"Taint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though we now know that frogs are by no means the common food of the peasantry—costing about a guinea a dish—and that it is possible for a Frenchman to be a strapping fellow of six feet high, the taint of our former persuasion remains with us still as to their books; and, in some remote districts, we have no doubt that Peter Pindar would be thought a more harmless volume in a young lady's hands ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... conferred unasked. True, Carthage is so illustrious a city that it were an honour to her that a philosopher should beg to be thus rewarded, but I wished the boon you have bestowed on me to have its full value with no taint of detraction, to suffer no loss of grace by any petition on my part, in a word to be wholly disinterested. For he that begs pays so heavily, and so large is the price that he to whom the petition is addressed ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... inevitable result of his harsh training in the life that was his. The hot, rich blood of strong manhood ran in his veins, but it was the hot blood tempered with honesty and courage, and without one single taint of meanness. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... an' a batch o' sourdough bread, an' fix to stay a hull week. Watts'll hev to make out with Microby an' the rest. Yo' tell Miz Samuelson I say not to git down in the mouth. They all got to die anyhow. An' 'taint so bad, onct it's over an' done. But lots of 'em gits well, too. So they hain't no call to do no diggin' right up to the death rattle—an' even then they don't allus die. Ol' man Rink, over on Tom's Hope, back in Tennessee, he rattled twict, an' come to both times, an' then, couple days later, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... would rob thee of thy rights, And urge with specious tongue, That theft by Act of Parliament Can surely not be wrong. I'd have them leave thy sheltering wing, And nevermore to dare To stand within thy courts of praise, Or taint ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... the dread, unmitigated pest Man after man, and day succeeding day, With taint voracious; like the herds they fell Of bellowing beeves, or flocks of timorous sheep: On funeral, funeral hence forever piled. E'en he who fled the afflicted, urged by love Of life too fond, and trembling for his fate, Repented soon severely, and himself Sunk in his guilty solitude, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... kingdom. Trials are proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germi- 66:12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc- 66:15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Champions with Simple Simons gave the same result. The ignorance that prevailed, was lamentable. One child, on being asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, "Taint George of Ingling." Another, a little boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly impressed with a belief in the existence of dragons, and openly stated that it was his intention when he grew up, to rush forth sword in hand ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... bull-faced, and speckled fair, With two left legs and Judas-coloured hair, And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... murderer's heart would taint Each simple seed they sow. It is not true! God's kindly earth Is kindlier than men know, And the red rose would but blow more red, ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... Jove in his wrath hath scatter'd them; our wealth Is marketed, and Phrygia hath a part Purchased, and part Maeonia's lovely land. But since the son of wily Saturn old 360 Hath given me glory now, and to inclose The Grecians in their fleet hemm'd by the sea, Fool! taint not with such talk the public mind. For not a Trojan here will thy advice Follow, or shall; it hath not my consent. 365 But thus I counsel. Let us, band by band, Throughout the host take supper, and let each, Guarded ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... which he has not affixed his name; his extenuation of incontinence in the master of a family, and the gloss he put on the crime of covetousness; which last error was not confined to his conversation, but mingled itself with his writings, though no one could well be freer from any taint of the vice in his own life. Many a man may have indulged his inclinations to evil, with much less compunction, while he has imagined himself sheltered under the sanction of the moralist who watches one side of the entrance into the nave ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... parted portieres from the kitchen. Harry was very fond of roasted chicken. He inhaled that and the delicate perfume of Ida's garments and hair. He regarded her glowing beauty with affection which had no taint of sensuality. Harry had more of a poetic liking for sweet odors and beauty than ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... greatest usefulness to the community as a whole. There should be no extravagance, and the believers in the need of irrigation will most benefit their cause by seeing to it that it is free from the least taint of excessive or reckless ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and diseased with long captivity, And hath divine Intelligence designed That noisome dungeon for her own restraint— By her own act to galling bonds consigned,— Self-doomed, with wilful purpose, to acquaint Herself with sin and sorrow, and pollute Aethereal essence with corporeal taint? How doth thy helpless misery confute That frantic boast of vain conceit, untaugh The paltriest of ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... and we wil let you hang and then git the map off yur ded bodies we wil git the map anyway so whats the use of given up yur lives. Weve got things fixed so that you kant eskape the rope unles we save you so you've got to give us the map or hang. Make yur own choice taint our funrel. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... it," cried he. "Let thy paternal heart rest in peace; and by Jesus' help, Lady Helen shall again be in her own country, as free from Southron taint as she is from all mortal sin! De Valence dare not approach her heavenly innocence with violence; and her Scottish heart will never consent to give him a lawful claim to her precious self. Edward's legions are far beyond the borders! but wherever this earl may be, yet I will reach him. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... as they finished supper, Lark said, "Don't you think we'd better go right to bed, Prue? We don't want to taint the atmosphere of the parsonage. Of course, Fairy will want to wash the dishes herself to make sure ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... I have just died, as they call it, and 'taint so bad a change after all; only I suppose there'll be dry times here for ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... superstitious taint ran riot in the imaginative native mind, Brantley did not attempt to reason, but sought to gently disengage her hands from ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... brothel in his life, and whose greatest defect was in being as timid and shy as a virgin, treated as a frequenter of places of that description; and in finding myself charged with being......, I, who not only never had the least taint of such disorder, but, according to the faculty, was so constructed as to make it almost impossible for me to contract it. Everything well considered, I thought I could not better refute this libel than by ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... single-barrel—his hands trembled a little, and it took him longer than usual to do it—Don and Bert sat with their guns across their knees, closely watching the island, while the hounds stood in the bow snuffing the air. They caught some taint upon the breeze, that was evident, for the long hair on the back of their necks stood erect and now and then ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... genius of the fire sacrifice he is ever mentioned in the hymns in praise of fire. And the fire Nischyavana praises the earth only; he never suffers in reputation, splendour and prosperity. The sinless fire Satya blazing with pure flame is his son. He is free from all taint and is not defiled by sin, and is the regulator of time. That fire has another name Nishkriti, because he accomplished the Nishkriti (relief) of all blatant creatures here. When properly worshipped he vouchsafes good fortune. His son is called Swana, who is the generator of all diseases; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... since we were in the primary school; as a lad he was honest, and to-day he is the same; he loves Poland above everything, he keeps up Polish customs, he will not yield to Muscovite fashions. Whenever I return from Prussia, and want to wash off the German taint, I drop in at Soplicowo, as the centre of Polish ways; there a man drinks and breathes his Country! In God's name, brothers Dobrzynski; I am one of you, but I will not let the Judge be wronged; nothing will come of that. It was not thus in Great Poland, brothers: what a spirit! what harmony! ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... regard to the strength of nature, courage and might are quite separable. There may be a strong coward and a weak hero. But in the spiritual region, strength and courage do go together. The consciousness of the divine power with us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint of levity and presumption mingled with it, and never will overestimate its own strength. The charge to Joshua, then, not only insists upon the duty of strength, but on the duty of conscious strength, and on the duty of measuring the strength that is at my back with the weakness that is against ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... applauded. The descendants of those black soldiers, who were engaged in the prolonged struggle for freedom, can rejoice in the fact that no single act of those patriots is in keeping with the Englishman's prediction; no taint of brutality is even charged against them by those whom they took prisoners in battle. The confederates themselves testify to the humane treatment they unexpectedly received at the hands of their negro captors. Mr. Pollard, the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... response to the assurance in the message that an attempt at negotiation would first be made, Nicholas moved an amendment in this vein. The Federalists opposed all interference with the executive, but the Republicans took advantage of the debate to clear themselves of any taint of unpatriotic motives in their semi-opposition. The Federalists, repudiating the charge of British influence, held up Genet to condemnation, as making an appeal to the people, Fauchet as fomenting an insurrection, and Adet as insulting the government. The ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... "Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad about de matter—Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him—but den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... slightest encouragement. So strong was this weakness that she had been angry with herself for her lack of pride, or even of a decent self-respect. It was, she sometimes thought, the heritage of her mother's race, and she was ashamed of it as part of the taint of slavery. She had never acknowledged, even to her husband, from whom she concealed nothing else, her secret thoughts upon this lifelong sorrow. This silent grief was nature's penalty, or society's revenge, for whatever heritage of beauty ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... levered the body out of the way of the tide. Months after, when Nature had done her part in the removal of all fleshy taint, we returned for the bones. The teeth are now scattered far and wide as trophies of the one and only crocodile ever acknowledged to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... interrupt the contemplation of things as they are, by the endeavor to discover of what selfish uses they are capable (and of this order are painting and sculpture), ought to take rank above all pursuits which have any taint in them of subserviency to life, in so far as all such tendency is the sign of less eternal and less holy function.[6] And such rank these two sublime arts would indeed assume in the minds of nations, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of inheritance—the risk of the taint—of transmitting it. Her father's erratic brilliancy became more than eccentricity before I knew him. I would have told you that had I dreamed that you ever could have thought of marrying Alixe Varian. But ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... between it and the steps, is left open, but for what reason I never could make out. The further end of this vault opens into another great vault, which I shall presently describe. The passage is very dry, but the air has a cold "gravey" taint, very unpleasant to inhale. At the second landing there is a sort of recess, into which rubbish from the garden above is shot down through a spout or funnel. At the top of the passage is a doorway opening upon the back of a house in Mason-street. This ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... the championess of her race, of all who are oppressed, in every capital in Europe, save, alas! Italy and the Austria who crushes her. I have taken, I should tell you, an Italian name. It was better, I thought, to hide my African taint, forsooth, for awhile. So the wise New Yorkers have been feting, as Maria Cordifiamma, the white woman (for am I not fairer than many an Italian signora?), whom they would have looked upon as an inferior being under the name of Marie Lavington: ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... animal of the agricultural kind, with bovine softness of eyes and bovine obstinacy under suffering. His other women, though they are not simply courtesans, after the fashion of some French writers, seem, as it were, to have a certain perceptible taint; they breathe an unwholesome atmosphere. In one of his extravagant humours, he tells us that the most perfect picture of purity in existence is the Madonna of the Genoese painter, Piola, but that even that celestial Madonna would have looked ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the women, are full of expression, sometimes sparkling with fire, and sometimes melting with softness; their teeth also are, almost without exception, most beautifully even and white, and their breath perfectly without taint. In their motions there is at once vigour as well as ease; their walk is graceful, their deportment liberal, and their behaviour to strangers and to each other, affable and courteous. In their dispositions they appear to be brave, open, and candid, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... even there, I would not advise you to a pharisaical pomp of virtue. But I will recommend to you a most scrupulous tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not to say or do the least thing that may ever so slightly taint it. Show yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue. Colonel Chartres, whom you have certainly heard of (who was, I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and who had, by all sorts of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... consistently, from one end to the other of the gospel narrative. What was of more significance, no one had clearly defined the conception of legend. Strauss was sure that in the application of this notion to certain portions of the Scripture no irreverence was shown. No moral taint was involved. Nothing which could detract from the reverence in which we hold the Scripture was implied. Rather, in his view, the history of Jesus is more wonderful than ever, when some, at least, of its elements are viewed ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... repeated only to expose the vice, taint the reader more than a sermon preached against lewdness should the assembly?—for of necessity it leads the hearer to the thoughts of the fact. But the morality of every action lies in the end; and if the reader by ill-use renders himself guilty of the fact in reading, which I designed to expose ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... indicated that a time of licence was at hand. But the restoration of Charles the Second rendered the change wonderfully rapid and violent. Profligacy became a test of orthodoxy, and loyalty a qualification for rank and office. A deep and general taint infected the morals of the most influential classes, and spread itself through every province of letters. Poetry inflamed the passions; philosophy undermined the principles; divinity itself, inculcating ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the place. Her first impression was thankfulness that her lot had been cast in such a spot. But it was largely because of the surroundings, essentially primitive, the clean air, guiltless of smoke taint, the aromatic odors from the forest that ranged for unending miles on every hand. For the first time in her life, she was beyond hearing of the clang of street cars, the roar of traffic, the dirt and smells of a city. It seemed good. She had no regrets, no longing to be back. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... de Wren and de Thrush go clackety-clack, Dey bofe talk at once an dey bofe talk back, Dey say: "Jim Crow, my but you is black!" 'Taint gwine ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... peace of the tropics dulls memory, and time heats only in the heart. The world is a great place, Philippa, and there are corners where the sordid crime of this ghastly butchery has scarcely been heard of, where the horror and the taint of it are as though they never existed, where the sun and moon are still unashamed, and the grey monsters ride ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He courts ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... clothes, and had determined to wash itself clean. This excellent intention it has, however, evidently contributed towards the making of that imaginary pavement mentioned in the old adage; for it is still emphatically a dirty street. It has never been able to shake off the Hebraic taint of filth which it inherits from the ancestral thoroughfare. It is slushy and greasy, as if it were twin brother of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... were united the qualities that make up the ideal Padre, without taint of hypocrisy or cant. He was a frank, kind-hearted old man, who made friends of all he met. Of his fervent piety there are abundant proofs, and his piety and humility were of an agreeable type, unobtrusive, and blended with common sense. He overcame obstacles in the way of duty, but he created ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... ostracism of all who came under the easy classification of the term "wop." There existed a tacit agreement among property owners that no house north of the river should be sold or leased to a foreigner, and that no garlic might taint the atmosphere their children breathed in school, they had erected a small schoolhouse upon the southside. So, sequestered six days in the week in a settlement that was entirely foreign, communicating their thoughts in the tongues of the Mediterranean ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... even to feel the strong, cold grasp of the Pagan's hand. Shadowy visions of spheres beyond the world, arrayed in enchanting beauty, and people with happy spirits in their old earthly forms, where a long deathless existence moved smoothly and dreamily onward, without mark of time or taint of woe, were opening before her mind. She lost all memory of afflictions and wrongs, all apprehension of danger from the madman at whose mercy she remained. And thus she still moved feebly onward as the will of Ulpius guided her, with no ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... "'Taint entirely accurite, sir, in one particular," said the sergeant, apologetically; "but we thought it would be playin' it sort o' low down on the Cat if we was to say we lost her unless we could tell about gittin' of her back, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... the wise adjustment of the organized machinery of such a commission. For the weak and uneducated to be in complete subjection to the stronger and more cultivated is in strict accordance with the divinest order; only this relation must be that of dependence and providence, without a taint of selfishness. It must be humanitary or beneficent in its aims, and not inhuman and malevolent, as is always the case when the weak are subjected to distinguish, aggrandize, and enrich those who subject them. That the freedmen may be organized and directed ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... music itself, this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day after,—this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the tune ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... are the numerical results: 86 infants with hereditary taint of syphilis have been at the nursery. Of 6 fed exclusively on cow's milk, only 1 survived and the other 5 died. Forty-two were suckled by goats, of which 8 lived, 34 are dead, which is equal to a mortality of 80.9 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... book. They tell me that in Burmah live a happy people who love beauty, are always smiling and follow the Golden Rule far nearer than those who live by trade and are blest by civilization. Ah, that I might see such a people! The nearest I ever came was at Honolulu, and there was the taint of the Christian, alack-a-day! The White Man's Burden is the weight of the load of sin, disease, death, and misfortune he has dropped on the happy ones who never knew a Christian creed. We have given them bath tubs in exchange for ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... during the week exposed to dirt and flies and often spoiled before eating, pellagra is most common. Experiments have shown that in these districts, by excluding corn from the diet and furnishing a substantial fare, the disease has been banished. Unfortunately, the taint of the disease passes from parent to child and even to the third and fourth generation, and the physical deformities commonly seen in pellagrous districts are due to this hereditary taint. Dr. Babcock, Superintendent of the City Hospital at Columbia, South Carolina, after ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... third day, well down in the wilds of Colchester, with a current that made between two and three miles an hour,—just a summer idler's pace. The atmosphere of the river had improved much since the first day,—was, indeed, without taint,—and the water was sweet and good. There were farmhouses at intervals of a mile or so; but the amount of tillable land in the river valley or on the adjacent mountains was very small. Occasionally there would be forty or fifty acres of flat, usually in grass or corn, with a thrifty-looking ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... don't pay to show yo' hand even after you've won—the other feller might remember it nex' time. 'Taint good business sense. But I pumped it into Bonaparte at the right time when he was goin' round an' round an' undecided whether he'd take holt or git. This settled him—he got. The Lord was on the monkey's side, of course, but He needed Gypsy Juice at ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and no one in the colonies lost caste who endeavored, in the manner if not in the substance of his thinking, to achieve the polished urbanity of those Englishmen who made a point of being scholars without a touch of pedantry, and men of virtue without the taint of prejudice. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... fire-worshippers, have sadly degenerated from that pure faith held by their forefathers, and for which they became fugitives and exiles. What persecution failed to accomplish, kindness has effected, and their religion has been corrupted by the taint of Hinduism, in consequence of their long and friendly intercourse with the people, who permitted them to dwell in their land, and to take their daughters in marriage. Incense was burning on a tripod placed upon the floor, and the priests muttering prayers, which sounded very like incantations, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Prussian trumpet blew; Thro' the long tormented air Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray, And down we swept and charged and overthrew. So great a soldier taught us there What long-enduring hearts could do In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! Mighty seaman, tender and true, And pure as he from taint of craven guile, O savior of the silver-coasted isle, O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, If aught of things that here befall Touch a spirit among things divine, If love of country move thee there at all, Be glad because his bones are laid by thine! And thro' the centuries ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... save as it may have influenced the former: it is enough for our purpose that he saw and spoke the right, whether he acted it or not. For, whatever his faults and infirmities and shortcomings as a man, it is certain that they did not infect his genius or taint his mind, so as to work it into any deflection from the straight and high path ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... had been the taint of ten thousand deaths it could not have affected him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as hard as bronze; and when he moved, it was stiffly, and all bristly, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... you how you feel in the presence of any character which you recognise as cleansed from all taint of selfishness, a character, softened, refined, purified, inspired, consecrated. I would rather ask whether you know of any personal influence to be compared with that of ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... of earthly passion Might taint the holy sword, And no ancient error tarnish The falchion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... degradation. With his mother and sister, he took refuge in the heartfelt prayers which they used to say every evening after the day of deceptions and private humiliations, which to their innocence seemed to be a taint, of which they dared not tell each other. But, in contact with the latent spirit of atheism which is in the air of Paris, Olivier's faith was beginning to crumble away, without his knowledge, like whitewash trickling down a wall under ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... was saying, "the facts about this church of Santa Croce; how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before any taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these frescoes—now, unhappily, ruined by restoration—is untroubled by the snares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic, more pathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge and technical cleverness ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... they are doing it in a mean way, sir; but of course soldiers hate thieves, and so the merest taint of a suspicion serves to make some of the men feel rather shy about having anything unnecessary to do with ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... said to me, "to wars, and courts, and princes, and may God shield thee still from all evil, as He hath so marvellously done these perilous days. From Vale Cloister will I look out on thee in pride of thy knightly fame, if such a small taint of earth as pride in ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... "I've knawed as honest women as ever her is that's a done that, and more too, for to get their men safe off and out o' way—iss, and wasn't thought none the wus of, neither. You'm growed mighty fancikul all to wance 'bout what us is to do and what us dussn't think o'. I'm sick o' such talk. 'Taint nawthin' else fra' mornin' to night but Adam this and Adam that. I'm darned if 'tis to be wondered at if the maid plays 'ee false: by gosh! I'd do the trick, if I was she, 'fore I'd put up with such fantads from you or either ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... which offends the etiquettes of England, but fits him the better for the class he has to address. His powers are uncommon and unfettered in their play; his aim is worthy. He is fulfilling and will fulfil an important task as an educator of the people, if all be not marred by a taint of self-love and arrogance now obvious in his discourse. This taint is not surprising in one so young, who has done so much, and in order to do it has been compelled to great self-confidence and light heed of the authority of other minds, and who is surrounded ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... gladness Take from me all taint of sadness; Fill my soul with trust unshaken In that Being who has taken Care for every living thing, In Summer, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... heart's core—but I dare not look in on it—a degree of agony would be the consequence. Oh! thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who presidest over that frantic passion—thou mayest, thou dost poison my peace, but thou shalt not taint my honour. I would not, for a single moment, give an asylum to the most distant imagination, that would shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratification, at the expense of her whose happiness is twisted with the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... I saw my late-espoused Saint Brought to me like Alkestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save; And such, as yet once more, I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind: Her face was veiled, yet to my ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness My speculative and officed instruments, That my disports corrupt and taint my business, Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, And all indign and base adversities Make head against ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... master and his mistress, wearing, as they, a cloak of religion to cover all abroad, while all naked and shameful at home.' p. 536. 'He looked for a house full of virtue, and behold nothing but spider-webs; fair and plausible abroad, but like the sow in the mire at home.' The immoral taint infected the young. '0! it is horrible to behold how irreverently, how easily, and malapertly, children, yea, professing children, at this day, carry it to their parents; snapping and checking, curbing and rebuking of them, as if they had received a dispensation from God to dishonour and disobey ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... aristocracy into the background, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and the daughter of a London soap-boiler they would not receive. Who was to be positive there had been a marriage at all. And poor Inez Catheron! Ah it was very sad—very sad. There was a well-known, well-hidden taint of insanity in the Catheron family. It must be that latent insanity cropping up. The young man must ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... young man has led the life Without which how shall e'er the wife Be the one woman in the world? Love's sensitive tendrils sicken, curl'd Round folly's former stay; for 'tis The doom of all unsanction'd bliss To mock some good that, gain'd, keeps still The taint of ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... From the taint of this evil, and all its sorrowful consequences I am tempted to exempt Guy Elersley, so handsome, so young, so winning; but I cannot give the lie to obstinate reality. Of course, Guy Elersley was not a bad man, he was exactly what most young men of to-day ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... arm, a shortened leg, a clubbed foot, a hare-lip, an unwieldy corpulence, a hideous leanness, a bald head—all these are unpleasant possessions, and all these, I suppose, give their possessors, first and last, a great deal of pain. Then there is the taint of an unpopular blood, that a whole race carry with them as a badge of humiliation. I have heard of Africans who declared that they would willingly go through the pain of being skinned alive, if, at the close of the operation, they could become white men. There are men of ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... through that very protective coloration, a disadvantage when its wearer drops wounded and unconscious on the open field. In a poor light the litter bearers might search within a few rods of him and never see him; but where the faulty eyesight fails the nose of the dog sniffs the human taint in the air, and the dog makes the work of rescue thorough and complete. At least ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment." From which representation (if the said Warren Hastings did not falsely and unjustly accuse and slander the Company's service) it appeared that the peculation which infected the whole army, derived from the taint which it had in Oude, and so fatal to the discipline of the troops, would be dangerously increased by his treaty and agreement aforesaid with the Nabob, and by his own said evil counsel to ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... times high winds in gusts swept over the highlands with a bullying noise, and disappeared, leaving everything still as the grave. I felt once more "at home in the wilderness"—such, indeed, it appeared after Boma, where the cockney-taint yet lingered. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... see this and many other marvels which to-day are extravagant dreams. To what ideal height will the process of evolution lead mankind? To no very magnificent height, it is to be feared. We are afflicted by an indelible taint, a kind of original sin, if we may call sin a state of things with which our will has nothing to do. We are made after a certain pattern and we can do nothing to change ourselves. We are marked with the mark of the beast, the taint of the belly, the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... that be a propagation of the distemper which was the best means to prevent it; and this too is an evidence of it, and brings me back to what I only hinted at before, but must speak more fully to here, namely, that men went about apparently well many days after they had the taint of the disease in their vitals, and after their spirits were so seized as that they could never escape it, and that all the while they did so they were dangerous to others; I say, this proves that so it was; for such people infected the very towns they went through, as well ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... all lovers of freedom, to all true patriots, and to the Christian and philanthropist. It also afforded a superb opportunity for the old leaders in the South, who were not entirely relieved from the taint of secession, to come out and reconsecrate themselves to the country and her flag. Hence, Southern statesmen, who were utterly opposed to Negroes or colored men having any share in ruling at home, became very enthusiastic over the aspirations ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... Machiavelli only spoke with scientific candor of the vices which were common to all statesmen in his age—though the Italians were so corrupt that it seemed hopeless to deal fairly with them—yet there was a radical taint in the soul of the man who could have the heart to cull these poisonous herbs of policy and distill their juices to a quintessence for the use of the prince to whom he was confiding the destinies of Italy.[1] Almost involuntarily ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... then made a wry face on account of the pain in his leg. "That leaves Arnold in a pickle. 'Taint the height o' military etiquette to resign under fire. I wish Arnold was ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... to reach her soul, to make her of its own. She fought the insidious, fetid force as best she might. She was not evil by nature. She had been well grounded in principles of righteousness. Nevertheless, though she maintained the integrity of her character, that character suffered from the taint. There developed over the girl's original sensibility a shell of hardness, which in time would surely come to make her less scrupulous in her ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... not yet recognized him, swung to the saddle, his heart full of bitterness. Every man's hand was against his, and every woman's. What was there in his nature that turned people against him so inevitably? There seemed to be some taint in him that ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... tooth will tear and taint The Poet, Patriot, Sage or Saint, Not sparing wit nor learning. Now, if you'd know the reason why, The best of reasons I'll supply; 'Tis bread ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... could exist at all. He, therefore, by whom God had first made the world, entered into the womb of the Virgin in the form (if I may with reverence say so) of a new organic cell; and around it, through the virtue of his creative energy, a material body grew again of the substance of his mother, pure of taint and clean as the first body of the first man was clean when it passed out under his hand in the beginning of all things. In Him thus wonderfully born was the virtue which was to restore the lost power ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... that we have not yet come to the full development of Christian democracy. The taint of old aristocracies is yet pervading all parts of our society. We have not yet realized fully the true dignity of labor, and the surpassing dignity of domestic labor. And I must say that the valuable and courageous women who have agitated the doctrines of Woman's Rights ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form, That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm. His head is hung with clouds; his giant hand Flings a blue flame far flickering to the land; His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides, And taint with gory grume the staggering tides; Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare, His mouth disgorges all the stores of war, Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire. And lighted bombs that fusing trails ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... You may not find here the ardent skies of your own sunny South, but you will find as ardent hearts, as warm and generous hands to welcome you to our Commonwealth. We welcome you to the city of Boston, and you have already experienced how open-hearted, how generous, how free from all possible taint of sectional thought are the hospitality and cordiality of the city of Boston. We welcome you to Faneuil Hall. Many an eloquent voice has in all times resounded from the walls of Faneuil Hall. It is said that no voice is uttered by man in this air we breathe but enters into that air. It continues ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... development when the public institutions require reconstruction, and the popular will must in some measure regulate their form and spirit. The administration of the governor was eminently disinterested. He had no private speculations or secret agents, and his measures were free from both the taint and the reproach of corruption. Such faults were sometimes imputed, but they were the staple slanders of writers without credit or name. His expenditure greatly exceeded his official income; and while the plainness of his establishment and ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... upon his breast and growled horribly—hideous, uncouth, beastly. Tarzan rose to his full height upon a swaying branch—straight and beautiful as a demigod—unspoiled by the taint of civilization—a perfect specimen of what the human race might have been had the laws of man not interfered with the laws ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not—the best things never are expressed or expressible—knew by a thousand little daily acts like these, the depth and tenderness of his friendship, his brotherly love for me. As yet, I had it all. And God, who knows how little else I had, will pardon, if in my unspeakable thankfulness lurked a taint of selfish joy in my sole possession of such ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the garden. Her mind was so full that she did not as usual observe every twig, almost every leaf, as she passed. Nor, now that she was alone, was that religious bias, which had so much to do with her daily life, very strong within her. There was no taint of hypocrisy in her character; but yet, with the force of human disappointment heavy upon her, her heart was now hot with human anger, and mutinous with human resolves. She had proposed to herself to revenge herself upon the men of her ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... So then the eyes that now can scarce see thee, they are so troubled by the pest, and the lips that shall not touch thee to taint thee, will still be before thee as they were when we were young and thou ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... his rightful meed was gone. And I was all distraught and conquered. Of ending his base life I never thought, never at my wildest, though I had thought to end my own; but when Fate struck the blow for me, then I swore that carrion should not taint my whole life through. It should not—should not—for 'twas Fate's self had doomed me to my ruin. And there it lay until the night; for this I planned, that being of such great strength for a woman, I could bear his body in ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... same works, published separately—but I would not mix myself up in this way with others. I would not become a partner in this sort of miscellaneous 'pot au feu,' where the bad flavour of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. I would be, if I were you, alone, single-handed, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... anything before in her life which had been like this it might have been easier to part with it now, though, as she had proved, Jennie's affections were not based in any way upon material considerations. Her love of life and of personality were free from the taint of selfishness. She went about among these various rooms selecting this rug, that set of furniture, this and that ornament, wishing all the time with all her heart and soul that it need not be. Just to think, in a little while Lester would not come any ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... to the strange barbarity he practised I can scarcely conceive; unless it proceeded from that natural taint of cruelty which so often distinguishes man above all other animals when his power becomes uncontrolled. The propensity was probably strengthened in him from the indemnities of martial law, and by those visions of promotion whereby violent partizans ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... incautious subjects of it a most dangerous influence; and books as well as men when most attractive should be treated warily. In Rabelais and Swift, in Fielding and Smollett, coarse manners must be reprobated. In George Eliot's novels, with exceptions, and in 'Jane Eyre,' there is a subtle taint that is unwholesome to the unguarded reader. Thackeray too frequently compels us to associate with evil company; and, while admiring the writer's skill, the reader should keep well outside of almost every ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various |
