Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but
meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.
On my side you may be sure of its never being more, for if I were not attached to another person as much as I can be to anyone, I should make a point of not bestowing my affection on a man who had dared to think so
meanly of me.
They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and
meanly of others.
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 to strengthen it.
Sophia (who though naturally all winning sweetness could when occasions demanded it call forth the Dignity of her sex) instantly put on a most forbidding look, and darting an angry frown on the undaunted culprit, demanded in a haughty tone of voice "Wherefore her retirement was thus insolently broken in on?" The unblushing Macdonald, without even endeavouring to exculpate himself from the crime he was charged with,
meanly endeavoured to reproach Sophia with ignobly defrauding him of his money .
They would feel that they could trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and while
meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims.
I have been infamously treated by one woman; and my wounded self-esteem has
meanly revenged itself by reviling the whole sex.
And though the iniquity of late times have made clergymen
meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable.
Yet she was
meanly dressed, a coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb; her fair hair was plaited but not adorned: she looked patient yet sad.
One was an aged, dignified, stern-looking gentleman, clad as for a solemn festival in grave and costly attire, but with a great bloodstain on his richly wrought band; the second, an aged man,
meanly dressed, with a dark and malign countenance, and a broken halter about his neck; the third, a person not so advanced in life as the former two, but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarse woollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a carpenter's rule sticking out of his side pocket.
His large ears, set forward like the ears of a monkey, pleaded guilty to
meanly listening behind other people's doors.
"Good men ever interpret themselves too
meanly," said the physician.
meanly - in a nasty ill-tempered manner; "`Don't expect me to help you,' he added nastily"
meanly - in a miserly manner; "they lived meanly and without ostentation"