'd an inch, contemptuous, from the road: Doubtful, or with his staff to strike him dead, Or greet the pavement with his worthless head. Short was that doubt; to quell his rage inured, The hero stood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... dream thou art the memory, My genius, in its wildest fancy, bound And petrified to immortality! A holy presence seems to hover round The deep, perpetual loveliness, as crowned With angel radiance, and plumed for flight, Thy pinioned sandals spurn the flowerless ground, Striving to gain that far Olympian height Towards which in rapturous awe ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... and the people imagine a vain thing?" cried the enthusiast. "Surely their devices shall be brought to naught, and their counsels to no effect. He that sitteth on the circle of the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and spurn them in His displeasure. Because for Thy sake, I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... all the fair, once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, since even He could not keep ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Gallach[145] cower'd for cover; But ever more their striving, When claim'd respect thine eye, Thy scourge corrected, driving To other lands to fly. Thy loyal crew of clansmen true, No panic fear shall turn them, With steel-cap, blade, and skene array'd, Their banning foes they spurn them. Clan-Shimei[146] then may dare them, They 'll fly, had each a sabre on, Needs but a look—when Staghead Once raises his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... 'Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage rightly understood Gives to the tender and ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... will continue inflexible. At last, redoubling her tears, she will rise and put the goblet to my lips, when, tired with her importunities, I will dart a terrible look at her and give her such a push with my foot as will spurn her from me." Alnaschar was so interested in this imaginary grandeur that he thrust forth his foot to kick the lady, and by that means overturned his glasses and broke them ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... intelligence and reflection,' I continued, 'spurn it away from them as fit but for children and slaves. Must they then be without any principle of this kind? Is it safe for a community to grow up without faith in a superintending power, from whom they come, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I spurn the thought with disdain Of that pool Alekoki: On the upland lingers the rain And fondly haunts Nuuanu. 5 Sharp was the cold, bootless My waiting up there. I thought thou wert true, Wert loyal to me, Whom thou laids't under bonds. 10 Take oath now ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... heart the restless seed was sown; The vagrant spirit fretted in your feet; We wondered could you tarry long, And brook for long the cramping street, Or would you one day sail for shores unknown, And shake from you the dust of towns, and spurn The crowded market-place—and not return? You found a sterner guide; You heard the guns. Then, to their distant fire, Your dreams were laid aside; And on that day, you cast your heart's desire Upon a burning ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... man shall rule by thought, And worth shall gain her just return, Till all shall every singer spurn Who in the ancient cycles taught That heroes rest in royal graves, But never in the ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... If I thought thus of Samiasa's love, All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me. But to our ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... her coldly and was tempted to spurn her from him with his foot, but there was such anguish in voice and eye as he himself had hardly felt, and his wife's words, her last words, flashed through his bewildered brain: "We can't tell what ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... midst A cave appear'd, by art or nature form'd; But art most plain was seen. Here, Thetis! oft, Plac'd unattir'd on thy rein'd dolphin's back, Thou didst delight to come. There, as thou laid'st In slumbers bound, did Peleus on thee seize. And when his most endearing prayers were spurn'd, Force he prepar'd; both arms around thy neck Close clasp'd. And then to thy accustom'd arts, Of often-varied-form, hadst thou not fled, He might have prosper'd in his daring hope. But now a bird thou wert; the bird he held: Now an huge tree; Peleus ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... sick for Radha? she is sad in turn, Heaven foregoes its blessings, if it holds not thee, All the cooling fragrance of sandal she doth spurn, Moonlight makes her mournful with radiance silvery; Even the southern breeze blown fresh from pearly seas, Seems to her but tainted by a dolorous brine; And for thy sake discontented, with a great love overladen, ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... First, I am come in my own name, as your friend and comrade, to conjure you solemnly not to spurn this creature from you; for, by my soul, you ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... O condemn me not, without appeal, On bare suspicion. 'Tis not right to adjudge Bad men at random good, or good men bad. I would as lief a man should cast away The thing he counts most precious, his own life, As spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time The truth, for time alone reveals the just; A villain ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... meaning, if not Shakespeare's words, thick and fast, as if he were not an actor, but Othello himself, and while his audience listen with bated breath and quick-beating hearts, he hurls him to the ground, and in the uncurbed fury of his mood raises his foot to spurn him like a dog,—then he rises far above ordinary dramatic effect: his art does "hold the mirror up to Nature." We feel that we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... bigoted churchmen and canting hypocrites may declaim on the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the parson and ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... shouted De Roberval. "If God wills it a thousand times, it shall never be. I will oppose it. But why waste words?" he added in a quieter tone. "My niece would spurn you as she would one of ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... to silver turn'd; O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd, But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by increasing: Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love, are roots, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... To spurn the thrice blest English speech: Welsh books—there are none, save what quacks Sell the poor ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... shall wear a form congenial to your vices. The fierce and lawless shall assume the figure of the unrelenting wolf. The unreflecting tyrant, that raised a mistaken fame from scenes of devastation and war, shall spurn the ground, a haughty and indignant horse; and in that form, shall learn, by dear experience, what were the sufferings and what the scourge that he inflicted on mankind. The sensual shall wear the shaggy vesture of the goat, or foam and whet his horrid tusks, a wild ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... my heart! To stupefy oneself with other wines, is brutal; but to raise oneself to the seventh heaven with thee, is quite ethereal. The soul appears to spurn the body, and take a transient flight without its dull associate—the—the—broke down, by Jupiter! All I meant to say was, that champagne is very pretty tipple; and so thought the dinner party, who were ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... dissimilitudes. Those who are unlike are sundered by gulfs of difference. Those who are alike are together in their interiors. Thought and love, forgetfulness and hate, are not hampered by temporal and spatial boundaries. Spiritual forces and beings spurn material impediments, and are united or separate, reciprocally visible or invisible, mutually conscious or unconscious, according to their own laws of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... then. 'Tis small enough Return for help bestowed Say "Thank you!" You would spurn to slight The smallest debt you owed; But is not this a debt?—Ah, more! And honor, if true blue Your loyal heart of rectitude, Impels to ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... absolutely; if the Stoic, he must believe as strongly in the Stoic theology as he does in the sunlight. If he holds this, Aristotle will pronounce him mad; you, however, Lucullus, must defend the Stoics and spurn Aristotle from you, while you will not allow me even to doubt (119). How much better to be free, as I am and not compelled to find an answer to all the riddles of the universe! (120) Nothing can exist, say you, apart from the deity. Strato, however, says he does not need the ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the shield that men doth save Mighty spurn with foot I gave. Snoekoll's throat it smote aright, The fierce follower of the fight, And by mighty dint of it Were the tofts of tooth-hedge split; The strong spear-walk's iron rim, Tore ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... all her modesty risen in arms, she reduced me to a mere nothing. What is it? Am I a fool without brains, or has she no heart? What am I fighting against? What are the obstacles in my way? Why does she spurn me? My head is in such a chaotic state that I can neither think, write, nor reason. I only repeat to myself, over and over again, "What is it that ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... that shrewd and knavish sprite Called GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW. Are you not he That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong Drink to bear no barm (Or proper profit.) You would do us harm. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sly PUCK, Are right; you always bring your friends bad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... not adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... full of her peculiar note. Death is the "one dignity" that "delays for all;" the meanest brow is so ennobled by the majesty of death that "almost a powdered footman might dare to touch it now," and yet no beggar would accept "the eclat of death, had he the power to spurn." "The quiet nonchalance of death" is a resting-place which has no terrors for her; death "abashed" her no more than "the porter of her father's lodge." Death's chariot also holds Immortality. The setting sail for "deep eternity" brings a "divine intoxication" such as the "inland soul" feels ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... doubted it, she had lived so near him in thought. It was with a sort of ecstasy that she looked at him. There was a world of entreaty in her eyes; they seemed to be begging a caress; she raised her quivering lips to his, but he did not observe it. For a long time she hesitated, fearing he might spurn her; but at last, yielding to a supreme impulse, she threw her arms around his neck, drew him toward her, and pressed him to her heart in a close embrace. "My son! my son!" she repeated; "to have you with me again, after all ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... at your own heels, Darsie, and ask yourself whether you would not exert your legs as fast as you did in flying from the Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father's courage. I tell you he has courage enough to do what is right, and to spurn what is wrong—courage enough to defend a righteous cause with hand and purse, and to take the part of the poor man against his oppressor, without fear of the consequences to himself. This is civil courage, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... jurisprudence, lay in chains amongst nightly thieves and robbers. (He begged) that they would turn away their minds from resentment for a while to examination and reflection; and rather pardon one at the intercession of so many members of the Claudian family, than through a hatred of one spurn the entreaties of many; that he himself also paid this tribute to the family and the name; nor had he been reconciled to him, whose unfortunate situation he wished to relieve; that by fortitude liberty had been recovered; by clemency the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... early, troops of knights rode into Brunhild's castle, till Hagen said, "Alack! What have we done? Some hurt will befall us from Brunhild's men. We know not her real intent. What if she spurn us when her forces are gathered together? Then were we all dead men, and this maiden were ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... thou should please a friend who pleaseth thee * Frankly, in public practise secrecy. And spurn the slanderer's tale, who seldom[FN222] * seeks Except the severance of true love to see. They say, when lover's near, he tires of love, * And absence is for love best remedy: Both cures we tried and yet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... you will suffer by the experiment. This is exactly what Caesar, in the giddiness of victory and supremacy, did, and the consequence was as certain as it was deplorable. The republican sentiment seemed to him to have entirely lost its force, so that he might spurn it with impunity; whereas, it had in it still enough of the momentum gathered through centuries of republican training and glory to destroy him, to restore the republic for a brief period, and to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the bridge Foxhall was wading out of the water, disdaining assistance. Snead, however, did not spurn the hands extended to him when he came floundering ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the very ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Neptune's snowy coursers Unbridled trode the main, And o'er the foaming waters Plunged on in mad disdain: The furious surges boiling, Roll mountains in their path; Beneath their white hoofs coiling, They spurn them in ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Shall we then do nothing? What is to become of you, Fiesco? Where am I to seek that determined enemy of tyrants? There was a time when but to see a crown would have been torture to you. Oh, fallen son of the republic! By heaven, if time could so debase my soul I would spurn immortality. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Or room or entrance.—"Hast thou seen," said he, "That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet The falcon first looks down, then to the sky Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food, That woos him ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... do not spurn From a little flower to learn: See the lily on the bed, Hanging down its modest head; While it scarcely can be seen, Folded in its leaf ...
— My Flower-pot - Child's Picture Book • Unknown
... icy rest, Or win a tender glance from your royal eyes, Ione; But your sad smile lures me on, as toward some fatal rock Is the fond wave drawn, but to break with passionate moan. Break! to be spurned from its cold feet with a stony shock, As you would spurn my suppliant heart ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... decide nothing for him: his 'certitude' is independent of it. It is easy to see that such an attitude must appear profoundly dishonest to any man who accepts Locke's maxim about truth-seeking. It is equally easy to see that Newman would spurn the charge of dishonesty as hotly as the charge of scepticism. His principles made it easy for him to adopt the characteristic Catholic habit of 'believing' anything that is pleasing to the religious imagination. His ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... wilt thou spurn me, when a king distress'd, A good, a virtuous, venerable king, The father of his people, from a throne Which long with ev'ry virtue he adorn'd, Torn by a ruffian, by a tyrant's hand, Groans in captivity? In his own palace Lives a sequester'd prisoner? Oh! Philotas, ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... mother with Her tearful and beseeching look, that moves Like a green widow in a mourning trance, The very picture of "God help us all;" And thou, with sickly whining worse than they, Do ye think I shall do murder? Why not go At once unto the foe, and there be spurn'd By Henrietta, that false Delilah?— Or plot my death for loyalty? What is A father in your minds weigh'd with a king? Yet what is "king" to you? ye were not bred To lick his moral sores in ecstasy, And bay like hounds before the royal gate On all the world beside—Go hence! go ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... Priscilla. To stay in Symford seemed impossible, but to leave it seemed still more so. And sooner than go back disgraced to Kunitz and fling herself at paternal feet which would in all probability immediately spurn her, Priscilla felt she would die. But how could she stay in Symford, surrounded by angry neighbours, next door to Tussie, with Robin coming back for vacations, with Mrs. Morrison hating her, with Lady Shuttleworth hating her, with ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... 3 Spurn not the call for life and light; Regard in time the warning kind; That call thou may'st not always slight And yet the gate ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... feed. And three hath he, that cost him nought— His courage, strength, and watchful thought. Quick send a wether for his use: If not contented, send him more; Yes, add an ox, and see you choose The best our pastures ever bore. Thus save the rest.'—But such advice The sultan spurn'd, as cowardice. And his, and many states beside, Did ills, in consequence, betide. However fought this world allied, The beast maintain'd his power and pride. If you must let the lion grow, Don't let him live to be ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... bones. The convent mastiff trotting along, Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven, Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell, And howl'd out his fears to heaven. Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy, That he spurn'd the royal feast, And keen'd all night to the grievous owl, And the howling mastiff beast. Loud on that night was the thunder crash, Sad was the voice of the wind, Swift was the glare of the lightning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... m. indifference, coldness, coyness. despeado, -a headlong. despear precipitate, fling down. despertar awaken, arouse, break, dawn. despierto, -a awake, brisk. desplegado, -a flowing. desplegar unfold, unfurl, hoist; —se unfold, spread. despojos m. pl. remains. despreciar spurn, neglect, reject. desprender(se) fall, tear, separate, issue from, arise, relax one's hold, let go. desprendido, -a loosened, falling, torn, broken. despus adv. afterward, then. despuntar begin to dawn. desquiciarse be unhinged, shake. destellar flash, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... "We spurn all self-denial," he said, "we trample it under foot. Being believers, we do whatever we will and nothing more. We ridicule all mortification. No purification ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... thee glanced over, Every inmost thought could show! Then thou wouldst at last discover 'Twas not well to spurn it so. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... slain Cheviot hills within. 'God have mercy on his soul!' said Kyng Harry, 'Good Lord, if thy will it be. I have a hondrith Captains in Englonde As good as ever was he; But Perse, and I brook my lyffe Thy death well quit shall be.' This was the honting off the Cheviot 'That tear beganne this spurn:' Old men that known the ground well enough Call it the battle of Otterburn. At Otterburn began this spurn Upon a Monnynday; There was the doughtie Douglas slain, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Deep through his front the weighty falchion fell; The crashing bones before its force gave way; In dust and blood the groaning hero lay: Forced from their ghastly orbs, and spouting gore, The clotted eye-balls tumble on the shore. And fierce Atrides spurn'd him as he bled, Tore off ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... both his conscience and his imagination. With a movement at once of wonder and of deep-seated thankfulness, he, for the first time, held out his hands to it, accepting it as a comrade, pledging himself to use rather than to spurn it. He looked at it steadfastly and, so looking, found it no longer abhorrent but of mysterious virtue and efficacy, endued with power to open the gates of a way, closed to most men, into the heart of humanity, which, in a sense, is nothing ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... This demand Mr. Savage considered as a censure of his conduct, which he could never patiently bear, and which, in the latter and cooler part of his life, was so offensive to him, that he declared it as his resolution, "to spurn that friend who should presume to dictate to him;" and it is not likely, that, in his earlier years, he received admonitions ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... one for yourself? Look out of that window, lad; is there not poetry enough, beauty and glory enough, in that sky, those fields,—ay, in every fallen leaf,—to employ all your powers, considerable as I believe them to be? Why spurn the pure, quiet, country life, in which such men as Wordsworth have been content to live and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, and thrones, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... is a chapter from Nature's open book, full of inspiration. Beyond them and above them he sees the hand and hears the voice of God. And since he lives and works thus close to Nature's throbbing heart and in close communion with forces that link the finite to the Infinite, who dares to spurn the dignity of his toil or characterize his associations ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... well, proceed Neighbours, I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But I see ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... purchase early fame. Him when he spied from far, the Tuscan king Laid by the lance, and took him to the sling, Thrice whirl'd the thong around his head, and threw: The heated lead half melted as it flew; It pierc'd his hollow temples and his brain; The youth came tumbling down, and spurn'd the plain. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... in to fate, Herbert. I would assert my manhood. I would abide in the strength of the first output, going with the flush of the first glow into the gloom. I would spurn the calm of compromise and mediocrity and register a high claim. I would keep the peace with Romance and fly her colours to the last. You have lived? It is well, and it might have been better, but do not give over and talk of stirpiculture. ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... prostrate Titaness from the vultures that prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!—par exemple! Let her come to me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... "Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... that "we shall have no repugnance in admitting that in man, though perhaps in man alone, consciousness pursues its path beyond this earthly life." Elsewhere he says, in a phrase already much quoted and perhaps destined to be famous, that in man the spirit can "spurn every kind of resistance and break through many an obstacle, perhaps even death." Here the tenor has ended on the inevitable high note, and the gallery is delighted. But was that the note set down for him in the music? And has he not ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... ye should be thus: No, no-where can unriddle, though I search, 150 And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How we can war, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... off mountain sheep, Betakes him moodily to sleep. And "Ah!" he cries, "would I micht be A clansman kilted to the knee, Wi' sporran, plaid and buckled shoe, And Caledonian whuskers too! Would I could wake the pibroch's throes And live on parritch and peas brose And spurn the ling wi' knotty knees, The dourest Scot fra Esk tae Tees! For only such, I'll answer for 't, Are rightly built for Hielan' sport, Can stalk Ben Ledi's antlered stag Frae scaur to scaur and crag tae crag, Cra'ing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... with the blood of your kinsmen; and even now, do you not see them led away in chains to the strongholds of the tyrant? Are not your stoutest vassals pressed from your service, and sent into foreign wars? And yet you exclaim, 'I see no injury-I spurn at the name ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and her orphan child spurn the shelter of your roof, and shun you with disgust and loathing. Your kindred renounce you, for they know no shame but the ties of blood which bind them in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Vicomte, and because she imagined that he would be, most probably, some elderly roue, as did so often fall to the lot of maidens in her station. But upon finding him so very handsome to behold, so very noble of bearing, so lofty and disdainful that as he walked he seemed to spurn the very earth, she fell enamoured of him out of very relief, as well as because he was the most superb specimen of the other sex that it had ever been hers ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... have taken vows of modest competency (about 1000 pounds a year, derived from consols), who spurn popularity as medieval monks spurned money—and with about as much sincerity. Their great object is to try and find out what they like and then get it. They do not live in one building, and there are no vows of celibacy, but, in practice, when any member marries he drifts away from the society. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... and effect the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and by constitutional amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... knowing that he left disgrace and death behind him. He realised that he now owed a duty to the girl he loved, higher and more imperative by far than any he owed to his fiancee. But he had not the means to employ a detective to find Berene; and he was not sure that, if found, she might not spurn him. He had heard and read of cases where a woman's love had turned to bitter loathing and hatred for the man who had not protected her in a moment of weakness. He could think of no other cause which ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sufferings are too much like my own to permit me even to dislike her. She has rich beauty, a rarely luxuriant vitality, and the immense advantage of being free to show her love in a natural way. I have nothing but my love for her lover! If I could only trample on it, despise it, spurn it, but I can't, I can't! My love is stronger than my pride, stronger than my life. It is not a mere fancy of yesterday, it has grown and ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... shouldered Fane and Harmon out of his way when they objected to the purchase of Neergard's acreage adjoining the Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he wanted a little more out of him—just enough to place himself on a secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack cotillon leader, was regarded by the ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... said Nell, "I'll take, And what you spurn, I'll wear; For he's my lord for better and worse, And ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... for his bravery, would strike an unarmed man. If Your Grace wished to attack me, you would give me arms equal to your own. If you should kill me, unarmed as I am, you would be more pitiable than any other man in Burgundy. You would despise yourself, and all mankind would spurn you." ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... snobbishness was something that might be reached and cured by ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave my heart to Thackeray, who seemed to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ha! Love-sick? He, love-sick? 'Tis a goodly jest! The CONfirm'd misogyn a ladies' man! Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb That takes the reason captive. I will swear Savonarola never yet hath seen A woman but he spurn'd ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... transport. Mr Thornhill's assurance had entirely forsaken him: he now saw the gulph of infamy and want before him, and trembled to take the plunge. He therefore fell on his knees before his uncle, and in a voice of piercing misery implored compassion. Sir William was going to spurn him away, but at my request he raised him, and after pausing a few moments, 'Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude,' cried he, 'deserve no tenderness; yet thou shalt not be entirely forsaken, a bare competence ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... the time when it was first taught in the Vedanta system, and sublimed in the schools of Alexandria. Christianity, which encountered and triumphed over it in her youth, can have nothing to fear from it in her mature age,[144] provided only that she be faithful to herself, and spurn every offered compromise. But there must be no truce, and no attempt at conciliation between the two. The Pantheists of Germany have made the most impudent claims to the virtual sanction of Christianity; they have even dared to make use of Bible terms in a new ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... hearers, this is real, this is true! It is our Father who says it; and we, unworthy ministers of His word and messengers to declare His beneficence, repeat it for Him, 'My son, give me thine heart!' Not to crush, not to spurn, not for a toy. The great God asks your hearts because He wishes your gratitude and your love. Do you believe He asks it? Yes, you do. Do you believe He asks it idly? No, you do not. What, then, does this appeal mean? It means, that God ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... ever the question arose, he knew quite well that this girl whom he had chosen—the poorly paid secretary of some harmless enthusiast, the strangely selected correspondent of an insignificant journal—would spurn him with scorn if she heard the story Stampa might tell of his lost daughter. That was the wildest absurdity in the mad jumble of events which brought him here face to face with a broken and frayed old man,—one whom he ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... heart-cherished wish to say something to you. May I say it? May I, Miss Amy? I but ask the question humbly—may I say it? I know very well your family is far above mine. It were vain to conceal it. I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me from a height." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the duke of Wharton, a man whose life was as strongly chequered with the vicissitudes of fortune, as his abilities were various and astonishing. He is an instance of the great imbecility of intellectual powers, when once they spurn the dictates of prudence, and the maxims of life. With all the lustre of his understanding, when his fortune was wasted, and his circumstances low, he fell into contempt; they who formerly worshipped him, fled from him, and despised his wit when ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... going to light, came inadvertently so rudely in contact with this obstreperous interloper that lie not only overthrew him, but also got a grievous fall over his legs; and, as he arose, the other made a spurn at him with his foot, which, if it had hit to its aim, would undoubtedly have finished the course of the young laird of Dalcastle and Balgrennan. George, being irritated beyond measure, as may well be conceived, especially at the deadly stroke aimed at him, struck the assailant with his ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... if the Stoic, he must believe as strongly in the Stoic theology as he does in the sunlight. If he holds this, Aristotle will pronounce him mad; you, however, Lucullus, must defend the Stoics and spurn Aristotle from you, while you will not allow me even to doubt (119). How much better to be free, as I am and not compelled to find an answer to all the riddles of the universe! (120) Nothing can exist, say you, apart from the deity. Strato, however, says he does not need the deity ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... morning, Bettina brought me a band for my neck, and gave me the following letter: "Spurn me, but respect my honour and the shadow of peace to which I aspire. No one from this house must confess to Father Mancia; you alone can prevent the execution of that project, and I need not suggest the way to succeed. It will prove whether you ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... order;' bound still to this same ugly Poverty,—till they had tried what was in it too, till they had learned to make it too do for them! Money, in truth, can do much, but it cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and confine it; and even spurn it back, when it ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... faculties of the human mind, than the consideration of the various arts by which men have endeavoured to penetrate into the future, and to command the events of the future, in ways that in sobriety and truth are entirely out of our competence. We spurn impatiently against the narrow limits which the constitution of things has fixed to our aspirings, and endeavour by a multiplicity of ways to accomplish that which it is totally beyond the power of man ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... his danger? We Are now no more, as once, parent and child, But man to man; the oppressor to the oppressed; The slanderer to the slandered; foe to foe: 285 He has cast Nature off, which was his shield, And Nature casts him off, who is her shame; And I spurn both. Is it a father's throat Which I will shake, and say, I ask not gold; I ask not happy years; nor memories 290 Of tranquil childhood; nor home-sheltered love; Though all these hast thou torn from me, and more; But only my fair fame; only one hoard Of peace, which I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... impassable barrier dividing our first class from them on the steamer, and who will find the second-class German cars quite good enough for them, and better than our day coaches at home. If we cannot remember these, then let us remember those for whom Pullmans are not good enough and who spurn the dust of our summer ways in their automobiles, and leave the parlor-cars to our lower-class vulgarity. Such people take their automobiles to Europe with them, and would not use that possible Pullman train if they found it waiting for them at the port of arrival in Germany. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what was I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the grave to look helplessly upon the loss and ruin of all the fair, once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, since even He could not keep one woman true? She whom I loved—she ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... his wives. (Muses.) This night I have discover'd the base Perez Again essays his most inconstant fair, Blind as inconstant. She rejected me When, as Friar Anselmo teaching music, I offer'd her—'tis true, unholy love; And I by Perez was thrust out with shame, Spurn'd with contumely as the door was closed, With threats if ever I appear'd again, To blazon forth my impious attempt, and— Yet did she cozen me with melting eyes, And first roused up the demon in my breast, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... thou in flames uninjured, Remain unharmed amid ice eternal, Make blocks of stone thy daily food, Spurn the earth before thee with thy foot, Weigh the heavens in a balance, And then ask of ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... poet's spirit, only a high-strung heart could accomplish such strains! I, too, am of a musical spirit; I, too, thrill to the notes of the great masters, if interpreted as they are by you! May I hope that you will not spurn this outburst of a sympathetic nature, and accept this tribute to your genius? Could I look for a line,—just a word,—in response to this, saying that you are glad of my appreciation? Never before have I written to a stranger. That is why I dare not ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear, by that honour which crowns the upright statue of Robert Burns's Integrity, on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-pact transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you. Burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust long outlive any of his wants which the cold, unfeeling ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned glories, her true honour and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris—in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the worst elements in my nature; it swings the whip of the furies. For your own sake, do not thrust your degrading madness upon my notice. I have labored to liberate you; have subordinated all other aims to this, and now, that I have come to set you free, you repulse and spurn me!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the world will abhor and curse you. Were you such a fool as to think, because men pay respect to wealth and rank, this would extend to such a deed? They will laugh at so barefaced a cheat. The meanest beggar will spurn and spit at you. Ay, you may well stand confounded at what you have done. I will proclaim you to the whole world, and you will be obliged to fly the very ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... voice—the sterner one Which tells of crime in darkness done, Groans upward from thy prison gloom Like voices from the thunder's home. And men have heard it, and the might Of freemen rising from their thrall Shall drag their fetters into light, And spurn and trample on them all. And vengeance long—too long delayed— Shall rouse to wrath the souls of men, And freedom raise her holy head ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... severe labour. Winter, though it has its own labours, such as cutting wood, is the great season of social intercourse. For a long time the habitant would not consider a mechanic his social equal; perhaps, still, the daughters of a farmer would spurn the advances of the village carpenter. But whatever the social distinctions, baptisms, marriages, anniversaries, are made the occasions for festivity. There are corvees recreatives, such as parties gathered for taking the husks ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea lift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion tear him to pieces, let dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the next crumb of bread choke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to death.' ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... thy sorrows hush, And spurn the sex,' he said: But while he spoke, a rising blush His ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... over mountain and dale, Follow me, brother falconers, and share in those joys, Which envy disturbs not, nor grandeur destroys: Up hill, down the valley, all dangers we'll dare, While our coursers spurn earth, and our hawks sail in air. Dash on, my brave birds, Your quarry pursue; "Strike, strike!" ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... excluding women from the exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them to be sacred, is denied, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? No! There go the tales! May my hand wither ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... House-wife, here lies the Charm, that conjur'd this Fellow in I'm sure on't, come out you Rascal, do so: Zounds take her from the Door, or I'll spurn her from it, and break ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... and hate them when she was once bound to them for life. This one is as beautiful as she—and full of grace, and wit, and spirit. She could not look down upon him, however wrath she was at any time. Ah me! She should not spurn him, surely ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... utterly forgotten the mischief he had wrought at large. At dawn he had vowed to undo it. Undo it he must. But the task was not a simple one now. If he could say "Behold, I take back my word. I spurn Miss Dobson, and embrace life," it was possible that his example would suffice. But now that he could only say "Behold, I spurn Miss Dobson, and will not die for her, but I am going to commit suicide, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... for Radha? she is sad in turn, Heaven foregoes its blessings, if it holds not thee, All the cooling fragrance of sandal she doth spurn, Moonlight makes her mournful with radiance silvery; Even the southern breeze blown fresh from pearly seas, Seems to her but tainted by a dolorous brine; And for thy sake discontented, with a great love ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... or Portugal, Nay, any where that not adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And this your ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... beats high, my friend, And Youth's blue sky is bright, And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend, Love's early dawning light, Let the free soul spurn care's control, And while the glad days shine, We'll use their beams for Youth's gay dreams Of Love and ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... it—look at it! Burrell has no proofs—unless that villain Dalton has betrayed me," he added, in a lower tone; "but I did not the act, the blood is on his head, and not on mine. Constance, my child, the only thing on earth now that can love me, do not curse—do not spurn me. I ask not your sacrifice, that I may be saved;—but do not curse me—do not ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love; loving Him, we shall embrace virtue through the force of love, and shall hate vice and spurn it. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... "Oh! spurn not such a suppliant's prayer!" Her tones so sad, her sighs so deep, Startled the Princess in her sleep; Wond'ring, she views with dread before her The stranger beauty, frighted hears For mercy her soft voice implore her, Raises ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... to spurn the rage of gain, Teach him that states of native strength possest, Though very poor, may ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... citizen of our great land to be obliged to admit, that there are at home a few craven-hearted, mean-spirited men—shall I call them men? No, nor even women—there are creatures, I say, who disapprove of our glorious deeds, who spurn the flag and the noble principles for which it stands and to which I have alluded, who say that we have no business to take away land which belongs to other people, and that we have not the right to slaughter rebels and traitors in our midst. I appeal to the patriotic Cubapinos ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... his creative activity in music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find an imitator in so ardent an ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it, if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful. To go quit smoking, when there ain't any sufficient excuse for it!—why, my old boy, when they used ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... up his whole life for your joy and help, he consecrates himself, he lashes and burns and tortures himself—for your sake! And you spurn him from you, and tell ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... along the ground, so forcibly recalls the very words of the curse. Though they have now only such powers of motion as belong to the meanest worm, those skeletons which the rocks entomb show that the serpent tribe had once feet to walk with, and even wings to spurn the ground and cleave the air. Such is the testimony of the rocks! And, taking the words of Scripture in their literal sense, there is, to say the least of it, a very curious coincidence between the voices of the rocks and the voice of revelation. But, be that as it may, what else ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... will not give at full length his thrice unhappy name—had been from infancy a ball for fortune to spurn at; but nature had given him that elasticity of mind which rises higher from the rebound. His form was tall, manly, and active, and his features corresponded with his person; for, although far from ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... millions hail thy sovereign might, And tribes unknown dread acclamation join; How wilt thou spurn the forms of low delight! For all the ecstasies of heaven ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... homeward riding with knit brow Muttered, "Churl's welcome for a kingly boon!" And, drinking late that night the stormy breath Of others' anger blent with his, commanded, "Ride forth at morn and bring me back my gift! Spurn it he shall not, though he prize it not." They heard him, and obeyed. At noon the king Demanded thus, "What answer made the Saint?" They said, "His eyes he raised not from his book, But answered, 'Deo Gratias!' and ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl, how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it to the presence of that higher Father who does not reject his children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it was ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... world, fare thee well! I purpose no more in thy bondage to dwell; The burdens which thou hast enticed me to bear, I cast now aside with their troubles and care. I spurn thy allurements, which tempt and appall; ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... best societies, declaring to one individual or one set of acquaintances that the pity, the sympathy, the love, or the admiration they have been expressing for others is, in reality, all feigned to soothe or please? As long as the motive is not base, men do not spurn the falsehood as such. How much of untruth is tolerated in the best circles of the most civilized nations, in the relations between electors to corporate and legislative bodies and the candidates for election? between nominators to offices under ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... jest[F]. [i]Others, with softer smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustick tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live unregarded, unlamented die. [k]For what but social guilt the friend endears? Who shares Orgilio's crimes, his fortune shares. [l]But thou, should tempting villany present All Marlb'rough hoarded, or all Villiers spent, Turn from the glitt'ring ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... fond youth thy sorrows hush And spurn the sex,' he said: But while he spoke a rising blush ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... the restless seed was sown; The vagrant spirit fretted in your feet; We wondered could you tarry long, And brook for long the cramping street, Or would you one day sail for shores unknown, And shake from you the dust of towns, and spurn The crowded market-place—and not return? You found a sterner guide; You heard the guns. Then, to their distant fire, Your dreams were laid aside; And on that day, you cast your heart's desire Upon a burning pyre; You gave your service to the exalted need, Until at last from bondage ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... say! shall the land of Achilles Reluctantly cherish a dastardly slave, Who can crouch at the foot of a despot, whose will is As fickle as wind, and as rude as the wave? Shall the ashes of heroes enshrouded in glory, Be spurn'd in contempt by a barbarous horde, While their sons idly tremble like boys at a story, And shudder to gaze on the point ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... do we yearn To bring thee back, but oh, to be, to be Unbound of all these gyves, to stretch, to spurn The dark from off our dolorous lids, to see Our spark, Conjecture, blaze and sunwise burn, And suddenly ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... ones of the land, pointed at by the urchins, and even taunted by the beggar as he went his rounds. But nature, that made me a thing to be contemned, gave me no feelings congenial to such a state. I was endowed with sentiments more noble, and greater powers of mind than those who affected to spurn me. I know not my father, nor was I ever anxious to learn a name to me so full of misery, and which could claim no other token from his child than a malediction. This much I learnt—that my parent was ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... supposed to be a sacrifice. Myself and certain of my company standing by, they desired us to go into the smoke. I desired them to go into the smoke, which they would by no means do. I then took one of them and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that we ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... that. But to palm off upon me some dastardly deed of your own; by snares and scraps of false evidence—false oaths, too, no doubt—to smuggle me off to the hangman. That was your precious contrivance. Once again I am here; but this once only. What for?—why, to laugh at, and spit at, and spurn you. And if one man amongst you has in him an ounce of man's blood, let him show me the traitors who planned that pitiful project, and be they a dozen, they shall carry the mark of this hand till their carcasses go to the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to live: By Heaven we will be free! By all the stars which burn on high— By the green earth—the mighty sea— By God's unshaken majesty, We will be free or die! Then let the drums all roll! Let all the trumpets blow! Mind, heart, and soul, We spurn control Attempted ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... and she persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is wholly owned and dominated by men spirits and I spurn the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; he was sincere. To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... woman who only by her beauty can be great. Oh, cursed be that ancient Counsellor thou wottest of, and cursed be I who wakened That which slept, and warmed That which was a-cold in my breath and in my breast! And cursed be this sin to which he led me! Spurn me, Rei; strike me on the cheek, spit upon me, on Meriamun, the Royal harlot who sells herself to win a crown. Oh, I hate him, hate him, and I will pay him in shame for shame—him, the clown in king's attire. ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... circumstances. But the eyes spoke more eloquently, telling him of respect undiminished, faith that had never faltered, love strong and true as ever. If he read pity in them too, it was not such as he would now spurn. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Story Books! we owe ye much old friends, Bright coloured threads in memory's wrap, of which Death holds the ends, Who can forget ye? Who can spurn the ministers of joy That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? Talk of your vellum, gold emboss'd morocco, roan, and calf, The blue and yellow wraps of ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... woolly man with moccasins on feet. They know they've got him going; he is buying wine for all; They crowd around as buzzards at a feast, Then when his poke is empty they boost him from the hall, And spurn him in the ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... inch &c. (obstinacy) 606. resist, cross; not grant &c. 762; repel, repulse, shut the door in one's face, slam the door in one's face; rebuff; send back, send to the right about, send away with a flea in the ear; deny oneself, not be at home to; discard, spurn, &c. (repudiate) 610; rescind &c. (revoke) 756; disclaim, protest; dissent &c. 489. Adj. refusing &c. v.; restive, restiff|; recusant; uncomplying, unconsenting; not willing to hear of, deaf to. refused &c. v.; ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be suppressed ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... immediately follows, nay, even precedes the deed, and the stings of conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he dreads the prospect of the life to come [Footnote: We'd jump the life to come.], clinging with growing anxiety to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly removing ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means, prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents more on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly, to the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come to talk with mine? By Allah, I will take that ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Hold off, or I will use thee like a Dog, tread thee to Earth, and spurn thee like a Slave, base as ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... "My Country, behold I freely tender thee All swords e'er won for freedom in the ages long ago, All prerogatives that clash with it I offer to surrender thee, Wilt take or spurn the guerdon? prithee, answer 'yes' ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... sir prior," said Douglas. "I despise the childish boy too much to raise a finger against him. But I will return insult for insult. Here, any of you who love the Douglas, spurn me this quean from the monastery gates; and let her be so scourged that she may bitterly remember to the last day of her life how she gave means to an unrespective boy to affront ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... O' th' sun by day; they follow fortune still, And hate or love discreetly, as their will And the time leads them. This tumultuous fate Puts all their painted favours out of date. And yet this people that now spurn, and tread This mighty favourite's once honour'd head, Had but the Tuscan goddess, or his stars Destin'd him for an empire, or had wars, Treason, or policy, or some higher pow'r Oppress'd secure Tiberius; that same hour That he receiv'd the sad Gemonian doom, Had crown'd him emp'ror of the ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Madame Desvarennes wanted her daughter to be a Princess. We shall see how it will turn out. Her son-in-law will spend her money and spurn her.' The gossip of disappointed people. Give them the lie; manage that we shall all live together, and we shall be ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... third hour after midnight," said he to himself, "all is to go well; it is not till the fourth hour that signs are to appear in the sky which are of evil augury for me. Of course the sheep will play round the dead lion, and the ass will even spurn him with his hoof so long as he is merely sick. In the short space of time between the third and fourth hours all the signs of evil are crowded together. They must be visible; but"—and this "but" brought sudden illumination to the praetor's mind, "why ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... vast amount of stocks, A vast amount of pride insures; But Fate has picked so many locks I wouldn't like to warrant yours. Remember, then, and never spurn The one whose hand is hard and brown, For he is likely to go up, And you are likely ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... beeves in the North it was important to give the animals every possible moment of time to locate before the approach of winter. The instinct of a dumb beast is unexplainable yet unerring. The owner of a horse may choose a range that seems perfect in every appointment, but the animal will spurn the human selection and take up his abode on some flinty hills, and there thrive like a garden plant. Cattle, especially steers, locate slowly, and a good summer's rest usually fortifies them with an ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... mysteries of poetry the right discerning of true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a school of art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not content to set up shop for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters; which, by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... no one shall thee learn: Nor do I care; for none I wot, so well As I may chant thee; so, This one behest I lay upon thee, go Hie thee to Love, and him in secret tell, How I my life do spurn, My bitter life, and yearn, That to a better harbourage he bring Me, of all might and grace ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... they have forgot What 'tis to be a man—to curb and spurn The tyrant in us: the ignobler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute; And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed. ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... dead with fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity. Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... depart, And, partial feeling cast aside, Record, that Fox a Briton died! When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, 155 And the firm Russian's purpose brave, Was barter'd by a timorous slave, Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd, The sullied olive-branch return'd, Stood for his country's glory fast, 160 And nail'd her colours to the mast! Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honour'd grave, And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... true, my dearest; Yet, when I call to mind, how many fair ones Make wilful shipwreck of their faiths and oaths. To fill the arms of greatness; And you, with matchless virtue, thus to hold out, Against the stern authority of a father, And spurn at honour, when it comes to court you; I am so tender of your good, that I can hardly Wish myself that right you ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the standard for young men which young men have erected for them. Young men who have any respect for themselves will not associate with women that chew, and smoke, and swear, and get drunk—those whose morals are low and base. They spurn such associates from them. Let young women do the same. Let them say to the young men, "You shall not do the things you prohibit us from doing; you shall not, behind our backs, do things you would despise us for doing; you shall not bring into ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... wonder that plagues and distempers abound, While there is a glutton in camp to be found, To spurn at the counsel kind Heaven did give— And guzzle up all, and have nothing ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... therefore on him he seiz'd. Leander strived; the waves about him wound, And pull'd him to the bottom, where the ground 160 Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves Sweet-singing mermaids sported with their loves On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure To spurn in careless sort the shipwreck treasure; For here the stately azure palace stood, Where kingly Neptune and his train abode. The lusty god embrac'd him, called him "Love," And swore he never should return to Jove: But when he ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... had suffered for him, and he had honestly lived down that distant past. 'If there is a man in this world who has the right to marry you,' cried Adrian, 'I am that man. And if there is a man in this world whom you have the right to spurn, I am that man also.' The extreme subtlety of the thing must be obvious to every reader. Enid forgave and accepted Adrian. They were married in a snowy January at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... as yet untried! For what new tortures am I still reserved? All I have undergone, transports of passion, Longings and fears, the horrors of remorse, The shame of being spurn'd with contumely, Were feeble foretastes of my present torments. They love each other! By what secret charm Have they deceived me? Where, and when, and how Met they? You knew it all. Why was I cozen'd? ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... deal with such a letter as this? Even though he should reject its reasoning, and spurn the temptation with which it assailed him, should he merely burn it, and be silent? The incident furnished a fair test of his loyalty in friendship, his faith in principle, his soundness of judgment, his clear and cool grasp of the public situation,—in ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... vengeance would be, sirrah. She knows, you lying whelp of perdition, that I would pursue herself and her paramour to the uttermost ends of the earth; that I would shoot them both dead—that I would trample upon and spurn their worthless carcasses, and make an example of them to all time, and through all eternity. And you—you prying, intermeddling scoundrel—how durst you—you petty, beggarly tyrant—hated and despised by poor and rich—was ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... brow the beacons blaze, The Orient Pearl to greet, On her return. Two brides wait mid a throng of friends to meet Their war-proof knights. The shades of rank they spurn; They'd vowed for each a sister's love ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... My father lives! Oh, let but vengeance Fire him to spurn Alfonso and his friendship. His martial fame the memory of his virtues, His talents, rank, and sufferings undeserved—— Oh! what a noble column to support ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... heed the warning voice: oh, spurn me not, My early friend; let the bruised heart go free: Mine were high fancies, but a wayward lot Hath made my youthful dreams in sadness flee; Then chide not, I would linger yet awhile, Thinking o'er wasted hours, a weary ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... never! Get you gone! base domestic traitor! Get you gone, lest I call my servants, and bid them spurn you from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... happy lot I gladly share, And breathe a purer, freer air; No more by wealthy upstart spurn'd, The bread is sweet by labour earn'd; Indulgent heaven has bless'd the soil, And ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... condescension of a man of the people? No: Louis XVI., half dethroned by the nation, cannot love the nation that fetters him; he may feign to caress his chains, but all his thoughts are devoted to the idea of how he can spurn them. His only resource at this moment is to protest his attachment to the Revolution, and to lull the ministers whom the Revolution empowers to watch over his intrigues. But this pretence is the last and most dangerous of the conspiracies of the throne. The constitution ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... churchyard stones, They wagg'd their tails in scorn of her flesh, And turn'd up their bills at her bones. The convent mastiff trotting along, Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven, Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell, And howl'd out his fears to heaven. Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy, That he spurn'd the royal feast, And keen'd all night to the grievous owl, And the howling mastiff beast. Loud on that night was the thunder crash, Sad was the voice of the wind, Swift was the glare of the lightning flash, And the whizz it left behind. At ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... others; the church appeareth to me like the sick old lion in the fable, who, after having his person outraged by the bull, the elephant, the horse, and the bear, took nothing so much to heart, as to find himself at last insulted by the spurn of an ass. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... and sunk immediately afterward, as a fleet then appeared to the southward. It was so late in the day that I could not come up with the fleet before night; at length, however, I got so near one of them as to force her to run ashore, between Flamborough Head and the Spurn. Soon after I took another, a brigantine from Holland, belonging to Sunderland; and at daylight the next morning, seeing a fleet steering towards me from the Spurn, I imagined them to be a convoy, bound from London for Leith, which had been for some time expected; one of them had a pendant ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... appearing as speakers or writers, before they can have learned to write or speak grammatically. The body is more to be regarded than raiment; and the substance of an interesting message, may make the manner of it a little thing. Men of high purposes naturally spurn all that is comparatively low; or all that may seem nice, overwrought, ostentatious, or finical. Hence St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, suggests that the design of his preaching might have been defeated, had he affected ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease; 100 Who quits a world where strong temptations try And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; No surly porter stands in guilty state 105 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd decay, While Resignation gently slopes the way; 110 And, all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... quietly as possible, he reached the open field and across this he bounded like a greyhound. He knew that every minute was precious, and the thought of Nell facing those drunken men caused his feet fairly to spurn the grass. Reaching the main road, he tore through the dust, sprang over a ditch, leaped a fence, raced through the orchard and ran plumb into Jake and Empty standing ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... as he went his rounds. But nature, that made me a thing to be contemned, gave me no feelings congenial to such a state. I was endowed with sentiments more noble, and greater powers of mind than those who affected to spurn me. I know not my father, nor was I ever anxious to learn a name to me so full of misery, and which could claim no other token from his child than a malediction. This much I learnt—that my parent was a nobleman; but what unnatural ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... would have long ago patched up the quarrel. The Congress may be as tame as a lamb, and as subject as a foot-sole. Mr. Seward may on his knees proffer to the rebels a compromise and the most stringent safeguards for slavery; to-day the rebels will spurn all as they would have spurned it during the whole year. The rebels will act as Mason did when in the Senate hall Mr. Seward asked the traitor to be introduced ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... that lightfoot so airy, Her race is pursuing, Oh, what vision saw e'er a Feat of flight like her doing? She springs, and the spreading grass Scarce feels her treading, It were fleet foot that sped in Twice the time that she flew in. The gallant array! How the marshes they spurn, In the frisk of their play, And the wheelings they turn,— As the cloud of the mind They would distance behind, And give years to the wind, In the pride of their scorn! 'Tis the marrow of health In the forest to lie, Where, nooking in stealth, They enjoy her[113] supply,— Her fosterage ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... those of Simon, Lord Lovat. "As they were associates in crime, so they were companions in sepulchre," observes a modern writer, "being buried in the same grave."[398] But the more discriminative judge of the human heart will spurn so rash, and undiscerning a remark; and marvel that, in the course of one contest, characters so differing in principle, so unlike in every attribute of the heart, and viewed, even by their enemies, with sentiments so ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... not speak, but put out my hand in protest, and moved on towards the screen, we two alone, for the others had fallen back with whisperings and side-speeches. Oh, how I longed to take the mask from my face and spurn them! The hand that I put out in protest the Intendant caught within his own, and would have held it, but that I drew it back with indignation, and kept on towards the screen. Then I realized that a new-corner had seen the matter, and I stopped short, dumfounded—for it was Monsieur ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... comest now And only to contrast my gloom, Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom A moment on some autumn bough That, with the spurn of their farewell Sheds its last leaves,—thou once didst dwell With me year-long, and make intense To boyhood's wisely vacant days Their fleet but all-sufficing grace Of trustful inexperience, 10 While ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... you who are pitiless. You scout my penitence; you scorn and spurn me, and you ask me, forsooth, to be merciful. I give you your choice—commit the boy to my care within one week, or I will find means to take him whether you will or no. I give you ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... first you don't succeed, try, try again," said Katherine optimistically. "Even if the fair Huronic did spurn us we can no doubt get the attention of a fishing boat. Some of them are always going round. Cheer up, Antha, and don't look so scared. Remember, you're with me, and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... Declaration of Independence, and by constitutional amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... the louder members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not immediately comprehend. But to me, plunged chokingly in translucent profundities of aquamarine splendour, not of a truth that in the heights above splendour resides not, chidingly offering a fat ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely? The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might and main. Now his straps and stirrups were ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Elect of fair Cologne, Listen to my pleading! Spurn not thou the penitent; See, his heart is bleeding! Give me penance! what is due For my faults exceeding I will bear with willing ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... pretend to spurn graces of manner, and affect only a clumsy burden of language, under which, I am sorry to say, the best agriculturists have most commonly labored; but if the transparent simplicity of Goldsmith had once been thoroughly infused with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... young Southern pedestrian, pausing suddenly at her approach, with considerable excitement of manner, "scorn me, spurn me, if you will; but do not let sectional embitterment blind you to the fact that I am here by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... Some regiments are already in the field; twenty more are now under drill. Will you not, in this hour of national peril, gratefully welcome the aid which they so eagerly proffer, to overthrow that slave power which has so long ruled the North, and now, that you spurn its sway, is bent on crushing YOU? Will you not abjure that vulgar hate which has conspired with slavery against liberty in our land, and thus roll from the sepulcher, where they have buried it alive, the stone which has so long imprisoned their victim? The army of the North will thus become ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... eyes. With a quick movement of his hands he seemed to spurn the entire materialism of Sussex. After ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... their stomachs need to be filled daily. They have imagination, and, if bread be scarce, they fear that they may not get enough of it. They prefer to keep their money rather than to give it away. For this reason they spurn the claims which the State and individuals have upon them as much as possible. They avoid paying their debts. They willingly lay their hands on public property which is badly protected; finally they are disposed to regard gendarmes and proprietors as ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How we can war, how engine our great wrath! ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... was useless to parley with them. That icy sarcasm, that haughty indifference, told him how man must ever regard his miserable act. He had already refused the love of God, and dared not expect anything more from it. He foresaw how coming ages would spurn and abhor him. There seemed, therefore, nothing better than to leap into the awful abyss of suicide. It could bring nothing worse than he was suffering. Oh, if he had only dared to believe in the love of God, and had fallen even then at the feet of Jesus, he might have become a pillar in ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... is you who have set Lysander to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... English as their language: those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakespeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe, and investigate the realms of Chaos and Old Night; and of dramatists, who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities and extravagance, to present life ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... result might be the same. You cannot dig six feet downward anywhere into the soil, deep enough to hollow out a grave, without finding some precious relic of the past; only they lose somewhat of their value when you think that you can almost spurn them out of the ground with your foot. It is a very wonderful arrangement of Providence that these things should have been preserved for a long series of coming generations by that accumulation of dust and soil and grass and trees and houses over them, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... years, The years of the strong travail, the triumphant time, Days terrible with love, Red-shod with flames thereof, Call to this hour that breaks in pieces crown and crime; The hour with feet to spurn, Hands to crush, fires to burn The state whereto no latter foot of man shall climb. Yea, come what grief, now may By ruinous night or day, One grief there cannot, one the first and last grief, shame. Come force to break thee and bow Down, shame can come not now, Nor, though ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that no one shall thee learn: Nor do I care; for none I wot, so well As I may chant thee; so, This one behest I lay upon thee, go Hie thee to Love, and him in secret tell, How I my life do spurn, My bitter life, and yearn, That to a better harbourage he bring Me, of all might and grace that own ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Zeus most great, And thou, Eternal Fate: What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel That way I'll follow without fret or cavil. {237} Or if I evil be And spurn thy high decree, Even so I still shall ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... are as full of wild beasts as Amenti is of spirits. And even if no hurt befell thee, the trepidation of that long journey would be cruel. Nay; Ptah, the gallant god, would spurn my next offering, did I send thee back to camp alone. Wilt ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... it not, nor hate it. Precious or vile, how dare we seize that offering, Scatter it, spurn it, in its way to heaven, Because we know it not? the Sovereign Lord Accepts his tribute, myrrh and frankincense From some, from others penitence and prayer: Why intercept them from his gracious hand? Why dash them down? why ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... the Godhead, Persons or Subsistances; the which, though I condemn not, yet choose rather to abide by scripture phrase, knowing, though the other may be good and sound, yet the adversary must needs more shamelessly spurn and reject, when he doth it against ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... appeared, now came forward, and, throwing herself at her feet, clasped her hands together, and lifted her sweet pale face and tearful eyes. For an instant the mother's face grew dark with passion; then she made a movement as if she were about to spurn the supplicant indignantly, when Charles sprang before her, and lifting Ellen in his arms, bore her from the house, and placed her half fainting in the carriage that still stood at the door. A hurried direction was given to the driver, who mounted his box and drove ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... in his face and said, "Edward, it is home where the heart is, and it seems to me we should not spurn a present for a future good. This life is short and uncertain, and I feel a gloomy foreboding when I think of your departure, I have been so accustomed to seeing you every day, to leaning on your arm in every walk, and going so constantly with you everywhere, that I shall miss ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... was more intensely devoted to the cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... employed had been For something over twenty years, I ween. There he wrought hard—but for a decent wage— And was approaching fast toward old age; So, dare not longer such a place engage. While William's natural romantic turn Led him all offers, good and ill, to spurn. He thought of little but Canadian farms, And heeded not Rebellion's loud alarms, [Footnote: The Rebellion of 1837.] Which his old master pointed out to him, To put a stop to such a foolish whim. Yet it caused them sincerest grief of heart From all kind friends and relatives ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; And this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Finds in a wolf-den greater peace and ease; Who quits the place whence truth did earlier fly, And rather than come back prefers to die! For her no jealous maids renounce their sleep, Contriving malices to make her weep; No iron-faced dames her character debate And spurn imploring mercy from the gate; But down she lies to a more peaceful end, For wolves do not calumniate, but rend— Sinks piecemeal to their maws, a willing prey, While resignation lubricates the way, And all her prospects ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... cried, "you spurn me, then, because I am a mechanic. Well, be it so! though the time will come, Isabel Sawtelle," he added, and nothing could exceed his looks at this moment—"when you will bitterly remember the cooper you now so ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of poetry the right discerning of true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a school of art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not content to set up shop for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters; which, by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could overthrow them, the more they hated ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! what's my country to me now? Soldier ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned glories, her true honour and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris—in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... rule we, each with equal power, These folks as one. Let Tyrian Dido bear A Phrygian's yoke, and Tyrians be her dower." Then Venus, for she marked the Libyan snare To snatch Italia's lordship, "Who would care To spurn such offer, or with thee contend, Should fortune follow on a scheme so fair? 'Tis Fate, I doubt, if Jupiter intend The sons of Tyre and Troy in ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the newspaper, and she persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is wholly owned and dominated by men spirits and I spurn the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... honour—still we tell you—we tell you, in the names of liberty and country—we tell you, in the name of enthusiastic hearts, thoughtful souls, and fearless spirits—we tell you, by the past, the present and the future, we would spurn your gifts, if the condition were that Ireland should remain a province. We tell you, and all whom it may concern, come what may—bribery or deceit, justice, policy, or war—we tell you, in the name of Ireland, that Ireland ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... when ye shall see these sayings coming forth among you, then ye need not any longer spurn at the doings of the Lord, for the sword of his justice is in his right hand; and behold, at that day, if ye shall spurn at his doings he will cause that it shall soon ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... anguish as yet untried! For what new tortures am I still reserved? All I have undergone, transports of passion, Longings and fears, the horrors of remorse, The shame of being spurn'd with contumely, Were feeble foretastes of my present torments. They love each other! By what secret charm Have they deceived me? Where, and when, and how Met they? You knew it all. Why was I cozen'd? You never told me of those stolen hours Of amorous converse. Have they oft been seen Talking ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... naked foot-print of a white man and a savage. The white man leaves the impression of his whole sole, every toe being distinctly marked, while your black fellow leaves scarce any toe-marks, but seems merely to spurn the ground with the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... upon the loss and ruin of all the fair, once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, since even He could not keep one woman true? She whom ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... none, Whatever shape the pious rite may bear, Ev'n the poor Pagan's homage to the Sun I would not harshly scorn, lest even there I spurn'd some elements of Christian pray'r— An aim, tho' erring, at a "world ayont," Acknowledgment of good—of man's futility, A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed That very thing ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... North. "Speak, or you will make me mad. Reproach me! Spurn me! Spit upon me! You cannot think worse of me than I do myself." But the other, his head buried in his hands, did not answer, and with a wild gesture North ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... shrieked. "Yes, and you are a liar, a coward, a villain! You are engaged in a fiendish plot; you are deceiving an innocent lady. Ah, I spurn you, spit upon you." ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... earnestly into his eyes, and said, Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit! Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. Avast there, avast ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... resign'd, And doubts and terrors vanish'd from his mind. Recall the traveller, whose alter'd form Has borne the buffet of the mountain-storm; And who will first his fond impatience meet? His faithful dog's already at his feet! Yes, tho' the porter spurn him from the door, Tho' all, that knew him, know his face no more, His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each, With that mute eloquence which passes speech.— And see, the master but returns to die! Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly? The blasts of heav'n, the drenching dews of earth, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... punishment strong enough for you." At this there shot up in Soelver a wild lust for revenge and he answered his enemy with irritating coldness: "Yes, I took what you gave. You brought her yourself into my presence, you laid her yourself in my arms. Now you may take her back again. I spurn your daughter for I have not desired her for the honor and keeping of my house, but only for the entertainment of a night. Take her ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... presence must eternally have disgraced. There is no country in Europe that would willingly claim you for its subject. Nay, even the savage race, with whom you are now connected, would, if apprised of your true nature, spurn you as a thing unworthy to herd even ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... no great magnanimity on the queen's part to spurn such insulting proposals, the offer of which showed her capable, in the opinion of Verreycken, the man who made them, of sinking into the very depths of dishonour. And she did spurn them. Surely, for the ally, the protrectress, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... respect to the advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man, who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them to be sacred, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... have offered my love and to be thus rejected! Would to Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... guilt is great: 'T is thou that execut'st the traitor's treason; Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season; 'T is thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason. 1285 SHAKS.: R. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... strength, and watchful thought. Quick send a wether for his use: If not contented, send him more; Yes, add an ox, and see you choose The best our pastures ever bore. Thus save the rest.'—But such advice The sultan spurn'd, as cowardice. And his, and many states beside, Did ills, in consequence, betide. However fought this world allied, The beast maintain'd his power and pride. If you must let the lion grow, Don't let him live to be ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... never spurn the father of Zarah," cried the maiden, for once realizing and exulting in the secret power which she exercised over the leader of the Hebrews; "Judas would welcome you, his brave companions would welcome, coming ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Bettina brought me a band for my neck, and gave me the following letter: "Spurn me, but respect my honour and the shadow of peace to which I aspire. No one from this house must confess to Father Mancia; you alone can prevent the execution of that project, and I need not suggest ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... possibility," the Reader admitted, "and one which we can neither accept or reject safely. And we must learn the truth as soon as possible. If this man is really He, we must not spurn Him on mere suspicion. If he is a man, come to help us, we must accept his help; if he is speaking the truth, the people who sent him could do wonders for us, and the greatest wonder would be to make us again a ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... the practical outcome of Job's intuition. But in a God-created world made for the delectation of mankind, to forego its pleasures would be to offend the Creator, if indeed stark madness could kindle His ire. But to curb one's thirst for life and to spurn its joys because one holds them to be the tap root of all evil, is an action at once intelligible and wise. And this is what Job evidently does when he practises difficult virtues and undergoes terrible sufferings without ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... were many religious people among their constituents, and it would not do for them to act singular, or else they would find so short an account at the next ballot-box that they would not be sent back. He would spurn such legislators and keep them for ever in private ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... thou would'st view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... a green widow in a mourning trance, The very picture of "God help us all;" And thou, with sickly whining worse than they, Do ye think I shall do murder? Why not go At once unto the foe, and there be spurn'd By Henrietta, that false Delilah?— Or plot my death for loyalty? What is A father in your minds weigh'd with a king? Yet what is "king" to you? ye were not bred To lick his moral sores in ecstasy, And bay like hounds before the royal gate On all ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... infancy, and excels as a daring horseman. He goes on the warpath when half-grown, and learns strategy from the wolf and the panther. He is a meat eater, which diet conduces to the growth of a lean, muscular, athletic frame, and a bold and highly spirited temperament. He is taught to spurn labor of any kind as unmanly, and only fit for women. His life occupation is, in the language of the old school histories and geographies, "hunting, fishing and war," in each and all of which accomplishments he ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... here!" cried Madam Bonnet, with her face in a blaze. "I send her no message at all; and if she comes here on her knees, I shall spurn ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... heart jealousy grew into hatred, and hatred whispered to him of revenge. Hyacinthus excelled at all sports, and when he played quoits it was sheer joy for Apollo, who loved all things beautiful, to watch him as he stood to throw the disc, his taut muscles making him look like Hermes, ready to spurn the cumbering earth from off his feet. Further even than the god, his friend, could Hyacinthus throw, and always his merry laugh when he succeeded made the god feel that nor man nor god could ever grow old. And so there came that day, fore-ordained by the Fates, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... support the liquid weight: Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry, Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! Before that day, by some brave hero's hand May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... to spare a foe And kill his hate. And I would e'en do so! For I would kill the coyness of thy face. I would enfold thee in my spurn'd embrace And kiss the kiss that gladdens as with wine. Yea, I would wrestle with those arms of thine, And, like a victor, I would vanquish thee, And, tyrant-like, I'd teach ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... upon him as an electric charge; his terror lent him wings; he was obsessed by a propelling force outside of himself. Naturally strong, lithe, and active, he likewise possessed within him the white-hot flame of youth, and now, with a nameless fear to spurn him on, he ran as any healthy, frightened young animal would run. At the second turn Skinner had not passed him, but the thud of ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... and books and names and lands Disgust my reason and defile my hands. I had as lief respect an ancient shoe, As love old things for age, and hate the new. I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod, Nor kneels in homage to so mean a God. I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze, The bald antiquity of China praise. Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend) The fault that ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to Hedon and Paul, which are a few miles below Hull, the Humber widens into a vast estuary, six or seven miles in breadth, and then directs it's course past Great Grimsby to the German Ocean, which it enters at Spurn Head. No other river system collects waters from so many important towns as this famous stream. 'The Humber,' says a recent writer, 'resembling the trunk of a vast tree spreading its branches in every direction, commands, by the numerous ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... of feeling hungry. Krishna observes smoke rising from the direction of Mathura and infers that the Brahmans are cooking food preparatory to making sacrifice. He asks the cowherds to tell them that Krishna is hungry and would like some of this food. The Brahmans of Mathura angrily spurn the request, saying 'Who but a low cowherd would ask for food in the midst of a sacrifice?' 'Go and ask their wives,' Krishna says, 'for being kind and virtuous they will surely give you some.' Krishna's power with women is ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... higher on thy northern hills, my Pine! That Southern Palm shall dwindle. House stone-walled— Ye shall not have it! Temples cedar-roofed— Ye shall not build them! Where the Temple stands The City gathers. Cities ye shall spurn: Live in the woods; live singly, winning each, Hunter or fisher by blue lakes, his prey: Abhor the gilded shrine: the God Unknown In such abides not. On the mountain's top Great Persia sought Him ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... teach To spurn the thrice blest English speech: Welsh books—there are none, save what quacks Sell ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... Agnes, wildly. "Did he know all, he would curse me—he would spurn me from him—he would discard me forever! Oh! when I think of that poor old man, with his venerable white hair,—that aged, helpless man, who was so kind to me, who loved me so well, and whom I so cruelly abandoned. But tell ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... not love him. And it is true. I never should have sold myself for three weary years away from him, if I had loved him. I know it now it is done. I thought more of my poor friends and Wilfrid, than of Merthyr, who bleeds for my country! And he will not spurn me when we meet. Yes, if he lives, he will come to me gentle as a ghost that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fraud: for swift Numidian horse On every side surround them: leader, men — All see their fate in one dread moment come. No coward flees, no warrior bravely strides To meet the battle: nay, the trumpet call Stirs not the charger with resounding hoof To spurn the rock, nor galling bit compels To champ in eagerness; nor toss his mane And prick the ear, nor prancing with his feet To claim his share of combat. Tired, the neck Droops downwards: smoking sweat bedews the limbs: Dry from the squalid mouth protrudes ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... promises. There are two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge, and both of them want me; at Cambridge I taught Greek and sacred literature for several months, for nothing, and have resolved always to do this. There are colleges here so religious, and of such modesty in living, that you would spurn any other religious life, could you see them. In London there is John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who has combined great learning with a marvellous piety, a man greatly respected by all. He is so ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... any intelligence and reflection,' I continued, 'spurn it away from them as fit but for children and slaves. Must they then be without any principle of this kind? Is it safe for a community to grow up without faith in a superintending power, from whom ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... said, "My Country, behold I freely tender thee All swords e'er won for freedom in the ages long ago, All prerogatives that clash with it I offer to surrender thee, Wilt take or spurn the guerdon? prithee, answer ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... and thou, as one of them, and I, Paullus Caecilius, are slaves one and all; abject and base and spirit-fallen slaves, lacking the courage even to spurn against our fetters, to ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... spite of the cold and stormy weather of winter he made two or three trips to London in his collier brig, always to report on his return a notable addition to his trade. Once, too, on his homeward voyage, he had had himself put ashore a little north of Spurn, and had trudged the five and twenty miles to Hull, the rising port on the east coast. Then, after appointing an agent and starting what seemed likely to grow into a big business, he had tramped the hundred and twenty miles or more that separated him from Newcastle and his home, cutting a quaint ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... songs of no doubtful significance, and emitted a fusillade of cynical jests. He was supposed to be half-drunk, and making love to a run-away princess—who would at one moment accept his caresses, and then spurn him coquettishly, and then execute an unlovely dance with him. In between these diverting procedures a chorus would come on, a score or so of highly-painted women, hopping and gliding about, each time clad in new costumes more ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... flying backward to gain the point at which the ball was going to light, came inadvertently so rudely in contact with this obstreperous interloper that lie not only overthrew him, but also got a grievous fall over his legs; and, as he arose, the other made a spurn at him with his foot, which, if it had hit to its aim, would undoubtedly have finished the course of the young laird of Dalcastle and Balgrennan. George, being irritated beyond measure, as may well be conceived, especially at the deadly stroke aimed at him, struck the assailant ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of Liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and leave ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... worst elements in my nature; it swings the whip of the furies. For your own sake, do not thrust your degrading madness upon my notice. I have labored to liberate you; have subordinated all other aims to this, and now, that I have come to set you free, you repulse and spurn me!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... slavish and bestial doctrine," said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,—"I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste no more ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... of Mary Queen of Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the very ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Heaven!—I felt for the wound that I, but with no guilty hand, inflict upon you. Yet be just:—ask yourself, have I done aught that you, in my case, would have left undone? Have I been insolent in triumph, or haughty in success? if so, hate me, nay, spurn me now." ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friendship that unite you with the Emperor Alexander, and oppose him as an enemy, menacing and demanding satisfaction. There must be no stain on your honor, and if you believe the statements of these papers, show to the world that you will punish the faithless wife and spurn the treacherous friend!" ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... enclosed within, and their scorched throats, resound. Yet the son of AEson goes forth to meet them. The fierce {bulls} turn their terrible features, and their horns pointed with iron, towards his face as he advances, and with cloven hoofs they spurn the dusty ground, and fill the place with lowings, that send forth clouds of smoke. The Minyae are frozen with horror. He comes up, and feels not the flames breathed forth by them, so great is the power of the incantations. He even strokes their ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Gramont," returned M. de Bois. "Once more, I tell you that she has saved your escutcheon from a stain which could never have been effaced. And for this act you spurn her, you scorn her generosity; you tell her she is not worthy of rendering you a service, instead of bowing down before her as you,—as we all might well do, in reverence and admiration; thanking Heaven that such a woman has been placed in the world, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
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