"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... austere in age; Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage; Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer, And only just when seemingly severe; So gently blending courtesy and art That wisdom's lips seemed borrowing ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was president; showing himself at the races, at the theatre, or even at Baroness Dinati's; longing to break the dull monotony of his now ruined life; and, with a sort of bravado, looking society and opinion full in the face, as if to surprise a smile or a sneer at his expense, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... had an insolent smile in those prominent eyes of his, and a sneer bared his tobacco-stained teeth. Slamming the door, he came sauntering toward the scoutmaster, who had risen; he halted without speaking, then deliberately, impudently, he stared Mr. Perkins from ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... since that martial Synod met, Britannia sickens, Cintra! at thy name; And folks in office at the mention fret,[bj] And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. How will Posterity the deed proclaim! Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame, By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here, Where Scorn her finger points through ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... that in your veins flowed none but the purest of Castilian streams," answered the lieutenant, with a slight sneer in his tone. It was so slight, however, that his captain did not perceive it. "How came that ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and in the morning did not arise. Smoke weakly gained his feet, collapsed, and on hands and knees crawled about the building of a fire. But try as she would Labiskwee sank back each time in an extremity of weakness. And Smoke sank down beside her, a wan sneer on his face for the automatism that had made him struggle for an unneeded fire. There was nothing to cook, and the day was warm. A gentle breeze sighed in the spruce-trees, and from everywhere, under the disappearing snow, came the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... pretty politeness European women have from these Orientals the better!" she said, almost with a sneer. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... hear nothing. Marking something in my manner, nevertheless, he asked my name and country; and then observed with a sneer, "Ah, you are the lad, I see, that wrote the Round Robin; I'll take good care of you, my fine fellow—step ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... will look higher than to wed a simple yeoman, though he is large as two other men," said Bjoern with a sneer. Now Bjoern was jealous of Eric's strength and beauty, and did ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... was at Buenos Ayres I had the good luck to visit the independent province of Paraguay, which my readers must have heard spoken of, sometimes with admiration, sometimes with sneers, as the hot-bed of Jesuitism. Those who sneer say that the Jesuit fathers who left Spain under Martin Garcia formed this colony in the River Plate entirely in accordance with the principles their egotism and love of power dictated. It may be so; it is possible that the Jesuits were ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... would need all the bacon and the tobacco, and perhaps several head of sheep to make my treaties with the Indians when I took my sheep through their reservations. Now this little speech brought a sneer to the face of my venerable partner. "No use of making treaties with the Indians; you get a military escort without paying anything out." I told him no military escort would need to ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... those of the illustrious pro-consuls and elegant peeresses and their following who form Anti-Suffrage Societies. Before we criticise sex-antagonism in women, let us be honest about it in men; and before we sneer at the type of women who most display it, let us realize fully the worthlessness of the types of men who display it. But if this be granted—and I have never heard it granted by the men who deplore ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... report with something almost like a sneer. Stannard and Sumter heard it with grave faces, but without a word. Snaffle, who had drifted in, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... petty bullying of hazing and the whole system of college tyranny is a most contemptible denial of fair-play. It is a disgrace to the American name, and when you stop in the wretched business to sneer at English fagging you merely advertise the beam in your own eyes. It is not possible, surely, that any honorable young gentleman now attending to the lecture of the professor really supposes that there is any fun ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... caught my eye, for at that moment there was something terrible about it. It was long, thin, and deeply carved; the eyes were large, and gleamed like gold in sunlight; the mouth was small and well shaped, but it wore a devilish and cruel sneer; the forehead lofty, indicating a man of mind, and marked with a slight scar. For the rest the cavalier was dark and southern-looking, his curling hair, like my own, was black, and he wore ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... A bitter sneer was curling on the young man's lip; the mariner's face had resumed its stern expression. 'The details of my escape from Botany Bay are unimportant. Suffice it, that I once more reached America, and devoted my energies to tracing the fate of my ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... exclaimed the professor, with a bitter sneer; 'who are my friends? Where have I found any whose friendship was other than a name? My books, my cabinet, my studies, the great work on which I am now laboring—these are my friends; it is only through these that I shall be raised to fame. Sic ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... the same violence by which it had been excited; on his sending a lictor to one of the soldiers who was clamorous, when a tumult and scuffle arose from the circumstance, being struck with a stone he retired from the crowd; the person who had given the blow, further observing with a sneer, "That the quaestor got what the general had threatened to the soldiers." Postumius being sent for in consequence of the disturbance, exasperated every thing by the severity of his inquiries and the cruelty of his punishment. At last, when he set no bounds to his resentment, a crowd collecting ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Democratic newspaper declared that Harrison would be more at home "in a log cabin, drinking hard cider and skinning coons, than living in the White House as President." The Whigs instantly took up the sneer and made the log cabin the emblem of their party. All over the country log cabins (erected at some crossroads, or on the village common, or on some vacant city lot) became the Whig headquarters. On the door was a coon skin; a leather latch string was always hanging out ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... my readers at home with this statement before them proceed too hastily to laugh or sneer at China for unprogressiveness. For my part, as I have thought of this matter of money transfer over here, the whole question has seemed to me to be on all-fours with our question of land title transfers at home, and ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the next act of the tall young man in evening clothes. George proceeded to jam the scarf-pin into the fellow's coat where the badge of service had rested the instant before. Then, with Simmy looking on in disgust, he pinned the waiter's badge upon his own coat. "There!" he said, with a sneer. "That is supposed to make a gentleman of you, and this makes a man of me. On ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Bruce Cadogan Cavendish, sneer as you like. But I tell you that's love that I've been describing. That's all. It's love. It's the realest, purest, finest thing that can happen to a man. And I know what I'm talking about. It happened ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... "You sneer at 'spooks,' as you call them," retorted the doctor. "Most people do. Just as people scoffed when Columbus told them there was an America. But how many times do you think you ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... Thormod to Gissur, "Let us not stand so close together, brother, that Sigvat the skald should not find room when he comes. He must stand before the king, and the king will not have it otherwise." The king heard this, and said, "Ye need not sneer at Sigvat, because he is not here. Often has he followed me well, and now he is praying for us, and that we greatly need." Thormod replies, "It may be, sire, that ye now require prayers most; but it would be thin ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... a sneer. "How comes it, then, that yonder I see a waggon laden with goods, and oxen in the yokes? Yes," he repeated with meaning, "with goods whereof we have known the like at Buluwayo; for Lobengula also sometimes buys ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... minds to the influence of prejudice, or betraying a want of confidence in their own infallible powers!—which is the last idea they would think of entertaining. The long-cherished opinions of great, and wise, and good men, are disposed of with a sneer. They be influenced by great names? ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... creaking is a necessary result. There are turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there is nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or to sit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such points as trifles and to make sport of those who call attention to them; but if it is worth our while to have ritual worship at all it is also worth our while to make the directions as to how people are to behave adequate, explicit, plain. A lofty contempt for detail is not the ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... the mass of facts collected, Darwin was busy with some of the experiments which he described in a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker (in 1855) as affording the latter a "good right to sneer, for they are so absurd, even in my opinion, that I dare not tell you." While a sentence in another letter (dated 1849) throws a sidelight on all this preparatory work: "In your letter you wonder what 'ornamental poultry' has to do with barnacles; ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... misery." Richardson, who always denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth and power in describing human nature which the confined life of Richardson ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... then, such cases arise very often. Late marriages for one—between people quite advanced in years—which the world often laugh and sneer at. Most wrongly in my opinion—for through them how often do we see what would otherwise have been a solitary old age, rendered cheerful and comfortable; and sometimes a weary, disappointed life, consoled by a sweet friendship and affection at its close. Then, there are marriages ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... never desert thee, Ghita," he said; "thou hast nothing to fear as my wife, or that of any other man. None but a brute could ever think of molesting thee in thy worship, or in doing aught that thy opinions render necessary or proper. I would tear the tongue from my mouth, before reproach, sneer, or argument should be used to bring thee pain, after I once felt that thou leanedst on me for support. All that I have said has come from the wish that thou would'st not misunderstand me in a matter that I know thou ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the news-stand edition containing the criticisms. The unfairness of them had disturbed him greatly. Orders or no orders, he hadn't been able to endure the thought of leaving Paula to suffer under the sting of a sneer like that without making at least an effort to comfort her. He had driven out to Ravinia without any idea that she was to sing again that night; had been told of it at the park where he had stopped for the purpose of picking up some one ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... that if the Stuarts patronised the stage they also raised it, and exercised a purifying censorship. And many more who do not go all these lengths with the reactionists, and cannot make up their mind to look to the Stuart reigns either for model churchmen or model courtiers, are still inclined to sneer at the Puritan 'preciseness,' and to say lazily, that though, of course, something may have been wrong, yet there was no need to make such a fuss about the matter; and that at all events the Puritans were men of very ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the room in a minuet step, and hummed an opera tune, while Horatio, advancing to Leonora, asked her in a whisper if that gentleman was not a relation of hers; to which she answered with a smile, or rather sneer, "No, he is no relation of mine yet;" adding, "she could not guess the meaning of his question." Horatio told her softly, "It did not arise from jealousy."—"Jealousy! I assure you, it would be very strange in a common acquaintance ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... savez-vous? Men are not like these; they are not men, they are Name of God I don't know what, they are worse than the animals; and they pretend to Justice" (shivering from top to toe with an indescribable sneer) "Justice! My ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... with gesture bold. "Yer cahn't do nothink ere, Yer bloomin', hugly furriner!" he added, with a sneer. "Hi thinks as 'ow you dagoes is the cuss o' this 'ere land, With wuthy citizens like me 'most starved on every 'and. Hi vows hif I'd me wi at all hi'd order hout a troop, Hand send the bloomin' lot o' yer 'ead over 'eels in soup. ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... sneer, "are you so little skilled in the ways of the woods, as to mistake the voice of a vile animal for that of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... she was so fully taken up with dancing that she could scarce mark how diligently all the mothers and maidens overlooked her. Howbeit, Ursula Tetzel was not content with that, but went up to her and with a sneer enquired whether Junker Schopper ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... She crumpled the beautiful parchment in her hands, walked over to the fire, and quietly placed the sacred instrument in the midst of the flames. Then she turned away with a sneer of contempt upon her face and—again I grieve to tell ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... has induced them, in common with the rest of their nation, to call themselves, by way of distinction, Innŭee, or mankind. One day, for instance, in securing some of the gear of a sledge, Okotook broke a part of it composed of a piece of our white line, and I shall never forget the contemptuous sneer with which he muttered in soliloquy the word “Kabloona!” in token of the inferiority of our materials to his own. It is happy, perhaps, when people possessing so few of the good things of this life can be thus contented with ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... of that. There is one thing, however, that I prize even more than that, and that is my honor. Do not take the trouble to sneer. Say, what I call my honor, if it pleases you better, and I will not leave a stain upon that, even in your mind, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... tear will Caledonia shed? Her ancient foe, illustrious Johnson's dead; Mac-Ossian's sons may now securely rest, Safe from the bitter sneer, the cynick jest.[21] The song of triumph now I seem to hear, And these the sounds that vibrate on my ear: "Low lies the man, who scarce deigns Gray to praise, But from the tomb calls Blackmore's sleeping lays; A passport grants to Pomfret's dismal chimes, To Yalden's ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... hack-work, entirely beneath the dignity of a man who has had one or two articles accepted by a prehistoric magazine which nobody reads. In reality, it is one of the greatest and most splendid of all professions, fit to call out the very best of a really big man. You chuckle and sneer at Colonel Cowles and think yourself vastly his superior as an editorial writer, when, in the opinion of everybody else, he is in every way your superior. I doubt if the Post has a single reader who would not prefer to read an article by him, on any subject, to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to Bordeaux, said the Knight?" answered Sir Fulk with a sneer; "to Bordeaux forsooth! It is well for you, my fair young cousin, that I have other claims to you, since, were you once out of England, I can well guess who would return to claim the lands ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a knack for self-advertising that infuriated Nelson. To read this anybody would think that he was one of the dominant figures in the oil industry, and that his enterprises were immensely successful. With a sneer Nelson flung the paper aside. So, that was how it had happened. The well had been fired—Henry believed he could account for that—but a miracle had quenched the flame. Falling drill stems! Who ever heard of such ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Kieff's sneer deepened. It was Kelly's privilege always to speak his mind, and no one took offence however extravagantly he expressed himself. "Can't we have a drink?" he suggested, in the indulgent tone of one ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... no,' he replied yet more brutally, backing his sneer with a laugh. 'I saw no reason ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that," answered he, with a half sneer—and then, "Farewell, friend Leigh—farewell, gallant Dick Grenville. God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home. And yet, why should I come home? Will you pray for ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the question, Cave answered as though it was asked in real earnest, and was cheered to the echo, not merely for his domestic felicity, but his cool contempt for any man who could so far forget connubial bliss as to sneer ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Kenelm, but with the "inmate." If she, Hannah, were to marry and leave the pair instead of being herself left! Oh, the glory of it—the triumphant glory of it! How she could crush her brother! How she could gloat over and sneer at Imogene! The things she might say—she, the wife of a ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I durst not use her so. The greatest part of the gentlemen, already prejudiced against me, were offended at the liberty I had taken, as appeared from their looks; though none of them signified their disgust any other way except my Lord Quiverwit, who ventured to say, with a sneer, that I was in the right to establish my own character, of which he had now no longer any doubt. Nettled at this severe equivocation, which raised a laugh at my expense, I replied with some warmth, "I am proud of having ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... several questions to the sentry, who replied in tones that positively quavered with apprehension. During this time the personage never took his eyes off the two friends, and Frobisher was on the point of losing his temper when the unknown, with a distinctly perceptible sneer, turned his back rudely and, with a curt command to his waiting attendants, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... you, 'pon my life! to come and give me such good advice!" exclaimed Titmouse, with a sneer—but consciously baffled. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Steel' Weir, our boss, four hundred of us, till ye can skate on hell," a huge Irishman, one of half a dozen standing at Vorse's bar on Saturday night, remarked when the saloon-man uttered a sneer at the manager. "Say that agin and we'll tear your rotten booze joint to pieces and make ye eat it! And if another stinkin' greaser tries to wing him from the dark, we'll come down here and wipe your dirty little town off the map! That goes both ways ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... fence, which was dignified by the name of stockade. To go out of life into a dungeon like that, and at noon of a day in June. That Jim made no sign was accredited to his hardness of heart. That, having registered and heard an official sneer at the name, Jim Royal, and having passed through the hands of the barber, and being duly entered at last among the State's hired help, and dropped down on his ill-smelling bunk, a rat came and gnawed his ear, and the vermin crawled unmolested over him, and still he gave no sign, was set ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... was puzzled; but presently came to the conclusion that Werper had been frightened by the approach of the lion, and had sneaked off in terror. A sneer touched Tarzan's lips as he pondered the man's act—the desertion of a comrade in time of danger, and without warning. Well, if that was the sort of creature Werper was, Tarzan wished nothing more of him. He had gone, and for all the ape-man cared, he might remain away—Tarzan would ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... only the oldest, but the best book in the world. Our forefathers rejoiced when they were first favoured with the opportunity of reading it for themselves. Infidels may reject, and the licentious may sneer; but no one who ever wished to take away this foundation-stone, could produce any other equal to it, on which the structure of a pious mind, a solid hope, a comfortable state, or wise conduct, could be raised. We are told, that when Archbishop ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... got to say about it?" he demanded, with something like a covert sneer. "You'll know all about it, Krevin, I ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... in his chamber. They have been drinking deep, or at least the Duke, who is pouring out in Pomphrey's ear confidences almost too maudlin to be understood;" and there was a covert sneer on the haughty lips of his Grace. At the name of Monmouth and the knowledge that he was not with Katherine, Cedric's great tension appeared to snap asunder. For a moment Buckingham gazed at his companion as if in him there were undiscovered mines. Then suddenly his mind and eye returned to the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... into the ring and drumming, was to glare at his adversary. Okiok returned the glare with interest, and, being liberal, threw a sneer of contempt into the bargain. Ujarak then glared round at the audience, and began his song, which consisted merely of short periods, without rhyme or measure, but with a sort of rhythmic musical cadence. He commenced with the chorus—"Amna ajah ajah hey!" ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... be wrong to infer, from his somewhat ambiguous appellation, that the student's skin had the copper hue of a Pawnee or an Osage, or his hair the ruddy tint usually deemed detrimental and unbecoming. The name implied no sneer—it was given and taken as a compliment; and Federico was at least as proud of it as of the abundant golden curls to which he owed it, and that flowed in waving luxuriance down his graceful neck and over his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... grated on by the vulgar tone of those nearest to her? It was well for her that she could still put it aside as their way, even while following her own instinct. Mervyn and Juliana had been on cat and dog terms all their lives; he was certain to sneer at all that concerned her, and Phoebe reserved her belief that an attachment, nipped in the bud, was ready to blossom in sunshine. She ran up with the news to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by th'inspiring Nine, I waited at Apollo's shrine: I told him what the world would say, If Stella were unsung to-day: How I should hide my head for shame, When both the Jacks and Robin came; How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer, How Sheridan the rogue would sneer, And swear it does not always follow, That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... again. And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture a remark in favour of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no matter —the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself. A late comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who delivered a sneer at the 'impostor,' and was in the act of following it with a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any words, and then the deep ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... expended my own money on his account, and had asked no reimbursement; but what was my astonishment when this wicked man said to me, with a sneer, "Since, good cousin, you have got into a quarrel without consulting me, you will also get out of it without my aid!" As I left him, he called me back to tell me, "I will take care and pay your undertaker;" for he certainly believed I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... warriors, poets, lawgivers, saints, and fertilizing Europe with her missionary genius. However far those times are, however grim and pitiful the havoc wrought by the race war, it is nevertheless a fact for thinkers and statesmen to ponder over, not a phantasy to sneer at, that Celtic Ireland lives. Anglicization has failed, not because Celts cannot appreciate the noblest manifestations of English genius in art, letters, science, war, colonization, but because to repress their own culture and nationality ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... understandings, return it to them thus modified, and lay on the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the sting, perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not sour, but hearty, and that it held well up to them, in a clear, light, and bold type, so that she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They would riot for three additional lines to a lesson; but I never knew them rebel against a wound given to their self-respect: ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... devotion's highest flight sublime Exalt the mind, by tenderest pathos' art, Dissolve, in purifying tears, the heart, Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; The fond illusions of the youth and maid, At which so many world-formed sages sneer, When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, Our natural religion must appear. All things in thee tend to one polar star, Magnetic ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... wouldn't have seen the spectacle of the Guard against the Guard. In war times, I don't say anything against it. Two heroes of the Guard may quarrel, and fight,—but at least there are no civilians to look on and sneer. No, I say that big villain never served in the Guard. A guardsman would never behave as he does to another guardsman, under the very eyes of the bourgeois; impossible! Ah! it's all wrong; the Guard is disgraced—and here, at Issoudun! where it was ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... a sneer now curling his lip, "he'll have to pay, and roundly, too, unless more fortunate than ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... regard for you personally"—and again I saw malice twinkle in his small eyes—"and still more regard for Abscissa's happiness, I have decided that you shall have her—upon conditions. Upon conditions," he repeated, with a half-smothered sneer. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Bletson was out of this academy, or stronghold of philosophy, he was very cautious how he carried his contempt of the general prejudice in favour of religion and Christianity further than an implied objection or a sneer. If he had an opportunity of talking in private with an ingenuous and intelligent youth, he sometimes attempted to make a proselyte, and showed much address in bribing the vanity of inexperience, by suggesting that ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... proceeding to say something, and, I suppose, in rather an awkward and confused manner, when with a sneer on his face, the bear of a judge bellowed out, "Mr. Casberd told us, that the jury at Devizes were influenced by your persuasive eloquence! I see nothing of it here!" This insult roused me; I began now to speak as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... rather to have said that Christians inculcate, theoretically, a contempt of the present life, while, practically, they enter as keenly into its pleasures as the 'worldling,'"—uttering the last word with an approach to a sneer. ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... been more than half wooed for him by his doting father; and there were those who said that pretty Mrs. Gunn had been quite as much in love with the old Squire, old as he was, as with the young one; but that was only an idle village sneer. The young Squire and his wife loved each other devotedly, and their only child, Hetty, with an unreasoning and unreasonable affection which would have been the ruin of her, if she had been any thing else but what she was, "the old Squire over again." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... hear you say so," said my uncle. "One has to come into the country to hear honest loyalty, for a sneer and a gibe are more the fashions in town. The King is grateful to me for the interest which I have ever shown in his son. He likes to think that the Prince has a man ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... understand, Miss Innocence," a slight sneer in the utterance. "There was a man in your company when you arrived, dressed as a Yank. Moran told me so. You were breakfasting together—the ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... conspiracy for a Jacobite insurrection in Great Britain. Swift wrote his dedication three years after the Count's expulsion. Knowing that the Count's master, Charles XII. of Sweden, had been a party to the plot, he yet writes in a most amiable tone of friendliness towards both, with a parenthetical sneer at "his present Britannic Majesty." Undoubtedly this dedication might easily and fairly be taken as strong presumptive evidence of a leaning on Swift's part towards the Pretender. It will, however, be more truly interpreted, if it be considered ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... she stood in suspense. It was a bright grey day. Paul came into the yard with his bicycle, which glittered as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house. To-day he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and could tell from that keen-looking, aloof young body of his what was happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in its place, that made ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... likewise was hurt by the infliction of hurt on unoffending animals, would sympathize with him and fetch him unbidden another of the expensive three- for-a-dollar cigars so that his feelings might be soothed. Grimshaw would curl his lip in a sneer and mutter: "The cheap skate. The skunk. No man with half the backbone of a man would take it out of the harmless creatures. He's that kind that if he didn't like you, or if you criticised his grammar or arithmetic, he'd kick your dog to get even . . . or poison it. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... than that, the next day on the fishing wharf, where we were inspecting nets, he saw fit to laugh and sneer at us, and this before all the fishermen. Charley's face went black with anger; but beyond promising Big Alec that in the end he would surely land him behind the bars, he controlled himself and said nothing. The ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... Marlanx. "Am I to repeat a command to you? Do you ignore the word of your mistress?" There was a significant sneer in the way he ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... said Le Prun, with an ugly sneer. "Well, he can't now put his daughter on her guard, or inflame her with the magnificent spirit ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... triumphant Obed, with a sneer, "I guess that settles it, don't it? Maybe you'd be willin' to turn your bills over ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... answered he; "not your business. Got a good right. Who cares for pearls? Nothing but French beads." Pointing with a sneer to his turban. Then, again addressing Cecilia, "Fine doings!" he continued, "Here's a place! never saw the like before! turn a man's noddle!—All goings out; no comings in; wax candles in every room; servants thick as mushrooms! And where's ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... it's a stupid, stubborn reason. Oh, I heard you talking with the second mate. You're afraid the other captains will sneer at you because you didn't come back with a full ship. You want to live up to our silly reputation even if you do have to beat and starve men and drive me mad to ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... during these few days in the two mansions of Ning and Jung, and every one was in high glee; but he alone looked upon everything as if it were nothing; taking not the least interest in anything; and as this reason led the whole family to sneer at him, the result was that he got ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... sneer at Ballyards, and Greenry affects to be unaware of it, but the pride of Ballyards remains unaltered, incapable of being diminished, incapable even of being increased ... for pride cannot go to greater lengths than the pride of Ballyards has already gone ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... saw grinning faces full of derision bent upon me from every side, from the stairs which led to the upper part of the house and from the depths of the shop behind,—faces with pens behind their ears, faces in workmen's caps, all distended from ear to ear, with a sneer and a mock and a rage of laughter which nearly sent me mad. I hurled I don't know what imprecations at them as I rushed out, stopping my ears in a paroxysm of fury and mortification. My mind was so distracted by this occurrence that I rushed without knowing it upon ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... fell obscurely in the common ranks— His keen sword rusted in its splendid sheath. God pardon him his faults! for faults he had; But oh! so blent with goodness, that the while The lip of every theory of his Curved with a sneer, each action smiled ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... stood leaning against the rail, buried deep in thought, Billy Byrne passed close behind her. At sight of her a sneer curled his lip. How he hated her! Not that she ever had done aught to harm him, but rather because she represented to him in concrete form all that he had learned to hate and loathe ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Armstrong has put that notion into your head, no doubt," said Miss Granger, with the faintest suspicion of a sneer. She was not very warmly attached to the lady of Hale Castle nowadays, regarding her as the chief ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... pass occasion of speaking well of Horne, who deserves your opinion of him,—it is my own, too.—He has unmistakable genius, and is a fine, honest, enthusiastic chivalrous fellow—it is the fashion to affect to sneer at him, of late, I think—the people he has praised fancying that they 'pose' themselves sculpturesquely in playing the Greatly Indifferent, and the other kind shaking each other's hands in hysterical congratulations at having escaped such a dishonour: I feel grateful to him, I know, for his generous ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... recorded Lord Auchinleck's 'sneer of most sovereign contempt,' while he described Johnson as 'a dominie, monan auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Croker's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... with a banker. There is no evidence that such a draft was ever dishonored. On one occasion Massena disgorged two millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient nobility the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army, they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many noteworthy exceptions, but on the whole Napoleon never classed the estate of the French nobles lower than ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion reclaimed her empire; and the skeptical world-wise man, thinking only of his child, spoke and felt with a child's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... He swaggered to the door and turned, leaning against the jamb with one hand again it. "I expect y'u can say those lovey-dov good-byes without my help. I'm going into the yard. If y'u want to y'u can plug me in the back through the window," he suggested, with a sneer. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... a laugh that had a little sneer in it, "put them to the test! I will not object to that, if you will only keep your notions to yourself. Now, Christian, give me your word for silence, and we will ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... frowned darkly, and with something of a savage sneer on his lip pointed to a bend in the river above them, round which, at that moment, a hundred canoes swept, and came swiftly ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... speechless, motionless, amazed, The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed, Who met his look of anger and surprise With the divine compassion of his eyes; Then said, "Who art thou, and why comest thou here?" To which King Robert answered with a sneer, "I am the King, and come to claim my own From an imposter, who usurps my throne!" And suddenly, at these audacious words, Up sprang the angry guests and drew their swords! The Angel answered with unruffled brow, "Nay, not the king, but the king's Jester, thou Henceforth shalt ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... a heavily accentuated sneer. It was more like the sneer of the villain of old-fashioned melodrama than ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... have been caught offending again; perhaps, in his old age, he would even have laughed at his escapade, and would have become a sensible man." It is as obvious and natural in our days to dispose of such difficulties in this way with a smile and a sneer as it was in the first century with a shout—"Christiani ad leones." But Corneille was as good a judge of the human heart as M. Renan. He had gauged the powers of faith and conviction; he certainly would have expected to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... books, I have seen written on battlefields, with steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where,—and may the gods bear witness,—where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble, nor will my humble birth make ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... not kill yourself, and break all our hearts. Take my word for it, you will hear from him in a few days, and he will give your reasons for his strange disappearance—excellent, business-like reasons, but not the true ones: there will not be a word about Jael Dence." This last with a sneer. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... serious a business for that. But and if fighting was toward, well, Grip was ready; not eager, but deadly ready, and nothing backward. Grip had his black cap either in place on his head or very close at hand all the time. It was doubtless with a sufficiently sardonic sneer that he presently saw Jan jump obediently into the wagonette. Grip had seen to the carting of thousands of lambs and sick ewes; but for himself to climb into a horse-drawn vehicle at the bidding of a lady!—one can imagine how scornfully Grip breathed through his nostrils as he saw Jan driven ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... choice left us to refuse to see them," answered Marie Antoinette, sighing. "The populace who are howling and crying without are now the master of the men who come to us with a sneer, and ask us whether we will grant them ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... whilst she held up her wounded hand, then with an astounding oath he hurried up the court to the Plaza. I went up to the woman and said, "What is the cause of this? I hope the ruffian has not seriously injured you." She turned her countenance upon me with the glance of a demon, and at last with a sneer of contempt exclaimed, "Carals, que es eso? Cannot a Catalan gentleman be conversing with his lady upon their own private affairs without being interrupted by you?" She then bound up her hand with a handkerchief, and going into the room brought a small table ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... face, to fling him to the ground, and kick him, in a blind fury of passion. But the words that he wanted would not come; he knew, and it tortured him the more to know, that he was saying the wrong thing, as with a sneer, he replied. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... to public affairs was more imperatively demanded, and he boldly maintained that it was the duty of their lordships to lay the true state and condition of the country before his majesty. After indulging in a quiet sneer at the care the council had bestowed upon horned cattle, he remarked, that he was glad to hear that the king had reason to believe the peace of the country would be preserved, since peace could never be more desirable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... pleasure the Banyai usually deny to strangers by making it a fine, and demanding it in such a supercilious way, that only a sorely cowed trader could bear it. They often refuse to touch what is offered—throw it down and leave it—sneer at the trader's slaves, and refuse a passage until the tribute is raised to the utmost ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... fish there?" asked Jacobi from Henrik, with an impatient sneer, "and what matters it to him whether your sister Louise ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... half That all things hold of Deity. So let the dull crowd sneer and laugh— Their eyes are blind, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... examine what was left of the trail Billy thanked Heaven that Deane had placed Isobel on the sledge before he left camp. There was nothing to betray her presence. Walker had unlaced their outfit, and Billy was busy preparing a meal when Bucky returned. There was a sneer on his lips. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... increasingly disagreeable ones, as he diagnosed moral, physical, and financial decrepitude. It was nothing short of impudence on Jack's part to intrude himself upon the town and upon his family. It was with a slight sneer that William replied to his ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Have the principles ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... that pursuit to motives of the coarsest kind. It is generally vanity alone which leads a married woman to receive the first disgraceful flattery of dissolute men. Probably nine out of ten of those American women who have trifled with honor and reputation, whose names are spoken with the sneer of contempt, have been led on, step by step, in the path of sin by vanity as the chief motive. Where one woman falls from low and coarse passions, a hundred fall from sheer levity ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... William Davenant, knighted by the King in Sept. 1643 for his Army-plotting and his gallant soldiering. He was over forty years of age, and had just turned, or was turning, a Roman Catholic in Paris, or perhaps rather a Roman Catholic Hobbist. Clarendon, with a sneer at Davenant's profession of play-writer, makes merry over the choice of such an agent by the Queen, Jermyn, and Colepepper, and relates the result with some malice. Arrived at Newcastle late in September, or early in October, Davenant had delivered his letters to the King, and proceeded to argue ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... "Humph!" with a sneer; "perhaps your authority comes from some one else. Her daughter, maybe? You and she are—or shall we say were—quite touchingly confidential ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... depth of Maori religious feeling. It is enough to point out that a Christianity which induced barbarian masters to release their slaves without payment or condition must have had a reality in it at which the kindred of Anglo-Saxon sugar-planters have no right to sneer. Odd were the absurdities of Maori lay preachers, and knavery was sometimes added to absurdity. Yet these dark-skinned teachers carried Christianity into a hundred nooks and corners. Most of them were honest enthusiasts. Two faced ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... hale, hearty Woman yet, and will very likely outlive me. If she looked in on me this Moment, and saw me in this homely but decent Suit, sitting by my clear Coal-fire, in this little oak-panelled Room, with a clean, though coarse Cloth neatly laid on the Supper Table, with Covers for two, could she sneer at the Spouse of the Spitalfields Weaver? Belike she might, for Spight never wanted Food; but I would have her into the Nursery, shew her the two sleeping Faces, and ask her. Did I need ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... have been curious, sir, about the great unknown beyond thirty," he said. "You are in a good way to have your curiosity satisfied." And then I could not mistake the slight sneer that curved his upper lip. There must have been a trace of disrespect in his tone or manner which escaped me, for Alvarez turned upon him ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... once Monsieur le General has peacefully secured his prize, then he can do as he thinks right about public affairs," said Simon, with a sneer. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... getting frayed and thin. The Colonel's sneer was like a match to a magazine, and in an instant the Frenchman was dancing in front of him with a broken torrent of angry words. His hand was clutching at Cochrane's throat before Belmont and Stephens ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... correlate to the New Dominant, myself: I see what I have to see. The only inducement I can hold out, in my attempt to rake up disciples, is that some day the New will be fashionable: the new correlates will sneer at the old correlates. After all, there is some inducement to that—and I'm not altogether sure it's desirable to end up as a ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... difficult for us to try to reconcile unflinching honesty with a just and becoming regard for the feelings of those who have claims upon our forbearance, than would have been the case a hundred years ago. 'It is not now with a polite sneer,' as a high ecclesiastical authority lately admitted, 'still less with a rude buffet or coarse words, that Christianity is assailed.' Before churchmen congratulate themselves too warmly on this improvement in ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... never have expected this intervention of a proxaneta, which the vulgar translate blackfoot, of such eminent dignity," said Dalgarno, scarce concealing a sneer. "And my father hath consented? He was wont to say, ere we left Scotland, that the blood of Huntinglen and of Glenvarloch would not mingle, were they poured into the same basin. Perhaps he has a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... thumb of this man, had feared and hated him and hoped for the day when he might sneer in his face and defy him. This was the time, and yet he felt Hicks had something to offer. He was in temporary charge of millions. There should be, there must be, some way to make this control permanent or else to delve into these millions ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... several inches taller than his opponent and at least fifteen pounds heavier. His nose was a bit swollen, and there was a sneer upon ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... acquainted with that fact. I think sometimes that the advertisements in the newspapers and the periodicals of the day are of more value to the public than the reading-matter, so-called, that stands next to them. I don't see why you should sneer at advertising. I should never have known you, for instance, Mr. Pedagog, had it not been for Mrs. Pedagog's advertisement offering board and lodging to single gentlemen for a consideration. Nor would you have met Mrs. Smithers, ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs |
