"Taint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... injury from others, so she will be safe under your protection. Take no ordinary standard as the rule of your courtship, but determine from the very beginning that it shall be so conducted, that when as man and wife you look back upon it, it may be with feelings free from any taint of sorrow or shame; that when you stand before God to be married it may be as honest man and maiden, seeking for God's full blessing upon your married life, as it has rested upon your unmarried days. One thing I ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... general opinion is merely a vice, while a vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character." "One," says Macaulay, "is a local malady, the other is a constitutional taint." I have quoted the famous historian in this connection because his observations are, I think, illustrative of my contention, viz., that morality is largely a matter of convention, sanctioned or condemned by what Macaulay terms "the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... this argument. Humor was one of her saving qualities which, as Whittier says, "kept her philanthropy free from any taint of fanaticism." It contributed greatly to her cheerfulness. Of her fame, she says playfully: "In a literary point of view I know I have only a local reputation, done ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... sorrow was an evil, a passing to lesser perfection, diminished vitality. Let him rather rejoice that the real work of his life—his Ethica, which he was working out on pure geometrical principles—would have no taint of personality, would be without his name, and would not even be published till death had removed the last possibility of personal interest in its fortunes. "For," as he was teaching in the book itself, "those who desire to aid others by counsel ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... or book. They tell me that in Burmah live a happy people who love beauty, are always smiling and follow the Golden Rule far nearer than those who live by trade and are blest by civilization. Ah, that I might see such a people! The nearest I ever came was at Honolulu, and there was the taint of the Christian, alack-a-day! The White Man's Burden is the weight of the load of sin, disease, death, and misfortune he has dropped on the happy ones who never knew a Christian creed. We have given them bath tubs in exchange ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... degree, her civil from her military power. All states of the world, however great, fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a less instant form of error (because involving no national taint of cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal—it is the error especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the calamitous consequences—to take away the best blood and strength of the nation, all the soul-substance ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... whom she has reformed And the average feminine fortress is stormed. In rescuing men from abysses of sin She loses her head—and herself tumbles in. The mind of a woman was shaped for a saint, But deep in her heart lies the devil's own taint. With plans for salvation her busy brain teems, While her heart longs in secret to know how sin seems. And if with this question unanswered she dies, Temptation came not in the right sort of guise. There's my estimate, Reese, of the beautiful sex; I see by your face ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the predominating or crowning virtue that Shakespeare demands in rulers. But the Shakespearean code is innocent of any taint of sentimentality, and mercifulness is far from being the sovereign's sole qualification or primal test of fitness. More especially are kings and judges bound by their responsibilities and their duties to eschew self-glorification or self-indulgence. It is the virtues ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... beginning of pure and perfect life into the midst of humanity. All the rest of mankind, knit together by that mysterious bond of natural descent which only now for the first time is beginning to receive its due attention on the part of men of science, by heredity have the taint upon them. And if Jesus Christ is only one of the series, then there is no deliverance in Him, for there is no sinlessness in that life. However fair its record may seem on the surface, there is beneath, somewhere ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... at all delighted. "They'll jes' bother ye, Miss Goldthwaite," said she; "an' besides, 'taint no use visitin' on Sundays—I don't ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... herself all along the shore. We got to watching on the headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and had to pinch themselves. It ought to read in the Bible, 'Man cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things; 'taint bread that wears the worst on you! First part of the time, old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got acquainted, I found he'd been through more disasters than I had, and had troubles that wa'n't ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... all lie and even the best have their price? Were there only three or four that didn't deceive their husbands? When Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for the gossip of a village parlour—a scorn that kept its freshness in a very tainted air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did her husband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often lied, and she had practised deceptions that were not simply verbal. It was enough to find these facts assumed among Osmond's traditions—it was ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... weight of my approaching feet. I'll make the inspired threshold of his court Sweat with the weather of my horrid steps, Before I enter; yet, I will appear Like calm securitie, befor a ruin. A politician must, like lightning, melt The very marrow, and not taint the skin; His wayes must not be seen through, the superficies Of the green centre must not taste his feet, When hell is plowed up with the wounding tracts, And all his harvest reap't ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the doctor emphatically. "Her father and mother were both sound and well-balanced. I know the history of the family through three generations, and there's no hint of any taint. Twenty-five years ago Holladay, who was then just working to the top in Wall Street, drove himself too hard—it was when the market went all to pieces over that Central Pacific deal—and had a touch of apoplexia. It was just a touch, but I made him take a long ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... life of the nation which has resulted in the conscious ideal of the Britain of to-day. The "separation" from Rome fifty years after Bosworth had no conscious imperial purpose, but it rescued the rising empire of England from the taint of medievalism which sapped the empires of Spain, of the Bourbons, and of the Hapsburgs. The Reformation in England owes much of its character amongst the people at large, apart from the government, above ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... could see that he was still unhappy, and I have no doubt that he has that pullet on his conscience yet, unless he has paid for it. He was of a race which elsewhere has so immemorially plundered hen-roosts that chickens are as free to it as the air it breathes, without any conceivable taint of private ownership. But the spirit of New England had so deeply entered into him that the imbecile broiler of another, slain by pure accident and by its own contributory negligence, was saddening him, while I was off in my train without a pang for the owner and with only ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cannot believe that we live in a world of chance, any more than Darwin could, yet I feel that I am as free from any teleological taint as he was. The world-old notion of a creator and director, sitting apart from the universe and shaping and controlling all its affairs, a magnified king or emperor, finds no lodgment in my mind. Kings and despots have had their day, both in heaven and on earth. The universe is a democracy. The ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... AND EPIGRAM.—Roman satire, subsequently to Horace, is represented by Persius and Juvenal. Persius (34-62 A.D.) early attached himself to the Stoic philosophy. He was pure in mind, and free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. Although Lucilius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist, nor do we find in his writings the enthusiastic indignation which burns in the verses of Juvenal. His purity of mind and kindliness of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... orator; and Father Ritchie (if he was a father then) "hailed this young Carolinian as one of the master spirits who stamp their names upon the age in which they live." This speech contains one passage which savors of the "chivalric" taint, and indicates the provincial mind. In replying to the objection founded on the expenses ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... something and the hens will listen; then answer him back, 'yes'. One day I heard a turkey hen say, 'we are poor, we are poor'. The old turkey gobbler said, 'well, who in the hell can help it.' Yes sir, they talk just like we do, but 'taint everybody ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... Dick in the latter's room, "that both sides of the case look to me, at present, like blank walls. It won't be enough to clear you of the charge as far as the action of the court goes. We must do everything in our power to remove the slightest taint from your name, or your position with your brother cadets will never be quite ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... at Sagasta-weekee. Cold they were, and at times the blizzards had howled around, but as a general thing the days had been full of sunshine and the nights of wondrous beauty. Wretched days of fogs and mists and damps were almost unknown. The air at all times was full of ozone, and knew no taint of fever or malaria. There was a luxury in living where the skies were nearly always bright and the air was always ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... a white rose: I picked it with my hand, and, you see, a drop of my blood is on it; when you can give me a rose with a drop of your blood on it as free from taint as the stain mine makes, I shall have an answer that will not be ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... an old key,—"If I rest, I rust,"—would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest taint of idleness. Even the industrious might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust, and, ultimately, cannot do the work ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... running, soothing his quivering body, and the steady voice was bringing infinite messages of reassurance to the troubled brain. That hand was loosening now the rope which was burning into his neck—loosening it, drawing it off. And now the bridle followed; and Diablo's mouth was free from the cruel taint of the steel. The head of the stallion turned—great, soft eyes looked into the face of Bull Hunter and accepted ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... men and women were unable to see, and the day of disclosure would be the day of Triumph. In one sense we were truly Arcadians: no suspicion of impropriety, I verily believe, entered any of our minds. In our aspirations after what we called a truer life there was no material taint. We were fools, if you choose, but as far as possible from being sinners. Besides, the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Shelldrake, who naturally became the heads of our proposed community were sufficient to preserve us from slander ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... "Well, you know 'taint all clear profit," said Dick, who had already set to work. "There's the blacking costs something, and I have to get a new ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... disrespectfully called the head of his family, loathed the stage. It was his one dread that some day the blueness of his blood might run the risk of taint by being even remotely connected ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... head up! But that's what has made me worry, more than once, during my "experiment." Have we risked the girl to the danger of being spoiled? Will our little superficialities, so ingrained that we don't realize them, taint her splendid unaffectedness? I don't know—I can't tell until I see her back at Kettle—in that environment the like of which I've never found anywhere else. If she isn't the same shining-eyed Jerry plus considerable ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... him to believe that he was in little danger of injury, much less death. Kapolski, reckless, a despiser of all things American, eagerly consented to the plan, and Ugo saw a way to rid himself of a dangerous rival without the taint of suspicion besmirching his cloak. Sallaconi was an accomplished swordsman, but it would have been unwise to send him against Quentin. Ugo himself was a splendid shot and an expert with the blade, and it was not cowardice that kept him from taking the affair in his own hands. It was wisdom, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... detestable music itself, this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day after,—this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the tune ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... importance might be mentioned, it is well to note that Roger Bacon (1214-1294) stands out prominently as the first philosopher of the mediaeval period who turned his attitude of mind earnestly toward nature. It is true that he was not free from the taint of dogmatic theology and scholastic philosophy which were so strongly prevailing at the time, but he advocated the discovery of truth by observation and experiment, which was a bold assumption at that time. He established as one of his main principles that experimental ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... ladylike, high-spirited, joyous creature. Those struggles of her father to get rid of the last porcine taint, though not quite successful as to himself, had succeeded thoroughly in regard to her. It comes at last with due care, and the due care had here been taken. She was so nice that middle-aged men wished themselves younger that they ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... that overjoyed me beyond expression. I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at such an exhibition as our government. 'Taint decent; no gent can hold a candle to it. But it's a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed) and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the TIMES, which it makes my jaws yawn to re-read, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lanyard strolled into the Ritz on the minute of their appointment. To the contrary she was all of twenty-five minutes late; a circumstance so consistently feminine as to rob their meeting of any taint of the extraordinary; they might have been simple sweethearts meeting to dine remote from jealous or censorious eyes, rather than one of the most useful Parisian agents of the British Secret Service under orders to put her talents at the disposition ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Pomp. de parricid. cited by Mr. Ray. Here might come in (or be nam'd at least) wild-cornel, or dog-wood, good to make mill-cogs, pestles, bobins for bone-lace, spokes for wheels, &c. the best skewers for butchers, because it does not taint the flesh, and is of so very hard a substance, as to make wedges to cleave and rive other wood with, instead of iron. (But of this, see chap. II. book II.) And lastly, the viburnum, or way-faring-tree, growing ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Forster's enemies on the Opposition benches, though not very numerous, were very bitter, and they at once put forward as the strongest card they could play against Mr. Forster the name of Lord Hartington. Lord Hartington was, like Forster himself, a man of high character, to whom no taint of intrigue attached. He had not offended any section of the party in the way in which Forster had offended the Nonconformists, and, above all, he was the son and heir of the Duke of Devonshire. Social influence counts ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... and holy persecution commenced. Not only did more than five hundred Jews perish in the dark and secret gripe of the Grand Inquisitor, but several hundred of the wealthiest Christian families, in whose blood was detected the hereditary Jewish taint, were thrown into prison; and such as were most fortunate purchased life by the sacrifice of half their treasures. At this time, however, there suddenly broke forth a formidable insurrection amongst these miserable ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... among the clergy men of brighter genius and men of wider attainments: but during a long period there was none who more completely represented the order, none who, on all subjects, spoke more precisely the sense of the Anglican priesthood, without any taint of Latitudinarianism, of Puritanism, or of Popery. He had, in the days of the Exclusion Bill, when the power of the dissenters was very great in Parliament and in the country, written strongly against the sin of nonconformity. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the world as a separate and selfish scheme of ours; and that which we believe to be entitled to the dignity and credit of an effort on behalf of the general peace, stability, and interest of Europe actually contracts a taint of selfishness in the eyes of other nations because of the manner in which the subject of Belgian neutrality is too frequently treated in this House. If I may be allowed to speak of the motives which have actuated Her Majesty's Government in the matter, I would ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... "Jest yet 'taint easy to tell. Thar's somethin' on foot among 'em—some darned Injun trick. Clar as I kin see, that big chief wi' the red cross on his ribs, air him they call the Horned Lizard; an' ef it be, thar ain't a cunniner coon on all this contynent. He's sharp enough to contrive some tight trap for us. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... it for yourselves, if you've just bought it?' asked the woman coolly. ''Taint good enough for you, now you've had a look at it. Frightened it's got something in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Hath dar'd to taint my name with slander? Thy Selim lives; nay, more, he soon shall reign, If thou ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... not so," said Max deliberately. "She was responsible from first to last. She knew of the taint in her veins. He did ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... quail, as on yon little islet They have planted the feet that defile it? Make its sands pure of taint, by the stroke of the sword, And by torrents of blood in red sacrifice pour'd! Doubts are Traitors, if once they persuade you to fear, That the foe, in his foothold, is safe from your spear! When the foot of pollution ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... a moldy taint, and the wind blew the dead leaves around us. As we rode through the darkness I counted the glimmering lights which flashed across our way till we got out on the high-road where they grew scarce, and the wind whistled ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... can portray the villages of Castile, set on their arid heights, against backgrounds of blue skies; Blasco Ibanez can paint the life of the Valencians in vivid colours with a prodigality that carries with it the taint of the cheap, but none of them has penetrated into the popular soul. That would require a great poet, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... corroborating proofs, the jury found him guilty, upon which he arraigned the justice of a Court which hitherto had been preserved without a taint, declaring that he was innocent, and that they might punish if they would, but they could not make him guilty, and much more to the like effect; but the Court were not troubled with that, so he scarce endeavoured to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... troubled at being cast off by God; it is so conscious of its demerit, that it consents to the deprivation of the sensible presence of God. But it cannot endure the thought that the taint of its corruption reaches even to God. It does not wish to sin. Let me decay, is its cry, and find my home in the depths of hell, if only I may be kept free from sin. It no longer thinks of love, for it believes itself to be incapable of affection. It is, in its own opinion, worse than when it ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... gifted editor of the Albany Journal, who headed the delegation thus selected, deemed it expedient to withdraw. Five associates did likewise. Nevertheless, the opponents of a third term refused to participate in a second election, called to fill the vacancies, since it did not remove the taint from the majority who ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... then, it was impossible that you should know your own mind. And even had your promise to him been of a much more binding nature, his subsequent conduct, and your mother's remonstrance, as well as your own age, would have released you from it without any taint of falsehood. He knew all this as well as I do; and I am surprised that he should have forced his way into your mother's house with the mere object of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... ketch it!" Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I'd give 'em linkumvity, I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'—— But I must close my letter here for one on 'em 's a hollerin', These Anglosaxon ossifers—wal, taint no use a jawin', I'm safe enlisted fer ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... pursu'st this Act, Taint not thy Mind; nor let thy Soul contrive Against thy Mother ought; leave her to Heav'n, And to those Thorns that in her Bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... they are grown: "layers from the same clean flower would come part of them clean and part foul, even when subjected to precisely the same treatment; and frequently one flower alone appears influenced by the taint, the remainder coming perfectly clean." (11/54. Ibid 1842 page 55.) This running of the parti- coloured flowers apparently is a case of reversion by buds to the original uniform ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... strict, monkish lives, And studious habit, the coarse Hebrew type, One might have elbowed in the public mart Iscariot,—nor suspected one's soul-peril. Christ's blood! it sets my flesh a-creep to think! We may breathe freely now, not fearing taint, Praise be our good Lord Bishop! He keeps count Of every Jew, and prints on cheek or chin The scarlet ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... who is a fool—begging his pardon—lets all his liquid manure run out of his yard into the village till it accumulates in a pond right opposite the five cottages they call New Town, and its exhalations taint the air. There are as many fevers in Islip as in the back slums of a town. You might fill the pond up with chalk, and compel Pickett to sink a tank in his yard, and cover it; then an agricultural treasure would be preserved for its proper use, instead of ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... distrust and antipathy; others insisted upon the importance of being supported by the King of France in their quarrels with the Duke of Burgundy, and scornfully repudiated the fear that the influence and money of Louis would bring a taint upon the independence and the good morals of their country. The latter opinion carried the day; and, on the 2d of October, 1474, conformably with a treaty concluded, on the 10th of the previous January, between ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... style he undoubtedly has, of which a word or two should perhaps be said. The first is the general taint of rhetoric, which is sometimes positively intolerable, and is liable to spoil enjoyment even of the best pieces occasionally. Were it not that 'Rhetoric made a Greek of me,' we should wish heartily that he had never been a rhetorician. It is the practice ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... from habit, grown since the dread disease struck her, as much as fear; and the fear was but another form of the ever-thoughtful maternal love. Though they were healed in person, the taint of the scourge might be in their garments ready for communication. He had no such thought. They were before him; he had called them, they had answered. Who or what should keep them from him now? Next moment the three, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... violence,—the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long endure itself. In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a pestilential taint, fermenting in the constitution of society, which fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off, or in which the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon themselves, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... indignant that Lois should find anything in her meeting with Rosie that lent itself to humor. He knew that humor. The superior were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class. Fearing to wound her by some impatient word, he made zeal in his round of duties the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... and glancing around at his little master, Burl, with a look of great surprise, exclaimed, "W'y, Bushie, taint ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... BRIDE and BRIDEGROOM): I require and charge both of you, as ye will answer in the dreadful hour of autopsy, when the secrets of all lives shall be disclosed, that if either of you know of any lesion, infection, malaise, congenital defect, hereditary taint or other impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in eugenic matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured that if any persons are joined together otherwise than in a state of absolute chemical and bacteriological innocence, their marriage will be septic, ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... woman's truly such, And the young man has led the life Without which how shall e'er the wife Be the one woman in the world? Love's sensitive tendrils sicken, curl'd Round folly's former stay; for 'tis The doom of all unsanction'd bliss To mock some good that, gain'd, keeps still The taint of the ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... a tainted atmosphere," he said to Marian. "We all are. I fight against the taint but how can I hope to avoid the consequences if I persist in breathing it, in absorbing it at every pore of ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... our trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No factory will be settled in France, that will not become a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of young men of that description will receive a taint in their religion, their morals, and their politics, which they will in a short time communicate to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the book are clever, rising often into the high latitudes of genius, yet without that perverse kink which is wont to mar all satisfaction. There is no taint of poison in the air they breathe. There is no passion hovering on the border-land of crime, or defiling its garments with the dust of earthliness. Love is what it ever should be, all noble and elevating,—worship as well as devotion,—annihilating only selfishness, sanctifying, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... the traditions of other men, than of the facts of my own consciousness, and the spontaneous convictions of my own understanding? or how can I be assured that, in passing from the impersonal reason to the individual mind, from the generic reason to the personal, the truth may not contract some taint of weakness or impurity from the vessel in which it is ultimately contained,—from the finite faculties by which alone it is apprehended ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... characterized by a diseased imagination and morbid feelings; the latter, beautiful and virtuous, and instilling something of her own excellence into the wild heart of her brother, but not enough to cure the deep taint of his nature. The third person was a wizard; a small, gray, withered man, with fiendish ingenuity in devising evil, and superhuman power to execute it, but senseless as an idiot and feebler than a child to all better purposes. The central scene of the story was an interview ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... went to the equator, saw the impending change. He was weary of a Paris where everything had been painted, described, modelled, so he sailed for Tahiti, landing at Papeete. Even there he found the taint of European ideas, and after the funeral of King Pomare and an interlude of flirtation with an absinthe-drinking native princess, niece of the departed royalty (he made a masterly portrait of her), he fled to the interior and told his experiences in Noa Noa, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... produce any alteration in himself: as it did. For little by little, as her beauty grew, so did his affection; till at last it turned into a passionate devotion, that remained notwithstanding absolutely pure, and free from any taint of evil, like the soil in which it grew. And finally, he could not keep away from her. And he came oftener and oftener to see them, till her father was on the very point of forbidding him to come. And then, suddenly, Babhru asked him, to give Aranyani ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... masculine, naive, rowdyish, Laugher, weeper, worker, idler, citizen, countryman, Saunterer of woods, stander upon hills, summer swimmer in rivers or by the sea, Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his body perfect, free from taint from top to toe, free forever from headache and dyspepsia, clean-breathed, Ample-limbed, a good feeder, weight a hundred and eighty pounds, full-blooded, six feet high, forty inches round the breast and back, Countenance sunburnt, bearded, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... mother; "she is so free from the least taint of hypocrisy or deceit; so perfectly honest and truthful; so warm-hearted, too; so diligent and energetic in anything she undertakes to do—very painstaking and persevering—and ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... laugh as he watched it. Turning to look at this, the smaller ram paced off to the right, followed now by the larger ram. Both creatures now, as if they had some sense of danger, stood with their majestic heads raised, looking steadily about and apparently scanning the air to catch the taint of danger. Thus they offered a good mark ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... true, no account how far he succeeded; yet it is to be supposed that he arrested the disease, for it had long lost the property of the Black Death, to spread abroad in the air the contagious matter which proceeded from the lungs, charged with putridity, and to taint the atmosphere of whole cities by the vast numbers of the sick. Now that it had resumed its milder form, so that it infected only by contact, it admitted being confined within individual dwellings, as easily as ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... the same fate as many other words in our language. It has become hackneyed and corrupted; it has taken a professional taint; it has almost become a byword. We are apt to think of the philanthropist as an excitable, contentious creature, at the mercy of every fad, an ultra-radical in politics, craving for notoriety, filled with self-confidence, and meddling with other people's ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... constitution. He runs before the most extravagant opinions; but this is because he is held back by none of the merely mechanical checks of sympathy and habit. He tampers with all sorts of obnoxious subjects; but it is less because he is gratified with the rankness of the taint than captivated with the intellectual phosphoric light they emit. It would seem that he wished not so much to convince or inform as to shock the public by the tenor of his productions; but I suspect he is more intent upon startling ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... fellow, but said to be very rich, at least as rich as Somerled, and ten years younger. Aline and I might be mistaken about the girl's feelings for Ian. Very likely it was no more than a romantic sort of gratitude; and though I absolved the child from the smallest taint of mercenary motive, it was almost impossible that a sleepless night had not given her some wise counsel. She was too sensitive and quick-witted a girl, I reflected, not to have seen that she could not go on living ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... luckless persecutors. On the other hand, I find relief in thinking of the favor she will extend to those who have proved my friends, in such a strait. They that wear crowns love not to see disgrace befall the meanest of their blood, for something of the taint may sully even the ermine of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... pan was washed early in the morning, and as the warm weather had begun to taint the caribou meat Mukoki and Wabigoon left immediately after dinner to secure fresh meat out on the plains, while Rod remained in camp. The strange thick gloom of night which began to gather in the chasm before the sun had disappeared beyond the plains ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... and innocent he lies; Like some small angel strayed, His face still warmed by God's own smile, That slumbers unafraid; Or like some new embodied soul, Still pure from taint of sin— My thoughts are reverent as I stoop To tuck my ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... but that cannot change his duty, or ours. He is helping us to struggle for that which is our own; but he would mar his generosity if he put a taint on that which he is endeavouring ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... which furnishes, outside of the frankly insane, the great majority of malingerers. I am tempted here to borrow Bornstein's classic description of the type of personality to which I am referring. According to him, these individuals come into the world with the stamp of a hereditary taint, with certain somatic anomalies (ears, palate, formation of skull, growth of hair, etc.), and already as children show those psychic characteristics which are decisive for their individuality. They are, above all, characterized by a marked ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... the Military Revolutionary Committee returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd elected its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and two officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint. Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command-an efficient man, but to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size as the stragglers came in from the surrounding ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... the Chateau barked vehemently, as if the very air bore some ominous taint; but La Corriveau knew she was safe: they were shut up in the courtyard, and could not trace her to the tower. A harsh voice or two and the sound of whips presently silenced the barking dogs, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... his people," he cried. "Do you not think they will rise to this standard-bearer, will they not rally to his call? For he is a true Prince, my comrades, who comes to them with no stain of wrong or treachery, without a taint, as untarnished as the white snow that lies summer and winter in the hollow of our hills, 'and a child shall lead us, and a child shall set them free.' To the yacht!" he shouted. "We will sail at once, and while they wait for us to be betrayed into their hands at the north, we shall ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... as fifteen dollars, and others bringing it down as low as five. I was struck with the quiet and self-possession with which each man delivered his opinion, as well as with the language used. The accent was uniformly provincial, that of Hubbard included, having a strong and unpleasant taint of the dialect of New England in it; and some of the expressions savoured a little of the stilts of the newspapers; but, on the whole, the language was sufficiently accurate and surprisingly good, considering the class in life ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... seed the Scarlet Woman about in his part o' the country, he'd lay by an' h'ist her, an' you'd say, 'Well done!' an' I don't say you'd be wrong. But jest you stop an' ax hes motives, an' you'll find 'taint religion. Lor' bless 'ee, sir, a bull's got no more use for religion than a toad for side-pockets. 'Tes obstinacy—that's what 'tes. You tells me a jackass es obstinate. Well, an' that's true in ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... noise when he was violently agitated, as do the dead leaves of a long-withered but still firmly attached bough. Thus he was regarded in Chicago as an American of the old type; but being human, his strength had not been strong enough to resist the taint in the atmosphere he had breathed ever since he began to be very rich and to keep the company of the pretentious. His originally sound constitution had been gradually undermined, just as "doing like everybody else"—that is, everybody ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... prettily of green fields, but it is a long, long summer and one is hardly sorry to see its close. In some of his writings he affects one unpleasantly, gives an uncanny feeling; one divines the invalid as well as the mystic back of them; there is a hectic flush, perhaps a neurotic taint. Beautiful, yes, but not the beauty of health and sanity. It is the same indescribable feeling I get in reading that pathetically beautiful book, "The Road-Mender," by "Michael Fairless"—the gleam of the White Gate is seen ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... affairs of honor than any man of your age at court. You should be a nice judge of such gear. Join me in assuring these gentlemen that they may be reconciled, and their honor receive not the least taint; and so avert a duel which would be a scandal to the community, and a menace ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... "'Taint no 'stition, nuther. Hit's a pop sho' fac', dat's what!" muttered Aunt Chloe, angrily, as she ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... thousand pounds he had come back to Burslem and started business on his own account. He had read and studied and worked, and he had evolved. He was an educated man; that is to say, he was a competent and useful man. He determined to free Burslem from the taint that had fallen upon it. "Burslem?" he once wrote to Sarah, "Burslem? the name shall yet be a symbol of all that is beautiful, honest and true; we shall see! I am a potter—yes, but I'll be the best one that England ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... feet after creeping through the low doorway, lest, moving, they should stumble over something—possibly the patient. But in addition to the hot, close odour of the interior of the hut there was another taint that assailed their nostrils, the taint of festering wounds, with which Dick was already familiar, and he shook his head doubtfully as he turned to the figure of Grosvenor, just beginning to reveal itself in the midst of the enveloping ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... of your reply," rejoined Aram; "but note how far more pure and lovely are its waters in these retreats, than when washing the walls of the reeking town, receiving into its breast the taint of a thousand pollutions, vexed by the sound, and stench, and unholy perturbation of men's dwelling-place. Now it glasses only what is high or beautiful in nature—the stars or the leafy banks. The wind that ruffles it, is clothed ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "'Taint laik as if you wus goin' to be alone out theah," comforted Mansy Storm, who was busy putting away a little cake she had made with her own hands for Celia's lunch basket. "Youah husband will ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... of political equality, were regarded as the ebullitions of a politically vitiated class who would be willing to overthrow the National Government, but who were supposed to be too few in numbers to taint with poisonous fatality the political mind of the South. It is not established as yet that the Southern political mind in the main has become depraved. It is, however, established, that the leading ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... spirit now. Let the Republican party be mild and forbearing,—for the opportunity to be so is the best reward of victory, and taunts and recriminations belong to boys; but, above all, let them be manly. The moral taint of once submitting to be bullied is a scrofula that will never out ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Committee states that rat-catchers are now demanding four pounds a week. Diplomacy, it appears, is the only branch of British sport that has succeeded in escaping the taint of professionalism. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... (Taitt. Up. II, 8); 'That from which all speech with the mind turns away, not having reached it, knowing the bliss of that Brahman man fears nothing' (Taitt. Up. II, 9); 'He who is without parts, without action, tranquil, without fault, without taint' (Svet. Up. VI, 19).—And Smriti: 'He who knows me to be unborn and without a beginning, the Supreme Lord of the worlds'; 'Pervading this entire universe, by one part of mine I do abide'; 'With me as supervisor Prakriti brings forth the universe of the movable and the immovable, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... national order and in its policy of peace. For two hundred years England had been almost constantly at war, and to war without had been added discord and misrule within. The violence and anarchy which had always clung like a taint to the baronage grew more and more unbearable as the nation moved forward to a more settled peacefulness and industry. At the very time however when this movement became most pronounced under Edward the Third, the tendency of the nobles to violence ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... dubious and two-headed form of popular success,—'vrai succes de scandale s'il en fut'—even the potent influence and unequivocal example of Rabelais had never once even in passing or in seeming affected or infected the progressive and triumphal genius of Shakespeare with a taint or touch of anything offensive to healthier and cleanlier organs of perception than such as may belong to a genuine or a pretending Puritan. But on taking in his hand that one of these two new dramatic pamphlets which might first ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... public congratulations: "I am thankful to God for this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my own heart my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. It is not in my nature to triumph over anyone; but I give thanks to Almighty God for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the locality where all the conditions combine to make the work most needed and fraught with the greatest usefulness to the community as a whole. There should be no extravagance, and the believers in the need of irrigation will most benefit their cause by seeing to it that it is free from the least taint of excessive or reckless expenditure of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Don't, I beg you! 'Taint right to talk so, and I don't like it!—But is that your dwelling, Mr. Guy, in truth?—you really live in it, all the year round? ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... first among those that should be encouraged is music, because it is always ennobling, and can be enjoyed simultaneously by the greatest number. Its effect is well described in Margaret Fuller's private journal: "I felt raised above all care, all pain, all fear, and every taint of vulgarity was washed out of the world." I think this is an extremely happy expression. Female writers sometimes have a knack of getting at the heart of a problem by instinct, more easily than men with their superior reasoning powers. "Every ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... you think you have no right to cherish. She takes pleasure in the society of Dalton,—what right have you to say her—nay? His character indeed is not altogether such as you could wish; but will it not be selfish to tell her even this? Will it not be even worse, and show taint of a lurking suspicion, which you know would wound her grievously? You struggle with your distrust by meeting him more kindly than ever; yet at times there will steal over you a sadness, which that dear Madge detects, and sorrowing ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... Manning had been removing the high pews from a church in Brighton, and putting in open benches in their place. Everyone knew what that meant; everyone knew that a high pew was one of the bulwarks of Protestantism, and that an open bench had upon it the taint of Rome. But Manning hastened to explain: 'My dear friend,' he wrote, 'I did not exchange pews for open benches, but got the pews (the same in number) moved from the nave of the church to the walls of the side ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... death, than he whom never dread Did once amate:[78] my heart abhorred then To give consent unto so foul a deed: That wretched death should reave so worthy a man. On false fortune I cried with loud complaint, That in such sort o'erwhelms nobility. But he, whom never grief ne fear could taint, With smiling cheer himself oft willeth me To leave to plain his case, or sorrow make For him; for he was far more glad apaid Death to embrace thus for his lady's sake, Than life or all the joys of life, he said. For loss of life, quoth he, grieves me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... girt with silver splendour of the foam, Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise! And at thy coming some immortal star, Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies, And waked the shepherds on thine island-home. Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air; No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair, Those scarlet heralds of ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... white asses laden with the freight Of Tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm, To bribe my will: I'll bid them chase him forth, Nor let him breathe the taint of his surmise On my secure resolve. Ay, 'tis secure: And therefore let him come to spread his freight. For firmness hath its appetite and craves The stronger lure, more strongly to resist; Would know the touch of gold to fling it off; Scent wine to feel its lip the soberer; Behold soft byssus, ivory, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and rely on thee. Do not too long absent thee from the doctor: Go in, carouse, and taint his Spanish brain; I'll follow, and my Marian's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... mother and the delight of the foreign emissaries, the Princess Clementia then and there doffed her silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady Godiva. A glance at the princess's form in puris naturalibus sufficed to convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two young people was celebrated that very evening amidst the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... I were to say that you have interstitial keratitis, how would you be the wiser? There are indications of a strumous diathesis. In broad terms, I may say that you have a constitutional and hereditary taint." ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to make an unreflecting flight. A few days afterwards I missed him, and, on inquiry, learned that he had fled. Some nobleman had died in our faubourg, when he and one of a fellow feeling, finding a taint "between the wind and their nobility," forthwith ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... them, steeplechasing over obstacles that would have taken years for a Zorra lad to plod around. In less than six months they passed from a bare goodnight to the exchange of soul thoughts on butter-making, the raising of calves, fattening of swine, and methods of feeding swedes that they might not taint cow's milk, and so had progressed by such tender paths through gentle dusks to the point where Timmins was ready to declare himself in the light of this ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... died!—and, trusting to your commendations, and his apparent honesty, I raised him to my favor, and gave him a post, which he has but now most basely betrayed. Fool, that I was, to think he could have served with such a master, and not bring with him the taint ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... struck me, to Ray Limbert's suit, which Mrs. Stannace was not the woman to stomach. Mrs. Stannace was seldom the woman to do anything: she had been shocked at the way her children, with the grubby taint of their father's blood (he had published pale Remains or flat Conversations of his father) breathed the alien air of authorship. If not the daughter, nor even the niece, she was, if I am not mistaken, the second cousin of a hundred earls and a great ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... of all persons in whom there is an hereditary taint of feeble-mindedness, insanity, epilepsy, and the like ought, therefore, to be forbidden by law. But unless these defective classes were segregated in institutions, the only result of this might be to increase illegitimacy; ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... the adventurer. Surely where there was so much beauty, so much of innocent joy in life, there must be the fountain of perpetual youth, there must be gold, and diamonds, and sapphires—all those gewgaws, the worship of which shows the lingering taint of barbarism in the civilized man, and for which the English, Spanish, and Portuguese adventurers of three centuries ago, were ready to sacrifice home and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... he and his cousins found the stream sweet and refreshing. There was no taint to it and they drank their fill ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... Let us have no more of that horrible cant. Mr Praed: if there are really only those two gospels in the world, we had better all kill ourselves; for the same taint is ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... consequence of the above, limitations to the contact of persons of differing castes. If a Brahman cannot eat with a Sudra, because it supposedly brings a taint to his pure blood, no more can he, with impunity, come into personal contact with him. The touch of such is pollution to his august and pure person; and the very air the low castes breathe brings to his soul and body taint and poison. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Tempter, glorying in his wile, Hath ta'en his mirror and withdrawn; Again the flowers look up and smile, And brightens off from air and lawn The taint of guile. ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore |
