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Meanly   Listen
adverb
Meanly  adv.  Moderately. (Obs.) "A man meanly learned himself, but not meanly affectioned to set forward learning in others."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Meanly" Quotes from Famous Books



... a great problem, it is like a precious stone which thousands stumble over before one finally picks it up. Wagner asked himself the meaning of the fact that an art such as music should have become so very important a feature of the lives of modern men. It is not necessary to think meanly of life in order to suspect a riddle behind this question. On the contrary, when all the great forces of existence are duly considered, and struggling life is regarded as striving mightily after conscious freedom and independence of thought, only then does music seem to be a riddle in this ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... or any one else, so long as it were made impossible for her to bruise and exhaust her young bloom amid such scenes—such gross physical abominations. Amazing!—how meanly, passionately timorous the man of Raeburn's type can be for the woman! He himself may be morally "ever a fighter," and feel the glow, the stern joy of the fight. But she!—let her leave the human brute and his unsavoury struggle alone! It cannot be borne—it ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Here they had little success, only the family and relatives of Anjiro accepting the new faith, and Xavier set out on a tour through the land, his goal being Kioto, the mikado's capital. Landing at Amanguchi, he presented himself before the people barefooted and meanly dressed, the result of his confessed poverty being that, instead of listening to his words, the populace hooted and stoned him and his followers. At Kioto he was little ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Which ever have held as granted that the track Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine— Whether in peace or strenuous invasion— Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen, And meet us in our front. But he must wind And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us Thiefwise, by out back door! Nevertheless, If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne, As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there, It destines Bonaparte to pack him back Across the Rhine again. We've but to ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... this crime degrades a man when it degrades the very animals; Look at a dog who has stolen. Before this, when he met his master or any human friend he used to run up to greet them with wagging tail and sparkling eye. Now see him. At sight of any man he crawls meanly away, with cowering figure and eye askant, the living image of the filthy sin he has committed. He feels he has no longer a right to greet a man, for he is ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the bombast original, and you will be surprised that I have made so much of it. I have finished my song to "Rothemurche's rant," and you have Clarke to consult as to the set ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... from a flaccidity which meanly envied the activities and enthusiasms of other men. As a writer he was superficial; he had not the requisite energy for forming a clear or profound judgment on any question of difficulty; Johnson's comment, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... would satisfy Vitellius. He delighted in and commended the name and the life and all the practices of its former owner, yet he found fault with the structure itself, saying that it had been badly built and was scantily and meanly equipped. When he fell ill one time he looked about for a room to afford him an abode; so little did even Nero's surroundings satisfy him. His wife Galeria ridiculed the small amount of decoration found in the royal apartments. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... renewed. According to parliamentary usage, the report of the address was brought up, and Pulteney seized the opportunity to make another vehement attack on the convention and the ministers. He accused the Prime-minister of meanly stooping to the dictates of a haughty, insolent Court, and of bartering away the lives and liberties of Englishmen for "a sneaking, temporary, disgraceful expedient." But the interest of the day ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... received with the most marked and formal coldness, and his gift, which could not be declined, consigned almost without eliciting a glance of approbation, to the hand of a freedman; while, the next moment, as an old white-headed countryman, plainly and almost meanly clad, although with scrupulous cleanliness, approached his presence, the consul rose to meet him; and advancing a step or two took him affectionately by the hand, and asked after his family by name, and listened ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France. The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by their young chief, Porfirio ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... day in Scotland (besides a great many poor families very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others, who, by living on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country. And though ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... it; seemingly devoid of pain, 235 Or care, that what so tenderly he pressed Was a dependant on [13] the obdurate heart Of one who came to disunite their lives For ever—sad alternative! preferred, By the unbending Parents of the Maid, 240 To secret 'spousals meanly disavowed. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... as an old pair of stockings, can't be surely speaking the truth." And thus gradually his first impression against Caroline wore away, and pity took possession of his soul, pity for the meek little girl, who, though trampled upon, was now springing up to womanhood; and though pale, freckled, thin, meanly dressed, had a certain charm about her which some people preferred to the cheap splendours and rude red and white of the Misses McCarty, and which was calculated to touch the heart of anyone ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed. This could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... not but, in common courtesy, offer the shelter of his roof for the rest of the day and for the night. But a flush of less soft expression, a look much more habitual to his features, resumed predominance when he mentioned how meanly he was provided for the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... before, even so, it can be said again: It is a paramount and overriding responsibility of every officer to take care of his men before caring for himself. From the frequent and gross violation of this principle by badly informed or meanly selfish individuals comes more embarrassment to officer-man relationships than perhaps from all other causes put together. It is a cardinal principle! Yet many junior officers do not seem to understand that steadfast fidelity to it is required, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... party been suffering; and what would have become of the church of England, what of the Protestant religion, what of christianity in general, had the apostles and primitive martyrs, and later champions for truth, meanly abandoned it like Crashaw, because the hand of power was lifted up against it. It is an old observation, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; but Crashaw took care that the church mould reap no benefit by his perseverance. Before ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... difficult to say whether he was more absurd than cruel or more cruel than absurd. Mrs Fyne, with the fine ear of a woman, seemed to detect a jeering intention in his meanly unctuous tone, something more vile than mere cruelty. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and saw the girl raise her two hands to her head, then let them fall again on her lap. Fyne in front of the fire was like the victim of an unholy spell—bereft of motion ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... personal filth. But this is inconsistent with the daily practice of bathing mentioned, Sec. 22. It doubtless refers to the dress, as Gr. and K. understand it: nudi ac sordidipoorly and meanly clad. So ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... and weeping and groaning and complaining of his lot answered, "Ho thou! methinks thou art mad; for this is not the way of a man of sense. How should a dog of mine make generous gift to thee of a dish of gold and I meanly take back the price of what a dog gave? This were indeed a strange thing! Were I in extremest unease and misery, by Allah, I would not accept of thee aught; no, not the worth of a nail-paring! So return whence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... counties flout counties; obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves—the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, Mieux vaut bon repas que bel habit; "Better a good dinner than a fine ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... antiquity represented the classic spirit, and have never been equalled since, because they were the legitimate product of that classic spirit. You cannot have another Phidias till man again believes in Jupiter. The Gothic architecture, how meanly is it imitated now! What cathedrals built in this century rival those of Milan or Strasbourg or Notre Dame? Ah! there is no such Catholicism to inspire the builders; the very men who reared them would not be architects, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... The travel of our tongues in forraign Nations, When in Corduba, if you dare give credit To my report (for I have seen her, Gallants) There lives a Woman (of a mean birth too, And meanly match'd) whose all-excelling Form Disdains comparison with any She That puts in for a fair one, and though you borrow From every Country of the Earth the best Of those perfections, which the Climat yields To help ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... edge of a very old, very ignorant, very sooty, hardhearted, stony-streeted, meanly grim, little provincial town there stands a gasometer. On one side of this gasometer begins a region of disappointed fields, which, however, has hardly begun before a railway embankment cuts across, ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... me that you fellows use me as meanly as you know how," flared Hen. "You ought to be ashamed ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... discovered him never controlling, never creating, events, but always yielding to them with rapid change, and sheltering himself from inconsistency by perpetual indefiniteness. In the Russian war, they saw him abandoning meanly what he had planned weakly, and threatened insolently. In the debates on the Regency, they detected the laxity of his constitutional principles, and received proofs that his eloquence consisted not in the ready application ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... for peace in the name of the King of Spain, their magnificence was considered almost infamous. It is further said that the Spanish ambassadors who came to the Hague in 1608 to negotiate the famous truce saw some deputies of the Dutch States seated in a field, meanly clad and breakfasting on a little bread and cheese which they had carried in their saddle-bags. The Grand Pensionary, John De Witt, the adversary of Louis XIV., kept only one servant. Admiral Ruyter ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... fortune, for there had been times when he lay soft and ate delicately and scattered money. But nothing lasted. He had no sooner made purchase with a great man and climbed a little than the scaffolding fell from his feet. He thought meanly of human nature for in his profess he must cringe or snarl, always the undermost dog. Yet he had some liking for the priests, who had been kind to him, and there was always a glow in his heart for the pale ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... cried the countess, "and how meanly you are dressed altogether! Is that the way you intend to go looking as the housekeeper of a rich and genteel family? Go, Trude, quickly, and put something better on, that you may receive your master and mistress ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... and meanly furnished as any that the three girls from Lakeview Hall had ever seen. Nan thought she had seen poverty of household goods and furnishings when she had lived for a season with her Uncle Henry Sherwood at Pine Camp, in ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... be so at any cost, and I shall be content. We have faults to weep over and to expiate, but no crimes; let us not blot out by the imprudence of our closing days the sweetness and purity of those we have passed together."[135] Think ill as we may of Rousseau's theories, and meanly as we may of some parts of his conduct, yet to those who can feel the pulsing of a human life apart from a man's formulae, and can be content to leave to sure circumstance the tragic retaliation for evil behaviour, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... water to wash his hands with. The father, enraged at this prediction, threw his son into the sea. He was rescued, and after many adventures, married the daughter of the king of Sicily. One day, while riding through Messina, he saw his father and mother, meanly dressed, sitting at the door of an inn. He alighted from his horse, entered their house, and asked for food. After his father and mother had brought him water to wash his hands he revealed himself to them and forgave his ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... that steeled Miss Levering to endure them. Under circumstances like these the observant are reminded that no section of the modern community is so scornfully aristocratic as our servants. Their horror of the meanly-apparelled and the humble is beyond the scorn of kings. The fine lady shares her shrinking with those inveterate enemies of democracy, the lackey who shuts the door in the shabby stranger's face, and the dog who barks ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... announced to them that his highness was ready to receive them, and accordingly they proceeded from their own apartment, accompanied by the secretary of the Vizier, and attended by their own dragoman. The usher of the white rod led the way, and conducted them through a suite of meanly-furnished apartments to the presence chamber. Ali when they entered was standing, a courtesy of marked distinction from a Turk. As they advanced towards him, he seated himself, and requested them to sit near him. The room was spacious ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... betrayed a man whose lightest word was law, but who feared to give the word. Where muscles had been were unfilled folds of skin that shook; where a firm if selfish mouth had once smiled merrily beneath a pointed black mustache, a mouth still smiled, but meanly; the selfishness was there, but the firmness ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... knave," said the king, sitting up on his couch, for he was surprised to hear one so meanly dressed speak so correctly, and so boldly face him. "What was ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... Jack is not like that, sir; and I will not have him spoken of. Leave him indeed! Who wants you to do more than to leave him alone, sir; as he might have done you the other night; and as no one else would have dared to do. And after that, to think so meanly of me, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... whole length of the Hall. {56} In the centre of the Hall stood Kai. "Tell me, tall man," said Peredur, "is that Arthur, yonder?" "What wouldest thou with Arthur?" asked Kai. "My mother told me to go to Arthur, and receive the honour of knighthood." "By my faith," said he, "thou art all too meanly equipped with horse and with arms." Thereupon he was perceived by all the household, and they threw sticks at him. Then, behold, a dwarf came forward. He had already been a year at Arthur's Court, both he and a female ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... that he understood her, and slowly, slowly, half as the fruit of this mute pressure, he let everything go but the rage of a purpose somehow still to please her. She was giving him a chance to do gallantly what it seemed unworthy of both of them he should do meanly. She must have "liked" him indeed, as she said, to wish so to spare him, to go to the trouble of conceiving an ideal of conduct for him. With this sense of her tenderness still in her dreadful consistency, his spirit rose with a new flight and suddenly felt itself breathe clearer air. Her profession ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... aching heart The grateful sense shall cherish'd be; I'll think less meanly of myself, That Lloyd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... your own. An ill-tim'd modesty! turn ages o'er, When wanted Britain bright examples more? Her learning, and her genius too, decays, And dark and cold are her declining days; As if men now were of another cast, They meanly live on alms of ages past. Men still are men; and they who boldly dare, Shall triumph o'er the sons of cold despair; Or, if they fail, they justly still take place Of such who run in debt for their disgrace; Who borrow much, then fairly make it known, And damn it with improvements of their own. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... department—and Belloc will not trouble himself about the rules of public meeting and debate, even if there were any reason to suppose that he is acquainted with them. (Do you recollect how Parnell and Biggar floored the House in the palmy days of obstruction by meanly getting up the subject of public order, which no one else ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... good people of Hillingford out of their beds in a fright, I should indignantly have repelled the accusation. Now, however, owing to the way in which Coleman had requested my assistance, it appeared to my bewildered senses that I should be meanly deserting my friends the moment they had got into difficulties, if I were to refuse; but when he used the word "shabby," it settled the business, and, seizing a rope with my uninjured hand, I began ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... how to save the Union. The world knows that we know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly LOSE THE LAST BEST HOPE OF EARTH. Other means may succeed, this cannot fail. The way is peaceful; generous; just; a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." But they would not, ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... hope not Life from Grief or Danger free, Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee: Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes, And pause awhile from Learning to be wise; There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail; Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail. See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just; To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust. If Dreams yet flatter, once again attend, Hear Lydiat's Life, and Galileo's End. [Footnote g: ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... the winter wild While the Heavenly Child All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies. Nature in awe of Him Had doffed her gaudy trim With her great ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... out that I am acting meanly, Marian. Why, I have everything to lose by giving her up. There is her money, and I suppose I must prepare for a row with the family; unless the match could be ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... most out of ourselves, or out of life, is not to try to sell ourselves for the highest possible price but to give ourselves, not stingily, meanly, but royally, magnanimously, to our fellows. If the rosebud should try to retain all of its sweetness and beauty locked within its petals and refuse to give it out, it would be lost. It is only by flinging them out to the world that their ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... be called according to the name engraved on her card—was a little meanly-dressed woman of about forty, with bright eyes and a hooked nose, a restless shuffling manner, and an ill-pitched voice. Her jargon was a mixture of bad ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... liberties that every "free white male citizen" takes to himself as God-given. Truth falling from the lips of a Lucretia Mott in long skirts is none the less truth, than if uttered by a Lucy Stone in short dress, or a Helen Maria Weber in pants and swallow-tail coat. And I can not yet think so meanly of manly justice, as to believe it will yield simply to a change of garments. Let us assert our right to be free. Let us get out of our prison-house of law. Let us own ourselves, our earnings, our genius; let us have power to control as well as to earn and to own; then will each ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... I was sick for a couple of days, meanly sick, and my arms were painfully poisoned from the barnacle scratches. For a week I could not use them, and it was a torture to put on and ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound springing upon a bone. I dared not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltily and meanly, I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandum book or upon my cuff for my ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... of the world, shut up within the circuit of a little island of the Mediterranean, and dwindled to the condition of an humble and degraded pensioner on the bounty of those he has most injured. How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present! He should have perished on the swords of his enemies, under the walls ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... our very own creation; and to cry out against war-lords is useless, when it is our desires and ambitions which set the war-lords in motion. Let all those who indulge and luxuriate in ill-gotten wealth to-day (and, indeed, their name is Legion), as well as all those who meanly and idly groan because their wealth is taken from them, think long and deeply on these things. Truth and simplicity of life are not mere fads; they are something more than abstractions and private affairs, something more than social ornaments. They are vital matters which lie at the root ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... from displeasing to the First Consul, who had no objection to flattery though he despised those who meanly made themselves the medium of conveying it to him. Duroc once told me that they had all great difficulty in preserving their gravity when the cure of a parish in Abbeville addressed Bonaparte one day while he was on his journey to the coast. "Religion," said the worthy cure, with pompous solemnity, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... mistaken in the impression which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country, and had not seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children who were grown big enough to despise their playthings, and who ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... very spirit of a deserted landlord. I imagined that he might have remembered prosperous days before the railway through Monte Cassino and Sparanise robbed Terracina of her robber's dues from south-bound travellers. His vast hotel, entered meanly by a little hall, was dimly lighted by candles. With another feeble creature, once a man, he preceded me, and speaking poor French said he had had my letter and had prepared me the best apartment in his house. We climbed stone staircases as one might climb the Pyramids, wandered on through ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... from the day on which Mrs. Graham and her children were thus thrown suddenly down from their elevation, and driven into obscurity, that lady sat alone, near the window of a meanly-furnished room in a house on the suburbs of the city, overlooking the Schuylkill. It was near the hour of sunset. Gradually the day declined, and the dusky shadows of evening fell gloomily around. Still Mrs. Graham sat leaning her head upon her hand, in deep abstraction ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... outside here, To think what privilege and palm it bears Here, in the court! be a man ne'er so vile, In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else; If he can purchase but a silken cover, He shall not only pass, but pass regarded: Whereas, let him be poor, and meanly clad, Though ne'er so richly parted, you shall have A fellow that knows nothing but his beef, Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer, Will take him by the shoulders, or the throat, And kick him down the stairs. Such is the state ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... patriots with her spoils? In vain at Court the bankrupt pleads his cause, His thankless country leaves him to her laws. The sense to value riches, with the art T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued, Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude; To balance fortune by a just expense, Join with economy, magnificence; With splendour, charity; with plenty, health; O teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoiled by wealth! That secret rare, between the extremes to move Of mad good-nature, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... though not an ungenerous man, meanly refused to give a copy of the Musical Museum to Burns, who desired to bestow it on one to whom his family was deeply indebted. This was in the last year of the poet's life, and after the Museum had been brightened by so ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... seats in the upper house, from which they had absented themselves since the decision against the patent of the duke of Hamilton; but whatever pecuniary recompence they might have obtained from the court, on which they were meanly dependent, they received no satisfaction from the parliament. The commons, finding Mr. Walpole very troublesome in their house, by his talents, activity, and zealous attachment to the whig interest, found means to discover some clandestine ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... may be anything bad that your mother believes me, but at least I play fair! I left Trenby to stay with Penelope, exactly as I told you in my note. If—if I proposed to break my promise to you, I wouldn't do it on the sly—meanly, like that." Her eyes looked steadily into his. "I'd tell ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... came to the Manor, the old Earl trembled when called upon to receive him. Of the lad he had heard almost nothing,—of his appearance literally nothing. It might be that his heir would be meanly visaged, a youth of whom he would have cause to be ashamed, one from whose countenance no sign of high blood would shine out; or, almost worse, he also might have that look, half of vanity, and half of ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... subjects, was esteemed highly and regarded much by those who knew him, in spite of those little foibles which marred his character; and I must beg the reader to take the world's opinion about him, and not to estimate him too meanly thus early in this history ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... Indeed I think our Indians have outdone the Romans in this particular. Some of the greatest of those Roman heroes have murdered themselves to avoid shame or torments; but our Indians have refused to die meanly or with little pain, when they thought their country's honour would be at stake by it; but have given their bodies willingly to the most cruel torments of their enemies, to show, as they said, that 'the Five Nations' consisted of men whose courage ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... capital of Roumania, picturesquely situated on the Dambovitza, a tributary of the Danube, in a fertile plain, 180 m. from the Black Sea; is a meanly built but well-fortified town, with the reputation of the most dissolute capital in Europe; there is a Catholic cathedral and a university; it is the emporium of trade between the Balkan and Austria; textiles, grain, hides, metal, and coal are ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... naturalist mind. One moment she felt herself seized with terror lest anything should break down the veil between her real self and this unsuspecting tenderness of the dying man; the next she rose in revolt against her own fear. Was she to find herself, after all, a mere weak penitent—meanly grateful to Jacob Delafield? Her heart cried out to Warkworth ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... spider, when it hath caught the fly that it hunted after, is not little proud, nor meanly conceited of herself: as he likewise that hath caught an hare, or hath taken a fish with his net: as another for the taking of a boar, and another of a bear: so may they be proud, and applaud themselves for their valiant acts against the Sarmatai, or northern nations lately defeated. For these also, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... exigent. He is into everything, catechizes the women, dominates the men. There is no way to fight against him. Here am I with this bookshop, and I have my pension as a lieutenant, which gives me enough to live very meanly, and with what little I get out of the periodicals I scrape along. Besides, I am a Republican and very liberal, and I like propaganda. If I didn't, I should have left all this long ago, because they have waged war to ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... not want to be paid," cried Roque, sobbing aloud. "I am sure you think too meanly of me, if you suppose I came here with such ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... will not be able to come to us with any pleasure, which I am sorry for, for I think she would have pleased us very well. In comes he, and so to sing a song and his niece with us, but she sings very meanly. So through the Hall and thence by coach home, calling by the way at Charing Crosse, and there saw the great Dutchman that is come over, under whose arm I went with my hat on, and could not reach higher than ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... my parents that I wanted to study medicine, they and my relatives objected and scolded me, for they were afraid that I would not marry if I would study medicine. In India they think meanly of a person, especially a girl, who is not married at the proper age. I want now to show my people that it is not mean to remain unmarried. This is my second aim ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... A poor boy, meanly clad, and carrying in his hand a small bundle, trudged sadly along the road which led over the moor of Finsbury to Highgate. The first streak of dawn was scarcely visible in the eastern sky, and as he walked, the boy shivered in the chill morning air. More than once he dashed from his eyes the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... natural; but assuredly it is quite wrong. You understand, of course, that I am thinking of unfavorable opinions of you, honestly held, and expressed without malice. I do not mean to say that you would choose for your special friend or companion one who thought meanly of your ability or your sense; it would not be pleasant to have him always by you; and the very fact of his presence would tend to keep you from doing justice to yourself. For it is true, that, when with people who think you very clever and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... ladies actually starve themselves, when they ought to be nourishing and strengthening their poor bodies; acting meanly at their hotels in order to save sufficient money to go to Monte Carlo, and in the end it is all lost! Then they return to their homes with mind, health, and nerves completely shattered, to the grief and astonishment ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... old griefs," said the envoy, "too long and tedious to write." She vehemently denounced Davison also for dereliction of duty in not opposing the measure; but he manfully declared that he never deemed so meanly of her Majesty or of his Lordship as to suppose that she would send him, or that he would go to the Provinces, merely, "to take command of the relics of Mr. Norris's worn and decayed troops." Such a change, protested Davison, was utterly unworthy a person of the Earl's quality, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... I was and insipient, I was prepared for what is called the burlesque Olympus of the Iliad, so grievous to Professor Murray. I think I recognised then, what seems perfectly plain to me now, that you might as well think meanly of a God of Africa because the natives make him of a cocoanut on a stick, as of Zeus and Hera because Homer says that they played peccant husband and jealous wife. If Homer halted it is rash to assume that Hephaistos did. The pathetic fallacy has crept ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... the worst possible opinion of women for years past," Alban resumed; "and the only reason I can give for it condemns me out of my own mouth. I have been infamously treated by one woman; and my wounded self-esteem has meanly revenged itself by reviling the whole sex. Wait a little, Miss Emily. My fault has received its fit punishment. I have been thoroughly humiliated—and you ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... my keeping his head straight that he might the easier rob our fellow passengers raised a pretty question of ethics. I meanly dodged it. I told him professional etiquette required I should leave him to ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... an ecstasy as soon as the curtain rose that night, and he lived somewhere out of his body as long as the playing lasted, which was well on to midnight; for in those days the theatre did not meanly put the public off with one play, but gave it a heartful and its money's worth with three. On his first night my boy saw "The Beacon of Death," "Bombastes Furioso," and "Black-eyed Susan," and he never afterwards saw ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... of Spain," said the latter, "with which we have an acquaintance meanly withheld from the attorneys, enjoin that when one man murders another, except for debt, he must make provision for the widow and orphans. I leave it to you if, after the summer's unprofitable business, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... inspiration which come naturally to authors in contact with their kind were being denied me. Age was bringing me no "harvest home." In short, at the very time when I should have been most honored, most recompensed, in my work, I found myself living meanly in a mean street and going about like a man of mean concerns, having little influence on my ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... paused for a moment to breathe the mare; paused just in front of the big old Rayborn house, that has stood there for more years than most of us remember. It was closed and shuttered and deserted; and Hazen dipped his whip toward it and said meanly: ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... called "tuck-a-nuck "—a word of Indian origin, or "mitchin," while the box or hamper or bucket that held the provisions was called a "mitchin-box." I can fancy that no thrifty or loving housewife allowed the man of her household to go to market with too meanly filled a mitchin-box, but took an honest pride in sending him off with a full stock of rich doughnuts, well-baked bread, well-filled pies, and at least well-cooked porridge, which he could devour without shame before the eyes of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... we are engaged is for no meanly ambitious or unworthy purpose. It was primarily, and is to this moment, for the preservation of our national existence. The first direct movement towards it was a civil request on the part of certain Southern persons, that the Nation would commit suicide, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... there shall find "To human View display'd, "All meanly wrapp'd in Swathing-bands, "And in a ...
— The A, B, C. With the Church of England Catechism • Unknown

... brightened. "Say, Nat, you're real good! I'm sorry I treated you so meanly when you paid us ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... the cynic or think meanly of my fellow-man shall come, my mind will hark back to those two unpretending fellows and bow in reverence before the selflessness and immensity of the human soul. Needing bread, they gave it freely away; needing strength, they poured themselves out unsparingly; needing ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... think the squire would act so meanly. At any rate, father, I will see that you don't any of you ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... ascended a pulpit splendidly decorated, while the humble OEcolampadius, meanly clothed, was forced to take his seat in front of his opponent on a rudely carved stool."(261) Eck's stentorian voice and unbounded assurance never failed him. His zeal was stimulated by the hope of gold as well as fame; for the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... know what they'll do," moaned Codfish. He had not forgotten how the Rover boys had sided with him on more than one perilous occasion, and it scared him half to death to think what they might do when they discovered how meanly he was acting. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... offer equal combat to a LORD, Sudden your noble limbs your coursers bore, From Berkshire's hills to Avon's distant shore: And eager to preserve from foul disgrace, Th' unsullied honors of a noble race, Rather than have it said you meanly stood To stain your faulchion with Plebeian blood, You yielded bravely to a harsher fate, And made submissions to the man you hate. To save their dignity from scandal's breath, Thousands have fearless fac'd approaching death; Your dauntless action merits more applause, Who courted infamy ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe

... went to the army; the poor Coetlogon was in tears until his return. In the winter, for being second in a duel, he was sent to the Bastille. Then the grief of Coetlogon knew no bounds: she threw aside all ornaments, and clad herself as meanly as possible; she begged the King to grant Cavoye his liberty, and, upon the King's refusing, quarrelled with him violently, and when in return he laughed at her, became so furious, that she would ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the facts: on the hopelessness of the American cause but for the commanding genius of Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights guaranteed by the peace ignored. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... see what I can do," it became sinister and affected him like the sound of a second, more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to protest was to appear in Karen's as meanly petty. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... she said, "I don't want to pile up the agony. Besides," she added, with an obvious effort, "I must be honest. I—I know I have given you reason to think meanly of me—vilely! But, don't you see, Mark, I—I have done with all that. I was never so anxious to make the best of myself. Not ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... could not have been always the help and counselor—in fact, the elder brother—of poor Yerba! Paul was conscious that he winced slightly, consistently and conscientiously, at the recollection of certain passages of his youth; inconsistently and meanly, at this suggestion of a joint relationship ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... Rector of Appleslocombe. There might be even yet a hope for him; but his chance, he thought, would be better with the present Marquis—ill-disposed towards him as the Marquis was—than with the heir. The Marquis was weary of him, and anxious to get rid of him,—was acting very meanly to him, as Mr. Greenwood thought, having offered him L1000 as a final payment for a whole life's attention. The Marquis, who had ever been a liberal man, had now, perhaps on his death-bed, become unjust, harsh, and cruel. But ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... instinct—and as a necessary supplement to it. This instinct is more or less futile in most women because they are more or less ignorant of the realities as to wise and foolish expenditure. But it is found in the most extravagant women no less than in the most absurdly and meanly stingy. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... these (for there were some who were most honourably excepted, as the Prince de Beauveau, Messrs. de Turenne, de Montholon, de Lascases, Forbin de Janson, Perregaux, &c. &c.) had meanly renounced him in 1814, and become the common valets of the Bourbons; but he would not believe a word of it. He had the weakness, common to all princes, of considering his most cringing courtiers as ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... in this world are to be found always among the thoroughly-upright, meanly-impeccable members of any and every church. They are the Scribes and Pharisees who contribute most to the building of fine houses of worship; they give most to its causes. They are the "right hands" of all the preachers from their youth up. They have never been ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... Timon's feasts, as he had in greater things tasted his bounty; but that he ever came with that intent, or gave good counsel or reproof to Timon, was a base unworthy lie, which he suitably followed up with meanly offering the servant a bribe, to go home to his master and tell him that he had not ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... would have liked the street which sloped up the hill, and thought the lilac and green insulted by being conducted up the steep, irregular, and not very clean bye-lane that led directly up the ascent, between houses, some meanly modern, some picturesquely ancient, with stone steps outside to the upper story, but all with far too much of pig-stye about them for beauty or fragrance. Lucy held up her skirts, and daintily picked her way, and Albinia looked with kindly eyes at the doors and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... novelty of circumstance or setting, and was purely a matter of character, depending upon a mind familiar with large interests and launched towards ideal aims. He might be silent, melancholy, impracticable, but never meanly self-conscious. It had rarely occurred to anyone to pity or ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... first inflicted must have laid bare his cheekbone, the object was but indifferently attained, for it could scarcely fail to be noted at a glance. His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and he had a grizzly jagged beard of some three weeks' date. Such was the figure (very meanly and poorly clad) that now rose from the seat, and stalking across the room sat down in a corner of the chimney, which the politeness or fears of the little clerk very readily ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... the spirit of social democracy to offer no prizes. Office in it, being the reward of no great distinction, brings no great honour, and being meanly paid it brings no great profit, at least while honestly administered. All wealth in a true democracy would be the fruit of personal exertion and would come too late to be nobly enjoyed or to teach the art of liberal ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... is impossible to behave more meanly than the Marshal's lady. The woman must be a fury. My gracious ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... I used you meanly," he acknowledged. "I did use you meanly. It was not the game to do what I did that night. I freely admit it. And I offer you reparation—the only reparation I can make. It would be the wisest act of ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... disposition and hope of retrieving his luck, there was one thing which the calculator of chances does not take into consideration in games of this kind. We, visiting such cultured and fashionable people, would never for a moment think so meanly of our friends; I mean the possibility of their cheating, a word never mentioned in well-bred society. A suspicion of such conduct, even, would be tantamount to treason, and a violation of the rules that regulate ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... life-blood of such a villain, and looked at his father, who expressed approval by the like proceeding. And Geoffrey Mordacks was well content at finding them made of decent stuff. It was not his manner to do things meanly; and he had only spoken so to moderate their ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... was less favourable to the Chevalier than usual, although he suffered no loss of any consequence. Then a little thin old man, meanly clad, and almost repulsive to look at, approached the table, drew a card with a trembling hand, and placed a gold piece upon it. Several of the players looked up at the old man at first greatly astonished, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... go? Or are you doing any thing towards it? Make to yourself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not totally disconnected from the better part of Mankind. I know, I am too dissatisfied with the beings around me,—but I cannot help occasionally exclaiming "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... work on sacrifice and festival and worship of the gods, hears the subject of their prayers, and marks the nature of their creed. Nor, I fancy, will a smile be all. He will first have a question to ask himself: Is he to call them devout worshippers or very outcasts, who think so meanly of God as to suppose that he can require anything at the hand of man, can take pleasure in their flattery, or be wounded by their neglect? Thus the afflictions of the Calydonians, that long tale of misery and violence, ending with the death of Meleager—all is attributed to the resentment ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... veins of sympathy when they are rudely checked and turned from their course will often do) with those who indulged instead of checking it. But because Lycidas is magnificent, and Il Penseroso charming poetry, we are not to think meanly of "Fair Daffodils," or "Ask me no more," of "Going to the Wars," or "Tell me no more how fair ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... gifts to an ungrateful person cannot be justified and need not be mourned for. If your love is noble why do you treat it meanly? If it is lewd the man was right to ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... as he listened. There were no such things as difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no—not weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping him in his need. The glories of life ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... broken leg used to be one of the band of men who took my cattle," went on Uncle Fred. "He just told me. He was on his way to see about taking more of my steers when his horse threw him at the bridge. That's why he didn't want to come to Three Star Ranch—because he had treated us so meanly. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope

... men who are capable of loving a machine more deeply than they can love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is not a sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement of notorious fact. Men who worry themselves to distraction over the perfecting of a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their kind. Most of us have known such men. Yesterday they were constructing ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... highness. Save me soul alive! Can't I move, then? You're too suspicious, Wolf, my son. I believe you're a bit of a Jew." And then, in a lower tone, "My oath, but some one's handled you pretty damn meanly before to-day, I reckon. All right, Wolf, you walk backwards, like a Salvation Army captain, while I get the dish, an' then we'll both be safe, an' ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... few that occur to me of this narrow, confined, illiberal, unscientific, and servile kind of imitators. Guido was thus meanly copied by Elizabetta Sirani, and Simone Cantarini; Poussin, by Verdier and Cheron; Parmigiano, by Jeronimo Mazzuoli; Paolo Veronese and Iacomo Bassan had for their imitators their brothers and sons; Pietro de Cortona was followed by Ciro Ferri and ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... active and a passive ingratitude; applying both to this occasion, we may say, the first is, when a prince or people returns good services with cruelty or ill usage: the other is, when good services are not at all, or very meanly rewarded. We have already spoke of the former; let us therefore in the second place, examine how the services of our general have been rewarded; and whether upon that article, either prince or people have been ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... demons glare as they see her stand In majestic pride serenely, And gnash with the impotent rage of hate, Creeping up slowly, meanly; While she cries, "Come forth from your covered dens, All your hireling legions send me, I'll bare my breast to a million swords, Whilst God and my sons ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... have lately taught me. I do not say that it cannot be true: but still, one so unsettled as I am may be allowed to waver. But, Philip, I'll assume that all is true. Then, if it be true, without the oath you would be doing but your duty; and think not so meanly of Amine as to suppose she would restrain you from what is right. No, Philip, seek your father, and, if you can, and he requires your aid, then save him. But, Philip, do you imagine that a task like this, so high, is to be ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... fellow has slain others about Locksley," said Ford, meanly. "You are right, Master Simeon; he is, in sooth, Robin of Locksley; your eyes are wiser than mine. Seize ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... great wealth and his munificent benefactions soon spread over all the country, and he was visited, among others, by the celebrated doctors of that day, Jean Gerson, Jean de Courtecuisse, and Pierre d'Ailli. They found him in his humble apartment, meanly clad, and eating porridge out of an earthen vessel; and with regard to his secret, as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchymy. His fame reached the ears of the king, Charles VI., who sent M. de Cramoisi, the Master of Requests, to find out whether Nicholas had ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... fates decree, if Jove command, That, he accurst, shall reach th' Italian land, There may he meet in arms, a warlike race, There helpless rove, torn from his son's embrace, His friends untimely end there let him feel; 760 For succour there to strangers meanly kneel; And when for peace, ingloriously he sues, His crown, his life, untimely may he lose, And lie unburied on the naked shore; 765 With the last breath of life this pray'r I pour. And you, my Tyrian friends—thro' times extent On that curst race ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... teacher said, "Let your prayer be for light and knowledge, and ask the Blessed Infinite One to help you to love all; let love rule; never mind what others may say about you, or how meanly they may treat you. Be in earnest to love all. Rise every morning with this thought: 'How beautiful my brother is; how precious is my sister.' You may not love a person's ways, but you should always ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Socrates as most truly a means which the gods made use of for the care and preservation of youth, and began to think meanly of himself, and to admire him; to be pleased with his kindness, and to stand in awe of his virtue; and, unawares to himself, there became formed in his mind that reflex image and reciprocation of Love, or Anteros,@ that Plato talks of. It was a matter of general ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... most of King John's wise men thought little of the plan, King John himself thought that there was something in it. But instead of helping Columbus he meanly resolved to send out an expedition of his own. This he did, and when Columbus heard of it he was so angry that he left Portugal, which for more than ten years he had made his home. He was poor and in debt, so he ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... the book and its compiler. He is represented by Clarendon, for instance, "as prostituting himself to the vile office of celebrating the infamous acts of those who were in rebellion against the king; which he did so meanly, that he seemed to all men to have lost his wits, when he left his honesty." Anthony a Wood's account[4] of these matters, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various

... of every nation set before themselves the same goal, the goal of world-ambition and glory and 'empire' and plunder? And have not the mass-peoples of every nation stood meanly by and acclaimed the fraud, nor spoken out against it, silently consenting to these things in the prospect of some advantage ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter

... second boy, dirty and torn, and meanly dressed in a workman's blouse. She stared at him, never recognizing Ivan, whom she bad always seen so gorgeously clothed in furs and fine broadcloth and exquisite linen. It was not until he spoke again ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... Yorkshire cousin Miss Bosville, and the host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony. Boswell has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly been written, but it was wisely suppressed at the last moment ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... affair of Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your utmost to convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse from it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to protect yourself from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on others ... If you are now afraid to incur a little hostility for my sake, concede me at least that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for another, to be tempted to renounce me; rather ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... had been in distress, I might have let him have a few dollars, notwithstanding he treated me so meanly at Wayneboro, but he seems to ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... children grow up, thinly and meanly clad, [119] to that bulk of body and limb which we behold with wonder. Every mother suckles her own children, and does not deliver them into the hands of servants and nurses. No indulgence distinguishes the young master from the slave. They lie together amidst the same cattle, upon the same ground, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... other street passenger he might think worth looking at, withdrew his eye for a moment from the work, his taskmistress failed not to squall forth—"Gaping out again! Not a bit of work done all day! Sit down with thee! Mind thy paper, and give over spying!" How meanly he was kept in regard to clothing—how he had to sleep, for his life long, in a child's bed, far too short for him, for want of a straw mattress—and how, under such continual toil and miserable constraint, he at last sank, and died of water in the chest, it is now needless to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... months after the loss of all his property, Flemming worked hard and lived meanly. Most fortunately for him, he had a very good whaleboat, and night after night, and day after day, he and his two faithful helpers, as long as the weather held fine, toiled at the dangerous pursuit of shark-catching, cutting off the ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting out for Hampshire. But there was something so repellent to me in the idea—something so meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in my mind. Even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... earth, Christian or pagan, treats its defenders, its soldiery, so meanly, so shabbily, as does this, her black defenders; but whether the nation is more to blame, than we, who so long have submitted without a murmur, is a question. 'The trouble' shouted Cassius to Brutus, 'is not in our stars, that we ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... have long looked upon myself to be what the world calls ruined—that is, I believe there will never be any provision made for me, but when my father dies I shall have my choice of three things—starving, going to a common service, or marrying meanly as my sisters have done: none of which I like, nor do I think it possible for a woman to be happy with a man that is not a gentleman, for he whose mind is virtuous is alone of noble kind. Yet what can a woman expect but misery? My brother Ellison wants all but ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... looked for Shiela and saw Portlaw, very hot and uncomfortable in his best raiment, shooting his cuffs and looking dully about for some avenue of escape; and Hamil, exasperated with purple perfumes and thumbs, meanly snared him and left him to confront a rather ample and demonstrative young girl who believed that all human thought was precious—even sinful thought—of which she knew as much as a newly hatched caterpillar. However, Portlaw was ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... seemed to be getting nowhere I meanly rolled the lady a cigarette. She hates to stop knitting to roll one, but she ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... too many for the good of the race. You mustn't try to make a hero out of me. Once in a while I get a glimpse of the real Kenneth Griswold—you are giving me one just now—and it's sickening. For a moment I was meanly jealous; jealous of Raymer. It was only the writing part of me, I ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... dear Marlow! But I'll suppress the emotion. Were I a wretch, meanly seeking to carry off a fortune, you should be the last man in the world I would apply to for assistance. But Miss Neville's person is all I ask, and that is mine, both from her deceased father's consent, and her ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... of these works were meanly printed, and were usually found in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... Mme. de Maintenon is studied, the more one is led away from a first impression—which usually proves to be an erroneous one. Thus, M. Lavallee, in his first work, Histoire des Francais, wrote that she "was of the most complete aridity of heart, narrow in the scope of her affections, and meanly intriguing. She suggested fatal enterprises and inappropriate appointments; she forced mediocre and servile persons upon the king; she had, in fine, the major share in the errors and disasters of the reign of Louis XIV." A few years later he wrote, in his Histoire ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... construction, for which I blessed the memory of its early-English builders. We went on to the Town Hall, the old Stannary Prison (now in ruins), the dilapidated Block-houses, the Battery. We traversed the town from end to end and studied the barge-boards and punkin-ends of every old house. I had meanly ordered that dinner should he ready half-an-hour earlier than usual, and, as it was, the objects ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and early toil. He was dry and pallid, thin and anaemic. She was touched by his faintheartedness; he who nevertheless seemed to be about thirty years old. She thought that he must live quite alone in the forest since he was so pitiful and so meanly dressed. He could have no one to look after him, neither mother nor ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof



Words linked to "Meanly" :   nastily, scurvily, mean, basely, humbly



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