"Blot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may blot out the insult—nothing less;" and with her head held high, and her whole air full of scorn, she swept out of the room, leaving the marquis on his knees. Then he started up to follow her, but dared not; and he flung himself on the bed in a paroxysm ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... him, and he again had the little basket of figs on his knees, and clasped it with his big knotty hands as though it were something fragile and rare which the slightest jolting might damage. His cassock showed like a huge blot, and in his coarse ashen face, that of a peasant yet near to the wild soil and but slightly polished by a few years of theological studies, his eyes alone seemed to live, glowing with the dark flame of a devouring passion. On seeing him seated there in such composure Prada ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and signed the instrument, which had been prepared, as he thought, in accordance with his wishes and directions. He then carelessly tossed the sand over the signature to blot it. ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... inexcusable, and stands out a foul blot on the memory of every Rebel in high place in the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... very much if we are believers in Christ. There is a mystery in it; but when we have passed through it we shall probably find that it is a very simple and natural event—perhaps little more serious than sleeping over night and waking in the morning. It will not hurt us in any way. It will blot no lovely thing from our life. It will end nothing that is worth while. Death is only a process in life, a phase of development, analogous to that which takes place when a seed is dropped in the earth and comes up a beautiful plant, adorned with ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... wound on past the house and up the hill, then was lost to sight as it passed into a grove of cedars on the right, behind which lay the lonely cemetery. Only a few times in her life had Mary come this close to death. Now the horror of it seemed to blot out all the brightness of the sweet May day, and the thought of the grief-stricken woman in the wagon cast such a shadow over her that her eyes were full of unshed tears and her hands trembled when she took up her ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... words he dropped his pen. It made a blot on the page, which further irritated him; for, untidy as he was in most things, his classical ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Folly's active rage, Nor Envy's self, shall blot the golden page; Time shall admire, his mellowing touch employ, And mend the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... to regain their commercial interests, as well as those who would be actuated to increase their own interests. The Massacre of Glencoe had no little share in the matter. This massacre, which occurred February 13, 1692, is the foulest blot in the annals of crime. It was deliberately planned by Sir John Dalrymple and others, ordered by king William, and executed by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, in the most treacherous, brutal, atrocious, and bloodthirsty manner imaginable, and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... you taking on so for? Where did such a caprice come from? Am I finding fault with your dress? Why, isn't it a dress?—and anybody will say it's a dress. But it isn't becoming to you; it's absolutely not the right thing for your style of beauty—blot out my soul if I lie. For you a gold one would be little enough; let's have one embroidered with seed-pearls. Ah! there you smile, my jewel! You see, I know what I'm ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... district), Mrs Morgan would have contemplated the two, not, indeed, without a certain half-resentful self-reference and contrast, but with natural sympathy. And now, to think of this dark and ugly blot on his fair beginning disturbed her much. When Mrs Morgan recollected that she had left her husband and his Curate consulting over this matter, she grew very hot and angry, and felt humiliated by the thought. Was it her William, her hero, whom she had magnified for all these ten years, though ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... which saw "Quia Emptores" saw a step which remains the great blot upon Edward's reign. The work abroad had exhausted the royal treasury, and he bought a grant from his Parliament by listening to their wishes in the matter of the Jews. Jewish traders had followed William the Conqueror from Normandy, and had been enabled by his ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... quickness eyes swept the range of vision. Out of an orchard into the stubble of a wheat-field broke a panicky mass; a score or more of men who had lost their officer and their heads presumably. They were the nail under the hammer, a brown blot, a target. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce should be for one cause only—the cause to which Our Lord gave a qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful—in act or desire, to her husband. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Another blot on the record of the Congo Free State is the exclusive character of the trading corporation to which it has granted concessions. Despite the promises made to private firms that early sought to open ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... indeed had I left it? It was a new book with scarcely a blot in it. Great heavens! I had forgotten it and left it out of doors at the far end of the garden in the most removed asparagus bed. For my historical studies I had selected the asparagus bed which was like a ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... brick; to her right roof-tops and fantastic cowls were patterned in a flat purple tone against the luminous sky. In the eaves the sparrows were chirping shrilly; one flew downwards so swiftly between Blanche's eyes and the sky that his little body seemed nothing but a dark blot with a flickering upon either side of it. The sight caught at her memory, and she had a quick vision of a day when she had lain upon a sloping cliff and watched the gulls wheel far above her, the light ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the little penthouses at foot and head (whence its name, the 'cottage' style) was not wholly successful. The use of the labour-saving device of the 'roll,' in preference to impressing each section of the pattern by hand, is another blot. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to find an English or Scotch binding of this period which is less than charming, and the best of them are admirable. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a new grace was added by the inlaying of ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... mercy upon me, O God, According to thy loving-kindness, According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, Blot out all my transgressions, Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For well do I know my misdeeds, And my sin is always before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, And done what is wrong in thy sight; Therefore thou art right ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... it!" said Pertinax. "I, too, have done things that are best forgotten. We attain success by learning from defeat, and we forget defeat in triumph. I know of no triumph that did not blot out scores of worse things than defeat. When I was in Britain I subdued rebellion and restored the discipline of mutinying legions. How? I am not such a fool as to tell you all that happened! When I was in Africa men called me a great ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... whether she would think it right to turn the fertilizing Nile from its bed and leave its shores dry, because, from time to time, it destroyed fields and villages in the excess of its overflow? "This day and its deeds of shame," he went on sadly, "are a blot on the pure and sublime book of the History of our Faith, and every true Christian must bitterly bewail the excesses of a frenzied mob. The Church must no less condemn Caesar's sanguinary vengeance; it casts a shade on his honor and his fair name, and his conscience no doubt will punish him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to the cattle-market to buy an ass. Now it happened that Tomas had spent his leisure on holidays in composing some amorous verses, and had jotted them down in the book in which he kept the account of the oats, intending to copy them out fairly, and then blot them out of the book, or tear out the page. But, before he had done so, he happened to go out one day and leave the book on the top of the oat-bin. His master found it there, and looking into it to see how the account of the oats stood, he lighted upon the verses. Surprised and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... now from court, I come now from court, I come not to flatter you: upon whom can I justly cast this blot, but upon your own forehead, that know not ink from milk? such is the blind besotting in the state of an unheaded woman that's a widdow. For it is the property of all you that are widdowes (a hand full excepted) to hate those that honestly and carefully love ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... face came the image of Virginia Aydelot, who should be there instead; of the brown-handed farmer's wife, who had given up so much for the West. And yet, that face, framed in its dark hair, lighted by luminous dark eyes, seemed to blot out the dainty pink and white Jane Aydelot. A strength of will, a view of life at wide angles of vision, a resourcefulness and power of sacrifice seemed to deify the plainly clad prairie home-maker, winning, not inheriting, her possessions. Had Jane been anywhere else save in ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... multitude of observers have studied the aurora, but the scientific grasp has found it as elusive in fact as it seems to casual observation, and its exact nature is as undetermined to-day as it was a hundred years ago. There has been no dearth of theories concerning it, however. Blot, who studied it in the Shetland Islands in 1817, thought it due to electrified ferruginous dust, the origin of which he ascribed to Icelandic volcanoes. Much more recently the idea of ferruginous ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Louis XVIII. that there had been no interruption of the Bourbon reign, and the attempt to blot from history the twenty-five most eventful years in the annals of France, deservedly excited both contempt and ridicule. An American writer ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... monument of the religious glories of ages, even the rising power of Christian supremacy quailed in dismay. Though the ranks of its once multitudinous congregations were now perceptibly thinned, though the new churches swarmed with converts, though the edicts from Rome denounced it as a blot on the face of the earth, its gloomy and solitary grandeur was still preserved. No unhallowed foot trod its secret recesses; no destroying hand was raised as yet against its ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... something enormous blot out the smaller shadow of the guard. Then both figures disappeared. A moment later a silhouette cut across the lines of the grille. Unoiled hinges screeched; the bars lifted. A rope uncoiled from above to fall at Rastignac's feet. He seized it and felt himself ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... with the fitful fever of that impassioned woman's life that she should not have found a native grave. She had enjoyed but a life-interest in the estate, which, after her death, passed to a relative of her husband's—one who knew not Felice, one whose purpose seemed to be to blot ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... by reason of the fair, the wide roadway thronged with vehicles, and as I edged my way along the narrow, crowded pavements gay with chintz and muslin gowns, polished boots, flowered waistcoats and the rest of it, I felt myself a blot and blemish, a thing to be viewed askance by this cheery crowd in its holiday attire. A short-legged man in a white hat roared at me to hold his horse; a plump and benevolent old lady earnestly sought ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... back of the rack, and gallantly brush the straw from her person. For this reason it was always asserted that Abner Simpson sold his wife every time he went to Milltown, but the story was never fully substantiated, and at all events it was the only suspected blot on meek Mrs. ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... poured out not merely to content me—but to gratify himself. A gratification he might never more desire, never more seek—an hypothesis in every point of view approaching the certain; but that concerned the future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no want; full, pure, perfect, it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph seemed to have rested beside me, leaned towards my heart, and reposed on its throb a softening, cooling, healing, hallowing wing. Dr. John, you pained me afterwards: forgiven be every ill—freely ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... preliminary Areopagus will be composed of sons of the Crusaders, who are almost as sprightly as sons of Voltaire. Now Monsieur Ernest Legouve will not be satisfied with his comedy, unless these gentlefolk unanimously decide that he need not blot a single line of it. Will you come? Remember, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... a sorry story, and a blot on the scutcheon of the poet, who, good-hearted as he usually was, was cursed by the gift, refined to a rare degree, of alienating his friends, more often than not for some fancied slight. Addison he lampooned, and from Dennis and Philips he parted company. "Leave him as soon as you can," Addison ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... never committed (and God knows he committed enough!); and yet behold his craving for tenderness, the reaching out for truth, and hear his earnest and unquenchable prayer to be understood and loved, we blot out the record of his sins with our tears. To know the life of Byron and not be moved to profoundest pity marks one as alien to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... allowed to try and test her faith to the uttermost, and at times to blot out all peace and glory from her soul. During one such time ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... could hardly inspire implicit confidence, and the instances are numerous in which Lauder complains that injustice has been done, and the principles of the law perverted through the influence of political and private motives. Even the most eminent of the judges were not in his opinion clear from this blot. I have quoted one passage in which Lauder hints at Stair's partiality for Argyll. In another case in which Argyll was concerned he observes, 'Every on saw that would be the fate of that action, considering ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... she thought constantly. He was not buried in that outer circle of oblivion from which the thoughts unconsciously shy—as we bury our dead, their going so shrouded in pain that we long to blot out the memory of them. John Derringham was always with her. She prayed for his welfare with the fervor and purity of her sweet soul. He was her spirit lover still. He could never really belong to any other woman, she knew. And as the days went by a fresh beauty grew in ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... still gives way to his old feelings; he receives or visits his friends privately; he shuts himself up with them, and talks of the times when they could be open friends. By dint of precautions they have hitherto succeeded in concealing this blot of friendship against policy; but sooner or later the newspapers will be informed of it, and will denounce him to the country ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to have a record So white and free from stain That, held to the light, it shows no blot, Though tested and tried amain; That age to age forever Repeats its story of love, And your birthday lives in a nation's heart, All other ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... comes . . . slew: if he is the source of the blot on my honour, it becomes a beauty, not a blemish, and proves that I posses the same innocence that ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... always upon one's guard against the impurities of the wax obtained from the shop; against the dust during the impregnation of the paper; and, while using the iron, against the over-heating of the latter, and against the bad quality of the paper used to blot. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... or imaginations, while I was once full of them. Since I learned to seek the Lord and love his Bible, I have never had such peace, or purity. I love the name and tender mercies of my God." If in a few months, prayer saved that man's life, and so wholly changed it from a foul blot to a thing of purity, what can it not do again. No sin can ever be conquered until in humility either saint or sinner gets down upon his knees, and implores the love and power of the Lord in never ceasing ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... his cartload of seaweed smacked his whip cheerily as he urged his patient horse along the narrow lane. A huge van-load of Cockney tourists, singing a boisterous chorus of the last music-hall song, passed Vixen at a turn of the road, and made a blot on the serene beauty of the scene. They were going to eat lobsters and drink bottled beer and play skittles at Le Tac. Vixen rejoiced when their raucous voices died away on the ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... about," said Lance. "I never take up a paper without reading one or two cases. I wonder that the Government does not take it up and issue some decree or other. It is a blot on the face of ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... she had brought him to a tardy realization of her superiority over Constance Stevens, by outsinging the latter, along with all the other contestants, she was certain that admiration for herself as a singer would blot out any unpleasant impression he might earlier have conceived of her. She had heard that "the Stevens girl" could sing. It was to be doubted, however, if her voice amounted to much. Another point in her ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... wife, so happy in the little home which had grown doubly dear to her since she left it. No wonder then that she put down "two dozen children" to Mrs. Flanagan, and "four knit hoods" with the measles; or that a great blot fell upon "twenty yards red flannel," as the pen dropped from the hands she clasped together; saying with all the fervor of true self-abnegation: "I hope he will be happy; oh, I ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... tell you, my much-loved darling, the secret miseries of my heart; no, I do not blush for what my hand has just written, but my heart is sick and suffering, and I tell it to you. I suffer... I wish to blot out these lines, but why? Could they offend you? What do they contain that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the charm of your words, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... insignia of Tammany; and soon I met a lot more of them: jolly fellows, apparently, yet somehow conveying to me the suspicion that in a saloon shindy they might prove themselves my superiors. (I was told in New York, and by the best people in New York, that Tammany was a blot on the social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business organizations, ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the present resolution differed from those which preceded it, so likewise has the conduct of America, both in government and war. Neither the foul finger of disgrace, nor the bloody hand of vengeance has hitherto put a blot upon her fame. Her victories have received lustre from a greatness of lenity; and her laws been permitted to slumber, where they might justly have awakened to punish. War, so much the trade of the world, has here been only the business of necessity; ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... already to set off, he wondered, looking up to the sun; but then those boys seemed to be in an uproarious state such as did not suit his present mood, nor did he think Mr. Cope would consider it befitting. He would have let them go by, feeling himself such a scare-crow as they might think a blot upon them; but he remembered that Charles Hayward had his ticket, and as he looked at himself, he doubted whether he should be let into ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his mother could not be called a very well written one; there were several mistakes in the spelling, and here and there, a great blot could tell that a good deal of his heart had gone into it; but whatever it was, it was a ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... early and brilliantly that year, for the weather was springlike, even in February; and people were ready to enjoy everything. The one blot on the general brightness was a series of robberies. Something happened on an average of every ten or twelve days, and always in an unexpected quarter, where the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... prostrate, "In the dust I write My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears." Yet why evoke the spectres of black night To blot the sunshine of exultant years? Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden? 5 Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden, And wail life's ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... barrels. The dun river slipped along among the shipping with an oily gurgle. Far down toward Chalmette he could see the great bend in the stream, outlined by the row of electric lights. Across the river Algiers lay, a long, irregular blot, made darker by the dawn which lightened the sky beyond. An industrious tug or two, coming for some early sailing ship, gave a few appalling toots, that seemed to be the signal for breaking day. The Italian luggers were creeping nearer their landing, laden with early vegetables ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... pleasure give me, May no pain grieve me To see flow over The cup my brother Or neighbour hath, with Thy blessings so free. Covetous burning And unchristian yearning For ill possessions, Blot out such transgressions, Cast them, O ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... scoffing readers scape this marke of a maledizant? whose wits have no other worke, nor better worth then to flout, and fall out? It is a foule blemish that Paterculus findes in the face of the Gracchi. They had good wits, but used them ill. But a fouler blot then a Jewes letter is it in the foreheads of Caelies and Curio, that he sets, Ingeniose nequam, they were wittily wicked. Pitie it is but evermore wit should be vertuous, vertue gentle, gentrie studious, students gracious. ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... The Mountain?" she heard Mr. Royall say. "Why, the Mountain's a blot—that's what it is, sir, a blot. That scum up there ought to have been run in long ago—and would have, if the people down here hadn't been clean scared of them. The Mountain belongs to this township, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... have the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and respect for his high abilities and character; and for the bold philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to that most hideous blot ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... away, life would not be worth having, that nothing remained for him in the future but misery and despair. To few men is it given to love as he loved the girl before him, and in that moment he suffered an agony of suspense which might well have caused the recording angel to blot out the follies of ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... ashes—there he seemed to see in ruins the whole fabric of his dreams—but if there was a law which brought thoughts back, and back again at the same hour each day, then Moravia was right: he must blot out the old pictures and conjure up new ones—but what ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... started down the street alone, with little Mary Alice clapping her hands after him above the gate and laughing in a strange new voice, and with the backs of her little fluttering hands vainly striving to blot out the big tear-drops that gathered in her eyes, we vaguely guessed the secret she and David kept. That night at supper-time we knew ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... indeed, compels us to endure the evils of slavery for a time. While it continues it is a blot on our national character; and every real lover of freedom confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it must be gradually, wiped away, and earnestly looks for the means by which the necessary object may be best obtained. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Ministry for having provoked a most unjust war against a totally inoffensive people, whose only fault consisted in asserting its love of freedom, and for thus plunging the entire British nation into blackest guilt deserving universal reprobation, a blot and ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... bald-headed Sun man received on Thursday, and a pair of four-year-old brown eyes were full enough of tears to break the heart of a policeman of many years' standing, and the little, crushed master of the dead King Charles spaniel went to sleep sobbing and believing that policemen were the greatest blot upon the civilization of the ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... Mahrattas of Western India look back to Sivaji as the founder of their political power, which lasted down to 1817, and have lately instituted an annual celebration of Sivaji as the hero of the Mahratta race. One great blot rests on Sivaji's career. In one campaign he invited the Mahomedan general opposing him to a personal conference, and stabbed him while in the act of embracing him. It was at one of these Sivaji celebrations in 1897 that Mr. Tilak abandoned himself ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... cap had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... land and this people shall be put into the melting-pot. And when the season appointed shall come, sorrow and death, rebellion and treachery shall stalk through the land, and naught shall stand of its present kingdoms; the pagans shall blot out the holy memory of God and Christ, and shall turn the fanes of prayer into the lairs of wolves, and owls shall rest where hymns of praise have been sung. And no wars of goodly knights may hinder these things of dreadful doom. But I have this message ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... turned from the street into the lane which led to it, and rode up a little hill where the sand was so deep that it muffled the wheels and feet of the horses, the whole round of the gray sky was visible. It hung low over us. I wished it to drop and blot out the vague nothings under it. We left the carriage at the palings and walked up the narrow path, among the mounds, where every stone was marked "Morgeson." Some so old that they were stained with blotches of yellow moss, slanting ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... not so careful to stock the world with Opinions and Notions as to make it thrive with true piety, Godlike purity and spiritual understanding"; and in a very happy passage, he reminds us that there are other ways of propagating religion besides writing books: "They are not alwaies the best Men who blot the most paper; Truth is not so {318} voluminous nor swells into such a mighty bulk as our Bookes doe. Those minds are not alwaies the most chaste that are the most parturient with ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... mind went backward to his last Sunday evening in the cathedral at home. He had known why the old rector had chosen that time-worn hymn for a recessional; he could still feel the stir of the congregation as he passed them, still see the scarlet blot of color made by his own hymnal against his stiffly starched cotta, still see his mother, erect and pale, staring at him with a resolute bravery which matched his own. Since then, he had been inside no church until ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Human nature craves a certain materialism and clings pertinaciously to what is tangible, as if that were of more importance than the spirit accidentally involved in it. And, in truth, the original manuscript has always something which print itself must inevitably lose. An erasure, even a blot, a casual irregularity of hand, and all such little imperfections of mechanical execution, bring us close to the writer, and perhaps convey some of those subtle intimations for which ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ptarth, gazing toward the east, saw the blacker blot against the blackness of the trees as the craft topped the buttressed garden wall. She saw the dim bulk incline gently downward toward the ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... deck in an instant. It was too late. The water circled us about and was running toward the coast at tremendous speed. No, it did not run, it glided, crept, spread like an immense, limitless blot. The water was barely a few centimeters deep, but the rising flood had gone so far that we no longer saw the vanishing line ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... most natural. For, on the one hand, his accusers had hit a blot. He was sometimes extremely dogmatic, imperious, and rash in his application of 'God's revealed will' both to persons and things. But the form in which they put it—that he posed as a prophet, as one having ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... coming fate— Too late the last to shun—the first to mend— To count the hours that struggle to thine end, With not a friend to animate and tell To other ears that Death became thee well; Around thee foes to forge the ready lie, And blot Life's latest scene with calumny; Before thee tortures, which the Soul can dare, 1400 Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear; But deeply feels a single cry would shame, To Valour's praise thy ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... blast, both day and night. They were taking on hundreds of new hands, mostly women and girls, speeding them faster and faster, turning out tens of thousands of shell-casings every day. And still they were not satisfied; new buildings were going up, the concern was spreading like a huge blot over the landscape. There was talk of an explosive factory near-by, so that shells might be filled as fast ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... captions in a running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm, in spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the lad of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it his glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a noble undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great imprudence of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of copying, a paper which contained ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... with all his fascinations for literary men, and they are great; and with all his services to them, and they are not small; is both an immoral and an unbelieving writer. Whereas, Sir Thomas Browne never wrote a single line, even in his greenest studies, that on his deathbed he desired to blot out. A purer, a humbler, a more devout and detached hand never put English pen to paper than was the hand of Sir Thomas Browne. And, if ever in his greener days he had a doubt about any truth of natural or of revealed religion, he tells us that he had fought down every such doubt in his closet ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... light upon the floor widening and widening, growing ever broader and more broad. The minutes dragged slowly by, while the line grew into a streak, and the streak into a lane, and upon the lane came a blot that slowly resolved itself into the shadow of a hand upon the latch. Slowly, slowly, to the hand came a wrist, and to the wrist an arm—another minute, and this maddening suspense would be over. ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... wondering what this singular phenomenon might portend, a hoarse low muffled roar, accompanied by an occasional grinding crash, smote upon their ears through the heavy swish of the rain; the dull white monotonous expanse of the ice-field was abruptly broken into by a jagged irregular-shaped black blot ahead; and, almost before they had time to realise the extraordinary change, the Flying Fish had swept beyond the northern boundary of the immense expanse of paleocrystic ice, and was careering northward, at an elevation of about a thousand feet, above ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... unerring Reasons fixt: Or else that you suspect my Truth, when I have sworn By all things sacred; nay upon my Honour (Which I am so Jealous of) that if you would Relate the truth of your so close amours, I from my memory would blot it all, And look on you at worst, but as the Widdow Of your ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... temple had come then to blot out the tragedy, but in my ears rang the single shriek as the knife fell. Then silence, and when the smoke had cleared, the revolving temple had shut off all sight or sound from the chamber in which the three beautiful women ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had not noticed it, or had felt for it only the contemptuous indifference of the traveller toward a provisional shelter. But now that he was leaving it, was looking at it for the last time, it seemed to have taken complete possession of his mind, to be soaking itself into him like an ugly indelible blot. Every detail pressed itself on his notice with the familiarity of an accidental confidant: whichever way he turned, he felt the nudge of ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... which Prince Mastowix held sway, he had charge of this fearful secret record; but the better to blot his existence out, should inquiries ever be made, he applied a false name to the "No. 20"; described him as a Russian, a Nihilist, who had been caught in holding correspondence with Paul Zobriskie, and who had also ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... out, and he began to wonder if a sullen day, ending in this apocalypse, would pass into a cheerful evening. It seemed as if it would, for some blue was showing between the clouds drifting westward, threatening every moment to blot out the blue, but the clouds continued to brighten at the edges. 'The beginning of the sunset,' the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood watching the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, swerving flight ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... cry of the hunt-pack, and for an instant he bent his lithe form close to the snow, measuring with the acuteness of his race the distance of the pursuers. Then he looked for his white companion, and failed to see the motionless blot that marked where the other had fallen. A look of alarm shot into his eyes, and resting his rifle between his knees he placed his hands, trumpet fashion, to his mouth and gave a signal call which, on a still night like this, carried for ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... informer. But afterwards, while enjoying Vitellius's friendship, he had conducted himself with courtesy and prudence. He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia, and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years. He ranked among the first men in the state, but he neither retained power nor excited envy. He was saluted, courted; he received levees often in his bed, always ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... prey. Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... to speed her rapid course The light bark of my genius lifts the sail, Well pleas'd to leave so cruel sea behind; And of that second region will I sing, In which the human spirit from sinful blot Is purg'd, and for ascent to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... and] no mention of Christ nor faith; but men hoped by their own works to overcome and blot out sins before God. And with this intention we became priests and monks, that we might array ourselves ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... he wished her to sign. A thrill of repulsion that was strong enough to be painful ran through her, and she rolled the penholder still more quickly and nervously, so that she almost dropped it, and a little blot of ink fell upon the sheet before she had ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... leaving only the four in the house to be accounted for. The dark specks in the brush were working closer to the house, effectually blocking escape. Then she could no longer make them out. The building showed only as a darker blot in the obscurity. A tiny point of light attracted her eye. It grew and spread. She knew that one of her men had crawled up under cover of night and fired the house. It was now but a question of minutes, but the sight oppressed ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... are two kinds of clouds, rain-clouds and wind-clouds, and that the latter are always the most portentous. In summer they are black as night; they look as if they would blot out the very earth. They raise a great dust, and set things flying and slamming for a moment, and that is all. They are the veritable wind-bags of AEolus. There is something in the look of rain-clouds that is unmistakable,—a firm, gray, tightly ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... of vulgar debauchery. The great difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and the man can; for even a legal enactment that he shall be "taken, reputed, adjudged in law, to be a chattel personal," cannot blot out his soul, with its own private little world of memories, hopes, loves, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... outward Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,—though she, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... of true ones; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his thoughts, the type and head of true episcopal power. For Milton reads that text, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven" quite honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out of the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to understand him, we must understand that verse first; it will not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Echo," he said apologetically. With some idea of restoring her composure by his own unconcern, he began to move in the direction from which the sound had come; but he had taken only a few steps when a blot of darkness which had crouched before him like a huge stone or the stump of a tree suddenly detached itself and rose into the form of a man. Leigh had an indistinct vision of a face, of arms that seemed to ward ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... not a more unpleasant occurrence in the whole life of Benjamin Franklin than this quarrel with his brother. We charge the difficulty mainly upon James, of course; but this does not blot out the unpleasantness of the affair. A quarrel between brothers is always painful in the extreme, and is discreditable to all parties concerned. Dr. Watts has very beautifully written, for the admonition of little children, what older ones may ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... which like a deadly leprosy, has involved man in uncertainty and darkness in all his conceptions of purity and holiness, is the fallacious hope of producing some good works to blot out transgressions; or that man is not so polluted, but that he may justify himself by works performed through some kind of ability communicated by the Saviour—an ability which he might or might not use, but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... best poem that you ever wrought. This fairest labour of your teeming brain I would embrace, but not with flatt'ry stain. Something I would to your vast virtue raise, But scorn to daub it with a fulsome praise; That would but blot the work I would commend, And shew a court-admirer, not a friend. To the dead bard your fame a little owes, For Milton did the wealthy mine disclose, And rudely cast what you could well dispose: He roughly drew, on ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... "the golden exhalations of the dawn" began to warm the gray of the plain. The sun was in the roots of the grass. Four miles away the lights of Larned twinkled. The only blot on a fair landscape was the mule—in the middle distance. But there was a wicked gleam in the eye of the footsore young ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... covers all the heath, Clouds of carnage blot the sun, Sisters, weave the web of death; Sisters, ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... speaking of; the white-washed wall being especially unfavourable: perhaps, indeed, the very style of painting lent itself to speedy destruction. In the second half of the Sixteenth Century a traveller says that the picture is half spoiled; another sees in it only a tarnished blot; people complain that the picture is already lost, assuredly it can scarcely be seen; another calls it perfectly useless, and so speak all the later authors of ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... it across the court, a figure shaped itself in the tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a mere blot of deeper gray in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her, her heart thumped to the thought, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... blot in the darkness, but the instant we reached the open street they saw us and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... barbarism. China has great men, who for the honour of their country would not be afraid to take the matter in hand. They would, if necessary, imitate Lincoln and the Czar Alexander to effect the removal of such a blot. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... duel? I took my hint, I confess, from that, Harry. Our mother is not compromised in the—Why, child, what have you been writing, and who taught thee to spell?" Harry had written the last words "in view," in vew, and a great blot of salt water from his honest, boyish eyes may have obliterated some other ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Bender took refuge in easy humour. "Well, I'm a large man—so when I want to feel so much I look out for something good. But what, if he suffers from the blot on his ermine—ain't that what you wear?—does our friend propose ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... all the fellows at Westminster were told I was guilty. I shall be constantly meeting them in the world, and all my life this blot will hang to me if it is not set straight. When we get home I shall go back to the School and see if I cannot hit on some clue or other. Of course if Fred would confess it would be all right, but, after all, we have not a shadow of real proof against ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for the further I went the brisker grew the current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and had ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whitening in the east next morning, when we again scrambled through the dwarf beechwood to the precipice above the lake. Like an ink-blot it lay, unruffled, slumbering sadly. Broad sheets of vapour brooded on the plain, telling of miasma and fever, of which we on the mountain, in the pure cool air, knew nothing. The Alps were all there now—cold, unreal, stretching like a phantom line of snowy peaks, from the sharp ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... all that is done. And he is happy now—really happy, I mean. Oh, I know his happiness is founded on a mistake, but does that matter? Surely not when you think of all the years he has passed in misery. I do want him to live long enough to have the 'little happiness,' just to blot out all that he has suffered. I am so desperately sorry for him that there is nothing I would not do to bring some joy into his life, even if it is only ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... man who figures in history, is only known in connection with some stupendous fault—some mistake, some folly, or some sin—that has given him an unenviable immortality. Mention his name, and the huge blot by which his memory is besmirched starts up before the mind in all its hideousness. Take Cain, for example. He occupies the foremost rank as regards fame; his name is one of the first that children ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... will be for them to decide. Kenneth had already established himself as a lawyer back in the old home town. I shall urge him to return to that place with Viola as soon as they are married. His mother was a Blythe. There is no blot upon the name of Blythe. My daughter was born there. Her father was an honest, God-fearing, highly respected man. His name and his memory are untarnished. No man can say aught against the half of Kenneth ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... have thrown it over the docks, if that would blot out one evening behind the broom bushes at Garthowen, and one night when I saw a sight which spoilt my life. It's twenty minutes to the starting time yet, Sara. Art tired, or will I tell the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... the stars fade; he rows like a madman to reach the land, but a blush of morning is stealing up the sky, and sunrise is rosy over shore and sea, when panting, trembling, weary, a creature accursed, a blot on the face of the day, he lands at Newcastle—too late! Too late! In vain he casts the dory adrift; she will not float away; the flood tide bears her back to give her testimony against him, and afterward she is found at Jaffrey's Point, near the "Devil's Den," and the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... over her dimly, as from moment to moment their intimacy warmed, and Beauchamp saw the young face vanishing out of this flower of womanhood. He did not see it appearing or present, but vanishing like the faint ray in the rosier. Nay, the blot of her faithlessness underwent a transformation: it affected him somewhat as the patch cunningly laid on near a liquid dimple in fair cheeks at once allures and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... secret enmity to the substance contended for. They must have borne in mind, that as the plan to be framed and proposed was to be submitted TO THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES, the disapprobation of this supreme authority would destroy it forever; its approbation blot out antecedent errors and irregularities. It might even have occurred to them, that where a disposition to cavil prevailed, their neglect to execute the degree of power vested in them, and still more their recommendation ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... title than that of homicides, while the simple affirmation of others has been admitted (in default of testimony) who are themselves the authors of the deed, for which they stand in judgment. The indiscriminate system of accepting bail is a blot on our criminal legislation, and is one great reason why so many violators of the law avoid its penalties. To this doubtless must be ascribed the non-interference of the Attorney General. The law of habeas corpus being subjected to the interpretation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... hands was an unconditional surrender by Pilate, and the sneer in 'whom ye call the King of the Jews' is a poor attempt to hide from them and himself that he is afraid of them. Mark puts his finger on the damning blot in Pilate's conduct when he says that his motive for condemning Jesus was his wish to content the people. The life of one poor Jew was a small price to pay for popularity. So he let policy outweigh righteousness, and, in spite of his own clear conviction, did an innocent man to death. That ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... touch it," cried Yolanda, snatching the parchment from the countess and holding it behind her. "If I would let you, you could not make the alteration; see, your hand trembles! You would blot the parchment and spoil all this fine plan of mine. Give me the quill, mother! Give me ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... thou, then, turn And struggle? Sprang there from thy father's blood Thy little soul a11 lonely? Or the god That rules thee, is he other than our gods? Nay, yield thee to men's ways, and kiss their rods! How many, deem'st thou, of men good and wise Know their own home's blot, and avert their eyes? How many fathers, when a son has strayed And toiled beneath the Cyprian, bring him aid, Not chiding? And man's wisdom e'er hath been To keep what is not good to see, unseen! A straight and perfect life is not for man; Nay, in a shut house, let him, if ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... nightmare that is throttling him now; that he will no more write senseless proclamations, will give up the attempt to save slave-holders, and will march straight to the great task of crushing the rebellion and rebels. He will blot slavery, that Cain's mark on the brow of the Union; blot it and throw it into the marshes of the parishes of Louisiana. I rely upon Banks's sound common sense. He will come out ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... the struggle against sin is shown in the fifty-first Psalm. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." "Make me to hear joy and gladness." "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... have participated in the errors or crimes of the revolution, I began and ended my political career without blot, and without reproach. The places, titles, and decorations, which the Emperor deigned to bestow on me, were the reward of several acts of great devotion to his service, and of twelve years of trials and sacrifices. Never did I receive from him any ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... in the face like an accusing angel, not severely, but with all the angelic regret and tenderness of one who cannot be deceived, yet would fain blot out the fault with a tear. "Poor mamma!" he said, clasping her arm in his old ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the arts. At coffee-houses or clubs, wheresoever men foregathered, some fellow would mount a table and harangue his friends. The bloods caught the vogue, little foreseeing that it made a hotbed for the airing of discontents, and for the parading of ideals which alone could blot out those discontents. All took to it like ducks to the village pond. There was much ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... Cacciaguida married a lady of the Alighieri family of the Valdipado; and, giving the name to one of his children, they subsequently retained it as a patronymic in preference to their own. It would appear, from the same poem, not only that the Alighieri were the more important house, but that some blot had darkened the scutcheon of the Elisei; perhaps their having been poor, and transplanted (as he seems to imply) from some disreputable district. Perhaps they were known to have been of ignoble origin; for, in the course of one of his most ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Bohemian revolts have not created this state of mind. It is impossible to regard the partial distress of the factory districts as a general question for an unpolitical country like Germany, let alone as a blot upon the whole civilized world. For the Germans the incident has the same significance as any local drought or famine. Consequently the King regards it in the light of a defect of administration or a lack of charity. For the same reason, and because a few soldiers settled accounts ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... "Examiner" newspaper, respecting alleged dishonorable and most unconscientious conduct on your part, when defending Courvoisier against the charge of having murdered Lord William Russell. Considering that you fill a responsible judicial office, and have to leave behind you a name unsullied by any blot or stain, I think you ought to lose no time in offering, as I believe you can truly do, a public and peremptory contradiction to the allegations in question. The mere circumstances of your having been twice promoted to judicial office by two lord ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... stretched away to the battle area, where figures packed together inside the new prisoners' inclosures made a green blot. Litters were thick in the streets of the casualty clearing stations which had been empty yesterday. There were no idle ambulances now. They had passengers in green as well as in khaki. The first ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... "We admit," was the reply, "that there is much wrong here, but we do not admit the right of your country to rebuke it. There is a system now with you, worse than any thing which we know of tyranny—your SLAVERY. It is a disgrace and blot on your free government and on a Christian State. We have nothing in Russia or Hungary which is so degrading, and we have nothing which so crushes the mind. And more than this, we hear you have ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... was waiting outside the door, so I flew to my table and began to write. My hand trembled so I made a blot, and had to tear that sheet up; then I wrote another. Just a little word. I was frightened; I couldn't say loving things in a letter; I had not even spoken ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... whom it is more often openly obtruded. The unclean spirit pursues him everywhere, disfiguring his scenes of humour, demoralizing his passages of serious reflection, debasing even his sentimental interludes. His coarseness is very often as great a blot on his art as on his morality—a thing which can very rarely be said of either Swift or Rabelais; and it is sometimes so distinctly fatal a blemish from the purely literary point of view, that one is amazed at the critical faculty which could ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... what thou wast of old, and thou seest not fairly in these shadows. I know that Philip Sidney and John Nevil have come to Ferne House, and here am I, thy oldest comrade of them all. A sheet of paper close written with record of noble deeds becomes not worthless because of one deep blot." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Stratford (1837), {297} was written for Macready, and put on at Covent Garden Theater, but without pronounced success. He has written many fine dramatic poems, like Pippa Passes, Colombo's Birthday, and In a Balcony; and at least two good acting plays, Luria and A Blot in the Scutcheon. The last named has recently been given to the American public, with Lawrence Barrett's careful and intelligent presentation of the leading role. The motive of the tragedy is somewhat strained and fantastic, but it is, notwithstanding, very ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... conspiracy, called the Beef Trust, which thrives on the needs and privations of the whole people. It is a blot on humanity. Do what you can to destroy this evil. But do not be made bitter by it. Your age is a happier ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... my brother Quintus, whom I to our mutual misery have ruined, and not allow him to do anything to himself which would be to the detriment of your sister's son. My little Cicero, to whom, poor boy! I leave nothing but prejudice and the blot upon my name, pray protect to the best of your power. Terentia, that most afflicted of women, sustain by your kindness. I shall start for Epirus as soon as I have received news of the first days of the new tribunate.[369] Pray describe fully to me in your next letter ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in this respect; both have written one fine play and several fine dramatic compositions; but throughout Shelley's poetry the dramatic spirit is deficient, while in Browning's it reveals itself so powerfully that one wonders how he has escaped writing many good plays besides the "Blot on the Scutcheon" and that fine fragmentary succession ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... may find it advantageous to make preliminary outlines of what you wish to say. But above all, you must be willing to blot, to revise, to take infinite pains. You should remember the old admonition that easy ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... back with calm thankfulness on that long period of trial and exertion—with thankfulness that the dark clouds that hung over us, threatening to blot us from existence, when they did burst upon us, were full of blessings. When our situation appeared perfectly desperate, then were we on the threshold of a new state of things, which was born out ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... connection with them is looked upon as something of a mesalliance. They are not consulted in the settlement of tribal disputes. No explanation of the comparatively degraded position of these septs is forthcoming, but it may probably be attributed to some blot in their ancestral escutcheon. The Bishnois celebrate their marriages at any period of the year, and place no reliance on astrology. According to their saying, "Every day is as good as Sankrant, [386] every day is as good ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... between the time the Commission would be appointed and the time the Commission could define the areas which would be regarded as white areas and the areas which would be regarded as native areas. That was the one serious blot upon ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. Hear how Homer has described the same. "The snow-flakes fall thick and fast on a winter's day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the mountains, and the hills, and the plains where ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... all the pain you have given me; to blot out the memory of the grief that your joys have caused me; and for the sake of the nights that I spent in ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... going to Kitty's Christmas party to-morrow, and we shall dance—-so Aunt Ada has given me a new white frock and a lovely Roman sash of her own. Poor old Mrs. Vincent is dead, and Fergus's great black rabbit, and poor little Mary Brown with dip—-(blot). I can't spell it, and nobody is here to tell me how, but the thing in people's throats, and poor Anne has got it, and Dr. Ellis says it was a mercy we were all away from home, for we should have had it too, and that would have been ever ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remembrance of Thy Benefits! each year of my life is crowned with blessings ... at ten ... fifteen ... eighteen ... twenty years ... oh! I can well recall all Thy goodness to me, my GOD! Yes, receive my memory, blot out all that can estrange me from Thee, and grant that nothing apart from Thee may again find ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... don't be entirely heartless. Wouldn't a cup of tea blot it out? With a Peak & Frean?" She advances beseechingly upon him. "Come, I will give you a ...
— Five O'Clock Tea - Farce • W. D. Howells
... answered mine—yet, O days replete with beatitude, days of loved society—days unutterably dear to me forlorn—pass, O pass before me, making me in your memory forget what I am. Behold, how my streaming eyes blot this senseless paper—behold, how my features are convulsed by agonizing throes, at your mere recollection, now that, alone, my tears flow, my lips quiver, my cries fill the air, unseen, unmarked, unheard! Yet, O yet, days of delight! let me dwell ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the enthusiasm which ever followed him, the greatness of his success, and also, unhappily, the otherwise almost inexplicable but enduring infatuation which enslaved his later years, and has left the most serious blot ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... eyes turned ever to the land he loved, chanting, as he leaned from his galley's stern, that melancholy psalm, 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,' and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... brief visit home had been put to sleep, raised its head and robbed him of all pleasure in his anticipated change and of much of the incentive to put forth his best effort in it. He felt that the result of this ungracious letter must be to blot the new leaf which he had so ardently desired to turn with shadows of his past which no effort of his ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... terrible work to go over the scene of slaughter in cold blood, with no fever of excitement to blot out the hideous details, now displaying themselves in all their naked reality! Conspicuously, in front of La Villette, were to be seen the white trimmings of the uniforms of the Prussian Imperial Guards; the red trousers of the French line; the shining ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... towards them for example and for support; and thus, where the one is evil, and the other wanting, the results of the failure may prove incalculable. The flaw in the diamond, the alloy in the gold, the stain in the purple, the blot upon the ermine—all these are detected upon the instant; the value of the jewel is decreased, the price of the metal is deteriorated, the glory of the hue is tarnished, the purity of the mantle is sullied; and where minor ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... so did this. What a record! What a counterpart we have in history of this beast! "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon," lest the Pagan rejoice, and the heathen mock at us, and the infidel triumph over us. Blot out from Time's record the 24th of August, 1572. Let not our children learn the name of St. Bartholomew, for fear they should despise Christianity. Quench the flames of Smithfield, destroy the Inquisition, and divorce Christianity from such ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... all your novelties at best Are ancient puppets, newly drest. What you must do, is not to shrink From speaking out the thing you think; And blaming where 'tis right to blame, Despite tradition and a Name. Yet don't expand a trifling blot, Or ban the book for what it's not (That is the poor device of those Who cavil where they can't oppose!); Moreover (this is very old!), Be courteous—even ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Syren, that incarnate fiend, Monster of Nature, spectacle of shame, Blot and confusion of his familie, False-seeming semblance of true-dealing trust, I meane Fallerio, bloody murtherer: Hath he confest his cursed treacherie, Or will he stand to proove ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... a few words of affectionate commendation of his people and his land into her keeping, and a parting blessing, and, lastly, written as a postscript—with a blot as if it had been written with hesitation—'Little children, keep yourselves ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge |
