"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... home, Mince not the generall tongue, name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome: Raile thou in Fuluia's phrase, and taunt my faults With such full License, as both Truth and Malice Haue power to vtter. Oh then we bring forth weeds, When our quicke windes lye still, and our illes told vs Is as our earing: fare thee ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a serene old age, And to instruct, thyself, thy glorious son. 460 Yet thus the God requites thee, cutting off All hope of thy return—oh ancient sir! Him too, perchance, where'er he sits a guest Beneath some foreign roof, the women taunt, As all these shameless ones have taunted thee, Fearing whose mock'ry thou forbidd'st their hands This office, which Icarius' daughter wise To me enjoins, and which I, glad perform. Yes, I will wash thy feet; both for her sake And for thy own,—for sight of thee hath raised 470 A tempest in my ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... hogs who meddle in our affairs humiliate us to the last degree, and for still greater taunt order to us one of the ships of war of their rotten squadron, after insulting us in their newspapers and driving ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... that the game was up, had given over trying to taunt Stonor, and lay watching them with an unabashed grin. He seemed rather proud of his ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... view that Cotherstone had been discharged—his appearance in that bold, self-assured fashion only led to covert whispers and furtive looks. But suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd, a sneering voice flung a contemptuous taunt across the ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... ecclesiastical image of Christ, stand out of the way of the onward march of a political idealism represented by United Italy or the French Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic exactitude with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the old divine ideal would now fit the degradation of his own human ideal. The time has already come when we can ask his Goddess of Liberty, as represented by the actual Liberals, 'Have ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 courses, and how often they ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... England your grace should be the last to say so," rejoined Wolsey; "for if I had not been cardinal, you would not have had a head upon your shoulders to utter the taunt." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ministers and said to them, "As for me, by Allah of All-might,[FN173] I am not the king's brother! Nay, I am but one whom the king imprisoned upon a word he heard from me and he used every day to come and taunt me therewith. Ye deem me the king's brother; but I am Abu Sabir and the Lord hath given me the kingship in virtue of my patience. As for the king who sought protection of me and I plundered him, 'twas he who first wronged me, for that he plundered ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... sins of his life gathered themselves in fearful and oppressive array, as if to stifle him, and the phantom of poor Margaret with her lamp—which had haunted him from the beginning of his illness—seemed to taunt him with having been too fainthearted and tardy to be worthy to espouse her cause. The faith to which he tried to cling WOULD seem to fail him in those awful hours, when he could only cry out mechanical prayers for mercy. Then there had come a ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unpraised. But he, this man.... He would be like a child Girt with the tomes of some vast library, Who reads romance after romance, and smiles When every tale ends well: impersonal As God he grows—melted in suns and stars; So would this boundless man, whom none could spy, Taunt him with virtue, censure him with vice, Rejoice in all men's joys; with golden pen Write all the live romances of the earth To a triumphant close.... Alone and free— In this grey, cool, clean garden, washed with winds, What do I come to do among ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... 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. But when he undertook to step ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... instigation, thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor". And when Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to Viola, he suggests to him that he "taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss". To keep this in mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of the Quakers, and give a certain dignity to it, as once maintained, which at present it is very ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... this taunt. The suffering one faded slowly down the path to the bunk house and was lost in its blackness. A light shone out and presently came sombre chords from a guitar, followed by the voice of Sandy in gloomy song: "There's a broken heart ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Scarcely by a taunt so readily rebuttable will anti-Utilitarians be excited to speedier apprehension of the nature of the lien which corporate self-interest is presumed to have upon individual self-devotion. Not the ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... me 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 ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... her which was quite foreign to his selfish and exploiting nature. With admirable perseverance he crushed every rising of this interest and stamped it under foot. But it proved strangely unconquerable, and it rose again and again, vital and conflicting, to taunt him with its indestructibility. He certainly could not have told himself why he liked to meet this girl so often on the sly and why he liked to kiss her red lips and make her eyes shine into his. But the ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... his arm and stepped backward a little, regarding him despairingly. She did not mind the taunt, but the moral fibre of her nature always responded to opposition. She broke out excitedly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... breath to taunt her rival later, and, skating around the bits of ice, won the heat before Agnes, much shaken and bruised, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... sprightly, 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, and they do not quite ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Reminded by the taunt of the clever trick that had been played upon them the night before, the Happy Family stiffened again into strained, waiting silence, their rifles aimed straight at the advancing objects. These, still vague in the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Marwitz's next move; her next experiment in seeing what she could "do." Was not Herr Lippheim a taunt? And with what did he so unpleasantly associate the name of the French actress? The link clicked suddenly. La Gaine d'Or, in its veiling French, was about to be produced in London, and it was Mlle. Mauret who had created the heroine's role in Paris. These were the people by means of ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... faces and sprightly conversation would be too much for any man, and mercifully divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of Attila's taunt to the Romans, "The thicker the grass, the quicker ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... of the song is a recital of the exploits of the men, their employments, their intended movements, the news of the coast, and the character of their employers. It is usual, in these extemporary strains, for the Kroomen attached to a man-of-war to taunt, with good-humored satire, their friends who are more laboriously employed in merchant vessels, and not so well ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... that she would keep her word, yet the evil in him drove him to taunt her. "You do not strike," ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... French windows into the house, leaving Lord Galloway in an indescribable temper, at once virulent and vague. The blue-and-silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed to taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness against which his worldly authority was at war. The length and grace of the Irishman's stride enraged him as if he were a rival instead of a father; the moonlight maddened ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... annual fast. Up in the big house where he lived, in the next town of Andersonville (he himself would have been gladder of a mere shack or tent like the rest of us—but his wife negated any such idea) Mrs. Barton used to taunt and insult him by putting out the best food under his nose, during ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... was in this alarming condition the grandmother appeared, and began to taunt me with the utmost malignity. She was Mrs. Herne, "the hairy one," who had conceived inveterate spite against me at the time when Petulengro had proposed that I should marry his wife's sister. This ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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, ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... talked apparently to herself, but with the intention that I should hear what was going on. I hoped that my uncle's imprisonment would last but few days; still I was anxious. I thought it likely Dr. Flint would do his utmost to taunt and insult him, and I was afraid my uncle might lose control of himself, and retort in some way that would be construed into a punishable offence; and I was well aware that in court his word would not be taken against any white man's. The search for me was ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... waitin' around the Fillmore ranch the last three weeks for? Why didn't you come straight over to my house and say so, like a man who wasn't afraid? You want me, do you? Well, now, what are you goin' to do about it?" There was a taunt in Mead's tone that stirred the others to anger. Mead knew perfectly well what his reputation was, and he knew, too, that they were ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... when Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come to him from a sick-bed to tell him that Bucky had ruined his young wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his fever, died two days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky's voice when he had cornered him with Rousseau's accusation, and the fight had followed. The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and Deane filled him with a sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid a ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... to bring out original American works. . . . The general impression was that we had not, and could not have, a literature. It was the precise point at which Sidney Smith had uttered that bitter taunt in the Edinburgh Review, 'Who reads an American book?' . . . It was positively injurious to the commercial credit of a bookseller to undertake American works." Washington Irving (1783-1859) was the first American author whose ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... of the waiting Governor outside he started toward her, his arms outstretched, his heart rushing to his lips. Her taunt—it seemed like ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... us Thursday after Thursday, enduring all that our barbarity was pleased to inflict; he stood patient and long-suffering, and even of this patience and resignation we made a jest, and a subject of fresh reproach and taunt. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Jerusalem!" the Hebrew cries. And patriot anguish fills his streaming eyes, "Hurl'd to the earth by Rapine's vengeful rod, "Polluted lies the temple of our God, "Far in a foreign land her sons remain, "Hear the keen taunt, and drag the captive chain: "In fruitless woe they wear the wearying years, "And steep the bread of bitterness in tears. "O Monarch, greatest, mildest, best of men, "Restore us to those ruin'd walls again! "Allow our race to rear that sacred dome, "To live ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... they to do, I say, to ask me where he has gone to? A fine place for the fine gentleman they made of him. What has such as them to say to it, if I couldn't keep him when I got him—that they comes to taunt me and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... suspicion, did not succeed wholly in keeping on the safe side. Aeschines describes him as a wizard and a sophist, who enjoyed deceiving the people or the jury. Another of his opponents levelled at him the taunt that his speeches 'smelt of the lamp'. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, one of the best of the ancient critics, says that the artificiality of Demosthenes and his master Isaeus was apt to excite suspicion, even when they had a good case. Nor ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... thought of his master's taunt, and Jeromio, and resolved to take his chance. "Ay, ay, sir, no danger when I follow you." But the peril was, in truth, appalling, though its duration was brief. Below, the sea that was now rapidly covering the small creek, rudely agitated and opposed by a rising breeze, dashed and foamed ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... 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
... us with an iron hand! Ah! Liberty! what a humbug! I would rather belong to England or France, than to the North! Bondage, woman that I am, I can never stand! Even now, the Northern papers, distributed among us, taunt us with our subjection and tell us "how coolly Butler will grind them down, paying no regard to their writhing and torture beyond tightening the bonds still more!" Ah, truly! this is the bitterness of slavery, to be insulted and reviled by cowards who ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... bulk of the army has remained where Lee left it when he slipped from its grasp, and McClellan's cry is for reinforcements. Three weeks of precious time slip by, and then—back come those daredevils of Stuart's, riding with laugh and taunt and jeer all around the Union forces; and there is the mischief to pay here in Washington, for if he should take a notion to pay the capital a visit on his homeward trip, what would the consequences be? Of course ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... grave love have dominion Will that wild cry not quicken the wise clay, And taunt with memories of fond deeds undone,— Some joy untasted, some lost holiday,— All death's large wisdom? Will that wisdom lay The ghost of any sweet familiar thing Come haggard from the Past, or ever bring Forgetfulness of those two ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... 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
... all to go over again? She was worn out. She had been quiet in these two years: what 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 ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... corn, with a view to their total repeal, prefaced his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought the subject forward in compliance with the request of the anti-corn-law delegates; and because, in the late discussion on the state of the nation, a taunt had been thrown out on the ministerial side, that, if the opposition thought that a repeal of the corn daws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the house. The motion was seconded by Mr. Fielden, and supported ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Their conduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friend of Atterbury and a zealous Tory. "The wild Indians," he said, "give no quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill and prowess of every adversary whom they destroy. Perhaps the animosity of the right reverend prelates ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I ever done to be imprisoned like this? And was I not unhappy enough before, that you must needs come and taunt me with the happiness your daughter is enjoying now she is ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... like the cooeperation of a ship's company, or of a fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt men of the world with superficial and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of Farinata, who had meantime been looking on, now replied to the taunt of Dante, prophesying that he should soon have good reason to know that the art he spoke of had been acquired; upon which Dante, speaking with more considerateness to the lofty sufferer, requested to know how the gift of prophecy could belong ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Society came to the same conclusion, and it was generally said that Fletcher had done himself no good by his undignified resentment. His parting taunt levelled at Harry was regarded as mean and ungenerous, and only strengthened the sentiment in favor of our hero who bore his honors modestly. In fact Tom Carver, who was fond of fun, conceived a project for mortifying Fletcher, and readily obtained ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... herself on a chair of gold, clad in the richest of royal robes and ornaments. When Abu Tammam entered, he took thought and said, "The wise declare that whoso governeth his sight shall suffer naught unright and he who guardeth his tongue shall hear naught of foul taunt, and he who keepeth watch over his hand, it shall be lengthened and not shortened."[FN211] So he entered and seating himself on the floor, cast down his eyes and covered his hands and feet with his dress.[FN212] Quoth the king's daughter to him, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... his home to which he invited all those whom he might need. But he did not yet speak openly about his company, leaving that to Wawrzecki who treated the matter enthusiastically as though it were his own and used it to taunt Cabinski with and to create more frequent rumpuses about ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... these the phrases with which you taunt me? But," dropping his voice again, he added, "you are right in suggesting that I have discharged my office when I demand, to what end those very marked attentions are paid ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... 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 word upon ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... 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 ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... grew slyly rich on the revenues of wealthy corporations, everyone knew that he was baiting the Governor. These diatribes were stigmatized as in wretched taste, but the politicians of both parties could not help being amused. They admitted behind their hands that the taunt was not altogether groundless, and that Lyons certainly was on extremely pleasant terms with prosperity for an out and out champion of popular rights. Nevertheless the leading party newspapers termed Stringer a demagogue, and accused ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... 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 for shame and pale for jealousy! Alas, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... from the tormentor. 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. He had suffered enough, and the cocoa-nut ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... 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 to the magic of Life, I wish that I cared for nothing and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud, "See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... The taunt sank in as oil sinks into a cloth. I may have blushed and stammered, and I may have blubbered like a milksop, but it was not because I was afraid. I would show Woodford and I would show this fickle Miss Gadabout that I did not need any advice about roads. If my life had ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... "You taunt me, my dear lady, my dear girl. But be not so sure that times have changed. Out beyond, there, where we are going, I could put you a mile back from the river, and you would find yourself in a wilderness the most pathless in the world to-day, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... replied Adrian, sharply, and incensed at the taunt, "you Foreigners have taught us ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... But, that done, instead of bearing the other down with a headlong rush characteristic of the man—as Tignonville feared—he held off warily, stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Max! it is Max!" cried voices outside; and then a deep silence reigned in the room and in the street, for Gilet's known character made every one expect a taunt. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... 'have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways,' but have lifted up the face against my law.[9] (Mal. 2:9; Jer. 25:9, 18) 3. Such shall also be contemned and had in derision of the men of this world. They shall be a hissing, a bye-word, a taunt, and a reproach among all people. 'For them that honour me,' saith God, 'I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. (1 Sam. 2:30) I remember that Philpot used to tell the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some being, having right to reproach and power to taunt, whispered to her as she slept, stern remonstrances against the idle, voluptuous, and dreaming life she was leading, mocking her for passing her time in the maudlin delights of love, calling upon her to arouse her latent energies and shake off that luxurious ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... continued, "let us turn our faces to the cool morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been or what we have seen to-night; neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... as by any other taunt, to all appearance. 'Throth, I thried her every way,' quoth Andy subsequently, after an experience of some months; 'I thried her by flatthery an' by thruth-tellin', by abusing her relations an' herself, an' by praisin' 'em, by appalin' to her compassion an' by bein' stiff an' impident, an' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... and there at the inner portal I caught sight of a narrow, foxy, peering visage, and a lean, writhing figure, prone like a worm on its belly. The rascal had been crawling towards Helene's room, for what purpose I know not. Nor did I stop to inquire, for, being stung by the taunt of the man-at-arms, I was on Foxface in a moment, stamping upon him with my iron-shod feet, and then lifting him unceremoniously up by the slackness of his back covertures, I turned him over and over like ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... 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 ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... to vindicate the end which makes him indifferent as to the means. Agrippa, in his brief taunt, had said, "Such are the arguments by which you would fain make me a Christian." It is one of the few, one of the only three occasions on which that glorious name is used in the New Testament. It is here charged not with the venerable meaning which we now attach to it, but with the novel and ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... not speaking loud"—(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there. I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own station in the real world,—the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... had become hopeless and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former connection with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great distrust by the Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was taken of his Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and all his efforts failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to England or to get to Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July only to find himself arrested. He remained ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... or gentile name, borne by his father, according to the fashion of the time, as slave to some member of the noble Horatian family. A slave the father unquestionably had been: meanness of origin was a taunt often levelled against his son, and encountered by him with magnanimous indifference; but long before Horace's birth the older Horatius had obtained his freedom, had gained sufficient money to retire from ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... language and manner he contrived to make his mission as offensive as he dared, for Loring had braved him so exasperatingly on every previous occasion that, now that he had him safe in arrest, he meant to taunt—and did it, but his sneering slings broke harmless on the polished armor of the Engineer's placid disdain. The madder Petty got the cooler was Loring, and when Dennis dropped in just at the close of the interview a worse whipped ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... is prevalent, speed is a much more valuable attribute of a hunter than cleverness in jumping, because the main object of the rider will then be, as a rule, to get over fields and through gates with a minimum of "lepping." Some of our Colonial sisters might taunt us for not trying to leap wire in the brave manner done by Miss Harding (Fig. 102) and other New Zealand and Australian horsewomen, but their conditions of country are entirely different from ours. In the Shires, for instance, wire, as a great ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Castleton portraits that he knew. It somehow galled him to 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 ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed passionately. "I accept pecuniary favors from Lord ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... larboard bow!" The cry was uttered in a foreign tongue from the masthead of a corvette of twenty guns, a beautiful long, low, flush-decked craft with dark hull, taunt raking masts, and square yards, which, under all the sails she could carry with a southerly breeze right aft, was gliding rapidly over the now smooth surface of the northern ocean. The haughty flag of old Spain, and ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... 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 ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... wish it, Sir, I will tell you frankly that you are the laughing-stock of everybody; that they taunt us everywhere by a thousand jokes on your account, and that nothing delights people more than to make sport of you, and to tell stories without end about your stinginess. One says that you have special almanacks printed, where you double the ember days and vigils, so that you may profit ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... warmed her to an almost vagrant mood. Her smile was delicate enough, yet her eyes held a gentle taunt as she responded: "Not a bit of it; you ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... be released made to her in slumber by the Fay Morgana. Her maidens seek to rouse her with choral appeals, in which are heard phrases of her hunting song. Meanwhile mocking spirits appear about Merlin and taunt him in characteristic music. Then follows the compact with the demon, which releases him. He rushes into the battle accompanied by an exultant song from Viviane; but soon the funeral march, as his followers bear him from the field, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... "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, and ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... more clear-sighted than those of to-day, hear that the Christmas feast was kept on the battlefields of the European war, they will understand the origins of the war itself. In such a situation, David (to whom indeed it would have been inconceivable) would have accepted the taunt of his enemies as well deserved, when they asked him: "Where is now thy God?" "We have lost God" would have been a fitting lamentation. But to celebrate His festival indifferently under such conditions ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... 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 ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... 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, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... lay there without anything to eat or drink and no one to come near them except that occasionally a tangled head would be thrust in to hurl some taunt at them. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... 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 ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... who stood on the 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 cries; but ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... such provision by contraverting the position I had advanced upon moral grounds. This he did in a speech of some length, and with remarkable ingenuity and good sense; proving—to the satisfaction of his fellow-townsmen at least—that to taunt a malefactor openly with his misdeeds, was not the way to reform him, while it was a sure mode of producing a contrary result; and winding up with an assurance, that the law was a good law, and perfect in all its parts; and that if I had suffered wrong, I might obtain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... at his good luck. He, safe, unharmed; but his enemy, how about him? Where was he at that moment? Ought he to go down and search among the tamarisks for him, to taunt him in his agony? Suddenly the shout was repeated, the savage howl, far, very far away, somewhere near the farmhouse; a howl triumphant, mocking, which Jaime interpreted as an announcement of an ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we feel it; passion will not be simulated. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... you, yet you treat her as if she were much younger. Your manner toward her is often very contemptuous, and I have frequently heard you sneer at her principles and taunt her with her willing subjection to her father's strict rule; for which she deserves nothing ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... it, she let it drop in her lap. There was no mockery in her expression at that moment, though she could not forego a whimsical little taunt. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... by this taunt, however well deserved. "Prince," said I, "I have for the indelicacy of compulsion so illustrious an example that I cannot hesitate to pursue the path honored by your own footsteps. All Naples knows that the Pisani despises at once your gold ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... death. Even now I see him coming; the shallow streams he has forded; the deep rivers he has swum. He is tired and hungry, and his quiver has no arrows, but he brings a prisoner in his arms. Lay the deer's flesh on the fire, and bring hither the pounded corn. Taunt him not, for he is valiant, and has fought like a ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... men of Cambridge they need but divert Trumpington Brook into Clare Ditch to render their town as elegant as any in the universe. Sheep and swine perambulate the environs, and green spaces are interspersed among the colleges, sparsely set with trees, so pollarded as to justify Milton's taunt when in an ill-humour ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... had worn off 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
... thou angry? words unkind Have fallen upon thine ear, Thy spirit hath been wounded too By mocking jest or sneer, But mind it not—relax at once Thine o'ercast and troubled brow— What will be taunt or jest to thee In a ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... most ridiculous way, with never any hope of catching one of them, except when she lets him come near her for a moment, to plague him by slipping away again quite out of his reach. At last he gets thoroughly tired and discouraged and angry, while the three sisters laugh at him and taunt him and chatter with one another, and have clearly enough forgotten all about the gold that they ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... 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
... with pauses having no relation whatever to the sense. His sentences were broken into the oddest fragments, and the hearer was perplexed in the endeavor to gather his meaning. In declaring, for example, that he "would put in no Wilmot proviso for the purpose of a taunt," etc., he made a long pause at "Wilmot," perhaps half a minute, and finally, having apparently recovered his breath, added the word "proviso"; and then, after another considerable pause, went on with his sentence. His speaking seemed painfully ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... to his face. A caitiff hound, A reptile fool, is he who fawns on men Before their faces, while his heart is black With malice, and, when they be gone, his tongue Backbites them. Openly Polydamas Flung back upon the prince his taunt and scoff: "O thou of living men most mischievous! Thy valour—quotha!—brings us misery! Thine heart endures, and will endure, that strife Should have no limit, save in utter ruin Of fatherland and people for thy sake! Ne'er may such wantwit valour craze my soul! Be mine to cherish ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... my duty as best I knew how to do it," said the Duke, almost with ferocity, "and it little becomes you to taunt ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the mirror, and unconsciously taking a china cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands around it as though praying. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her eyes darkening with anger, and taking no notice of the taunt, he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 or ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... 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 you of ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... rise to the English leader's thin sallow face at the taunt, but he answered quietly enough, "Let the boy speak to him and then go back," and a way was opened up for me to where my father sat, a bound and helpless prisoner, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... conjure 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 ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... heard of this, she left him, and he egged on all the folk to intercede with me to restore her to him; but I told him that this could not lawfully be done but by an intermediate marriage, and we have agreed to make some stranger the intermediary, so none may taunt him with this affair. So, as thou art a stranger, come with us and we will marry thee to her; thou shalt lie with her to-night and on the morrow divorce her, and we will give thee what I said.' 'By Allah,' quoth ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... 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 the elegant gentleman ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... "Yes; you may well taunt me with your false priest, you unfeeling wretch! Oh, Santisima Madre!" continued she, dropping back into her chair, and pressing her head between her hands. "Beguiled—beggared— almost unsexed! and yet I never loved the man! It was not love, ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... with taunt and laugh and hurrah, Morgan's men rode away, leaving their enemies standing helpless ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... I have done with scorn, with bitter words, With taunt, with gibe. Now I ask only pity— A little pity from flesh that I conceived, A little mercy from the body I bore, And touches from the baby hands I kissed. Nothing I ask of you, only to love me, And if not that, to bear with me a while, Who have borne much for you: no, Nero, child, I will not weary ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... you proud little Dutchman! When I despise you for your farming relatives, you can taunt me with my ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... 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 ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... on to talk of the jeers of cabmen at each other, and how sharp some of them were. Then again they began to talk about other common sayings—the very origin of which had been forgotten; and Frank King spoke of a taunt which was an infallible recipe for driving a bargee mad—'Who choked the boy with duff?'—though nobody, not the bargees themselves, now knew anything whatever about the tragic incident that must ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... of Bassett's voice Sir Charles started, and, at the first taunt, he uttered something between a moan and a roar, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... bounding arteries. Some vague bewildering reminiscence danced through the clouded chambers of his brain, pointing like a mocking fiend now this way, then in an opposite direction; one instant assuring him that they had somewhere met before, the next torturing him with the triumphant taunt that he had hitherto never known any one half so lovely. Was it merely some lucky accident that had so unexpectedly brought them during that long flattering ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... from Egypt, and others, like Maximus of Jerusalem and Alexander of 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 ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... ruddy fog Still hear the tiger growl At the lion and striped dog That prowl with rusty throats to taunt and roar and howl; ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... 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 see Jefferson again. She ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... take a bare hull as she lay for the first time quietly at anchor from the impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance; "parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth were expected to ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... 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 ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... wholesome fear of her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display of anger on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply suffering sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt—Well, well, it was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity for little else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in the background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped on this topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question: Should I ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... that taunt from Godfrey! How often had he been told before boys whom he esteemed and loved at school, and whose good opinion he was desirous to retain, that he was dependent upon the bounty of Colonel Hurdlestone, though the only son and heir of the rich ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... 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 light? Your daughter: why, she may die." Hope groaned. "Who will ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... to rise,[13] Loch wounded him crosswise through the breast, [14]so that the spear[a] went through him[14] [15]and the ford was gore-red with his blood.[15] [16]"Ill, indeed," cried Fergus, "is this deed in the face of the foe. Let some of ye taunt him, ye men," he cried to his people, "to the end that he fall ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... down, watching the throng. He would take no hand in the matter, wherein he was wise. But those words of his came to Arnkel as a taunt, and his look at ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... the high grasses through which he forced his way. It did him good to battle even with these vegetable forces, and the hooked thorns that tore his clothes and rent his flesh left nothing like the traces that those few words of dismissal, spoken by a girl's voice, and the hateful taunt that had followed, had left upon ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... 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 be a high ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... 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
... awe and dread, Stalked round the room, put out the light And shook the curtains round the bed. No cruel uncle kept her land, No tyrant father forced her hand; She had no vixen virgin aunt Without whose aid she could not eat And yet who poisoned all her meat With gibe and sneer and taunt." ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Nelson, convinced by it that something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his guns, stationed frigates at the Hyeres, and to cruise thence to the eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between Italy and Toulon and Marseilles. For this purpose he had recommended, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... brazen effrontery to come here to taunt him in his slavery? What was the meaning of it? What should he say to him? He could not answer the Doctor but by a ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... I did, you couldn't do it;" with which taunt he was off and Frank after him, having made a futile dive at the impertinent little nose which was turned up at him ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... 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. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... self-reproach and a broken spirit. Pride and other passions had summoned up deities and angels of terror and of crime, before the eyes and thoughts of the wretched mourner, and the demon who had watched with her and waited on her, and had haunted her with taunt and bitter mockeries, night and day, was again busy with terrible suggestions, which gradually grew to be divine ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... heats me, excites me, till a moment when I grow to hate it. The flatteries of a princess and her imitating train turn my head, till an old choral strain, or a clutch that my good angel gives me, a welling-up of my own genius in my heart, comes to draw me back, to cool me, to taunt me as traitor, to rend me with the thought that in self I have utterly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
