"Smirch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her from the kitchen, was sickening. Martin must be soaked with it, Ruth concluded, if that awful woman washed frequently. Such was the contagiousness of degradation. When she looked at Martin, she seemed to see the smirch left upon him by his surroundings. She had never seen him unshaven, and the three days' growth of beard on his face was repulsive to her. Not alone did it give him the same dark and murky aspect of the Silva house, inside and out, but it seemed to emphasize that ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... way," he hissed, bending towards her. "I swear to God I will use it rather than let you go. A careless word or two shall easily suffice to smirch your fair fame. Ah! that has power to rouse you, has it? I will do it, and for very shame you shall have to listen ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... thoughts Of that obese epitome of ills. Trussed up he sat, the mockery of himself; And when upon the wan green of his eye I marked the gathering lustre of a tear, Thought I myself must weep, until I caught A grey, smug smile of satisfaction smirch His pallid features at his misery. And laugh did I, to see the little snares He had set for pests to vex him: his great feet Prisoned in greater boots; so narrow a stool To seat such elephantine parts as his; Ay, and the ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... every supple virtue stored, And thrive, the favour'd valet of my lord. Is that denied? a boon more humble crave. And minister to him who serves a slave; Be sure you fasten on promotion's scale, Even if you seize some footman by the tail: 70 The ascent is easy, and the prospect clear, From the smirch'd scullion to the embroider'd peer. The ambitious drudge preferr'd, postilion rides, Advanced again, the chair benighted guides; Here doom'd, if Nature strung his sinewy frame, The slave, perhaps, of some insatiate ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Pioneer Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise. His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the dregs The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-head-piece gift Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover's smirch. Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift On dubiously connivent legs, The facile prey of predatory flies; Panting for further; sworn to lurch Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened blue, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... [U.S.], sambo. [Pigments] lampblack, ivory black, blueblack; writing ink, printing ink, printer's ink, Indian ink, India ink. V. be black &c adj.; render black &c adj.. blacken, infuscate^, denigrate; blot, blotch; smutch^; smirch; darken &c 421. black, sable, swarthy, somber, dark, inky, ebony, ebon, atramentous^, jetty; coal-black, jet-black; fuliginous^, pitchy, sooty, swart, dusky, dingy, murky, Ethiopic; low-toned, low ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had at one time introduced a smirch of grime by which nothing was gained and a good deal lost—the abduction being not at once cut short, and the bear being suggested as the Count's actual sire (see Burton again). But he had the taste as well as the sense to cut this out. The ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of umber smirch my face." (As You Like It, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... each woman's eyes, Wearing such things as no one ever wore, Useless ... no head-cloth ... too unlike my fellows. Yet he turns miser for a tiny coif. It would cut into many golden coifs And dim some women in their Irish clouts— But no; I'll shape and stitch it into shifts, Smirch it like linen, patch it with rags, to watch His silent anger when he sees my answer. Give me thy shears, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... knew, poor, noble, suffering soul, that it would have been wiser to have saved her spotless garment from the smirch by telling him the truth. Then she could have fought this invisible tarantula Thing, with the conjectural hairy claws, the baleful, glittering eyes, and the padding feet that dogged her in the dark, with a strong man's arm to aid her. God was in Heaven, and in Him were her faith and trust, but the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... borne all the rest of his pain and shame, silently enough. No one but Ann Markham even guessed the agony that he endured, and she had not the chance to give a kindly look, for at this time Toyner, unable to trust himself with himself, was afraid to look upon Ann lest he should smirch her life. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... God! and O my God! What shameful ways have women trod At beckoning of Trade's golden rod! Alas when sighs are traders' lies, And heart's-ease eyes and violet eyes Are merchandise! O purchased lips that kiss with pain! O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain! O trafficked hearts that break in twain! —And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime? So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime, Men love not women as in olden time. Ah, not in these cold merchantable days Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various |
