"Black sheep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the village for so much as an hour for the present. I am shepherd of a mountain flock, remember, and my first duty is to them. At any moment I may have a summons to one who is dying. A black sheep he has been perhaps, but all the more should he be washed white at the last. And I must hold myself ready to give him the extreme unction when I am sent for, if it be now ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sadly given, some of them, to the use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and make them what men ought ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... at the very first. Hardly two years ago Peter Schermerhorn died at the age of ninety-eight. He was the black sheep of an otherwise respectable family, went off and spent his portion in riotous living, afterward bought a tract of ground above Harlem, turned hermit, raised geese and ducks and pigs, married and had three daughters and they in turn married, glad, I suppose, to get away from the penurious ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... MacLean had wrestled with the vocabulary on memorable occasions—to no avail; and although she had long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with him, it troubled her none the less. And because Michael came the nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for him always ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... continued to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to change in character, and I found at length that it came from some one leading flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The narrow street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall to wall—black sheep and white, bleating with one accord like the birds in spring, and each one accompanying himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made a pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, and I passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... something queer about Mr. Percival Thorne—that he had been found out at the last moment, and had lost both wife and legacy in consequence. "No doubt it was hushed up on condition he should take himself off. The best thing they could do, but how sad for an old county family! Still, there will be black sheep, and what a mercy it was that Miss Langton was saved from him!" So people talked, and generally added that they could not tell why—just a feeling, you know—but they never ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... salvation of his party and its leader comes before Ireland. He means well by her: but he doesn't mean it so much as all that. Still he's the only one of them who doesn't pretend to look on me as a black sheep. He too has to work with his material. That's politics. The Nonconformist conscience means votes—so it decides him: just as the priests decide me.... They would decide him in any case, I mean. And so-so it goes on.... "Look here upon this picture, and on this": ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... honest, hard-working boys, but there are some black sheep among them. I know one boy who tried to commit highway robbery, stopping a person whom he had seen ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... vicissitudes and being for years the black sheep of the ancient family, that he should come into possession of Osbaldistone Tower and Manor touched his ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... are! And what can you make of it? There you are face to face with the fact that a man who was a black sheep twenty or thirty years ago has been all this time making believe to be a white sheep so successfully as never was. Or, stranger still, that a woman who has brought up a family of model daughters—daughters whom it would be ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... so sure of that. Remember his fatal predilection for black sheep. What about his handing over Bala to Tika Singh, after he himself had exhausted all the resources of the English language in finding suitably opprobrious epithets for him? The Bala people hated him, too, whereas I gather that the Agpuris have no ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Marquis—Bah! I'm the black sheep of the party, its spoiled child; that's taken for granted. Dubois, you may say also that Madame begs the Abbe to drive home, and to send ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... who lived in a field. One was black, and one was white. In the same field lived a horse and a cow. Now, the black sheep was not at all good. But, where he chose to go, the white sheep would go; and, what he did the ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown
... open opinions adverse to the prospects of the proposed bride. Lucy herself could say but little in defence of her old friend, who had lost all claim upon that friendship since the offer of the bribe had been made,—so that it was understood among them all that Lizzie was to be regarded as a black sheep;—but hitherto Lord Fawn himself had concealed his feelings before Lucy. Now unfortunately he spoke out, and in speaking was especially bitter against Frank. "Mr. Greystock has been most insolent," he said as they were all sitting together in the library after dinner. Lady Fawn made a sign to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... was goin' a good deal about the house, bein', as I've said, a chum o' your brother. But he was goin' too fast for me, and that made me split with him. I tried at first to make him hold in a bit; but what was the use of a black sheep like me tryin' to make a white sheep o' him! The thing was so absurd that he laughed at it; indeed, we both laughed at it. Your mother was at that time very poorly off—made a miserable livin' by dressmakin'. Indeed, she'd have bin half starved if I hadn't given her a helpin' hand ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... the files, In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound For the warm Persian sea-board—so they stream'd. The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, The Tukas, and the lances ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... here we've seen, and the poor wretches, as you calls them, is worse fighters than they was afore, and slaving skippers like Huggins collects their schooners' crews together and drives the black mutineers before 'em like a flock o' Baa, baa, black sheep, kills a lot and frightens a lot more to death, and then things goes on just the same as ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... the Synod now adopted the principle that the true kernel of the Moravian Church consisted, not of all the communicant members, but only of a "Faithful Few." We can hardly call this encouraging. It tempted the "Faithful Few" to be Pharisees, and banned the rest as black sheep. And the Pastoral Letter, drawn up by the Synod, and addressed to all the congregations, was still more disheartening. "It will be better," ran one fatal sentence, "for us to decrease in numbers and increase in piety than to be a large multitude, like a body without a spirit." ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... succession, with the long mountain reek beside us, and a still higher range in the purple distance. Now and then a green patch sternly walled in, a few cows grazing, a lonely donkey, a few long-tailed black sheep, or a couple of goats. Here and there acres of white blossom, looking like a snowfall. This was the bog bean, growing on a stem a foot high, a silvery tuft of silky bloom hanging downward, two inches long and the bigness of a finger. Sometimes we ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... word in his defence, and would believe no good of him. He was quite honest in his desire to do the best that was possible for the child, and in the feeling that it would be better to keep all knowledge of her father from her. He looked upon Hugh Davidson as a black sheep. A black sheep could do no good to any one; therefore, he argued, he should not come ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... abolished hell a man knew, when he was begetting a child, that he was begetting a soul that had only one chance in a hundred of escaping the eternal fires of damnation. He knew that in all probability that child would be brought to damnation—one of the ninety-nine black sheep. But since hell has been abolished death has become more welcome. I wrote a fairy story once. It was published somewhere. I don't remember just what it was now, but the substance of it was that a fairy gave a man the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... do with her son, how to bestow him, in what way to get rid of him so that in ridding herself of him she might not aid in destroying him,—this was the great trouble of her life, the burden that was breaking her back. Now this girl was not only willing but persistently anxious to take her black sheep and to endow him,—as she declared,—with ever so many thousands a year. If the thousands were there,—or even an income of a single thousand a year,—then what a blessing would such a marriage be! Sir Felix had already fallen so low ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... father from spending money and wearing his heart out in vain, by stopping the case in Dettermain and Newson's hands. They were respectable lawyers, he said, in a lawyer's ordinary tone when including such of his species as are not black sheep. He thought it possible that my father's personal influence overbore their judgment. In fact, nothing bound them to refuse to work for him, and he believed that they had submitted their views ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... your every story and finds with keen discriminating sight, "Black's not so black nor white so very white." Mr. Thompson-Seton makes declaration, "The silver-fox is but a phase or freak of a common-fox, exactly as a black sheep is, but with a difference—!" Yes, there's that fatal and fascinating difference. As we must have salmon-hatcheries, so Nature demands intelligent fox-farms, and beaver-farms, and skunk-farms. Forty acres under fur promises greater interest than even forty-bushel wheat, and, to the imaginative, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Willoughbys very well," she said. "Oh, yes, very well indeed—in a way. We hear a good deal of them. De Courcy's wife was a friend of mine. This one is De Courcy, the other is Romaine, and there was one who was considered a sort of black sheep and broke with the family altogether. They don't know where he is and don't care to know, I suppose. They have their own views of the matter. Oh, yes; I know them ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... answered. We are of different stuff. And after all, Janet and I are your only black sheep. Jock has his convictions in a strong, practical working order, as real to him as ever his drill and order-book were. Good old fellow, he strikes me a good deal more than all ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... everybody behaved as well as he could. I really believe that the private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning of the century was blameless. The great evils of society did not exist, and if now and then there was a black sheep, his or her life became a burden to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and society being on the whole so blameless, was all the more merciless on the sinners, whether their sins were great or small. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... to find that the black sheep who got it all sailed for India within a week of my uncle's death! Lady Devine got a letter from him on the day of the funeral to say that he had taken his passage in the Hydaspes for Calcutta, and never ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Law. One word more though: undoubting of thine amiability, friend that hast walked with me hitherto in peace, I will be tame as a purring cat, and sheathe my talons; therefore are you still unteased by divers sly speeches and sarcastic hints, of and concerning innumerable black sheep that crowd about a woolsack; especially of certain "highly respectables," whom the omnipotence of parliament (no less power presumably being competent) commands to be accounted "gentlemen." Should then my meagre sketches seem but little spiteful, accord ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full; One for the master, one for the dame, And one for the 'gory head' who limps ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Lottie's old life. At Christmas-time they were asked to stay for a few days at a friend's house. There was to be a dance, and the hostess, being Lottie's godmother, pointedly included her in the invitation; so Mrs. Blake and Addie did what they could to improve their black sheep's appearance. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... regiments is of comparatively rare occurrence. Even when the 3rd West India Regiment was in existence, there was less in the three negro regiments than in one of the Line; while drunkenness is confined to the few black sheep who will be found in every body of men. Riots or disturbances between West India soldiers and the inhabitants of the towns in which they are quartered are unheard of, and in every garrison they receive the highest praise for their unvarying good ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Veils In France I saw a Hill American Boys, Hello! De Rochambeau After The Blasphemy of Guns The Crimes of Peace It May Be Then and Now Widows Conversation I, too He that hath ears Answers How is it? 'Let us give thanks' The Black Sheep One by one Prayer Be not Dismayed Ascension The Deadliest Sin The Rainbow of ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dirty ole thing, all dust and bits of black hair come off it on me. I don't think it looks like a wolf. Well, if I've gotter be a wolf folks might just as well know what I am. This looks like as if it came off a black sheep or sumthin'. You don't want folks to think I'm a sheep 'stead of a wolf, do you? You don't want me to be made look ridiclus before all ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... The Black Sheep is a beast all men should shun— He has no fleece yet fleeces every one; Though without horns, oft with a horn he's seen; Though not a lamb, he gambles on the green. Perhaps he's not a sheep, as some suggest, But a grim wolf ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... was little jest in what I said," replied Mr. Carvell soberly, "and I care not who hears it. Your own son will one day know you well enough, if he does not now. Do not imagine, because I am old, that I am grown so foolish as to believe that a black sheep can become white save by dye. And dye will never deceive such as me. And Philip," the shrewd old gentleman went on, turning to my cousin, "do not let thy father or any other make thee believe there cannot be two sides to every question. I recognize in your arguments that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Few novels are written in which there is nothing more than a story. Nearly all contain some teaching; and it is a safe conclusion that the authors have taught "on purpose." In "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," Kipling has shown the imperative necessity of a "real, live, lovely mamma;" in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Irving has placed before us a charming picture of rural life in a dreamy Dutch village on the Hudson; and in his "Christmas Carol," Dickens shows plainly that ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... was always counted, they say, Rather a bad stick any way, Splintered all over with dodges and tricks, Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;" I, the truant, saucy and bold, The one black sheep in my father's fold, "Once on a time," as the stories say, Went over the hill on a winter's day— Over ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... venturing forth to her own cabin, was met by the sight of Mrs. Stanislaw dragging all her possessions into the corridor. It appeared that even for the few remaining days at sea the tigress could not lie down with the black sheep! A sweet and sympathetic soul, who also lived down the same alley and had the same horror of contaminating influence, had therefore offered to take her in. The picturesque incident was being witnessed and silently approved by women in the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... carry off a number of cattle from one of the American depots. "It aint possible that this can be all sheer bad luck. It aint no one in our company, I'll be bound. We aint had any new recruits lately, and there aint a man among us whom I could not answer for. There must be a black sheep in Gregory's or Vincent's corps. The enemy seem up to every move, and, between us, we have lost more than thirty men in the last few weeks. There aint no doubt about it—there's a traitor somewhere and he must be a clever one, and he ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... slender means; one or two courtesy lords of high descent, but burdened with numerous offspring; together with a riding-master who wrote novels, and an elderly clergyman appointed by the Bishop of Gibraltar. I dare say there may have been a few black sheep in the colony; but the picture which Mrs. Annie Edwardes gave of it in her novel, "Susan Fielding," was exaggerated, though there was truth in the incidents which she introduced into another of her works, "Ought We to Visit Her?" On the whole, the Saint Servan colony was a ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be inducted into ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sweet child, think that impossible?" the Magian asked with gentle gravity. "Have the thousands who bring not merely fruit and wine and money for their dead, but who even burn a black sheep for them—you, perhaps, have done the same—have they, I ask, done this so long in vain? I can not believe it. Nay, I know from the ghosts themselves that this gives them pleasure; so they must have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the inhabitants of Koolfu are professedly Mahommedans; the rest are pagans, who once a year, in common with the other people of Nyffee, repair to a high hill in one of the southern provinces, on which they sacrifice a black bull, a black sheep, and a black dog. On their fetish houses are sculptured, as in Youriba, the lizard, the crocodile, the tortoise, and the boa, with sometimes human figures. Their language is a dialect of the Youribanee, but the Houssa is that of the market. They are civil, but the truth ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of Khulagu could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience; he entered Edessa; and the Turcomans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia the native Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet; by three expeditions he obtained the merit of the gazie, or holy war; and the Prince of Tiflis ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the black sheep of Las Palomas. Born of a rich, aristocratic family in Maryland, he had early developed into a good-natured but reckless spendthrift, and his disreputable associates had contributed no small part in forcing him ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... keep the village seat of learning open more than half the year the boy educated himself at the fountain head of wisdom, and knowledge of the other half. His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched from a hen's egg, and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black sheep and a crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony had more useless information than any boy in the village. He knew just where to find the first Mayflowers, and would bring home the waxen beauties when other people had scarcely ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sheep, and for a Mexican sheep-herder it is an impossibility. But he has a simple device which answers the purpose. In an ordinary flock about one sheep in a hundred is a black one. If a portion of the flock has gone astray, there is likely to be a black one in it. So by counting his thirty black sheep each day Tampico kept rough ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Dan; but I shall not be surprised if he surpasses all the rest in the real success of life, since there is more rejoicing over one repentant sinner than many saints,' answered Mrs Jo, still clinging fast to her black sheep although a whole flock of white ones trotted happily ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... as if he had been pricked by an awl; since it was not among the police that he felt called upon to separate the black sheep from the white. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Rome, but she had settled definitely in Florence before London became an American colony, so that her friends were chiefly Americans, though she had a wide international acquaintance. Perhaps her habit of taking her brother's part, when he was a black sheep, inclined her to mercy with people who had not been so blameless in their morals as they were in their minds and manners. She exacted that they should be interesting and agreeable, and not too threadbare; but if they had something that decently ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... easy morals are always willing to espouse the cause of the "black sheep," and to further the matrimonial success of the penitent roue. Many mothers are willing to marry their daughters to the polished villain of society, who is known as a rake and debauchee, if his family connections are desirable. It has been even held that a youth who did not "sow ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... gentleman, at any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes had met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I had said something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought I with a little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for the cloth. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... foolery and maudlin gossip of the empty of this empty generation. "What was it to me if the grown children of our idle community, the male babblers, and the female cutters-up of character, voted me, in their commonplace souls, the blackest of black sheep? I was still strong in the solid respect of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... my own anxieties I wondered who the stranger could be, and why the little house was to be an observatory. Then I remembered the vicinity of the big gaol, and thought that madame might have an interest in one of the black sheep incarcerated there. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... white silks; that the value of domestic animals does not as a whole appear to be influenced by their colour: thus, whereas the fleece of white sheep commands a higher price in the South African wool market than the fleece of black sheep, their mutton has about the same flavour. Again of horned cattle, which give the same quality of beef, irrespective of colour; farmers will tell you of them that coloured cattle are among the best for farming and other purposes, while white bullocks are ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... to him with the scorn which a tale-bearer deserves. The tales at last reached the ears of the masters, but in so indefinite a form that they could take no notice of them, much less report them to the Doctor; but they had the bad effect of making them look upon poor Ellis as a black sheep, and of inducing them to treat him with suspicion. Wrong motives were assigned to all he did, and, with one exception, no one spoke kindly or encouragingly to him. The exception was Monsieur Malin. Ellis's clever ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... such remarks reached Mrs. Delano; though she was made to feel, in many small ways, that she had become a black sheep in aristocratic circles. But these indications passed by her almost unnoticed, occupied as she was in earnestly striving to redeem the mistakes of the past by making the best ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... of your black sheep, Hawley. But he is really a disinterested, unworldly fellow," said Mr. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear both sides and bear with all opinions,—sometimes finding to our astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked, and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly. Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was teetotal, handsome, taciturn ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... confess that he is. There is a black sheep in every family, and poor Uncle Obed was the black ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... purpose, perhaps, if she had told her she was not so very bad after all, but Soeur Lucie never thought of that; perhaps she did not care much about the child; by this time Madelon was beginning to be established as the black sheep of the little community, and Soeur Lucie only expressed the general sense; but being very good-natured, she said in a kind way what other people ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... "Oh, what's de use To shun de mire an' de muddy sluice? For whether I walks for praise or blame, Dey'll call me 'black sheep,' jes de same!" An' he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— An' he ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the Faubourg St. Germain,—loyal to its black sheep as are ever the aristocracies of the old world,—Florac was now looked at askance; and in the world of the boulevards strange stories were told as to the expedients by which he now made—it could not be called earned—a living. The playing of those games ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was at the inn some years ago I was at my wildest, and her husband did not like me. He was in bad health, very touchy, and I suppose I gave him reason enough to consider me an extremely black sheep. Of course Mrs. Cristie naturally thought pretty much as he did, and from what you told me of the conference over my advent, I suppose her opinions haven't changed much. She has treated me very well since I have been here, ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... carrying an inner light. "We hold them in the hollow of our hand," said he, and both his wife and himself took pains on our own thoroughfare to cut the Honourable George dead, though I dare say the poor chap never at all noticed it. They spoke of him as "a remittance man"—the black sheep of a noble family. They mentioned sympathetically the trouble his vicious ways had been to his brother, the Earl. Indeed, so mysteriously important were they in allusions of this sort that I was obliged to caution them, lest ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... intervening hours endeavouring to analyze the cause of her temper, but the cause was as elusive as quicksilver. Why should she trust Cunningham? What was the basis of this trust? He had, as Denny said, broken the law of the sea. Was there a bit of black sheep in her, and was the man calling to it? And this perversity of hers might create an estrangement between her and Denny; she must not let that happen. The singular beauty of the man's face, his amazing career, and his ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... organization and forced to leave the iron-works. If they refused, they were given up to the authorities. Hoeflinger was the most bitter foe of those malefactors. One day he again discovered that screws had been loosened and that some parts of the idol were even missing. In this way the black sheep among the workingmen were trying to take revenge. In the lower strata of the force there was a tendency toward disorganization. A group of secret anarchists and born marauders hoped to bring about general disorder during the strike and to have an occasion either to derive some ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... agent, is making love to Judy, and she prefers him to the young and unsophisticated Bobbie Forrester, who also loves her. It is Judy's eighteenth birthday, and her relations feel that it is time to tell her about Aunt Catherine, the black sheep of the family, who is supposed to have run off with another woman's husband. It is the day of the village bazaar, and amid a lot of hustle and bustle Catherine enters—the prodigal daughter most inopportunely returned! As the day progresses Old Mrs. Deveral ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... was a thing not to be trifled with when a "protracted meeting" was in session. For years she had been the black sheep in the spiritual fold. Her earnest desire to get religion and the untiring efforts of the exhorters had alike proved futile. Year after year she sat on the mourners' bench, seeking the light and failing each ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... all end?" muttered the colonel. "Ah, well! there are black sheep in every flock, even if they hide their wool ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... very person!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Oh yes, she is excessively rich, has not a relative in the world, gives half her income away, and, as dear Mrs. Godfrey expresses it, spends a good deal of her time in trying to wash her black sheep white, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... What a moral! My father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man, like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black sheep ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the Master spake Blew down the mount the dust of pattering feet, White goats and black sheep winding slow their way With many a lingering nibble at the tufts, And wanderings from the path, where water gleamed Or wild figs hung. But always as they strayed The herdsman cried, or slung his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... black sheep, Robert Gillian, $1,000 on account of the eternal happiness, owed by Heaven to the best and ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... injury to her parent orb. But there is another inhabitant of the skies whose purposes have not been similarly free from popular suspicion. Needless to say I refer to the black sheep of the sidereal family, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is widely accepted now and its advocates call Mr. Eden a dreamer. It was this: He came into a cell cold and stern and set the rogues a lot of texts. Those that learned a great many he called good prisoners, and those that learned few—black sheep; and the prisoners soon found out that their life, bitter as it was, would be bitterer if they did not look sharp and learn a good many texts. So they learned lots—and the slyest scoundrels learned the most. "Why not?" said they, "in these cursed holes we have nothing ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the clergymen of New York are like those of other places. Whether weak-headed, or strong-minded, they are, as a class, honest, God-fearing, self-denying men. There are, however, some black sheep in the fold; but, let us thank Heaven, they are few, and all the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... "Black Sheep," by Edna Hyde, is an excellent specimen of blank verse by our gifted laureate. Line 14 seems to lack a syllable, but this deficiency is probably the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... who had a scheming mind. In the family of three brothers there was one—not black sheep, but white. There was one who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second brother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out to South Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one of the cities of Cape Colony. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... children, so this last remark of hers had long fallen flat. Alison came in almost immediately after the children, and then, after a longer interval, Harry, looking red and sleepy, took his place by the table. Harry was undoubtedly the black sheep of the family. Both Alison and David bestowed on him one or two anxious glances, but Grannie was too absorbed in some other thought to take much notice of him this morning. Immediately after breakfast the children knelt down, and Grannie repeated ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... half, until about A.D. 1400. Then it was taken by Timur, from whom the sultan Ahmed Ben Avis fled, and, finding refuge with the Greek emperor, contrived later to repossess himself of the city, whence he was finally expelled by Kara Yusuf of the Kara-Kuyunli ("Black Sheep") Mongols in 1417. About 1468 the descendants of the latter were driven out by Uzun Hasan or Cassim of the Ak-Kuyunli ("White Sheep") Mongols. He and his descendants reigned in Bagdad until Shah Ismail I., the founder of the Safawid royal house of Persia, made himself master of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... argument, nor is worsted in a bargain. He never acts on impulse, nor jumps without looking, nor commits himself rashly, nor loses the wind out of his sails. He is so overwhelmingly superior (sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet—how you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed bullet brings ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... but one black sheep among so many, in my estimation speaks well for the integrity of ball players as a class and for the Argonauts of 1874 ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... while, of course, an exceptional "black sheep" may get in even among soldiers, and William had often been warned not to keep so much convertible wealth about his person. But William trusted his comrades and carried large sums ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... a huge bear, like a very big, wicked, black sheep with a pointed nose, making his way down the shore. He shambled along lazily and unconcernedly, as if his bones were loosely tied together in a bag of fur. It was the most indifferent and disconnected gait that I ever saw. Nearer and nearer he sauntered, while we sat as still ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep—whom many fell away from in dread—pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... of another sister, Caramel, though I do so with grief. However, there is a skeleton in every fold—I mean to say, a black sheep in every cupboard. She was undeniably beautiful, and had a romantic postcard face. Her figure was perfect. Her intelligence was C 3. In a weak moment she accepted a thinking part in a revue at the "Frivolity," and her career ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... a black sheep wins, no matter what the score is. Otherwise the scorer of the greatest number of marks is the winner. In "Railway Whist" it is necessary for the players to be on ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... close white breeches and black gaiters, with straw hats bound with black. The countrymen from Saint Herbot were there in their black shaggy goat or sheepskin overcoats, the hair turned outwards (there are flocks of black sheep throughout Finistere), without sleeves, and the white breeches, black gaiters, and straw hats. The women of Huelgoat wear large white turnover collars and caps with long ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... 'em, an' it made me mad. So yistidday an' to-day I watched, an' finally I plugged this black thief. Yes, he's got a glossy coat; but he's a bad un fer all his fine looks. These black foxes are bigger, stronger an' cunniner than red ones. In every litter you'll find a dark one, the black sheep of the family. Because he grows so much faster, an' steals all the food from the others, the mother jest takes him by the nape of the neck an' chucks him out in the world to shift fer hisself. An' it's ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of the house, was in the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... presently resumed, "we have been a very respectable lot on the whole. The Ida Ludingtons have been good babies, good children, good girls, good women, and, I hope, will prove to have been respectable old women. In the spirit land, when we all meet together, there will be no black sheep among us, nor even anybody that we shall need to send to Coventry: But I do not see why special affinities should not assert themselves there as here, and cliques form among us. You will belong to them all, of course, but next ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... weepin' fur them black sheep o' his congregation an' fur Lee-yander's short-comin's, fur ez fur ez I kin hear he air about ez black a sheep ez most pastors want ter wrestle with fur the turnin' away from thar sins. Yes'm, Sister Sudley, that's jes what p'inted out my jewty plain afore my eyes, an' I riz up an' ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... fourth finger, on which a small ring glistened, sharply against the cream jug. "If I were every body's pet lamb or black sheep, I couldn't have more shepherd's crooks about me. Have you joined the laudable band, Mr. Mann, and am I requested ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... you've got reasons for throwin' taunts at my claims for my son Jean. Yes, he's got Indian in him an' that 'll be the worse for the men who will have to meet him. I'm tellin' you, Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family. If you ride down his record you'll find he's shore in line to be another Poggin, or Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin', or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin' elbows with you right heah that ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... swarm a month or two later; but a swarm in July is not to be despised; it will store no clover or linden honey for the "grand seignior and the ladies of his seraglio," but plenty of the rank and wholesome poor man's nectar, the sun-tanned product of the plebeian buckwheat. Buckwheat honey is the black sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and character in it. It lays hold of the taste in no equivocal manner, especially when at a winter breakfast it meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. Bread with honey to cover it from the same stalk is double good fortune. It is not ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... ingratiated himself with nearly every southerner who visited Halifax although he was a coarse, ill-bred vulgarian, of no social standing in the community. It is true that a worthy member of the same family had risen from obscurity to high honors, but Sandy was a black sheep of the flock. He was employed at first by many of our people to purchase for them on commission, and afterwards by the Confederate Government. He profited by so good an opportunity for swindling, eventually forging invoices of articles, and ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Two Brothers is also known as A Bachelor's Establishment and The Black Sheep. In other Addendum appearances it is referred to as A ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... maid with child to him in Biggar, and seemingly deserted her; she was hanged on the Castle Hill for infanticide, June 1614; and Martin, elder in Dalkeith, eternally disgraced the name by signing witness in a witch trial, 1661. These are two of our black sheep. {3a} Under the Restoration, one Stevenson was a bailie in Edinburgh, and another the lessee of the Canonmills. There were at the same period two physicians of the name in Edinburgh, one of whom, Dr. Archibald, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way to Deerham Court, absorbed in thought. His own strong impression had been, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the black sheep with ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tenderhearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don't know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn't find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars my good girl ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... passage appears, slowly feeling his may, the veterinarian GRUNERT. He is a small man in a coat of black sheep's fur, cap and tall boots. He taps with the handle of his whip against the door post in order to call attention to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... by was Rebecca's Well: a dead body was lying there, and crowds of male and female mourners dancing and howling round it. Now and then a little troop of savage scowling horsemen—a shepherd driving his black sheep, his gun over his shoulder—a troop of camels—or of women, with long blue robes and white veils, bearing pitchers, and staring at the strangers with their great solemn eyes—or a company of labourers, with their donkeys, bearing grain ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... people there wrote to England, and found out that it was the crest of a noble and highly esteemed family, and some earl was at the head of it. They were all honorable people in this family except one man, a nephew, not a son, of the late earl. He was the black sheep of them all. As a young man, he had led a wild and wicked life, and had ended by forging the name of one of his friends, so that he was obliged to leave England and take refuge in America. By the description of this man, Mr. Wood knew that he must be Mr. Barron, so he wrote ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... process of ejectment that could be employed in this unlooked-for emergency, St. Peter hastily withdrew to take counsel's opinion; and during his absence Mr. Flaw firmly established himself in the realms of bliss, where he remains to this day the black sheep of the saintly family. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Laurie was the black sheep of the family; so the Devons left all their great fortune to Barbara and put Laurie in her care. That infuriated him, of course, for he is a high-spirited youngster. He promptly took on an extra shade ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... her boy: he may be a black sheep, but she wants him, and she shall have him, by—" whatever ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Pound was endeavoring to console her for her loss and to bring her to a state of Christian resignation. So all was forgotten in the joy of my unexpected return, and though in the eyes of the minister, Miss Spinner, and the others I was just a small black sheep about whose absence an unnecessary pother had been raised, there was only rejoicing in the home fold. Even my father did not humiliate me with forgiveness, but took me in his arms silently and held me there, as he might have held me had he just rescued me from ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... heard all this, for somehow the Earl was a favorite black sheep in the cottages and farm-houses, and his bad behavior gave many a good woman something to talk about when she had company ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... arose from the fact that the first Kindergarten teachers, being foreigners, did not know our own home-grown productions. Long since we have shaken off the foreign product, in favour of our own "Sing a Song of Sixpence," "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and their refreshingly cheerful compeers. Froebel's book suggests songs to suit all subjects and all frames of mind—the wind, the moon, and stars, the farm with its cows and sheep, its hens and chickens, the baker and ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... in Hades pours out a libation (honey, wine, water, to which meal is added) to all the dead, addresses vows and prayers to them, and promises to offer to them a barren heifer on his return to Ithaca, and a black sheep separately to Teiresias.[694] From the sixth century onward the references in the literature show that the worship of the dead (including children) was then general (and of course it must have begun much earlier). The offerings made to them were both vegetable and animal; the sacrificed animal ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... picture which had been turned to the wall. He ran over the titles. There were a number of French novels, Ely's Socialism, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, St. Pierre's Paul and Virginia, and a dozen other volumes; there were Balzac and Hugo, and Dante's Divine Comedy. Amid this array, like a black sheep lost among the angels, was a finger-worn and faded little volume bearing the name Camille. Something about this one book, so strangely out of place in its present company, aroused Philip's curiosity. It bore ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... a nice family. My, how Mis' King did keep them children, five of them, when their father died, and not a black sheep among them! Theron's a big sea captain, and Zenas in Washington building up the Capitol, and I dare say Mat is thinking of being sent to Congress. Joe is in the Army, and the young one keeps his mother a lady in New York, I've heard say. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... we saw you approaching, we two agreed to stand out from among the black sheep. The rest of the craft in there are one and all slavers, and if you take or destroy them they will only get their due," ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... be expected I was one of Sister Andre's "black sheep" or dilatory pupils that morning. When our Algebra class was called I felt humbled and fallen. It was the first time for many years that Amey Hampden had been backward in her lessons, and what was worse, there were girls in my section who had looked forward with an eager desire to a day ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... as a right, have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less today, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world is ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the Hopkins household were slight compared with the records against "the black sheep" of the colony, the family of Billingtons from London. The mother, Helen or Ellen, did not seem to redeem the reputation of husband and sons; traditionally she was called "the scold." After her husband had been executed in 1630, for the first ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... record of a visitation of the Benedictine foundation of St Benedict, at Montpellier, partly a monastery and partly a college. The Prior is strictly questioned about the conduct of the students. He gives a good character to most of them: but the little flock contained some black sheep. Peter is somewhat light-headed ("aliquantulum est levis capitis") but not incorrigible; he has been guilty of employing "verba injuriosa et provocativa," but the Prior has corrected him, and he has ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... I proceed with the inventory of Sergeant Beresford's equipment as a future husband. Fond, but, alas! fickle. A family black sheep, or if not black, at least striped. Likely not to plague you long, if he's sent on many more jobs like the last. Said to be good-tempered, but not docile. Kind, as men go, but a ne'er-do-well, a prodigal, a waster. Something whispers in my ear that he'll ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... individuality, idiosyncrasy, originality, mannerism. aberration; irregularity; variety; singularity; exemption; salvo &c. (qualification) 469. nonconformist; nondescript, character, original, nonesuch, nonsuch[obs3], monster, prodigy, wonder, miracle, curiosity, flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae[Lat], rara avis[Lat], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis[Lat], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid[Lat], hermaphrodite. [mythical animal] phoenix, chimera, hydra, sphinx, minotaur; griffin, griffon; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... but in 1888 it was renewed, and in that year the Salisbury government introduced two reform bills, one providing for the gradual creation of fifty life peerages, to be conferred upon men of attainment in law, diplomacy, and administrative service, and the other (popularly known as the "Black Sheep Bill") providing for the discontinuance of writs of summons to undesirable members of the peerage. The bills, however, were withdrawn after their second reading and an attempt on the part of Lord Carnarvon, in 1889, to revive the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... my young manhood. A man that was known to be an Abolitionist had better be known to have the plague. Every door was shut to him. If he was born under circumstances that admitted him to the best society, he was the black sheep of the family. If he aspired by fidelity, industry, and genius, to good society, he was debarred. "An Abolitionist" was enough to put the mark of Cain upon any young man that arose in my early day, and until ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... own six horses, And faith he went the pace and went it blind, And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind. We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... from head to foot, looked like a big black sheep, Newstyle was thrown upon his own experimental heap; "That weather-glass," said Oldstyle, "canna be in proper fettle, Or it might as well a tow'd us there was ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the sound of his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your throat and play at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-baa, black sheep!' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Lord, I must go back and watch over my black sheep, if I would have them blue!" said Levy; and he retreated towards the threshold. But at that shout of "Avenel forever!" as if at a signal, various electors of the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue hostelry, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the son, was a black sheep. He had been mixed up in all kinds of scandals before. His own father had turned him out of doors, and he was married to a woman whose father died in prison. Could a better combination of circumstances for a newspaper be conceived? ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... to the study of women, and so had no alternative but to answer questions and smile fatuously upon the blond daughter, and wonder if I ought to warn the mother that "clothes do not make the man," and that I was a black sheep and not a desirable acquaintance. Before I had quite settled that point, they left the train. I am afraid I am not distinctly a chivalrous person; I hummed the Doxology after their retreating forms and retired into myself, with a feeling that my own society is ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... all until you come. But hasten, my beloved! I am already aged with this long waiting for you. Do not ask me about father. He is a good shepherd, but I am a small black sheep determined not to be made white according to his plan. And he has come to that place where he would be ready to take even you as an under-shepherd of this factious ewe lamb. Besides, could we not make a providential offering of Jack, as Abraham ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... not so quick as usual, then. I'd been accused of the murder at the Santa Anna Hotel. I hooked it, and got over to Mexico, so to Spain and France. I'd always been a black sheep, you know, but that was the first really serious trouble I'd got into. However, as I said, five years later, when Wildred and I met, I was in Canada; I'd turned actor (I'd always a little talent that way), ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... eye sufficiently busy at that," he added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the direction in which the khaki-clad lads ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than any country I ever knew. If that is its standard, here it is. But I speak of Bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he is "a black sheep—a Democrat." I speak of Bryant, and am entreated to be more careful, for the same reason. I speak of international copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. I speak of Miss Martineau, and all parties—Slave Upholders ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... to attend Sunday-school, and consequently fell into evil ways leading to the thief's or drunkard's grave. Often a sick mother was introduced to claim emotional attention, or to use as a lay figure upon which to drape Scripture texts as fearful warnings to the black sheep of the family. Indeed, the little reader no sooner began to enjoy the tale of some sweet and gentle girl, or to delight in the mischievous boy, than he was called upon to reflect that early piety portended an early death, and ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... no disreputable cuckoo, ornithologically speaking, let us not congratulate ourselves too hastily. We have his counterpart in a black sheep of featherdom which vies with his European rival in deeds of cunning and cruelty, and which has not even a song to recommend him—no vocal accomplishment which by the greatest of license could prompt a poet ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... object of modern society would be to prevent her going into it; and, if that couldn't be done, the next object would be to let her out again as soon as possible. Read your newspaper, Mr. Armadale, and you'll find we live in piping times for the black sheep of the community—if they are only black enough. I insist on asserting, sir, that we have got one of the blackest of the lot to deal with in this case. I insist on asserting that you have had the rare luck, in these unfortunate inquiries, to pitch on a woman who happens to be a fit object for ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... alleged baseness of his behavior had consisted none of his brothers and sisters could tell me. My father had refused to pain them by going into particulars, not only at the time of his brother's disappearance, but afterward, whenever the subject was mentioned. George had always been the black sheep of the flock, and he must have been conscious of his own baseness, or he would certainly have written to ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... additional five pauls (value about two shillings), for the title of prince which was attached to the possessor of the estates he was selling. He was an out-and-out avowed Republican, and was the blackest of black sheep to all the constituted governments of the peninsula. He looked as little as he felt and thought like a prince. He was a paunchy, oily-looking black haired man, whose somewhat heavy face was illumined ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... recognizing the good, and by weeding out as fast as possible the bad members of the Force, Roosevelt thus organized the best body of Police which New York City had ever seen. There were, of course, some black sheep among them whom he could not reach, but he changed the fashion, so that it was no longer a point of excellence to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Baa, baa, black sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, marry, have I, Three bags full; One for my master, And one for my dame, And one for the little boy Who lives ...
— Denslow's Mother Goose • Anonymous
... the next, and in 1827 word was brought to Jones County that Jesse Bunkley was dead. The rumor, for it seems to have been nothing more, was regarded by the family as true. At any rate, no attempt was made to investigate it. Jesse was the black sheep of the family; he had been away from home a good deal; his conduct when at home had not been such as to commend him to the affections of his people; and his mother had married a third husband, a man named Lowther: ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... Latimers had the fires of Smithfield still been alight. Obsequious curates bowed down to pompous prebendaries; bluff rectors chatted on cordial terms with suave archdeacons; and in the fold of the Church there were no black sheep on this great occasion. The shepherds and pastors of the Beorminster flock were polite, entertaining, amusing, and not too masterful, so that the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... black sheep to grey sheep. A good many women do. But it doesn't follow that the preference is ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... conversation endlessly repeated, that never seemed to lose in savour. We found them at all times simple, genial, gay, gallant, and obliging; and, across some interval of time, recall with pleasure the traders of Butaritari. There was one black sheep indeed. I tell of him here where he lived, against my rule; for in this case I have no measure to preserve, and the man is typical of a class of ruffians that once disgraced the whole field of the South Seas, and still linger in the rarely visited isles of Micronesia. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... highwaymen, but after they had studied Mr. Pitkin's system closely these gentlemen refused to enter into a protective alliance with him, for, as Grouchy O'Connor remarked, "the sucker hadn't never heard that there ought to be honour among thieves." Pitkin would shear a black sheep as close to the shivering hide as he would shear a white one, and the horses of the Pitkin stable performed according to price, according to investment, according to orders—according to everything in the world but agreement, racing form, ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... talk about. There is no one to explain fully to the English people that while in England educated society keeps pretty well to itself, there are in America no hurdles—or none that a lively animal may not easily leap—to keep the black sheep away from the white, or the white from straying off anywhere among the black, so that a large part of the English people has imbibed the notion that there are really no refined or cultured circles ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... country?[38] Can the ministers of that religion professed by the vast majority of the people, have faithfully discharged their sacred obligations, if men be found, professing the religion of Christ and understanding its precepts, willing to enrol themselves as the hired bravoes of a "Black Sheep Society," and to butcher their neighbours for a petty reward? The Roman Catholic religion condemns murder as strongly as the Protestant religion; yet how happens it, that a whole community professing that faith winks at the crimes of the guilty? This total demoralization we look on as the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... acquaintance does not seem quite so desirable as it was in those young days; his way and yours have separated; you have not heard much about him; but eminently trustworthy persons have assured you he has done this, that, or the other; and is more or less of a black sheep, in fact. The President, in an early part of his address, alluded to a certain thing—I hardly know whether I ought to call it a thing or not—of which he gave you the name Bathybius, and he stated, with perfect justice, that I had brought that ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... I. How the Black Sheep came forth from the Fold II. How Alleyne Edricson came out into the World III. How Hordle John cozened the Fuller of Lymington IV. How the Bailiff of Southampton Slew the Two Masterless Men IV. How a Strange Company Gathered at the "Pied Merlin" VI. How Samkin Aylward Wagered ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... condemns his choice, and threatens to burn up him and his work together. A blasted tree when all the woods are green, a fleece dry when all around is rejoicing in the dew, a window dark when the whole city is illuminated, one black sheep amid the white flock, or anything else anomalous and alone in its evil, is less tragic than the sight, so common, of a man so sold to sin that the presence of good only makes him angry and restless. It is possible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... black sheep and frolicsome lambs in the shepherd's flock, and each one had a name of its own. There was Babbette, and Nannette, and Pierrot, and Jeannot,—I cannot tell them all, ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... the nature of the beast, is bound to cry 'Yes.' So you see, their natures are different one from the other. The muzhik has his nature, and the gentleman has his. When the peasant has a full stomach, the gentleman passes sleepless nights. Of course, every fold has its black sheep, and I have no desire ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... desirable that the criminal should be reformed and returned to society as a normal man. But this is not the one and only aim of the social will. The whole flock should not be sacrificed to the one black sheep, as some sentimental persons appear to believe. There is room here for the exercise of judgment and of ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... impressionistic, like purple cows. Billy doesn't care for it, but I do. And I adore the brilliant red of the roads. Billy says he'll take good brown earth and white flocks. He might be reconciled to black sheep but never to ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Commissioner Pett did let fall several scurvy words concerning my pretending to know masts as well as any body, which I know proceeds ever since I told him I could measure a piece of timber as well as anybody employed by the King. But, however, I shall remember him for a black sheep again a good while, with all his fair words to me, and perhaps may let him know that my ignorance does the King as much good as all his knowledge, which would do more it is true if it were well used. Then we fell to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... let us appease the winds, and seek the realm of Gnosus. Nor is it a far journey away. Only be Jupiter favourable, the third day shall bring our fleet to anchor on the Cretan coast." So spoke he, and slew fit sacrifice on the altars, a bull to Neptune, a bull to thee, fair Apollo, a black sheep to Tempest, a white to ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... Ba ba black sheep, the stars seem to shine through her voice so everything has to be still, and when she has finished singing her song goes up off the earth, higher and higher... till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird with nothing but ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... whole thing and said 'e didn't believe there was a tiger; but nobody minded wot 'e said, Bob Pretty being, as I've often told people, the black sheep o' Claybury, wot with poaching and, wot was worse, ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... action of the same poison, in the case of races or species, may be attributed. On certain rodentia belladonna exercises no influence; morphine for a horse is a violent stimulant; a snail remains insensible to digitalis; goats eat tobacco with impunity; and in the Tarentin the inhabitants rear only black sheep, because a plant abounds which is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... prayers to the poor feeble ghosts, and promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will sacrifice a barren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the pyre with good things. More particularly you must promise that Teiresias shall have a black sheep all to himself, the finest ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... the rest, and Shack was invited to join them, much to the secret satisfaction of the "black sheep" of Carson, Max found that they were all opposed to his being the one to go forth. They claimed that he would be needed right along in order to continue ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... let's admit that I'm a black sheep with a little black muzzle and a habit of butting all sorts of ash-cans; and let Phil go on his social ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... these miserable papers, to not pay no attenshun to um. Abuv all, don't assault a editer of this kind. It only gives him a notorosity, which is jist what he wants, and don't do you no more good than it would to jump into enny other mudpuddle. Editors are generally fine men, but there must be black sheep ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... being, think you," he murmured in Beric's ear, "or a wild creature they have tamed? He has not hair, but his head is covered with wool like a black sheep." ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... the small cabin. Propped up in the skipper's berth, Sailing-Master Ned Rackham had a pinched and ghastly look. He was a young man, with clean-cut, handsome features, and a certain refinement of manner when he cared to assume it. The rumor was that he was the black sheep of an English house of some distinction and that he had enlisted in the Royal Navy under ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... said, 'Brother Stuart, they tell me that you have come to dedicate this home to God; but my old mother here has never let it get an inch from God. They tell you that this meeting is called that my brothers and sisters may dedicate their lives to God, but they are good. I know them. I am the only black sheep in this flock. Every step I have wandered away from God and the life of my precious father, I have felt his hand upon my head and heard his blessed words of prayer. To-day I come back to God, back to my father's life, and so help me God, I will ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter. They used to call me a 'black sheep,' a 'loafer' in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... often happens that a prophet has no honor among his own people, and David was the black sheep of the miserly household of Denton Farm. It consisted of old Christopher Denton, his three sons, Matthew, Sam, and David, and his daughter Jennie. They had the reputation of being "people well-to-do," but they were not liked among ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr |
