"Insult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is sufficiently attested; but why Oxford, who desired to be thought a favourer of literature, should thus insult a man of acknowledged merit; or how Rowe, who was so keen a whig[148], that he did not willingly converse with men of the opposite party, could ask preferment from Oxford, it is not now possible to discover. Pope, who told the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... twain: Which is worse, not to wear evening clothes at a party at which you find every one else dressed, or to come in evening clothes to a house where, it proves, they are never worn? And: Which is worse, not to tip when a tip has been expected; or to tip, when the tip is an insult? ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... to him, and the labor of carrying them an offense to his creed of life. The soap particularly troubled him. Its slippery nature made him drop it several times, till it seemed almost as though it resented him personally, and was trying to escape from the insult of such association. Wild Bill brought up the rear of the column, bearing the bright tin dippers, which clattered violently as they swung together on their string loops. He suggested nothing so much as a herder driving ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... him a coward," I said, as offensively as I could, "with fifty men behind you. How big a crowd do you want before you dare insult a man?" Then I turned on the others. "Aren't you ashamed of yourselves," I cried, "to all of you set on one man in your own camp? I don't know anything about this row and I don't want to know, but there's fifty men here against ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... passengers, who had been struggling with their laughter, endeavoured to pacify her with the assurance that no insult had been meant; and as Mr. Bale made no reply, she subsided into silence, grumbling occasionally ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... commemorate the absolution given by Clement VIII. to Henry IV. of France and Navarre, on September 17 of the year 1595. The monument has a remarkable history. Although apparently erected by private enterprise, the kings of France regarded it as an insult of the Curia, an official boast of their submission to the Pope; and they lost no opportunity of showing their dissatisfaction in consequence. Louis XIV. found an occasion for revenge. The gendarmes who had escorted his ambassador, the duc ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... allurements. The cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous races. Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred and beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an object to which the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. Holding such a position, it must doubtless act as a sexual allurement. "Allah has specially created an angel in Heaven," it is said in the Arabian Nights, "who has no other occupation than to sing the praises of the Creator for giving ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I exclaimed. "She will never conform to your rules. She hates nursing. She has too much good sense to insult her fine womanly nature by degrading and ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... to make the people of French Canada pay the debts of a province whose revenue had not for years met its liabilities. Then, to add to these decided grievances, there was a proscription of the French language, which was naturally resented as a flagrant insult to the race which first settled the valley of the St. Lawrence, and as the first blow levelled against the special institutions so dear to French Canadians and guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act. Mr. LaFontaine, ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... ejaculated Miss Broadwood. "Why, my dear, what would any man think of having his house turned into an hotel, habited by freaks who discharge his servants, borrow his money, and insult his neighbors? This place is shunned like ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... puffs, quite in the modern manner. The accounts of his debut all showed that Mr. Pryse Gordon's account of it was fabulous. In one paper there was a bitter attack on 'Mr. Gordon, who was responsible for this insult to Thespian art, the gentry, and the people, for he first arranged the whole production'—an extract which makes it clear that this gentleman had a good motive for his ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Grace to speak in that way. Good heavens, Abbott, what are you doing? How can you insult that—the ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... I dare anything, George Fordyce. And I pray God to forgive you the awful wrong you did to that poor girl, and the insult you were base enough to offer me in asking me to be your wife—an insult, I fear, I can ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... wanted to knock Philip's teeth down his throat. He knew that his mother had hard work to clothe him, and felt the insult. He went into the school-house, choked his anger down, and tried to forget all about it by drawing a picture of the master. It was an excellent likeness,—his spindle legs, great feet, short pants, loose coat, sunken eyes, hooked nose, thin ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... charms of another young woman? If Mrs. David's desertion rankled still, as no doubt it did, there being no accounting for masculine taste, he would, of course, resent the accusation almost as an insult. Men were such Conservatives in love. And, besides, she had just been telling him about the child. She loathed herself for having perpetrated such a blunder. Saxham had murdered politeness by quitting her abruptly; but hadn't ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... truly savage warriors was the form of Keona, with his right arm bound up in a sort of sling. Pain and disappointed revenge had rendered this man's face more than usually diabolical as he went about among his fellows, inciting them to revenge the insult and injury done to them through his person by the whites. There was some reluctance, however, on the part of a few of the chiefs to renew a war that had been terminated, or rather, been slumbering, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... not allow them to go. High words then ensued. I said the business was mine, and not his; he had no right to interfere, and they should go. Still Lumeresi was obstinate, and determined they should not, for I was his guest; he would not allow any one to defraud me. It was a great insult to himself, if true, that Suwarora should attempt to snatch me out of his house; and he could not bear to see me take these strangers by the hand, when, as we have seen, it took him so long to entice me to his den, and he could not prevail over me until ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... investigation we had conducted was submitted, accompanied by a request to be advised of any other or qualifying facts in the possession of the Chilean Government that might tend to relieve this affair of the appearance of an insult to this Government. The Chilean Government was also advised that if such qualifying facts did not exist this Government would confidently ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the College, and that the situation, though congenial to my feelings, was not sought for by me. Of the decision of the members of the Board, to give the Principal permission to employ me part of the year, I express my decided disapprobation. Now, Sir, I consider such a resolution a downright insult. Had I come before that Board as a stranger, or under the character of a mercenary hireling, and one concerning whose qualifications you were entirely ignorant, then there would have been some appearance of propriety ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... and openly, if he is publicly slain, imprisoned, struck or maimed. If it be against his personal dignity, a man is injured secretly by false witness, detractions and so forth, whereby he is deprived of his good name, and openly, by being accused in a court of law, or by public insult. If it be against a personal connection, a man is injured in the person of his wife, secretly (for the most part) by adultery, in the person of his slave, if the latter be induced to leave his master: which things can also be done openly. The same applies to other personal connections, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... around, "though it's littered up with gewgaws and dinkey furniture which ought to be made into a bonfire. If I had a little more time, I'd re-decorate the whole house. Those imitation marble pillars over there are an insult to the intelligence." ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... Langdon furiously shouted. "You forget, sir, that your insinuation is an insult to a man elected Senator from Mississippi, an insult to my State and to my friend Senator Stevens, who I know would make you no promises for me, for he had ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... of his written communication to his cabinet, made on the 18th of September, about the removal of the deposits from the United States Bank; to which the President replied by a flat refusal. Mr. Adams remarked: "There is a tone of insolence and insult in his intercourse with both houses of Congress, especially since his reelection, which never was witnessed between the Executive and Legislature before. The domineering tone has heretofore been usually on the side of the ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... enraged, and cursed it, saying, 'Thy face shall be black for laughing at me.' Accordingly the moon turned quite black; but the other gods interfered, and said that the curse was too hard, so Ganpati agreed that only a part of the moon's face should be blackened in revenge for the insult. This happened on the fourth day of the bright fortnight of Bhadon (September), and on that day it is said that nobody should look at the moon, as if he does, his reputation will probably be lowered by some false charge or libel being promulgated ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... not insult the rising generation on the seaboard by telling them how delectable is a chowder compounded and eaten in this Robinson Crusoe fashion. As for the boys who live inland, and know naught of such marine feasts, my heart is full of pity for them. What wasted ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... They've got visitors from Carolina,—his daughter, and her husband and children. I reckon I stirred him up yesterday. He came to my shop to pay for some shoeing he'd had done. So I invited him to attend our anti-slavery meeting to-morrow evening. He took it as an insult, and said he didn't need to be instructed by such sort of men as spoke at our meetings. 'I know some of us are what they call mudsills down South,' said I; 'but it might do you good to go and hear 'em, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... name, what I had already stated to him, in regard to the obscurity of my birth, as a plea for his seceding from the connexion. I told him that, under all the circumstances I thought this most advisable, and then pointing to the door, bade him begone, and never under any pretext whatever again to insult me with his presence. When he had departed, I burst into a paroxysm of tears, but they were tears shed not for the loss of him I now despised, but of wild sorrow at my unmerited degradation. That conflict over, the weakness had for ever passed ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... chieftain objected to the bishop's claim, and, to show his contempt for him and the Church, struck the vase with his battle-axe. Clovis was offended. He gave the bishop the vase, and soon after avenged the insult by striking the chieftain dead with ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... affection could perceive anything but amiable folly, and it was not much better when the young gentleman reappeared, looking very debonnaire, and, sitting down beside Mrs. Frost, said, in a voice meant for her alone—'Henry IV; Part II., the insult to Chief Justice Gascoigne. My father will ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sting of contumely or insult was not added to their misfortunes. There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the feuds of nations, and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them. From every rock there rose a Boer—strange, grotesque figures ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rage over this deliberate insult. But in it he saw a cold design to make him lose his temper. The knowledge brought a ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... that the War is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining armies more numerous than ever, for which the vanquished must pay, have occupied German territories, inhabited by the most cultured, progressive and technically advanced populations in the world, as an insult and a slight, with coloured troops, men from darkest and most barbarous Africa, to act as defenders of the rights of civilization and to maintain the law and ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... is my husband! It is an insult for any one else to speak to me thus!' said Eustacie, drawing herself up, and rising to her feet; but she was forced to hold by the back of her chair, and Diane and her father appearing at that moment, she tottered towards the former, and becoming quite passive under the influence ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so angry when she heard this insult that she flashed a signal with her eyes to the spirit, and the latter plied his cudgel lustily about the king's head and shoulders, making the monarch break out in most unkingly ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... aggrieved. He did feel that the latter injunction to such a model of discretion as himself amounted almost to an insult. A very paragon of valets was Smithson—could be relied on to be mute as a fish concerning his master's doings, unless paid to be otherwise, when he of course held to the ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... will; for I like you, Mayne, and have from the day we first met on board the Albatross. It may be a warning to you. No: I will not insult you by thinking you could ever grow up as I did. For to make up for my losings, I wildly plunged more deeply into the wretched morass, and then in my desperation went to my sister and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... guard the sovereign's power from such debasement! 270 Far rather, Sire, let it descend in vengeance On the base villain, on the faithless slave Who dared unbar the doors of these retirements! For whom? Has Casimir deserved this insult? O my misgiving heart! If—if—from Heaven 275 Yet not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... missionary seemed full of unknown horrors. It meant to leave home and probably never to see friends or native land again, to be worn out in the unhealthy climate of some tropical land, to suffer "every kind of want and distress, degradation, insult, persecution, and, perhaps, a violent death." Friends, with few exceptions, advised her to decline, and public opinion was strongly opposed to such a "wild, romantic undertaking" as a woman going out ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... elected to that body—he had quitted it in disgust at the British measures. His chief ground of umbrage had been the appointment of British officers to the command of the Portuguese regiments which formed the division under Marshal Beresford. In this he saw a deliberate insult and slight to his country and his countrymen. He was a man of burning and blinded patriotism, to whom Portugal was the most glorious nation in the world. He lived in his country's splendid past, refusing to recognise that the days of Henry the Navigator, of Vasco ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... of my kingdom and of the kingdom of my son, and son's son, to ten thousand generations." A Hindoo cannot express scorn more deadly or hate more lasting than this. Isaacs smiled, but there was a concentrated look in his face, relentless and hard, as he answered the insult. ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... not, there is not a man here who will not take it as a personal insult,' said the Emir, speaking rapidly between his teeth, yet affecting to smile. 'It has been the custom of the mountain for more than seven ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... would descend from the spruce-trees to chase each other madly. Then, indeed, did the spirit of autumn seem to be outraged. The racket came to be an insult. Always the ear expected its discontinuance, until finally the persistence ground on the nerves like the barking of a dog at night. At last it was an indecency, an orgy of unholy revel, a profanation, a provocative to anger of the inscrutable woods god. Then stillness again with the abruptness ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... were not sufficiently prepared, fell back upon violence.[80] In the struggle in 1930, Gandhi laid down more definite rules for Satyagrahis, forbidding them to harbor anger, or to offer any physical resistance or to insult their opponents, although they must refuse to do any act forbidden to them by the movement even at the cost of great suffering.[81] The movement ended in a compromise agreement with the British, but the terms of the agreement were never completely carried out. ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... fourth justice that I was took to, he wasn't bald, but had a crop o' hair like a picter; and when I offered to put down his name for a dozen bottles, he swore, and fined me five dollars for what he said was a insult to the dignity of justice, and five dollars for postin' up bills in places where it was agin the law. Mr. Fink had give me money from the hair-dye man to pay fines, as well as my board; so I didn't care. But—but I am ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... was characterized by Mr. Wakley as not only a very small one, but as an insult to medical men, as it only proposed barristers as the new Commissioners, adding that "in Scotland there was one system, in Ireland there was another, and in England there were several, and among them all there was not one which, on the whole, was entitled to the sanction ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... were dominated more especially by recollections of Greek and Latin antiquity. Cato, Brutus, Gracchus, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, and Plato, continually evoked, furnished the images of their speech. When the orator wished to insult Louis XVI. ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... defence against the attempts of the English. Indeed, the partisans of the ministry were at great pains to suggest and inculcate a belief, that the war in Germany was chiefly supported as a necessary diversion in favour of Great Britain and her plantations, which would have been exposed to insult and invasion had not the enemy's forces been otherwise employed. But the absurdity of this notion will at once appear to those who consider, that by this time Great Britain was sole mistress of the sea; that the navy of France ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... butcher and a shopkeeper of Burwash, in this County, went into a field near that town, with pistols, to decide a quarrel of long standing between them. The lusty Knight of the Cleaver having made it a practice to insult his antagonist, who is a very little man, the great disparity between them in size rendered this the only eligible alternative for the latter. The butcher took care to inform his wife of the intended meeting, in hopes that she ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... that you will be exposed to insult from the troops of the enemy who still occupy part of the Jerseys, though I feel sure that the inhabitants, whatever side of the question they take, would in ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... slavery and the desirability of secession in preference to abolition. "The abolition question must soon divide us", a South Carolinian wrote his former principal in Vermont. "We are beginning to look upon it [disunion] as a relief from incessant insult. I have been myself surprised at the unusual prevalence and depth of this feeling." [3] "The abolition movement", as Houston has pointed out, "prevented any considerable abatement of feeling, and added volume to ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... Archibald Hamilton the printer. Whatever his part might be, the performance of it was enough to waste his strength with ignoble labour, to embitter his temper by useless altercation, and to draw on him contempt and insult from those who, however they surpassed him in learning, could scarcely be regarded as his superiors in native vigour and fertility of mind. "Sure I," said Gray, in a letter to Mason, "am something a better ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... towards me; but could I, as a matter of fact, tell her of my suspicions which were filling my life with gloom and annihilating me? Would it not be odious and vile to accuse her of such a fall, without any proofs or any clue, and would she ever forget such an insult? ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... send to that body a copy of the treaty. Upon his return to Manhattan he was immediately met with a storm of discontent. His choice of two Englishmen as the referees, to represent the Dutch cause, gave great offence. It was deemed an insult to his own countrymen. There was a general disposition with the colonists to repudiate a treaty which the Dutch had had no hand in forming. Complaints were sent to Holland that the Governor had surrendered ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... grief now, because my life has never been free; because I've never lived it in my own way. Of my own free will should I ever have wanted to fight a duel, or to hit him with the whip? Nobody would have struck me, and everything would have been all right. Who first imagined, and when, that an insult could only be wiped out with blood? Not I, certainly. Well, I've wiped it out, or rather, it's been wiped out with my blood, hasn't it? I don't know what it all means, but I know this, that I shall ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... long look. He didn't strike me as a borrowing kind of man. I should probably insult him by volunteering. Was there ever anything ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... hell, soothsayers walk along weeping, with their faces turned the wrong way, so that their tears fall between their shoulders. The picture is still more dreadful. Warton thinks it ridiculous. But I cannot help feeling with the poet, that it is dreadfully pathetic. It is the last mortifying insult to human pretension. Warton, who has a grudge against Dante natural to a man of happier piety, thinks him ridiculous also in describing the monster Geryon lying upon the edge of one of the gulfs of hell "like a beaver" (canto xvii.). He is ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Activity of Peter Muhlenberg.—Peter was the oldest son of H. M. Muhlenberg. He was sent to the University of Halle for his theological training, where his independent spirit soon brought him into trouble. At one occasion he resented an insult on the part of his instructor with a blow. Forestalling expulsion, the young man enlisted in a German regiment, in which he was known as "Teufel Piet." After two years of military training he returned to America, and consented to study theology under his father. ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... need to remember it!" answered the Duke, wrathfully. "I never thought, when I put myself to the pains to journey over half England to satisfy the fancies of a sick woman, that I was to be received with insult and contumely after this fashion. I pray you to send this creature out of my sight, as the least reparation that can be offered ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... the air, and this was the appointed morning for them to call and pay their court to him. Among the number was a raven, accounted the meanest of birds, which Grasshopper killed and hung up by the neck, to insult him. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... to seek. It is to be found in the reward which Labor bestows on those that pay it due reverence in the one case, and the punishment it inflicts on those offering it outrage and insult in the other. All wealth proceeding forth from Labor, the land where it is honored and its ministers respected and rewarded must needs rejoice in the greatest abundance of its gifts. Where, on the contrary, its exercise is regarded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... hard to get him to say that he knew the words of insult which Slocum had used. "I think he used some girl's ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... took fire at this gross insult. They must have sizzled as from the national capital an angry message shot out to the other ships to talk in code. Jack's fun was over, but he had thoroughly enjoyed all the excitement he had stirred up. As he laid down the receivers Raynor ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... exclamation: 'For anything I can see, all foreigners are fools.' For the American colonists who had presumed to rebel against their king his bitterness was sometimes almost frenzied; he characterized them as 'rascals, robbers and pirates.' His special antipathy to Scotland and its people led him to insult them repeatedly, though with some individual Scots he was on very friendly terms. Yet after all, many of these prejudices rested on important principles which were among the most solid foundations of Johnson's nature and largely explain his real greatness, namely on sound commonsense, moral ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn't insult Krag by offering him a pleasure—especially ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery. ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Finette, trembling. "The giant has a witch for a godmother; I fear that she will revenge on me the insult offered to her godson. My art tells me, my dear Yvon, that if you quit me a single instant until you give me your name in the chapel of the Kervers I have everything ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... Arcadia, and imputing it to the king; whom he charges, in his Iconoclastes, with the use of this prayer, as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable or great: "Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the true all-seeing deity, as, immediately before his death, to pop into the hands of the grave bishop that attended him, as a special relique ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... then, suddenly seizing the disgraced officer by the coat collar, he marched him forcibly to the door, saying, as he ejected him into the passage, "Sir, I give you fair warning never to show yourself in this room again. I can bear censure, but not insult!" In a whining tone the man begged for his papers, which he had dropped. "Begone, sir," said the President, "your papers will be sent to you. I wish never to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Yates. "What are you talking of? The most trivial, paltry, insignificant part; the merest commonplace; not a tolerable speech in the whole. Your sister do that! It is an insult to propose it. At Ecclesford the governess was to have done it. We all agreed that it could not be offered to anybody else. A little more justice, Mr. Manager, if you please. You do not deserve the office, if ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... country. This was the deliberate conclusion of a Venetian ambassador, who enjoyed remarkable opportunities for observing the history of his times.[263] The practice of the Christian virtue of patience and submission under suffering and insult had made the reformers an incredible number of friends. The waging of war, even in self-defence, and the reported acts of wanton destruction, of cruelty and sacrilege—it mattered little whether they ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... before the goldfinch was shut up, and hence the the mocking-bird's door was not yet opened. He flew at once to the top of his neighbor's cage to dress his feathers and shake himself out. It looked like a deliberate insult, and the captive in his cage evidently so regarded it; he crouched on the upper perch and opened his mouth at the enemy, who calmly went on with his operations. The moment the finch was safe at home I opened ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of later pastorals. Upon this the scene is invaded by 'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,' eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[160]. They drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his 'gory visage,' break out into the celebrated chorus 'full of the swift fierce spirit of the god.' This gained considerably by revision, and in the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... years more thoroughly to master the language; and then if my fancy exist, and I exist too, I will try what I can do really. As to the estimation of the English which you talk of, let them calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with their ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... effect. "Drunken brute!" he howled, in much indignation; then after a pause, in a voice of some contrition, "Well, if I am a drunken brute, it's only once in the twelvemonth!" And that was the end of him; the insult rankled in his mind; and he retired to rest. He is a fish-curer, a man over fifty, and pretty rich too. He's as bad again to-day; but I'll be shot if he keeps me awake, I'll douse him with water if he makes a row.—Ever your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her tiny revolver and fire he was upon her, his long arms about her, his muscular strength making her own as nothing. And though he was breathing more quickly still he had his quiet insolent laugh for still further insult. Though she sought to strike at him he held her in utter helplessness. Slowly he lifted her face, a big hand under her chin. The lamp was close by; he blew down the chimney and save for the moonlight across the threshold it was dark in the cabin. With his other hand he lifted ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... him there; and Mr. Codicil Coates, clerk of the peace, attorney-at-law, bailiff, and receiver. We were wrong in saying that Tyrconnel was retained. He was an impudent, intrusive fellow, whom, having once gained a footing in the house, it was impossible to dislodge. He cared for no insult; perceived no slight; and professed, in her presence, the profoundest respect for Lady Rookwood: in short, he was ever ready to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and shut myself up instead of keeping my arms around you and holding you up to the best that was in you, just as Uncle George begged me to do. And when your father turned against you and drove you from your home, all because you had tried to defend me from insult, I saw only the disgrace and did not see the man behind it; and then you went away and I stretched out my arms for you to come back to me and only your words echoed in my ears that you would never come back to me until you were satisfied ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... think I had got the drop on him. Early the next morning my friend, the chief of police, Col. Moreno de Vascos, called on me, indignant and angry that I should suffer such discourtesy. He was particularly indignant over the insult to himself in not being consulted, so that he could have sent me a note to call on him and explain. Then he turned to Pinkerton and told him to liberate me, as he would be responsible for me whenever ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word—on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray. If you care to know the extent of his power in this direction, read Xenophon's Banquet, and you will see how many quarrels he put an end to. This is why the Poets are right in ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... from having been won over by conciliation. On the other hand, we have paid him tribute simply because he hath been desirous of the imperial dignity from motives of virtue. And yet he it is that thus insulteth us. O king, from what else, save motives of insult, could it have been that thou hast worshipped Krishna, who possesseth not the insignia of royalty, with the Arghya in the midst of the assembled monarchs? Indeed, the reputation for virtue that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... lawyer seemed to regard this proposition as an insult. They railed at Friend Hopper for his "impertinent interference," and for the absurd idea of trusting "that nigger" under ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... that I offered him a violent insult in raising my cane to him," interrupted Florent, "and since he demands satisfaction I must give ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a person on whom my fortune depended, and who is devoted to them. I should be ruined, with my family, if I had not firm confidence of receiving in your service the annual stipend allotted for their subsistence, of which I have been deprived. To this injustice they have added the insult of tempting me by deceitful offers, which I rejected with disdain, because I could not accept them without exposing your secrets, or at least degrading the character with which you have honored me, in the eyes of those who have knowledge of it. My refusal has exasperated them ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... snipe. Nobody else will ever hanker to own her." Another insult from McGuffey. Having made up his mind that a fight was inevitable, the honest fellow was above ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... JENNIFER. Dont insult me: dont blaspheme. [She snatches up the book and presses it to her heart in a paroxysm of remorse, exclaiming] Oh, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... curiosity, to see the Mysteries of the Christians revealed, and to insult them, was aroused, and a general demand was made to Tarcisius to yield up his charge. "Never with life," was his only reply. A heavy blow from a smith's fist nearly stunned him, while the blood flowed from the wound. Another and another followed, till, covered ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... in the latter part of this work. Weakness had reduced Uncle Bill to speechlessness. Finally the head of Bill Campbell was laid on a double fold of blanket in lieu of a pillow. A pipe had been tamped full and lighted by Bull and—crowning insult—set between Bill's teeth. When all this was accomplished Bull retired to his corner, picked up his ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... it. You don't talk to people about singing in the middle of a game of tennis; certainly not to comparative strangers who have only spilt lemonade over your frock once before. No, no. It was an insult, and it nerved me to a great effort. I discarded—for it was my serve—the Hampstead Smash; I discarded the Peruvian Teaser. Instead, I served two Piccadilly Benders from the right-hand court and two Westminster ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... himself into such a genial humour that it often bordered on wild exuberance of spirits, and even communicated itself to all about him. His generosity and profuse hospitality belied all imputations of avarice at any rate. Daniel also seemed to have now forgotten the insult that had been put upon him. Towards the Freiherr, although often followed by him with mistrustful eyes on account of the treasure buried in the chasm, his bearing was both quiet and humble. But what struck everybody as extraordinary was ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... to be kept in doubt?" asked General Herbert, in a voice that indicated both his dread and his sense of insult. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... Bute," said the judge gravely as he rose from his seat, "you have done that which no other man in this land might do without the severest punishment. You are here to plead the cause of justice, and not to insult those whom you have summoned to this place to do justice for you. Bear yourself discreetly, or resign your cause into the hands of those who can ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... insult me?" said the young man. "Hush—hush; you don't know what you are saying. Not to be made Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of Vicar of Skelmersdale. I don't understand how you could suggest such a thing ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... care a rap what they felt," he flung out with sudden warmth. "Now, of course—I do care. But ... to suppose she could ... stand in my way, seems an insult to her. If you're one of the people who feel strongly, of course ... there's an end ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... men, driven, beast-fashion, to their pen, and floated from home to hell, or,—happier fate!—dragged up, in terror of pursuit, and thrown overboard, a brief agony for a long one. They know them, too, whose continual cry of separation, starvation, insult, agony, and death rises from the heart of freedom like the steam of a great pestilence,—Pity them, hearts of flesh! pity also the captors,—the Sphinx children, the flint-hearts! pity those who cannot feel, far beyond those who can,—though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... for him, judged that thinking would not mend matters, and so began to work quickly without stopping to reflect. But his thoughts could not be controlled, any more than his disposition changed. A growing consciousness of deep and deliberate insult surged up in him. The more he brooded the slower he worked, and finally anger mastered determination. He flung down his spade, saluted a red sunrise with the worst language at his command, and strode down to the river. Here, for some time and until blue smoke began to climb from the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... no peace for my soul with God,' he answered; 'I've been at enmity with Him all my life; and will He receive me at the last moment? He is too just, too righteous, Anne. I'll not insult Him by offering Him my soul now. You asked me once, "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mine is lost—lost, and that without remedy. This gold is a millstone about ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... insult to my pride: the comforter humiliates the inconsolable mourner; besides, there are sorrows that all pretend to understand, but which none really appreciate. It is useless, then, to enumerate one's maladies to a would-be ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... dear Nora, I can forgive the anxiety you are in, although really it is an insult to me. It is, indeed. Isn't it an insult to think that I should be afraid of a starving quill-driver's vengeance? But I forgive you, nevertheless, because it is such eloquent witness to your great love for me. (Takes her ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... but me and I was sorry that I did. Americans used to respond with a shipload of corn whenever an appeal came from famine sufferers in Armenia, Russia, Ireland, India or Austria, but their generosity was chilled when they found that their gift was resented as an insult or as an attempt to poison the impoverished population, who declared that they would rather die than eat it—and some of them did. Our Department of Agriculture sent maize missionaries to Europe with farmers and millers as educators and expert cooks ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... amount to anything," returned her daughter bitterly. "To be quite plain with you, mamma, he was very distant and cold toward me. In fact, it was almost like getting acquainted with him over again; and to add insult to injury, as he took my hand for an instant at parting, he said, 'Good-night, Miss Northrup.' Oh! what shall I do, mamma—advise me! Ought ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Americans would like to confess. However true it may be that it takes two to make a quarrel, it is none the less true that if one party be bent upon quarrelling it is always possible for him to go to lengths of irritation and insult which must ultimately provoke the most peaceful and reluctant of antagonists. However pacific and reluctant to fight Great Britain might be at the outset, she is not conspicuously lacking in national pride or in sensitiveness to encroachments ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease, which, in the absence of excitement, he could scarcely move; he who, under the rage of an insult, attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies, are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... world he found himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with smiles of complacency and professions of duty. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... and powerful reasons for inducing me to refuse my sanction to her returning here in the way she seems to wish. It would be to reward the worst species of ingratitude, and subject myself to insult whenever she came in my way. Her moral character is very bad, as the police records will shew; and she would be a very troublesome character should she come here without any restraint. She is not a native of this country, and I know of no relation she has here. I induced her to take ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... admitted that he had kept Ali Cogia's vase in his shop; but he denied having touched it, and swore that as to what it contained he only knew what Ali Cogia had told him, and called them all to witness the insult that had been ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... old wives' tale! And then why did this Count intrude upon me here? With what right to the castle? You know, my friend, he's only some sixteenth cousin to the Horeszkos, the tenth water on the kisiel.104 And he must insult me? and I invite ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... great herds of cattle. These herds were kept, according to the custom, in a great inclosure before the palace. Three thousand cattle were housed there, and as the stables had not been cleaned for many years, so much manure had accumulated that it seemed an insult to ask Hercules to ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... false friend!" the creature whimpered. "Asks me to dinner, and takes advantage of my dependent situation to insult my wife. The loveliest of women, the sweetest of women, the innocentest of women. Oh, my wife! my wife!" He suddenly threw his handkerchief to the other end of the room, and burst out laughing. "Ho! ho! Mountjoy, what an infernal fool you must be to take me seriously. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... come from the woods, and move out into the plain. A troop of monkeys, on the edge of the forest, scamper back to its depths on hearing the loud song of Singeleka, and old surly fellows, catching sight of the human party, insult it with a loud and angry bark. Early in the afternoon we may see buffaloes again, or other animals. We camp on the dry higher ground, after, as has happened, driving off a solitary elephant. The nights are warmer now, and possess nearly as much of interest and novelty as the days. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... with indignation, "Mr Oxbelly is a lieutenant in his Majesty's service, and you have no right to insult him, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... marry you nor any poor man!" I cried out. "What have you to offer me? What can you do? Oh, yes, you can come and insult me, and talk to me of love—Love! The love that would make ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... same effect as drawing a pistol on them would have had. It was not in the least necessary to have the document with me; going through the motions was easier, and quite as good. Every man of them flushed up, and repelled the suggestion as a sort of personal insult; but they invariably came to terms on the spot. Accordingly, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... lawyer left his client, the physician his patients, the carpenter his work-bench, the shoemaker his tools—all have fled, fled for their lives; fled to escape murder and pillage, intimidation and insult at hands of a bloodthirsty mob of ignorant descendants of England's indentured slaves, fanned into frenzy by their more intelligent leaders whose murderous schemes to obtain office worked charmingly. Legally elected officers have been driven from the city which is now ruled ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... of the outward world, vividly presenting itself to the imagination; which fact the word has incorporated and knit up with itself for ever. If I may judge from my own experience, few intelligent boys would not feel that they had gained something, when made to understand that 'to insult' means properly to leap as on the prostrate body of a foe; 'to affront,' to strike him on the face; that 'to succour' means by running to place oneself under one that is falling; 'to relent,' (connected with 'lentus,') to slacken ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... The fact is that she is in this unfortunate position. Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, upon the other hand, forgetting that imitation can be made the sincerest form of insult, keeps on repeating this effect until we all become absolutely wearied of it. Nobody of any real culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of a sunset. Sunsets are quite old-fashioned. They belong to the time when Turner was the last note in art. To admire them is a distinct ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... to me, extended his hand, saying, "My young friend, I understand that you're from Kentucky." "I be, sir," I replied, when he looked me in the eye and said, "You're a G—— d—— liar," and turned and walked away. Why, he must have wanted to insult me. And then we all knew why our little scheme had failed. There was food and raiment in it for him, but he would use that ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... an insult to our flag than a deathblow to our nationality. And I feel that our nationality would not survive a struggle between the sections. There is no danger that we should be dwarfed in intellect or spirit by practising ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... mankind, we shall find this same entanglement of something mean and trivial with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow. Life is made up of marble and mud. And, without all the deeper trust in a comprehensive sympathy above us, we might hence be led to suspect the insult of a sneer, as well as an immitigable frown, on the iron countenance of fate. What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... six months or so, and had not spoken for over four months; so on the day I refer to I went to her room. She received me with a sulky expression, and a hard stare full of insult. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... he said, "I do not wish to insult you, but I am not going to give up to a man who is acting as you are. I tell you once more, I hold this vessel in my charge, and I am prepared to defend it on behalf of ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... from the jealousy of the Piedmontese officers, and was obliged to hazard his life in many rencounters with them, before they would be quiet. Being a man of uncommon spirit, he never suffered the least insult or affront to pass unchastised. He had repeated opportunities of signalizing his valour against the Turks; and by dint of extraordinary merit, and long services not only attained the chief command of the gallies, with the rank of lieutenant-general, but also acquired a very considerable share of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett |
