"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The last taunt struck home, and Mr. Gardner of Wellsville, making a mighty suspiration, drank so long and deep that the world wavered when he handed the flask back to Prescott, and a most generous fire leaped up and sparkled in his veins. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the town. At first when they used to see him come through the arches walking hurriedly, feeling his feet in unaccustomed shoes awkward and unmanageable, and the polish of his face a thing unbearable, they would come up in wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then taunt him for the rustic nature of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... He had not intended to use his late pass, but Willie's taunt had altered everything. Afraid? He would soon show Willie! Also he would show Maggie! Likewise he would show—Well, Christina had no business to behave as if she were the only girl in the world, as if he were a fool. He had a right to enjoy himself, too. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... 'Do as I bid you, or burn,' the sole reply possible was, 'We will not do as you bid, and we will burn.' The 'If' which is immediately spoken is already in the minds of the speakers, when they say that they do not need to answer. They think that God will take up the taunt which ended the king's tirade. Beautifully they are silent, and refer the blusterer to God, whose voice they believe that He will hear in His deed. 'But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me,' is the true temper of humble faith, dumb before power as a sheep ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... you.' I believe that there never yet was an intercourse between Christians nominal and savages, in any portion of the globe, but that the savages have with great justice thrown in the Christians' teeth, that they preached one thing but did another. Unfortunately the taunt is but too true. Even those who had left their country for religious persecution have erred in the same way. The conduct of the Puritans who landed at Salem was as barbarous towards the Indians as that of Pizarro and his followers towards the Mexicans. In either case the poor aborigines were ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... no apology. But of many of the ballads, Dennis' taunt, repeated by Dr. Johnson, is true; they are not merely rude, but weak and creeping in style. Percy knew that the best of them would savor better to the palates of his contemporaries if he dressed them with modern sauces. Yet he ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... come near your girls in that respect," said Mrs. Grantly, very quietly. Now the Miss Proudies had not elicited from the fashionable world any very loud encomiums on their beauty. Their mother felt the taunt in its fullest force, but she would not essay to do battle on the present arena. She jotted down the item in her mind, and kept it over for Barchester and the chapter. Such debts as those she usually paid on some day, if the means of doing so were ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... "I taunt no one, father prior," said the youth, yawning; "Nor have I much objection to taking arms, excepting that they are a somewhat cumbrous garb, and in February a furred mantle is more suiting to the weather than ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... orders, make very poor masters and mistresses. It is better that they should give up the business of house-keeping, and betake themselves to the living in hotels or boarding-houses with which our English cousins taunt us, little knowing that the nomadic life they condemn is the outcome of their own failure to make good citizens of those offscourings of jail and poorhouse and Irish shanty which they send to us under the guise of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Thessalonica, were willing to do justice. Athanasius was not accused of heresy, but, with more plausibility, of episcopal tyranny. His friends replied with reckless violence. Potammon aimed a bitter and unrighteous taunt at Eusebius of Caesarea. 'You and I were once in prison for the faith. I lost an eye: how did you escape?' Athanasius might perhaps have been crushed if his enemies had kept up a decent semblance of truth and fairness. But nothing was further from their thoughts than an impartial ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... to be sure, with its shining array of decanters and glasses. But the respectable landlord, the gentlemanly bar-keeper, would never put the cup to his lips, or taunt him into treating others, for the sake of the "fool's pence," as Bigby, the low tavern-keeper, would have done. There were here no hidden corners where the night's debauch might be slept off, no secret ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... Ardan's reply to this taunt was a desperate facer, which, however, Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose. M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture of defence as showed him to be no novice at the business. A battle seemed unavoidable; but even at ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... but governed himself like a man. "Go on, young lady!" said he; "go on! Jeer, and taunt, and wound the best brother any young madwoman ever had. But don't think I'll answer you as you deserve. I'm too cunning. If I was to say an unkind word to you, I should suffer the tortures of the damned. So ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... had finished speaking, you would have perceived, sir, that your taunt was undeserved. I have no wish to conceal anything from you—on the contrary, one of my chief objects in seeking this interview was to inform you of the deep and sincere affection I entertain for Miss Saville, and of my intention of coming forward to seek her hand, as soon as my professional ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... memory to the day, when with cropped hair—with the broad-arrowed coat, the yellow stockings—this man dragged wearily the wheelbarrow in the grim silences under the sinister skies of Dartmoor, with warders to taunt, or insult, or browbeat the Irish felon-patriot—with the very dregs and scum of our lowest social depths for companions and colleagues—and then think of this same man standing up before the supreme and august assembly where the might, sovereignty, power, and omnipotence ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention; taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall nor be amiss; and as many lies as will lie on a sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... avoided her all day or not, at least he came now entirely of his own initiative, and for the time it was enough. She was too honest to pretend anything herself, and possessed too fine a nature to cover what might have held embarrassment by a coquettish taunt ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... not my name. Does the sender, all the same, refer to the undoubted fact that I, who shall open this Assembly as its President, shall, after the first day's session, retire in favour of the newly elected President? Is it, perhaps, a taunt from some one who wishes to remind me of the transience of my office? Possibly from some gentleman of Japan ... or America ... who knows? or does it, perhaps, refer not to myself, but to some other person or persons, system or systems, who will, so the sender foresees, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... next instant Grace was sorry for her rude retort. It would have been far better to remain silent, she reflected. By answering she had shown Virginia that the latter's taunt had annoyed her. ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and with a blow of his fist levelled him with the deck. It was the signal for the Spaniards to set upon them, and they would all have been cut down, but the next instant a loud crash was heard, and the dark hull of a man-of-war brig, with her taunt masts and wide spread of canvas, was seen ranging up alongside. The next instant twenty or more stout English seamen, led by Alick Murray, came pouring down on the slaver's deck. The brig which had thus providentially fallen in with them was the Archer. She was on ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sophy more obstinate? It is a small superiority to be rather richer than she, but to give up all for her would be a very great superiority; if her pride cannot bear to be under the small obligation, how will she make up her mind to the greater? If she cannot bear to think that her husband might taunt her with the fact that he has enriched her, would she permit him to blame her for having brought him to poverty? Wretched boy, beware lest she suspects you of such a plan! On the contrary, be careful and economical for her sake, lest she should accuse ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... of battle weary / rested the warriors all. Volker and Hagen / passed out before the hall, And on their shields did lean them, / those knights whom naught could daunt. Then with full merry converse / gan the twain their foes to taunt. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... tenderness of imagination in the two poets, is quite insuperable. But of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her. God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would do so if ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of Mrs. Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now was Mrs. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... at the taunt; he seemed quite well satisfied with the opinion expressed. In fact, he appeared quite satisfied with ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... squib, satire, skit, quip, quib^, grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie^; farce &c (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c 930. V. ridicule, deride, mock, taunt; snigger; laugh in one's sleeve; tease [ridicule lightly], badinage, banter, rally, chaff, joke, twit, quiz, roast; haze [U.S.]; tehee^; fleer^; show up. play upon, play tricks upon; fool to the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... doesn't matter what that horrid old Miss Row says, and we all love you. Don't cry, dear." She was too young to comprehend what was hurting Penelope most—the words that rankled, and stung; the charge of ingratitude; the taunt; the throwing up to her of favours she had received—things no lady should ever ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... thou that would'st forget The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, The statesman actor's face hard set, The kennel cry that cheers his taunt, Come where pure winds and rills combine To murmur ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... selfish that I would die for her any hour of the day." For all that, the taunt brought him down a step, and Bartley, still standing like a rock, attacked him again. "If it is not selfish, it is blind." Then he took two strides, and attacked him with sudden power. "Who will suffer most if you stand in her ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... was speaking he closed the piano very slowly and softly. It did not take him long to put on his impenetrable face, for when he turned round there was not a trace of anger left; the scarce suppressed taunt in Cecil's last words moved him apparently no more than Mrs. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Captain Ratlin understood the taunt, and stepping to where the English officer had thrown his discharged weapon, he threw it high in the air, and at the exact moment when the power of gravitation turned the piece towards the earth, he quickly raised his arm and fired, sending the bullet in his ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing his manly, loving, loyal little heart—the claims of his old life and his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy's generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn't need her, he thought; but she ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... I am a poet, too— Taught by the muses how to smite the harp And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, I never murder even the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... him! How would he? How could he? Had a word, an act, a single look of hers ever given him a hint that, when she had been with him as the White Moll, she cared! It was unjust, unfair, to fling such a taunt at herself. It seemed as though she had lost nearly everything in life, but she had not yet lost her ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint—he has ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can 'minister to a mind diseased.' When the news of her death is ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are certainly more people than that in the great Land of Oz," laughed Salye. "Why don't you raise an army and conquer them, and be Queen of all Oz?" she asked, trying to taunt Ann and so to anger her. Then she made a face at her sister and went into the back yard to ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... King had fallen in love with another demi-mondaine, and that had brought her to the apartment to notify Susy d'Orsel of his intention to break with her. Might not a quarrel have arisen between the two women and the new mistress, exasperated by some taunt, had thrown the unfortunate Susy d'Orsel out of the window?... That would be ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... head From face to face, astonished, And, though her maids with comb and brush Would comb and soothe and whisper, 'Hush!' About the hive would shrilly go A keening — keening, to and fro; At which those robbers 'neath the trees Would taunt and mock the honey-bees, And through their sticky teeth would buzz Just as an ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... before, I was grieved by hearing several of you say, "I will tell you what you wish to know, if I can be alone with you; but not before the other prisoners; for, if they know my past faults, they will taunt me with them." O, never do that! To taunt the fallen is the part of a fiend. And you! you were meant by Heaven to become angels of sympathy and love. It says in the Scripture: "Their angels do always behold in heaven the face of my Father." So was it with you in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the ridge above us opened. It was fine to hear them stamping their defiance; it made one want to get to grips with his aggressors. In the brief silences one could hear our chaps laughing. The danger seemed to fill them with a wild excitement. Every time a shell came near and missed them, they would taunt the unseen Huns for their poor gunnery, giving what they considered the necessary corrections: "Five minutes more left, old Cock. If you'd only drop fifty, you'd get us." These men didn't know what fear was—or, if they did, they kept it to themselves. And ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... character, nothing was more conspicuous than the obedience of faith and self-surrender to God: and in His career, which we are bidden to follow, the renunciation of love, or self-sacrifice for man. The taunt was sublimely true: "He saved others, Himself He cannot save"; it was because he saved others that He could not save Himself. The seed must give up its own life for the sake of the crop; and he who will be life to others must, like his Lord, ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... overthrew his father-in-law, the infamous Phocas, and placed Heraclius upon the throne. But notwithstanding that service, the attitude of the general towards the new regime was not considered satisfactory, and with the cruel taunt, 'Wretch, thou didst not make a good son-in-law; how canst thou be a true friend?' Heraclius relegated him to political nonentity by forcing him to become a monk at the Chora. The new brother did not live long, but his wealth furnished the fraternity with the means for the erection of a large ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... understanding every thing perversely in the absolute and literal sense, but giving fair construction as to an after-dinner conversation; allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass. The Author wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all his honest undertakings, and a candid ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... not taunt me," Mr. Ricketty answered, reproachfully. "This is a sad hour to me. What'll you ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... you think you can play upon me as on an instrument? Do you suppose that I will come and go at your word like a child—or like a dog? Do you think you can taunt me at one moment, and flatter me the next, and find my ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... The taunt diverted his mind, just as Curly had hoped it would. He thrust the revolver back into the holster and reached ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... put love forth from his heart, And rode across the desert far away. "Woman shall have no place nor part In my lone life," men heard him say. He rode right on. The level rim Of the barren plain grew low and wide; It seemed to taunt and beckon him, To ride right on and ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the spear and the cruse was a couch of almost humour, and it, with the ironical taunt flung across the valley to Abner, gives relief to the strain of emotion in the story. Saul's burst of passionate remorse is morbid, paroxysmal, like his fits of fury, and is sure to foam itself away. The man had no self-control. He had let wild, ungoverned moods master him, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Malden rambled on. He talked of the Mexican war; told of Vera Cruz and the battle of Monterey. "Bravest thing you ever saw, boy. One of those Greasers rode square up to our line and flung a taunt in our faces, and rode away in disdain, while all our batteries ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... spoke, with apparent carelessness, but those who knew him best saw that the taunt had stung him. And as he moved, he caught Lesley's eye. He had not known that she was to be there; and by something in her expression—by her heightened color, perhaps, or her startled eye—he saw at once that she had heard the man's rude speech and ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... wrongs. The two awful women, Helga and Frakark, the mother and the aunt of the earls, are types which are constantly met with in the saga. It is a long-recognized fact that women, under lawless conditions, develop the wildest extremes of ambition, avarice, and blood-thirstiness, and taunt the men with their weak scruples. These two furies of the Orkneys plot murder with an infernal coolness, which makes Lady Macbeth a kind-hearted woman by comparison. They recognize in Sigurd a man born for leadership; determine to use him for the furtherance ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the land. Lo! silent as the lapse of time Sink to the earth thy towers sublime; Where whilom harp'd the minstrel throng, The night-owl pours her feral song: For ever sinks blest Cambria's fame, By ignorance, and sword, and flame Laid with the dust, amidst her woes The taunt of her ungenerous foes; For ever sleeps her warlike praise, Her wealth, dominion, ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... by, as he sat writing in his study, he would have unsaid the taunt, and resolved that he would talk rationally with her of his dilemma and of the course he was prepared to take; but no opportunity befell that evening, and on the morrow, the last day left him but one, he breakfasted alone. Partly with the intention of speaking to her, partly for freedom ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... up the chest, took it on his back, and hastened to the city. When the ogre cried: "Enough, now!" Thirteenth ran all the faster, and, laughing, sang this song to taunt the ogre: ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... "You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we as in the beginning, Nature's law, which beside the law of man is no law, would be right; but we're ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... think, covert real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... families all depended upon success in the effort before them, a Sikyonian heavy-armed foot-soldier in the ranks, named Soteridas, said to him—"You and I are not on an equal footing, Xenophon. You are on horseback:—I am painfully struggling upon foot, with my shield to carry." Stung with this taunt, Xenophon sprang from his horse, pushed Soteridas out of his place in the ranks, took his shield as well as his place, and began to march forward afoot along with the rest. Though thus weighed down at once by the shield belonging to a heavy-armed foot-soldier, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... Marie's, were fretting Stangrave's heart.—What if they were true? They were not the whole truth. There was beside, and above them all, a nobleness in the American heart, which could, if it chose, and when it chose, give the lie to that bitter taunt: but had it done ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the Model Republic,—behold its unbroken prosperity, the harmony of its people under the system of universal suffrage, the lightness of its taxation,—behold, above all, its immunity from war!" All this is now turned upon us as a taunt; but the taunt implies rather a sense of escape on the part of those who utter it than malignity, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... business it was to mind the farm, but who took as much delight in running away from prosy duty as if he had been a schoolboy, would frequently steal off and have a good hunt all by themselves, just for the fun of the thing, I suppose. I more than half suspect that it was as a kind of taunt or retaliation that Reynard came and took the geese from under their very noses. One morning they went off and stayed till the afternoon of the next day; they ran the fox all day and all night, the hounds baying at every ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... will ye ask me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor? Not to reproach New England's dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... His taunt brought the result Ross wanted. The ties were cut from behind, to flutter down as withered, useless strings. Ross flexed his arms. Tight as those thongs had been they had not constricted circulation, and he was ready to meet Vistur. The ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world that they are not afraid to meet them in the next; who when they die make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... original plan," he advised her; and then, with thinly-veiled taunt, "It's funny to look back on the old days, when you were miserable if twelve hours passed without our meeting. D'you remember when you used to say how much you ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Adrian, sharply, and incensed at the taunt, "you Foreigners have taught us how to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... ill-tongu'd tinkler, Charlie Fox, May taunt you wi' his jeers and mocks; But gie him't het, my hearty cocks! E'en cowe the cadie! An' send him to his dicing ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one instant on the upturned face of ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... do the shouts of these monsters disturb my slumber, but they taunt my starvation!" yawned the poet. "Yet, now I come to think of it, I have an appointment with a man who has sworn to lend me a franc, so perhaps I had better get up before he is likely to have spent it. I shall call upon Blondette in ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... phantoms with which to taunt and torture. You pity me so keenly, that your judgment becomes distorted, and you chase chimeras. Banish imaginary husbands, Western journeys, even the thought of my wretched doom, and try henceforth to forget that I ever ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst— Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first— Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... anger—understood him, and did not resent him. It was the Past dragging at her life. It was inherited predisposition, the unregulated passions of her forebears, the mating of the fields, the generated dominance of the body, which was not to be commanded into obscurity, but must taunt and tempt her while her soul sickened. She put a hand on herself. She must make this man realize once and for all that they were as far apart as Adam and Cagliostro. "I never called to you," she said at last. "I did not know of your existence, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I told you that I have been arrested and put in prison several times—always on account of my papers? I told you the truth, and you shouldn't taunt me ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... "I taunt you? Read her note again! She wants your trusty counsel in an affair of the last importance to her welfare and happiness. You know what is the affair of last importance to a woman! Will you refuse her now, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... taunt, he had at length not a word to say, and supported by Hsi Jen and the other attendants on to the couch, they divested him of his clothes. But they failed to understand the drift of what Pao-yue kept on still muttering, and all ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... thereto, I conducted you to what I believed to be a place of safety. And I fought my best against the foe, and was brought nigh unto death. This I did, though I can boast of but a weak and slender frame. And it is hard that the first greeting of one so well loved as you should be a taunt.' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... In view of the use to which the "No Popery" cry has been put in its bearings on the Irish question, it is interesting to consider the relations of the English Government with the Catholic Church throughout the last century and to see how far it throws light on the justice and applicability of the taunt that Ireland is priest-ridden. ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... mean? Lionel's cheek turned white with the taunt the words might be supposed to imply. He held her two hands in his, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Her eyes were closed, but from the slight tremor that ran over her face he guessed that she was not asleep. On his way home he had vowed inwardly to wait till next day and not to touch her, but he could not resist a biting taunt at her. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... fitful laugh! As I caught the sinister note in its silvery rise and fall, I knew what was before me if I failed to retain my composure. And I strove to hold it and to meet her calmness with stoicism and the taunt of her expression with a mask of immobility. But the effort was hopeless, and when the time came for dealing out the cards, my eyes were burning in their sockets and my hands shivering like leaves in ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... passing judgment upon them. Froude could never get out of his mind the approval of treason and assassination to which in the sixteenth century the Vatican was committed. It may be fascinating polemics to taunt the Church of Rome with being "always the same." But as a matter of fact the Church is not the same. It improves with the general march of the progress that it condemns. Froude fairly and honourably quotes a crucial instance. Pitt "sought the opinion of the Universities ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... with delight. As for Will Hen Baizley, he was impressed by Will's confidence and coolness so much that he did not really wish just then to try conclusions with him. Therefore he contented himself with repeating his taunt of "you dars'n't!" and swaggered slowly away. The boys went ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "Don't taunt me," said the girl. "If you do I'll use my power. Oh, I am hungry, and thirsty, and footsore. Why shouldn't I go into that house and sleep there, and eat there, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... is awful," groaned Phelan. He started to button up his coat again when Rose's taunt came back to him. This time the tempter delivered a vital blow and he tore off his uniform coat and passed it to the young man. Gladwin slipped it on over his other clothes. It fitted snugly. It just happened ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of artistic expression. The words fire, energy, abandon, found in him unprecedented meanings. I never heard a speaker or actor who could give such a sting to hauteur or the taunt. I never heard from any other the charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on mere ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Harapha, the Philistine giant, who comes to taunt Samson, and is defied by him to mortal combat. This {237} episode is perhaps the least interesting, but it advances the action by exhibiting Samson's returning sense that God is still with ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... The vulgar taunt had sting enough to rouse Loveday to a wholesome contempt that saved her. She stood staring with a genuine scorn at the little articles of lace and artificial flowers which Cherry's beau had given her at the last fair. Yes, even at the riband ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony, "Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God's sake, do ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... AM crazy!" he cried, his voice breaking and quavering. "Maybe I am, but I wouldn't stand there and taunt a man with it if I'd done to him what you've done to me! Just look at me: I worked all my life for you, and what I did when I quit never harmed you—it didn't make two cents' worth o' difference in your life and it looked like it'd mean all the difference in ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... "Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more. I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is to be a village picnic—a gipsying, they call it—at East Egdon, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... from the notes of the ingenious author of the English Commentary, to the substance of which extract I give the most full assent. "The Greek Drama, we know, had its origin from the loose, licentious raillery of the rout of Bacchus, indulging to themselves the freest follies of taunt and invective, as would best suit to lawless natures, inspirited by festal mirth, and made extravagant by wine. Hence arose, and with a character answering to this original, the Satiric Drama; the spirit of which ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against her better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hounds! I've hired a few Mexicans to help me, and I want none of your sympathy in this hour. Was it your hand that cut him down from the tree this morning, and if it was not, why do I need you now? Is my shame not enough in your eyes but that you must taunt me further? Do my innocent children want to look upon the faces of those who robbed them of a father? If there is a spark of manhood left in one of you, show it by leaving me alone! And you other scum, never fear but that you ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... you proud little Dutchman! When I despise you for your farming relatives, you can taunt me with ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... you like," cried Dick, goaded to fury, and the whole bitterness of a lifetime surging up in passionate speech. "I have got past feeling it. Your life has been one continual taunt of me. You have thought me a dull, good-natured boor, delighted to have a word thrown at him now and again by the elegant gentleman, and rather honoured than otherwise to be ridden over roughshod, or kicked into the mud when it pleased ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... Bassett's voice Sir Charles started, and, at the first taunt, he uttered something between a moan and a roar, as of a ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... gash, slash, slit, wound; slight, ignoration; sarcasm, taunt; notch, groove, chamfret; defile, passage; kerf; slice, piece; fashion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... new political force {209} appeared. By 1811 the old-time Republican leaders, trained in the school of Jeffersonian ideals, were practically bankrupt. Faction paralyzed government, and Congress seemed, by its timid attitude, to justify the taunt of Quincy of Massachusetts that the Republican party could not be kicked into a war. But there appeared on the stage a new sort of Republican. In the western counties of the older States and in the new territories beyond the mountains, ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... of Prussia required absolute neutrality. It was indeed evident that Bismarck's action had completely isolated Prussia; except the Czar, she had now not a single friend in Europe and scarcely a friend in Germany. Bismarck began his answer by the taunt that the tendency to enthusiasm for foreign nationalities, even when their objects could only be realised at the cost of one's own country, was a political disease unfortunately limited to Germany. It was, however, an unjust taunt, for no one had done more than Sybel himself ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill little voice. "Hello,—Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ended and the taunt began. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and unjust to taunt me with having been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. Allow me to state that no other person under the same circumstances would have distributed the tenth part. Yet had I been utterly unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to check me with being so, after all I have undergone—and with ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... for a moment, he exclaimed, "What, you here, Agnes! you, travelling in this horrible wilderness! Where's your husband? Where's John, the brave boy? Don't bring them here to taunt me. Go away! Don't look ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... Robert had come upon them in the course of his lonely prowlings, and from a distance had watched them play hide and seek. He had despised them and their silly game, but, on the other hand, they did not know who he was and would not make fun of him and taunt him with unpaid bills, and it had been rather nice to listen to their cheerful voices. The ruins, too, had fired his imagination. He had viewed them much as a general views the scene of a prospective battle. And then—strangest ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... far to redeem Sussex men from the epithet "silly," which is traditionally theirs. Concerning this old taunt, I like the rector's remarks in Idlehurst. The phrase, he says, "is better after all than 'canny owd Cummerlan'' or calling ourselves 'free and enlightened citizens' or 'heirs to all the ages.' But suppose Sussex as silly as you like, the country wants a large preserve ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... When at last he reached the bank the people told him that by his baptism in Jordan he had surely become a mere Christian. Poor Shereef!—the holy man! the descendant of the Prophet!—he was sadly hurt by the taunt, and the more so as he seemed to feel that there was some foundation for it, and that he really might have ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... correct, for in the first year the tax produced L210,136. The tax was increased from a guinea to one pound three shillings and sixpence. Pitt's Tory friends gave him loyal support. The Whigs might taunt them by calling them "guinea-pigs," it mattered little, for they were not merely ready to pay the tax for themselves, but to pay patriotic guineas for their servants. A number of persons were exempt from paying the tax, including "the royal family and their servants, the clergy with an income ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... Ellen now to keep to what she thought right. Disagreeable feelings would rise when she remembered the impoliteness, the half-sneer, the whole taunt, and the real unkindness of several of the young party. She found herself ready to be irritated, inclined to dislike the sight of those, even wishing to visit some sort of punishment upon them. But ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... back here—never. Oh, she was a sweet-spoken cat of a thing—but she had claws. I've been blamed for all the trouble. But if ever I had a chance, I'd tell that minister how she used to twit and taunt me in that sugary way of hers—how she schemed and plotted against me as long as she could. More fool I to care what he thinks either! I wish I were dead. If 'twasn't for the child, I'd go and drown myself at that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I have lived, acted, told a lie, Eben. Don't taunt me with it. How can you, if you really believe all I have told you of the reasons which led ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... autumn, and Paul, a favourite with the management, was engaged for the next production. At rehearsal one day the author put in a couple of lines, of which he was given one to speak. He now was in very truth an actor. Jane could no longer taunt him in her naughty moods (invariably followed by bitter repentance) with playing a dumb part like a trained dog. He had a real part, typewritten and done up in a brown-paper cover, which was handed to him, with lack of humour, by ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... blessed, who, for death preparing, tak'st Experience of our limits, in thy bark! Their crime, who not with us proceed, was that, For which, as he did triumph, Caesar heard The snout of 'queen,' to taunt him. Hence their cry Of 'Sodom,' as they parted, to rebuke Themselves, and aid the burning by their shame. Our sinning was Hermaphrodite: but we, Because the law of human kind we broke, Following like beasts our vile concupiscence, Hence ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... hated this name because of Mrs. Magwire, whose most merciless taunt was, "Sure ye're well named, ye ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... may have been the opinions of later times respecting the doctrines of Eusebius—was convinced that he was at heart an Arian. Potammon of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later occasion, he threw out against him, that, while he had thus suffered for the cause of Christ, Eusebius had escaped ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Arnold of Melcthal, was accused, his oxen were confiscated by Landenberg. The deputy sent to seize the animals, which Landenberg really coveted for his own, said sneeringly to Arnold, "If peasants wish for bread, they must draw the plow themselves." Roused to fury by this taunt, Arnold attempted to resist the seizure of his property, and in so doing broke an arm of one of the deputy's men. He then fled to the mountains; but he could not hide himself from the vengeance of Landenberg. The peasant's aged father was arrested by order of the bailiff, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... the young Indian, his face darkening with anger at the savage taunt. "A man's death for a man, but jackals shall die like jackals. With hearts of terror and blood turned to water in their fear, they shall die a death more horrible than the palefaces ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... taunt happened to hit most of those around, and the situation looked stormy until a little, awkward-looking man strolled up and ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... shames and failures. Especially it touches us something hard that one so wit-proud as Sir John should be thus dejected, and put to the mortification of owning that "ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me"; of having to "stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English"; and of asking, "Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this?" and we would fain make out some excuse for him on the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... would ruin the country, had to oppose you, and had to deal with your personal attitude to the whole matter. You cannot deny that! Have the courage of your convictions, man, and stand by them!" And Paul noted the taunt ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... which had been taken from her, remembering the insult in the cabin, she held on after him, resolved that she would not lose sight of this man, that she would see him handed over to justice when she could taunt him, saying: "I didn't shoot you, you see, because I am a woman and not a tough. But I have given you into hands that are not woman's hands, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... assembled an army and invaded the territories of Rome. The senate sent Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them, whose forces encamping close by the Veientines, the latter ceased not to reproach and vilify the Roman name with every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the Romans by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided they became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle, broke and defeated them. Here, again, we see, what has already been noted, how prone men are to adopt wrong ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... It became voluminous. Homeric salvos shook the air. And never one of the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough to live down the hateful cry of that day, "HEAD HIM OFF!" which was to become a catch-word on the streets, a taunt more stinging than any devised by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the ancestral doubt, a fighting-word, and the great historical joke of Canaan, never omitted in after-days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took that short walk across the Court-house yard ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... it. Got to work on 'The Purple Slipper' while you people frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr. Farraday at the door of ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Lady Duchess, what delight it was to you to taunt me with my little dog! Rejoice, then, in the happiness you owe to me alone; taunt her who thought by careful concealment and virtuous love to be free from any taunt. Ah! how those words have bruised my heart! how they have made me blush ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... The taunt was too much. Wheeling suddenly, Lidgerwood snapped out a summons to Jefferis: "Get aboard, Mr. Jefferis; we ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... and spent, leaning mightily on his young friend made his way to the great hall. And as we have recounted, though all were struck by oddness and meanness of the stranger's clothes, yet only Sir Kay made point to taunt him. Yet did he make no answer to these taunts but waited with a great meekness for his turn before the King. And that he should wait with such meekness was strange for he seemed to be a high ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... That taunt threw the liquor seller into a still greater rage. With a yell he sprang at Prescott. But again Dick ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... words impatiently aside, "and what's more I knew then that I had loved you all my life without knowing it," he pursued. "You may taunt me with fickleness, but I'm not fickle—I was merely a fool. It took me a long time to find out what I wanted, but I've found out at last, and, so help me God, I'll have it yet. I never went without a thing ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... dear image of my mind, I would not without blessing send thee forth Into the bleak wide world, whose voice unkind Perchance will mock at thee as nothing worth; For the cold critic's jealous eye may find In all thy purposed good little but ill, May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought, And praise thee for no more than the small skill Of masquing as thine own another's thought: What then? count envious sneers as less than nought: Fair is thine aim,—and having done thy best, So, thus I ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... What if the sailors did see me going about? They could not hinder me from walking along the quay, and they would never dream of my object in staying there. What if they should take notice of me, and taunt me as before? I could talk back to them, and thus gain a good opportunity for observation—the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... lonely man. Much better counsel in the play of swords We easily can give thee, lord beloved: Before thou shalt resort to open war And battle-rush, see to it how thou fare In that exchange of blows; but let us go Again, that we may mock him fast in bonds, And taunt him with his misery; have words Ready devised ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... a hideous scene. The four men began to taunt John Storm, to take off their hats and bow to him in mock honour. "His Lordship, I believe '" said one. "His Reverend Lordship, if you please!" ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... weakness on Reynolds' part. This was not altogether to his liking. He wished to see his victim show signs of fear, to cry aloud and plead for mercy. He had done so himself, and he longed to find it in Reynolds that he might taunt him with weakness ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... with the generous McGillicuddy fare. A part of Mrs. McGillicuddy's good will to him was that she instructed Ignatius and Aloysius McGillicuddy, both excellent fist fighters for their age, that they were to lick any boy, no matter what his age or size, who dared to taunt little Ronald about his father or anything else. These orders were extremely agreeable to the McGillicuddy boys, who loved fighting for fighting's sake, and who sought occasions ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... think, man? He's done wi' Paoli. He's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican, and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, man? A dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy!' No more bitter taunt could have been levelled against Johnson, with his memories of Edial, near Lichfield; readers who may remember the munificent manner in which the heritors of their day had provided for Ruddiman, Michael Bruce, and ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask |
