"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... batter, they made their retreat by land, in spite of all their garrisons both of horse and foot. In this sort I have a little digressed from my first purpose, only by the necessary comparison of their and our actions: the one covetous of honour, without vaunt or ostentation; the other so greedy to purchase the opinion of their own affairs, and by false rumours to resist the blasts of their own dishonours, as they will not only not blush to spread all manner of untruths, but even for the least advantage, be it but for the taking of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... limitations, and His special relation to His people, and both thoughts intensify Sennacherib's sin. The Highest, before whose transcendent height all human elevations sink to a uniform level, has so joined Israel to Himself that to touch it is to strike at Him, and to vaunt one's self against it is to be arrogant towards God. That mighty name has received wider extension now, but the wider sweep does not bring diminished depth, and lowly souls who take that name for their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the night had been profitable to Lige; it was his true aim that had brought down one of the live guerrilleros. On his asserting this, his comrades had laughed at it, as an idle vaunt; but Quackenboss proved his assertion to be correct by picking his bullet out of the man's body, and holding it up before their eyes. The peculiar "bore" of his rifle rendered the bullet easy of identification, and all agreed that ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... laughing frankly. "I have been amongst your republicans myself, a long while ago, and saw that your countrymen have no adequate idea of the sacredness of pedigrees, and heraldic distinctions, and would change their own names at pleasure, and vaunt kindred with an English duke on the strength of the assumed one. But I am happy to meet an American gentleman who looks upon this matter as Englishmen necessarily must. I met with great kindness in your country, Mr. Redclyffe, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the cawing crows, that looked down from the mountain on the cornfield, and waited day after day for the scarecrow to finish his work and depart; and the smoke of far-off burning woods, that pervaded the air and hung in purple haze about the summits of the mountains, —these were the vaunt-couriers and attendants of ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and drawing than with the designs of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... nigh our hills the auspices foretold, When he shall fail to vaunt his power who chain'd our sires of old, In iron bands who held them fast, but now he droops with fear; Delusion's age is past, and strife avows the smile, the tear, That sympathy or fondness ask,—and the sad world is fain ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it is different; and furthermore, what originated in a necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large rivalry in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house four stories high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds five stories high, then the former, not to be looked down upon that way, immediately sends for his architect and claps a ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... tidings of his approach came to the ears of Sankharib, the King rode forth to meet his Minister, rejoicing in him with joy exceeding and received him lovingly and kissed him, and cried, "Well come and welcome and fair welcome to my sire and the glory of my realm and the vaunt of my kingdom: do thou require of me whatso thou wantest and choosest, even didst thou covet one-half of my good and of my government." The Minister replied, "Live, O King, for ever; and if thou would gift me bestow thy boons upon Abu Sumayk, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men: Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... that a soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by Heaven, seeing that we may hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions of so great violence. But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is the custom of the dying soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or to recommend them to his fellows; but, on the contrary, to express contrition for the same, and to repeat, or have repeated to him, some comfortable prayer; which, if you please, I will intercede with his ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... hounds snuff out your lair! Listen at eventide on lonesome path For traveller's footfall, or the mule-bell's chime, Pouncing by hundreds on one helpless man, To cut him down, then back to your retreats— You dare to vaunt your sires? I call your sires, Bravest of brave and greatest 'mid the great, A line of warriors! you, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... vainly do not vaunt Large demesnes, to feed my pleasure; I have favours where you want, That would buy respect with treasure. You have lands lie here and there, But my wealth is everywhere; And this addeth to my store— ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... through him to the world, granted visible rewards and visible punishments, that was not the permanent scheme. God's administration is hid from vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in which all furnishings are visible; rather a twilight gloom, where men and women grope. We know enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice very despicable, and God very apparent—and ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... days' time Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... son bringeth home with him all his kin, and his friends, and all the others to his house, and maketh them a great feast. And then all his friends make their vaunt and their dalliance, how the fowls came thither, here five, here six, here ten, and there twenty, and so forth; and they rejoice them hugely for to speak thereof. And when they be at meat, the son let bring forth the head of his ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... or St. Louis, he would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would have secured to them the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pride themselves on their philosophical attainments vaunt in very eloquent words the superiority of the physical instrument over mere sensation. Evidently, however, the earnestness of this eulogy leads them astray. The most perfect registering apparatus must, in the long-run, after its most ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... Bootham, Micklegate, and Monk Bars, and only one, Walmgate, was suffered to retain this interesting feature. It is a wonder they spared those curious stone half-length figures of men, sculptured in a menacing attitude in the act of hurling large stones downwards, which vaunt themselves on the summit of Monk Bar—probably intended to deceive invaders—or that interesting stone platform only twenty-two inches wide, which was the only foothold available for the martial burghers who guarded ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... "upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality towards ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the maids of Spain; Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear; And hailed thee, not perchance without a tear. Now to my theme—but from thy holy haunt Let me some remnant, some memorial bear;[cw] Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant, Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... nought to say in answer to this, but, from the passion in his heart, and from that egotism that many good men have whose religious education has taught them to make their personal godliness a matter to vaunt over, he spoke, foolishly and little to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... arms; but not in the manner related in the romance; for it must be recollected that at the period of 1200 were begun to be made many books, in gross and rude language, and in rhythm of all measure and style, merely for the pastime of princes, and sometimes for flattery, to vaunt beyond all reason the feats of certain knights, in order to give courage to young men to do the like and become brave; such are the said Romance of Melluzine, those of Little Arthur of Brittany, Lancelot du Lac, Tristan the Adventurous, Ogier the Dane, and others in ancient verse, which I have ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... prima facie better than other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without hesitation in his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... can tell, since the enemy of God would not be convinced by the power of truth and the virtuous lives of some, but that God might leave them to be snared, hardened, and emboldened to run upon their unavoidable destruction by the lies and lightness of others? They begin to vaunt it already, and to say, Where is the word of the Lord as to this? let it come now. But when Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is passed," then was the time for him ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... plenty of people who use these words, myself and my own, thoughtlessly and at random. How false is this belief that they profess! If there were no system of government by superiors, but an anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers, would not stand for a day. In the old days, at the time of the war at Ichi-no-tani, Minamoto no Yoshitsune[89] left Mikusa, in the province of Tamba, and attacked Settsu. ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... But what "folly of the wise" must account for the conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally became the victims of this imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Sir Kenneth, only more so, he expanded his fine torso. His Standard—bold he swore so—flying proudly, Still supreme should flow and flaunt, its defenders none should daunt. 'Twas a very valiant vaunt. Shouted loudly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... qualities, both in promptness and accuracy of execution; in short, that, considering the capacity of the American captain as evidenced by his action, and the odds in his favor, nothing could be more misplaced than Captain Dacres' vaunt before the Court: "I am so well aware that the success of my opponent was owing to fortune, that it is my earnest wish to be once more opposed to the 'Constitution,' with the same officers and crew under my command, in a frigate of similar force to the 'Guerriere.'"[432] ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... circumstances, the fact is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, watchful, intrepid attitude ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... of an assault below the belt. I shall deliberately destroy your credit as an essayist, as a journalist, as a critic, as a Liberal, as everything that offers your laziness a refuge, until starvation and shame drive you to serious dramatic parturition. I shall repeat my public challenge to you; vaunt my superiority; insult your corpulence; torture Belloc; if necessary, call on you and steal your wife's affections by intellectual and athletic displays, until you contribute something to the British drama. You are played out as an essayist: ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... straightforward sense. In fact, if the most nimble-fingered watchmaker among you will come to my workshop, he may set me to put a watch together, and I will set him to dissect, say, a blackbeetle's nerves. I do not wish to vaunt, but I am inclined to think that I shall manage my job to his satisfaction sooner than he will do his piece ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith which is the beginning of the way of salvation. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently. I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt. I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt. My arms held nothing but the ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... de Cailon, a knight of Gascony, and Governor of Berwick, who had been heard to vaunt that he had sought the famous Black Knight, but could not find him, was returning to England, loaded with plunder, the fruit of an inroad on Teviotdale. Sir James thought it a pity that a Gascon's vaunt should ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... imagined by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... very imperfectly, for he goes there in a commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small Lochiel that, in the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree. At such a time there is something ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Keinohoomanawanui was killed. I brought his head along with me and placed it on the altar mauka of Kalawao. But I would advise you to send at once your fleetest runners through Kona and Koolau, commanding everybody to assemble in one place, that I may review them and pick out and vaunt as the bravest that one whom I shall recognize by certain marks—for I have noted him well: he is wounded in the ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... 'Oh, vaunt it not! What can thy sorrow be? Know'st thou the fate of that unhappy man? Look, canst thou feel the pain, the grief, With which his gaze on me he bends? Ah! when I think he has ne'er found relief, How sharp ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt my growing manliness. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... vaunt-courier to announce the coming of his master."—Tooke's Diversions, Vol. i, p. 49. "The parti-coloured shutter appeared to come close up before him."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 233. "When the day broke upon this handfull of forlorn but dauntless spirits."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cat[)a]r[)a]cts and hurricanoes, spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! and thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wrought in the earth: I too have my unbelief as well as you—I can not believe that a lie on the belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, making out falsehood our best nourishment—at some period of our history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false and low—my assertion ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... less the while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence If just one spark I drew, full evidence Were mine of ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... in the fields of Thrasymene, Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthagens; [1] Nor sporting in the dalliance of love, In courts of kings where state is overturn'd; Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds, Intends our Muse to vaunt her [2] heavenly verse: Only this, gentles,—we must now perform The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad: And now to patient judgments we appeal, And speak for Faustus in his infancy. Now is he born of parents base of stock, In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes: At riper years, to ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... he vaunt; but his arrow had not killed Diomed, who withdrew and made for the chariot and horses of Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. "Dear son of Capaneus," said he, "come down from your chariot, and draw the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... artful fountains and figures that move by water and enact life. And next for fountains is Augsburg, where they harness the foul knave Smoke to good Sir Spit, and he turneth stout Master Roast. But lest any one place should vaunt, two towns there be in Europe, which, scorning giddy fountains, bring water tame in pipes to every burgher's door, and he filleth his vessels with but turning of a cock. One is London, so watered this many a year by ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good fight—let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Josephine, with that raw alacrity in leaping at computations peculiar to the illiterate, oppressed me with fifty. Which of us three knew best? I should like to ask. But it is of little consequence. The Easterns generally vaunt themselves on not knowing the day of their birth. And wisdom comes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... 'Thank God!' But, strangely, it did not reflect itself in the woman's face. Something quite different there, lurking under the soft gaiety. Was it consciousness of this being the second time during the evening that she had employed the too common vaunt of the woman of that particular world? Did some ironic echo reach her of that same boast (often as mirthless and as pitiful as the painted smile on the cruder face), the 'I'm afraid I'm rather frivolous' of the well-to-do woman, whose ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... every strange coast," continued the Flying Dutchman. "The Island of Bells and Robinson Crusoe's Island and the Kingdoms of Brobdingnag and Lilliput. But it is not for me to vaunt myself for my voyages. And of a truth there are men I should like to have met and talked with whom I have yet failed to see. Especially is there one Ulysses, a sailor-man of antiquity who called himself Outis, ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... Lombard builders, while each man was a master of his own especial art, had done most of their work in cities, and when it came to matters of the fields and woods they were not to be trusted. But when David found Roger a little inclined to vaunt his superior woodcraft he set him a ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... sendings, ah divine, By it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christ's darling, dauntless; Tongue true, vaunt- and tauntless; Breathing bloom of ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... smoke-wreaths fly When fresh breezes clear the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host. From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head. But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... no such things there; and yet they lived. Our wanton accidents take root, and grow To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters Become ourselves, and we would fain forget There live who need them not. [Guta offers to robe her.] Let be, beloved— I will taste somewhat this same poverty— Try these temptations, grudges, gnawing ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... comes marching home" and "The British Grenadiers," which, Mr. Stone informs us, "cannot be older than 1678, when the Grenadier Company was formed, and not later than 1714, when hand-grenades were discontinued," abundantly testify to the fact that the British soldier has also not lacked poets to vaunt his prowess. Many of the military songs have served as a distinct stimulus to recruiting, and possibly some of them were written with that express object in view. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his preface to Mr. Stone's collection of War Songs, says, "The Royal Fusiliers ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... forgotten I saye, the dutie of a vertuous gentleman, wel nourished and trayned vp towarde suche and so great a ladie as I am? Ah, Thefe and Traitour! Is this the venime which thou kepest so couert and secrete, vnder the swetenesse of thy counterfaicte vertue? A vaunte varlet, a vaunt: goe vtter thy stuffe to them that be like thy self, whose honour and honestie is so farre spent, as thy loialtie is light and vayn. For if I heare thee speake any more of these follies be assured that I wil mortifie that raging flame, which burneth thy ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... Spenser, the last but not least illustrious of the honored group, it is only necessary to say, that as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age of Sydney and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... now extant on this globe, bar the epics, and the big tragedies, and histories, and the choice lyric poetics and a novel or so - none. But it is not executed yet; and let not him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and traditions, so incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible, the savage ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... marching now in fields of Thrasymene, Where Mars did mate[1] the Carthaginians; Nor sporting in the dalliance of love, In courts of kings where state is overturn'd; Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds, Intends our Muse to vaunt[2] her[3] heavenly verse: Only this, gentlemen,—we must perform The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad: To patient judgments we appeal our plaud, And speak for Faustus in his infancy. Now is he born, ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... the first speech of Goliath is simple vaunt. Confident in his huge bulk and strength, he strides occasionally from side to side while speaking, elevating his arms and throwing his limbs about as if anxious to display his powerful sinews and muscular proportions. He speaks very loud, as if willing to terrify ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... or castle vaunt Its children loftier born?— Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt Beside the golden corn? They ask not for the dainty toil Of ribboned knights and earls, The daughters of the virgin soil, Our ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... where the fresh track showed that the patrol had recently turned at the end of his beat; but the guide knew the country thoroughly, and professed to have no fears. To speak the truth, I had heard him, when in the ingle-nook, and warm with Old Rye, vaunt so loudly his own sagacity and courage, that I conceived certain misgivings as to how far either were to be relied on. That night, however, he fully maintained part of his character by leading us safety and surely through a perfect ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... cowardly assassin!" she blazed at him. "I might have guessed that in some such cutthroat manner would your vaunt of winning me at the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... what was with him the splendid exception was with Titian, and those who have been grouped with Titian, the guiding rule of art. Though our master remains, take him all in all, the greatest of Venetian colourists, he never condescends to vaunt all that he knows, or to select his subjects as a groundwork for bravura, even the most legitimate. He is the greatest painter of the sixteenth century, just because, being the greatest colourist of the higher order, and in legitimate mastery of the brush ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of them but one, ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... would not strive with a prince at shuffle-board." Henry observed, "Yet you gownsmen should be best at such exercises, which are not meet for men who are more stirring." The tutor, a little irritated, said, "I am meet for whipping of boys." "You vaunt, then," retorted the prince, "that which a ploughman or cart-driver can do better than you." "I can do more," said the tutor, "for I can govern foolish children." On which the prince, who, in his respect for his tutor, did not ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... compromise. But that hope failed. The minister was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection we speak of lay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... declared vehemently. "It's all my doing—everything! Wholly my idea from the start!" The impulse to boast, to vaunt his cleverness, was not to be resisted. "I told Van Buren the game had only begun! He thought ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... armies under Joram's son, And who alone revived our towns alarmed When the abrupt decease of Ochoziah Dispersed all his camp at Jehu's sight; God fear, I say you, and His word affects me! Hear, how that God rebukes you by my mouth:— "What use to vaunt your ardour for My law? By empty vows think you to honour Me? What value all your offerings to Me? Need I the blood of he-goats and of heifers? The blood of kings exclaims and is not heard: Break, break all compact with the impious! Drive out the offences ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... I was serving as a private in the First Virginia Cavalry. Gettysburg was in the past, and there was not much fighting to be done, but the cavalry was not wholly idle. Raids had to be intercepted, and the enemy was not to be allowed to vaunt himself too much; so that I gained some experience of the hardships of that arm of the service, and found out by practical participation what is meant by a cavalry charge. To a looker-on nothing can be finer. To the one who charges, or is supposed to charge,—for the horse ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... Maxwell received the vaunt with a sneer. "You ought to be a detective—in a novel." He buttered his toast and ate a little of it, like a man of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... whole army, or, if he declined this, to invite him to decide their differences by personal combat. Alfonso accepted the latter alternative; but, a dispute arising respecting the guaranty for the performance of the engagements on either side, the whole affair evaporated, as usual, in an empty vaunt of chivalry. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... blood torrent should flow at once through the Netherlands, in order that the promised golden river, a yard deep, according to his vaunt, should begin to irrigate the thirsty soil of Spain. It is obvious, from the fundamental laws which were made to define treason at the same moment in which they established the council, that any man might be at any instant summoned to the court. Every man, whether innocent or guilty, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Beck), who seems to be the leading exponent on this floor of the party that is arrayed against the principle of this bill, has been pleased, in season and out of season, to cast odium upon the Negro and to vaunt the chivalry of his State, I may be pardoned for calling attention to another portion of the same dispatch. Referring to the various regiments under his command, and their conduct on that field which terminated the second war of American Independence, General Jackson says. "At the very moment ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... ken That strang necessity supreme is 'Mang sons o' men. I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies; Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is, I need na vaunt, But I'll sned besoms, thraw saugh ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... them to send us as high as the traditional kite flown by Gilderoy. The having at his beck this array of frowning metal lent Lieutenant Davis such an importance in his own eyes that his demeanor swelled to the grandiose. It became very amusing to see him puff up and vaunt over it, as he did on every possible occasion. For instance, finding a crowd of several hundred lounging around the gate, he would throw open the wicket, stalk in with the air of a Jove threatening a rebellious world with the dread thunders of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... grief at heart. But the son of Cronos and the other deathless gods whom rich-haired Rhea bare from union with Cronos, brought them up again to the light at Earth's advising. For she herself recounted all things to the gods fully, how that with these they would gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. For the Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving toil, the lordly Titans from high Othyrs, but the gods, givers ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... come and prove, the field I grant, Nor wrong nor treason let him doubt or fear, Some here shall pay him for his glorious vaunt, Without or guile, or vantage, that I swear. The herald turned when he had ended scant, And hasted back the way he came whileare, Nor stayed he aught, nor once forslowed his pace, Till he bespake ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... customs required the emperors to ascend high mountains and offer sacrifices on their summits. The literary class had ancient rule and precedent for every step in this ceremony, and so sharply criticised the emperor's disregard of these observances that they roused his anger. "You vaunt the simplicity of the ancients," he impatiently said; "you should then be satisfied with me, for I act in a simpler fashion than they did." Finally he closed the controversy with the stern remark, "When I have need of you I will let ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... own, their children's heritage, To leave more ample space for fearful wealth. Plunder in some most harmless guise they swathe, Call it some very meek and hallowed name, Some known and borne by their good forefathers, And own and vaunt it thus redeemed from sin. These are the plagues heaven sends o'er every land Before it sink, the portents of the street, Not of the air, lest nations should complain Of distance or of dimness in the signs, Flaring from far ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... conscious of the innocence Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, I gave way to my humors, to my passion: Bold were my words, because my deeds were not. Now every planless measure, chance event, The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph, And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing, Will they connect, and weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... might of our Lord, and by His name, who ruleth in heaven, henceforth I will not rest in one place more than one night or two, but will ride ever till I have found Perceval, or learnt certain tidings of his doings; and I will bring him to court an he be minded to ride with me—further will I not vaunt myself." ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... knight wheeled quick as light, And charging with gratitude, Gave him good thank on his left flank, And lo! a stream of blood! Shall he this knight, so dread in fight, Cede to this beardless foe, And feel in his pain, returned again, That vaunt of his so empty and vain, That vaunt ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... a cadet only six weeks, and few Prussians can vaunt, under the reign of Frederic, of equal ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... "A vaunt, you young tempter! Trying to lead me astray into idleness! No, let's get in. We have been playing all day; now let's go and get a bit of work done before we lie down ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... cried Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:— "Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield! Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! For well I know, that did great Rustum stand Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, There would be then no talk of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... order, that he could scarcely have limited his sphere of action to Corsica. Profoundly as he loved his island, it offered no sphere commensurate with his varied powers and masterful will. It was no empty vaunt which his father had uttered on his deathbed that his Napoleon would one day overthrow the old monarchies and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... on the black viands[80] of thy liver. To such labors look thou for no termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... then be other than an absurd thing, for the Greeks to be so proud, and to vaunt themselves to be the only people that are acquainted with antiquity, and that have delivered the true accounts of those early times after an accurate manner? Nay, who is there that cannot easily gather from the Greek writers themselves, that they knew but little on any good foundation ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... is my destiny: Rosalvo knows no medium: Rosalvo can never act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove by his extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. He lives a double life: in the guise of Abellino, he joins the banditti, and by inexplicable methods rids Venice of her enemies; in the guise of a noble Florentine, Flodoardo, he woos the Doge's daughter, Rosabella. The climax of the story is reached when Flodoardo, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... pureness from horizon to horizon, the mists had still been there, and we knew that this paradise was haunted by killing damps and foul malaria. The fences along the line bore but two descriptions of advertisement; one to recommend tobaccos, and the other to vaunt remedies against the ague. At the point of day, and while we were all in the grasp of that first chill, a native of the state, who had got in at some way station, pronounced it, with a doctoral air, "a fever and ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the art to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. Rejoice that thus 'tis given thee to believe,— To recognise transcending ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... thou take my goods and her into thy charge and do with them and her that which thou deemest may be for the solacement of my soul. And thou, dearest lady, I prithee forget me not after my death, so I may vaunt me, in the other world, of being beloved here below of the fairest lady ever nature formed; of which two things an you will give me entire assurance, I shall depart without misgiving ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... intolerable that a silly fool, with nothing but empty birth to boast of, should in his insolence array himself in the merits of others, and vaunt an honour which does ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... courteously kept them. Alexander is welcome; for there is no lack of aught that he wishes nor is there any baron in the Court so high that he does not speak him fair and welcome him. For he is not foolish nor boastful nor doth he vaunt his noble birth. He makes himself known to Sir Gawain and to the others one by one. He makes himself much loved by each; even Sir Gawain loves him so much that he hails him as friend and comrade. The Greeks had taken ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... in that perilous hour By him overthrown? Thy girdle broke, Or thou hadst felt the conqueror's yoke. Thy crowding warriors proved thy shield, They saved and dragged thee from the field; By them unrescued then, wouldst thou Have lived to vaunt ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... this disease of electricity has been for some time past almost universally conceded. While some vaunt the faradic, others prefer the galvanic current in its treatment. It appears that thus far the best results have been obtained on the one hand by galvanization of the spine, on the other by general faradization. It occurred to me, when I began to devote ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O father," said the boy, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... satisfaction, if not in the chanting, at least in the evidence that the Dominicans were come. That loud chanting repetition of the prayer, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered," was unpleasantly suggestive to some impartial ears of a desire to vaunt confidence and excite dismay; and so was the flame-coloured velvet cope in which Fra Domenico was arrayed as he headed the procession, cross in hand, his simple mind really exalted with faith, and with the genuine intention to enter the flames for the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... frolics fancy spirit. What is't to me by whom begot? Thou restive, pert, conceited sot. 90 Your sires I reverence; 'tis their due: But, worthless fool, what's that to you? Ask all the carriers on the road, They'll say thy keeping's ill bestowed. Then vaunt no more thy noble race, That neither mends thy strength or pace. What profits me thy boast of blood? An ass hath more intrinsic good. By outward show let's not be cheated; An ass should like an ass be ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... force of screaming, to assure him that he had been, simple as he sat there, engaged in seven plots in Cromwell's time; and, as he proudly added, with some of the tallest men of England. The matchless look and air with which Sir Geoffrey made this vaunt, set all a-laughing, and increased the ridicule with which the whole trial began to be received; so that it was amidst shaking sides and watery eyes that a general verdict of Not Guilty was pronounced, and the prisoners dismissed from ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... for the words ascribed to Napoleon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all.—They stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the foundering Vengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," as ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... were the graces, Daughters of Delight, Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt Upon this hill and dance there, day and night; Those three to men all gifts of grace do grant And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt Is borrowed of them; but that fair one That in the midst was placed paravant, Was she to whom that shepherd piped alone, That made him pipe so merrily, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... have its representative fighting-man—often more than one—who visited the neighbouring villages on the feast days, when there was a good deal of liquor flowing, to vaunt of their prowess before the local champions. These quickly gathered, and after due interchange of speeches not unlike the heroes of Homer, who harangue each other ere they hurl the spear, engaged in conflict dire. There ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Cellini's vaunt that if he only tried he was sure he could fly, put him under strict guard, saying, "Benvenuto e un pipistrello contrafatto, ed io ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... term familiar to ourselves. This might be very brief or at considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... if there passed before me some convulsion of Nature,—a storm, an earthquake,—outcries of rage, of scorn, of despair, a despot's vehemence of will, a rebel's scoff at authority; yet, ever and anon, some swell of lofty thought, some burst of passionate genius,—abrupt variations from the vaunt of superb defiance to the wail ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... maids of the Lowlands Vaunt their silks and their Hollands, In the garb of the Highlands Oh give me my dear! Such a figure for grace! For the Loves such a face! And for lightness the pace That the grass shall not stir. * ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... about to expatiate on the beauties of error, for it has none; but the clank of steam-engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the struggle for gain or bread, and the loud denunciations of stupid bigots, have wellnigh smothered poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, and vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter exist? In spite of all the forms which our policy has invented to secure it—in spite of all the preachers, all the meeting-houses, and all the legislative enactments—if any person will take upon himself the painful labor of purchasing and perusing some ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the sweet carnation slight, It is the gardener's pleasure, Now he unfolds it to the light, Now shields from it his treasure. But no—the flower for which I pant, No rare, no brilliant charms can vaunt, 'Tis ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that advantage." "Sir, (said he,) I am ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... comrade and bed-fellow," answered Cuculain, "it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... muttered. "To think that in the London of today we should live in abject terror of a band of Mongolian ruffians! Why do you remain here, man? You vaunt the prowess of your department— why are you not scouring every haunt of Chinamen in the East End? Spread your net widely enough, and you will surely get hold of some minor scoundrel who will talk for fear ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... vaunt! You know the scarf Lies with the enemy, upon the brink Of the stream,. . .the place is riddled now with shot,— No ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... vaunt princely robes, not princely virtues. Pride is it to lowte men of lower sort or pore {353} lasers, as is some men's guise."—The Third Booke of Nobilitye; writte in Latine by Laurence Humfrey, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... copious in the giving as can in craving be their vade mecums. Do not here produce ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, Plinius, and Athenaeus testify, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he will know how to use the appliances, of which the teacher is only ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... scann'd by long descent From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt A lineage of the greatest; and recount, Among my fathers, names of ancient story, Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdu'd The world by arms and virtue. But that be their own praise; Nor will I borrow merit from the dead, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the Walpole tract that day in a spirit of new confidence which put away all weariness from him. He was armed with a powerful weapon. In his exultation, fired by youth's natural hankering to vaunt success in an undertaking where his elders had failed, he was willing to flourish ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... man's nobility! I never shall account it marvelous, That our infirm affection here below Thou mov'st to boasting, when I could not choose, E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire, In heav'n itself, but make my vaunt in thee! Yet cloak thou art soon shorten'd, for that time, Unless thou be eked out from day to day, Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then With greeting such, as Rome, was first to bear, But since hath disaccustom'd I began; And Beatrice, that a little space Was sever'd, smil'd reminding ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... son (in his own ruinous way), but not to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... much as I do, I also perceive how much more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of committing myself too confidently, and has taught me that to vaunt one's knowledge is ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... knows not how miserable that City and Country is, when a military person happens to ly sick in this Hospital. If he be in Garison, he doth nothing but trick up himself, walk along the streets, flatter his Mistress, and vaunt of his knowledge and Warlike deeds; though he scarce understands the exercising of his Arms, I will not mention encamping in a Field, Fortification, the forming of Batalions, and a great deal more that belongs ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... two hundred yards' distance from the butte. Shouts are still heard, and talking in an unknown tongue; but not the dread war-cry. That has failed of its effect, and is heard no longer. Now and then, young warriors gallop toward the butte, vaunt their valour, brandish their weapons, shoot off their arrows, and threaten us by word and gesture. All, however, keep well outside the perilous circumference covered by ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... beaten his forces into the gates thereof, and possessed two of his frontier forts, as shall in discourse thereof more particularly appeare: whereby I conclude, that going with an Inuader, and in such an action as euery day giueth new experience, I haue much to vaunt of, that my fortune did rather cary me thither then into the wars of Flanders. Notwithstanding the vehement perswasions you vsed with me to the contrary, the grounds whereof sithence you receiued them ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... thou ly'st: thou canst not lend The least delight: Thy favors cannot gain a friend, They are so slight: Thy morning pleasures make an end To please at night: Poor are the wants that thou supply'st, And yet thou vaunt'st, and yet thou vy'st With heaven: fond earth, thou boasts; ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... to Foulon the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris, his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Soveraine, That all this famous antique history Of some th' aboundance of an ydle braine Will judged be, and painted forgery, Rather then matter of just memory; Sith none that breatheth living aire dees know Where is that happy land of Faery, Which I so much doe vaunt, yet no where show, But vouch antiquities, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Phil. Vaunt on, thou monstrous Instrument of Hell! For I'm so pleas'd to have thee in my Power, That I can hear thee number up thy Sins, And yet be calm, whilst ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... Kidd put the blame on his crew, and vowed that they'd forced him into evil courses. Now that we've a house on Long Island, however, I've taken Captain Kidd to my heart. He belongs more to the Moores of Kidd's Pines than to us, of course, but I value and vaunt him as ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... what other want you can allude), surely a boy up to eighteen may be pardoned for exercising his faculty if he happens to be the one among millions who can use grown men as his toys. He was an absolute and untarnished hero, but for that reckless defying vaunt. Certainly that ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... vaunt their love of gold and fame, High station and accomplishments of skill, Yet of life's greatest conquest they are still, And deem it weakness, or an act of shame, To seem to place high value on the love Which first of all they should ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I 'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan— We all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the Moorish land an Almazour Steps forth. All Spain can show no greater wretch. Before Marsile he makes a boastful vaunt: "To Ronceval will I my people lead— Full twenty thousand men with lance and shield. If I Rolland find there, I pledge his death; No after-day shall dawn but Carle ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... a counter-vaunt, the retaliation of a pang for it was evident the savages knew that among their captives were the wife and daughter of our chief. These were placed conspicuously in front, upon the very ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... to be the hired labourer chosen to carry out the conception; a sort of mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as absurd as if one of the stonemasons working at the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt himself as the designer of the whole edifice. And when a work, any work, is completed, it passes out of the labourer's hands; it belongs to the age and the people for whom it was accomplished, and, if deserving, goes on belonging to future ages and future peoples. So far, and only so far, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... no real braggadocio about this. As Sut could not hide his personality, the best plan for him was to make an open avowal, backed up by a rather high-sounding vaunt. This was more pleasing to the Indians, who were addicted to the most ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... hardship and anny climate, for they were not brought up soft, like the English. He also said that, fine as all Irish children undoubtedly were, Cork produced the flower of them all, and the finest women and the finest men; backing his opinion with an Homeric vaunt which Francesca took ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... grove for me would never yield, A perfume half so grateful as the lilies of the field. Our songsters too, oh! who shall dare to breathe one slighting word, Their plumage dazzles not—yet say can sweeter strains be heard? Let other feathers vaunt the dyes of deepest rainbow flush, Give me old England's nightingale, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some slave may want Your counsel. Let her but appear, This mighty Pallas whom you vaunt!" The ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the story which represents him as boasting of his ability to make a better world than this is of late authority. If he said so, he was speaking of the Ptolemaic cosmogony as known to him through the Arabs, and his vaunt was a humorous proof of his scientific instinct. As a ruler he showed legislative capacity, and a very commendable wish to provide his kingdoms with a code of laws and a consistent judicial system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... God is our God, even while His rod Of righteous wrath falls on us smiting sore: And this God is our God for evermore Through life, through death, while clod returns to clod. For though He slay us we will trust in Him; We will flock home to Him by divers ways: Yea, though He slay us we will vaunt His praise, Serving and loving with the Cherubim, Watching and loving with the Seraphim, Our very selves His ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... formidable marksman. Mr. G——, in preparing for the duel, happening to cast his eyes on his adversary, perceived that he had slily placed his arm in such a position, as must ensure, on the honourable gentleman's fire, the fulfilment of his vaunt to make him "a dead man." No time was to be lost; the young Englishman's life depended upon dispatch; and, instantly firing, he proved himself as good a marksman as Monsieur ——, by sending his ball, with the utmost precision, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with decay To change your day of youth to sullied night, And all ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... the even ways of life The old world jogs along, Our little coloured flags we flaunt: Our little separate selves we vaunt: Each pipes his native song. And jealousy and greed and pride Join their ungodly hands, And this round lovely world divide Into ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was now fairly started on his new course of justification, with which he wearied me throughout the remainder of the passage. No doubt in the past he had taken pleasure to paint himself unnecessarily black, and made a vaunt of his wickedness, bearing it for a coat-of-arms. Nor was he so illogical as to abate one item of his old confessions. "But now that I know you are a human being," he would say, "I can take the trouble to explain myself. For I assure you I am human ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Muses, that so oft I have repulsed, That, now importuned, haste to cure my pain, And to console me in my woes With verses, rhymes, and exaltation Such as to others ye did never show, Who yet do vaunt themselves of laurel and of myrtle Be near me now, my anchor and my port, Lest I for sport ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... glad remembrance of my debt, I homeward turn. Farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt: For men mishear thy call in spring, As 'twould accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, "Phe—be!" And in winter, "Chic-a-dee-dee!" I think old Caesar must have heard In Northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... conditions, acquired by seven years' experience. In his anxiety to make this instance prove his case, in the previous disobedience to Keith, for which the Admiralty had censured him, Nelson overreached himself and certainly fell into an ungenerous action. His vaunt of success by the road of disobedience rested only on the fact that he had failed to see Keith's signal. This the latter did not know, and evidently considered he had complied with its spirit. The signal to chase to windward was not strained to disobedience ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of special mention. Coal not being much in evidence in the diamond fields—where the sun is ever shining with all its might—paraffin was an important factor in the culinary sphere. When, therefore, a few gentlemen formed a syndicate, to vaunt their loyalty in a crisis by cornering all the kerosene in town, another outcry followed. They bought all they could lay hands on at market price (sixteen and six per case), and next day imperturbably continued ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... call. And as the day wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to her ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... truth, the Geats' prince gladly trusted his mettle, his might, the mercy of God! Cast off then his corselet of iron, helmet from head; to his henchman gave, — choicest of weapons, — the well-chased sword, bidding him guard the gear of battle. Spake then his Vaunt the valiant man, Beowulf Geat, ere the bed be sought: — "Of force in fight no feebler I count me, in grim war-deeds, than Grendel deems him. Not with the sword, then, to sleep of death his life will I give, though it lie in my power. No skill is his to strike against me, my shield ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... and censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. And so Diogenes, when Plato was being praised, said, "What has he to vaunt of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never gave pain to anyone?" For one could not say, to use the words of Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to philosophy as are the emotions ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... those virtues of which you vaunt, are with me his worst offences—they have undone my love and marred my fortunes—the easy heart of Geraldine is captivated by the stripling's specious outside, while his talents and achievements secure him ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... imputation, was one George Burroughs, also a minister of Salem. He had, it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he had used ill in their life-time, and consequently, it was whispered, had murdered them. This man was accustomed foolishly to vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and this was brought as a proof that he dealt with the devil. Two women, who were witnesses against him, interrupted their testimony with exclaiming ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... at length turned upon the Turks, and the country of Gog and Magog—whence they came, whom we all agreed to abuse as much as possible, since our antipathies were pretty equal. The Sheikhs then began very naturally to vaunt of their power in The Sahara, and I may embrace this opportunity of giving some outline of the Touarick ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ugliness, used to say that "he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England;" and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
