"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and London contain all the famous men of France and England, and anybody who jokes about them is sure of having the whole public for an audience; while the best New York joke falls flat in Boston or Philadelphia, and flatter still in Cincinnati or Chicago, owing to want of acquaintance with the materials of which ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—SHOULD do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... "Don't flatter yourself that I am afraid of you," she said. "I would say to your face what these people only dare think. Indeed, I was just going ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally make ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and great men have thought otherwise," said Varney; "and, not to flatter your lordship, my own opinion leans ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... comrades reproached him with working it out only with her, as if she were the whole affair; to which he replied that they could afford to be neglected, they were all so tremendously good. She was the only person concerned whom he didn't flatter. ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... public opinion, politics, etc., he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place and at this time to write such an article even anonymously. Such things, however, are their own reward; and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has ever given,—and I have had a good many in my time of one kind ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... he, "yes, that would flatter me very much; but I should not have time enough to enjoy the distinction. During our expedition to Bethune the husband of my duchess died; so, my dear, the coffer of the defunct holding out its arms to me, I shall marry the widow. Look here! I was trying ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of visions, allegories, symbolic actions, and direct addresses, a series of vivid descriptions of the sins of Jerusalem and the judgments of heaven that are about to fall upon her. With these are interspersed denunciations of the false prophets that flatter the people in their sins, and fervent addresses to his fellow-captives remarkable for their plainness and evangelical spirit. The second part opens with a series of prophecies against seven foreign nations, in which the order of ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... previous afternoon, the good lady advising them first to soak the specimens in a bowl of fresh-water, so as to get rid of the salt and sand and other impurities, besides enabling the specimens to be laid flatter in the book ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... so; but I do not flatter myself that it is so with me; and I do not think that it would be so with any man over you. Perhaps I may assure you that, as far as I know myself at present, all my future happiness must depend on your answer. It will not kill me—to be refused; at ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... from my daughter. She sent it to me; she is always making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me no less than three gowns, all wool! What can I do with them? C'est pour me flatter, c'est sa maniere de me dire qu'il faut vivre pour longtemps! Ah, la chere folle! But she spoils ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... boy, Reherrey, detached himself from the others and came out to stand by her and flatter her. He had wound the black stuff that he had bought three days before so cleverly round his slim body that he seemed no fatter than a lacquered hairpin. The cynical flattery of this nineteen-year-old Jew, the plunging admiration which Duval breathed at her side, the attentive look ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... quantity of beef-suet finely shred, and a nutmeg grated, a little salt, some currants, and then beat some eggs in a little sack, and some sugar, and mix all together, and knead it as stiff as for manchet, and make it up in the form and size of a turkey-egg, but a little flatter; then take a pound of butter, and put it in a dish, and set the dish over a clear fire in a chafing-dish, and rub your butter about the dish till 'tis melted; put your puddings in, and cover the dish, but often turn your puddings, until they are all brown alike, and when they are enough, ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... to look at the table. One is not always looking. The other has that astonishment. Something has changed. That is what would be the defence if any one saw that she was flatter. She had the smile and it was not lightening all her evenings. They were not always too hot. They closed ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... my theory is that he's got all the money he took with him except his living expenses. I believe I can find Northwick, and I am not going to come home without trying hard. I am going to have a detective's legal outfit, and I flatter myself I can get Northwick over the frontier somehow, and restore him to the arms of his anxious friends of the Ponkwasset Company. I don't know yet just how I shall do it, but I guess I shall do it. I shall have Mrs. Pinney's advice and counsel, and she's a team; but I ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... sensed the satire. "We'll meet and vote the money and then we can sit back and take comfort in thinkin' that there's just the right man at the head of town affairs to economize us back onto Easy Street." He was eager to flatter. "This town understands what kind of a man it wants to keep in office. I take back all I ever said ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... restraint and unprosperously. "If I am once set free," he says, "it is all prosperity; I care for no one; I can speak to all as being their equal and on a level with them. I go where I will, I come when and how I will." He is at last made free, and presently having nowhere to eat he seeks whom he may flatter, with whom he may sup. He then either submits to the basest and most infamous degradation, and if he can obtain admission to some great man's table, falls into a slavery much worse than the former; or perhaps, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... will do you good, and learn you a lesson. What, Georgy! you expected a wild, shy young girl to show you her heart without asking? you expected a spoiled, flattered child, whom you have done the most to spoil and flatter, not to tease and torment you when she had it in her power, and could you not bear it better from your little wayward favorite, who, you know, was always true-hearted after all? Pshaw, my dear boy, I needn't ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... - Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... was all over, and Theodora's pulses were calmer as she lay alone on her pillow, she had a sudden thrill of fear. But she put it aside—it was not her nature to think herself the object of passions. "I would be a very silly woman to flatter myself so," she said to herself, and then she ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... pilgrimages to sanctuaries, privation from theatres, balls, and parties, and other penalties of a similar nature, which form the criminal code of the confessional tribunal; and here it is easy to imagine what a latitude this faculty offers to gratify hatred, show revenge, flatter the powerful, and make things pleasant to those who have the power of conferring favours. The act concludes with the words of absolution, which is a formula consisting ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... "Listen! Don't flatter yourself any longer. Your cause is hopeless, as hopeless as the cause for which the stupid colonists are contending. You are now free to put an end to this strife. Go over to the enemy and persuade Washington and the leaders of the revolt ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... was received from aloft that all was clear ahead, and the explorers began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the polar sea. Several headlands were passed, and wide openings to the north and south. With a strong breeze from the eastward, running on until midnight, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... remain a director in the railroad, and also a candidate for the position of president. I shall make a contest at the next directors' meeting, and if I fail in my purpose there, I shall carry the fight before the public. I flatter myself that my reputation will count for something in my old home; you will not be able to carry matters with quite the same high hand in Mississippi as you are accustomed to in New York. Also, I ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... friend," he began, "I rather expected you, for I flatter myself that I understand enough of human nature to know that there are very few who will pass by an opportunity of learning something for the advancement of their own interests or the betterment of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... impossible to make any impression on that meat with aught less forcible than an axe. Thus, with reluctance, his portion, albeit paid for in advance, was relinquished, to be again paid for probably and again to flatter and deceive some other passing and hungry stranger. The remainder of the journey proved agreeable, thanks to the companionship of a young officer who, invalided home from the Lomboh war, was en route to Buitenzorg, where ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; Or just as gay at council, in a ring Of mimic statesmen and their merry King. No wit to flatter left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... to me for examinations, come prepared to know the truth. I am not here to flatter you, nor am I here to ridicule or abuse your weaknesses. I have for many years enjoyed a magnificent practice, gained by strict candor and honesty with my patrons, who have long since learned that I spare no pains to know the facts, and knowing them I fear no consequences in relating ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... had named I called on her, wearing my great coat, and with a sword for my only weapon. I found Nina with her sister, a woman of thirty-six or thereabouts, who was married to an Italian dancer, nicknamed Schizza, because he had a flatter nose ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... larger ones at any rate were partly open to the sky. But how the openings were arranged is almost entirely a matter of conjecture. The roof used was of a very flat pitch, one of height to four of base, later it was even flatter, and this dictated the slope of the pediments. This roof covered the whole of the building, that is, both the cella and the colonnades on either side of it, and as the Greeks were ignorant of the principle of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... flatter country behind them, and were riding among hills and limestone cliffs, Running Rabbit winding in and out with the certainty of one on familiar ground. The way was rough, and they slackened their pace, riding one behind ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... "You flatter me, madame," said the marquise, laughing. "I assure you that my wit is but a small matter, not to be mentioned by the side of genius; besides, I think I have ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... said that these things are in the past and the situation has now greatly changed. For the benefit of those who thus flatter themselves we introduce one more quotation. It is from "The Law of Psychic Phenomena," by T. J. Hudson (A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1894). The language is candid and conciliatory, and the author cannot be accused of any undue prejudice on the question of which ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... own danger, as well as to evince the injustice of the proceedings of the house of Austria:—Considering the critical situation which Europe has been in during the course of this year, in consequence of measures concerted to embroil all Europe, the king of Great Britain was willing to flatter himself that the courts of Vienna and Versailles, out of regard to the circumspect conduct observed by your high mightinesses, would have at least informed you of the changes they have thought proper to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... hope—that, after all, a result had perhaps been achieved, a result he himself was not properly aware of—a result of that incalculable spiritual kind that escapes the chains of definite description. For he recalled—yet mortified a little the memory should flatter—that his cousin had netted Beauty in his story, and that Mother had spoken of living with greater carelessness and peace, and that each had thanked him as though he were ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... answer was, with affecting simplicity, 'Oh, I have not read it. Papa says there's nothing so bad for young girls as reading bad poetry.' Yet he could not be said to be hostile to compliments in the abstract—nothing was so easy as to flatter him about a farm or a field, and his manner on such an occasion plainly showed that he was really open to such a compliment, and liked it. In fact, I can recall only one instance in which he was fairly cheated into pleasure by a tribute paid to his literary merit, and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "You are pleased to flatter," said Fairfeather; "but my husband has a brother there, and we left our moorland village to try our fortune also. An old woman enticed us with fair words and strong drink at the entrance of this forest, where we fell asleep ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... confusion of affairs, the perplexity that existed in the consciences of men was very noticeable: for some, endeavoring to flatter those who were in power, gave their approval to all that these had done, saying that they had not incurred any censure, and that the jurisdiction of the cabildo was valid; but others, with more pious judgment, regarded ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And John says, speaking of the Christian's hope, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure;" then the impure may flatter themselves, and presume upon the favor of God without "purifying their souls in obeying the truth," but they are without hope in the world. And again he says, "Little children let no man deceive you, he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... highness of women does not flatter the ladies. He recommended us never to listen to the advice of our wives; if we did, we should be lost. The women were very well to fetch water, pound ghaseb, and cook the supper, but for nothing else. He never, himself, paid any attention to what they said; ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... unusual sight in a free state having raised a murmur among the people, the soldier, disconcerted at the liberties which the citizens took, thus addressed them: "Having left you when nine years old, I have returned after a lapse of thirty-six years. I flatter myself I am well acquainted with the qualifications of a soldier, having been instructed in them from my childhood, sometimes by my own situation, and sometimes by that of my country. The privileges, the laws, and customs of the city and the forum you ought to teach me." Having thus ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... am gradually losing that instinctive horror and repulsion which were given me by nature, or instilled into me by the precepts and example of my aunt. Perhaps then I was too severe in my judgments, for I abhorred the sinner as well as the sin; now I flatter myself I am more charitable and considerate; but am I not becoming more indifferent and insensate too? Fool that I was, to dream that I had strength and purity enough to save myself and him! Such vain presumption ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... which will occupy me several years, and which yields me much satisfaction. 'Tis a History of Britain from the Union of the Crowns to the present time. I have already finished the reign of King James. My friends flatter me (by this I mean that they don't flatter me) that ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... to flatter myself with hopes, that, by collecting these papers, I am not preparing, for my future life, either shame or repentance. That all are happily imagined, or accurately polished, that the same sentiments have not sometimes recurred, or the same expressions been too frequently repeated, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... a queer accent of politeness in the voice of the speaker. He did not seem to have uttered these words in order to flatter his listener, but to express his real sentiment. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... enthusiastically. "I'll sit for you as a study in Disappointment, Flat-busted, or Return from the Races. The title doesn't matter, because I'll be such an excellent study for any sort of man whose hopes have all been knocked flatter than ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... flattery; he had been sickened with it, especially by the women of his congregation; he thought there was nothing of this nature against which he was not proof; yet he resented Esther Dudley's neglect to flatter him by coming to his sermon. Her absence was a hint that at least one of his congregation did not care to hear ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... reflections, to say something on the historical part. I shall therefore, Sir, open myself fully on that important and delicate subject: not for the sake of telling you a long story, (which, I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not particularly fond of,) but for the sake of the weighty instruction that, I flatter myself, will necessarily result from it. It shall not be longer, if I can help it, than so serious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with scorn; "pah! There may have been a short space of time during which the fellow's long hair and windy rhetoric impressed her. But I flatter myself I've put my spoke in Mr. Jocelyn's wheel. Why, damme, sir, she's consented to stand for Grand Dame of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League next year. What's Jocelyn to say to that, ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... chivalry. I've heard That voice cry death to courtiers. 'Tis God's voice. Take you the word of one who has occupied His business in great waters. There's no room, Meaning, or reason, office, or place, or name For courtiers on the sea. Does the sea flatter? You cannot bribe it, torture it, or tame it! Its laws are those of the Juggernaut universe, Remorseless—listen to that!"—a mighty wave Broke thundering down the coast; "your hands are white, Your rapier jewelled, can you grapple that? What part have ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... autumnal flowers—the groundsel, at least—did not sometimes persist in blossoming far into the winter! A day or two after this, I saw a mullein stalk still presenting arms, as it were (the mullein, always looks the soldier to me), with one bright flower. If I had found that in St. Augustine, I flatter myself I should have ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... tongue— a fellow whom I consider beneath all men of the very lowest grade: for when you can bring yourself to flatter that fellow (pointing at THRASO), I do believe you could pick your victuals out of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... and independence—and the toughness (be it said) of the clam, to delicate morsels, so crowded and cemented in communities together, that they form bridges between severed rocks and shelves and cornices broad and massive; oysters flatter than plates, oysters tubular as service gas-pipes; the gold-lipped mother of pearl, the black-lipped mother of pearl, the cockscomb, the coral rock oyster, the small but sweet rock oyster, two varieties of the common rock oyster, besides the trap-door, the hammer, and another ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... in them which we kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor, but this witchcraft of folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with them that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education, and as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I pray, all this grace? Whence but ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... with the worst, the most sudden, the most painful, the most mortal, and the most irremediable of all diseases; I have already had the trial of five or six very long and very painful fits; and yet I either flatter myself, or there is even in this state what is very well to be endured by a man who has his soul free from the fear of death, and of the menaces, conclusions, and consequences which physic is ever thundering in our ears; but the effect even of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had the whole army to pick from, we couldn't've got in with a better lot of boys and officers. Every one of them's true blue, and a MAN all the way through. It's the best regiment in the army, and our company's the best company in the regiment, and I flatter myself the company hasn't got two other as good men as ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... time we'll probably cruise and camp together, and then we all can enjoy some of his wonderful cooking," Nick hastened to add, feeling that it might pay to flatter his old enemy a little, if he expected to profit by it ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... Prussia] arrived at St. Petersburg, December 9, 1770; and it seems now to be certain that the first open proposal of a dismemberment of Poland arose in his conversations with the Empress.... Catherine said to the Prince, 'I will frighten Turkey and flatter England. It is your business to gain Austria, that she may lull France to sleep;' and she became at length so eager, that ... she dipt her finger into ink, and drew with it the lines of partition on a map of Poland which lay before them."—Edinburgh Review, November, 1822 (art. x. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... because he is conscious they are really true; he will seldom trouble himself to inquire into the veracity of the tale bearer, lest he should be reduced to the necessity of defending himself on his weakest side. For a similar reason, when Miss Abigail had a mind to flatter any person (which she frequently would, to answer the purposes of her malice) she always commended him for those particular good qualities, or accomplishments which she knew he most valued himself for, or chiefly ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... you flatter yourselves. I caught one of your stool-pigeons up the gulch yesterday, and more than ten days ago Moore and Edson made a trip into my tunnel while I happened to be away; they forgot to hide their trail. I knew what you were up to, and you can all of ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... listen! Another time you shall hear more.— Yes, I tell you, as good as banished these eleven months. But the old man already begins to lament the hasty step, which, however, I flatter myself (with a smile) is not entirely his own. Amelia, too, is incessantly pursuing him with her tears and reproaches. Presently he will be having him searched for in every quarter of the world; and if he finds him—then it's all over with you, Hermann. You may ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... greeted Flipper, that can easily be accounted for. Nothing is more likely than that at West Point there should have been gathered together a lot of old-time South-haters, who were ready to applaud, not so much to flatter Flipper as to show that they were happy over what they felt to be a still further humiliation of the South. That is all there is ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... There is no real friendship in that. I want to know the true candid opinion of a man who has travelled about the world, and has been at the diamond-fields. It isn't everybody who has been at the diamond-fields," continued he, thinking that he might thereby flatter his friend. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... it, then," said Mrs. MacDonald in an iron voice. "The time had to come some day. Let it be to-day, though for your father's sake I would have spared you the knowledge until you reached your twenty-first year. Do not flatter yourself that your threat 'not to move' has the smallest effect on me. It has none. If I chose, I could force you to obey me this instant, and put those reminders of sin out of my sight. But if you have any sense of shame in you, any affection for your father's memory, it will be the severest ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hands to torture me, The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther off from thee. I tell the day, to please him thou art bright, And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... little rough, and that the members were a little ashamed of it; for when Mark Lemon introduced there Mr. Catling, the editor of "Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper," he picturesquely warned his guest to be prepared for "an awful set of blackguards." On the night in question, however, the fun was flatter, and Kenny Meadows, the Father of the Feast, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... to think we need not be young to prefer to hear the praise of others rather than our own. It is not embarrassing in the first place, as all praise of ourselves must be. I doubt if any man or woman can flatter so discreetly as not to make us uncomfortable. Besides, if our own performances be lauded, we are uneasy as to whether the honour is deserved. An artist has usually his own doubts about his own doings, or rather he has his own certainties. About our friends' work we need have ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... characters so widely different that "they never agreed on any one thing." They were sir Philip Modelove, an old beau; Mr. Periwinkle, a silly virtuoso; Mr. Tradelove, a broker on 'Change; and Mr. Obadiah Prim, a hypocritical quaker. Colonel Feignwell contrived to flatter all the guardians to the top of their bent, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... offices, and at the same time escape many of the worst penalties which would naturally follow from our neglect. For others, more generous and noble than we, will step in and take upon themselves our share of the public burdens in addition to their own. We may flatter ourselves that we have done a very shrewd thing in contriving to reap the benefits without bearing the burdens of society. There is, as we shall see, a penalty for negligence of social duty, and that too most sure and ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... indignant rejoinder. "Did I not perceive you loitering more than once to-night,—though each time I drew near, hopeful of a word of greeting, it was to behold you disappear as if by magic? Do I flatter you by thus showing my interest? Yet 't was only that I might have explanation, that I sought you thus. Come, confess that you feared my just resentment for going forth on so perilous a trip without ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Gate and ask her to go with us down to London. And Clyde, have my barge at the Bowling Green stairs at one o'clock so that we may take our leisure going down the river and still reach the law courts on time. Our punctuality will flatter the city folk." ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... is used for nice. For instance: at a rustic dance in that state a Kentuckian said to an acquaintance of mine, in reply to his asking the name of a very fine girl, "That's my sister, stranger; and I flatter myself that she shows the nastiest ankle in all Kentuck"—Unde derivatur, from the constant rifle-practice in that state, a good shot or a pretty shot is termed also a nasty shot, because it would make a nasty wound: ergo, a nice or pretty ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... never look upon a missal or upon a bit of antique illumination that I do not invest that object with a certain poetic romance, and I picture to myself long lines of monkish men bending over their tasks, and applying themselves with pious enthusiasm thereto. We should not flatter ourselves that the enjoyment of the delights of bibliomania was reserved to one time and generation; a greater than any of us lived many centuries ago, and went his bibliomaniacal way, gathering together treasures from every quarter, and diffusing every where a veneration and love ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... comes to serious business. Mr. Berrington, all I have just told you is absolute truth. I have found it all out within the last eleven hours. More than that, I am myself now one of the gang, and if I 'turn traitor' I shall be done to death by them just as certainly as I am sitting here. I flatter myself that I have arranged it all rather cleverly—I have succeeded in placing in confinement that man who shadowed you last night, without any member of the gang's knowing anything about his arrest or in the least suspecting it, and I have literally stepped into his shoes, for these clothes ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... favour. His indignation, however, was very keen when he was created only a Viscount. He wrote to Strafford at Utrecht, that his promotion had been a mortification to him. "In the House of Commons," he said, "I may say that I was at the head of business. ... There was, therefore, nothing to flatter my ambition in removing me from thence, but giving me the title which had been many years in my family, and which reverted to the Crown about a year ago, by the death of the last of the elder house. ... I own to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... flatter myself, seems so only because I have not yet said it. That part of our Christmas-day which is made to be in any degree sacred is by no means ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... to congratulate Your Honour on your appointment by His Majesty to the chief command of this Province and in your safe arrival therein. Although remote from the Capital, and perhaps last in our addresses, yet we flatter ourselves not the least sincere in assuring Your Honour of the happiness we feel in finding ourselves under ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many inconveniences; that it should generate such disorders, as may force us to have recourse to some labor, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that a lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance." This, however, was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation from truth: had his hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, he might have been forgiven, though not praised; for who forbears to flatter an author or ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... you know yet,' he went on after a slight pause, 'what it is to love anybody very dearly. I remember you told Gyda one day that you had never loved any one so since your mother. Certainly I have never had a right to flatter myself that I had been able to teach you what it means. If I ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of God's goodness, and never of His severity. Ready enough to talk of Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also weak. We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be—Lord of heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea 1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... the unruly impulses of the multitude. His manner was tranquil, with hardly any change of feature; his garments were undisturbed by any oratorical gesticulations, and his voice was equable and sustained. He never condescended to flatter the people, and his dignity never stooped to merriment. Although there was more of reasoning than imagination in his speeches, he gave a vivid and impressive coloring to his language by the use of striking metaphors and comparisons, as ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... yet though wiser, mightier, than myself, You shall not find in her a listener So still, so answerable to your mood. And, I will say it, you'll not find in her One who has dived so deep into your soul, Who sees—I cannot flatter—sees that greatness Which she too long keeps under: were I you I would be Caesar, spite of twenty mothers, And seem the mighty poet that I am. ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... "I told you I would bring him to his senses. You saw how soon he caved in. It is not a question of my health at all; you may bet your bottom dollar I have an enemy, but I flatter ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... a Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, who bore him illegitimate children—didn't she? Well, such a magistrate is no saint; he is a man like any other; he can be won over; he must give a hold somewhere; you must discover the weak spot and flatter him; ask his advice, point out the dangers of attending the case; in short, try to get him into the same boat, and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Sparrow," cried she. "I have been looking forward with much pleasure to seeing you." And then she tried to flatter it with soft, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... you flatter yourself. You have lied over the reason. Pip, remember that I know you as you don't know yourself. You have been everything to me, though you are—(Fan-guard.) Oh, what a contemptible Thing it is! And so you are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... 'an uncouth bully who bellowed like a mad bull.' In this respect it is my impression that the ex-Empress indorses his state of mind. What he likes she will place in the superlative; what he merely hates, she elevates to positive abhorrence. In this way she seems to flatter his decisions, which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her ascendency over his apparently veering mind. I can notice this in so many little things: She oozes delicate flattery and he likes it; she plays ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... disappear never are anywhere. But I do flatter myself that if he had held his ground and kept his property the result ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... up resolutely for my sex, "a man's ideas on woman's matters may be worth some attention. I flatter myself that an intelligent, educated man doesn't think upon and observe with interest any particular subject for years of his life without gaining some ideas respecting it that are good for something; at all events, I have written another article for the 'Atlantic,' which I ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... families, living in deserts, with no other occupation than the mere animal search for food, may still be seen in that ancient quarter of the globe; but in America such things are new and strange, unknown and unsuspected, and discredited when related. But I flatter myself that what is discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient to excite it, and that subsequent explorations will complete what ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... others wiser; and the folly of this maxim of the French appears plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers often find your raw men prove too hard for them, of which I will not say much, lest you may think I flatter the English. Every day's experience shows that the mechanics in the towns or the clowns in the country are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they are not disabled by some misfortune in their body or dispirited by extreme want; so that you need not fear that those well- ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... fraternal kiss." "Good friend," the cock replied, "upon my word, A better thing I never heard; And doubly I rejoice To hear it from your voice; And, really there must be something in it, For yonder come two greyhounds, which I flatter Myself are couriers on this very matter. They come so fast, they'll be here in a minute. I'll down, and all of us will seal the blessing With general kissing and caressing." "Adieu," said fox; "my errand's pressing; I'll hurry ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... "It is, I flatter myself. I've long had the idea, but I should never have worked it out and found the value of it but for Grey. I invented it to coach him in his history. You see we are in the Grecian corner. Over there is the Roman. You'll find Livy and Tacitus worked out there, just as Herodotus and Thucydides ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day; yet I flatter myself that I am no whit less tall or well-looking than she is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... respect, I think we can challenge comparison with any industry in the state; but I am the first to admit that there may be another side, a side that it takes a woman—a mother—to see. For instance," he threw in jocosely, "I flatter myself that I know how to order a good dinner; but I always leave the flowers to my wife. And if you'll permit me to say so," he went on, encouraged by the felicity of his image, "I believe it will produce a most pleasing effect—not only on the operatives themselves, but on the whole of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... impossible for any one to flatter himself that the facts of his life were hidden. This was strangely true. No one ever looked at anybody in the streets: the doors and shutters of the houses were closed. But there were mirrors fastened in the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... of the opponents, too, is colder and flatter than it has ever been; rumours—I know not how true—of the Duke of Rutland hesitating on the question, and daily talk of other unexpected votes. Perhaps these rumours are exaggerated; but still they add to the general tide ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... all a joodge of pheesogs, and a flatter meself a am," said a raw-boned Scotch Captain of Grenadiers, measuring six feet two in his stockings, "yon geerl has a bit of the deevil in her ee, therefor, me lads, tak heed that nane o' ye lose yer ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove unsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they will ultimately meet a return, not of favors, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Brentwood's about three o'clock in the afternoon. I flatter myself that I made a very successful approach, and created rather a sensation among the fourteen or fifteen people who were sitting in the verandah. They took me for a distinguished stranger. But when they saw who it was they all began ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... I recollect is that the lady, according to his account, was certainly a little touched; for she used to accept all the music that he copied for her harp, and all the patterns that he drew for her dresses; and he began to flatter himself, after a long course of delicate attentions, that he was gradually fanning up a gentle flame in her heart, when she suddenly accepted the hand of a rich, boisterous, fox-hunting baronet, without either music or sentiment, who carried her by ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... own height increased my notion of things near at hand became equally expanded. But the hills, mark you, were out of my reach: I could not apply myself to them: I had an actual, instead of a proportional eidolon of their magnitude; so that, of course (my eye being larger and flatter nowadays, and so the image presented to me then being in sober earnest smaller than the image presented to me now), I found the hills nearly as much too great as I had found the other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this subject, and it was not till some time afterwards that the conversation was renewed, when D'Elsac said, "Then I must take Lisette, I suppose, with me to Grenoble, for when you flatter her she is good tempered, and I own I am afraid ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... danced about and threw himself into the wildest contortions, as was his manner when excessively pleased. He wrote shortly afterwards to Darwin as follows:—"I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral-reefs, but of the tops of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed till you are growing bald like me, with hard work and vexation at the incredulity of the world." On May 24th, 1837, Lyell wrote to Sir John Herschel as follows:—"I am very full of Darwin's new theory of coral-islands, and have urged ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... rotten constitution?" Mr. Price responded. "Will it prevent a drunkard's children from being weakly vicious? or the daughters of a licentious man from being foredoomed to destruction by an inherited appetite for the vices which you seem to flatter yourself end in effect when they are repented of? You do not take into consideration the fact that the once vicious man becomes the father of vicious children and the grandfather of criminals. You persuade women to marry these men. The arrangement is perfect. Man's safety, and man's pleasure; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... say that he met me in a very hostile spirit. I was at great pains to be affable, to treat him with all the courtly consideration I have at command, and I flatter myself that in the matter of tact and good-breeding I do not yield to princes of the blood royal. But my civility was quite thrown away. The man was an absolute brute, abrupt, overbearing, rude. Nothing would conciliate him. I offered him a cigar (a Borneo of the best brand, at ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... hung the brass keys, and opened the door a-crack. He saw the hide of the crocodile leaning against it, and the overturned cups. "Just as that boy Hubert packed them," he thought to himself in satisfaction; "no one has been prying here. I flatter myself upon a skilful morning's work. I have knocked the legend out of the Baron's head. He'll see to it the girl keeps away. And as for yon impudent witling in the cage, we shall transport him beyond the seas, if convenient; if not, a knife in his gullet will make him forget the Dragon of ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... but he had fallen to hauling the sheet aft and making the sail stand flatter, and did not answer her. Indeed, he seemed much more taken up with Jack than with her, and, above all, entirely absorbed in the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... me in on my way to school, to warm my hands, when they did not need it, and inquire after the health of my mother and grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles, and admire my clothes, and wish her little Jane was old enough to run to school with me, and flatter me on the beauty of my hair and eyes and complexion, in such a way that very few children would have been so stupid as not to have seen through it. Could you not have said something to discourage the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... rue the day I fancied first the womenkind; For aye sinsyne I ne'er can hae Ae quiet thought or peace o' mind! They hae plagued my heart, an' pleased my e'e, An' teased an' flatter'd me at will, But aye, for a' their witchery, The pawky things I lo'e them still. O, the women folk! O, the women folk! But they hae been the wreck o' me; O, weary fa' the women folk, For they winna ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... befits the monumental style. Look grave as we will, there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to no purpose that our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter. Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... Paul and supposed him to be very clever, but they had never taken him seriously. "Now, at last," they said, "he has done something like other people. He is coming out." Experienced matrons were pleased to flatter him on his choice of a bride. The daughters studied Moya, and decided that she was "different," but "all right." She had a careless distinction of her own. Some of her "things" were surprisingly lovely—probably heirlooms; and army women are so ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... "Yes, now! I flatter myself I did fairly well with it. Did you see—well, look at that!" He held up the weapon in question, still tightly clutched, and joined in the laugh ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... received from Scipio various honourable distinctions; and on one occasion, after supper, when the conversation was about generals, and one of the company, either because he really felt a difficulty or merely wished to flatter Scipio, asked him where the Roman people would find such another leader and protector when he was gone, Scipio with his hand gently touched the shoulder of Marius, who was reclining next to him, and said, "Perhaps here." So full of promise was the youth of Marius, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and even of wisdom; ideas ripen by the mere conjunction of forces and the course of the seasons. And yet has routine altogether ceased? Is prejudice, that monster with a thousand forms which has the quality of never recognizing its own visage, as far removed as we flatter ourselves? Is progress, true progress, as entirely the order of the day as it is believed to be? How many steps are there still to take,—steps which I am persuaded never will be taken save by the impulsion and at the signal of a firm and vigorous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... to flatter him as you doe. Be but yourself againe and then consider What alteration in the State can be By which you shall not loose. Should you bring in (As heaven avert the purpose and the thought Of such a mischief) the old ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... "I flatter myself, no man is less a coxcomb with regard to women than I am," Lord Mowbray modestly began; "but if I were inclined to boast, I believe it is pretty generally allowed in town, by all who know any thing of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... stranger than in my proper person; for in the latter case, I deemed it probable that your delicacy and kindness might tempt you to conceal whatever was calculated to wound my feelings, and to exaggerate anything that might tend to flatter or to soothe them. Thank Heaven, I now learn that I have a right to the name my boyhood bore, and that my birth is not branded with the foulest of private crimes, and that in death my father's heart yearned ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... done or decided on the first day, October 11, 1468. On the second a council was held which sat late into the night. A minority of the council, the enemies of Louis, or those who were only anxious to flatter the passions of their master, advised him to use to the full the opportunity which chance and the foolhardiness and duplicity of his adversary had placed in his hands. They urged him to keep the King in secure confinement after providing for the virtual partition of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... favours I had bestowed upon you. In my just indignation I loaded him with the most bitter insults, I called him a cowardly spy and slanderer, for he could not have seen anything but childish playfulness, and I declared to him that he need not flatter himself that any threat would compel me to give the slightest compliance to his wishes. He then begged and begged my pardon a thousand times, and went on assuring me that I must lay to my rigour the odium of the step he had taken, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you through the Forum—you with your drawn sword, and him escaping up the stairs of the bookseller's shop?[206] * * * It was by my advice that Caesar was killed! I fear, O conscript fathers, lest I should seem to have employed some false witness to flatter me with praises which do not belong to me. Who has ever heard me mentioned as having been conversant with that glorious affair? Among those who did do the deed, whose name has been hidden—or, indeed, is not most widely known? Some had been inclined to boast that they ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... is taught to any by that yearly show of what we flatter ourselves by calling Art? Eight hundred and fifteen new paintings this year, shown by no less than two hundred and eighty-one painters. When you have gone patiently through and looked at every picture, see if you don't wish the critics had eyes, and a little common ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... subsisted between us in early life, and you malignantly date its "dissolution" at the time of my sudden accession of fortune as owing thereto. If I were to admit, that you could properly date this breach from the moment you mention, I flatter myself, you would find it very difficult to persuade those who know me, to believe that to be the true cause. But this was really not the fact. The unworthy measures you took to evade the payment, (till compelled by a judgment of the court,) of Mr. Porter's order on you in favor of my brother and ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... perhaps rather unenterprising children, looking on as a detached outsider, seeing nothing of the teeming activities of the quick, restless little brain, and the persistent, though faulty reasoning—it is natural for her to blame another's work, and to flatter herself that her own routine would have avoided all these troublesome complications. The mother of the nervous child may often rightly take comfort in the thought that her child is worth the extra trouble ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... me hard with doings which not will, But misery, hath wrested from me. Where 470 Easily canst thou find one miserable, And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, If it may stand him more in stead to lie, Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord; From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure Cheek or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, Smooth on ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... have engaged in vast designs could ever promise themselves repose, William, after so many victories, and so many political regulations to secure the fruit of them, might now flatter himself with some hope of quiet. But disturbances were preparing for his old age from a new quarter, from whence they were less expected and less tolerable,—from the Normans, his companions in victory, and from his family, which he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is, peepin' off th' side, An' aw see 'at shoo's all on a grin; To chait her aw've monny a time tried, But I think it's nah time to give in, A chap may be deep as a well, But a woman's his maister when done; He may chuckle and flatter hissel, But he'll wakken to find at shoo's won. It's a rayther unpleasant affair, Yet it's better it's happened noa daat; Aw'st be fain to come in for a share O' that paand at th' wife ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... I'll stand on my own bottom. And what's more, Peter, I tell you once for all"—his voice was low and menacing—"if you try any anonymous deus ex machina tricks on me in some sly, roundabout fashion, don't you flatter yourself I shan't recognise your hand. I shall, and, by God, it shall never grasp ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... aspiration, the worse tragedy of his dumb questioning? Granting the existence of God, a house dedicated to Him naturally follows. He is all-important; it is fit that man should take some notice of Him. But why praise and flatter Him for His unspeakable cruelties? Why forget so supinely His failures to remedy the easily remediable? Why, indeed, devote the churches exclusively to worship? Why not give them over, now and then, to justifiable ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... they will be in the long run under assemblies that are bound by the necessity of feeding one part of the community at the grievous charge of other parts, as necessitous as those who are so fed; that are obliged to flatter those who have their lives at their disposal by tolerating acts of doubtful influence on commerce and agriculture, and for the sake of precarious relief to sow the seeds of lasting want; that will be driven to be the instruments of the violence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... more money? Well, it's not to be despised, but I've met men who didn't attach too much importance to it. They had the sense to see there were other things of greater value, and while I don't often flatter people, you're not poor in this respect. But if you liked a man who was far from rich, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... beauties for you?" inquired Ben, gathering up the moist leaves, and laying them over the trout again, with pleasant alacrity; "the new cook mayn't know how to manage 'em; I don't want to flatter that ere conceited feller—but Ben Benson does know how to cook a trout arter ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... the centre of a sphere which we allow to expand uniformly on all sides. Whilst the inner wall of this sphere withdraws from us into ever greater distances, it grows flatter and flatter until, on reaching infinite distance, it turns into a plane. We thus find ourselves surrounded everywhere by a surface which, in the strict mathematical sense, is a plane, and is yet one and the same surface on all sides. This leads us to the conception of the plane ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... that his Majesty, according to his royal wisdom and clemency towards the condition of this country, would listen only to My Lords the States or their ministers, and not to his own or other passionate persons who, through misunderstanding or malice, furnish him with information and so frequently flatter him. I have tried these twenty years to deserve his Majesty's confidence, and have many letters from him reaching through twelve or fifteen years, in which he does me honour and promises his royal favour. I am the more chagrined that through false ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... still on the latch of the door; to open it, to dart inside, and to shoot the bolt were the work of a second. Trembling he heard Mr. Dunborough come up and slash the door with his whip, and then, contented with this demonstration, pass on, after shouting through the panels that the tutor need not flatter himself—he ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... have thus laid before his Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate. Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will, therefore, say, that Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people. Open your breast, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... "Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you don't answer my question—what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accident that Defoe drifted into this equivocal position. His first writings under the new reign were in staunch consistency with what he had written before. He did not try to flatter the Queen as many others did by slighting her predecessors; on the contrary, he wrote a poem called The Mock Mourners, in which he extolled "the glorious memory"—a phrase which he did much to bring into use—and charged those who spoke ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... 'Twas not altogether a breakdown, I hope? You must allow for some nervousness—did you detect it? No? Well, I don't mind owning to you I was nervous as a cat: but there, if you didn't detect it I shall flatter myself I did passably." He laughed, evidently on the best terms with himself. His breath smelt of beer. "The Rector is with ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... anti-social maxims put forth by daring writers; why, then, this disapproval which, in France, attaches to all social truths when boldly proclaimed? This question will explain, in itself alone, historical errors. Apply the answer to the destructive doctrines which flatter popular passions, and to the conservative doctrines which repress the mad efforts of the people, and you will find the reason of the unpopularity and also the popularity of certain personages. Laubardemont and Laffemas were, like some men of to-day, devoted to the defence ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame; she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make"; and, with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... certain. At moments she fancied so; she saw her position as wholly reasonable, void of anxiety; she was about to marry the man she liked and respected—safest of all forms of marriage. But there came troublesome moods of misgiving. It did not flatter her self-esteem to think of herself as excluded from the number of those who are capable of love; even in Helen Borisoff's view, the elect, the fortunate. Of love, she had thought more in this last week or two than ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could as soon have insulted the memory of ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... to flatter myself she was getting strength. But the change to frost has told upon her; she suffers more of late. Still her illness has none of the fearful rapid symptoms which appalled in Emily's case. Could she only get over the spring, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... herself with him in a book! The likeness of the hero to Percy Dacier once established became striking to glaringness—a proof of her ability, and more of her audacity; still more of her intention to flatter him up to his perdition. By the things written of him, one would imagine the conversations going on behind the scenes. She had the wiles of a Cleopatra, not without some of the Nilene's experiences. A youthful Antony Dacier would be little likely to escape her toils. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... type seldom do—but does own a limousine and consequently employs a chauffeur. To meet and make this chauffeur mine took me just two days. I don't know how I did it. I never know how I do it," he added with a sheepish smile as Mr. Gryce gave utterance to his old-fashioned "Umph!" "I don't flatter and I don't bring out my pocketbook or offer drinks or even cigars, but I get 'em, as you know, and get 'em strong, perhaps because I don't ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... the hotel where I boarded. Neither of them could read very easily, on account of having what I used to call "slivers in their eyes," caused by excessive drinking. They enjoyed politics, however, and used to ask me to read aloud to them. In order to flatter me and keep me interested in the reading, every time I would finish an article the old lawyer would jump up and down in his ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... the exact order of events. It threw a scare into the girls to-night that they couldn't fly so well. But in an hour's time, they'll be sore because they didn't put up a good exhibition. Now, if I know anything at all about women—and maybe I flatter myself, but I think I know a lot—they'll be back the first thing to-morrow to prove to us that their bad flying was not our effect on them but ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... court has no final jurisdiction. I call all present to witness this. If my warning is neglected here, it will be felt in a higher quarter. Recollect, monsieur, that I shall soon be able to report to his majesty himself. I flatter myself that my influence at court just now is not inferior to that of the Count ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... Scouts will find that weather-signs among the high mountains are very different from those of the low or the flatter country. The easiest sign of storm is the night-caps. For when in the morning the mountains still have their night-caps on, and the clouds rest like shattered fog in the draws and hollows, the day will surely have rain, by noon. But ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... Heartily did I applaud the language of M. de Soubise: I did not suspect that the dear prince had another motive behind. At the end of the interview he said, "Madame, you would not have been as you now are had you been more conciliatory towards me. I know the king, and know how to manage him. I flatter myself that you would have been now presented had you deigned to hear my advice." "Did I reject it? Was I wrong in declining to have mademoiselle Guimard as ambassadress? Were you assured of her silence? Might she not have compromised ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... am fool enough to flatter myself with any false hopes. No: it was humanity; it was too deep a sense of a slight benefit received; it was totally distinct from love.—Oh no! Love, added to such strong, such acute sensations, surely, Oliver, it would ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... I flatter myself that the exhibition thus made of the condition of the public administration will serve to convince you that every proper attention has been paid to the interests of the country by those who have been called to the heads ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... "Don't flatter yourself," replied Craig. "He wanted me, too. There wasn't any light in the laboratory last night. There was a light in our apartment. What more natural than to think that we were both there? You were caught in the trap intended for ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... she could not deceive him, even though those beautiful eyes were fixed upon her in earnest expectation. As we have said, she was very truthful, so answered, "I cannot flatter you so much, Everard; it afforded me no comfort whatever. Indeed I never thought of it, except when some kind attention on your part reminded me of the fact, and then the ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... him steeped in Byronic gloom. He even wanted at first to keep entirely on the Bayswater side of the Park, though I succeeded in arguing him out of such weakness. 'Be a horse!' I said. 'Show her you don't care. You only flatter her by betraying ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... should give way to philosophy, and we began to calculate the probability of the period when this should be, and which of the present company should live to see it. The oldest complained that they could hardly flatter themselves with the hope; the younger rejoiced that they might entertain this very probable expectation; and they congratulated the Academy especially for having prepared this great work, and for having been the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... to Sir James Stewart Denham, which would vacate his lieutenant-colonelcy for Nugent. A third was also mentioned by the King, namely, the inducing Taylor, by the offer of the Lieutenant-Governorship of Cowes, to exchange with Nugent. Any one of these would, I flatter myself, answer your purpose; because they would show the King's disposition to attend to your recommendation, and that having been hampered by an actual engagement to Taylor, he is now ready to accommodate his own patronage in such a way as may, at the same ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... they are not embodied I will most certainly apply to you, and you may say when you recommend me that, being well grounded in Arabic, and having some talent for languages, I might be an acquisition to a corps in one of our Eastern colonies. I flatter myself that I could do a great deal in the East provided I could once get there, either in a civil or military capacity. There is much talk at present about translating European books into the two great languages, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... and it is not clear to me that he was really the highest seasoner.' Ib. p. 54. From the Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary lady'—no doubt Hannah More—'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' Ante, iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... said impatiently, "though you will never look pretty nor lady-like in anything. So don't flatter yourself, nor aspire to imitate others who can. I suppose now, Miss Graystone," turning to Clemence, "you think I don't want my wife to dress as well as others on account of the expense; but, although I commenced ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock |
