"Aspersion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some time, employed to be schoolmaster, precentor and session clerk to Mr. John Guthrie, minister of the gospel then at Tarbolton[218]. When he was about to enter into the ministry, he was accused by a young woman, as being the father of a child, which she was with. But of this aspersion he was fully cleared, by the confession of the real father. The woman, after suffering many calamities, put an end to her own life, in the very same place where Mr. Peden had spent 24 hours seeking the divine direction, while he was ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... to fleer and gibe? Who with less designing ends Kindlier entertains her friends; With good words and countenance sprightly, Strives to treat them more politely? Think not cards my chief diversion: 'Tis a wrong, unjust aspersion: Never knew I any good in 'em, But to dose my head like laudanum. We, by play, as men, by drinking, Pass our nights to drive out thinking. From my ailments give me leisure, I shall read and think with pleasure; Conversation learn to relish, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... tranquilly. "I was simply stating a fact without aspersion. It is the more to your credit that you have been able to raise yourself up among us—and so very young! You are not more than forty, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... close with one single thought in connection with this objection. I protest in the name of my countrywomen against the aspersion which is cast upon them by those who say that woman is not fit to hold office or discharge public trusts. The name of what potentate to-day, if you go round the world, would probably, in every nation on the earth, bring down most enthusiasm and public approbation? If I now, here in your ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the Indians and Persians pearls are found in strong white sea-shells, being created at a regular time by the admixture of dew. For the shells, desiring as it were a kind of copulation, open so as to receive moisture from the nocturnal aspersion. Then becoming big they produce little pearls in triplets, or pairs, or unions, which are so called because the shells when scaled often produce only single pearls, which ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... nature incapable of repaying kindness by aspersion, I feel that I am no less above the meanness of attempting a return in that base coin—flattery; that which I saw I say, and as I saw it. I blame none of my predecessors for their general views, but claim the right of differing ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... spry girl, sprang into the arena, armed with the soup-ladle, and dispensed injustice on all sides. The feud now reached its height. There is nothing that the chief participants did not call one another, and no intimation or aspersion concerning the reputation of ancestors to the remotest generation that was not cast in the others' teeth. The spry girl referred to the sausage-vender as a generalissimo of all the fiends, and the compliments concerning the gentle art of cookery which flew between the fritter-woman ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... often have to do very hard and even inhumane things for no apparent reason. Our consciences alone support us. An impression, I am told, sometimes gets abroad that we yield to clamour. Those alone who know us realize how unfounded that aspersion is." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his ears that an ill-natured insinuation was circulating there that he had been induced to leave this town by the temptation of a better income and of fat pork, which, it would appear, was plentiful in the locality of his new incumbency. Indignant at such an aspersion, he wrote a letter, directed to his maligners, vindicating himself sharply from it, which he showed to his grandfather, John Skinner of Langside, for his approval. The old gentleman objected to it as too lengthy, and proposed the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the mind or advancing any real knowledge; and, where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means content with a list of names; he should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation; and graft the gardener, the planter, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... unpropitious to the common necessities of mankind, by which we are to deny ourselves the knowledge of what the rest of the world knows, and what so great a part of the world both knows and feels. I do not deprecate any appearance which may give countenance to this aspersion from suspicion that any corrupt motive can influence this court; I deprecate it from knowing that hitherto we have moved within the narrow circle of municipal justice. I am afraid, that, from the habits acquired by moving within a circumscribed sphere, we ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... had been prepared at the entrance of the first court under a bower composed of four small trees which overshadowed it with their foliage. Here the bishop put on his pontifical robes. After the aspersion of the holy water, he was conducted to the chapel in procession, with the singing of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin; and the whole function closed with the prayers and ceremonies prescribed for the occasion in Roman Pontifical.' ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Clarence had been solemnly attainted by act of parliament, and his children were out of the question. The doubts on the validity of Edward's marriage were better grounds for Richard's proceedings than aspersion of his mother's honour. On that invalidity he claimed the crown, and obtained it; and with such universal concurrence, that the nation undoubtedly was on his side —but as he could not deprive his nephews, on that foundation, without bastardizing their sisters too, no wonder, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... my presence," said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pass from lip to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate your fame." ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... portions of the miserable woman's confession which related to myself, with unaffected surprise, and, I can honestly add, with sincere distress. I had regretted, truly regretted, the aspersion which I had thoughtlessly cast on her memory, before I had seen a line of her letter. But when I had advanced as far as the passage which is quoted above, I own I felt my mind growing bitterer and bitterer ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... theologian, says: "The practice of the Church of interceding for the dead at the celebration of the Eucharist, is so general and so ancient, that it cannot be thought to have come in upon imposture, but that the same aspersion will seem to take hold of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Rafael Rocas—for he is the owner of the hut—is not the man to trouble himself about denying it. He would scarce consider smuggling an aspersion on his character; and indeed, under old Mexican administration, it would have been but slight blame, or shame, to him. And not such a great deal either under the new, at the time of which we write, but perhaps still less. Compared with other crimes then rife in California, contrabandism might almost ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... printed in Spanish, &c. Give me leave then to refresh my muse a little, and my weary readers, to expatiate in this delightsome field, hoc deliciarum campo, as Fonseca terms it, to [4431] season a surly discourse with a more pleasing aspersion of love matters: Edulcare vitam convenit, as the poet invites us, curas nugis, &c., 'tis good to sweeten our life with some pleasing toys to relish it, and as Pliny tells us, magna pars studiosorum amaenitates quaerimus, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a number of minor points that would tell in their favour, Ocock dilated upon the libellous aspersion that had been cast on Mahony's good faith. "My experience has invariably been this, Mr. Mahony: people who suggest that kind of thing, and accuse others of it, are those who are accustomed to make use of such means themselves. In this case, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Russian trenches, spending ammunition with their customary lavishness. The day's shelling justified the Russian opinion that of the German forces their artillery and cavalry are the weakest arm and their infantry is the best. The positions are not greatly disturbed by the day-long aspersion with shrapnel, and the Russians are more than ready for the attack. On this front the infantry attacks usually in line, but this night they came up in dense columns. The Russian guns were at work promptly with the fuses of the shells reduced, so that they burst ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Doctors of my youth, who, indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled. Then "the courtly manners of the old school"—when did they go out? I do not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... his own indiscreet zeal, that he brought on himself the first violence and persecution. A report being spread that Cranmer, in order to pay court to the queen, had promised to officiate in the Latin service, the archbishop, to wipe off this aspersion, published a manifesto in his own defence. Among other expressions, he there said, that as the devil was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies, he had at this time stirred up his servants to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume |
