"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its mechanism to the exigences of every case, works to unforseen and undesired ends—sometimes even to absurd ones. And, with thinkers of a certain phase of modern thought, it has been a favourite taunt against the average British mind, that it rather delights in the contemplation of such abnormal workings of the great automatic law in which it has created. Some manifest mistake or error has occurred. The ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... August, there were few nights during which he did not find a meal of honey and grubs. The summer was fine and warm, a lavish profusion of flowers adorned the fields and the woods, and humble-bees and wasps were everywhere numerous. As if to taunt the badgers with inability to climb, a swarm of tree-wasps lived in a big nest of wood-pulp suspended from a branch ten feet or so above the "set," and, every afternoon, the badgers, as they waited near the mouth of their dwelling for the darkness to deepen, heard ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... taunt the brook With his hair outshook O'er the weir so cool and mossy, And mock the crow As he peers below With a caw that's vain ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... followed, and impressed me very strongly. While he kept to the question, what he said was close, good, and moderate, though delivered in rapid speech, and with a voice not sufficiently modulated. But when he began to reply to a taunt of Colonel Benton's, that he wanted to be President, the force of his speaking became painful. He made protestations which it seemed to strangers had better have been spared, 'that he would not turn on his heel to be President,' and that 'he had given up all for his own brave, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... street before her, trying in vain to keep his clumsy crutch out of the way of the passers-by, and she had heard the rude and inhuman ejaculation of the nobly-formed specimen, whose inner soul must, she felt, be far more hideous than the stricken lad's outward being, since it could so cruelly taunt one on whom the hand of God had been ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... so, I have no doubt,' said Mrs Varden. 'I was prepared for that; it's natural; it's of a piece with the rest. When you taunt me as you do to my face, how can I wonder that you taunt her behind her back!' And here the incoherence coming on very strong, Mrs Varden wept, and laughed, and sobbed, and shivered, and hiccoughed, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... popular tendencies and popular desires. His circumspection is constant, and the imperturbability of his character enables him to be ever on his guard, and protects him from the enunciation of an unpopular idea. Never permitting himself to be annoyed at ever so bitter a taunt, perfectly self-possessed, and always mindful of the courtesy due to his colleagues, and the respect due to the most dignified body in the nation, he has generally succeeded in completely disarming his less prudent antagonists. In general ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... excited in the bosom of the poor boatman, and when "wifie" caught a fish the same procedure was repeated. "Of course," said the boatman, in telling me the story, "that pair caught more fish than any one I had had for a month, simply to taunt me ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... imagine the grim smile with which the old man withdrew his objection. The Baron came home with his wife. This event nearly broke the new alliance between my mother and my sister; it was so very difficult for my mother not to triumph, and Victoria detected a taunt even in silence. However, there was no rupture, the Baron was never mentioned; but I, seeking distraction, made it my business to pursue him as often as he ventured into his boat. I overtook him once and insisted on going up to ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... her bed. "Do you hear, Walter?" she asked. She came to sit on his bed, sometimes she crept into his arms. In the African villages long ago when the song floated up from the river men arose and prepared for battle. The song was a defiance, a taunt. That was all gone now. The young negro's house was at the foot of the garden and Walter with his wife lay upstairs in the larger house situated on high ground. It was a sad song, filled with race sadness. There was something in the ground that ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... was Louis converted; and though the lips of the scorners Spared not in after years the subtle taunt and derision (What time, meeker grown, his heart held his hand from its answer), Not the less lofty and pure her love and her faith that had saved him, Not the less now discerned was her inspiration from heaven By the people, that rose, and embracing ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... abused without compunction. It is the last effort of virtue in a servant if, without any private reason, he should discharge his duty by informing you of the injury which you are enduring at the hands of his fellow-servant. It is an effort of virtue; for it will bring down many a bitter taunt and hard ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... indicate four 'lines of hopeful recovery.' First, the Church must get rid of the administration of poor relief. Where the charity of the Church is understood to mean the patronage of the rich, it can do nothing without disaster. All will be in vain till it has ceased to be a plausible taunt that a man or woman goes to church for what can be got. Secondly, we must give the artisans their true place in Church management, and must consult their tastes in all non-essentials. Thirdly, the clergy should 'concentrate themselves upon bringing out ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... weapons felt his powers increased. So now, in time, there came to him a moment of danger. There was his enemy. There was the affront, the challenge. Perhaps it was male against male, a matter of sex, prolific always in bloodshed. It might be a matter of property, or perhaps it was some taunt as to his own personal courage. Perhaps alcohol came into the question, as was often the case. For one reason or the other, it came to the ordeal of combat. It was the undelegated right of one individual against that ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... standing taunt for years against New England, and its prevalence has been held up as a proof of a low state of morality in early New England society. Indeed, it was strange it could so long exist in so austere and virtuous a colony; that it did, to a startling ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the raven, Whirled it round him like a rattle, Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven, From the ridge-pole of the wigwam Left its lifeless body hanging, As an insult to its master, As a taunt to Hiawatha. ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... I swear it,' said Marina. 'To the rest he has been driven by the clamour of the soldiers, who taunt him with stealing treasure that he has never found. But of this ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... to stop in the course of observations of this darkening color: and shall take off the point of the derider's taunt, just forthcoming, that we are here unsaying, in effect, all that we have been so laboriously urging about the vast benefit of knowledge to the people. It was proper to show, that the prosecutors of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... 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
... soon be rid on 'em; they've got to come down some time," said Packer, stung by this bold taunt. "I ain't goin' to give you a present o' half their value, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... lord, this little prating York Was not incensed by his subtle mother To taunt and ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... tongues through the nursery window. I cannot quit thee, my Elizabeth! I cannot lay down our Edmund! Oh, these flames! They persecute, they enthral me; they curl round my temples; they hiss upon my brain; they taunt me with their fierce, foul voices; they carp at me, they wither me, they consume me, throwing back to me a little of life to roll and suffer in, with their fangs upon me. Ask me, my lord, the things you wish to know from me: I may answer them; I am now composed again. Command me, my gracious ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... nature, as I have hinted before, had, like most sensitive organizations, a selfish basis. The brutal taunt thrown out by his late adversary still rankled in his heart. It was possible, he thought, that such a construction might be put upon his affection for the child, which at best was foolish and Quixotic. Besides, had she not voluntarily abnegated his authority and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... himself before an audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of with a rapier, as in France.—Poh! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... many years with Mrs. Procter; "the husbands of the talkative have great reward hereafter," said Rudyard Kipling's Lama. And I have been told by those who knew the pair that there was truth as well as irritation in the taunt. "A graceful Preface to 'Eothen,'" wrote to me a now famous lady who as a girl had known Mrs. Procter well, "made friendly company yesterday to a lonely meal, and brought back memories of Mr. Kinglake's ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... mean? Lionel's cheek turned white with the taunt the words might be supposed to imply. He held her two hands ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... career enabled him to appreciate the sharpness of this remark, but Cobbens was more adroit than he could have thought possible in the face of such a taunt. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... such wild sayings, and scraps of songs, of which he had plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the presence of Goneril herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which cut to the quick: such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow, who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and then has its head bit off for its pains; and saying, that an ass may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's daughters, that ought to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... but hated poverty. This, only this, the rigid law pursues, This, only this, provokes the snarling muse. The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke; With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways. [aa]Of all the griefs, that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the gen'rous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. [bb]Has heaven reserv'd, in pity to the poor, No pathless waste, or undiscover'd ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... revolution in the history of two nations. Go back in 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 ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... lofty pennons flaunt? What mighty echoes haunt, As of great guns, o'er the main? Hark to the sound again— The Congress is all a-taunt! ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... recovered its nerve on the seats. Cobber yells floated forth on the air. Yet, for every sing-song taunt the visitors found that the home fans had an apt retort. This was where Dick Prescott's ready wit came in, for it was his task to call for all the cheers, yells, songs ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... right flank with such impetuosity and did such execution among them that they were compelled to fall back in confusion before the splendid onset of the small force which they had so recently sneered at and despised. Gillespic, stung by Alexander Macdonald's taunt before the engagement began, to prove to him that "though he was wary in council he was not fearful in action," sought out Kenneth Mackenzie, that he might engage him in single combat, and followed by some of his bravest followers he, with signal valour, did great execution ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... of little hills, and climbed the sides of the little valleys, and from time to time they had to turn out for teams drawing logs to the mills in Equity, each with its equipage of four or five wild young fellows, who saluted Kinney with an ironical cheer or jovial taunt in passing. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... threatened with a second pursuit of Moscow. "Frog-eating Frenchmen!" was the very mildest title which the ex-guardsman bestowed upon them; but as his Russian was not translated, of course the phrase fell harmless—else it would have undoubtedly been retaliated by a taunt ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... principal warriors were led across the field of battle by the lucky slayer of the Ngatewhatua chief, in order that they might insult and taunt Tuwhare's head, as was their custom. When they were all assembled round the tree, with the bodies of the dead lying about where they had fallen—'There! that's the place, to the left yonder, where the koraka trees are thickest!'—the branches were drawn aside to expose the grim trophy of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... kindled in the breast of the offended schemer. The latter bristled at the words, lost for an instant his self-possession, said in his anger more than he intended—more than he might easily unsay—enough to bruise the already smarting soul of Allcraft. A threat escaped his lips—a reproach—a taunt. He spoke of his power, and touched cuttingly upon the deep schemes of other men, more feasible than his own perhaps, and certainly more honest. Allcraft winced, as every syllable made known the speaker's actual strength—his own dependence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... what this meant. Culvera had sent for him to gloat over him, to taunt him. The man wanted to hear him beg for his life. The teeth of the cowpuncher clenched tightly till the muscles of the jaw stood out like ropes. He would show this man that an American did not face a ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... meddle with the devil, take care of his claws," answered the captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt against his countrymen. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me if 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 ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... the form of mock debate, Or seen a new-made mayor's unwieldy state; Where change of fav'rites made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judg'd a cause; How would'st thou shake at Britain's modish tribe, Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe? Attentive truth and nature to descry, And pierce each scene with philosophic eye, To thee were solemn toys, or empty show, The robes of pleasure and the veils of woe: All aid the farce, and all ...
— English Satires • Various
... in human experience, moments when even the Christian is so haunted by the demon of unbelief, when the dire enemy of God and man takes advantage of some unpropitious circumstance, some painful affliction, to taunt the soul, already almost crushed, and to inquire, with fiendish malignity, "Where is now thy God?" that if not wholly overcome, he, at least, escapes alone with fearful wounds from the trying conflict; how then can that one sustain the assault who is totally unprepared, ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... dreadful position of women was not a question for to-day simply, or for to-morrow, but for many years to come; and there would be a great deal to think of, to map out. One thing they were determined upon—that men shouldn't taunt them with being superficial. When Verena should appear it would be armed at all points, like Joan of Arc (this analogy had lodged itself in Olive's imagination); she should have facts and figures; she should ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... alliance of the Prime Minister and ruling party with the prisoner of Kilmainham Jail! [Loud cheers.] It has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a march like that. Long ago Mr. Disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt that the English people had had enough of his policy of confiscation; and so it proved for a time, for Mr. Disraeli turned him out. But Mr. Gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret springs of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... been taunted with the reproach that it was only after I was a broken and disappointed man in my worldly hopes and aspirations that I turned to religion. The taunt is just"—here he bowed his head, and paused with deep emotion "the taunt is just. I bow my head in shame, and take the blow. My earthly hopes have faded and fallen one after another. The prizes that dazzled my imagination ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... think of the public confession of the deep disrespect their menfolk feel for them. Some one here spoke of "a row."' She threw back her head, and faced the issue as though she knew that by bringing it forward herself, she could turn the taunt against the next speaker into a title of respect. 'You blame us for making a scene in that holy place! You would have us imitate those other women—the well-behaved—the women who think more of manners ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... he was stung into eloquence by the sarcasms of a member of a debating club, who characterised him as "Orator Mum;" for, like Cowper, when he stood up to speak on a previous occasion, Curran had not been able to utter a word. The taunt stung him and he replied in a triumphant speech. This accidental discovery in himself of the gift of eloquence encouraged him to proceed in his studies with renewed energy. He corrected his enunciation by reading aloud, emphatically and distinctly, the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... choose to answer this taunt, and was saved from the necessity of doing so by the announcement that Tom Fox and ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... succeed in bending it, and in shooting the arrow through a series of twelve rings.—Telemachus is the first to try his luck, hoping to redeem his beloved mother. But alas, his strength fails him, and he has to hand the bow on to the suitors, who so goad and taunt him, that the boy draws his sword. But they are stronger, Telemachus stumbles and the beggar catches him in his arms, and unfolds his mantle to protect him whispering: "Telemachus my son, I am thy father." The youth sinks on his knees, but Odysseus enjoins silence upon him and ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... captain of the Spanish vessel lay dead upon his bloody deck, and if any answered the jeering taunt it was drowned by the laughter and cheering of the English crew. They had eliminated the first ship from the game. They had diminished their enemies by a third, and full of confidence they swept down upon ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... this very night, if need be—aye, die for you too, perhaps, if you were suffering and his life could bring relief. You don't know Andy, or you would know why we held him as dear as we do the memory of our darling Daisy; and when you taunt me with my half-witted brother, you hurt me as much as you would to tear my dead sister from her grave, and expose her dear face to the gaze of brutal men. No, Mrs. Van Buren, say what you like of me, but never again sneer at ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and the manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer whether ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Ted tittered 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
... crucifixion of sin, the determined battle with "lusts which war against the soul." Sometimes it is the resistance of evil maxims and practices of a lying world; vindicating the honor of Christ, in the midst, it may be, of taunt, and obloquy, and shame. And as there are different crosses, so there are different ways of bearing them. To some, God says, "put your shoulder to the burden; lift it up, and bear it on; work, and toil, and labor!" To others, He says, "Be still, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... Roman superstition. They are all right. To be impious, is to have unjust opinions about the God who is adored; to be superstitious, is to have false ideas of Him. In accusing each other of superstition, the different religionists resemble humpbacks who taunt each ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... fooling me," she said. "He meant it. He's going straight for the border... Oh, why did I taunt him!" ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... chorister boys made him feel that his youth had slipped from him, and left him alone with his intellect and his epigrams. Sometimes he shivered with cold among those epigrams. He was tired of them. He knew them so well, and then so many of them had foreign blood in their veins, and were inclined to taunt him with being English. Ah! youth with its simple puns and its full-blooded pleasures, when there is no gold dust in the hair and no wrinkles about the eyes, when the sources of an epigram, like the sources of the Nile, are undiscoverable, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and rosy with the deepest happiness she had ever know. He had never spoken so plainly before. "Edith can never taunt me again with his silence," she thought. Though sounding well enough to the ear, how false were his words! Zell was giving the best love of which her heart was capable in view of her defective education and character. In a sincere and deep affection there are great possibilities ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... hopeless, concentred, as if a keen blade parted its heart and the outraged life within remonstrated and despaired,—despaired not of life, for still the note repeated its monotone, but of death, of period to its pangs. That cry entered into my brain; it was unjust of Nature so to taunt me, so to express where I was speechless; yet I could not shut it out. A pitiful chill of flesh and sense seized me; I was cold,—oh, how cold!—the fevered veins crept now in sluggish ice; sharp thrills of shivering rigor racked me from head to foot; pain had dulled its own capacity; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... a tough customer, and he made no further allusion to any suffering in store for his defiant rival. But Richard's taunt about Kennedy, and his promises to introduce him, were not pleasant to the bully, and he walked away. He feared that the victim had been making ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... know how you mean that, Andy,' says I, 'but we have been friends too long for me to take offense at a taunt that you will regret when you cool off. I have yet,' says I, 'to shake hands with a ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... like a taunt, a declaration of her helplessness. Coming from him, it is maddening. It restores her courage; it makes her mistress of herself ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... TAUNT. High or tall, commonly applied to very long masts.—All a taunto is a ship having all her light and long ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not over-delicate women, far inferior to him in mental calibre, and made a laughing-stock for Fenton and sweet Anne Page, and the lads and lassies of Windsor, and the chattering Welsh parson. "Have I lived," cried Falstaff, in the moment of his discomfiture, "to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?" He is a hard case, an inveterate sinner, as worthless as any man well could be, in the eyes of decorum and respectability; but those who know him well grow to be fond of him, even if they feel that they ought to be ashamed of it, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Lady Maude had had three given to her; but she was looking for another worth them all—from Lord Hartledon. And now—it was given, it appeared, to Anne Ashton! For her very life she could not have helped the passionate taunt that escaped from her, not ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... taunt flashed through her and she seized on it. "People have told me so—his own relations have. I've never ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... there, and which, it was proposd, should be named, the Oceana,1 has since been compleatly finishd and is now afloat. Her Materials are acknowledgd to be of the best kind, & well put together. It is said she will make a prime Sailer if not too taunt masted. Others say, that the Construction of her Hull is such as to require a lofty Sail. There are many Speculations about her. As I am not a Judge in the Matter, I am prudently silent & hear the Opinions of those ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... up. 'You may ask that question, and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw. You'll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny), he'd be just as much above doing such a ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... again, for this sneering taunt stung her to the quick. But Pharaoh laid his hand upon her ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... would have winced at this taunt. But the Earl of Marlborough met it with the face of ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... or not did not at all appear. She seemed as cool and calm as ever. Perhaps she had so schooled her nature that she was able to repress all outward signs of emotion, or perhaps she had undergone so much that a taunt could have no sting for her, or perhaps she had already contemplated and familiarized herself with all these possible views of her conduct to such an extent that the mention of them created no emotion. At any rate, whatever she felt, Sir ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... corners and mocked. Of course these were the followers of Ted Slavin, envious of the popularity already attained by Paul's patrol. Some of them had been at the fire, and witnessed the deed of daring carried out by Jack Stormways. Jealous of the other troop they tried to taunt them by various ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... hour Andrew 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 ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "Well then, if you must know, here we are." The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance. And now, what they would have taken ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... 'Thou, the male, King of Korea, dost thou not feel shame to flee away from the Queen of the East?' (This taunt is an allusion to the story of the conquest of Korea by the Empress Jin-go.) And the male comes invariably, and is also caught. In Izumo the first seven words of the original song have been corrupted into 'konna unjo Korai abura no mito'; ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... afflicted by finding that he was to be parted from Isabelle, longed to answer this taunt with an indignant defiance, but aware that the Count would only laugh at his anger, and despise his challenge, he resolved to wait some future time, when he might have an opportunity of obtaining some amends from this proud lord, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... body-guard wherever he went. It might have gratified his vanity had he known it. But to-night he was yet unattended, so no one noted that he went to 46 Glover Street, after the early Crowl supper. He could not help going. He wanted to get another sovereign. He also itched to taunt Grodman. Not succeeding in the former object, he felt the ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... that; I pictured his future in an English gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. He sat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now and then Sparrow MacCoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word of encouragement to hold ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The taunt was too much for the Opossum on the branch; he scuttled up the tree to reach his mate, who sprang forward from her perch into the air. Dot saw her spring with her legs all spread out, so that the skinny flaps were like furry wings. By this ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... came out from her room afterward, wearing the tiny white pins, and with a sweet seriousness in their faces. A noble purpose had been born in their hearts; but alas for chivalry! the first thing they did was to taunt Virginia with the fact that she could never be a knight because ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... they have quarrelled. Or rather, since it does not take two to do that wretched deed, she has quarrelled. It was some little thing that he said—neither sneer nor vaunt, nor reproach nor taunt: ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... no ships from England appeared. The men began to starve. And seeing this the Indians who had feared them before, now began to be scornful and taunt them. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... the laughing stock of the town. The few slighting, sarcastic remarks about his business ability, chiefly by women and therefore reflected from the men, hurt him. Miss Drew's apparently harmless taunt and Mrs. Dan's open criticism told plainly enough how the wind was blowing, but it was Peggy's gentle questions that cut the deepest. There was such honest concern in her voice that he could see how his profligacy was troubling her ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... would be seized and dragged away to be shut up and tortured as Miss Starbrow had desired. But suddenly this feeling gave place to another, to a burning resentment experienced for the first time against this woman who had made her suffer so cruelly, and now came to taunt her and mock at her misery. It suffocated and made her dumb for a time. Then she burst out: "You wicked bad woman! You beast—you beast, how I hate you! Oh, I wish God would strike ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... one of his just due, a suit of comfortable clothing fitted to the season, and turning him away under those circumstances which would almost of necessity force him to steal to avoid perishing, and then taunt him with ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... weak 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 ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... just what Ranald needed to spur him on—a taunt from his foe and leave from Farquhar to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... The taunt was followed by another prolonged silence. Carmena smiled and tossed down first a bare corn cob and ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Krasinski into a strange life of compromise, evasion, and sacrifice. To put it brutally, he was not a fighting man; so far as action went, he feared his father more than he loved his country, and there was a sting of truth in the bitter taunt addressed to him by his brother-poet Slowacki: 'Thou wert afraid, son of a noble.' He was often conscious of his weakness as when he wrote to Henry Reeve in 1830: 'I am a fool, I am a coward, I am a wretched being, I have the heart of a ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention; taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou 'thou'st' him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy 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 ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and feared she had raised the moral question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was quite true that, whatever she did, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... suffer, not only at the hand of man, but it seems as though God Himself were turned against them, to become their enemy. The heavens seem as brass to their cries and tears, and the enemy has reason to challenge them with the taunt, "Where is now your God!" The waters of a full cup are wrung out in days like these; and the cry is extorted, "How long, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... man I'd get out of here, quick!" he muttered, in scorn. And he thought of the broken Englishman, serene and at ease, settled with himself. And he thought of the girl Ruby who had flung the taunt at him. Not for a long time would he forget that. Certainly this abandoned girl was not a coward. She was lost, but she ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... time came, "I am going away from you, but my enemies remain. They see evil in all my doings, and in this act also they will find offence. Promise me that if they make a mock at you for your husband's sake you will not see them; if they taunt you that you will not hear them; and if they ask anything concerning me that you will answer ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... repeated such and such words of mine. The widow had also subjected her to bitter shame and mortification. And what had I to say? She was too much of a lady to denounce or to scold, and too high-hearted even to taunt me; too proud, too lofty, to deign to show that she felt the cut; she only questioned me; she only asked me to explain such and such things. Well, I tried to explain, and gave a full and frank account of every thing, and, as far as the widow ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit of taunt or contempt, but simply as a descriptive ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... 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 which had been Cherry's special ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... turn. He would not, he dared not see what was passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him that Basterga had released her—with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at him as at her—he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that so cruelly wounded her was scarcely ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... have their smooth faces adorned with that "noble" distinction of manhood—a beard. And no wonder. For, should a clever lad, getting out of his "teens," venture to express opinions contrary to those of his elders present, is he not at once snubbed by being called "a beardless boy"? A boy! Bitter taunt! He very naturally feels that he is grossly insulted, and all because his "dimpled chin never has known the barber's shear." Full well does our ingenuous youth know that a man is not wise in consequence of his beard—that, as the Orientals say of women's long hair, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... 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, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thrown at his monument. Happy are they whom 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... as she had in regard to marriage, for while a stain remained upon her father's name marriage was out of the question. She might have yielded on the question of the literary career, but she would never allow a man to taunt her afterwards with the disgrace of her own flesh and blood. No, henceforth her place was at her father's side until his character was cleared. If the trial in the Senate were to go against him, then she could never ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... she dwelt, she got, by little and little, to venturing out into the village streets. And when they saw her bowed form and her ugly, misshapen hands, the village children, knowing her history, forbore to sneer at or taunt her. All the village loved the unfortunate creature, and all the village strove together ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... trap-door from the lower one, and over this door it was that she now knelt down, and began to deal with Him in whose strength she had undertaken the work of her children's education. She spread before Him those letters from the study table, and told Him of her husband's half scoffing taunt. She also reminded Him how her life had been redeemed from the very gates of death, for the children's sake, and then declared that she could not believe that He meant to forsake her at this juncture; she was willing to be ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... lovely, it is very lovely—the world is a miracle, but it is all like a taunt, it is like an insult, this glory of the world. I am born a woman, and to be born a woman is to be exquisitely sensitive to insult and to live under it always, always. I wish that I were as marble ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... she here? Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... problem to work out was quite as good a teaching plan as anything we have to offer now. Thus: "An ambassador of Rome visiting an outlying province attended a gladiatorial contest. And one of the fighters being indisposed, the ambassador replied to a taunt by putting on a coat of mail and going into the ring to kill the lion. Question, was this action commendable? If so, why, and if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... of 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
... summer and 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 ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... are prone to taunt and revile each other. During one of the pauses of the battle, the voice of the Blackfeet chief ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... been able to stifle his indignation but for the grave example of Atwater, who gave no more heed to Jack's shoe than he had given to his base taunt, but, silently gathering up his book again, brushed the sand from it, found his place, and resumed his reading, as composedly as if nothing had happened. Neither did Frank say any thing. But Ellis, near whom the shoe had fallen, tossed it back with a threat to consign it to the fire if it came ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... something of his diffidence, could not help feeling indignant at this speech; unaccustomed to be addressed in this way, the taunt jarred upon his feelings, but he only bit ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... ever since shrouded the death of the Red King. Tyrrell lived to tell his tale. It was probably a true one, though many doubted it. The Frenchman had quarrelled with the king, men said, and had murdered him from revenge. Just why he should have murdered so powerful a friend and patron, for a taunt passed in jest, was ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and romantic time carried the day, and Harry's practical common-sense reasoning was of no avail, and a taunt at his cowardice induced him ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... but, as I must 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 Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... of the Lambesc Dragoons," Repentigny continued. "My namesake was perfectly silent; Louis, on the contrary, quite unlike his ordinary manner, made no attempt to control himself. He never ceased to exclaim, 'Clodfoot! Impostor!' and to taunt the stranger at each stroke with his father's origin. Finally Louis was disarmed, whereupon, with the same silence, Lecour handed back his sword—'with great dignity' said the Dragoon, and Louis refused to ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... my lad. We have but little iron about our raft; and though iron is said to attract it, we are so low down on the surface that I believe it will pass harmlessly over our heads. A large ship, with her taunt masts, would be in much greater danger than this small raft. We must trust to Him who rules the winds and seas, and the lightning also. It won't do to be sometimes trusting Him and sometimes not. It's as easy for Him to save us out of a great danger as out of what we call a small one. Not that ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... another taunt that struck home, but Willoughby again mastered himself grimly. "Any one of us would have done it," he answered, ignoring the remark. "Severance made it easy. I did to him only what he tried to do to others. When he saw how good the mine was, he wanted me to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... of the marriage he swore vengeance, for this thing had been a sore blow to his pride. All along the three rivers men talked of it, nor did they hesitate to taunt and make sport of Rene to his face. He sought to make up in swashbuckling and boasting what he lacked in courage. So men came to hate him and it became harder and harder for him to obtain work. At last, in great anger, he quit the brigade altogether and for two summers ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... 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 ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... word for women," replied the hunter, "and they're trying to taunt us because we're lying in hiding. It will take more than a taunt or two to draw us out of these cottonwoods. They can shout 'winihinca' all ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... moment Howland stood motionless, stunned by the Frenchman's words. Quickly he recovered himself. His eyes burned with a metallic gleam as they met the half taunt in Croisset's ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... been a curse, and not a blessing; all has been against me — all. I was a happy man before I unlawfully wrested Basildene from thee. Since I have done that deed naught has prospered with me; and here I am left to die alone, neglected by all, and thou alone — thy spirit from the dead — comes to taunt me in my last hour with my robbery and my sin. O forgive, forgive! Thou art dead. Spirits cannot inherit this world's goods, else would I restore all to thee. Tell me what I may do to make amends ere I die? But look not at ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... crossed the trail of Numa, the lion, pausing for a moment to hurl a soft fruit at the snarling face of his enemy, and to taunt and insult him, calling him eater of carrion and brother of Dango, the hyena. Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him. Low growls vibrated his heavy jowls and his great rage transmitted to ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... charms. Yet did I, then—did even a breath From my parched lips, too parched to move, Disturb a scene where thus, beneath Earth's silent covering, Youth and Death Held converse thro' undying love? No—smile and taunt me as thou wilt— Tho' but to gaze thus was delight, Yet seemed it like a wrong, a guilt, To win by stealth so pure a sight: And rather than a look profane Should then have met those thoughtful eyes, Or voice or whisper broke the chain That linked her spirit ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... feel one's self an unwilling coward, a prig, and the laughingstock of one's fellows. But when, on the day after his unjust punishment, and while still stung by the sense of wrong, one of the petty schoolboy tyrants began to taunt him, he turned upon the young scamp and thrashed him soundly. His tormentor was not more hurt than surprised. Like most of his class, he was a tattler. The matter got to the teacher's ears, and that night ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... had gone before she never looked back upon; but it made her thankful for even this stupid quiet. And now, when she had planned her life, busy, useful, contented, why need God have sent the old thought to taunt her? A wild, sickening sense of what might have been struggled up: she thrust it down,—she had kept it down all night; the old pain should not come back,—it should not. She did not think of the love she had given up as a dream, as verse-makers or sham people ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... keenly barbed and doubly envenomed, and it sped as with the fierce hiss of a viper. Was it possible in this the final and most dreadful stage of Christ's mission, to make Him doubt His divine Sonship, or, failing such, to taunt or anger the dying Savior into the use of His superhuman powers for personal relief or as an act of vengeance upon His tormentors? To achieve such a victory was Satan's desperate purpose. The shaft failed. Through taunts and derision, through blasphemous challenge and diabolical ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of Wilfrid flushed with unwonted crimson at this unexpected taunt from the lips of his young lord. It was with difficulty that he restrained the tears which filled his eyes from overflowing, but ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... "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
... 1492. It's my opinion, I asserted, that some of us had been there thousands of years before, but nobody had had the sense to discover us. We couldn't discover ourselves,—though if we could have foreseen how the sere and yellow nations of the earth would taunt us with youth and inexperience, we should have had ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... should they profess to doubt me? Why should they bring up my brothers' names to taunt me ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... find that there was quite as much of the blue-blooded Castleton in her as there was commonplace Glynn; galled him more particularly because she was his own flesh and blood after all and, in spite of that, could taunt him with it. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... understood the hidden taunt he did not respond to the challenge and Denver's mind reverted to H. Parkinson Dodge and his flattering offers for the mine. Ten thousand dollars cash, from a mining promoter, was indeed a princely sum; better by far than the offer of half a million shares that went with Bunker's ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... 1828, he thus expressed himself: "It requires no spirit of prophecy to predict that it (the petition) will create great opposition. An attempt will be made to frighten Northern 'dough-faces' as in case of the Missouri question. There will be an abundance of furious declamation, menace, and taunt. Are we, therefore, to approach the subject timidly—with half a heart—as if we were treading on forbidden ground? No, indeed, but earnestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined to clear their country and themselves ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... betrayed, bereft, Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave; Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow— Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt never know. Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss; And now mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, And in her blood she sank to ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you English; any means. To strike! That's the thing. I would die happy if I knew I had helped to detach from you one island—one little island of all the earth you have filched away, stolen, taken by force, got by lying.... Don't taunt me with your taunts of thieves. What weapons better worthy of you could I use? Oh, I am modest. I am modest. This is a little thing, this Jamaica. What do I care for the Separationist blatherskite more than ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... sunlight I could see the lithe figure swaying; no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the red lips and gleaming teeth. Then—and it was music good to hear, despite its taunt—she laughed defiantly, turned, and ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... picking poor Bernard's pocket is absolutely repugnant to me. Social expediency be hanged! What! as his guest?— But let's drop recrimination; I had no right to resent what you said after forcing you to say it, nor, in any case, to taunt you . . . I beg your pardon: there! for heaven's sake let's leave it ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde |
