"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... withstand the depth of his stratagems. This man was the chief favourite of Montoni. Verezzi was a man of some talent, of fiery imagination, and the slave of alternate passions. He was gay, voluptuous, and daring; yet had neither perseverance or true courage, and was meanly selfish in all his aims. Quick to form schemes, and sanguine in his hope of success, he was the first to undertake, and to abandon, not only his own plans, but those adopted from other persons. Proud and impetuous, he revolted against all subordination; yet those who were acquainted ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... and the various attendants of the shop were plying the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter—when a man, meanly dressed, and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face, entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed by sharp-boned and eager spinsters—and how sharp the elbows of spinsters ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... believes in, whatever may be his private experience in actual living. In business, it is the ethical tradition of the American, inherited from a rigorous Protestant morality, to be square, to play the game without trickery, to fight hard but never meanly. Over-reaching is justifiable when the other fellow has equal opportunities to be "smart"; lying, tyranny—never. And though the opposites of all these laudable practices come to pass, he must frown on them in public, deny their rightness even to the last cock-crow— ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... his eye-lids to be lifted up; and finding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in high indignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to the people." Berkeley accepted the rebuke, and ordered him treated with all the dignity due his position as the leader of many Indian nations. Unfortunately the life of Opechancanough was shortly after snuffed out by one of his ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... possessed of an inestimable jewel, is so kind to herself as to be careful and tender of it? I do not say this to lessen your opinion of Mrs. Booth. I have no doubt but that she loves you as well as she is capable. But I would not have you think so meanly of our sex as to imagine there are not a thousand women susceptible of true tenderness towards a meritorious man. Believe me, Mr. Booth, if I had received such an account of an accident having happened to such a husband, a mother and a parson would not have held ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... in the end of great advantage to himself and to his house. That very alliance was the original cause of his gaining a crown—the foundation of the Prussian monarchy. It will not be denied, even by those who think most meanly of the externals of rank and title, that the attainment of a higher step in the European hierarchy, as it then stood, was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... evil which is our very own creation; and to cry out against war-lords is useless, when it is our desires and ambitions which set the war-lords in motion. Let all those who indulge and luxuriate in ill-gotten wealth to-day (and, indeed, their name is Legion), as well as all those who meanly and idly groan because their wealth is taken from them, think long and deeply on these things. Truth and simplicity of life are not mere fads; they are something more than abstractions and private affairs, something more than social ornaments. ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... sed nulli obnoxia; sed non Sordida; parta meo sed tamen acre domus." Small, yet it suits me; is of no offence; Was built, not meanly, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... faith, either, by anything I read about them. Young as I was and insipient, I was prepared for what is called the burlesque Olympus of the Iliad, so grievous to Professor Murray. I think I recognised then, what seems perfectly plain to me now, that you might as well think meanly of a God of Africa because the natives make him of a cocoanut on a stick, as of Zeus and Hera because Homer says that they played peccant husband and jealous wife. If Homer halted it is rash to assume that Hephaistos did. The pathetic fallacy ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... craftsmen in the East sharpened. The support and inspiration which come naturally to authors in contact with their kind were being denied me. Age was bringing me no "harvest home." In short, at the very time when I should have been most honored, most recompensed, in my work, I found myself living meanly in a mean street and going about like a man of mean concerns, having little influence on my art ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... upon; Whose third triumph o're earth made Jove afraid, Proud with success he'd next his Heaven invade: To whom the ocean yielding honours gave, And rougher Bosphorus humbly still'd his wave. Yet he, of empires and of men the shame, Quitting the honour of a ruler's name, Meanly at once abandon'd Rome and fame. Now this to Heaven it self does fears impart, And the mild train of quiet gods depart; Frighted with wars they quit the impious world, And leave mankind in wild ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... miles distant, and an early start has to be made to insure a return in season. Yesterday was our day. These wonders do not impress one at first—few really stupendous works ever do; and even when at their base you think but meanly of their magnitude, so much so that you never hesitate as to whether you will ascend Cheops, the largest. Three Arabs, whose duty it is to assist you, are at once assigned to you by the Sheikh; two of these take your hands, while ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... of the House—its head, of course, excepted—who was heartily and deeply affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated Mr Dombey with due respect and deference through many years, but he had never disguised his natural character, or meanly truckled to him, or pampered his master passion for the advancement of his own purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no long-tightened springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early and late to unravel whatever was complicated or difficult in the records of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... early-English builders. We went on to the Town Hall, the old Stannary Prison (now in ruins), the dilapidated Block-houses, the Battery. We traversed the town from end to end and studied the barge-boards and punkin-ends of every old house. I had meanly ordered that dinner should he ready half-an-hour earlier than usual, and, as it was, the objects of interest ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... folding-bed for her huge four-cornered "spare room," because her sister, who has married a city man, is obliged to have a folding-bed in the cramped limits of her flat Partly because so little is done for him educationally, and partly because he must live narrowly and dress meanly, the life of the average laborer tends to become flat and monotonous, with nothing in his work to feed his mind or hold his interest. Theoretically, we would all admit that the man at the bottom, who performs the meanest and ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... any feature of the face, in a sort of very true proportion between the hand and its fingers, between each finger and its joints, each joint and each nail; a something which says that such a hand could not do anything ignoble, could not take meanly, nor strike cowardly, nor press falsely; a quality of skin neither rough and coarse, nor over smooth like satin, but cool and pleasant to the touch as fine silk that is closely woven. The fingers of such hands are very straight and very elastic, but not ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... sovereign power and high success Attained through wisdom and admired of men, What boundless jealousies environ you! When for this rule, which to my hand the State Committed unsolicited and free, Creon, my first of friends, trusted and sure, Would undermine and hurl me from my throne, Meanly suborning such a mendicant Botcher of lies, this crafty wizard rogue, Blind in his art, and seeing but for gain. Where are the proofs of thy prophetic power? How came it, when the minstrel-hound was here, This folk had no deliverance ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... have much, my dear madam, to tell,' said she, 'and much to explain, 'ere you will admit me again to that esteem of which I was once so justly proud. I had no resource from misery, but in flight; and of that I could not make you a confidant, without meanly involving you in its disgrace.'—'Say no more, my love, on the subject,' replied madame; 'with respect to myself, I admired your conduct, and felt severely for your situation. Rather let me hear by what means you effected your escape, ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... like the sound of a second, more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to protest was to appear in Karen's as meanly petty. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... believe you know how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing him ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Tories who desire to injure him still insist that he shares the author's views on sexual relations, and despite his reiterated contradictions, they quote detached pieces of the work, speaking against marriage, as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile and dishonest than this it would be difficult to imagine, yet such are the weapons used against Atheists in a Christian country. Unable to find in Mr. Bradlaugh's own writings anything to serve their purpose, they take isolated passages from a book he neither wrote nor ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... to be getting nowhere I meanly rolled the lady a cigarette. She hates to stop knitting to roll one, but she ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... away from his thought of revenge. Again the bright day seemed to contract and grow chill around him, like the oncoming shadow and breath of storm. He felt that this man would return in his day to trouble him, low-devising, dark and secret and meanly covert as a ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... small apartment, seated herself upon a low stool, and wept as she heard the unfeeling remarks and low jests, as the vulgar crowd pulled about the furniture, turning it from side to side, declaring they had no idea Esq. Clinton's mansion was so meanly furnished. But we will not dwell ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... brightened. "Say, Nat, you're real good! I'm sorry I treated you so meanly when you paid ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... done well, and as is fitting, . . . it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank (shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of honor), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure a poor countryman of her own, who trusts ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these wars, and while he played beneath the table, my Prince heard these meanly-dressed ones decide between themselves how, and when, and for how long King should draw sword against King, and People rise up against People. Why not? There can be no war without gold, and we Jews know how the earth's gold moves with the seasons, ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... he said with the old whimsical look. "If you did you would think meanly of me ever after. Yes, that is why, Mary Ann. I am a selfish brute—selfish to the last beat of my heart, to the inmost essence of my every thought. Beethoven is worth two of me, aren't you, Beethoven?" The spaniel, thinking himself called, trotted over. "He never ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... came to rail at you, and talk such Truths, too, as shall let you see the Vanity of that Pride, which taught you how to set such a Price on Sin. For such it is, whilst that which is Love's due is meanly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Pyramides of siluer plate: The sailes of foulded Lawne, where shall be wrought The warres of Troy, but not Troyes ouerthrow: For ballace, emptie Didos treasurie, Take what ye will, but leaue AEneas here. Achates, thou shalt be so meanly clad, As Seaborne Nymphes shall swarme about thy ships, And wanton Mermaides court thee with sweete songs, Flinging in fauours of more soueraigne worth, Then Thetis hangs about Apolloes necke, So that AEneas ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... incredible had happened; but (Gilbart groaned) why had it happened to him? In his stupefaction he returned again and again upon this, catching in the flood at that one little straw of self; not inhumanly, as callous to the ruin of others; but pitifully, meanly, because it was the one thing familiar in the roar and din. He cursed Casey; cursed him for betraying his friendship. The man had no right— He pulled up suddenly, with a laugh. After all, Casey had played the game, had faced the music, and would go down with the Berenice. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stand at the table. His eyes were set very close together, and they glittered meanly as he made reply. "I remember it very well indeed. His death coincided with this mysterious leave of Monck's, and also with the unexpected absence of our man Rustam Karin just at a moment when Barnes particularly ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said, Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly. He had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary Vertrees in her need. And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking how he had gone to her to offer it, asking her to marry him—with his head ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... will suffer from her having taught every body (for she is above disguise) to think, by her treatment of Mr. Hickman, much more meanly of him than he deserves to be thought of. And must she not suffer dishonour in ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... haughtily ascended a pulpit splendidly decorated, while the humble OEcolampadius, meanly clothed, was forced to take his seat in front of his opponent on a rudely carved stool."(261) Eck's stentorian voice and unbounded assurance never failed him. His zeal was stimulated by the hope of gold as well as fame; for the defender of the faith was to be rewarded by a handsome ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... own poverty, and the defeat of Cope. He remained an hour and a half in the house, and shed tears. At last he came to the scaffold, certainly much terrified, but with a resolution that prevented his behaving in the least meanly or unlike a gentleman.(1278) He took no notice of the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be lifted up from the rails, that the mob might see the spectacle. He stood and prayed some time with ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... steer the bark in safety over the perilous sea. Truly did Mr. Webster—his personal friend, although his greatest political rival—say of him in his obituary address, "There was nothing groveling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun." His prophetic warnings speak from the grave with the wisdom of inspiration. Would that they could have been appreciated by his countrymen while ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... especially in that part of it where I say I do not bind my self to the said practice; and to declare more fully the Cases that may perswade me to the contrary; which are these and such as these. First Where Patients of their own free offers will contract with the Physician, or have formerly too meanly rewarded him for his Cure, in both which the Statutes of our College allow a contract to be made with Patients. Another case is, if a Physician be consulted once, and for his Fee hath given Medicines gratis, if the Patient frequently send for his Medicines without the least reward at all. Or ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... have discovered him never controlling, never creating, events, but always yielding to them with rapid change, and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war, they saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. In the debates on the Regency, they detected the laxity of his constitutional principles, and received proofs that his eloquence consisted not in ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... handsome face and person, and with plenty to say for himself on all subjects, was esteemed highly and regarded much by those who knew him, in spite of those little foibles which marred his character; and I must beg the reader to take the world's opinion about him, and not to estimate him too meanly thus early in ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the country victoriously through the war of the rebellion; but if there is to be any truth in history we must set it down, to stand forever a lasting disgrace to the party that in 1867, in Kansas, its leaders selfishly and meanly defeated the woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... upon Hugo's face as he rode away from the lawyer's office. Twice in that day had his generalship been successful, and his success disposed him to think rather meanly of his fellow-creatures' intellects. It was surely very easy, and decidedly pleasant, to outwit one's neighbours! He had made both Brian and Mr. Colquhoun give him information which they would have certainly withheld had they known the object for which it had been ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... had talked to the sultan in public, but he had never seen her with her veil off, as she was then; and though she was somewhat advanced in years, she had the remains of a good face, which showed what she had been in her youth. The sultan, who had always seen her dressed very meanly, not to say poorly, was surprised to find her as richly and magnificently attired as the princess, his daughter. This made him think Aladdin equally prudent and wise in ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... come to you with any claim of my own," the indignant lips trembling. "You shall not think so meanly of me as that. I told you why my father needs the money—all that he told to Mr. Neckart. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... answered. "I'm against all this ... this progress. We're simply eating up people's lives, and paying meanly for them. I'd destroy all these factories ... the whole lot. They aren't worth the price. And I'd go back to decent piggery. What is the good of a plate when it means that some girl has been poisoned so that it can ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... called the Mary Margett, which arrived here nine months after, about the time of Michaellmas, in her sixty persons, most gentlemen, few or no tradesmen, except some Polanders to make Pitch, tarre, potashes, &c., to be retorned for present gaine, soe meanly likewise were these furnished forth for victualles, that in lesse then two monthes after their arrivall, want compelled us to imploye our time abroad in trading with the Indians for corne; whereby though ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... Damocles for many months; on and off, for years—indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things—too keenly about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair—a panoply, an armory, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... in which we are engaged is for no meanly ambitious or unworthy purpose. It was primarily, and is to this moment, for the preservation of our national existence. The first direct movement towards it was a civil request on the part of certain Southern persons, that the Nation would commit suicide, without making any ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... indeed of any science but Divinity." Large donations from the Rev. Thomas Nelson, John Kirkpatrick, and others greatly increased the usefulness of the Library, and accordingly Mackerell, in his preface to the 1732 Catalogue, considered that "this Library is far from being meanly provided with Books (I wish I could say ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... friendship and amity which had subsisted between his father and him. But Pompey's deputies having executed their commission, began to converse with less restraint with the king's troops, and to advise them to act with friendship to Pompey, and not to think meanly of his bad fortune. In Ptolemy's army were several of Pompey's soldiers, of whom Gabinius had received the command in Syria, and had brought them over to Alexandria, and at the conclusion of the war had left with Ptolemy the father of the ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... Blavatsky shold have so strongly insisted on the truth of the story of the roman Kings unless there were more in it than mere pralayic historicity. Unless it were of bigger value, that is, than Andorran or Montenegrin annals. Rome, after the Etruscan domination, was a meanly built little city; but there were remains from pre-Etruscan times greater than anything built under the Republic. Rome is a fine modern capital now; but there were times in the age of papal rule, when it was a miserable depopulated village of great ruins, with ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... that he had been a constant attender (as he said) at Timon's feasts, as he had in greater things tasted his bounty; but that he ever came with that intent, or gave good counsel or reproof to Timon, was a base unworthy lie, which he suitably followed up with meanly offering the servant a bribe, to go home to his master and tell him that he had ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... loved that man. I had been brought up among the Dutch and Irish, and had never associated with the Jews, and I supposed from what I had heard that they were put on earth for us to get the best of, fire stones at, and treat as meanly as we could. That was my idea of a Jew—my boy idea. Yet here was a man, a Jew, one of the whitest men I ever met, who by his life changed completely my opinion of the Jews, and I put them down from that day as ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... my hotel, I was a little surprised to find the streets of this gay city so meanly lighted. Lamps placed at gloomy distances from each other, suspended by cords, from lofty poles, furnish the only means of directing the footsteps of the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... Ellis, "for I shall be a precious long time at those curls of Corwen's and those expressive brown eyes. Shoni, I know, will stick to me like a leech, but you and Valmai, I expect, will meanly desert ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... not be said that Alexander was surly. Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies. Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him. He did his work, and achieved at least the show of equanimity. Strickland wondered. What was it that had happened? It never occurred to him ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... think so meanly of me,' went on Cyril in the same heavy, monotonous voice, as though he were repeating some lesson that he had carefully conned and got by heart, 'as to suppose that I should take advantage of her ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stocking full of gold, she did not dare to send her nephew to the school for the poor. But she wrangled so that the schoolmaster of the rich boys' school was forced to lower his price and admit little Wolff among his pupils. The bad schoolmaster was vexed to have a boy so meanly clad and who paid so little, and he punished little Wolff severely without cause, ridiculed him, and even incited against him his comrades, who were the sons of rich citizens. They made the orphan their drudge and mocked at him so much that the little boy was as miserable ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... fallen silent in the History Books; both the Majesties may look remorsefully, but perhaps best in silence, over the breakages and wrecks this Kaiser has brought upon them. Friedrich Wilhelm does not meanly hate the Kaiser: good man, he sometimes pities him; sometimes, we perceive, has a touch of authentic contempt for him. But his thoughts, in that quarter, premature old age aggravating them, are generally of a tragic nature, not to be spoken without tears; and the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fawning zeal, And dar'd attempt with sacrilegious sword, To offer equal combat to a LORD, Sudden your noble limbs your coursers bore, From Berkshire's hills to Avon's distant shore: And eager to preserve from foul disgrace, Th' unsullied honors of a noble race, Rather than have it said you meanly stood To stain your faulchion with Plebeian blood, You yielded bravely to a harsher fate, And made submissions to the man you hate. To save their dignity from scandal's breath, Thousands have fearless fac'd approaching death; Your dauntless action merits more applause, ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... equal. He knew her, as she might be! Between them there was something deeper than the shallow kind greeting they gave the world,—recognition. She stood nearest to him,—she only! If sometimes she had grown meanly jealous of the thorough-bred, made women, down in the town yonder, his friends, in her secret soul she knew she was his peer,—she only! And he knew it. Not that she was not weak in mind or will beside him, but she loved him, as a man can be loved but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... own particular greatness than of her honour and service, and then "digressing into old griefs," said the envoy, "too long and tedious to write." She vehemently denounced Davison also for dereliction of duty in not opposing the measure; but he manfully declared that he never deemed so meanly of her Majesty or of his Lordship as to suppose that she would send him, or that he would go to the Provinces, merely, "to take command of the relics of Mr. Norris's worn and decayed troops." Such a change, protested Davison, was utterly unworthy ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dress he had formerly refused and next day clothed himself in another new suit which he had received from us in the autumn. Ever since his arrival at the fort he had dressed meanly and pleaded poverty but, perceiving that nothing more could be gained by such conduct, he thought proper to show some of his riches to the strangers who were daily arriving. In the afternoon however he made another though a covert attack upon us. He informed ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... probability that he would thus obtain the whole of that income for himself. But, while wanting money, he wanted also some of the good things which ought to accompany it. A superior intellect,—an intellect slightly superior to his own, of which he did not think meanly, a power of conversation which he might imitate, and that fineness of thought which, he flattered himself, he might be able to achieve while living with the daughter of a gentleman,—these were the ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... naturalist mind. One moment she felt herself seized with terror lest anything should break down the veil between her real self and this unsuspecting tenderness of the dying man; the next she rose in revolt against her own fear. Was she to find herself, after all, a mere weak penitent—meanly grateful to Jacob Delafield? Her heart cried out to Warkworth ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Marlow! But I'll suppress the emotion. Were I a wretch, meanly seeking to carry off a fortune, you should be the last man in the world I would apply to for assistance. But Miss Neville's person is all I ask, and that is mine, both from her deceased father's ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... be what the world calls ruined—that is, I believe there will never be any provision made for me, but when my father dies I shall have my choice of three things—starving, going to a common service, or marrying meanly as my sisters have done: none of which I like, nor do I think it possible for a woman to be happy with a man that is not a gentleman, for he whose mind is virtuous is alone of noble kind. Yet what can a ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been in part the maid's genteel horror of such proximities that steeled Miss Levering to endure them. Under circumstances like these the observant are reminded that no section of the modern community is so scornfully aristocratic as our servants. Their horror of the meanly-apparelled and the humble is beyond the scorn of kings. The fine lady shares her shrinking with those inveterate enemies of democracy, the lackey who shuts the door in the shabby stranger's face, and the dog who barks a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... in our connexion the pain would all be on my side. It would not hurt you to see me at your table with worn shoes and a ragged shirt. I do not think so meanly of you as that. You would give me your feast to eat though I were not clad a tithe as well as the menial behind your chair. But it would hurt me to know that there were those looking at me who thought me unfit to sit ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... before your income, and say, 'What a princely fortune!' In wealthy England, I sit as I am, and say, 'A modest independence, dear sir; nothing more. Enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of life who has no social prejudices to conquer. Not more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and who has all your social prejudices against her.' Sir! if my niece is ever to marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in taking her place at starting. Yes, yes; this is not your view, but it remains, immovably remains, my view for all that. For ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... his head. "Well! Aramis," continued Porthos, "I have dreamed, I have imagined that an event has taken place in France. I dreamt of M. Fouquet all the night, of lifeless fish, of broken eggs, of chambers badly furnished, meanly kept. Villainous dreams, my dear D'Herblay; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to me, but I could not help it—this sinful thought persisted in infesting my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glared I caught my breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror and misery, I meanly began to suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs which were wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment—and I tried to pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, and without intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purpose of getting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Sistine. We agreed for 3000 ducats. The first design I made for this work had twelve apostles in the lunettes, the remainder being a certain space filled in with ornamental details, according to the usual manner. After I had begun, it seemed to me that this would turn out rather meanly; and I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would yield a poor effect, in my opinion. He asked me why. I answered, 'Because they too were poor.' Then he gave me commission to do what I liked best, and promised to satisfy my claims for the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... times when he lay soft and ate delicately and scattered money. But nothing lasted. He had no sooner made purchase with a great man and climbed a little than the scaffolding fell from his feet. He thought meanly of human nature for in his profess he must cringe or snarl, always the undermost dog. Yet he had some liking for the priests, who had been kind to him, and there was always a glow in his heart for the pale wife who dwelt with his child in the attic ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... It is the word. A trifle, a thing of mere weight, I have brought you From the Assyrian camp. My apron here Is loaded now more heavily, but as meanly As an old witch's skirt, when she comes home From seeking camel's-dung for kindling; yet My burden was, an hour ago, the world Where you were ground to tortures; it was the brain Inventing your destruction.—Look ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... would now accept his hand; and when Fairthorn looked happy at that thought, and hinted at excuses for her former fickleness, it was a great relief to Darrell to fly into a rage; but if the flute-player meanly turned round and became himself Caroline's accuser, then poor Fairthorn was indeed frightened; for Darrell's trembling lip or melancholy manner overwhelmed the assailant with self-reproach, and sent him sidelong into ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... necessary to go into Rio, but I was sorry to have to do it on one account. It is so beautiful a place that I thought my wife and daughter might think meanly of our future home after it. It is a beautiful country, with its magnificent harbour, and surrounding hills, and tropical trees and villas, and the city looks very fine till you get into it. I hoped not to be detained there more than three days, so as soon as Peter ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... a small building, where the slaves were sheltered until the moment of their sale, a mixed crowd was gathered, some of them bidders, some idlers drawn thither by curiosity. Others were in the house behind examining the wares before they came to the hammer. Presently an old woman, meanly clad with her face veiled to the eyes, and bearing on her back a heavy basket such as was used to carry fruit to market, presented herself at the door ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... nature to, But little difference he made Sopp'd by the fog's asthmatic shade; From day's beginning till its close The day no brighter grew. Above the sheets, the sleeper's nose Peep'd shyly, as afraid, While 'neath the dark and draughty flue The burnt-out cinders meanly strew The hearth, where now no firelight glows, No waiting warmth ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... the more he talked the more I thought it. There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. 'It's like ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... of hearing, leaving me almost desperate, both at being an eavesdropper to such a conversation, and that Madge could think so meanly of me. To say it, too, to Lord Ralles made it cut all the deeper, as any fellow who has ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... the most marked and formal coldness, and his gift, which could not be declined, consigned almost without eliciting a glance of approbation, to the hand of a freedman; while, the next moment, as an old white-headed countryman, plainly and almost meanly clad, although with scrupulous cleanliness, approached his presence, the consul rose to meet him; and advancing a step or two took him affectionately by the hand, and asked after his family by name, and listened with profound consideration to the garrulous ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... breakfast, or when you are called at noon and night, to join the family circle again around a neatly-spread table, did you ever think what a refining influence this single custom has upon your life? The savage eats his meanly-prepared food from the vessel in which it is cooked, each member of his household dipping with his fingers, or some rude utensil, into the one dish. He is scarcely raised above the cattle that eat their fodder at the crib, or the dog that gnaws the bone thrown to him upon the ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... supposed to be the arbiter of his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so often refuses the race to the swift and the battle to the strong. He was what in our time would be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withal not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with every body willing to talk with him, making every body ridiculous, especially if one assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge,—an exasperating opponent, since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... again the report is exactly paralleled by the American report on the German Camps. (Cf. p. 16). "Religious services are in general arranged for the Catholics; it is very difficult to secure ministrations for the Protestants." "If the officers are often meanly lodged, the same is true of the soldiers. The bedding sometimes leaves much to be desired, the straw in many of the camps is scanty, damp, and pretty often full of lice. The litter is actually being replaced ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... nursing there had been to do she did. No one had ever heard her rudely complain, though she often thought of the hardness of her lot. She knew that there were other girls whose lives were infinitely freer and fuller, but, it never occurred to her to be meanly envious; her heart might be lonely, but her lips continued to sing. When the days were fair she looked out of her kitchen window and longed to go where the meadows were. Nature's fine curves and shadows touched her as a song itself. There were times when she had gone with George ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... but I repeat to you that I distrust all of them. I don't know why they have seen fit to come to our Sabbath-school, and to our meeting this evening, unless it be to gain an unhappy influence over some whom they desire to lead astray. I can hardly think so meanly of them as that, either. I do not say that such was their motive, but simply that I do not understand it, and am afraid of it; and I desire you to have just as little to do with any of them as ordinary civility will admit. Hitherto I have thought ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... meanly wait The dull delay of tardy Fate, When Life's delights are shorn? No! When its outer gloss has flown, Let's fling the tarnish'd bauble down As lightly as ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... right or wrong, and had gotten mercenary fellows, who were such fools they did not know when to hiss; and this was evident to all the audience. It was wonderful to see men of great quality, and gentlemen, in so mean a combination; but, to my great satisfaction, they came off as meanly as I could wish. I had so numerous an assembly of the best sort of men, who stood so generously in my defence for the three first days, that they quashed all the vain attempts of my enemies; the inconsiderable party of hissers ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Megaris (then Theodoret's capital) was ablaze with bonfires on the night that the Comte de la Foret entered it at the head of his forces. Demetrios, meanly clothed, his hands tied behind him, trudged sullenly beside his conqueror's horse. Yet of the two the gloomier face showed below the count's coronet, for Perion did not relish the impendent interview ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... her hands out from her in bitter complaint, "there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender things—aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and points ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... thus meanly of Clara's understanding, Valletort. There must be something more than mere beauty and accomplishment to fix the heart of my sister. The dark eyed and elegant Baynton, and the musical and sonnetteering Middleton, to whom you, doubtless, allude, are very excellent fellows ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... might leave you no room for hope; and since my story has been so unfortunate to alarm the whole world with a conduct so fatal, I made no scruple of telling you with what joy and pride I was undone; if this encourage you, if Octavio have sentiments so meanly poor of me, to think, because I yielded to Philander, his hopes should be advanced, I banish him for ever from my sight, and after that disdain the little service he can render the never ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... she was so alone? The distance between them had increased ever since the beginning of her new life. She knew well the sort of pride he was capable of; but was there not something else, something she dreaded to observe too closely, in the manner of his speech? Did he think so meanly of her as to deem such precautions necessary against her misconstruction? Nay, could he have guarded himself in that way if he really loved her? Would it not have been to degrade her too much in his ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... seem a pity that so great a man should have acted so meanly toward these innocent people who loved and trusted him so? For it was Columbus who first stole them away from their island homes and who first thought of making them slaves to the ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... walked up the avenue. The night was tepid; motor cars, looking like magnified beetles, with bulging eyes of fire, went swiftly by. The pavements were almost deserted when they reached the park. He felt as if hypnotized, and once, rather meanly, was glad that no one saw him in company ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the surprise of the group at seeing Toussaint instantly follow this black, who appeared in the dusk to be meanly clothed. They entered the tent, and let down the curtain at the entrance. Some saw that a woman stood within the folds ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... accept Aunt Susan's bounty. I will wear her pretty dresses, and all the other things she happens to send me, and I will take her money and do my best, my very best, to get the Scholarship; but all the same, mother, I shall do it meanly, I know I shall do it meanly. It would be better for me to give up the Scholarship and go as a poor girl to Stoneley Hall. Mother, there is such a thing as lowering yourself in your own eyes, and I feel bad, ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... resolved!" she exclaimed; "I will disturb him for a little. There is no time now for meanly wrestling it out, for ungenerous hesitation and delay. Suspense may kill him; and whilst I deliberate, he may be lost. Father, I come, Never again shall you reproach me with disobedience. Though your ambition may be wrong, yet who else than I should become the victim ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... saying a word, produced his pocket book, and counted out thirty-five dollars. Tiffles had already borrowed from Overtop and Maltboy, but had generously spared the oldest of the three bachelors. Marcus felt that his time had come, and he would not meanly avoid his destiny. He placed the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... all codes of honourable war, Which ever have held as granted that the track Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine— Whether in peace or strenuous invasion— Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen, And meet us in our front. But he must wind And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us Thiefwise, by out back door! Nevertheless, If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne, As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there, It destines Bonaparte ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... answered Amasis. "On the contrary, I am thankful that Phanes has escaped. Gyges has saved my soul from the guilt of shedding innocent blood, and thine from the reproach of having revenged thyself meanly on a man, to whom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thou wilt be apt to judge from what thou hast seen, thou already expectest a scene of riot and debauchery; to see the candidates servilely cringing, meanly suing, and basely bribing the electors, depriving themselves of sense and reason, and selling more than Esau did for a mess of pottage; for, what is birthright, what is inheritance, when put in the scale against that choicest blessing, public liberty! O, Liberty! ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... said that Webster rarely indulged in personalities. When we consider how great were his powers of sarcasm and invective, how constant were the provocations to exercise them furnished by his political enemies, and how atrociously and meanly allusions to his private affairs were brought into discussions which should have been confined to refuting his reasoning, his moderation in this matter is to be ranked as a great virtue. He could not take a glass of wine without the trivial fact being announced all ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol[q]. See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust. If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end[r]. Nor deem, when learning her last prize bestows, The glitt'ring eminence exempt from woes; See, when the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... man's pride! Do we not all know that in such a career as you have marked out for yourself, wealth, or at any rate an easy income, is necessary? Do you think that I cannot put two and two together? Do you believe so meanly of me as to imagine that I should have said to you what I have said, if I did not know that I could help you? A man, I believe, cannot understand that love which induces a woman to sacrifice her pride simply for his advantage. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... has no pace, but runs where he will] [Tyrrwhit: place] A pace is a certain or prescribed walk, so we say of a man meanly obsequious, that he has learned his paces. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... were much pleased with the hearty way the people responded to this, the first call to give a free gift to the Lord. One man, whose whole purse was 17s., gave 1s. himself, and gave 1s. to each of his three sons, so that they too might have something to give. Knowing how meanly the Tannese treated the Spirits whom they worshiped in Heathenism,—giving them the scraggiest fish, the poorest bananas, and the smallest yams,—we ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... did not much fancy having his prize counted so meanly. He immediately proceeded to bite the coin, and then started to ringing it on the hard surface of the oak table that had all the scorched spots ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... girl he had impudently approached, but the other one, a Frenchman, took advantage of the other sister, and after committing the dastardly outrage, he ran away with his companion. Marquis, shall I name you the man who acted so meanly? It was the then Vicomte ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner, which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked itself ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... now. He'll wait as long as may be. He would sin, but he would not sin meanly. In his conception of himself a greatness, even in transgression, must clothe all that he does. He'll wait, gravely and decently, even though to wait is his heavy risk." He made a gesture with his hand. "Do I not know him, know him ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston |
