"Slur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while affectation is odious, crudeness must be overcome. A low voice is always pleasing, not whispered or murmured, but low in pitch. Do not talk at the top of your head, nor at the top of your lungs. Do not slur whole sentences together; on the other hand, do not pronounce as though each syllable were a ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... soprano, and a bass and tenor, too. I can thrill and slur and frill and whirr and shake you through and through. I'm a Jews' harp—I'm an organ—I'm a fiddle and a flute. Every kind of touching sound is found ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... all turns to flower, Though not a leaf is out, so she The bloom of life provoked in me And, hard till then and selfish, I Was thenceforth nought but sanctity And service: life was mere delight In being wholly good and right, As she was; just, without a slur; Honouring myself no less than her; Obeying, in the loneliest place, Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace, Assured that one so fair, so true, He only served that was so too. For me, hence weak towards the weak, No more the unnested blackbird's shriek Startled the light-leaved ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the beginning of a troubled time for all of us, and one which a partial biographer of Danvers Carmichael would like to slur over or leave untold entirely, for it seemed that neither reason nor self-respect could do anything with him in his thirst for Nancy's society. As soon as she was about again he was over at Stair, the excuse being some presents which he had brought us from the strange lands he had ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... father, owing to his failing eye-sight, a statement of accounts on the second or third of every month. I had first to read out the totals under each head, and if he had any doubts on any point he would ask for the details. If I made any attempt to slur over or keep out of sight any item which I feared he would not like, it was sure to come out. So these first few days of the month were very anxious ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... only the present situation can be turned to advantage, this crowning paradox is the most hopeful element in the whole of a tangled question. It is not only that the British elector is likely to revolt at once against the slur upon his intelligence and the drain upon his purse, but that Irish Unionism, once convinced of the tenacity and sincerity of that revolt, is likely to undergo a dramatic and beneficent transformation. If they are to have Home Rule, Irish Unionists—even those who now most ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... sport spoiler and bruiser, eh? Some combination." And Siebold turned away with something too much like a sneer on his fine face. Gus was hurt, but smiled, as usual. Tony resented the slur. ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... mind. This woman, who swears and treats her with such abominable coolness, knows something of her past or present, possibly from Elizabeth, with whom she may be acquainted. This last remark is an insinuation of her unfitness to die, and that her soul is ripe for perdition. The implied slur gradually increases and exaggerates itself in Eleanor's brain, sensitive to a degree. She sees in it a deliberate insult, and following Paulina, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two and twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge that a public life more consistent is not to be found in our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other part; and the whole is in perfect ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... previous work, illustrates his professed creed as to criticism. He wrote to Ellis concerning his article: "What I could I did, which was to throw as much weight as possible upon the beautiful passages, of which there are many, and to slur over the absurdities, of which there are not a few.... This said Kehama affords cruel openings for the quizzers, and I suppose will get it roundly in the Edinburgh Review. I could have made a very different hand of it, indeed, had the order of the day been ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... other tradesmen at Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer, or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally unsuccessful. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... place in 1858, by order of the English Parliament; for though the results of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from any blame, there was never any amende honourable made for subjecting him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot; and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have been the remote cause of our death. It is no ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and then gave it freely to save the lives of others—for such was the charge for which she died—is not a woman to restrict her gracious ministrations ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... silenced for the moment. She did not mind the greater number of the rival comet's tails. It was not that which made her feel herself at a disadvantage. It was the slur at her lesser relationship to the master of the house. Any reference to that was a blow which never failed to make her flinch; and one which the widow never lost a chance to deal. But Miss Penelope had not yielded an inch through the ceaseless contention of years, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... up straight in his chair. I thought he was rasped by the fellow's slur, for he is very proud of his ship. But it was something else that rubbed the expression of patient resignation from his face; he was staring over the starboard rail with an expression of lively interest. I followed ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... to do much showing of their faces out of doors after dark unless they had some business, their parents being firm in the belief that thirteen and fourteen year old boys should be at home after night. But this slur on their courage was not ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... restraint. He got so carried away by his subject, and spoke so loudly, that he quite alarmed the order-bedecked general. Nejdanov was a strong admirer of Ostrovsky, but could not help feeling, in spite of the author's great genius, his evident desire to throw a slur on modern civilisation in the burlesqued character of Veherov, in "Never Sit in Another ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... judicial aspect in the Christ who is to meet the prophecies written in men's hearts, as well as in Scripture, teach us how one-sided and superficial are representations of His work which suppress or slur over ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... "there are so many details to be worked out in a thing like this, and I mustn't slur over any of them. We must make it the best we can. And ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... that you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, seems surprised at the clearness of her own logic. The boys tell him that he's "worse than a girl," and the girls repudiate the implied slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure no girl would be ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... course this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on recommending him for the Victoria ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... certain wryness in the young man's smile, for though Hawtrey had cast no particular slur upon the family's credit he had signally failed to enhance it, and he was quite aware that his English relatives did not greatly desire his ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... share of the congratulations. Although the faithful creature had retreated on each occasion of his being attacked, no one thought of casting a slur upon his canine courage. He had only exhibited a wise discretion: for what chance would he have stood against such a formidable adversary? He had done better, therefore, by taking to his heels; for had he foolishly stood his ground, and got killed ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... poor enough—buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... sensationalism of his funeral arrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that if his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... the subject of your scarfpin," said Cleggett, in whom the slur on the Jasper B. had been rankling, "I don't mind telling YOU that I think that skull thing is in damned bad taste. In fact, you are dressed generally in damned ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... shall not be wanting' to make the series all that the publishers hope for it. That the materiel is good, our readers, we think, need not be informed. The plan has been cordially welcomed by the press, with a single exception; and in that, the quo animo was so apparent as to neutralize the slur intended by the writer. We shall be enabled to secure the earliest literary rarities on both sides of the water for the 'Knickerbocker Library,' and the style in which they will be presented will be unsurpassed. . . . WE lament ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... but our suggestion would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race which, by reason of 'nomadic habits,' was never much given to ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, later, that 'there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.' Ta-li-y-Tooboo, of course, is one of these gods, as is Jehovah. Mr. Huxley ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... offices on Park Row, the old City Hall, the mingling on lower Broadway of sky-challenging buildings with the history of pre-Revolutionary days. She got a momentary prejudice in favor of socialism from listening to an attack upon it by a noon-time orator—a spotted, badly dressed man whose favorite slur regarding socialists was that they were spotted and badly dressed. She heard a negro shouting dithyrambics about some religion ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... This slur was totally unjustified, but I pardoned it, because Salemina's temper is ordinarily perfect, and the circumstances were somewhat tragic. "If you had brought a dozen costumes, they would all be in your room at ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... filled with great joy and delight, married Swaha in the guise of Siva, and that lady joyfully cohabiting with him, held the semen virile in her hands. And then she thought within herself that those who would observe her in that disguise in the forest, would cast an unmerited slur upon the conduct of those Brahmana ladies in connection with Agni. Therefore, to prevent this, she should assume the disguise of a bird, and in that state she should more easily ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... wise to voice his objections now except by an occasional slur. But he found it necessary sometimes to put a curb on his temper. The thing was outrageous—damnably bad form. Sometimes it seemed to him that the girl was gratuitously irritating him by flaunting this bounder in his face. He could not understand it in her. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... his intention to take the exhibition to Duluth, Will offered to make a wager that his own little town would furnish a bigger crowd than would the city of my residence. I could not accept any such inferred slur upon the Zenith City, so accepted the wager, a silk hat against ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... took his pipe from between his lips to offer protest against this slur, but changed his mind, and resumed smoking, ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... Henry of Huntingdon makes her the daughter of Coel, King of Colchester; the "old King Cole" of our nursery rhyme, and as mythical as other eponymous heroes. Bede calls her a concubine, a slur derived from Eutropius (A.D. 360), who calls the connection obscurius matrimonium ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... sad seriousness, good Master Jones, do you intend to cast a slur upon our courage?" demanded Standish, a cold smile upon his lips, while his right hand toyed with Gideon's hilt, and his right foot planted ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... fellow's eyes flashed angrily. He turned upon her suddenly, but on second thought did not utter the words forming on his lips. She realized the unintentional slur she had cast, and was about to explain. But on second thought she, too, remained silent; for she read him, and knew that it was perhaps the only way for her to gain her point. They stood there, bodies inclined to the storm in ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... rapidly, "let us thresh out the matter ourselves. We will save Sir Frank's name from a police court slur at all events." ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... point out that the analysis of modesty offered above robs this venerable saying of any sting it may have possessed as a slur upon women. In such a case, modesty is largely a doubt as to the spectator's attitude, and necessarily disappears when that doubt is satisfactorily resolved. As we have seen, the Central Australian maidens ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in one way and another, got the notion that it is a very inferior play, and not worth reading, or at least not to be read until after they were tired of all the others—a time which had not yet come. There seems to be a slur cast upon this play; the reason of which is its very undramatic character, and the consequent non-appearance of its name in theatrical records. No one has heard of any actor's or actress's appearance, even in the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his brother's wife—for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe he hates the English—there is a slur ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... your position,' she answered. 'But think of mine! What can I do? Without your support it would seem an invention to save me from disgrace; even if I produced the register, the love of scandal in the world is such that the multitude would slur over the fact, say it was a fabrication, and believe your story. I do not know who ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... her skirts brush the leaves at the border of the path. She was going; and the contemptuous slur at my "reasons" proved that she did not believe them existent. She believed me to be ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... eyes, Than that my lord thro' me should suffer shame. Am I so bold, and could I so stand by, And see my dear lord wounded in the strife, Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes, And yet not dare to tell him what I think, And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into mere effeminacy? O me, I fear that I am no ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... was intended to please; it might have pleased some girls, but it did not please this one. Mary's dignity was offended. Anything approaching a slur upon her beloved uncles, or their place of business, or South Harniss, or the Cape Cod people, she resented with all her might. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sixteen officers, six of them young lads who had just arrived, and all Europeans who came their way. Happily families were in the Fort, to which they had betaken themselves in opposition to the affectionate remonstrances of the native officers, who said it was a slur on their fidelity! The Sepoys plundered the Treasury; and it is said many of them were afterwards murdered by the villagers on account of the money ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... in his account of this transaction to the French government, avails himself of these passages in the capitulation to cast a slur on the conduct of Washington. He says, "We made the English consent to sign that they had assassinated my brother in his camp."—"We caused them to abandon the lands belonging to the king.—We obliged them to leave their cannon, which consisted of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... and inclination I ought to have for my own Country, had almost perswaded me to rest my self there, and to make my native tongue the basis of this universall reduction but then the rest of the Europaean world (which I have no reason to slur or contemne) would have as ill resented the project, as we did it in the Germans, who would long agoe have challenged this honour to themselves. I had in the end no other course to take, but to throw myselfe upon the Latine, in which I luckily met with all the necessary ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... stung by the slur thus slyly cast upon British honour, invited the young gentleman ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... should have found him out: and then should have been as resolute to dismiss him, as I was to dismiss others, and as I am never to have Mr. Solmes. O that they did but know my heart!—It shall sooner burst, than voluntarily, uncompelled, undriven, dictate a measure that shall cast a slur either upon them, or ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... acknowledge this compact, or to cast any slur upon the father whose reasons for this apparently unnatural conduct were quite disconnected with any fault of his or any desire to ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... the pamphlet bears evidence of Malone's revision.[19] It was necessary, of course, to re-orient the essay, which after the formula of the Gentleman's Magazine was addressed to Mr. Urban. At least one passage, which carried a slur upon publishers, may have been changed to suit Mr. Nichols.[20] But more indicative of his carefulness are his revisions of words and phrases. "The whole fabrick" of Chatterton's poems became "the beautiful fabrick" (p.12). The "practice of ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... dew from every by-road, field, and wood, and an admirable mother of thunderbolts. Ashby and Ashby's men were alike smarting from a late rebuke, administered in General Orders. They felt it stingingly. The Confederate soldier enthroned on high his personal honour, and a slur there was a slur indeed. Now the memory of the reprimand was a strong spur to endeavour. The cavalry meant to distinguish itself, and pined for a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... and manly effort to wind up his father's affairs and pay his outstanding debts. He was so far stirred out of himself that it hardly occurred to his mind that a slur would be left on him if these debts were left unpaid: his strongest motive just now was the sense of right and wrong, and he knew, too late, that it was right for him to take up the load which his own ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... world,—whispers unthinkable and tragic possibilities to the poetic and self-searching mind of Ernesto. He resolves to seek release in Argentina. But before he can sail away, he overhears, in a fashionable cafe, a remark which casts a slur on Teodora, and strikes the speaker of the insult in the face. A duel is forthwith arranged, to take place in a vacant studio adjacent to Ernesto's. When Don Julian learns about it, he is troubled by the idea that another man should ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... household Finn had, without grudging, without lust, without vain boasting, without chattering, without any slur on any one of ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... common-wealth: so that there lies no parallel betwixt his cause and Mr Hunt's, except in the bare notion of a common-wealth, as it is opposed to monarchy; and that's the thing he would obliquely slur upon us. Yet on these premises, he is for ordering my lord chief justice to grant out warrants against all those who have applauded the "Duke of Guise;" as if they committed a riot when they clapped. I suppose they paid for their places, as well as he and his ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... it easy to manipulate these facts, and he elected to slur over the Hendrickje episode; but he was able to interest the ladies of the Dorcas meeting by showing them some of Rembrandt's pictures. He collected a series of photographs of the portraits and paintings, ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... had judiciously made no announcement of his coming. He knew that there was an edict against his participation in these vigils, based on a theory that he might give voice and advertise his master's presence, but it was a theory for which he had contempt and which he resented as a slur upon ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... first to go against him, but he bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck. And his third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in the proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades. This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled him to marry and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Still mindful of the slur that had been cast on one of his best bedchambers, the manager took occasion to ask the travellers the next morning how they liked their room. They left him to judge for himself how well they were satisfied, by remaining a day longer in Venice than they ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... the pledge, their hands met. The sealing of a pledge is not a matter to slur over with careless haste, but requires due time. And it was but natural that the handclasp should be symbolic of that deliberation. Indeed, it is hard to say just how long his big hand and her little one ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... Astronomical doctrines of the Moon's rotation ..." Edinburgh. Of all the works I have seen on the question, this is the most confident, and the sorest. {5} A writer on astronomy said of Mr. Jellinger Symons,[18] "Of course he convinced no one who knew anything of the subject." This "ungenerous slur" on the speculator's memory appears to have been keenly felt; but its truth is admitted. Those who knew anything of the subject are "the so-called men of science," whose three P's were assailed; ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the first thing he does—so do we range over every part of the picture, but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of foreground unostentatiously—to paint nothing, that which is to tell as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... that same silken gown of a pale-blue color, spangled with roses, and the skirts were so wide and trained over a hoop and starched petticoats that they swung and tilted like a great double flower, and hit on this side and that with a quick musical slur. Over Lucina's shoulders, far below her waist, fell her wonderful fair hair, in curls, and every curl might well have proved a twining finger of love. Lucina wore a bonnet of fine straw, trimmed simply enough with a white ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... light of true Christianity might have beamed on their hearts, with all the advantages of civilisation, and far greater happiness than they had hitherto enjoyed might have been their lot. No blame can be attached to Columbus, no slur can be cast on his fair fame. He had achieved a glorious undertaking in discovering a new world, but on its inhabitants he had been thus the instrument of bringing the direst of curses, and, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... a character that closed the doors of all his family against him, my lady (then just married) taking the lead, and declaring (with Sir John's approval, of course) that her brother should never enter any house of hers. There was more than one slur on the Colonel that made people shy of him; but the blot of the Diamond is all ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Bernard Shaw has been nothing but a conversationalist. It is not a slur to say so; Socrates was one, and even Christ Himself. He differs from that divine and that human prototype in the fact that, like most modern people, he does to some extent talk in order to find out what he thinks; whereas they knew it beforehand. But he has the virtues that go with the talkative ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... What one desires to see in the lives of others is some sort of transformation, some evidence of patient struggling with faults, some hint of failings triumphed over, some gain of generosity and endurance and courage. To slur over the faults and failings of the great is not only inartistic: it is also faint-hearted and unjust. It alienates sympathy. It substitutes unreal adoration for wholesome admiration; it afflicts the reader, conscious of frailty and struggle, with ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the Pythagorean theory of proportion, which applied to commensurable magnitudes only. It would no doubt be possible, in most cases, to replace proofs depending on proportions by others; but this involved great inconvenience, and a slur was cast on geometry generally. The trouble was remedied once for all by Eudoxus's discovery of the great theory of proportion, applicable to commensurable and incommensurable magnitudes alike, which is expounded in Euclid's Book ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... muslin or soft red material, so ingeniously disposed as to drape the bust and lower limbs, and form a girdle at the same time. One shoulder and arm are usually left bare. The part which may be called a petticoat—though the word is a slur upon the graceful drapery—is short, and shows the finely turned ankles, high insteps, and small feet. These women are tall, and straight as arrows; their limbs are long and rounded; their appearance is timid, one might almost say modest, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... withstood the party that was not his, and upon some slur and insolence took from a man his office. Followed a week of glassy smoothness. Then suddenly, by chance, was discovered the plot of Bernal Diaz de Pisa—the first of many Spanish conspiracies. It involved ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... already?" he repeated. "But not all of them? I know you compose. You are not saying that you are about to give composition up?" A forced and awkward "slur," perhaps; but it served. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... makes his day to have no night, Whose wishes wait upon her lord, Who finds her own in his delight, Is she another now than she Who, mistress of her maiden charms, At his wild prayer, incredibly Committed them to his proud arms? Unless her choice of him's a slur Which makes her proper credit dim, He never enough can honour her Who past all speech has ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Devil playing at push-pin with the world, or like Domitian, catching flies,—that is to say, doing nothing to the purpose,—this is not only deluding ourselves, but putting a slur upon the Devil himself; and I say, I shall not dishonor Satan so much as to suppose anything in it; however, as I must have a care to how I take away the proper materials of winter-evening frippery, and leave the goodwives nothing of the Devil to frighten the children with, I shall ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... him and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder. "You ought to have been an admiral, Joe," he said, gratefully, without intending any slur on a noble profession. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... prove that God is in no sense implicated by his creative act, or involved in his creation. That his relation to the creatures he has made should make any difference to him, carry any consequence, or qualify his being, is repudiated as a pantheistic slur upon his self-sufficingness. I said a moment ago that theism treats us and God as of the same species, but from the orthodox point of view that was a slip of language. God and his creatures are toto genere distinct in the scholastic theology, they have absolutely ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... actual speech; it is not one of the languages which can be heard at a long distance, and, moreover, it lends itself in speaking to so many contractions that are not used in writing—so many "can'ts" and "won'ts" and "don'ts," which suit English taciturnity, but slur and ruin English speech—that English, as spoken, is almost a different language from that which excites admiration when written. So that the exclusive use of English for international purposes would not be the survival of ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... came to a conclusion. They decided that there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the Aulus Gellius. In portions it was true that between the lines other characters were partly legible; but this threw no slur on the MS. itself. Of the commentary on the book of Jasher, it will be remembered, they gave no decisive opinion, and it is still an open question. They expressed their belief that the Aulus Gellius was alone worth the price asked by Dr. Groschen. It only ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot—since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence—afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. "I care nothing ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... sinner I don't care a copper damn whether he recognizes me or not. What I can't stand and won't stand is the slur he's putting on ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... single note these represent a note in the extract which was bracketed or otherwise highlighted. When around two or more notes, they represent a slur or beam. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... mostly black. In their jargoning hardly an aspirate was in its right place, but they looked as if their hearts were, and if no word came from their lips with its true quality, but with that curious soft London slur or twist, they doubtless ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... might never come to that, though this terrible passion might be concealed from her, still it was a grievance to him and a disgrace that he should have anything to conceal. It was a stain in his own eyes on his own nobility, a slur upon his escutcheon, a taint in his hitherto unslobbered honesty, and then the sin of it;—the sin of it! To him it already sat heavy on his conscience. In his ear, even now, sounded that commandment which he weekly prayed that he might be permitted ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... we had had with us a courier specially engaged for the occasion; but, detecting in him an inclination to slur important details in relation to the lives and works of the Old Masters whose handicraft greeted us murally on every side, I soon dispensed with his services and took over his task. Whereas he had been content to dismiss this or that artist with but a perfunctory line, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... welfare of Grannie and father and brother Tom, and for a time, with the perfunctoriness of childhood, which attaches more weight to the act than to the meaning of it, she allowed that to pass with a stickle and a slur. But very soon brother Tom was ruthlessly dropped out of the ritual, and neither threats nor persuasion could ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... have been very young, then," said I, a little bit nettled at his remark—thinking it a slur on my nautical experience, so ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... exalts marriage, never casts any slur upon it, treats it as one of the most sacred of all human relations. She makes it appear as a sacrament, not of the Church, but of the sublime fellowship of humanity. It is pure, holy, a binding tie, a sacred obligation, as it appears in her books. When Romola is ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... dismissed from the Bar. He slowly retired, like a man in deep grief: his head sunk on his breast—not looking at any one, and not replying when his friends spoke to him. He knew, poor fellow, the slur that the Verdict left on him. "We don't say you are innocent of the crime charged against you; we only say there is not evidence enough to convict you." In that lame and impotent conclusion the proceedings ended at the time. And there they ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... mind than in the "first sprightly running" of more common-place talents. But to his sane admirers the interest of the play must always be melancholy, because it is purely pathological. To deny this is, in my opinion, to cast a slur over all the poet's previous work, and in great measure to justify the criticisms of his most violent detractors. For When We Dead Awaken is very like the sort of play that haunted the "anti-Ibsenite" imagination ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... in this issue is Olive G. Owen's "How Prayest Thou?", a piece of true sentiment and artistic beauty. The only fault is metrical; the use of the word "trial" as a monosyllable. This tendency to slur over words appears to be Miss Owen's one poetical vice, as exemplified in the imperfect rendering of "jewel", ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... well, with an attractive manner and a clear enunciation that not even acute nervousness can slur or disorganize. He is, in fact, an excellent public speaker, never missing the value of a sentence, and managing his voice so well that even in the open air people are able to follow what he says at a distance that renders other ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... with that discretion I respect in you—with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent position—that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Hereford bull!" roared Thornton; "don't you dare to slur me before my people. You're making this raid because I haven't buttered you with ten-dollar bills to keep your hands off. You've taken 'em from all the other rumsellers—but this isn't one of your ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... to do my duty," said Haldane, with a quiet smile, though a quick flush showed that he felt the slur, "and it will be your duty, Colonel, to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... what round the corner waits To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur Shall leave me with a head to lift, Worthy of him that ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... Hal, by any means, miss the intended slur. Yet he was above taking up any quarrel ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... superficial comparison of the mythology of India and that of other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value, because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which have now been established by the students of the science of language were not yet known, and as with words, so with the names of deities, similarity of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... her candy long enough to say how about finding some other trunk keys that will unlock it. Oswald is both hurt and made hopeful by this. He don't like to think his beautiful trunk could respond to any but its rightful key; it would seem kind of a slur against its integrity. Still, he says it may be tried. Lydia says try it, of course; and if no other key unlocks it she will pick the lock with a hairpin. Oswald is again bruised by this suggestion; but he bears up like a man. And ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... she was engaged to Dr. Mitchell. The engagement had been announced in The Times, The Morning Post, The Manchester Guardian, and the local News. No fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgar familiarity over her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in the common esteem tremendously. But she was no longer in Woodhouse. She was in Lancaster. And in Lancaster her engagement pigeonholed her. Apart from Dr. Mitchell she had a magic ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... did not slur the short notes and howl upon the long ones, as did a little fat Jew from London, with a sweet voice and no brains, whom I last heard howl it in the Theater Royal, Edinburgh. No; he retained the pure rhythm of the composition, and, above all, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... to have felt a little concern at an imputation, which was once faintly attempted to be made, he scarcely now remembers by whom, that in the character of Nathan Slaughter he intended to throw a slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described as having been an unworthy member. This notion is undeserving of serious challenge. The whole object was here to portray the peculiar characteristics ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... incredulity, while she could not forget what she had said about the "unimpeachable honor and untarnished name" of the family. It had stung her keenly, though she did not suspect that it had been an intentional slur upon the shadow resting ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... upon him with his bill, and I promise you there were very few bad debts. On the contrary, gentlemen were grateful to us for our forbearance, and our character for honour stood unimpeached. In latter times, a vulgar national prejudice has chosen to cast a slur upon the character of men of honour engaged in the profession of play; but I speak of the good old days of Europe, before the cowardice of the French aristocracy (in the shameful revolution, which served them right) brought discredit upon our order. They cry fie ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... relieved; that latter speculator had been somewhat disturbed in his mind concerning Storri's opinion of what, to give it a best description, evinced niggard distrust of Storri, and cast in negative fashion a slur upon ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... fireplace, in which a good fire was burning. Indeed, it was the table's location, which she had selected herself, that was the cause of her obstinacy. She had construed an innocent remark of mine into a slur upon her choice, and had evidently decided to wear her coat to emphasize the fact that in spite of the fire she was none too warm, and there she had sat all through lunch with her heavy ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... some censor (profiting by the breach which circumstances, or even a slight fault on the part of these great minds, may have made, and joining issue with other inferior judges of character) has often succeeded in throwing a shade on their glorious actions and in casting a slur upon their reputation, like those little insects which from their number actually succeed, notwithstanding their smallness, in darkening the rays of the sun. What is worse, however, is, that when ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... traditions of former ages, independently of the strong and convincing claims which Catholicity offers to all? This is said without in the least attributing the fault to sound philosophy, without casting the slightest slur on those truly great and illustrious men who have widened the limits of the human intellect, and deserved well of mankind by the solid truths they have opened up in their works for the benefit and instruction of minds less gifted ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... longer was there the same eagerness noticeable which used to boast openly that its rewards consisted in the consciousness of work well done. Instead, idleness became the badge of gentility, and trade a slur upon a man's reputation. No city can long survive so listless and languid an ideal. The Archbishop, therefore, denounced this new method of usurious traffic, and hinted further that to it was due the fierce rebellion which ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... had long suspected Tompkins of entertaining a sneaking admiration for Edith, and resolved to tell her of this slur at the first opportunity. I didn't have a chance to answer him; a dozen men rushed into the room, threw their hats and coats on the bed and ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... in heathen ignorance in a Christian land, denies to the slaves compensation for their labour, the rights of marriage and of the parental relation, which are respected even among the most savage nations; it sustains an iniquitous internal slave-trade—it corrupts the owners, and casts a slur upon the dignity of labour. It acts as an incubus on public improvement, and vitiates public morals; and it proves a very formidable obstacle to religion, advancement, and national unity; and so long as it shall remain ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... that the best three-quarters of him was Scotch in that he had a Scotch woman for a wife, and nothing that he had said or could say could be interpreted as casting a slur upon that great and proud and noble race than whom none had taken a larger and more honourable part in the building and the maintaining of the Empire. But to resume. The country was asked for the sake of the alleged economic ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... right by settlements and entails. Lady Altringham was much more energetic than her husband, and had made out quite a plan of the manner in which George should proceed. She discussed the matter with him at great length. The one difficulty she was, indeed, obliged to slur over; but even that was not altogether omitted in her scheme. "Whatever incumbrances there may be, free yourself from them at once," she ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... no means over-scrupulous as to the perfection of his own handiwork when he could slur over a job without fear of detection; while the standard of morality which he set up for himself, certainly, to judge by his own daily life, did not speak much for the acuteness ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... the War Department that "The alarmist reports of condition of troops in North Russia as published in press end of December are not warranted by facts. Troops have been well taken care of in every way and my officers resent these highly exaggerated reports, feeling that slur is cast upon the regiment and its wonderful record. Request that this be given to the press and especially to Detroit and Chicago papers to ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... However, this slur did not deter Jordan in his determination to go higher, for at the battle of Manila he was a gunner's mate of the first class, and his record was so conspicuous that it could not go unnoticed by ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... curious to reflect, as he leaned against the doorway of Mrs. Gildermere's ball-room, enveloped in the warm atmosphere of the accustomed, that twenty-four hours later the people brushing by him with looks of friendly recognition would start at the thought of having seen him and slur over the recollection of having taken ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... with you. My position in France is already a sufficiently difficult one. Already we are threatened with a second Fronde. It needs but such events as these to bring my family into prominence and make it the butt for the ridicule that malcontents but wait an opportunity to slur it with. This affair of Andrea's will lend itself to a score or so of lampoons and pasquinades, all of which will cast an injurious reflection upon my person and position. That, Monsieur, is, methinks, sufficient evil to suffer ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... far as Elissa was concerned, these charges were utterly untrue. None could throw a slur upon her, and as for these rare human sacrifices, she loathed the very name of them, nor, unless forced to it, would she have been present had she guessed that any ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... why a 'meeting' was not 'arranged' and why Sir Allan did not have an opportunity of using his silver-mounted duelling pistols is not quite clear. The tempers of our politicians have much improved since that violent scene occurred. No slur on the word of an honourable gentleman, no imputation of falsehood, would now be so hotly resented in ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... slur, is a method of cheating at dice: also to cast a reflection on any one's character, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... forethought for small wants, His providing of luxuries for His creatures. On the other hand, do not let us be disingenuous enough to shirk the mystery which lies in pain, in cruelty, in all which seems to be a slur upon His work. The best that we can say for them is to hope that they are not as bad as they seem, and possibly lead to some higher end. The voices of the ill-used child and of the tortured animal are the hardest of all for the philosopher ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... this, my lord," said the counsel, "had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language—in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted— calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman's character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north- country magistrate, are fully convinced ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... had a family, that is to say, his family looked upon him as one of its members, and since in their opinion he was committing an offence against morality, and casting a slur on their good name, he was summoned to appear before the assembled parents, brothers and sisters in order to be censured. He considered that he was too old for such treatment and the family ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... appealed to his friendship. Moreover, his own wife, recently dead, had received Mrs. Eaton and shown a strong disposition to be friends with her, and he considered the reflections on his colleague's wife were a slur on her, whose memory he honoured almost as that of a saint, but who, as he could not but remember, had herself not been spared by slanderers. He not only extended in the most conspicuous manner the protection of ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... that Percy was sitting in my easy chair, with a cup of my thinnest china in one hand and a copy of Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean in the other. We had been speaking of climate, and he wanted to look up the passage where Pater said, "one always dies of the cold"—which I consider a slur on ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... at the younger sister, fearing she might be stirred up to wrath by the veiled slur on her character; but probably she was pleased enough to be the one to go, whatever excuse Mademoiselle Loire chose to give. Indeed, her mood had been wonderfully amicable for several days. "Let me see," she said, looking ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt, a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All the while Douglas sat imperturbed, his head at a slight angle, which gave him ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... loud," Dorsey snarled, catching instantly, as Chuck intended he should, the covert slur at the black Y-Bar stallion. "Maybe your money won't make so ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... to refute all my opponent's slanders before I come to the actual indictment itself. For I am pleading not merely my own cause, but that of philosophy as well, philosophy, whose grandeur is such that she resents even the slightest slur cast upon her perfection as though it were the most serious accusation. Knowing this, Aemilianus' advocates, only a short time ago, poured forth with all their usual loquacity a flood of drivelling accusations, many of which were specially ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... "though I agree with you as to the actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest against your slur on the memory of our ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... keerful wouldn't trust you wid a shoe buttoner—dat's how high I reguards yore gift fur machinery," commented Bill Tilghman acidly. Red Hoss chose to ignore the slur. Anyhow, at the moment he could put his tongue to no appropriate sentence of counter repartee. He continued as though there ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... forgive me, and also allow me to say that, were the same thing to occur again, I fear I should act in the same way. I think my primary object in giving Rosalind money to go home this morning was to save the college from any open slur being cast ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... have told a very improbable story," replied Giovanni. "You have sunk lower than before, for you have cast a slur upon an innocent girl in order to shield yourself. I would not have believed you capable of that. You can no more prove your innocence than you can prove that this poor child was mad enough to follow Gouache into the street last Tuesday night. I have listened to you patiently. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... preached a teetotal lecture, and when he showed signs of profiting by it, the demon of drink would send him hanging round public-house doors cadging for drinks in a way which his shipmates regarded as a slur upon the entire ship's company. Many a healthy thirst reared on salt beef and tickled with strong tobacco had been spoiled by the sight of Mr. Lister standing by the entrance, with a propitiatory smile, waiting to be invited ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... harsh and bitter reply. 'You promised to marry Mademoiselle de Fontaine, and yesterday, at three o'clock—ah, I was there!—you formally renounced your claims. This is an insult that calls for blood, and blood it shall have. Twenty-four hours have elapsed less ten minutes, since you cast this slur upon a noble lady's good name. When the hour is ripe, you will pay the penalty it requires with ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... objects as heretofore, but with a more express view to the benefit of the reader. Looking even at those memoirs which, like Hayley's of Cowper, have been checked by pathetic circumstances from fixing any slur or irreverential scandal upon their subject, we still see a great fault in the mass of biographic records; and what is it? It is—that, even where no disposition is manifested to copy either the eloge or the libellous pasquinade, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey |
