"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinion, I asserted, that some of us had been there thousands of years before, but nobody had had the sense to discover us. We couldn't discover ourselves,—though if we could have foreseen how the sere and yellow nations of the earth would taunt us with youth and inexperience, we should have had to ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... replied Adrian, sharply, and incensed at the taunt, "you Foreigners have taught us how ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we feel it; passion will not be simulated. What we know, and can do well, must all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... taunt—as though I were the common interrogation mark, the abuser of hospitality, the abominable Paul Pry. But I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 'a savage who had travelled.' There was a deal, in this elaborate modesty, of honest pride. Yet there was something in the precaution that saddened me; and I could not but fear he was only forestalling a taunt that he ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... eyes very wide. 'Then why do you let me go?' she asked on an ascending note, and she did not mean to taunt him. It would be so easy for him to keep her, if he knew how. She expected a despairing groan, she half hoped for a violent embrace, but he answered quietly, 'I don't really let you go. It's you I love, not just your hair and your face ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... barons, who in the fight were slain, and deprived of life-day; he caused them to be buried with great pomp. But he caused three kings to bear Luces the emperor, and caused a bier to be made, rich and exceeding lofty; and caused them soon to be sent to Rome. And greeted all the Rome-people with a great taunt, and said that he sent them the tribute of his land, and eft would also send them more greeting, if they would yearn of Arthur's gold; and thereafter full soon ride into Rome, and tell them tidings of the King of Britain, and Rome-walls repair, that were of yore fallen down;—"And so will I rule ...
— Brut • Layamon
... 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? But do rectors of theological academies ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... in an English gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. He sat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now and then Sparrow MacCoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word of encouragement to hold my brother ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... his monument. Happy are they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world that they are not afraid to meet them in the next; who when they die make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... exploits of the men, their employments, their intended movements, the news of the coast, and the character of their employers. It is usual, in these extemporary strains, for the Kroomen attached to a man-of-war to taunt, with good-humored satire, their friends who are more laboriously employed in merchant vessels, and not so well fed ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... talk of my poor Bob being in Millbank, who ought to be there yourself!' she cried, in a voice hoarse and low with passion. 'Are you out of your senses, Miss Etta, to taunt me with poor Bob's troubles? What is to prevent me from going to master now ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... This unexpected taunt disconcerted Andy. It was the truth, for, more than once had Tom, in his motor-boat, proved more than a match for the squint-eyed bully ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... benefit of the poor, by, the use of this wealth. But, alas, even here and now, the same, relentless fate pursued her. The villain Selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of her life. He appeared to taunt her with her dishonor, he threatened exposure if she did not become again the mistress of his passion. Gentlemen, do you wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason, was beside herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Jerusalem!" 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 that sacred dome, "To live in liberty, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... a Triad, with different names in each different home. Each city in Etruria might have as many gods and gates and temples as it pleased; but three sacred gates, and one Temple to three Divine Attributes were obligatory, wherever the laws of Tages (or Taunt or Thoth) were received. The only gate that remains in Italy, of the olden time, undestroyed, is the Porta del Circo at Volterra; and it has upon it the three heads of the three National Divinities, one upon the keystone of its magnificent arch, and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of those who knew the "inner story" who saw something besides resignation and despair in Jan's quiet aloofness, and in the disconsolate droop of his head. His face turned a shade whiter when O'Grady passed near, dropping insult and taunt, and looking sidewise at him in a way that only HE could understand. But he made no retort, though his dark eyes glowed with a fire that never quite died—unless it was when, alone and unobserved, he took from his pocket a bit of buckskin in which ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... requires no spirit of prophecy to predict that it (the petition) will create great opposition. An attempt will be made to frighten Northern 'dough-faces' as in case of the Missouri question. There will be an abundance of furious declamation, menace, and taunt. Are we, therefore, to approach the subject timidly—with half a heart—as if we were treading on forbidden ground? No, indeed, but earnestly, fearlessly, as becomes men, who are determined to clear their country and themselves from the guilt of oppressing God's free and ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... patient condition, awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "Well then, if you must know, here we are." The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance. And now, what they would have taken they won't take, and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony, "Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God's sake, do ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... to taunt me into action, and reviewed the "kennel" with critical eyes. "Never saw a dog makin', its own chain before," he said to the Maluka as I sat among billows of calico and mosquito netting. But the homemaking instinct is strong in a woman, and the musterers ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... but had more sense than to go to hospital this time; and the troops returned from Tekrit. The Leicestershires on route put up a large hyena, but failed to run him down. My premature return became a famous taunt. 'He deserted,' Diggins would say when foiled in fair argument; 'deserted from Tekrit, deserted in ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or after—a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly in the wrong, his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless, granting the original sin of the situation, and given ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... stories, a performance which Lowell gayly called inspiration and water. In what now seems a languid, Byronic way, he figured as a Yankee Pelham or Vivian Grey. Yet in his prose and verse there was a tacit protest against the old order, and that it was felt is shown by the bitterness of ridicule and taunt and insult with which, both publicly and privately, this most amiable youth was attacked, who, at that time, had never said an ill-natured word of anybody, and who was always most generous in his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... was half laugh, half taunt, rose from the stands. Then it quickly subsided. From his position Ken looked for the players of the old varsity, but they had not yet come upon the field. Of the few balls batted to Ken in practice he muffed only one, and ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... no further attention than lay in thrusting out an elbow and raising a knee, to check an unusually fierce attack, or in giving Obo a pat on the back when he came within reach, or sending a puff of smoke in his face, as if to taunt and encourage him to attempt further ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... was "culminating chronology by the most preposterous anachronisms." "I doubt not," said the annoyed speaker, "that 'Orator Mum' possesses wonderful talents for eloquence, but I would recommend him to show it in future by some more popular method than his silence." Stung by the taunt, Curran rose and gave the man a "piece of his mind," speaking quite fluently in his anger. Encouraged by this success, he took great pains to become a good speaker. He corrected his habit of stuttering by reading favorite passages aloud every day ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... when I am down in health, wealth, and fortune. But I am glad you have said so at last. Never, please, delay such confidences any more. If they come quickly, they are a help; if they come after long silence, they feel almost like a taunt. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there ever such madness in sane woman? You ask me to prove my convictions, you ask me for the one method by which even you can be convinced, and when I show you how far my new faith has carried me you taunt me by asking who is my—victim. Oh, aunt, for the love of all you ever held dear, leave me in peace. Let me prove to you my own destiny, but leave me in peace until I have done so, or—failed. Can you not see that I am trying to preserve ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... surprise to everyone present, perhaps most of all to the priest. The doctor was accustomed to scold and taunt him; this unexpected championship almost took his breath away. Ebenezer Brown was too greatly annoyed even to retort, but he ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... The taunt was too much. Wheeling suddenly, Lidgerwood snapped out a summons to Jefferis: "Get aboard, Mr. Jefferis; ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the Irish question, it is interesting to consider the relations of the English Government with the Catholic Church throughout the last century and to see how far it throws light on the justice and applicability of the taunt that Ireland is priest-ridden. ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... from his grave to taunt him with the futility of his own words, which had been spoken to comfort him in his distress? The apparition was growing vaguer. Just before it vanished, it cried again and waved its hand, "Jesus of ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the importation of 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 by Mr. Fielden, and supported by Mr. Aglionby, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... kill him with my little finger," said Pietro, stung by this taunt, and for the moment he looked as if he would like ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... his cavalry and infantry so effectively that he drove the redskins from cover and pursued them with great slaughter almost to the walls of the British fort. The British commander demanded an explanation. Wayne replied with a taunt which amounted to a challenge and which was probably intended to be such; but the British refused to be drawn into hostilities. Had Wayne attacked and dispersed the British garrison, he would hardly stand condemned at the bar of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... humanity,—something that made her, with all her superbness, a creature that one would want to find chained." Beside her are the dwarf Congo woman and Clemence, the sharp-tongued negress, who sells her wares in the streets and sends her bright retorts back to the young bloods who taunt her. There is Bras Coupe', the savage slave, who had once been a chief in Africa and who fights like a fiend against enslavement, blights the broad acres with his curse, lives an exile in snake-infested swamps, and finally meets a most tragic fate. These unusual and somewhat sensational ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... delight. As for Will Hen Baizley, he was impressed by Will's confidence and coolness so much that he did not really wish just then to try conclusions with him. Therefore he contented himself with repeating his taunt of "you dars'n't!" and swaggered slowly away. The boys went ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... something in her ear. There was a suppressed annoyance in Eveena's look which provoked me to interpose. On Earth I should never have been fool enough to meddle in a woman's quarrel. The weakest can take her own part in the warfare of taunt and innuendo, better and more venomously than could dervish, priest, or politician. But Eveena could no more lower herself to the ordinary level of feminine malice than I could have borne to hear her do so; and it was intolerable that one whose ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... This bitter taunt, wrung from the depth of the young man's anguished heart, had an instantaneous and unexpected ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... of the Library at Merton College, Oxford, as seen from 'Mob Quadrangle.' From a photograph by H. W. Taunt, ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... mean what it may? Chance! What a field for psychical investigation is at once opened up; how we may tear to shreds our past lives in search of—what? Of the Chance that made us. I think, reader, I can throw some light on the general question, by replying to your taunt: Chance, or the conditions of life under which we live, sent, of course, thousands of creatures across my way who were powerless to benefit me; but then an instinct of which I knew nothing, of which I was not even conscious, withdrew me from them, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... often made a charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... attention to his old friend than usual, and yet in no way held him up to that subtle ridicule which a lover in favour may so secretly practise before the mistress of his heart. If anything, he felt the injustice of the game as it stood, and was not cheap enough to add to it the slightest mental taunt. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... a carcase fit for hounds." Poor Godwin, who had come, in the bonhommie and candour of his nature, to hear what new light had broken in upon his old friend, was obliged to quit the field, and slunk away after an exulting taunt thrown out at "such fanciful chimeras as a golden mountain or a perfect man." Mr. Mackintosh had something of the air, much of the dexterity and self-possession, of a political and philosophical juggler; and an eager and admiring audience gaped and greedily swallowed the gilded bait of sophistry, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... I would seek for Dick Saint Leger's long-lost treasure. For she not only came up to but far surpassed in appearance the ideal craft upon which I had set my mind. She was as handsome as a picture; with immensely taunt and lofty spars; and though her hold was absolutely empty, her royal yards were across, and the strong breeze that happened to be blowing at the time made scarcely any perceptible impression upon her. She carried a small topgallant forecastle forward, just large enough to ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... America. The loftiest patriotism never found more ardent and eloquent expression than in the hymn sung at the completion of the Concord monument, on the 19th of April, 1836. There is no rancor in it; no taunt of triumph; "the foe long since in silence slept"; but throughout there resounds a note of pure and deep rejoicing at the victory of justice over oppression, which Concord fight so aptly symbolized. In "Hamatreya" and "The Earth Song," another chord ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... asserted by all those present that Mr. Cohen himself repeatedly tried to induce young Mr. Ashley to give up playing. He himself was in a delicate position in the matter, as he was the winner, and once or twice the taunt had risen to the young man's lips, accusing the holder of the bank of the wish to retire on a competence before the break in ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... need but divert Trumpington Brook into Clare Ditch to render their town as elegant as any in the universe. Sheep and swine perambulate the environs, and green spaces are interspersed among the colleges, sparsely set with trees, so pollarded as to justify Milton's taunt when in an ill-humour ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... mind, and to excuse Cupid with al their power (although he were absent) for feare of his darts and shafts of love. But Venus would in no wise asswage her heat, but (thinking that they did rather trifle and taunt at her injuries) she departed from them, and tooke her voiage towards the sea in all haste. In the meane season Psyches hurled her selfe hither and thither, to seeke her husband, the rather because she thought that ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... England your grace should be the last to say so," rejoined Wolsey; "for if I had not been cardinal, you would not have had a head upon your shoulders to utter the taunt." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... how can you taunt me with it?" she moaned, in a frenzy of unreasoning grief. "Go away—go away! I ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... upon the eighth good shield A gray wolf, meagre and gaunt; Is borne by youthful Ulf van Jern; Beware how him you taunt! ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... previous thereto, I 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
... was the motto St. Pol carved over the gateway; "Our worst" is the taunt the Germans have flung. But the combination of that best and worst ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... her to an almost vagrant mood. Her smile was delicate enough, yet her eyes held a gentle taunt as she responded: "Not a bit of it; ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... of the ingenious author of the English Commentary, to the substance of which extract I give the most full assent. "The Greek Drama, we know, had its origin from the loose, licentious raillery of the rout of Bacchus, indulging to themselves the freest follies of taunt and invective, as would best suit to lawless natures, inspirited by festal mirth, and made extravagant by wine. Hence arose, and with a character answering to this original, the Satiric Drama; the spirit of which was afterwards, in good measure, revived ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... This last and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against her better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on far more quietly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hand, make many a boy and girl, especially in the early teens, concede to the demands of prevailing fashions in misconduct, when the conscience and the knowledge of right and wrong dictate a different course. The taunt "you dassent" is stronger than the still small voice saying "thou must not." And so Harry plays truant for the first time not so much because he is tired of school, or because the smell of the young spring allures him, as because Tommy "dares" him to go swimming ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... 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 little Ellen's ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... child Girt with the tomes of some vast library, Who reads romance after romance, and smiles When every tale ends well: impersonal As God he grows—melted in suns and stars; So would this boundless man, whom none could spy, Taunt him with virtue, censure him with vice, Rejoice in all men's joys; with golden pen Write all the live romances of the earth To a triumphant close.... Alone and free— In this grey, cool, clean garden, washed with winds, What do I come to do among the grass, The daisies, ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... up a glass of champagne, a stiff one—it will give him some Dutch courage," remarked Captain Ormsby sotto voce, but loud enough for the others to hear, and they laughed awkwardly at the implied taunt of cowardice. Burly Jack Lorrimer, who stood by Dick's side and had had quite enough to drink, seized a bottle jocularly; Ormsby took it from him, and, leaning forward, was about to fill Dick's glass, when the young man jumped to ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Barbara Morgan?" he said as he stood close to Deveny. There was a taunt in his voice, and an irony that made Deveny squirm ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... another taunt that struck home, but Willoughby again mastered himself grimly. "Any one of us would have done it," he answered, ignoring the remark. "Severance made it easy. I did to him only what he tried to do to others. When he ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... him 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 ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... eager, peering faces, which turned one to another, and seemed to ask, 'Is this large man, with soft eyes, and kind, benevolent face, the one who has been held up to us as the incarnation of wickedness, the destroyer of the South?' There was nothing like taunt or defiance in the faces of those who were gazing from the windows or craning their necks from the sidewalks to catch a view of the President. The look of every one was that of eager curiosity—nothing ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... 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 ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... from which this volume is abridged, no manuscript authority goes further back than the reign of Henry VIII., though King Arthur and Robin Hood are mentioned. The obscure Scottish taunt, levelled at Edward I. when besieging Berwick, is much in the manner of a ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... length he succeeded in his aims, how he broke up his party but saved the country, and how in the hour of mingled triumph and defeat he generously gave to Cobden the chief credit for success. Whigs and Tories might taunt one another with desertion of principles, or might claim that their respective leaders collaborated at the end; certainly the question would never have been put before the Cabinet or the House of Commons as a Government ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... violent measures have failed to accomplish, then there could be no danger in the study. Perhaps the greatest human preservative of the faith, for those whose lot may be cast hereafter in other lands, would be to inculcate a great reverence for our history, and a true appreciation of its value. The taunt of belonging to a despised nation, has led many a youth of brilliant promise to feel ashamed of his country, and almost inevitably to feel ashamed of his faith. A properly directed study of Irish ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Fleming, "even to a less gross taunt, hangs by my side." In an instant his sword was in his hand, and even the practised warriors who looked on felt difficulty in discovering the progress of the strife, which rather resembled a thunder storm in a mountainous ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... declared that, for the last ten years, the Southern statesmen had openly stated in Congress what would take place; but the Northerners never would believe they were in earnest, and had often replied by the taunt, "The South was so bound to, and dependent on, the North, that she couldn't be kicked out ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... and met the younger man's charge with a coolness that showed his taunt had been premeditated and that this result was expected. As the enraged Drew closed in, the mate met him with a frightful swing to the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... arbitrary and often cockney conventions, his genius was to me one of the grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of artistic expression. The words fire, energy, abandon, found in him unprecedented meanings. I never heard a speaker or actor who could give such a sting to hauteur or the taunt. I never heard from any other the charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on mere melody, the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... fact was interpreted as evidence of the inflexible purpose of the British to ignore minor losses and even defeats until the main battleship fleets of the belligerents should come to grips in the open sea. English newspapers began to taunt the Germans with permitting their navy to "rust in ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... guardsman gave a snarl of rage at the taunt, and an instant afterwards the clink of their sword-blades showed that they had met. For my own part I dared not spare a glance upon them, for my opponent attacked me with such fury that it was all that I could do to keep him off. No pistol ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of a swallow, apparently just touching the water with their prettily formed hulls, which seem too small to bear the immense load of snow-white canvas swelling above them, and shooting them along as if by magic, when every other vessel is lost in the calm, and when even taunt-masted ships can barely catch a breath of air to fill their sky-sails and royal studding-sails. They are truly "water-witches;" for, while they look so delicate and fragile that one feels at first as if the most moderate breeze must brush them ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... ere the winter weather, The women in shrill groups were gathering, With eager tongues still communing together, And many a taunt at Helen would they fling, Ay, through her innocence she felt the sting, And shamed was now her gentle face and sweet, For e'en the children evil songs would sing To mock her as ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... tell you the truth," she answered gently. "You speak to me of our friendship. It was never anything serious to me. It was a taunt—a ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... have thrown this taunt, this defiance, in the teeth of society!" cried the monster, in ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... a man alive but that would give his all to be The stubby little fellow that in dreamland he can see, And the splendors that surround him and the joys about him spread Only seem to rise to taunt him with the boyhood that has fled. When the hair about the temples starts to show Time's silver stain, Then the richest man that's living yearns ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... wild sayings, and scraps of songs, of which he had plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the presence of Goneril herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which cut to the quick: such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow, who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and then has its head bit off for its pains; and saying, that an ass may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... 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 ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... firm," thought Camille. "I might agitate, taunt, grieve her I love, but I could not shake her. No! God and the saints to my aid! they saved me from a crime I now shudder at. And they have given me the good chaplain: he prays with me, he weeps for me. His prayers still my beating heart. Yes, poor suffering angel! I read your ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... understood what this meant. Culvera had sent for him to gloat over him, to taunt him. The man wanted to hear him beg for his life. The teeth of the cowpuncher clenched tightly till the muscles of the jaw stood out like ropes. He would show this man that an American did not face a firing ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... dangerous thing for a writer to have is uninterrupted leisure. Now I know how Harriet Beecher Stowe could write Uncle Tom's Cabin with poverty and sickness and a debilitating climate and seven children. So could I. It's the awful quiet of this orderly room, the jeering taunt of Washington Square, looking in at my window to say, "What! here you are in my throbbing, thrilling midst at last, having left your sylvan home because it ceased to nourish you,—and you have nothing ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Pierce, like a bitter dart, Anguish and terror; Hark to the foemen's vaunt, Boasting and bitter taunt Of Saxon warrior. Nay, do not triumph so, Do not rejoice as though Your deeds were glorious; Not your own valour brave, Numbers, not courage, have Made you victorious. Those who on every side, Have marked the battle's tide, Praying for Cymru's arms, Filled now ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... it 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 ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my mind, I would not without blessing send thee forth Into the bleak wide world, whose voice unkind Perchance will mock at thee as nothing worth; For the cold critic's jealous eye may find In all thy purposed good little but ill, May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought, And praise thee for no more than the small skill Of masquing as thine own another's thought: What then? count envious sneers as less than nought: Fair is ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... his youth had slipped from him, and left him alone with his intellect and his epigrams. Sometimes he shivered with cold among those epigrams. He was tired of them. He knew them so well, and then so many of them had foreign blood in their veins, and were inclined to taunt him with being English. Ah! youth with its simple puns and its full-blooded pleasures, when there is no gold dust in the hair and no wrinkles about the eyes, when the sources of an epigram, like the sources of the Nile, are undiscoverable, and the joy of being ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... 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, and held her ground now; since there was nothing to say in reply, she ignored the taunt as she had done all that had gone before. She turned upon William Pressley, however, as we are prone to turn upon those whom we do not fear, when we dare not attack those with whom we ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... intercourse between Christians nominal and savages, in any portion of the globe, but that the savages have with great justice thrown in the Christians' teeth, that they preached one thing but did another. Unfortunately the taunt is but too true. Even those who had left their country for religious persecution have erred in the same way. The conduct of the Puritans who landed at Salem was as barbarous toward the Indians as that of Pizarro and his followers toward the Mexicans. In either case the poor aborigines ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... 2. High'way, a public road. Re-treat', a place of refuge or safety, Crouch'es, stoops low. 3. Taunt'ing, deriding, mocking. 4. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... once, as the gondola came on, his eyes turned aside reproachfully, as if he keenly felt the stings of so many unlicensed tongues applied to feelings which, though blunted by his habits and condition, were far from extinguished. Laugh arose above laugh, however, and taunt succeeded taunt more bitterly, as the boats came among the gorgeous palaces which lined the canal nearer to the goal. It was not that the owners of these lordly piles indulged in the unfeeling triumph, but their dependants, constantly ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she here? Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced the girl ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... traveled back to that day at Norway House when Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come to him from a sick-bed to tell him that Bucky had ruined his young wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his fever, died two days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky's voice when he had cornered him with Rousseau's accusation, and the fight had followed. The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and Deane filled him with a sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... mind very strongly when he reached home that evening, and Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about running away to be queen ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... dear count is incapable of such violence; and yet his own daughter had dared to taunt him with his weakness, pretending that he had been induced by me to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... which she had so often observed with fear, came upon his brow; but she did not fear him now. "And do you too taunt me ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... nuances of the military psychology: the exhilaration of the long unisonal stride, the grip on the musket, the pride in the regimentals and the regiment,—esprit de corps. He expresses the inevitable foppery of the severest soldier, the tease and the taunt of the evolutions, the fierce wish that all this ploying and deploying were in the face of an actual enemy, the mania to reek upon a tangible foe all the joyous energy, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... And no wonder. For, should a clever lad, getting out of his "teens," venture to express opinions contrary to those of his elders present, is he not at once snubbed by being called "a beardless boy"? A boy! Bitter taunt! He very naturally feels that he is grossly insulted, and all because his "dimpled chin never has known the barber's shear." Full well does our ingenuous youth know that a man is not wise in consequence of his beard—that, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... a hideous scene. The four men began to taunt John Storm, to take off their hats and bow to him in mock honour. "His Lordship, I believe '" said one. "His Reverend Lordship, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... her words impatiently aside, "and what's more I knew then that I had loved you all my life without knowing it," he pursued. "You may taunt me with fickleness, but I'm not fickle—I was merely a fool. It took me a long time to find out what I wanted, but I've found out at last, and, so help me God, I'll have it yet. I never went without a thing I ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... us, and falling into the snare, I protested warmly against the insult, and strove to disprove the inference before the paralogism lay revealed. Throughout the whole range of the Odes, the Histories, the Analects, and the Rites what recognised formula of rejoinder is there to the taunt, "Oh, go and put your feet in mustard and cress"; or how can one, however skilled in the highest Classics, parry the subtle inconsistencies of the reproach, "You're a nice bit of orl right, aren't you? Not arf, I ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... had not wanted to listen. He stood bending over a map, but at the phrase, "human material," he started violently. It sounded like a taunt directed at his own thoughts, as if the two men had seen into him and had agreed with each other to give him a good lesson and show him how ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... 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 vulgar toil, Lose ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... did not spare the Presidents. M. Martineau said publicly that the tenor of this decree was that the envoy of Spain should be made much of till they received an answer from Saint Germain, which would prove to be another taunt of the Cardinal's. Pontcarre said he was not so much afraid of a Spaniard as of a Mazarin. In short, the generals had the satisfaction to see that the Parliament would not be sorry for any advances they should make towards ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Red Doctor chose to ignore my taunt. "Look your fill, Dominie," he advised. "You won't ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fog Still hear the tiger growl At the lion and striped dog That prowl with rusty throats to taunt and roar and howl; ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... spear and the cruse was a couch of almost humour, and it, with the ironical taunt flung across the valley to Abner, gives relief to the strain of emotion in the story. Saul's burst of passionate remorse is morbid, paroxysmal, like his fits of fury, and is sure to foam itself away. The man had no self-control. He had let wild, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... love books and indolence and flattery and the charitable wine which cheats me into a favorable opinion of myself. What more can an old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray you begone, because your loveliness is a taunt which I ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... affair, Nelson, convinced by it that something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his guns, stationed frigates at the Hyeres, and to cruise thence to the eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between Italy and Toulon and Marseilles. For this purpose he had recommended, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the water, ran out along it nimbly as an ape, and dived. The monster, her eyes fixed upon the two remaining in the tree, never noticed his escape. Mawg swam the creek, thrust his way through the grass-stems, darted back to snatch up his club, shook it at Grom, and, yelling an obscene taunt, raced off to seek himself ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Milford again, almost daily, to feast my eyes on the bleak, flat, gray landscape. The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It is the luxury of summer which tantalizes—her long, brilliant, blossoming days, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... The taunt sank in as oil sinks into a cloth. I may have blushed and stammered, and I may have blubbered like a milksop, but it was not because I was afraid. I would show Woodford and I would show this fickle Miss Gadabout that I did not need any advice about roads. If my life had been then in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... hated this name because of Mrs. Magwire, whose most merciless taunt was, "Sure ye're well ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint—he has ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can 'minister to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... loud"—(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there. I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own station in the real world,—the world of intellect; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... there came to him a moment of danger. There was his enemy. There was the affront, the challenge. Perhaps it was male against male, a matter of sex, prolific always in bloodshed. It might be a matter of property, or perhaps it was some taunt as to his own personal courage. Perhaps alcohol came into the question, as was often the case. For one reason or the other, it came to the ordeal of combat. It was the undelegated right of one individual against ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... Hal slowly, and with no trace of taunt in his voice, "what a sad come-down you have had. You were in the Army, wearing its uniform, and with every right to look upon yourself as a man. You could have gone on being trusted. You could have raised yourself. Instead, you have followed a naturally bad bent and made ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... negroes of an 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and at last settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. "What shall I do?" ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... His taunt brought the result Ross wanted. The ties were cut from behind, to flutter down as withered, useless strings. Ross flexed his arms. Tight as those thongs had been they had not constricted circulation, and he was ready to meet Vistur. The Terran did ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... inmate of a noble heart) He, who before had question'd, thus resum'd: "O blessed, who, for death preparing, tak'st Experience of our limits, in thy bark! Their crime, who not with us proceed, was that, For which, as he did triumph, Caesar heard The snout of 'queen,' to taunt him. Hence their cry Of 'Sodom,' as they parted, to rebuke Themselves, and aid the burning by their shame. Our sinning was Hermaphrodite: but we, Because the law of human kind we broke, Following like beasts our vile concupiscence, Hence parting from them, to our own disgrace Record the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... his pocket ... then he remembered—he had lost that which he sought ... on the side of Cheap Mountain. If Simmons would turn, say something further, taunt him, he would kill him with his hands. But Simmons did none of these things; instead he walked ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... party was all over, and the tired sophomores were getting ready for bed, Marjorie, who still felt the sting of Ruth's taunt, remarked to Lily, ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... trembled when she said, "You must drop that." Then the German manager descended to the frogs. He should have been held back, but not only did he come down, but he was transformed into Maslova and started to taunt him: "I am a convict, and you are a Prince." "No, I shall not yield," thought Nekhludoff, and came to. "Am I acting properly or improperly?" he asked himself. "I don't know; I will know to-morrow." And he began to descend to where the manager and Maslova ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... John Jr. in a towering passion. "While you thought her rich, you gave no heed to board or anything else; and since she has become poor, I do not think her appetite greatly increased. You taunt me, too, with having no means of earning my own living. Whose fault is it?—tell me that. Haven't you always opposed my having a profession? Didn't you pet and baby 'Johnny' when a boy, keeping him always at ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth. Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in preparing the new cartridges, and the man was possibly one of them. The taunt created a wild panic at Barrackpur. Strange to say, however, none of the new cartridges had been issued ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... up the chest, took it on his back, and hastened to the city. When the ogre cried: "Enough, now!" Thirteenth ran all the faster, and, laughing, sang this song to taunt ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... the taunt, Red Crow raised his rifle and fired into the air. Then, standing high in his stirrups, he held up his hand and called out a number of names. Instantly ten men rode to his side. Again Red Crow spoke. The ten men rode out again among the crowd. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... This good-natured taunt happened to hit most of those around, and the situation looked stormy until a little, awkward-looking man strolled up and ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... not escape," said the young Indian, his face darkening with anger at the savage taunt. "A man's death for a man, but jackals shall die like jackals. With hearts of terror and blood turned to water in their fear, they shall die a death more horrible than ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... at last in a heavy voice, "that thou, too, art not betrayed, but art still here to taunt me, thou who once didst swear that thou didst love me? Being a woman, hast thou no pity for the ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... it, then!" she cried, looking at her companion steadily, a world of scorn in her face. "I never thought such a thing possible—that you would let your jealousy get the better of you like this!" She paused, and hurled the taunt she knew would hurt him most. "You are the last person on earth I would have selected to become a dog in ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... 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 yield ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... favourite taunt with the sceptics of old—those Early Fathers of infidelity, who used to occupy themselves so laboriously with scraping at the rind of the Christian Faith—that until the Cross arose men were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... divorcement and broke it.[FN96] As soon as she heard of this, she left him, and he egged on all the folk to intercede with me to restore her to him; but I told him that this could not lawfully be done but by an intermediate marriage, and we have agreed to make some stranger the intermediary, so none may taunt him with this affair. So, as thou art a stranger, come with us and we will marry thee to her; thou shalt lie with her to-night and on the morrow divorce her, and we will give thee what I said.' 'By Allah,' quoth Alaeddin to himself, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... table, and, in the moment, each had a sense of unreality. The quarrel was like a bolt from the blue, as startling and unexpected—as most quarrels are—the bitterest and most lasting. Then she sprang to her feet and hurled a taunt at him some Imp ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... probable you know 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 Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... verse I brought, All wreathed in loves and roses, Some glowing boyish fancy, fraught With tender May-wind closes; Thou didst not taunt my fledgling song, Nor view its flight with scorning: 'The bird,' thou saidst, 'grown fleet and strong, Might yet ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... young—so the taunt stung her. "I was about to tell you," said she, "when you began to make ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips |
