"Irreverent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be d—d!" said the officer, with an irreverent disrespect to the palladium. "If you are not more civil, sir, I will call the police, of whom we have plenty. You say you want to go out; ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... gymnastics was training for the severer drill of five or six years later. I visited the "prima," or upper class of a gymnasium, and here was the spiked helmet in a connection that seemed at first rather irreverent. After all, however, it was only thoroughly Prussian, and deserved to be looked upon as a comical incongruity rather than gravely blamed. A row of cheap pictures hung side by side upon the wall. First Luther, the rougher characteristics of the well-known portrait somewhat exaggerated. The shoulders ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... and by the Protestant Pietists, both English and foreign, is all in St Augustine better said than it ever has been since. Some of the Pietist hymns, as we know, are very beautiful; but there are things in them which one wishes left out; which seem, or ought to seem, irreverent when used toward God; which hurt, or ought to hurt, our plain, cool, honest English common-sense. A true Englishman does not like to say more than he feels; and the more he feels, the more he likes to keep it to himself, instead of parading it and talking of ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... composed herself on a low stool by her grandmother's side, he, however, did not conduct himself as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey's efforts to make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and laughed out in the most inappropriate manner when the psalm-singing began, and seemed disposed to mingle incoherent remarks of his own ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this championship of his views if it were not for his suspicion that Elder Wardle sometimes spoke in a tone of levity, and had indeed more than once been reckoned as a doubter. It was even related of him that a perverted sense of humour had once inspired him to deliver an irreverent and wholly immaterial address in pure Choctaw at a service where many others of the faithful had been moved to speak in tongues; and that an earnest sister, believing the Holy Ghost to be strong upon her, had thereupon arisen and interpreted his speech to be the Lord's ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... a name!" This medium came to the capital in 1863, under eminent auspices, and the President and his wife, members of the Cabinet, and other first citizens were induced to patronize the illusions. The spirits were irreverent, "pinching Stanton's and plucking Welles' beard." As for the President, a rapping at his feet announced ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... he never met his match, how did he die?" pursued the irreverent piou-piou—a little wiry man, black as a berry, agile as a monkey, tough and short ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... dust of human attributes, descend and ascend on their missions to the earth. Who can have the heart to handle harshly these beautiful faiths? To say, this hope may go up, but this must go down to the darkness of annihilation! Was it irreverent in the pious singing-master of a New England village, when he said, that often, while returning home late on bright winter nights, he had dropped the reins upon his horse's neck, and sung Old Hundred from the stars, set as notes to that holy tune, when they first sang together ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... end to princes and pomatum," said this irascible republican, with a laugh of triumph, as he ground the remnants of the vial under his irreverent heel. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... long and arduous apprenticeship (if it is not irreverent so to style it) which Val had to pass in order to fit himself for priestly work; he was curate for I know not how many years in a large and extremely poor mission in one of our big towns. He worked well and thoroughly, as any one who knows Val will be ready to affirm; ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... quoth Giles, "'tis an irreverent knave, that maketh the monk in me arise, my very toes do twitch for to kick his lewd and sacrilegious carcase—and, lord, he would ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... remember than many problems in Euclid; and perhaps a few of the best might still be selected for youth as curious exercises of the understanding. However, a great part of these peculiar productions are loaded with the most trifling, irreverent, and even scandalous discussions. Even Aquinas could gravely debate, Whether Christ was not an hermaphrodite? Whether there are excrements in Paradise? Whether the pious at the resurrection will rise with their bowels? Others again debated—Whether the angel Gabriel appeared to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will.... I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.... What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... garden, which was once Angermann's, famous for its company, kings, composers, poets, wits, and critics, all mingling there in discordant harmony. Now it is overrun by Cook's tourists in bicycle costumes, irreverent, chattering, idle, and foolish. Even Wagner has grown gray and the Ring sounded antique to me, so strong were the disturbing influences of ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... book interesting and suggestive. It is disgraced by none of the flippant and irreverent sentimentalism ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fragrance of youth hung about his idea of her. Bridget Rendle had been a girl too, younger perhaps than the other one; but Bridget had dipped into the waters of life, and sorrow and sin had closed over her. The two girls were as far apart as the poles, it seemed almost irreverent to think of them in ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... with laughter. And underneath the thin flooring, as though roused by her irreverent merriment, the big car shook itself awake with a roar and splutter of indignation. But the sliding doors were thrown open, and its rage died down at the prospect of release. It began to ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... Stretch," was Gimpy's irreverent answer. "This here ain't no regular meetin', an' we ain't goin' to have none o' yer rot. Lem he says, says he, let's break de bank an' fill de Kid's sock. He won't know but it wuz ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... malevolent, but they are regarded as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking of any liberties with them or their belongings. If one little stick of wood from a tc[)i]'ndi hogan is used about a camp fire, as is sometimes done by irreverent whites, not an Indian will approach the fire; and not even under the greatest necessity would they partake of the ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste; 'IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same? Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many and many a time, as I think you know; and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... up, and began to raise the roof, Polly said, 'O, dry up.' The minister had his eyes shut, but he opened one of them a little and looked at Pa> Pa was tickled at the parrot, but when the minister looked at Pa as though it was him that was making irreverent ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... was even more eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's song ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the least, I admitted him only as a Visitant, but at present I must be more particular with him; he's of late grown a little irreverent towards our Sex, and I must check an insolent Humour he has got of despising Matrimony; he'll be with me instantly, I'll dispose you, that you may over-hear all, how I'll turn and wind him, cross him, humour him, and confound him; when you think it proper make your Appearance, and ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... were the despair of Mr. Potter, the master of the Lower Fourth, rudely called Pottles behind his back; and even Mr. Wilson, the somewhat absent-minded Head Master, nicknamed Billy by his irreverent scholars, was beginning to wonder whether it would not be better to suggest to the parents to try whether sending them to a fresh school would have any effect on them. It was useless to cane them, it was useless ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Petersburg "Gazette" of December 13, 1901. As a characteristic specimen of Russian peasant folk-lore, it seems to me to have more than ordinary interest and value. The treatment of the supernatural may seem, to Occidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is perfectly in harmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and should be taken with due allowance for the educational limitations of the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian muzhik often ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... of glass, which I half expected to hear shiver and crack as our keel ploughed through it. And how color and sound stood out in the transparent air! How audibly the little ripples on the beach whispered to the open sky! How our irreverent voices seemed to jar upon the privacy of the little cove! The mossy rocks doubled themselves without a flaw in the clear, dark water. The gleaming white beach lay fringed with its deep deposits of odorous sea-weed, gleaming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Kennedy, in his frolicsome and happy moods, had, in ways, childish, perhaps, but completely harmless, offended the sensitive dignity of the college official, and these trivial eccentricities the Dean regarded as heinous faults—the symptoms of a reckless and irreverent character. There was one particular transaction which gave him more than usual offence, in which Kennedy, hearing a very absurd story at a don's party, while the Dean was present, parodied it with such exquisite humour and such complete command of countenance, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... "Irreverent cur! do you rail on the afflicted of Heaven? The Founder of your creed would abhor you, for He, they say, was pitiful. I spit upon ye, and I curse ye. Be accursed!" And flinging up his hands, like St. Paul at Lystra, he ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... O my master! when my useful strength is gone do not turn me out to starve, or sell me to some cruel owner to be slowly tortured and starved to death; but do thou, my master, take my life in the kindest way, and your God will reward you here and hereafter. You will not consider me irreverent, I know, if I ask all this in the name of Him Who was born in ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... tent—long since folded up and transplanted—and her start of involuntary terror when the fat evangelist had said: "Your Saviour knows everything. Come and confess your guilt." There was no sense of guilt in her now, but only a desperate desire to defend her secret from irreverent eyes, and begin life again among people to whom the harsh code of the village was unknown. The impulse did not shape itself in thought: she only knew she must save her baby, and hide herself with it somewhere where no one would ever come to ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so irreverent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... be so dishonest and so irreverent, both towards the Holy See and our authority, as to disregard this order [and proceed first in our tribunals against one of the Roman clergy], he shall forfeit 10 lbs. of gold [L400], to be exacted by the officers ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... locked on the inside. Whereupon Mr. Sidney expressed the hope that the religious society were responsible for the board, for he would never again lead that flock like a shepherd. It was subsequently ascertained that the parson had in a very irreverent manner slipped down the spout to the kitchen and jumped from there to the ground, and, what is "very remarkable," like the load of voters upset by Sam Weller into the canal, "was never heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the picture. Such a composition as that of Rossetti's Ancilla Domini, where the Virgin cowers on her bed as the angel floats in with flames round his feet; such a suggestion as that of the unfinished lily on the embroidery frame, was reserved for our sceptical and irreverent, but ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... always to be found the chewink,—a creature whose dress and song are so unlike those of the rest of his tribe that the irreverent amateur is tempted to believe that, for once, the men of science have made a mistake. What has any finch to do with a call like cherawink, or with such a three-colored harlequin suit? But it is unsafe to judge according to the outward appearance, in ornithology as in other matters; ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... peril! See! they trample upon our wise and well- established laws in the person of our chief magistrate; for Governor Endicott is passing, now an aged man, and dignified with long habits of authority,—and not one of the irreverent vagabonds has moved his bat. Did you note the ominous frown of the white-bearded Puritan governor, as he turned himself about, and, in his anger, half uplifted the staff that has become a needful support ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... after a moment's reflection, "that any one who dares so misuse his tongue as to revile the sublime majesty of his emperor or empress with irreverent language, such criminal shall have the instrument of his crime, his tongue, torn out by ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... colored marbles and mosaics, spendthrift of light and gilding; on every side shone the signs and seals of predatory wealth. Its walls were like costly confectionery, its ornaments insolent, its waste criminal. Every decorative feature was hot, restless, irreverent, and cruel, quite the sort of avenue one might expect to find in his walk towards the glittering woman of ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... shrivelled carcase, from which age, disease, and fear have picked all the flesh, leaving the bare framework of bone and the drawn and cracked covering of yellow skin, would be unendurable in its irreverent copy of age if it were not so obviously a picture, with no more malice than there is in the delicate lines and fine colours of a picture. The figure is at once Punch and the oldest of the Chelsea pensioners; it distracts one between pity, terror, and disgust, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... there is a form of oath—to be taken reverently—reverently, and there's an end of it. But to talk in a public place about one's most sacred and private sentiments—well, I call it bad taste. (Slight applause.) I call it irreverent. I call it irreverent, and I'm not ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... that raised the ire of Byron, who regarded them as an irreverent assault upon his favorite poet, Pope. In the controversy occasioned by the Rev. W. L. Bowles's strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope, Byron perversely asks, "Where is the poetry of which one-half is good? Is it the Aeneid? Is it Milton's? Is it Dryden's? ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... reconstructed; the nineteenth also destroys, but would substitute nothing instead. The sixteenth reminds us of audacious youth, still clinging to parental authority; the nineteenth reminds us of cynical and irreverent old age, believing in nothing but the triumphs of science and art, and shaking off the doctrines of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... would cease to be true if its main idea were misleading. He presses the metaphor of sonship as if mere human relations could exhaust the meaning of the divine; and soon works round to the conclusion that it is no proper sonship at all. In his irreverent hands the Lord's deity is but the common right of mankind, his eternity no more than the beasts themselves may claim. His clumsy logic overturns every doctrine he is endeavouring to establish. He upholds the Lord's divinity by making ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... so noticed, from the body of the chapel, and laughter was often the consequence of these rejoinders, which Father Phil never permitted to pass without a retort. Nor must all this be considered in the least irreverent. A certain period is allowed between two particular portions of the mass, when the priest may address his congregation on any public matter: an approaching pattern, or fair, or the like; in which, exhortations to propriety ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... was not a great appreciator of poetry—at all events of his nephew's; and an irreverent remark on 'Sordello', imputed to a more eminent contemporary, proceeded, under cover of a friend's name, from him. But he had his share of mental endowments. We are told that he was a good linguist, and that he wrote ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for self-indulgence, it easily ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... dance in the groves of Montmorency. The old verbal tyranny of the French Academy, the painted wreaths sold at cemetery-gates, the colored plates of fashions, powdered hair, and rouged cheeks, typify and illustrate this irreverent ambition to pervert Nature and create artificial effects; they are but so many forms of the theatrical instinct, and proofs of the ascendency of meretricious taste. It is this want of loyalty to Nature, and insensibility to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ancient dramatic work of modern Europe, and gives the whole Gospel narrative from the birth of our Saviour until His death. Being too long for a play of one act, it was continued from day to day. What would seem irreverent on a modern stage was regarded as perfectly simple and natural in the Middle Ages, and it was a potent factor in teaching the masses the ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... possible. But James's irreverent style is hardly suited in parts for her ladyship's ears. You, dear child, must make an improved copy of the letter. Your own good taste will tell you which sentences require to be altered or expunged. Here and there ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... and you will be one of the proudest achievements of our great undertaking. We shall be able to point to you in proof that zeal for knowledge may thrive even under the pressure of secular callings; that mother-wit does not necessarily make a man idle, nor inquisitiveness of mind irreverent; that shrewdness and cleverness are not incompatible with firm faith in the mysteries of Revelation; that attainment in Literature and Science need not make men conceited, nor above their station, nor restless, nor self-willed. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... prominent on all occasions, very proudly felt that sacred music would be the right thing on Sabbath evening, and, with a few of hew own ilk, was giving a florid and imperfect rendering of that peculiar style of composition that suggests a poor opera while making a rather shocking and irreverent use of ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the working of some inward and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel between Saturday night potations and Sunday ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... devils? Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth of the cannon!" Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of Plymouth, Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent language: "Not so thought Saint Paul, nor yet the other Apostles; Not from the cannon's mouth were the tongues of fire they spake with!" But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain, Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued discoursing: ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... time of suspense, telling them of the sins that had moved God to give them up to their foolish passion, so as to put them in fear, and lead them to repentance. One of these sins was vanity, and love of finery and pleasure; and another was their irreverent behaviour at church. They did repent heartily; and before the emperor's men had time to do more than begin to try some of the ringleaders, there came other messengers at full speed, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... there," Jeff laughed goodnaturedly. He had not in his make-up a grain of envy. Even his laughter was generally genial, though often irreverent ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... without attention, and the jest started at the expense of some unfortunate wight, conspicuous for peculiarity of dress or demeanour, was taken up by a hundred voices. None were spared. A trim staff officer was horrified at the irreverent reception of his nicely twisted moustache, as he heard from behind innumerable trees: "Take them mice out o' your mouth! take 'em out—no use to say they ain't there, see their tails hanging out!" Another, sporting immense whiskers, was urged "to come out o' that bunch of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... durst not venture to conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the company, treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of the jest and grimaces with which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white beard that he had been just such another irreverent dog when he was ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... action than the volunteers, whose only school was actual practice in the field. And look at our Senate and House of Representatives, sir; are the most distinguished statesmen there graduates of colleges? Quite the reverse. I do not wish to be so irreverent as to disparage schools and colleges, sir, I only wish to be so just as to exalt talent, industry, and perseverance to their proper level," ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that he was not profound. This is because he was not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest forever. This was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent Christians from murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples of Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... had been misinterpreted, the first citizen riveted his gaze upon the Lindon Evening News. But he could not read. Jimsy's irreverent air of friendliness was not the only disturbing factor in his Christmasing. Jimsy, plainly, was ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... botanist, the geologist, the poet, really see the country, and that, to the former, "a miss is as good as a mile." In a word, the tendency of circumstances has been to make our people superficial, irreverent, and more anxious to get a living than to live mentally and morally. This tendency is no way balanced by the slight literary culture common here, which is mostly English, and consists in a careless reading of publications of the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... character; here, where, for the first time in his life, he found himself divested of that princely character, he was completely at a loss. The trouble was that he had no sense of humour. So he found it impossible to gossip with plebeian unknowns, or engage in card-games with irreverent middle-class artisans and drummers. He could not even carry on a flirtation with any of the pretty girls! He had attempted it with one of them; but, after a very few minutes, she had left him with her chin in the air, and an exclamation which sounded singularly like "Beast!" What is gallantry ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... a very early period of her career, had bestowed on her the sobriquet of the Beautiful Wretch; and that partly because she was a pretty and winning child, and partly because she was in the habit of saying surprisingly irreverent things. Now, all children say irreverent things, simply because they read the highest mysteries by the light of their own small experiences; but Nan Beresford's guesses at the supernatural were more than usually audacious. When, for example, she arrived at the conclusion ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... amusements. Strong-minded,—if I may use a modern contemptuous phrase,—she never rebelled against the ordinances of nature or the laws dictated by inspiration. She was a model woman: beautiful, yet not vain; witty, yet never irreverent; independent, yet respectful to authority; exercising private judgment, yet admired by bishops; learned, without pedantry; hospitable, without extravagance; fond of the society of the great, yet spending her life among ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... Raindrops on the roof waked us shortly before three. We hoped it was but a passing shower. At daylight, however, the rain was pouring profusely. Wealthy actually cried; Ellen scolded a little; Halstead made certain irreverent remarks; while Gram sought to inculcate resignation ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the pious audience, and then a roar of laughter from irreverent men, in which, I must confess, I light-heartedly joined. For once in her life Miss Anthony lost her presence of mind; she did not know how to meet the situation, for she had no idea what had caused the laughter. It bubbled ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... what say they of Bonaparte? Your shop appears to be well supplied. You surely have a great deal of custom. What do people say of that buffoon; Bonaparte?" He was made quite happy one day when we were obliged to retire hastily from a shop to avoid the attacks drawn upon us by the irreverent tone in which Bonaparte spoke of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... fail to have remarked the grace with which he saluted the noble Lord who passed just now, or the excessive dignity of his air, as he expostulates with the crowd. He is rather out of temper now, in consequence of the very irreverent behaviour of those two young fellows behind him, who have done nothing but laugh all the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to substitute the Kingdom of the Dull upon earth." He attacks the pedantry and formalism of university education in his day, the dissipation and false taste of the traveled gentry, the foolish pretensions to learning of collectors and virtuosi, and the daringly irreverent speculations of freethinkers and infidels. At the close of the book he represents the Goddess as dismissing her worshipers with a speech which she concludes with "a yawn of extraordinary virtue." Under its influence "all nature ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... did not call me that," she told him coldly, "It sounds irreverent." And she dropped her eyes, which had filled again miserably, to the film of white in her lap. Then, with a pitiful attempt to hurt him in return: "Of course you realize that I really don't know much about you. I don't want you to think that I distrusted you exactly—" ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... about the Bible; that it was God's own book—divinely inspired—in fact, written by God Himself. Then I inquired if the original manuscript in God's handwriting was still in existence; and was told I was very wicked and must hold my tongue. Yet I had no idea of being in any way irreverent or blasphemous; I was merely perplexed, and longed to have my difficulties settled. Failing this, they grew, and I began to question whether the terms "merciful" and "almighty" were terms that could be ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... your trust, and eschew the irreverent empty phrases and contradictions of a mis-called 'Science,' professing which some have missed their true aim ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... would be a vain task to seek anywhere in nature for evidence of Divine action, such that no one could sanely deny it. God will not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's crucible, or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, revelation appeals to the whole of man's mental nature and not to ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... said no more about it. But he chose to consider his dignity and the dignity of his empire affronted by the follies of a crowd. He lodged a formal complaint with the English Government. The English Government could do nothing more than express regret with such gravity as it could muster. As for the irreverent rogues who had laid their hands upon the feet of the representative of a friendly State, it was not in the power of the Government to punish them. The earth has bubbles as the water has, and they ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Mr. Lowell speaks of always seemed to hedge him round like the divinity that doth hedge a king. What man was he who would lay his hand familiarly upon his shoulder and call him Waldo? No disciple of Father Mathew would be likely to do such a thing. There may have been such irreverent persons, but if any one had so ventured at the "Saturday Club," it would have produced a sensation like Brummel's "George, ring the bell," to the Prince Regent. His ideas of friendship, as of love, seem almost too exalted for our earthly conditions, and suggest the thought as do many others ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... undervalue the importance of any Truth. We utter no word that can be deemed irreverent by any one of any faith. We do not tell the Moslem that it is only important for him to believe that there is but one God, and wholly unessential whether Mahomet was His prophet. We do not tell the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... ceiling. Round two sides of it, the sides nearest to the interior of the church, ran heavy wooden presses, worm-eaten and gaping with age. Hooked to the inner corner of one of these presses hung several surplices, all bulging out at their lower ends in an irreverent-looking bundle of limp drapery. Below the surplices, on the floor, stood three packing-cases, with the lids half off, half on, and the straw profusely bursting out of their cracks and crevices in every direction. Behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... from educational circles in which collegiate influences prevail, I did not deem it prudent to introduce some of the noblest thoughts that belong to the great theme. The book was sent forth limited and incomplete, hoping that, heretical as it was, and quite irreverent toward the ignorance descended from antiquity, it might still receive sufficient approbation and appreciation to justify later introduction of matter that would ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... and excursions to a close. Like Vikings of old (under a figure) we have harried the country round, and (in a sense) ravished its many charms. We have explored shrines consecrated by olden memories, enriched by the associations of centuries; but (unlike the Vikings), we have done this in no irreverent spirit, and with no predatory purpose. We have carried off our hoards of treasure, but we have left no ill traces behind us of our raid. No burning monasteries or homesteads have marked our track; no orphaned children or widowed ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... heeding not the irreverent interruption, "as I have said, I pity you with all my heart. More than that, so deeply do I feel, so great a loathing and indignation has your story sown in my heart, that were our liberty now restored us I would willingly join hands with you in wreaking ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... afar off; and even the far-off imitations have not been very satisfactory. The English Muse seems to have set, at the joining of the old and new ages, this one person with the learning and tastes of the ancestors, with the irreverent criticism of the moderns, to comment on the transition; and, having fashioned him, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... melodious, self-forgetful, knowing clearly what they want to say, and saying it in the shortest, the simplest, the calmest, the most finished words. Saying it!—rather taught to say it. For if that "divine inspiration of poets," of which the poetasters make such rash and irreverent boastings, have indeed, as all ages have held, any reality corresponding to it, it will rather be bestowed on such works as these, appeals from unrighteous man to a righteous God, than on men whose only claim ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... unaided. For his mother was ill, how deeply and in what manner he could not tell. He shrank, indeed, from all clear thought, let alone speech, on the subject, as from something indelicate, in a way irreverent. Her beauty remained to her, notwithstanding a gradual wasting as of fever. A peculiar, very individual grace of dress and of bearing remained to her likewise. But she was uncertain in mood, the victim of strange fancies, a being almost alarmingly ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Wilkes was a member, were a fraternity whose motto was "Do as you please," and that invitation still stands over the ruined doorway of the abbey. Many years before this bogus abbey, with its congregation of irreverent jesters, was founded, there stood upon this same spot a monastery of a sterner kind, whose monks were of a somewhat different type to the revellers that were to follow them, five ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... over the purity of womanhood and of youth, we, the best witnesses, turn for a moment from our sorrow to bear the fullest and the most willing testimony that the high and noble spirit of MARK LEMON ever prompted generous championship, ever made unworthy onslaught or irreverent jest impossible to the pens of those who were honoured ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... eyes upon the young man to see what effect this coarse and irreverent allusion to his father would have. A slight tinge of shame was in his face; but I saw that he had not sufficient moral courage to resent the shameful desecration of a parent's name. How should he, when he was himself the first to desecrate ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... he rose from his knees and went to drink at the spouting rock lip. It was decided now, this thing he had been holding half-heartedly in abeyance. There would be no more dallying with temptation, no more rebellion, no more irreverent stumblings in the dark valley of doubtful questions. More especially, he would be vigilant to guard against those backslidings that came so swiftly on the heels of each spiritual quickening. His heart was fixed, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... duty, an idea circulated among the people that our constitution is not so perfect as it ought to be, before you are sure of mending it, is a certain method of lessening it in the public opinion. Of this irreverent opinion of Parliament, the author himself complains in one part of his book; and he endeavors to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Welsh parishes men seem occasionally to have smoked in churches without any intention of being irreverent, and without any consciousness that they were doing anything unusual. Canon Atkinson, in his delightful book "Forty Years in a Moorland Parish," tells how, when he first went to Danby in Cleveland—then very remote from the great world—and had to take ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Wylo continued for several days to flirt and fight. He had a glorious time, and so, too, had the piccaninnies, for Yan-coo, for reputation's sake, dared not model debils-debils merely to have their horrible heads knocked off with irreverent grass darts. Rather have no debil-debil than one subject to Wylo's profane but splendid marksmanship. So the naked black kiddies danced about Wylo, while Yan-coo fortified himself with the grim knowledge that he had Wylo's heart's blood securely sealed up, and that Wylo had ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... glorious world without wall or bound or end, where I hope to live free and for ever, in the sight of my Redeemer, and, perhaps, of him who was Hugh Fitzarthur, Esq., of Tallylynn hall, when here? I hope I am not irreverent, but in truth, friend, I fear I have almost as vehemently longed for the presence of him once more, as for that more awful presence: heaven pardon me if it was wicked! So welcome prison, welcome death! Half a hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... anniversary observance. Clearly, these people, concurring in this with the special sympathies of Marius himself, had adopted the practice of burial from some peculiar feeling of hope they entertained concerning the body; a feeling which, in no irreverent curiosity, he would fain have penetrated. The complete and irreparable disappearance of the dead in the funeral fire, so crushing to the spirits, as he for one had found it, had long since induced in him ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... single fallow-creature remains destitute of it? A fourth (a lady too) declares "there is no theory God, of an author of nature, of an origin of the universe which is not utterly repugnant to her faculties, which is not (to her feelings) so irreverent as to make her blush, so misleading as to make her mourn"; and now Harrington, instead of being thankful for his glimpse of happiness, and yielding to the better instincts and convictions it partly awakened, and learning patience, submission, and ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... no denying that this is Dickens's dark moment. It adds enormously to the value of his general view of life that such a dark moment came. He did what all the heroes and all the really happy men have done; he descended into Hell. Nor is it irreverent to continue the quotation from the Creed, for in the next book he was to write he was to break out of all these dreams of fate and failure, and with his highest voice to speak of the triumph of the weak ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... Irreverent as this speech appeared, there was really no trace of such intention in his manner, and his evident profound conviction that his suggestion was practical, and not at all inconsistent with ecclesiastical dignity, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words, like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and obtain it? When Duerer thought of God, he did not only think of a mythological personage resembling an old ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... upright man was Andrew Johnstone, a terror to evil-doers and so prone to carry out all the law and the prophets by physical force that he had earned, among the irreverent youth of the community, the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... Indeed, one irreverent, but "pretty smart feller," who lived on the top of a hill known as Drift Hill, where certain adventurous farmers dwelt for the sake of its smooth sheep-pastures, was heard to say, after a mighty sermon by Parson Manners about the seven-times heated furnaces of judgment reserved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... know what gases of the physical world these spirits were permitted, through a special interposition of the Deity and for the furtherance of His divine ends, to assemble together into a concrete form for their temporary dwelling and as a medium through which to communicate with man? And who is so irreverent as to suppose that God would now, in these days, give spirits special permission to return to earth and take upon themselves such forms for the mere purpose of tipping tables and piano-fortes, rapping upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... body and legs and wrapped them about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent—like one of those medieval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a humpbacked cow sitting on her ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... they drank is a criterion, the good name of the ship was established. Then the assembly adjourned to the sitting room and—yes, even the front parlor. Not since the days when that sacred apartment had been desecrated by the irreverent city boarders, during the Howes regime, had its walls echoed to such whoops and shouts of laughter. The children played "Post Office" and "Copenhagen" and "Clap in, Clap out," while ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... breeze, just as you may see Asiatics doing in our "land of mist and snow." But the natives regard those unhappy exotics with a fanatical pride, pointing them out to all comers as living witnesses to the perfection of the climate; they would gladly stone any irreverent stranger who should suggest a comparison between their sacred shrubs and the giants of Indian seas. The only inhabitant of the place who ever attained any eminence any where (he really was a good ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... about that girl," said Poppins. Poppins had an offhand, irreverent way of speaking, especially on subjects which from their nature demanded delicacy, that was frequently shocking ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... intensity. A few days later Mr. MacDowell played a recital in Chicago, and among the other selections was this same "March Wind," which he played fortissimo throughout. When I saw him the next day I began, in that irreverent manner which critics and composers have with one another (for Mr. MacDowell was not yet a professor): "You're a fine fellow! To mark your own 'March Wind' pianissimo and then play it fortissimo. What's the good of my working two hours with a pupil ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... that some women are injudicious and occasionally one is irreverent, are not men, in advocating their peculiar views on politics, the same, only in much larger proportion? Are they, therefore, deprived of the franchise or other privileges? If men were obliged to come to such a standard as they lay down ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... of a traveller upon the subject be deemed hasty or irreverent, I beg to quote Bishop Tomline's opinion. He says—"Great objections have been made to the clauses which denounce eternal damnation against those who do not believe the faith as here stated; and it certainly is to be lamented that assertions of so peremptory a nature, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... of this bright, playful, unconventional spirit, happy and brilliant himself, and loving the happiness and brilliancy of the world; with not an ounce of pomposity in his own nature, and with the most irreverent demeanour towards pomposity in other people. "Our social Polyphemes," as Lord Beaconsfield said, "have only one eye"; and they could not the least perceive that Arnold's genius was like the genius of poetry as he himself ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... bent in his disposition, that might have issued in deeds of high and noble daring had its possessor been thrown into circumstances favourable to the display. As matters stood, George was master of his own household. Here none questioned his authority; no profane, irreverent approach ever awakening the dormant energies of his character, or thwarting the current, visible ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... with a coloured portrait of the Marquess of Lorne, very handsome and elegantly dressed, the object of Mrs. Kemp's adoration since her husband's demise; the other a Jubilee portrait of the Queen, somewhat losing in dignity by a moustache which Liza in an irreverent moment had smeared on ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... nervous young man with the celluloid collar sat a stout individual with a bald head. This was Abijah Thompson, known by the irreverent as "Barking" Thompson, a nickname bestowed because of his peculiar habit of gradually puffing up, like a frog, under religious excitement, and then bursting forth in an inarticulate shout, disconcerting to the uninitiated. During Baxter's speech and the singing ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... place to bring out a young lady, though Major Dalrymple's daughters, immortalized in Lever's novel, could not well have found a better hunting-ground. But then Major Dalrymple's daughters were regular garrison hacks—so the irreverent subs of the Rovers used to call them—and never stood a chance beside the daughters of the county families. There are racing and chasing at the station, and theatricals and balls. I arrived at the wrong season. The three days' local racing, for horses of every breed but English, was ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... begun. At first they eyed each other steadily, and made feints, and changed their ground. And this went on so long that at last some irreverent bystander, longing to see business done, cried out, "Allons, mes amis, avancez." And at that moment a skilful thrust from Malin wounded Poivre in the face, and the first blood was drawn. But Malin received it back with interest, ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... departure, casting a frowning glance on the two boys. Having reached the door he turned round, as if to watch what the head master would do. Dr Freeman on this called up A'Dale and Ernst, and spoke in a loud voice with great severity to them, threatening them with condign punishment for their irreverent behaviour. As, however, he did not proceed further than words, they had reason to hope that he did not consider them guilty of any very atrocious crime. As soon as the priest had taken his departure, they were allowed to return to their seats, with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... times. Now and then they 'rally'—there was one ghastly wig-and-hollow-pumpkin effort at recovery in the trembling, rattle-jointed Peace Movement of these last summer months. Where is it now? There answers a gay laugh and merry stave from the corners of irreverent ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the obscene empires of Mammon and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the Arts;—faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent and ephemeral visions;—faithful servant of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange valour ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... serious derangement of his organism!" Michael broke in with irreverent laughter. "When all's said, the heart is a practical machine—even the heart of a lover, and a little of it must have been ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... should live,—that the wealth which she affected to despise was eating into the soundness of her character, not by its splendour, but by the style of life which it had seemed to produce as a necessity. She knew that she was gradually becoming irreverent, scornful, and prone to ridicule; but yet, knowing this, and hating it, she hardly knew how to break from it. She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do. She had been the prize at which so many ruined spendthrifts had ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... whose appointment to the command of the British force in Flanders would doubtless meet with his warm approval. After a little more fencing, Pitt gave the name of the Marquis Cornwallis, who had just returned from his Viceroyalty in India. Mack by no means welcomed the proposal, and made the irreverent remark that the best General, after fighting elephants in India, would be puzzled by the French. Pitt thereupon observed that the Duke of York had not the confidence of the army, to which Mack and Merveldt replied by praising ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... thing was worked, as I remember, from the room above, and was used by the robber host to persuade his guests to part peaceably with their valuables. But I fear that you are going to show an irreverent attitude of mind toward ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... service. This makes five daily services in church, two English, two Chinese, and one Dyak. We clothed all the candidates in a new suit of cotton garments with a bright-coloured handkerchief for their heads. It would be considered very irreverent for Easterns to uncover their heads in church. I taught the school-children to sing 'Veni, Creator Spiritus' at this baptism, while the clergy were arranging the candidates and sponsors round the font. The font was wreathed ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Prelate took his departure, leaving the Abbess highly incensed, though she prudently forbore returning any irreverent answer to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Colonel is not here. Never speak of the big drum in that irreverent tone to him, I pray. It would well-nigh give him a fit. The big drum is his fetish, though he nearly ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... little of this zeal, so many of our churches would not be untidy, neglected, ruinous. There would not be moth-eaten altar-cloths, and worm-eaten altars. There would not be green mouldering walls, and broken pavements. There would not be a service slovenly, unmusical, irreverent, or if not irreverent, at least unworthy of ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... was to keep worrying the Germans, and that the final crushing stroke would be given on the east by the Russians. He also told us that to us was assigned the place of honour on the extreme left of the British line next to the French Colonial troops. I (p. 053) overheard an irreverent officer near me say, "Damn the place of honour", and I thought of Sam Hughes and his warning about not objecting to swearing. The General, whom I had met before, asked me to walk with him up to his car and then said, "I have had reports about the Canadian Artillery, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm I call up the departed. Soul of Albert! Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spells: So may the gates of Paradise unbarr'd Cease thy swift toils, since haply thou art one 15 Of that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... when a lady passed, He, having eyes, did see her! You had said— "On such a day I scanned her, head to foot; Observed a red, where red should not have been, Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk Be ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... John xiii-xviii, the discourse at the Last Supper. As he grew older, he sometimes stumbled over his words. He was not an imposing figure, with his eyes somewhat a-squint and his slight limp; and sometimes the younger monks fell into a titter, irreverent souls, to hear him so eager in his reading and so unconscious. It was not his eyesight that was at fault: to the end he could read the smallest hand without any glasses, like his great namesake, John Wesley, whom a German traveller noticed on ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... their exclamations against this irreverent conduct of Sir Francis Bernard. But Grandfather defended him as well as he could. He observed that it was then thirty years since the chair had been beautified by Governor Belcher. Most of the gilding was worn off by the frequent scourings ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... amusingly associated with "Old Town," the former San Diego, three miles from the present city. He had offended Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, by his irreverent wit, and was punished by exile to this then almost unknown region, which he called "Sandy Ague," chiefly inhabited by the flea, the horned toad, and the rattlesnake. Mr. Ames, of the Herald, a democratic paper, asked Derby, a stanch whig, to occupy the editorial chair during a brief absence. ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... even surpass in beauty those of Shakspeare (Angiolina, Myrrha, Anna): they said that Faliero wanted interest, that Sardanapalus was a voluptuary; that Satan in "Cain" did not speak as a theologian (how could he?), that there were irreverent tendencies in his sacred dramas—and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... counted by Professor Fortescue as a friend. Even then it was a puzzling friendship. Could it be that to Professor Fortescue, he shewed only his best side? His manner was more respectful towards his colleague than towards other men, but even with him he was irreverent in his heart, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... he was a good boy—Julia Bryant, the little angel, hoped so. Her blood would have frozen in her veins if she had listened to the irreverent words he had uttered in the shop. He had broken his resolution, broken his promise to the little angel, on the first day he had been in the city. It was a bad beginning; but instead of permitting this first failure to do right ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... surprised to find that he had disliked and despised them. Moreover, the naughty diarist had an ugly habit of recording men's private conversations; and thus a good many sayings which should have been kept secret became public property. A very irreverent wag wrote— ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Vavasor to himself. "There's a bee in every bonnet of them! An odd, irreverent way the old fellow has with him—for an old fellow pretending to ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... mistaken, Miss Dulan; and recollect that it is very irreverent in a young lady to express an opinion at variance with the spirit of what her father has ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... He appeals to the authority of the Christian religion, which indeed might be a fair argumentum ad hominem against 'Parson Malthus.' He declares that Nature takes more care of her work than such irreverent authors suppose, and 'does not ask our aid to keep down the excess of population.'[449] In fact, he doubts whether population increases at all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America; and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory statistics, he tries ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... businesslike was her conduct that they could never convict her of any infringement of rules. Little did these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with the hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing with nimble and irreverent pencil portraits of her captors, daring caricatures which she exhibited in secret to the terrified delight of her patients. Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been discovered, for doubtless she would have paid ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... Felicia D. Hemans in the early years of the last century and she has been much derided by the thoughtless and irreverent who have said that the landing of the Pilgrims was not on a stern and rock-bound coast. Such scoffers evidently never sailed in by White Horse beach and "Hither Manomet" when a winter northeaster was shouldering the deep sea tides up against the cliff ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... with scriptural phrase, and the gross mockery would have been taken seriously if the speaker had not been so notoriously irreverent. As it was the words won him applause which Redfield and his friends were not able to quell. The joke was caught up and tossed back and forth; the Little Flock outside raised their hymn, the scoffers within joined in derision, and carried the hymn ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... those degraded human beings from whom the anthropologist who puts no bridle on his hobby-horse is pleased to claim descent. Near the base is one of those symmetrically scooped-out hollows which are such a striking peculiarity of the formation here, and which suggest to the irreverent that a cheese-taster of prehistoric dimensions must have been brought to bear upon the rocks when their consistency was about the same as that of fresh gruyre. According to one theory, they were ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... converting the universities from the cult of Aristotle to a belief in the Christian scholasticism formulated by Albertus Magnus and Aquinas. The weapons of this interminable and many-sided controversy were as rude as the age which forged them: on the one side, coarse invective and irreverent paradox; on the other, scandalous imputations, spiritual censures, the sword, the prison, and the stake. For the medieval attitude towards heterodoxy was unflinching and uncompromising. To remain sceptical when the Church had defined was ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... with the veto!" and on that day at vespers the choristers preconcerted to use loud and threatening emphasis when chanting the words, "Deposuit potentes de sede," in the "Magnificat." Incensed at such an irreverent proceeding, the royalists in their turn thrice exclaimed, "Et reginam," after the "Domine salvum fac regem." The tumult during the whole time of divine service ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... tables, reading, smoking, chatting, breakfasting, and reading the morning papers. In an alcove at the upper end of the second room (for there were two, one opening from the other) stood a blackened, broken-nosed, plaster bust of Voltaire, upon the summit of whose august wig some irreverent customer had perched a particularly rakish-looking hat. Just in front of this alcove and below the bust stood a marble-topped table, at one end of which two young men were playing dominoes to the accompaniment of ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... with Parliament, presented petitions for representation of the clergy in parliament, for the administration of the Communion in both kinds to the laity, for the suppression of irreverent language about the Sacrament, and for sanctioning the marriage of the clergy. The first was ignored; the two next were embodied in Acts of Parliament; the last was deferred for a year. The session was ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... old roamer, Will ne'er find a rest 'neath collegiate dome or Anywhere else. As to Seneca, Any cur Safely may snub him, or urge ill Effects from the reading of Virgil. Cornelius Nepos Wont keep us Much longer from pleasure's light errands— Nor Terence. The irreverent now may all scoff in ease At the shade of poor old Aristophanes. And moderns it now doth behoove in all Ways to despise poor old Juvenal; And to chivvy Livy. The class-room hereafter will miss a row Of eager young ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... skill. The author maintains that in his ridicule of the Church of Rome and of Protestant dissenters, he is only displaying the abuses which deform the Christian Church; but no defence can be urged for his wild and irreverent method of turning subjects into ridicule which by a vast number of people are regarded as sacred. In judging of Swift's satire from a moral standing-point, one test, as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes, may be supposed to guide our decision. 'Imagine the Tale of a Tub to be read ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... a truck. Away went the long line of carriages,—away went the diligence, standing up like a huge leathern castle upon its truck; while the engine whistled, snorted, screeched, groaned, and uttered all sorts of irreverent and every-day sounds, just as if the Alps had not been looking down upon it, and classic towns ever and anon starting up beside its path: a glorious vision of fresh meadows, bordered with little canals, brimful of water, and barred with the long shadows of campanile and sycamore,—for the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... denunciations to the righteousness of the world or of the heathen—the righteousness dependent upon reason and controlled by secular government, by laws and regulations—his teaching would not have seemed so irreverent. But he distinctly specifies the righteousness of God's Law, or the Ten Commandments, to which we owe an obligation far above what is due temporal powers, for they teach how to live before God—something no heathenish court of justice, no temporal authority, knows anything about. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... to him, might possibly strike Moggy as irreverent, and the worthy father paused, and, with upturned eyes, murmured a Latin ejaculation, crossing himself; and having thus reasserted his clerical character, he proceeded to demonstrate the uselessness of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... is rather malicious, I own, To play with a name that is true, But I hope you'll condone my irreverent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... what is meant by infamous conduct and indecent talk; but the allusion is probably to irreverent utterances touching the Governor in which the officers from France were apt to indulge, not always without the knowledge of their chief. Vaudreuil complained of this to Montcalm, adding, "I am greatly above it, and I despise it."[674] To which the General replied: ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... is not irreverent, and certainly it is not intended as reproach, when I say, that I know no stronger expression in our language than that which describes the restoration of the wayward son,—"he came to himself." He had broken away from all the ties of love, family, and friendship. He had forsaken every ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... accepted fact. Her fame had not been a dashing offensive but an inevitable advance quietly over-running the world. People who never read knew her name as well as Napoleon's. There was, somehow, something a little irreverent about being her contemporary. To attend the birth of so many masterpieces gave you the feeling of a legendary ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... several years, with great blessing to his people, it happened that word came from Ruegenwald how that his brother, Duke Casimir, was sick. This was the Prince whom, we may remember, Sidonia had whipped with her irreverent hands upon his princely podex, when he was a ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold |
