"Blot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to York Factory. Not that it is such an unpleasant place—for I spent two years very happily there—but simply (to give a poetical reason, and explain its character in one sentence) because it is a monstrous blot on a swampy spot, with a partial ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... shadowy blot in the darkness, but the instant we reached the open street they saw us ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... with the casual information that she was off to Canada. She was particularly sweet. She had the tact to make the interview short. The one blot on her conduct of the interview was that she congratulated him on the possible return of Mrs. Butt, of which she had ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... choking fumes as no human hands could have done. Women frankly hysterical or swooning were roughly thrust aside. Children shrieking in uncomprehending panic were swept along with the crowd or trodden upon. Lumbering men ran and shouted and cursed and shook hairy fists at the long blot on the clouds. Some of the men leaped over iron palings like startled rabbits and flung themselves in the grass, face downward and quaking. And yet, I dare say that most of these would have walked straight into a familiar ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... guide Monsieur through the passes of the Pyrenees to Oleron as surely as through these woods, and to defend him against the Devil, if need be, as well as your papers, which we will bring you back without blot or tear. As for recompense, I want none. I always find it in the action itself. Besides, I do not receive money, for I am a gentleman. The Laubardemonts are a very ancient and very ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... as show forth and enhance the separate beauty of each inch of outline of rounded ankle, arched instep, and slender length of foot, shall lend their help. And if envious Time have something done to blur the bloom upon the cheek, or blot the clear transparent purity of skin,—sunt certa piacula,—there are not wanting means for helping a mortal Diva to some of the prerogatives of immortality ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... seemed unequal to the odds against which it was forced to contend. The odious disclosures showed that the most trifling technicalities, often only a misspelled or an interlined word, and in one instance, at least, simply an ink blot, had been held sufficient to vacate the lowest bids, the contracts afterward being assigned to other bidders at largely increased amounts. So insignificant were these informalities that in many cases the official ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the mere sake of variety. The only men who do that are the men who want to forget something, the men who filled yesterday with something they would rather not recollect to-day, and so go about seeking diversion, seeking abstraction in something that will blot out recollection, or seeking to put something into them which will blot out all recollection. Change is not worth while unless it is improvement. If I move out of my present house because I do not like it, then I have got to choose ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... shadows. I know that Philip Sidney and John Nevil have come to Ferne House, and here am I, thy oldest comrade of them all. A sheet of paper close written with record of noble deeds becomes not worthless because of one deep blot." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... their fathers have no reverence for the generation before them, then will they in turn have no reverence for their fathers. Let them be taught that the sins of their ancestors involve their own honour so little that they need not take any trouble to clear the blot off the scutcheon, but may safely sit down and laugh over it, saying, 'Very likely it is true. If so, it is very amusing; and if not—what matter?'—Then those young people are being bred up in ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... "there are many. Will you forgive me—and forget me? Will you blot out this hour from your remembrance, and go forth and do those great and noble deeds which you came into the world to perform? There is none greater than you, none ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... for to do any measure of good to the Indians, an oversight in every detail was essential; and, after all, the savages were treated with almost uniform mildness, and the instances of cruelty and wickedness practiced toward them, as in this tale of Pomponio, were most happily very rare. It is a blot on the history of the Franciscans in California that there was a single instance of anything but kindness and humanity; but the truth cannot be ignored, however much it grieve us to know it. Let us turn to Pomponio. ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... Nothing else on earth could have moved Ernest, jaded and dispirited as he was at that moment, to the painful exertion of writing a newspaper leader after the day's fatigues and excitements, except the thought that by doing so he might not only blot out this national disgrace, as he considered it, but might also help to release the martyr of the people's rights from his incredible, unspeakable punishment. Flushed and feverish though he was, he rose straight up from the table, handed the telegram to Edie without ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the religion of God and Nature; the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your Zeluco in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot it with my criticisms. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... call at this old log house as we pass; nestled under a high cliff, with the creek flowing past, it looks like some ugly blot on the "face of nature." But it is a school-house. There is no window, no chimney, only a hole in the side of the house, opening into a sort of pen of rocks, in which the fire is built; an admirable arrangement to send all the heat out of doors, and the smoke ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 3, March, 1895 • Various
... Lyons at four o'clock, taking the railway for Geneva. The scenery was very striking throughout the journey; but I allowed the hills, deep valleys, high impending cliffs, and whatever else I saw along the road, to pass from me without an ink-blot. We reached Geneva at nearly ten o'clock. . . . . It is situated partly on low, flat ground, bordering the lake, and behind this level space it rises by steep, painfully paved streets, some of which can hardly be accessible by wheeled carriages. The prosperity of the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... failure of thought, when once demonstrated in these upper regions, be confined to them. On the contrary, it will spread downwards to science and ordinary knowledge, as mountain mists blot out the valleys. For every synthesis of fact to fact, every attempt to know, however humble and limited, is inspired by a secret faith in the unity of the world. Each of the sciences works within its ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the fate of men! Even in the midst of the highest prosperity a shadow may overturn them; but if they be in adverse fortune a moistened sponge can blot ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... rippling of the beck in the valley, further calmed her; and the soothing influence was completed by a contemplation of the serene heavens, wherein were seen the starry host, with the thin bright crescent of the new moon in the midst of them, diffusing a pearly light around her. One blot alone appeared in the otherwise smiling sky, and this was a great, ugly, black cloud lowering over the summit ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The word Sums was written on the headline. Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... if our writers had also copied the decorum which their great French contemporaries, with few exceptions, preserved; for the profligacy of the English plays, satires, songs, and novels of that age is a deep blot on our national fame. The evil may easily be traced to its source. The wits and the Puritans had never been on friendly terms. There was no sympathy between the two classes. They looked on the whole system of human life from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not blot that beginning So beautiful, pure and true, With a record of wicked sinning As a common woman might do. Look up in your old frank fashion, With your smile so free from art; And say that no guilty passion Has ever crept ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the livery my father's menials had worn. I had been begging my bread from Robert Beaufort's lackey! I said nothing; the man went on his business on tiptoe, that the mud might not splash above the soles of his shoes. Then, thoughts so black that they seemed to blot out every star from the sky—thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I now gave myself up with a sort of mad joy—seized me: and I remembered you. I had still preserved the address you gave me; ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blot on this otherwise excellent work is the absurdly melodramatic character of that "villain of the deepest dye," Alec D'Urbeville, who would be thoroughly in his element in an Adelphi Drama of the most approved type, ancient or modern. He is just the sort of stage-scoundrel ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... to have come away," she said. Yet not at the price of twice this suffering—if she could suffer more—would she blot out from her soul the experience life had given her. Maybe, she thought, the blow that shattered her love-story and her happiness was a punishment for weakness in longing for the world. Yet if it were a punishment she was ready to kiss the rod, since she might hold forever ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ears three mighty sovereigns, and if this voyage have not success we shall be a scorning unto our enemies and a blot on our country forever. What triumph would it not be for Spain and Portugal! The like of this would never more be tried!" Then he gave every man his former rank and dismissed them. Moone, meeting Will Harvest that night by the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... it to you, boys, although that is a difficult matter, for the writing is uneven and much blurred. On one part of the sheet there is a blot of blood — the blood, I presume — of the poor fellow who was ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... to-morrow, and we shall dance—-so Aunt Ada has given me a new white frock and a lovely Roman sash of her own. Poor old Mrs. Vincent is dead, and Fergus's great black rabbit, and poor little Mary Brown with dip—-(blot). I can't spell it, and nobody is here to tell me how, but the thing in people's throats, and poor Anne has got it, and Dr. Ellis says it was a mercy we were all away from home, for we should have had it too, and that ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... still looking at this dwindling figure, which stood as a mere grey blot touched with a white flame against the great green wall of the steep down behind him. And as he stared over the top of the down behind the innkeeper, there appeared an army of black-clad and marching men. They seemed to hang above the good man ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... at Culloden, history could find no blot on his name, no stain on the white rose. Surviving, as he did, a broken-hearted exile, with no home, no chance of a career, "eating his own heart, shunning the paths of men," as Homer says of Bellerophon, he fell a victim to the habit ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... streaking, a mottling and massing of clouds on the blue. The fog of the London valley, and the smoke of the London chimneys, did not always, any more than the cares and sorrows and sins of its souls, blot out its heaven as if it had never looked on the earth. But he had learned much since he went to the country; he had gone nearer to Nature, and seen that in her lap she carried many more things than he knew ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... pitiful, agonized Christ upon the cross, at which she glanced from time to time over her shoulder, faded to a white blot, then vanished away in the darkness, through which, from generation to generation, it kept its watch above the dead, those dead that in their despair once had cried to it for mercy, and bedewed ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... play and several fine dramatic compositions; but throughout Shelley's poetry the dramatic spirit is deficient, while in Browning's it reveals itself so powerfully that one wonders how he has escaped writing many good plays besides the "Blot on the Scutcheon" and that fine fragmentary succession ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... is fair I love thee not; Nor yet because the light of thy brown eyes Hath gleams of wonder and of glad surprise, Like woodland streams that cross a sunlit spot: Nor for thy beauty, born without a blot, Most perfect when it shines through no disguise Pure as the star of Eve in Paradise,— For all these outward things ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... defended singly and separately from the others accused, or had he at the last moment, before judgment was pronounced, applied, with competent legal advice and assistance, for a new trial, he would have been unhesitatingly and honourably acquitted. We cannot blot out this dark page from our legal and ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... would bring on shame. They know what is proper to be done. A base deed is not befitting you, for you are so high-minded, and have such a terrible following of troops. If you committed a sinful act, it would be a blot on your fair name, as a drop of collyrium on a white cloth. Who could knowingly be ever guilty of an act, which would result in universal slaughter, which would be sinful and lead to hell,—an act consisting in the destruction (of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the golden crown to add to its dignity. Any nation with pride might have numbered amongst its heroes a man possessing the military talents of a Miltiades, with the purity of an Aristides; one whose character was without reproach, whose fame was unstained with a blot. Simple, earnest faith was the mainspring of the actions of Maccabeus. The clear, piercing gaze of the eagle, energy like that with which the strong wing of the royal bird cleaves the air, marked the noble Asmonean; for the soul's gaze was upward ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... That is his face, looking out upon us, next to Pope's. What a contrast in bodily appearance those two English men of genius present! Thackeray's great burly figure, broad-chested, and ample as the day, seems to overshadow and quite blot out of existence the author of "The Essay on Man." But what friends they would have been had they lived as contemporaries under Queen Anne or Queen Victoria! One can imagine the author of "Pendennis" gently lifting poor little Alexander ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... tired, uttered a faint, plaintive cry to call the servant, who was always at hand to assist him to sit down, to huddle himself up on some step, where he would remain for hours, motionless and silent, his mouth half-open, blinking his eyes, soothed by the strident monotony of the locusts, a human blot on the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... silence afterwards. His life and nature were being passed through a fiery crucible. In all the years that had gone, he had had an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them, a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fingers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. If she was alive now—if she was still alive! Her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grief for me mar your peace, my dearest; think of me with no pain, Beatrice; only with some memory of our past love. I have not strength yet to say—forget me; and yet,—if it be for your happiness,—blot out from your remembrance all thought of what we have been to one another; all thought of me and of my life, save to remember now and then that I ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... marched the zest of exploration, and whilst wandering was in any case a necessity of his existence, he preferred to roam in untrodden ways where mere adventure might be dignified by geographical service. There was a "huge white blot" on the maps of central Arabia where no European had ever been, and Burton's scheme, approved by the Royal Geographical Society, was to extend his pilgrimage to this "empty abode," and remove a discreditable blank ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... within awoke and cried: In sooth, There is no need of sorrow, care, and strife; For all that women beauty call, and truth, Is but a glow from hearts with fancy rife, Passing away with slowly fading youth. Gaze on them narrowly, they waver, blot; Look at them fixedly, and they ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... and I appeal in behalf of my country, in behalf of those that are to come after us, of generations yet unborn, as well as those now living, that conservative men on the other side should rally to the standard of sovereign and independent States, and blot out this idea which is inculcating itself here, that all the powers of the States must be taken away, and the power of the Czar of Russia or the Emperor of France must be lodged ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... sat alone in her room on that afternoon, having gently and firmly sent Mary down to tea with the ominous message that she cared for none, she saw that the shadow between her and Jack loomed close upon them now, the shadow that would blot out all their future, as a future together. And Imogen was frightened, badly frightened, at the prospect ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... conversazione for which cards were issued by Doctor Feasible, was on a superior scale. There was a considerable increase of company. He had persuaded a country baronet; secured the patronage of two ladies of rank (with a slight blot on their escutcheons), and collected, amongst others, a French count (or adventurer), a baron with mustachios, two German students in their costumes and long hair, and an actress of some reputation. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... friends and your wife must make the best of it. I shan't rob her again as I did just now. You can blot that out—antedate it. It belonged to the past. But I am not going through life as I have gone through this last year, longing for a sight of you, longing to hear you speak, and denying myself just because you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... has said, "Every one is a missionary for good or evil, whether he designs it or not; he may be a blot, radiating a dark influence over the society to which he belongs; or he may be a blessing, spreading light and benediction over his own circle,—but a blank no one can be!" And the two we have been describing belonged to these classes; one was the leaven ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... Africa, and creating a very awkward hiatus between the time the Commission would be appointed and the time the Commission could define the areas which would be regarded as white areas and the areas which would be regarded as native areas. That was the one serious blot upon this measure. ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood drawn too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were so jealous about the point of honor in those days; and gentlemen of good birth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their family coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence he returned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had of his mother, near to Winchester, and became a country gentleman, and kept a pack of beagles, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the Afghan, and, as a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan—with the exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him. The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput—that's a little lower down across this yellow blot of desert—has a strong objection, to put it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the Afghan. Let's go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I've mentioned. Very good, we'll take less warlike ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... everything to beckon us to the cultivation of relations of peace and amity with all nations. Purposes, therefore, at once just and pacific will be significantly marked in the conduct of our foreign affairs. I intend that my Administration shall leave no blot upon our fair record, and trust I may safely give the assurance that no act within the legitimate scope of my constitutional control will be tolerated on the part of any portion of our citizens which can not challenge a ready justification before the tribunal ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... crowned the King at Rheims. For reward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without making one effort to save her. During the next twenty-three years he remained indifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name was under a damning blot put there by the priest because of the deeds which she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the fact that France was ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer's fair fame restored. Indifferent all that time. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of light streamed through the fog above; the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on silent ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... not end in any other way. A masculine hand had opened the orifice through which was escaping the last bubble of her existence.... And the horrified captain, poring over her sad profile with its purpling temple, thought that he never would be able to blot that ghastly vision from his memory. The phantasm would diminish, becoming invisible in order to deceive him, but would surely come forth again in all his hours of pensive solitude; it was going to embitter his nights on watch, to follow him ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... earth like a drop of ink upon the word Sun, and the stars glitter like the points of so many poised gold pens all ready to write the softer word Moon above the blot, the organist of St. Cow's sits in his own room, where his fire keeps-up a kind of aspenish twilight, and executes upon his accordeon a series of wild and mutilated airs. The moistened towel which he often wears when at home is turbaned ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... the Lord and said, 'Oh! this people have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the party was as a blot to her I cannot delay; but I request you, that are here privileged I detest anything that has to do with gratitude Love, with his accustomed cunning No nose to the hero, no moral to the tale Nor can a protest against coarseness be sweepingly interpreted ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... blocks of brick and stone, These huge mill-monsters overgrown; Blot out the humbler piles as well, Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell The weaving genii of the bell; Tear from the wild Cocheco's track The dams that hold its torrents back; And let the loud-rejoicing fall Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall; And let the Indian's paddle ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... glad as he was. How could he know? Would he ever know? Would he always have this craving—this pang like hunger, somehow, to make Janey so much part of him that there wasn't any of her to escape? He wanted to blot out everybody, everything. He wished now he'd turned off the light. That might have brought her nearer. And now those letters from the children rustled in her blouse. He could have chucked ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... Saturday, and with her rode Samson. There, besides Wile McCager, he met Caleb Wiley and several others. At first, they received him sceptically, but they knew of the visit to Purvy's store, and they were willing to admit that in part at least he had erased the blot from his escutcheon. Then, too, except for cropped hair and a white skin, he had come back as he had gone, in homespun and hickory. There was nothing highfalutin in his manners. In short, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the shot Alan looked through the window. For a moment Rossland stood motionless. Then the pole in his hands wavered, drooped, and fell to the earth, and Rossland sank down after it making no sound, and lay a dark and huddled blot on the ground. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... with a start of recollection, and plunged down the slope into the covert. The woods received and closed upon her. Once more, she wandered and hasted in a blot, uncheered, unpiloted. Here and there, indeed, through rents in the wood-roof, a glimmer attracted her; here and there a tree stood out among its neighbours by some force of outline; here and there a brushing among the leaves, a notable blackness, a dim shine, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the icy splendours of the 'Valais depths profound.' What made the charm of the narrow prospect was, first, the sense it produced in the spectator of hanging dizzily above the lake, with infinite air below him, and, then, the magical effects of dawn and evening, when wreaths of mist would blot out the valley and the lake, and leave the eye of the watcher face to face across the fathomless abyss with the majestic mountain mass, and its attendant retinue of clouds, as though they and he were alone ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... blot hath escaped the watchfulness of the setter forth: if thou wilt thou mayst amend it. The sonnet on the forty-fourth page, against all right Italianate laws, hath but thirteen lines withal: add another ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... fervently, "I beg you never to allow yourself to think of it. Blot the accursed thing out of the Universe while—you are here. For you there ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Tuesday, mama," said Edith, who was almost ready to cry. "I remember because that was the hardest word to spell, and I think I made a blot when I ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... movement. Alvarado himself declared that he had information that the Mexicans intended to rise, but he gave no proofs, whatever, to justify his suspicions. The affair, indeed, seems to have been utterly indefensible, and must ever remain a foul blot upon Spanish honor. ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... clip cliff grit slip grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... great horse-shoe round the bay, and the bed of the Salt Lake (which is really an overflow from the sea) was a barren patch of this silver-sand, with here and there a dead mule or a sniper's body lying out, a little black blot, the haunt of vultures. ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... bring them to Rome and deposit them piously in the tomb of Augustus,—that was a natural duty of filial piety,—but he also prohibited any one to name among his ancestors the great Agrippa, the builder of the Pantheon, because his very obscure origin seemed a blot upon the semi-divine purity of his race. He had the title of Augusta and all the privileges of the vestal virgins bestowed upon his grandmother Antonia, the daughter of Mark Antony and the faithful friend of Tiberius; he had these same vestal privileges bestowed upon his ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... wind and rain, Or wander friendless far frae hame; Cheer, cheer your heart, some other swain Will soon blot ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... as thus prostrate in the dust I write My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears— But why evoke the spectres of black night To blot ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... still gives way to his old feelings; he receives or visits his friends privately; he shuts himself up with them, and talks of the times when they could be open friends. By dint of precautions they have hitherto succeeded in concealing this blot of friendship against policy; but sooner or later the newspapers will be informed of it, and will denounce him to the country as an object ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... written of Samuel (Ecclus. 46:23): "He lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy to blot out the wickedness of the nation." Therefore other saints can likewise be called prophets after they ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... a minute!" I exclaimed, seizing the inky paper. "I want to see whether I am doing right or not to sign. If that is a butterfly I am right, and if anything else, no matter what, I am wrong." I took the sheet, doubled it in the middle of the enormous blot, and pressed it firmly together. Emile Perrin thereupon began to laugh, giving up his mannikin attitude entirely. He leaned over to examine the paper with me, and we opened it very gently just as one opens one's hand after imprisoning a fly. When the paper was ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... told in many a pamphlet, memorial, and speech, with which the press has lately groaned, is a foul blot upon our otherwise immaculate reputation. Let this be conceded—yet you are no nearer than before to the conclusion that you possess power which may deal with other subjects as effectually as with this. Slavery, we are further told, with some pomp ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... will you not speak to me? Is it to be life and honor, with your love at last, or despair and death? You were promised to me once. In spite of all, you cannot hold yourself your own; you are mine; the wife God meant for me. O Vesty! let us blot out the confused past with all its mistakes! It is killing me—will kill me body and soul if you leave me now. Let me find my lost home at last: let me rest a little ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... self from disgrace. And the last of the Fletwodes, doubtless the most ambitious of all, the most bent on restoring and regilding the old lordly name, dies a felon; the infamy of one living man is so large that it can blot out the honour of the dead." He turned his eyes from the smile of the portrait, entered his own room, and, seating himself by the writing-table, drew blotting-book and note-paper towards him, took up the pen, and instead of writing fell into deep revery. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... birth having been removed by the Cardinals Pallavicini and Orsini, who had been charged with legitimating him. February 25, 1493, Gianandrea Boccaccio wrote to Ferrara regarding the legitimating of Caesar, ironically saying, "They wish to remove the blot of being a natural son, and very rightly; because he is legitimate, having been born in the house while the woman's husband was living. This much is certain: the husband was sometimes in the city and at others traveling about in the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the word be? Annie and David were both sure they could read the lines through all the blot. The first letter ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Gottingen, Berlin, and was long enough at Jena to rub the blot off the 'scutcheon. A stay at Weimar, in the Goethe country, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... by use, and he could, without remorse, officiate as the spectator, or even as the author and director, of a scene of vulgar distress. But even he was somewhat startled upon the present occasion. The character and conduct of Emily in Mr. Tyrrel's family had been without a blot. She had not a single enemy; and it was impossible to contemplate her youth, her vivacity, and her guileless innocence, without emotions of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... listening to a graphic account of what the new state of things would be like. There would be no squire, no parson, no woods or preserves—all grubbed for cabbage gardens—no parks, no farmers. 'No farmers,' said the old fellow, 'then who's to pay I my wages?' There he hit the blot, no doubt. If the first four points of the new charter were carried into effect, agricultural wages would no longer exist. But if such a consummation depends upon the action of the cottager it will be a long ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... How horrid a blot upon earth were Ireland, if its poor had no reliance but the murder of the rich; better by far that that people rose and waged open war. That were wild—that were criminal; but 'twould be wisdom and mercy ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... again and again dramatized on the narrow stage of my woman's imagination. But instead of bringing me release, it brought me heart-ache; instead of spelling victory, it came involved with the thin humiliations of compromise. For things could never be the same again. The blot was there on the scutcheon, and could never be argued away. The man I loved had let the grit get into the bearings of his soul, had let that grit grind away life's delicate surfaces without even knowing the wine ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, Who do thy work, and know it not: Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... a prouder mamma than Madam Cluck when she led forth her family of eight downy little chicks. Chanticleer, Strut, Snowball, Speckle, Peep, Peck, Downy, and Blot were their names; and no sooner were they out of the shell than they began to chirp and scratch as gaily as if the big world in which they suddenly found themselves was made for their especial benefit. It was a fine brood; but ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... up a vein, And gave the finished mesh a crimson blot - The last consummate touch of studied art. But those who knew strong passion and keen pain, Looked through and through the pattern and found not One single ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... greatest masters their faults, We are willing to cover with the veil of oblivion those of the said Baron; do hereby grant him, with regret, the Congee he requires;—and abolish his Office altogether, to blot it from men's memory, not judging that anybody after the said Baron can be worthy to fill it." "Done at Potsdam, this 1st of April, 1744. FREDERIC." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... other, bespoke the origin of the two colonies, and told that true manhood was there to do and die for what it believed was right. When that struggle was ended, the first to clasp hands in mutual friendship and affection were Virginia and Massachusetts. If we were to blot from the history or geography of the Nation the deeds or territory of the ancient dominions of John Smith, President of Virginia and Admiral of New England, a beggarly record of area would be left, in spite of the glorious records of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... over the bent form of the ape, but suddenly the form, with its back to him, seemed to straighten up and blot out the cupboard of drawers. The ape had changed to the form of a woman, dressed in the pretty Gillikin costume, and when she turned around he saw that it was a young woman, whose ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... him, but recalling with more and more freshness and certainty the scenes of which he was once a part. The years slip away. Two hundred and more of them lie between, it is true; but not two hundred nor ten times two hundred can blot out the lines of a record in which the struggle and the hope of all English-speaking people was one. For past or present alike, London stands as the fountain-head; and thus, whatever pain may come from the oppressive sense of crowded, swarming life ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... against such degrading tyranny, we can only say of that system which has thus robbed womanhood of all its glory and greatness, what the immortal Channing did of slavery, "If," said he, "it be true that the slaves are contented and happy—if there is a system that can blot out all love of freedom from the soul of man, destroy every trace of his Divinity, make him happy in a condition so low and benighted and hopeless, I ask for no stronger argument against such a slavery as ours." No! never believe it; woman falsifies herself and blasphemes her God, when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... his eyes it was with the fear that he should see her still bending over the little embroidery frame at the window. Finding himself alone, he sat up in bed and gave the broken head an opportunity to blot him out if it could. For a little space the walls of the room became as the interior of a hollow peg-top, spinning furiously with a noise like the rushing of many waters. After the surroundings had resumed their normal figurings he rose to his knees. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... face so fair, as flesh it seemed not, But heavenly portrait of bright angel's hue, Clear as the sky, withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexions due; And in her cheek the vermeil red did shew Like roses in a bed of lilies shed, The which ambrosial odours from them threw And gazers' sense with double pleasure fed, Able to heal the sick and ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the softness and the graces of theirs. Men will then add affection to the esteem which they before had for you. Women are the only refiners of the merit of men; it is true, they cannot add weight, but they polish and give lustre to it. 'A propos', I am assured, that Madame de Blot, although she has no great regularity of features, is, notwithstanding, excessively pretty; and that, for all that, she has as yet been scrupulously constant to her husband, though she has now been married above a year. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... had evidently been at work on their letters, but had all evidently pulled up suddenly, for each displayed a blot as a ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... her chief anxiety was to avoid blots. Every blot might become an occasion of humiliation to teacher and pupils alike. "Oh, this will never do! They must not see this!" she would cry, rubbing out with infinite care and pains the blot, and rubbing in the horror ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... possessed their confidence in such a measure as he. If he had stayed still longer with Moses, people would have declared that he had absconded with all these things and fled to Moses to share it with him, and that would have been a blot on his fair name and that of Moses. Jethro had furthermore made many debts during the year in which he came to Moses, for, owing to the hail God had sent upon Egypt before the exodus of Israel, a great famine had arisen in Jethro's home too, and he had found himself obliged to lend money for the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... clerks and a head clerk; and the old head clerk is the worst of all, for he can't understand anything." But she only said this to frighten Jack the Dullard: and the clerks gave a great crow of delight, and each one spurted a blot out of his pen on to ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... endures from age to age, From age to age endures, handmaid of God. Poets who walk with her on earth go hence Bearing a talisman. You bury one, With his hushed music, in some Potter's Field; The snows and rains blot out his very name, As he from life seems blotted: through Time's glass Slip the invisible and magic sands That mark the century, then falls a day The world is suddenly conscious of a flower, Imperishable, ever to ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... reached it, along a road ploughed with fresh obus-holes, I didn't want to stop the motor; I wanted to hurry on and blot the picture from my memory! It was doubly sad to look at because of the fact that it wasn't quite dead; faint spasms of life still quivered through it. A few children played in the ravaged streets; a few pale mothers ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown upon ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was only in his presence that she lost her red sense of shame, and though she still walked nobly, looked with clear eyes, and carried a high head, she fancied herself bent by broken pride, blinded and dusty-haired. Zebedee's books helped her to blot out that vision of herself and the other of Mildred Caniper still sitting by the fire and refusing the fulness of the sun. What she read amazed her with its profundity and amused her with its inconclusiveness. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... razors in Dr. Wolcot's story, is made to sell. This last word has a rather equivocal meaning— but we scorn to blot, otherwise we should say to be sold. An article offered for sale may, nevertheless, be worth buying; and it is hoped that the resemblance between the aforesaid razors, and this our production, does not extend to the respective sharpness of the commodities. The razors ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... than this, he had dishonoured the Guard, brought the first blot of treachery upon its long and unblemished traditions. Hereditary instincts inbred and powerful were arrayed against him in the hearts of six of his judges; in the seventh, Count Sagan, he had to ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... darkness blot out all trace of land. Back some little distance, it was true, they could still glimpse feeble lights, marking the location of Dunkirk. The French no longer feared to illuminate to a limited extent since bombing planes no longer came raiding at night, ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... Nothing moved and there were no sounds, only the wheeling sun changed the course of the shadows. In the morning they slanted from the hills behind, eagerly stretching after the train, straining to overtake and hold it, a living plaything in this abandoned land. At midday a blot of black lay at the root of every sage brush. At evening each filigreed ridge, each solitary cone rising detached in the sealike circle of its loneliness, showed a slant of amethyst at its base, growing longer and finer, tapering prodigiously, and turning ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... genial and romantic young squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities. To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and there is no blot upon the history of that house—nothing but faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot upon Ste. Marie ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... us that time can never tame; And life will always seem a careless game; And they'd better far forget— Those who say they love us yet— Forget, blot ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... foreign tyrant, who bids defiance to the most sacred treaties and the law of nations, and who would like to overthrow all thrones to convert the foreign kingdoms and empires into provinces of his empire, blot out the history of the nations and dynasties, and have all ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... to them to be able to look on it no longer as something ugly and hateful, a blot on nature, but as an illusion, a mistake, an unconscious crime, so to speak, that has for its motive the noblest passion that animals know—that sublime courage and daring which they exhibit in defence of a distressed companion. This fiery ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... do not say, looking at each other, we too, Germain and I, 'How happy we are! O, God, how happy we are!' and, naturally, your name follows directly after these words. Excuse the scrawl there is just here, my lord, and the blot; I had written without thinking, M. Rudolph, as I used to say, and I have scratched it out. I hope, by the way, that you will find my writing has improved much, as well as my orthography, for Germain always shows me how, and I no longer make ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... historian sets the sum total down at a different figure. Take it, however, at the very lowest, it is still a horrible one. Let us shut our eyes and pass on. The history of those days remains in Carlyle's words, "Not a picture, but a huge blot: an indiscriminate blackness, one which the human memory cannot willingly ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... filthy tavern, or some low haunt of vulgar debauchery. The great difference is, that the table and chair cannot feel, and the man can; for even a legal enactment that he shall be "taken, reputed, adjudged in law, to be a chattel personal," cannot blot out his soul, with its own private little world of memories, hopes, loves, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... personal acquaintance in this parish, it would be presumption in me to expect that you will visit my cottage, but I will attend you in any part of the Forest if you will send me word. I am far from supposing that a person of your discernment,—d-n it, I'll blot out that, 'tis so like flattery. I say I don't think you would despise a shepherd's "humble cot an' hamely fare," as Burns hath it, yet though I would be extremely proud of a visit, yet hang me if I would know what to do wi' ye. I am surprised ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... since,—both Old School and New School,—has been, for forty years and more, bearing testimony, after a fashion, against the system of slavery; that is to say, affirming, in one breath, that slave-holding is a "blot on our holy religion," &c. &c.; and then, in the next utterance, making all sorts of apologies and justifications for the slave-holder. Thus: this august body has been in the habit of telling the Southern master (especially in the Detroit resolutions of 1850) that ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... cling to some vague and fanciful expectation that the mere act of dying, so to call it, will itself work a great change upon the soul, will blot out our sins, will clear away our imperfections, will in an instant heal the wounds and scars, which evil habits, long inured in us, have wrought upon the soul? It will do nothing of the sort. We shall be ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the balm of a silent and thoughtful charity. Why do we let human malignity embitter us? why should ingratitude, jealousy—perfidy even—enrage us? There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The simplest plan is to blot everything out. Anger, rancor, bitterness, trouble the soul. Every man is a dispenser of justice; but there is one wrong that he is not bound to punish—that of which he himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged. ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distorting all others: she was in danger of arrest, imprisonment, the shame and ignominy of public prosecution. Even though she were to be cleared of the charge, the stain of it would cling to her, an ineradicable blot. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... brothers' and sisters' sneers, Who often said, as I have heard, That they wouldn't own a prison-bird; (Though they're gettin' over that, I guess, For all of 'em owe me more or less;) But I've learned one thing; an' it cheers a man In always a-doin' the best he can; That whether on the big book, a blot Gets over a fellow's name or not, Whenever he does a deed that's white, It's credited to him fair and right. An' when you hear the great bugle's notes, An' the Lord divides his sheep and goats, However they may settle my ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... nothing, and they turned into the main valley. They walked with long and springy steps, left the valley behind them, and began to climb the slopes. Presently the valley itself became invisible, the mountains seeming to close in and blot ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... man, Mr. Steele. I commend the nicety of your scruples and am quite ready to trust myself to them. I own to no blot, in my past or present life, calling for public arraignment. If my statement of the fact is not enough, I here swear on the ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... her torturers, still tormenting her, while the man she made king stands looking on indifferently, heartlessly. All the honor and statuary that ever had creation on this green earth cannot atone for this crime of "civilization" on the innocent. But it is only one blot of many with which the world moves on, branded indelibly to its unknown end; and beneath a pleasant exterior we know, but try to hide, those blots, with apologies for our ancestors. And yet some say the world is getting no better. Out ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... wedding—from which from tradition Levin expected so much, was not merely not a time of sweetness, but remained in the memories of both as the bitterest and most humiliating period in their lives. They both alike tried in later life to blot out from their memories all the monstrous, shameful incidents of that morbid period, when both were rarely in a normal frame of mind, both were ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Dominguez, who, together with many of the most respectable and wealthy citizens of California, is now excluded from voting by a clause of the Constitution, which denies that privilege to Indians and negroes. This unjust exception—a blot on an otherwise admirable Constitution—was adopted after a warm debate, and against fierce opposition. The attempt to prohibit free people of color from inhabiting the State failed by a large majority. The clause ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... on the ground, seemed to see there, in fiery type, the words of the paper in her grasp. Those scrawling lines, roaming from blot to blot across the soiled sheet, had communicated to Jane no pain of a personal sort. So far, indeed, as their trend took her on the score of feeling, she might even have found something satisfying in Mr. Keene's news, ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... could not be called a very well written one; there were several mistakes in the spelling, and here and there, a great blot could tell that a good deal of his heart had gone into it; but whatever it was, it was ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... got some sort of anti-collision radar," I said. I guessed we had, because twice we'd jogged in our course a little, maybe to clear the Alleghenies. The easterly green star was by now getting pretty close to the violet blot of Atla-Hi. I looked out at the orange soup, which was one thing that hadn't changed a bit so far, and I got to wishing like a baby that it wasn't there and to thinking how it blanketed the whole Earth (stars over the Riviera?—don't make me laugh!) ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... how Monsieur Blanc's modestly denominated Societe Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Etrangers made it a point to proffer a railway ticket to any impending wreck, such as himself, who might drift like a stain across its roads of merriment, or leave a telltale blot upon one of its perennially beautiful and ever-odorous flower-beds. But now, as he reviewed those past weeks of hesitation and inward struggle, a sense of relapse crept over him. As he recalled the picture of the clear-cut profile between the floating purple curtains, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... have any of your bitter moralities," said Jenny; "they are only to be taken as the invariable bay-leaf which Professor Blot introduces into all his recipes for soups and stews,—a little elegant bitterness, to be kept tastefully in the background. You see now, papa, I should like the vocation of being beautiful. It would just ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not for her?" Miss Roots, B.A., retorted, stung by his undisguised repugnance. If Lucia had got her post merely by interest (which Miss Roots seemed to consider as something of a blot on her career) at the end of her first year she had the pick of the students waiting for her. Unfortunately Lucia had never been strong; and this summer her health ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... hair's-breadth removed from actual, and even from intentional, untruth.'—Whether traceable to descent, or to the evil influence of Buckingham and the intriguing atmosphere of the Spanish marriage-negotiations, this defect in political honesty is, unquestionably, the one serious blot on the character of Charles I.—Yet, whilst noting it, candid students will regretfully confess that the career of Elizabeth and her counsellors is defaced by shades of bad faith, darker ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave |
