"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at once accepted the challenge, and rushed back to the hedge, over which another handful of mealies were thrown at him, but mealies had lost much of their power by that time. Thus, with alternate taunt and temptation was the false attack maintained by the father, while the real attack was made by the son, at the other ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... The taunt was undeserved and glanced unheeded from the shield of the girl's utter misery. Perhaps because that was so, the Pole's next words were ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... lofty fame Lives in the mouth of men, and distant climes Re-echo his wide glory; where the brave Are honoured, where 'tis noble deemed to save A prostrate nation, and for future times Work with a high devotion, that no taunt, Or ribald lie, or zealot's eager curse, Or the short-sighted world's neglect can daunt, That name is worshipped! His immortal verse Blends with his god-like deeds, a double spell To bind the coming ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... home had rung with laughter by the taunt and ridicule of those who made fun of her ugliness, [94] now graced her house with sweet smiles and engaging features, which drew scores of visitors to her home. Juan confessed his sins, and underwent penance for his wickedness; and the two lived together in peace and happiness ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... "You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we as in the beginning, Nature's law, which beside the law of man is no law, would be right; but we're ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow, Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blow To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse Competed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse: For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last The son at the throat of the father, seized him, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... words, one by one, with infinite relish; and the mockery in the depths of those eyes seared me far more than my bonds. After watching the effect of his taunt he resumed his seat upon the stool, pulled the clasp towards him ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Sometimes it is the 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, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... those outlaws who strolled through here playing 'She Never Told Her Love.' The fact is that girl told it in the voice of one who should be bawling quick orders in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Here's where we taunt Mr. Hastings with his own lofty idealism. Have all the fun with him you like; and not a soul shall ever know from me who ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... thing perversely in the absolute and literal sense, but giving fair construction as to an after-dinner conversation; allowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first thoughts; and not remembering, for the purpose of an after taunt, words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass. The Author wishes (what he would will for himself) plenty of good friends to stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous events to all his honest undertakings, and a candid interpretation to his most hasty ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the nation, How loudly, how proudly, of deeds to be done, The blood of the sire in the veins of the son! Old Moultrie and Sumter still keep at your gates, And the foe in his foothold as patiently waits. He asks, with a taunt, by your patience made bold, If the hot spur of Percy grows suddenly cold— Makes merry with boasts of your city his own, And the Chivalry fled, ere his trumpet is blown; Upon them, O sons of the mighty of yore, And fatten the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... promises to marry whomsoever shall 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 ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... 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 with it. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... light into his eyes; but they came there, slowly, while he sat thinking. Some old thought was stealing into his brain, perhaps, fresh and warm, like a soft spring air,—some hope of the future, in which this child-woman came close to him and near. It was an idle dream, only would taunt him when it was over, but he opened his arms to it: it was an old friend; it had made him once a purer and better man than he could ever be again. A warm, happy dream, whatever it may have been: the rugged, sinister face grew calm and sad, as the faces of the dead change ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Tad paid no attention to the taunt; he hung the rope on his saddle horn and then ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... in England at least, Socialism is not a party, but a sect. That is sometimes brought against it as a taunt; but I am not dismayed by it; for I can conceive of a sect—nay, I have heard of one—becoming a very formidable power, and becoming so by dint of its long remaining a sect. So I think it is quite possible that Socialism will remain a sect till the very eve of the last stroke ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... Raffles at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or after—a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly in the wrong, his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless, granting the original sin of the situation, and given this unforeseen development, even I failed to see how Raffles could ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... up in Massachusetts while you was 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 who ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... meant to put his horrible suspicions into words. The very fact—now that he had spoken—appeared more tangible, even irremediable. She did not reply to his taunt, and he came a little closer to her and took her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it from his grasp he held it tightly and bent down his head so that in the gathering gloom he could read ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... instance of the same spirit, that the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fall and cross down below—and then I'll sheep you to the rocks, you low-lived, skulkin' murderers! It's a wonder some of you don't shoot me the way you did Juan Alvarez, down there." He waved his hand toward the point where the wooden cross rose against the sky, but no one answered the taunt. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... naughtily since thou art departed unto that far-off province. By this courier do I dispatch certain papers of state unto thee, and faith would I have dispatched thy wages eke, but that caitiff in minion, Sir Shekelsford, did taunt and revile me when I did supplicate him ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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 into the mud when it pleased the elegant gentleman to ride by. No, listen to me," ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... whole house, let me tell you, should be a very garden of fragrant and luscious blooms. Instead of which it is full of mocking cenotaphs such as this. When Araminta went away she flung over her shoulder a parasol and a Parthian taunt. She said, 'I'm certain there'll be no flowers in the house while I'm away,' and now it seems she was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... sting of bitterness and self-pity in the taunt at the end of the words. Elizabeth felt it, as she seized her pistol from her belt, and pointed it at the astonished group. They were not accustomed to girls with pistols. "Open that door, or I will shoot you ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... She had some money that she wanted to deposit in the bank for John. For Fanny was saving now as only Fanny knew how when she set her mind to it. And she had set not only her mind but her very soul on making good. Every cruel taunt had left a ghastly wound and only work of the hardest kind could ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... The taunt was followed by another prolonged silence. Carmena smiled and tossed down first a bare corn cob and then ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... "Please do not 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. What we know, and can do well, must ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... 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; ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Are 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Whither the dwarf conducts him on the trace Of Doralice and Mandricardo bold. Behind, Hippalca him in ceaseless chase, Pursues with taunt and curses manifold. What came of this is said in other place. Turpin, by whom this history is told, Here makes digression, and returns again Thither, where faithless ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and taunt, Whom frauds forsake, and hope is cheating, Fly to your mother's arms." "I can't— You see, she's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... thinking, he crawled out of his house in the sunshine, which he did not like at all, and went across the grass to the iron railings, where the spider had then got his web. The spider saw him coming, and being very proud of his cleverness, began to taunt ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... king and the other to the archbishop. Henry, like every one else, saw the futility of their mission, and "led them for a week," as one of them complained, "through many windings both of road and speech." With a scornful taunt that "he did not care an egg for them and their excommunications," he finally mounted his horse to ride off from the conference. "I see, I see!" he said to the frightened bishops who hurried after him to call him back; "they ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... few more good, hard jabs into the thicket of moss, vines and leaves, trying to get the hole four feet square anyway, after my rather uncalled for taunt about its size. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... mutinous!" said the old Colonna. And as the band swept on, the rude foreigners, encouraged by their leaders, had each some taunt or jest, uttered in a barbarous attempt at the southern patois, for the lazy giant, as he again appeared in front of his forge, leaning on his anvil as before, and betraying no sign of attention to his insultors, save by a heightened glow of his swarthy visage;—and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Sioux 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 night if ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... loved the children of the town. At first when they used to see him come through the arches walking hurriedly, feeling his feet in unaccustomed shoes awkward and unmanageable, and the polish of his face a thing unbearable, they would come up in wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then taunt him for the rustic nature ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... 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 pride as bought ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... venuz a no' ala bataille du commencement tanqe ala fin issint dieu n're seign^{r} ad assez de grace monstre de qei' no' et toutz nos amys sumes tut ditz tenutz de lui rendre grace et m'ciz. N're entent est a demorer en pees en le ewe taunt qe no' eoms pris c'teyn point ove no' alliez et autres nos amys de fflandres de ceo q' soit affaire. Trescher fitz dieu soit gardeyn de vo'. Don' souz n're secree seal en n're nief Cogg[143] Thom', le Mescredy en la veille ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... which the soldier-boys described these latter; you could see they were a good sort of "Janes", serious and keen for their job, looking business-like and impressive in their uniforms with many pockets. Among them were suffragists, answering the taunt of the other sex, showing that in war as well as in peace the world needed them; it had to find a place for them on board the ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely to taunt and disappoint me?" ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... their moderation and wisdom, and not to their want of sincerity or of clear spiritual views, that they endeavoured, not to build a new church, but to purify and reform their old one. Hence, in reply to the taunt of the Romanists, "Where was your religion before Luther?" they could say, "Our religion preceded your corruptions, and ever was in the Bible;" thus claiming for their founder, neither Luther, nor Calvin, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... was a man whom danger could not daunt, Nor sophistry perplex, nor pain subdue; A stoic, reckless of the world's vain taunt, And steeled the path of honor to pursue. So, when by all deserted, still he knew How best to soothe the heart-sick, or confront Sedition; schooled with equal eye to view The frowns of grief and the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... of air; this 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 ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... her eyes very wide. 'Then why do you let me go?' she asked on an ascending note, and she did not mean to taunt him. It would be so easy for him to keep her, if he knew how. She expected a despairing groan, she half hoped for a violent embrace, but he answered quietly, 'I don't really let you go. It's you I love, not just your hair and your face and the way your nose turns ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... and at this time did not mean to be. Both in 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 man was ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... taunt, and answered gravely: "My humble home would be much honored if King James should visit its halls, but Nottingham has as true archers as e'er drew bow, and Yorkshire men ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... taunt the skies With your swift-flitting form. Sweep, wild winds, sweep, And tear the deep To atoms ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... this city may be respected, and there is no other way to secure respect but to have them counted with those of men in the ballot-box on every possible question which is carried to that tribunal; and fourth, to free the mothers from the cruel taunt of being responsible for the character of their grown-up sons while denied all power to control the conditions surrounding them after they pass beyond ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... sprang on his feet in a trice, and half-unsheathed his sword to avenge this taunt on his manhood, but the pilgrim looked so unconcerned, and evinced so little emotion at this burst of anger, that the action and its result were merely momentary. Ulric resumed his seat, and the ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... of these monsters disturb my slumber, but they taunt my starvation!" yawned the poet. "Yet, now I come to think of it, I have an appointment with a man who has sworn to lend me a franc, so perhaps I had better get up before he is likely to have spent it. I shall call upon Blondette in the afternoon, when she ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Notwithstanding this taunt at the close of this speech, there was so much truth in the observations of Amine, that Father Mathias felt their power. As the wife of a Catholic he had been accustomed to view Amine as one who had backslided from the Church of Rome—not as one who had been brought up in another ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Rhine into Ettlingen. They were not equally fortunate there. The officer who guarded them was a ruffian and a villain, Captain Baumgarten. He took a pleasure in humiliating and ill-treating the brave men who had fallen into his power. That night upon my son answering fiercely back to some taunt of his, he struck him in ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said one of the staff, with something half-sneer, half-taunt as he too read and then passed the paper to the judge-advocate of ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... a poet, too— Taught by the muses how to smite the harp And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, I never murder even the girls I ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... 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
... such madness in sane woman? You ask me to prove my convictions, you ask me for the one method by which even you can be convinced, and when I show you how far my new faith has carried me you taunt me by asking who is my—victim. Oh, aunt, for the love of all you ever held dear, leave me in peace. Let me prove to you my own destiny, but leave me in peace until I have done so, or—failed. Can you not see that I am trying to preserve my sanity? And by ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... President seriously intended to make Monroe Secretary of War and the head of the General Staff, he speedily discovered that he was powerless to do so. The Republican leaders in New York felt too keenly Josiah Quincy's taunt about a despotic Cabinet "composed, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner" to permit Monroe to absorb two cabinet posts. To appease this jealousy of Virginia, Madison made an appointment ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... had blankets to stretch on the floor for beds, a general basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through the barred windows the crowds outside that flocked to the place to see the Yankees, and, when not checked by the guards, to revile and taunt them. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a 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 not, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... expenditure in luxuries. We won't spend more, publicly, it appears, than eight hundred thousand a year, on educating men gratis. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what we spend privately a year, in educating horses gratis. Let us, at least, quit ourselves in this from the taunt of Rabshakeh, and see that for every horse we train also a horseman; and that the rider be at least as high-bred as the horse, not jockey, but chevalier. Again, we spend eight hundred thousand, which is certainly a great deal of money, in making rough minds ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... recited again and again by more eloquent tongues than that of the poet of Poitiers. Dante and Petrarch had held them up to immortal contempt. Boccaccio had made them the subject of ridicule in his popular stories. But neither remonstrance nor taunt had effectually abated the prevailing corruption. It remained that a new remedy should be tried, and the time for its application was ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... sharp words, and so he was, but to himself, and in another sense. Every time he gave her money in this fashion, Geoffrey felt like a man who has paid off a debt of honour. She had taunted him again and again with her poverty—the poverty she said that he had brought her; for every taunt he would heap upon her all those things in which her soul delighted. He would glut her with wealth as, in her hour of victory, Queen Tomyris glutted dead Cyrus ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... swarthy face changed color at this taunt. He stole a swift glance at me, as if to say, "This is what I warned you was to be looked for," and smoked his pipe for a ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... what he has or has not to do with it," I broke in, for although I do not think that he meant them as a taunt, but merely as a statement of fact, Saduko's words stung me to the quick, especially as my conscience told me that they were ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... I. The nature of the imputations it contained may be conjectured from the fact, that the king ordered the writer's eyes to be put out. Another satire was directed against Richard, "King of the Romans," who was taken prisoner at Lewes. It was written to triumph over him, and taunt him with his defeat, and the nearest approach to humour in it is where it speaks of his making a castle of a windmill, which is supposed to refer to his having been captured in such a building. The humour in the satires of this time was almost entirely of a hostile or optical character. We ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... and Zoraida standing before her she stared incredulously. She was in a daze. Her first wild thought, reflecting itself unmistakably in her wide eyes, was that they had come to taunt her, he and she side by side. Then her faltering gaze left Zoraida and ignored her and went, full of earnest questioning, to Jim's face. Suddenly, at what she saw there, the red blood of joyousness ran into Betty's cheeks. At moments like this it is with ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... to be married; I can 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 Waldenweiter ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... mercy. What should he do? Should he stand stanchly by his word and let her life go out into the Beyond when he might perhaps stay its flight? Or should he weakly repudiate his word and call her from the borderland to continue to taunt and torment him? If a doctor were not summoned quickly she might die, and her death be upon his soul. Did he wish to stain himself with this crime,—for crime it would be. Was the revenge worth the hours of self-condemnation ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... nothing in a hurry—to take advice and compare ideas and points of view—to collect and classify his material in advance," Halidon argued, in answer to a taunt of mine about Paul's perpetually reiterated plea that he was still waiting for So-and-so's report; "but now that the plan's mature—and such a plan! You'll grant it's magnificent?—I should think he'd burn to see it carried out, instead of pottering over it till his enthusiasm cools ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... After her father's taunt, Beryl, with sullen resentment, locked her lips on her other pleasant experiences. Nor would she tell now how Robin had written to her guardian to send down a real violin for her to practice upon, or what fun ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... of an easy 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 to ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... a rage, turning on him, 'how dare you taunt me in this manner? it is not enough that you have ruined me, and imperilled my life, without jeering ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... this taunt prevented a reply (for there lurks some fairness in the roughest of us), or perhaps the crowd, being chiefly men knew from experience that there are occasions when it is best to let a woman say ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... children? Away, you cowardly hounds! I've hired a few Mexicans to help me, and I want none of your sympathy in this hour. Was it your hand that cut him down from the tree this morning, and if it was not, why do I need you now? Is my shame not enough in your eyes but that you must taunt me further? Do my innocent children want to look upon the faces of those who robbed them of a father? If there is a spark of manhood left in one of you, show it by leaving me alone! And you other scum, never fear but that ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... getting dusk, I sat on the sofa in a state of pleasure, smelling my fingers. Tom began to howl, she came down and took him up to pacify him, I followed her down to the kitchen, she called me an insolent boy (an awful taunt to me then), threatened to tell my mother, to give notice and leave, and left the kitchen, followed by me ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... main facts of the traffic wherefrom he had drawn immense profits, never could be proved against him, the general belief hung over the family, and made a very disagreeable cloud. Whenever Alfred Barton quarrelled with any one, the taunt was sure to be flung into his teeth. That it came now, as he imagined, was as great a shock as if Martha had slapped him in the face with her own delicate hand, and his ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... a quick lift of the head, looked at him questioningly. Raven saw anger also in the look, at last anger ready to spring. Both men had the same thought. Tenney wondered if the owner of the wood was going to taunt him again with yelling like a catamount, and Raven did actually put ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the effect of titles on the progress of a fever, or the amenability of its paroxysm, to flexure and low bending, might have seemed perhaps in the mouth of a subject to savour somewhat of irony; it might have sounded too much like a taunt upon the royal helplessness under cover of a serious philosophical inquiry, or it might have betrayed in such an one a disposition to pursue scientific inquiries farther than was perhaps expedient. But thus it ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of the members must 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 than of morals. There they were—for an example to us—that night ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Demosthenes, in spite of his frequent attempts to deprecate such 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, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... last of these verse interruptions is a fully developed Ode on Fallen Babylon. The structural form of this ode is antistrophic inversion (7, 6; 6, 7), like that of No. /iv/ of the Sonnets (above, page 260). Another effect in this ode is the Taunt or Dirge Song.—My consecrated ones ... them that exult in my majesty. The Divine voice is heard calling to God's 'hosts,' the idea suggested by the title 'Jehovah Sabaoth.' Compare Joel, chapter iii. 11 and 13; Psalm ciii. 20, 21.—I will sit upon the mount of congregation ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... none ought to oppose what Crato said, but determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put upon the wrangling disputers of ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... that work nobly," I said to him. "I think that no one in future will venture to taunt you for your ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... beast wants water?" Blue Jeans was deeply offended. Such opulence in anyone at such a moment would have seemed a needless taunt; that chance had selected the superintendent to flaunt it was surplusage of insult. Yet he could not even resent the superintendent's gesture, wide-flung and arrogant to all beholders. Again the superintendent looked to have the right of it. He clicked to Girl o' Mine and she came to him, out ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... as a surprise to everyone present, perhaps most of all to the priest. The doctor was accustomed to scold and taunt him; this unexpected championship almost took his breath away. Ebenezer Brown was too greatly annoyed even to retort, but he glanced vindictively at ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... home that very night, and, nerved to a sort of desperation, did speak to his father, ending with the usual declarations that his choice was unalterable. Perhaps it was; but, whether or not, Richard Dryce went the very way to make it so when he laughed that discordant laugh, and, with a taunt against his son's weakness of purpose and his dependent position, told him to dismiss such a scheming little hussey from his thoughts, for he was to marry when he had permission, which would never be granted to such a match as the beadle wanted to ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... The taunt would have angered me had his condition been other than it was; but coming from one so possessed of the devil of terror, it did no more ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... 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 ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... not be met poetically. Her remark was entirely destructive of poetry, since it was to the effect that poetry had nothing whatever to do with her; all her friends spent their lives in making up phrases, she said; all his feeling was an illusion, and next moment, as if to taunt him with his impotence, she had sunk into one of those dreamy states which took no account whatever of his existence. Ralph was roused by his passionate attempts to attract her attention to the fact that he was standing in the middle of his little private room in Lincoln's Inn Fields at a considerable ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... 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
... hint and quitted the store. Thereupon the long-limbed clerk verified the taunt of "counter-jumper" by clearing it at a bound. "Will you engage not to repeat that rowdy (blackguard) talk in the store while I am the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the benefit of the poor, by, the use of this wealth. But, alas, even here and now, the same, relentless fate pursued her. The villain Selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of her life. He appeared to taunt her with her dishonor, he threatened exposure if she did not become again the mistress of his passion. Gentlemen, do you wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason, was beside herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed upon her mind until she was no longer responsible ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... innuendos, too often magnifies this gipsy knowledge; and dwells not upon the means by which it may have been acquired. For this reason gave I weight to the warnings of the brown-skinned sibyl—though uttered only to taunt, and too late ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... him, Herbert," replied Percy, "where ever he is; by whom surrounded. I would taunt him as a deceiving, heartless villain, and if he demand satisfaction, by heaven, it would be joy ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... carry into effect the constitutional prohibition of slavery. As for me, I would rather face the music and meet the responsibility like a man, and send to the people of the State of Illinois the boon of universal suffrage, and of a full and complete emancipation, than meet the taunt of Northern demagogues that I would force suffrage upon North Carolina, and Tennessee, and Delaware, while I had not the courage to prescribe it for our own free States. Sir, it will be the crime of the century if now, having ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... 'is this deed before the enemy. Let each of you taunt the man, O men,' said he to his following, 'that he may ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... the mother and the aunt of the earls, are types which are constantly met with in the saga. It is a long-recognized fact that women, under lawless conditions, develop the wildest extremes of ambition, avarice, and blood-thirstiness, and taunt the men with their weak scruples. These two furies of the Orkneys plot murder with an infernal coolness, which makes Lady Macbeth a kind-hearted woman by comparison. They recognize in Sigurd a man born for leadership; determine ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... slaughtering men and women indiscriminately. A fallen warrior perchance cries for mercy, "Spare me! may I live?" says he. If the name of his conqueror's chief or king is invoked, the request is sometimes granted; if not, the only reply is a taunt, followed by a thrust or a deadly blow. Thus the scene of murder and blood goes on until the fugitives have reached their strongholds, or until the shades of evening put an end ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... 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 for having ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... "Nor taunt of enemy shall move, Nor bitterest suffering shall degrade, My heart—for with my people's love My ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... heard 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 he had been seen ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... help. But it seemed to me that the place rang with gibes, that every panel framed, however I turned myself, a cruel, sneering face. One behind me cried 'Old Clothes,' and when I turned the other hearth whispered the taunt. It added a thousandfold to my embarrassment that there was in all a certain orderliness, so that while no one moved, and none, while I looked at them, raised their voices, I seemed the more singled out, and placed as ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... 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 ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... I were, the notion of 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 ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... regret for his own sake that Zola was unable to avoid offending those prejudices which were so powerful in his time. The novelist who adopts the method of the surgeon finds it necessary to expose many painful sores, and is open to the taunt that he finds pleasure in the task. On no one did this personal obloquy fall more hardly than on Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he accumulated unseemly details and risky situations too readily; but he was an earnest man with a definite aim in view, and had formulated for ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... enlightened—organizations among civilized men, and in perfect harmony with that mischievous interference by which the enemies of our race have ever sought to sow discord among us, to prove a natural contempt for the Negro and repugnance to his leadership, then taunt us with incapacity for self-government. These flambeaus and rockets directed with unerring precision, taking effect in the very centre of our magazine, did not cause, in those for whom it was intended, a falter nor a wince in their course, but steadily and determinedly they pressed ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... cheek turned white with the taunt the words might be supposed to imply. He held her two hands in his, pressing ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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, and choked; and said she knew it was very foolish but she ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... them in the course of his lonely prowlings, and from a distance had watched them play hide and seek. He had despised them and their silly game, but, on the other hand, they did not know who he was and would not make fun of him and taunt him with unpaid bills, and it had been rather nice to listen to their cheerful voices. The ruins, too, had fired his imagination. He had viewed them much as a general views the scene of a prospective battle. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... am a jail-bird!" She flung the taunt at him, and her whole little figure was shaken with the intensity of her emotion. "If you think I'm going to pretend to be penitent—and grateful to you—you are wrong! I hate you, Jim, I loathe and despise you—you ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... few hours only after my brother's penalty had been paid into the Treasury, the two young gentlemen met in the nobles' wine-room by the Frohnwage, and von Rochow, heated by wine and heeding neither moderation nor manners, began to taunt Ursula's betrothed. After putting it to him that he had left the task to Herdegen of picking up the glove, "which peradventure he had thought was of too heavy leather," to which the other made seemly reply, he enquired, inasmuch as they were discoursing of marriage, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... imagination in the two poets, is quite insuperable. But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her. God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would do so if she ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... elated by the thought of its miraculous power, or meditated to use it for selfish ends, it deserves the taunt of the yet more selfish world. And it is reason for great rejoicing, that the difficulties of transition from the isolated to the harmonic mode of life are so great. God thus sifts his people. None ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... not find the drive back so agreeable as the previous one. Du Meresq, chafing at the confinement his fast swelling foot would probably entail, and provoked at coming to grief after Lilla's taunt was in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... parties were struck with sincere compunction, and through the intercession of a true friend, at their entreaty, the unhappy penitent was received by her father: it is said she would have proved worthy of this parental forgiveness, if an elder sister had not, by continual taunt,; and reproaches, rendered her life so miserable, that, in absolute despair, she threw herself upon Churchill for protection. Instead of making a just provision forher, which his means would have allowed, he received her as his mistress. If all his other ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... name added as a clew, though, to be sure, he was not done with Millicent yet. He would reckon with her also on the morrow. Perhaps, if he annoyed her sufficiently, she might explain that cryptic taunt. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... he exclaimed ruefully. "I have told you, I have explained and you will not believe me? Willa, you cannot have forgotten the other evening, you know what I feel toward you. You permitted me to tell you and you said that at least I might hope. Don't taunt me, dear! It's ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... "Your taunt is fair, though it pains me. And I confess to you that when I resolved to follow Canning and join his new allies, I had many a twinge. I was bred in the Tory camp; the Tories put me in Parliament and gave me office; I lived ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... dare to taunt a man with deadly poverty which eats out the heart; it is sent by the deathless gods. The best treasure a man can have is a sparing tongue, and the greatest pleasure, one that moves orderly; for if you speak evil, you yourself will soon ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod |
