"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrow through a series of twelve rings.—Telemachus is the first to try his luck, hoping to redeem his beloved mother. But alas, his strength fails him, and he has to hand the bow on to the suitors, who so goad and taunt him, that the boy draws his sword. But they are stronger, Telemachus stumbles and the beggar catches him in his arms, and unfolds his mantle to protect him whispering: "Telemachus my son, I am thy father." The youth sinks on his knees, but Odysseus enjoins silence upon him and warns ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... "Your taunt is fair, though it pains me. And I confess to you that when I resolved to follow Canning and join his new allies, I had many a twinge. I was bred in the Tory camp; the Tories put me in Parliament and gave me office; I lived with them and liked ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... How he hated Watkins on the box to hear this everlasting taunt cast at him. But a sweet voice from the ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... became voluminous. Homeric salvos shook the air. And never one of the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough to live down the hateful cry of that day, "HEAD HIM OFF!" which was to become a catch-word on the streets, a taunt more stinging than any devised by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the ancestral doubt, a fighting-word, and the great historical joke of Canaan, never omitted in after-days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took that short walk across the Court-house yard ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... we approve his merited, yet hardly merited, shames and failures. Especially it touches us something hard that one so wit-proud as Sir John should be thus dejected, and put to the mortification of owning that "ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me"; of having to "stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English"; and of asking, "Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this?" and we would fain make out some excuse for him on the score of these slips having occurred ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... your own face when you consult a looking-glass," Fred said; and the bitter taunt told well with the crowd, for they roared with laughter, and appeared to be changing their views regarding the guilt ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... hopeless and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former connection with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great distrust by the Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was taken of his Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and all his efforts failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to England or to get to Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July only to find himself arrested. He remained there till the 15th of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to death.[462] Barbed arrows and Nalikas and broadheaded shafts are capable of being extracted from the body. Wordy shafts, however, are incapable of being extracted, for they lie embedded in the very heart. One should not taunt a person that is defective of a limb or that has a limb in excess, or one that is destitute of learning, or one that is miserable, or one that is ugly or poor, or one that is destitute of strength. One should avoid atheism, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... advancement, and feeling that she could never forgive him if by any chance promotion should come to him after all. "He will stay where he is. He will be a perpetual curate," Miss Leonora said, uttering what was in reality a hope under the shape of a taunt; and things were still in this position when Grange Lane in general and Miss Dora in particular (from the window of the summer-house) were startled much by the sight of the Rector, in terribly correct clerical ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... intended to make Monroe Secretary of War and the head of the General Staff, he speedily discovered that he was powerless to do so. The Republican leaders in New York felt too keenly Josiah Quincy's taunt about a despotic Cabinet "composed, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner" to permit Monroe to absorb two cabinet posts. To appease this jealousy of Virginia, Madison made an appointment which very nearly shipwrecked his Administration: he invited General John Armstrong ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... and more within herself. We often hear foolish men taunt women with inability to keep secrets. But women who talk much often do keep secrets—there are nooks in their hearts where the sun never enters, and where those nearest them are never allowed to look. More lives are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Subjects taking up Armes. It was, in fact, an elaborate proof, from Scripture and Reason, of the right of the English Parliament and People to make war upon the King. Doubtless Milton had ascertained that Palmer was its chief author: hence, rather unnecessarily, his taunt. Palmer had also published more recently (Dec. 1644), but with his name, the First Part of a Book called Memorials of Godliness and Christianity. It was afterwards completed by two additional Parts, also with his name, Part II. containing, among other things, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... The taunt went home, and Hendry pulled himself together. The violence with which he had been thrown down upon the deck the previous evening by the angered mate, and his present passion combined had certainly, as Chard said, made him look white ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... crept in about the window-sills and over the imprisoning panes, as if to taunt the victims who were caught in ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... has or has not to do with it," I broke in, for although I do not think that he meant them as a taunt, but merely as a statement of fact, Saduko's words stung me to the quick, especially as my conscience told me that they were ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... "Hector, your rebuke is just. You are hard as the axe which a shipwright wields at his work, and cleaves the timber to his liking. As the axe in his hand, so keen is the edge of your scorn. Still, taunt me not with the gifts that golden Venus has given me; they are precious; let not a man disdain them, for the gods give them where they are minded, and none can have them for the asking. If you would have me do battle with Menelaus, bid the Trojans ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... face. A caitiff hound, A reptile fool, is he who fawns on men Before their faces, while his heart is black With malice, and, when they be gone, his tongue Backbites them. Openly Polydamas Flung back upon the prince his taunt and scoff: "O thou of living men most mischievous! Thy valour—quotha!—brings us misery! Thine heart endures, and will endure, that strife Should have no limit, save in utter ruin Of fatherland and people ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... aspirations, was his defense of General Fry, whom Conkling sought to have impeached, but who was successfully vindicated and afterwards promoted by the War Department. During the struggle Conkling hurled a javelin of taunt and invective, incisive, but thought to be unjust, inducing a response said to have been terrific in its onslaught, confounding the speaker and raising excitement in the House to the highest pitch. I transcribe an epitome of the speech, which will be seen to have bristled with ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... to herself, in the impotence of anger, "they all love him, they all hate me! Why does he not mistreat me, insult me, taunt me—anything that will cost him their respect, their devotion! How bitterly they feel toward me for that remark! It will kill me to stay here and see them turn to him as if he were some god and ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... member of the Empire who won't be bamboozled, when she says firmly and with heat, "Why don't we do something?" She would like to scold a few Generals and Admirals, and she says she believes the Germans are much cleverer than ourselves. This last taunt she hopes will make people "do something." It ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... himself wounded in the side. The wound gave him little concern at the moment, for, under the excitement of the strife, he felt not even its smart; and, turning himself upon the saddle, he drew one of his own weapons from its case, and discharging it, by way of taunt, in the faces of the outlaws, laughed loud with the exulting spirit of youth at the successful result of an adventure due entirely to his own perfect coolness, and to the warm courage which had been his predominating feature ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... were sent to settle the dispute, of whom one was pledged to the king and the other to the archbishop. Henry, like every one else, saw the futility of their mission, and "led them for a week," as one of them complained, "through many windings both of road and speech." With a scornful taunt that "he did not care an egg for them and their excommunications," he finally mounted his horse to ride off from the conference. "I see, I see!" he said to the frightened bishops who hurried after him to call him back; "they will interdict my land, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... who meant to insult him, I think, asks, are you mad, or do you but counterfeit? That is, you look like a madman, you talk like a madman: Is your madness real, or have you any secret design in it? This, to a man in poor Malvolio's state, was a severe taunt. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... calmly, "it was not all, Cataline. And, but that we are joined here in a purpose so mighty that it overwhelms all private interests, all mere considerations of the individual, you, my good sir, should learn what it is to taunt a man with fear, who fears not anything—least of all thee! But it was not all. For as we turned from a side lane into the Wicked(1) street that scales the summit of the Esquiline, my eye caught something lurking in the dark shadow cast over an angle of the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the raven, Whirled it round him like a rattle, Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven, From the ridge-pole of the wigwam Left its lifeless body hanging, As an insult to its master, As a taunt ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... weakening loyalty in army officers and building up rebellion among the Southern people. Instead of heeding the advice of Colonel Gardner to reenforce the forts, it removed him from command, and within two months the President submitted silently to the taunt of the South Carolina rebel commissioners that it was in punishment for his loyal effort to save the Government property. Whatever the motive may have been, the Government was now fully warned, as early as November 11, a week before the first secession jubilee in Charleston, and more than ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... a squinting, pock-marked, bowlegged, hunch-backed little Judkins (a sight to make a recruiting-sergeant shudder) forever taunt one with having enlisted as a private ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the trail of Numa, the lion, pausing for a moment to hurl a soft fruit at the snarling face of his enemy, and to taunt and insult him, calling him eater of carrion and brother of Dango, the hyena. Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him. Low growls vibrated his heavy jowls ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and twice her brother repeated the taunt—twice asked her, with a confidence he did not feel, what was the matter with the plan. At last, "It's too vile!" she cried passionately. "It's too horrible! It's to sink to what he is, and worse!" Her voice trembled with the intensity of her feelings—as a man, who has scaled a giddy height without ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Cotherstone had been discharged—his appearance in that bold, self-assured fashion only led to covert whispers and furtive looks. But suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd, a sneering voice flung a contemptuous taunt across the staring faces. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... It might have gratified his vanity had he known it. But to-night he was yet unattended, so no one noted that he went to 46 Glover Street, after the early Crowl supper. He could not help going. He wanted to get another sovereign. He also itched to taunt Grodman. Not succeeding in the former object, he felt the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... taunt was a desperate facer, which, however, Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose. M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture of defence as showed him to be no novice ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... sluggishness taken possession of him, and with it came those promptings of the flesh which, but a few months ago, he easily subdued, but which the lapse of time had once more made perilous. To any who should have ventured to taunt him with forgetfulness of Veranilda, he would have fiercely given the lie; and with reason, for Veranilda's image was as vivid to him as on the day when he lost her, and she alone of women had the power to excite his deepest ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... a similar name is also mentioned in the south Arabian inscriptions. The Hagar of the story is a typical daughter of the desert. When she became the mother of a child, the highest honor that could come to a Semitic woman, she could not resist the temptation to taunt Sarah. In keeping with early Semitic customs Sarah had full authority to demand the expulsion of Hagar, for in the eye of the law the slave wife was her property. The tradition of the revelation to Hagar also represented ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... way back, and again ascended up to the skerry. Then she confided to him that the reason why her father had been so bitter against him was because he had mocked her with the taunt about church-cleansing when she had wanted to go to church—the name the folks down below wanted to know might, the Merman thought, be treasured up in Eilert's memory; but during their conversation on their way down to her father, she had perceived that he also had forgotten it. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... bigger," says he, "but as that is your fault, you should be the last to taunt me ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... a hush so complete had fallen on the company that while every eye sought Hilary and Anna every ear was aware that out on the levee road the passing drums had ceased and the brass—as if purposely to taunt the theatrical spirit of Flora—had struck up The Ladies' Man. With military curtness Kincaid was addressing the score or so ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open country ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... his temper. Read Eliab's irritating taunt in the twenty-eighth verse, and mark the fine self-possession of the young champion's reply! That conquest of temper helped him when he took aim at Goliath! There is nothing like passion for disturbing the accuracy of the eye and the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... if the little varlet mocked at me as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him! No lessons, no task, no school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... seek him, Herbert," replied Percy, "where ever he is; by whom surrounded. I would taunt him as a deceiving, heartless villain, and if he demand satisfaction, by heaven, it would be joy for ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... only taunt me with your series of 'indeeds.' Tell me how you came here. How have ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... was in their custody he was impatient to browbeat the youth and taunt him with his helplessness. But Arnold Baxter would not listen to it, so the graceless son had to bide ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... his heart, and his heart against his head—to make him do hard things because they are called just, and unjust things because they are represented as kind. Woe's me! it is with his Sacred Majesty, and the favourites who work upon him, even according to the homely proverb that men taunt my calling with,—'God sends good meat, but the devil ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... matter-of-fact statement with no suspicion of a taunt in it, but it stung Georgina's pride. Her eyes blazed defiantly and she tossed back her curls with a proud little uplift of the chin. It must be acknowledged that her nose, too, took on the trifle of a tilt. Her challenge was unspoken but so ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... for Ethie this very night, if need be—aye, die for you too, perhaps, if you were suffering and his life could bring relief. You don't know Andy, or you would know why we held him as dear as we do the memory of our darling Daisy; and when you taunt me with my half-witted brother, you hurt me as much as you would to tear my dead sister from her grave, and expose her dear face to the gaze of brutal men. No, Mrs. Van Buren, say what you like of me, but never again sneer ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... difficult to remember all the toasts he proposed. I responded in sips, he in half-glasses; the Archimandrite, who had only a second place at the table, in tumblerfuls; the deacon opposite me having a strong character, refused to go on, and it was certainly curious to see this little old archbishop taunt him and ask him if he were afraid and stir him on to drink more than was good for him. But he was a Russian first and then an archbishop, and he had lost all that he cared for. It may be asked, had he lost his faith, too? ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt for taunt: ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... to taunt me with my mother's state," said A-Kor. "'Tis the blood of the slave woman that fills my veins with pride, and my only shame is that I am also ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... conducted you to what I believed to be a place of safety. And I fought my best against the foe, and was brought nigh unto death. This I did, though I can boast of but a weak and slender frame. And it is hard that the first greeting of one so well loved as you should be a taunt.' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... taunt me," Mr. Ricketty answered, reproachfully. "This is a sad hour to me. What'll you give ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... most ridiculous way, with never any hope of catching one of them, except when she lets him come near her for a moment, to plague him by slipping away again quite out of his reach. At last he gets thoroughly tired and discouraged and angry, while the three sisters laugh at him and taunt him and chatter with one another, and have clearly enough forgotten all about the gold that they are supposed ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... was the very mildest title which the ex-guardsman bestowed upon them; but as his Russian was not translated, of course the phrase fell harmless—else it would have undoubtedly been retaliated by a taunt about "tallow." ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... determined not to tell his name: she too much feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe's fiery mood again ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses be shut upon them? Shall states arise and shake them out? Shall the church of Christ hear in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the helpless hand that they stretch out; and, by her silence, encourage the cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it will be a mournful spectacle. If it must be so, the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "You taunt me, my dear lady, my dear girl. But be not so sure that times have changed. Out beyond, there, where we are going, I could put you a mile back from the river, and you would find yourself in a wilderness the most pathless in the world to-day, worse than the St. Lawrence ever knew at any ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... after Adrian's departure, her mother had warmly expostulated with her on the subject of her attachment to me. Every motive, every threat, every angry taunt was urged in vain. She seemed to consider that through me she had lost Raymond; I was the evil influence of her life; I was even accused of encreasing and confirming the mad and base apostacy of Adrian from all views of advancement ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... soldier, enraged beyond endurance by this last taunt; and drawing back his right arm, he dealt so heavy and unexpected a blow upon the breast of the muleteer that the latter reeled a couple of paces backwards, and then fell headlong and with considerable violence to the ground. The dragoon gazed for an instant at the fallen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... slave in his cell. Samos is still afar off. The road from here to Ostia has not yet been traversed by you in safety. Even this door between you and the open street has not been thrown back. And yet you dare to taunt me, knowing that I hold in my hand the key, and, by withdrawing it, can take away all hope from you. Do you realize what will be your fate if you remain here—how that on the morrow the lions and leopards of the amphitheatre will quarrel ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... taunt that brought angry flushes of color to the faces of the men opposing him, yet they made no definite movement toward attack. It seemed patent that Sandy Bourke was testing them. Trouble was in the air, two kinds of it: on the one side hesitant ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... father, ending with the usual declarations that his choice was unalterable. Perhaps it was; but, whether or not, Richard Dryce went the very way to make it so when he laughed that discordant laugh, and, with a taunt against his son's weakness of purpose and his dependent position, told him to dismiss such a scheming little hussey from his thoughts, for he was to marry when he had permission, which would never be granted to such a match as the beadle ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... fathers of the Anglican church, he conceived it attributable to their moderation and wisdom, and not to their want of sincerity or of clear spiritual views, that they endeavoured, not to build a new church, but to purify and reform their old one. Hence, in reply to the taunt of the Romanists, "Where was your religion before Luther?" they could say, "Our religion preceded your corruptions, and ever was in the Bible;" thus claiming for their founder, neither Luther, nor Calvin, nor Melancthon, nor Zuinglius; but the Saviour of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... write-up of those outlaws who strolled through here playing 'She Never Told Her Love.' The fact is that girl told it in the voice of one who should be bawling quick orders in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Here's where we taunt Mr. Hastings with his own lofty idealism. Have all the fun with him you like; and not a soul shall ever know from ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... latter bristled at the words, lost for an instant his self-possession, said in his anger more than he intended—more than he might easily unsay—enough to bruise the already smarting soul of Allcraft. A threat escaped his lips—a reproach—a taunt. He spoke of his power, and touched cuttingly upon the deep schemes of other men, more feasible than his own perhaps, and certainly more honest. Allcraft winced, as every syllable made known the speaker's actual strength—his own dependence and utter weakness. He made no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... present at the foot of the Manchester scaffold! The brutal populace thronged thither in tens of thousands. They danced; they sang; they blasphemed; they chorused "Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen," by way of taunt and defiance of the men whose death agonies they had come to see! Their shouts and brutal cries disturbed the doomed victims inside the prison as in their cells they prepared in prayer and meditation to meet their Creator and their God. Twice the police had ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... was but one of whom my fancy had received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid countenance, bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining fame and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of phantom appellations. It was possible, then, to leave behind us something more explicit than these severe, monotonous, and lying epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a painted picture and what we call the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with the pistol, and the man in the street now looked up at him, his eyes glittering with an insolent challenge. As it happened, the rider glanced at the shooter at the instant the latter had turned to look up at him. Their eyes met fairly, the shooter's conveying a silent taunt. The rider smiled, slight mockery ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... these fellows, which are called the commissioners, but are the most rake-shamed rogues that ever I saw in my life; so he showed them this release, and they seemed satisfied, and went away with him to their atturney to be paid by him. But before they went, Sir W. Batten and my lady did begin to taunt them, but the rogues answered them as high as themselves, and swore they would come again, and called me rogue and rebel, and they would bring the sheriff and untile his house, before he should harbour a rebel in his house, and that they would be here again shortly. Well, at last ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Dick the brazen effrontery to come here to taunt him in his slavery? What was the meaning of it? What should he say to him? He could not answer the Doctor but by a ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... culinary duties, she talked apparently to herself, but with the intention that I should hear what was going on. I hoped that my uncle's imprisonment would last but few days; still I was anxious. I thought it likely Dr. Flint would do his utmost to taunt and insult him, and I was afraid my uncle might lose control of himself, and retort in some way that would be construed into a punishable offence; and I was well aware that in court his word would not ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... told you that I have been arrested and put in prison several times—always on account of my papers? I told you the truth, and you shouldn't taunt me for ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... wasn't all. When I answered, speaking as coolly, I assure you, as I'm doing this minute, what does he do, but call it a folly, and taunt us for a crew of Irish beggars! Beggars we may be, but we'll not ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... come from church and schoolroom, blind To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind; He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin; And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin. He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun's report; He saw the morbid craze to kill, ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c v.; asteism^. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib^, grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie^; farce &c (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c 930. V. ridicule, deride, mock, taunt; snigger; laugh in one's sleeve; tease [ridicule lightly], badinage, banter, rally, chaff, joke, twit, quiz, roast; haze [U.S.]; tehee^; fleer^; show up. play upon, play tricks upon; fool to the top ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... v. Morshead, 6 Taunt. 238. According to Mr. Serjeant Byles, a bill drawn by a British prisoner in favour of an alien enemy cannot be enforced by the payee. He cites no case in support of this assertion; but on the principle of the last case cited, if it were drawn for subsistence and not for ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... experience afterwards: it is moreover evident, that however degraded the lunatic may be in the estimation of vigorous and enlightened intellects, yet this depreciated object, by the enjoyment of occasional periods of bright understanding, has abundant cause for taunt and triumph over the victim of unsoundness; whose state is "contra-distinguished from lunacy," and as far as has been hitherto ascertained, does not revel in the luxury of a lucid interval. But these vicissitudes of intellectual obscurity and lustre have no real existence;—they are not the offsprings ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... touched every subject connected with the Government, its history, and its powers. They were brilliant and beautiful; full of classical learning and allusion, and sparkling as a casket of diamonds, thrown upon, and rolling along, a Wilton carpet. It seemed to be his pleasure to taunt the opposition to enforce an angry or irritable reply, and then to launch the arrows of his biting wit and sarcasm at whoever dared the response, in such rapid profusion, as to astonish the House, and overwhelm ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... opportunity to risk their lives to maintain a government which has never protected them, and a Constitution which has been practically interpreted in such a manner as to recognize and sanction their servitude? Do not, I implore you, answer these inquiries by that easy, but infamous taunt, so constantly on the lips of unscrupulous politicians in your party,—"Here comes the inevitable nigger again!" It is precisely because the awful and too long unavenged sufferings of the slave must be inevitable, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... fathers, he and his work were at once condemned: he was suspended by the Catholic authorities as a misbeliever, denounced by Protestants as an infidel, and taunted by both as "a would-be corrector of the Holy Ghost." Of course, by this taunt was meant nothing more than that he dissented from sundry ideas inherited from less enlightened times by the men who just then happened ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... when Apollo Stood with reluctant look above the hills As fain to see the end, and all the votes Were cast, and closed the polls, before the door Of Trainor's drug store Bengal Mike, in tones That echoed through the village, bawled the taunt: "Who was your mother, hog—eyed?" In a trice As when a wild boar turns upon the hound That through the brakes upon an August day Has gashed him with its teeth, the hog—one Rushed with his giant arms on Bengal Mike And grabbed him by the throat. Then ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,—namely, that it is better to be ruled by one master than by many,—I quite agree with them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the principle of despotism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of how he formerly boasted of his strength, and denounced the weakness of the habitual drunkard, but she refrained from so doing. She determined, no matter what she suffered, never to madden him by a taunt or unkind word, but to save him if possible by love and gentleness. He as yet, though harsh and peevish to others, had never spoken an unkind word to her. He had once or twice been unnecessarily severe to the children, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... corn, with a view to their total repeal, prefaced his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought the subject forward in compliance with the request of the anti-corn-law delegates; and because, in the late discussion on the state of the nation, a taunt had been thrown out on the ministerial side, that, if the opposition thought that a repeal of the corn daws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the house. The motion was seconded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... convinced that a mere secular education would ruin the country, had to oppose you, and had to deal with your personal attitude to the whole matter. You cannot deny that! Have the courage of your convictions, man, and stand by them!" And Paul noted the taunt in his voice. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour. Mr Pickering's rare interviews with his subconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in the small hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, as he ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... davoir venuz a no' ala bataille du commencement tanqe ala fin issint dieu n're seign^{r} ad assez de grace monstre de qei' no' et toutz nos amys sumes tut ditz tenutz de lui rendre grace et m'ciz. N're entent est a demorer en pees en le ewe taunt qe no' eoms pris c'teyn point ove no' alliez et autres nos amys de fflandres de ceo q' soit affaire. Trescher fitz dieu soit gardeyn de vo'. Don' souz n're secree seal en n're nief Cogg[143] Thom', le Mescredy en la veille seint Piere ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... of whom he knew but little. He did not stand off or refuse to talk on any but commonplace subjects. What was offered to us was his best. And yet there is to be found in him a singular reserve, and those shallow persons who taunt him with inconsistency because he makes so much of silence, and yet talks so much, understand little or nothing of him. In half a dozen pages one man may be guilty of shameless garrulity, and another may be nobly reticent throughout a dozen volumes. Carlyle feels the ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... they lay there without anything to eat or drink and no one to come near them except that occasionally a tangled head would be thrust in to hurl some taunt at them. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... that which the literature of this memorable squabble presents to the student. Charges of ignorance, dishonesty, and extortion were preferred on both sides. And the Dispensarian physicians did not hesitate to taunt their brethren of the opposite camp with playing corruptly into the hands of the apothecaries—prescribing enormous and unnecessary quantities of medicine, so that the drug-vendors might make heavy bills, and, as a consequence, recommend in all directions such complacent superiors to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... I conceal it not. It doth offend My inmost soul, to hear the stranger's gibes, That taunt us with the name of "Peasant Nobles!" Think you the heart that's stirring here can brook, While all the young nobility around Are reaping honour under Hapsburg's banner, That I should loiter, in inglorious ease, Here on the heritage my fathers left, And, in the dull routine of ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... comparatively low and external purposes, like the cooeperation of a ship's company, or of a fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt men of the world with superficial and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... in their room. She sat upright in her bed. "Do you hear, Walter?" she asked. She came to sit on his bed, sometimes she crept into his arms. In the African villages long ago when the song floated up from the river men arose and prepared for battle. The song was a defiance, a taunt. That was all gone now. The young negro's house was at the foot of the garden and Walter with his wife lay upstairs in the larger house situated on high ground. It was a sad song, filled with race sadness. There was something in the ground that wanted to grow, ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... Since this taunt brought no response from her victim, she went on into the eating-room. It was already filling, and the duties ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... in their eyes; they see nothing but the phraseology. From men who had themselves done nothing but what was mischievous, this is perhaps natural. They are content, possibly, if they have never said a foolish thing, to have never done a wise one; though we are doubtful if a taunt about simplicity of composition, either comes well from the noble leader of the Whigs, or his friends, when we remember some of their old achievements in addressing their supporters. But in the peculiar position of the Whigs, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... sez to ma this very mornin'—sez I, 'Ma, I s'pose Mr. Bennet 'll be wantin' a place in our bank. If he hadn't been so wery fine,' sez I, 'he might have got on. He talks be-youtiful grammar, ma,'" said the worthy President, screwing in the taunt, as it were; "'but grammar ain't good to eat,' sez I. 'He ain't a self-made man, as some folks is,' sez I; 'but I suppose I'll have to stick him in somewheres,' sez I—that's ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... tenderness of imagination in the two poets, is quite insuperable. But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her. God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would do so if she ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Their conduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friend of Atterbury and a zealous Tory. "The wild Indians," he said, "give no quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill and prowess of every adversary whom they destroy. Perhaps the animosity of the right reverend ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to the mill. If the name or the words woke a subtile remorse or longing, he buried them under restful composure. Whether they should ever rise like angry ghosts of what might have been, to taunt the man, only the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... much as a bow, he swung round on his heel and left her. It was her turn to grow angry now, and well it was for him that he had not tarried. She dwelt with scorn upon his parting taunt, bethinking herself that in truth she had exaggerated her opinions of Galliard's merits. Her feelings towards that ungodly gentleman were rather of pity than aught else. A brave, ready-witted man she knew him for, as much from the story of his escape from Worcester as for ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... a sort of joke, had each given away one knot of his own colours. Lady Maude had had three given to her; but she was looking for another worth them all—from Lord Hartledon. And now—it was given, it appeared, to Anne Ashton! For her very life she could not have helped the passionate taunt that escaped from her, not ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... no doubt,' said Mrs Varden. 'I was prepared for that; it's natural; it's of a piece with the rest. When you taunt me as you do to my face, how can I wonder that you taunt her behind her back!' And here the incoherence coming on very strong, Mrs Varden wept, and laughed, and sobbed, and shivered, and hiccoughed, and choked; and said she knew it was very foolish but she couldn't help it; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... word for women," replied the hunter, "and they're trying to taunt us because we're lying in hiding. It will take more than a taunt or two to draw us out of these cottonwoods. They can shout 'winihinca' all night ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... phantoms with which to taunt and torture. You pity me so keenly, that your judgment becomes distorted, and you chase chimeras. Banish imaginary husbands, Western journeys, even the thought of my wretched doom, and try henceforth to forget ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... very still after the door had closed, and to keep him company in his solitude back swarmed all those dreary thoughts that Bob's cheery presence had for the time being banished; with a rush they came to jeer, taunt, and terrify. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... the Hebrew cries. And patriot anguish fills his streaming eyes, "Hurl'd to the earth by Rapine's vengeful rod, "Polluted lies the temple of our God, "Far in a foreign land her sons remain, "Hear the keen taunt, and drag the captive chain: "In fruitless woe they wear the wearying years, "And steep the bread of bitterness in tears. "O Monarch, greatest, mildest, best of men, "Restore us to those ruin'd walls again! "Allow our race to rear ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... repressive legislation. For one of the stock arguments of "advanced" politicians has been the failure of the "moderates" to obtain any recognition from Government, and the enlargement of the Legislative Councils took the sting out of that taunt. Independently, however, of the reforms, the extreme violence of language and of methods which had come into vogue was bound to produce some reaction. Amongst the educated classes, many respectable fathers of families, whatever their political opinions may be, have taken fright at the growth of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... audience, could not resist showing some temper, and accusing his hearers of ignorance. "Strange accusation, when applied to Lord Byron," says Galt. Lord Byron, who had come there to be interested, and to learn, did not notice the taunt of Mr. Kennedy, but merely remarked, "that all that can be desired is to be convinced of the truth of the Bible, as containing really the word of God; for if this is sincerely believed, it must follow, as a necessary consequence, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of Mrs. Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now was Mrs. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... now to keep to what she thought right. Disagreeable feelings would rise when she remembered the impoliteness, the half-sneer, the whole taunt, and the real unkindness of several of the young party. She found herself ready to be irritated, inclined to dislike the sight of those, even wishing to visit some sort of punishment upon them. But Christian principle had taken strong hold in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... bear anything, it was said, and they got the name of Jacques Bonhomme (Jack Goodfellow); but this taunt they belied in a terrible manner. We will quote from the last continuer of William of Nangis, the least declamatory and the least confused of all the chroniclers of that period: "In this same year 1358," says he, "in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Library at Merton College, Oxford, as seen from 'Mob Quadrangle.' From a photograph by H. W. Taunt, ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... tinkler, Charlie Fox, May taunt you wi' his jeers an' mocks; But gie him't het, my hearty cocks! E'en cowe the cadie! An' send him to his dicing ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... an easy and romantic time carried the day, and Harry's practical common-sense reasoning was of no avail, and a taunt at his cowardice induced him to ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... and thus find my triumph and revenge. A man rejected or scorned by a woman sometimes makes a great man of himself, with the motivation more or less developed to make her sorry or humiliated. Anger may prompt a man to go in to win his enemy's girl. A taunt or an insult sometimes spurs the victim of it to towering ambition to show the world and especially the abuser better, and to be able to despise him in return; and there are those who have been thus stung to attempt greatness and find the sweetest joy of success in ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... clumsy crutch out of the way of the passers-by, and she had heard the rude and inhuman ejaculation of the nobly-formed specimen, whose inner soul must, she felt, be far more hideous than the stricken lad's outward being, since it could so cruelly taunt one on whom the hand of God ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... greatest mechanical skill in America is to be found among professional burglars who come here from England. Suppose one of these men were in prison, and we were to stand outside and taunt him through the window: "Here is a locomotive engine: why do you not mend or manage it? Here is a steam printing-press: if you know anything, set it up for me! You a mechanic, when you have not proved that you understand any of these ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... devil, take care of his claws," answered the captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt against ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Eden claimed a favored haunt, Most hallowed of that blessed ground, Where tempting fiend with guileful taunt A resting-place would ne'er have found,— As shadowing it well might seek The loveliest home in that fair isle, Which in its radiance seemed to speak As to the charmed doth Beauty's smile, That whispers of a thousand things For which words find no ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... argument if not the best. Indeed, I found little to say, except that the village would be the worse by so much as the Duchess of York was the better for Mistress Barbara's departure; the civility won me nothing but the haughtiest curtsey and a taunt. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... and effected this change through the higher laws of God. The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, "That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;" but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence. If his patient was a theologian of some bigoted sect, ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... no answer at first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl, who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... Are these the phrases with which you taunt me? But," dropping his voice again, he added, "you are right in suggesting that I have discharged my office when I demand, to what end those very marked attentions are ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... plough-cows along?" said one, and the taunt had its meaning, for it is usually only the indigent and incapable who plough ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... upon her confidences with the mulatto. The significance of her question, "Then it IS war?" was at best a threat, and that implied hesitation. He recalled her strange allusion to his wife; was it merely the outcome of his own foolish confession on their first interview, or was it a concealed ironical taunt? Being satisfied, however, that she was not likely to imperil his public duty in any way, he was angry with himself for speculating further. But, although he still felt towards her the same antagonism she had at first ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... The taunt was too much. Wheeling suddenly, Lidgerwood snapped out a summons to Jefferis: "Get aboard, Mr. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud, "See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile tides—when we try" ... Rustic France along this coast still ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various |
