"Slur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a character that closed the doors of all his family against him, my lady (then just married) taking the lead, and declaring (with Sir John's approval, of course) that her brother should never enter any house of hers. There was more than one slur on the Colonel that made people shy of him; but the blot of the Diamond is all I need ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the slur cast upon the pipe band, the only band, in his opinion, worthy of any real man's attention, was intensified by his lapse into his habit of profanity, which, out of deference to the Pilot, he for some weeks had been earnestly ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... in the Devil playing at push-pin with the world, or like Domitian, catching flies,—that is to say, doing nothing to the purpose,—this is not only deluding ourselves, but putting a slur upon the Devil himself; and I say, I shall not dishonor Satan so much as to suppose anything in it; however, as I must have a care to how I take away the proper materials of winter-evening frippery, and leave the goodwives nothing of the Devil ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... silence, the crime for ever hidden away for the sake of the good renown of his mother, the Church. And there could be no loftier, no more tragical grandeur than that of this old man of seventy, still so erect and sovereign, who would neither suffer a slur to be cast upon his spiritual family, nor consent to his human family being dragged into the inevitable mire of a sensational murder trial. No, no, there must be none of that, there must be silence, the eternal silence in which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... want. He was, therefore, really distressed, when he fixed upon some necessitous and greedy emigrants for his instruments to play on the credulity of the English Ministers in some of their unguarded moments. Their generosity in forbearing to avenge upon the deluded French exiles the slur attempted to be thrown upon their official capacity, and the ridicule intended to be cast on their private characters, has been much approved and admired here by all liberal-minded persons; but it has also much disappointed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... he said, 'we must put by more money for these next three months. I want it.' That was a direct slur on Georgina's housekeeping; for she prided herself on her thrift; but since her God wanted money she ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... passive accomplice by stating family considerations in the strongest possible terms. "If the disgrace was confined to you, my dear, I might leave you to decide. But I am involved in it, as your nearest relative; and, what is more, even the sacred memories of your father and mother might feel the slur cast on them." This exaggerated language—like all exaggerated language, a mischievous weapon in the arsenal of weakness and prejudice—had its effect on Isabel. Reluctantly and sadly, she ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... her skirts brush the leaves at the border of the path. She was going; and the contemptuous slur at my "reasons" proved that she did not believe them existent. She believed me ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... different sort. How, indeed, it came to have this name does not seem to be very clear, for what natural connection can be established between a diminutive horse, and a discreditable method of reducing the difficulties of a lesson in Latin or Greek? It would appear to be a very unjust slur upon a very worthy little animal, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... forever, thenceforward, unalterable; or else the two colors must be individually put in their places, and led up to each other till they meet at their appointed border, equally, thenceforward, unchangeable. Either process, you see, involves absolute decision. If you once begin to slur, or change, or sketch, or try this way and that with your color, it is all over with it and with you. You will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate the Venetians, by daubing their colors about, and retouching, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... also know how much ignorance and senseless prejudice the pioneers of these educational reforms have had to overcome in the introduction of the newer and better methods. The point I wish to make carries no slur upon the ideal which the best modern pedagogy is striving for; it is, on the contrary, an appeal for the support and furtherance of that ideal on the part of intelligent citizenship generally, and of conscientious parenthood ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Omnium was within her reach. Then she began to ask herself various questions. Would the Queen refuse to accept her in her new rank? Refuse! How could any Queen refuse to accept her? She had not done aught amiss in life. There was no slur on her name; no stain on her character. What though her father had been a small attorney, and her first husband a Jew banker! She had broken no law of God or man, had been accused of breaking no law, which breaking or which accusation need stand in the way of her being as good a duchess as ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Miss Reston? In Priorsford it's considered rather a slur on your character to care for poetry. Novels we may discuss, sensible people read novels, even now and again essays or biography, but poetry—there we have to dissemble. We pretend, don't we, Jean?—that poetry is nothing to us. Never a quotation ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... to an atrocious slur cast without a shred of evidence on her moral character. There is as little foundation for more general though milder charges of laxity. It is admitted that she had little love for her first husband, and it seems to be probable that her second had not much love for her. She was ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... India and that of other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value, because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which have now been established by the students of the science of language were not yet known, and as with words, so with the names of deities, similarity of sound, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... the ennobling influence of the past. They need to understand their integral part in human progress. To slur this over, ignore, or deny it, cripples their powers. It sets them at the foolish effort of enlarging their lives by doing the things man does—not because they are certain that as human beings with a definite task they need—or society needs—these particular services or operations from them, but ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... Gazette as well. That wound, therefore, seemed at first to go against him, but he bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck. And his third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in the proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades. This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled him to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... who were eye-witnesses, and when they were told in naive and popular language that obscured the real condition that was present, he has retold the story from the physician's standpoint, and thus the miracle becomes clearer than ever. In one case, where Mark has a slur on physicians, Luke eliminates it. In a number of cases the correction of Mark's popular language in the description of ailments is made in terms that could not have been used except by one thoroughly versed in the Greek medical terminology of the times. As a matter of fact, there ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... came himself, with four horses and the big trap. The manager of Mulfera said his horses had something else to do, and his neighbors backed him up with some discreet encouragement on their own account. It was felt that a slur would be left upon the whole district if his lordship actually met with the only sort of reception which was predicted for him on Mulfera. Bishop Methuen, however, was one of the last men on earth to shirk ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... however, to understand why the tract was not included in later editions of Swift's complete works. Sir Walter Scott puts forward an explanation suggested by Dr. Barrett, who believed the reason to have been, that this "jeu d'esprit might be interpreted as casting a slur on an hospital erected upon Lazors-Hill, now on the Donny-Brook road near Dublin, for the reception of persons afflicted with incurable maladies." The reason seems a poor one, though it may have been as Dr. Barrett states. A better argument might be found from the style ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... here yet, why don't they come out of the crowd and receive us?" inquired Martin rather pompously. His insinuation that Dick's fellows might be mixed with the crowd was a slur on the ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... like," boasts the New Englander, letting fly a broadside of oaths at the Frenchman's slur. "A hundred men with nine lives, if you like! ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... 1789, served in the Imperial Guard, and was one of the most dashing colonels of the Restoration, but was forced to resign on account of a slur on his character. In 1808, to provide for foolish expenditures into which a woman led him, he forged certain notes. Jacques Collin—Vautrin—took the crime to himself and was sent to the galleys for ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... letter of orthography; and to those accustomed to a more hurried utterance we may seem to drawl, when we are only giving a full expression to letters which, though etymologically important, the English habitually slur over, sputtering out, as a Swedish satirist says, one half of the word, and swallowing the other. The tendency to make the long vowels diphthongal is noticed by foreigners as a peculiarity of the orthoëpy of our language; and this tendency will, of course, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... punishing Meherdates with death, he thought it sufficient to insult him with the names of "foreigner" and "Roman," and to render it impossible that he should be again put forward as monarch by subjecting him to mutilation. The Roman historian supposes that this was done to cast a slur upon Rome but it was a natural measure of precaution under the circumstances, and had probably no more recondite motive than compassion for the youth ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Tennesseean's crude notions of international law could not be upheld in dealings with proud European States. Yet it was borne in upon them from every side that the nation approved what had been done; and the politically ambitious might well think twice before casting any slur upon the acts of the people's hero. Moreover the irascibility of the conqueror himself was known and feared. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, who was specially annoyed because his instructions had not been followed, favored a public censure. On ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Bancroft, in his "Utah," as usual, defends the Mormon church against the charge of responsibility for the massacre, and calls Judge Cradlebaugh's charge to the grand jury a slur that the evidence ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... made right by settlements and entails. Lady Altringham was much more energetic than her husband, and had made out quite a plan of the manner in which George should proceed. She discussed the matter with him at great length. The one difficulty she was, indeed, obliged to slur over; but even that was not altogether omitted in her scheme. "Whatever incumbrances there may be, free yourself from them at ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... him the explanation of the mysterious circumstance which had so long really embittered his existence. Those were truly happy holidays, and he looked forward eagerly to the time when he might return to school, and lift up his head among his companions without a sense of shame, or the slightest slur attached to ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... hoped in vain. Butterwell was a good-natured, easy man, anxious to stand well with all about him, never pretending to any very high tone of feeling or of morals; and yet Butterwell would say no word of comfort to him. He could get no one to slur over his sin for him, as though it were no sin,—only an unfortunate mistake; no one but the de Courcys, who had, as it were, taken, possession of ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... shame the very feasts of Lucullus. Leo was in a certain way to blame for this foolish display, for Cardinal Riario was building his palace at this time, and his Holiness piqued Chigi by insinuating that the residence of Riario would rival the one which he was erecting. To this slur Chigi retorted hotly that Riario's palace would not be able to compare with his ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... in his chair. I thought he was rasped by the fellow's slur, for he is very proud of his ship. But it was something else that rubbed the expression of patient resignation from his face; he was staring over the starboard rail with an expression of lively interest. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can. As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything—except borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... course; why not? Streckmann has cast a slur upon her conduct and old Bernd won't suffer that! 'Tis folly, to be sure, to bring suit in such a matter.—Because it is the woman who has to bear the brunt ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... forgive me, and also allow me to say that, were the same thing to occur again, I fear I should act in the same way. I think my primary object in giving Rosalind money to go home this morning was to save the college from any open slur ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... well to consider that fact, and fit yourselves to be useful, not superfluous women. That class, by the way, is largely made up of widows, I find; so don't consider it a slur on maidenhood.' ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... told everything; and, yet, how could she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not wish to bring such a slur ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pretty loud," Dorsey snarled, catching instantly, as Chuck intended he should, the covert slur at the black Y-Bar stallion. "Maybe your money won't make so ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... that he was no ordinary character, but a thorough man of the world, and with some strange caprices. The suspicion crossed her mind that he might be not only in peril himself but also a source of danger. She had determined during the ride home that even though he meant no slur upon sacred things he should carry his mocking spirit no more into them. Therefore, after a moment's thought, she turned toward him with a manner of mingled frankness and dignity, and said, "Mr. Gregory, I regret what has occurred this evening. I have a painful ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... spirit, for the implied slur upon Our Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications when you inter—when you arrived. It contains ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of Canary and of Rochelle were held in readiness by the attendants; but the age, though luxurious, was not drunken, and the sober habits of the Norman had happily prevailed over the license of those Saxon banquets where no guest might walk from the table without a slur upon his host. Honor and hardihood go ill with a shaking hand or ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I had an odd sort of reluctance to mention the subject to my entertainers. The thing itself was a ghostly slur upon the house, and, to run away, a reproach to my manhood; and besides, writing now at a distance, and in the spirit of history, I suspect the interest which beauty always excites had a great deal to do with my resolve to hold my ground; and, I dare say, notwithstanding ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Sunday-schools. Now, Mr Armstrong had no leaning to popery, and had nothing to say against Sunday schools; but he had not one in his own parish, in which, by the bye, he was the father of all the Protestant children to be found there—without the slightest slur upon his reputation be it said. Lord Cashel totally mistook his character, and Mr Armstrong did not know how to set him right; and at five o'clock he went to dress, more tired than he ever had been after hunting all day, and then riding home twelve miles on a wet, dark ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking—often very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... own Country, had almost perswaded me to rest my self there, and to make my native tongue the basis of this universall reduction but then the rest of the Europaean world (which I have no reason to slur or contemne) would have as ill resented the project, as we did it in the Germans, who would long agoe have challenged this honour to themselves. I had in the end no other course to take, but to throw myselfe upon the Latine, in ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... Hereford bull!" roared Thornton; "don't you dare to slur me before my people. You're making this raid because I haven't buttered you with ten-dollar bills to keep your hands off. You've taken 'em from all the other rumsellers—but this isn't ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... to express the opinion that this surpassed the poet's previous work, illustrates his professed creed as to criticism. He wrote to Ellis concerning his article: "What I could I did, which was to throw as much weight as possible upon the beautiful passages, of which there are many, and to slur over the absurdities, of which there are not a few.... This said Kehama affords cruel openings for the quizzers, and I suppose will get it roundly in the Edinburgh Review. I could have made a very different hand of it, indeed, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... overtures of Pius IX.; in the studied sensationalism of his funeral arrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that if his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he believed he could not be absolved without accepting ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... among the spectators, who laughed as they listened to them. And though the Texan could not tell what they said, their laughter "riled" him. He supposed it a slur upon his extraordinary stature, of which he was himself no little proud, while they seemed to regard it sarcastically. Could they have had translated to them the rejoinders that now and then came from his lips, like the rumbling of thunder, they would have felt their sarcasm fully ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... was never to acknowledge this compact, or to cast any slur upon the father whose reasons for this apparently unnatural conduct were quite disconnected with any fault of his or any desire to punish ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... sure, he was inclined to slur over the importance of white wine, while champagne and its perfidious makers didn't interest him in the least; but of the red wine of Bordeaux, its lightness, bouquet, and general beneficence, and ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... generally contemned, were nearly as bad as they were represented to be, if they were men who had broken through the close-hedged path of the law and had become in a measure apostate, they were the ones toward whom the helping hand of missionary service could be best extended. In no instance of Pharisaic slur upon, or open denunciation of, these "publicans and sinners," do we find Jesus defending their alleged evil ways; His attitude toward these spiritually sick folk was that of a devoted physician: His concern over these strayed sheep was that of a loving shepherd whose chief desire ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... happy, as was common at that time. So it seems that Shakespeare already had friends in London, some of them "worshipful," too, who were strongly commending him as a poet, and who were prompt to remonstrate with Chettle against the mean slur cast ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on recommending him for the Victoria Cross, ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... second Mazurka might be called The Request, so pathetic, playful and persuasive is it. It is in E minor and has a plaintive, appealing quality. The G major part is very pretty. In the last lines the passion mounts, but is never shrill. Kullak notes that in the fifth and sixth bars there is no slur in certain editions. Klindworth employs it, but marks the B sforzando. A slur on two notes of the same pitch with Chopin does not always mean a tie. The A flat Mazurka, No. 3, is pessimistic, threatening and irritable. Though in the key of E major the trio ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... be so," said Chinston, with a sigh, "but it seems very hard that this slur should be cast upon ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... without any restraint. He got so carried away by his subject, and spoke so loudly, that he quite alarmed the order-bedecked general. Nejdanov was a strong admirer of Ostrovsky, but could not help feeling, in spite of the author's great genius, his evident desire to throw a slur on modern civilisation in the burlesqued character of Veherov, in "Never Sit ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... of me that no loving man would bear. He was right to call you coward—it was well said—it was the last word he spoke, and I shall not forget it. He had borne everything you heaped upon himself, your insults, your scorn of his mother, but he would not let you cast a slur upon my name, and if you had not killed him out of sheer cowardice, he would have struck you in the face. He was a man! And then my father took the blame to save you from the monstrous accusation, and that all might believe him guilty he ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... was by no means over-scrupulous as to the perfection of his own handiwork when he could slur over a job without fear of detection; while the standard of morality which he set up for himself, certainly, to judge by his own daily life, did not speak much for the acuteness ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... far as Elissa was concerned, these charges were utterly untrue. None could throw a slur upon her, and as for these rare human sacrifices, she loathed the very name of them, nor, unless forced to it, would she have been present had she guessed that ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... recriminations would have no practical result, the magistrates cut them short by reiterating their demand for admittance; and on this being refused, they reminded the exorcists that they were expressly prohibited from asking any questions tending to cast a slur on the character of any person or persons whatever, under pain of being treated as disturbers of the public peace. At this warning Barre, saying that he did not acknowledge the bailiff's jurisdiction, shut the door in the faces of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tradesmen at Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer, or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... I saw the slur intended—why I fancied I could see The old man shoot the insult like a poison dart at me; And in that heat of passion I swore an inward oath That if Annie pleased her father she ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... horse laugh and the cost of that hatchet became a standing joke and a slur on my "business ability." What aggravated me most was, that the rascals were not so far out in their calculation. And was I so far wrong? That hatchet was my favorite for nearly thirty years. It has been "upset" ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... slowly, as if weighing each of his words, but it was quickly, with a queer catch in his voice, that he added—"I ask you to do this, my sister"—he had never before called Madeleine Baudoin "my sister"—"because of Claire's children, of Clairette and Jacqueline. Their mother would not wish a slur to rest ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... came as a surprise to the village, for though no one had any fault to find with Tommy Ierat there was a slur on him, and Martha, who was the finest girl in the place, might, it was thought, have looked for some one better. But Martha had always liked Tommy; they were of the same age and had been playmates in their childhood; growing up together their childish affection had turned to love, and after they ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... at the younger sister, fearing she might be stirred up to wrath by the veiled slur on her character; but probably she was pleased enough to be the one to go, whatever excuse Mademoiselle Loire chose to give. Indeed, her mood had been wonderfully amicable for several days. "Let me see," she said, looking meditatively ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two and twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge that a public life more consistent is not to be found in our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other part; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... will doubtless explain," answered Alfred with a slur on the "dear." Then he turned toward the door of his study. "Pray excuse me—I'M TOO BUSY," and with that he strode out of the room and banged the study door ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... slur tart cart bur furl star turf first curl gird jerk lard fern bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... the squire said, "I am heartily glad he has got off being tried. Even if I had got a free pardon for him, it would have been a serious slur upon him that he had been imprisoned, and would have been awkward for us all in the future. I think, Wilks, I will leave it to you to break it to ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... young man whose voice affected to slur his r's after the fashion of the day, and who probably assumed to lead the conversation at the table d'hote, on ordinary occasions, "you know the Companions of Jehu know no day ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... had strong will-power. And in sheer brain of what may be called the purely intellectual type he was miles ahead, not only of Lloyd George, but of all the other politicians of the day. I should say here that he undoubtedly felt deeply the slur cast upon the House of Commons by the Lords. And there is one more trait that should be mentioned, his unshakable loyalty to those who served under him, and to his brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer not less than to ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... he said, "I will bear much from you, because I once loved you, but more from the fact that you are my sister's husband and her father; but I warn you not even by a tone to cast reproach or slur upon your wife. She became such against my wishes and in spite of my protest. That lady has all the elements of ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Ponsonby professed to have been unwilling to enter so speedily on the new tie; but to have been compelled, by the species of persecution which was exercised on Rosita, in order to make her return to her nunnery. He dwelt on her timid affection and simplicity, and her exceeding mortification at the slur which Mary had been induced to cast upon her; though, he said, her innocent mind could not comprehend the full extent of the injury; since the step his daughter had taken would, when known, seriously affect the lady's reception into society, in a manner only to be repaired ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said my wife, "though I agree with you as to the actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest against your slur on the memory of our ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... righteous indignation at the slur on his character, but he remained in the French court as did many others who ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... and that this is what art means, and what it does for people, and that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, aim at. I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who, to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation—new lords and new slaves; that we, least of all men, want to ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... POLITE.—The Manager of the Shaftesbury Theatre advertises "three distinct plays at 8.15, 9.15, and 10." Distinct, but not quite clear. Anyhow, isn't it rather a slur on other Theatres where it implies the plays, whether at 8.15, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... and, in her own words, no "dirty stain" would ever be attributed to him by Mary Twomey, but even she knew that the ethics of buying and selling a horse apply to no other transaction, and she knew also that in the disposal of a "place," more may occur than meets the eye. She resented the slur on her chieftain, but, in spite of her wrath, she could not feel quite certain that the accusation ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, seems surprised at the clearness of her own logic. The boys tell him that he's "worse than a girl," and the girls repudiate the implied slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure no girl ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... power of selection which atones for much which I deplore in your narratives. Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he"—(indicating my husband by a jerk of his head)—"grew rather sick of each other! Whether you own it or not, I know you did; and it would give me pleasure to hear it. You need not take it personally. I assure you that it is no slur upon him—everybody does. I have talked to lots of fellows who have gone through it, and they all say ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... as these makes himself thereby an offender against morality appears to me tantamount to condemning the Alps as obstructions to traffic. A people, at any rate, that glories in the achievements of a Luther has no right to cast a slur upon the motives ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... turned, with the light of a swift resolution in her eyes, to the task of getting ready to go to Andreas. The river and the hills were but a short six hours from her farm, and on a horse she could have ridden it in less. But it was no wish of hers to bring any slur upon her husband, so she prepared to go to him in a cart, taking shirts and shoes and tobacco, like a dutiful wife visiting her husband on commando. And for a purpose she took no trouble to name to herself, she put in her pocket a little pug-nosed revolver which Andreas ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all, socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, to an ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... Huntingdon makes her the daughter of Coel, King of Colchester; the "old King Cole" of our nursery rhyme, and as mythical as other eponymous heroes. Bede calls her a concubine, a slur derived from Eutropius (A.D. 360), who calls the connection obscurius matrimonium (Brev. ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... t' sleep when I's 'scortin my massa's daughters home," declared the colored man, rather indignant that such a slur should be ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race which, by reason of 'nomadic habits,' was never much given to ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, later, that 'there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.' Ta-li-y-Tooboo, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... continued Butler, taking no offence at the slur cast on his grandfather's faith, "we must use human means. When you call in a physician, you would not, I suppose, question him on the nature ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... put the matter in a new light," said the Rev. Joshua Twemlow; "I would be the last man in the world to cast a slur upon any brother clergyman. But it is a sad denial to me, because I had put it so neatly, and a line of Latin at the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... daunted and silenced for the moment. She did not mind the greater number of the rival comet's tails. It was not that which made her feel herself at a disadvantage. It was the slur at her lesser relationship to the master of the house. Any reference to that was a blow which never failed to make her flinch; and one which the widow never lost a chance to deal. But Miss Penelope had not yielded an inch through the ceaseless contention of years, and held her ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... disregard; pass over, pas by; let pass; blink; wink at, connive at; gloss over; take no note of, take no thought of, take no account of, take no notice of; pay no regard to; laisser aller [Fr.]. scamp; trifle, fribble^; do by halves; cut; slight &c (despise) 930; play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer [Fr.]; take a cursory view of &c 457. slur over, skip over, jump over, slip over; pretermit^, miss, skip, jump, omit, give the go-by to, push aside, pigeonhole, shelve, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... slur on your fair name?" he demanded next, as airily as though he were inquiring if she was worrying about the trimming of a new hat. "My revered aunt has told me all ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... not, brother, for tho I slur them over now, as things slight and nothing, his crimes being in the bud, it would gall my heart, they should ever ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... indictment of conventional Morality, his onslaughts on outworn Institutions, his invectives against Hypocrisy and Stupidity, are not by any means the blind Utopian rhetoric that some have called them. That crafty slur upon brave new thought which we know so well—that "how-can-you-take-him-seriously" attitude of the "status-quo" rascals—must not mislead us ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot—since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence—afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. "I care nothing for ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... slur upon yourself too. I cannot bear any mortifications upon you, any more than I ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Atlanteans, and afterward the Phoenicians, men with whom time was valuable, the natural tendency would be to simplify and condense them; and when the original meaning of the picture was lost, they would naturally slur it, as we find in the letters pp and x of the Maya alphabet, where the figure of the human face remains only ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... arriving till midnight. Among the latest, when Dan had lost himself far from Boston in talk with a young lady from Richmond, who spoke with a slur of her vowels that fascinated him, came Mr. and Mrs. Brinkley. He felt himself grow pale and inattentive to his pretty Virginian. That accent of Mrs. Brinkley's recalled him to his history. He hoped that she would not see him; but in another moment he was greeting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... has deserved. Yes," he continued, seizing the astounded Margari by the cravat, "you are a refined scoundrel. You persuaded my dear nephew Coloman to take that false step and then you yourself changed the forty florins into forty thousand. You wanted to ruin the young man's future and bring a slur upon the family. I know everything. His honour the magistrate told me all about it yesterday, and that is why I hand you over to the law for punishment." And with that he shook him so violently that he fell on his back again, this time into a bed of tomatoes, whereby his white linen pantaloons ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... enjoys painting finds in that art as distinct from sculpture is in this exquisite inlaying or joiner's work of it, the fitting of edge to edge with a manual skill precisely correspondent to the close application of crowded notes without the least slur, in fine harp ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... probably be traced back to Dante's autobiography, as given in the Vita Nuova. We have two poetic dramas dealing with Dante's love, by G. L. Raymond, [Footnote: Dante] and by Sara King Wiley. [Footnote: Dante and Beatrice] Both these writers, however, show a tendency to slur over Dante's affection for Gemma. Raymond represents their marriage as the result solely of Dante's compromising her by apparent attention, in order to avoid the appearance of insulting Beatrice with too close regard. Sara King Wiley, on the other hand, stresses the other aspect of Dante's ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... railing at Grumbo—any colored individual, that is, in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, unmuzzled, excepting when on duty. Too mindful ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French have adopted the term epicier (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom the Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term—besides that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried long ago—is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive than the German term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... social control; subordination of natural powers to social rules. It is not surprising to find that the value in the idea of social efficiency resides largely in its protest against the points at which the doctrine of natural development went astray; while its misuse comes when it is employed to slur over the truth in that conception. It is a fact that we must look to the activities and achievements of associated life to find what the development of power—that is to say, efficiency—means. The error ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... if you both Would marry her, is it not weak and vain, Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand To slur her honour? What would the world say If one should slay the other, and if she 280 Should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a hedge schoolmaster? and, with humble submission, it casts no slur on an Irish tacher to be compared to him, I think. You forget also, sir, that the Dhruids ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... and still had his cocked hats and his Brussels lace and his spyglass, and his top boots when he rode abroad, like any other Tory buck. His intimates were all of the King's side,—of the worst of the King's side, I should say, for I would not be thought to cast any slur on the great number of conscientious men of that party. But, being the son of one of the main props of the Whigs, Mr. Tom went unpunished for his father's sake. He ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... repeated. "But not all of them? I know you compose. You are not saying that you are about to give composition up?" A forced and awkward "slur," perhaps; ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... Gallehault,—which is the word of all the world,—whispers unthinkable and tragic possibilities to the poetic and self-searching mind of Ernesto. He resolves to seek release in Argentina. But before he can sail away, he overhears, in a fashionable cafe, a remark which casts a slur on Teodora, and strikes the speaker of the insult in the face. A duel is forthwith arranged, to take place in a vacant studio adjacent to Ernesto's. When Don Julian learns about it, he is troubled by the idea that another man should be fighting for ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... particularly engaged with a gentleman from Asia)—My boy, would you give us that little Christmas book (a little Christmas book of Dickens's, Macready, which I'm anxious you should hear); and don't slur it, now, or be too fast, Dickens, please!'—I say, if you was a real gent, something to this effect might happen. I shall be under sailing orders the moment I have finished. And I shall produce myself (please God) in London on the very day ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... redoubles his Rage, and reinforces his Army, and what the Egyptians could not do for him, he resolves to do for himself; in order then to take his Opportunity for what Mischief might offer, being defeated, and provok'd, I say, at the Slur that was put upon him, he resolves to follow them into the Wilderness, and many a vile Prank he plaid them there; as first, he straitens them for Water, and makes them murmur against GOD, and against Moses, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... lawless and licentious, it could not be expected. But most of them have been now some days aboard—no drink allowed them save the regular ration, with plenty of everything else. Kind treatment from captain and mate, and still they appear scowling and discontented, as if the slightest slur—an angry word, even a look—would make mutiny ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... continued. Early in 1982, South Africa claimed the Belderkan Army exceeded the size agreed to in the Disarmament Treaty. The European countries and some African nations joined in the accusation. China called the uproar a vicious slur on a new African nation. The United States and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more investigation ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom
... heath-clad isle; But when the heroick tale of Flora charms,[63] Deck'd in a kilt, he wields a chieftain's arms: The tuneful piper sounds a martial strain, And Samuel sings, "The King shall have his ain": Two Georges in his loyal zeal are slur'd,[64] A gracious pension only saves the third!— By Nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule, He, like a Titian, form'd his brilliant school; And taught congenial spirits to excel, While from his lips impressive wisdom fell. Our boasted GOLDSMITH felt the sovereign sway; From him deriv'd ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... to the time of my second refer, And spell that backward, my third behold— A hero of monstrous strength. They aver He held up a temple its fall to defer, And ate forty pounds (but I hope 'tis a slur) Every day for his food, ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... honourably maintained the liberty of his country, which was governed by a common-wealth: so that there lies no parallel betwixt his cause and Mr Hunt's, except in the bare notion of a common-wealth, as it is opposed to monarchy; and that's the thing he would obliquely slur upon us. Yet on these premises, he is for ordering my lord chief justice to grant out warrants against all those who have applauded the "Duke of Guise;" as if they committed a riot when they clapped. I suppose they paid for their ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... excellent reports, and a regular taker of prizes, became gradually less satisfactory in the house. He was 'kept in' occasionally, and although his father pretended to hold that to be kept in was to slur the honour of a spotless family, Cyril continued to be kept in; a hardened sinner, lost to shame. But this was not the worst. The worst undoubtedly was that Cyril was 'getting rough.' No definite accusation could be laid against him; the offence was general, vague, everlasting; it was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... in reality much nearer to insanity than the affected apathy she had assumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but, nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she was willing to suffer much in order that her aunt might confide in her alone, and behave herself ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... recently it was thought that this, the highest section of the chalk in England, exceeded that mystic 1,000 feet that gives such a glamour to the mere hill and makes of it a local "mountain." An added slur was cast upon Inkpen in the handing to the neighbouring Walbury Hill Camp of an additional five feet by these interfering Ordnance surveyors. The new maps now read—Walbury Camp 959 feet; Inkpen, 954. But the loss of ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... a Rich Barian anything which he doubts, instead of simply asking you if it is true, he will invariably cock his head interrogatively, and almost pathetically address you with the solemn adjuration, "Honest Indian?" Whether this phrase is a slur or a compliment to the aborigines of this country, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... says, become so much occupied with the consideration of what they know that they entirely forget "the perfectly astounding fact that they know it." Also they overlook or slur the tremendous fact of spiritual individuality; "because I am I, I am not anybody else." But let the individual address to himself the question he puts to the universe, let him investigate his own pressing sense of ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... took his pipe from between his lips to offer protest against this slur, but changed his mind, and resumed smoking, though his ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... her head. "Thomasin thinks, and I think with her, that she ought to be Wildeve's wife, if she means to appear before the world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will believe that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may cast a shade upon her character—at any rate make her ridiculous. In short, if it is anyhow ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... cabled to the War Department that "The alarmist reports of condition of troops in North Russia as published in press end of December are not warranted by facts. Troops have been well taken care of in every way and my officers resent these highly exaggerated reports, feeling that slur is cast upon the regiment and its wonderful record. Request that this be given to the press and especially to Detroit and Chicago papers to allay any ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his brother's wife—for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe he hates the English—there is a slur ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the high light in his eyes, Than that my lord thro' me should suffer shame. Am I so bold, and could I so stand by, And see my dear lord wounded in the strife, Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes, And yet not dare to tell him what I think, And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into mere effeminacy? O me, I fear that I am ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang |
