Thy pompous delicacies I
contemn, And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles." To whom thus answered Satan, male-content:-- "That I have also power to give thou seest; If of that power I bring thee voluntary What I might have bestowed on whom I pleased, And rather opportunely in this place Chose to impart to thy apparent need, Why shouldst thou not accept it?
For indeed, every sect of them, hath a diverse posture, or cringe by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings, and depraved politics, who are apt to
contemn holy things.
It is so pleasing to one's 'vanity, and so safe, to be of the master's side when he assails those vices and foibles which are inherent in the system of things, and which one can
contemn with vast applause so long as one does not attempt to undo the conditions they spring from.
The women of the island have abundance of vivacity: they,
contemn their husbands, and are exceedingly fond of strangers, whereof there is always a considerable number from the continent below, attending at court, either upon affairs of the several towns and corporations, or their own particular occasions, but are much despised, because they want the same endowments.
He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to
contemn.
In short, we are madly erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and
contemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation.
I could not decide whether she desired the return of her husband because she loved him, or because she dreaded the tongue of scandal; and I was perturbed by the suspicion that the anguish of love
contemned was alloyed in her broken heart with the pangs, sordid to my young mind, of wounded vanity.
She was embarrassed to discover that excitement at the proximity of Mr Clare's breath and eyes, which she had
contemned in her companions, was intensified in herself; and as if fearful of betraying her secret she paltered with him at the last moment.
France enfeebled, the authority of her sovereign
contemned, her nobles returning to their former turbulence and insolence, her enemies within her frontiers -- all proved the great Richelieu no longer in existence.
But all the Ambassadors of the next countries, which had been there before, and knew the fashions and manners of the Utopians, among whom they perceived no honour given to sumptuous and costly apparel, silks to be
contemned, gold also to be infamed and reproachful, were wont to come thither in very homely and simple apparel.
For the opposite reason, Prince John hated and
contemned the few Saxon families of consequence which subsisted in England, and omitted no opportunity of mortifying and affronting them; being conscious that his person and pretensions were disliked by them, as well as by the greater part of the English commons, who feared farther innovation upon their rights and liberties, from a sovereign of John's licentious and tyrannical disposition.
His place is occupied by the desire of the master 'to totalitarize' his own I and do it as much as possible in order to
contemn his (master's) life, to transform it into a fetish, into an ordinary incident in the process of the self-development and self-termination of spirit.