"Tarnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silence over the calumnious and dishonourable accusations which poisoned her years of triumph, and with which it has been sought to tarnish her memory. In these days we slander our prophets instead of killing them—a procedure which may cause them greater suffering, but has no effect upon the spread ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... that it were better for them to conceal their misfortunes than to proclaim them; that many a fortress had been saved by the courage of its defenders, and their determination to conceal its weakened condition at all sacrifices. 'Above all things,' he said, 'do not tarnish the honor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... instrument construction, however, a thin coat of silver is seldom to be recommended, on account of its liability to tarnish and its rapid destruction when any attempt is made to repolish it. For these reasons, nickel or gold plating is ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... colour, Deep blue across the pane: No cloud to make night duller, No moon with its tarnish stain; But only here and there a star, One sharp point of frosty fire, Hanging infinitely far In mockery of our life and death And all our ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... The radicals were satisfied with the various enactments as they stood, and if there were infractions it became a matter of the police and sheriffs, and the Governor could not be held accountable. And he laid stress on the fact that the people did not want a Governor to tarnish the dignity of ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... variety of different interests to reconcile, their determinations are slow. Why, then, should we distrust them, and, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired, and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe for its fortitude and patriotism? And for what is this done? To bring the object we seek nearer? No; most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a greater distance. For myself—and I take no merit in giving the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Upon my word, it looks so. There are pictures all one network of cracks, and iron caps and gauntlets out of all the halls in every stage of rust, and pots and pans and broken crocks, and baskets of coin all verdigris and tarnish!—Pah!" ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like gold, it will not rust or tarnish and it is rare, but there is some of it everywhere. Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... madam? No walking, No reading, nor talking? You're now in your prime, Make use of your time. Consider, before You come to threescore, How the hussies will fleer Where'er you appear; "That silly old puss Would fain be like us: What a figure she made In her tarnish'd brocade!" And then he grows mild: Come, be a good child: If you are inclined To polish your mind, Be adored by the men Till threescore and ten, And kill with the spleen The jades of sixteen; I'll ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... from one door to another, and entered spacious and faded chambers, some rudely shuttered, some receiving their full charge of daylight, all empty and unhomely. It was a rich house, on which Time had breathed his tarnish and dust had scattered disillusion. The spider swung there; the bloated tarantula scampered on the cornices; ants had their crowded highways on the floor of halls of audience; the big and foul fly, that lives on carrion and is often the messenger ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... staggering question is not yet. But the splendour of their gift remains: a splendour no after-failure can tarnish ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... than one, as abject as that at Cabool. And though it could not lead to the same awful results where there had not been the same elaborate preparation of folly, and upon ground so much nearer to the means of rectification, still it was then sufficient to tarnish the lustre of our arms for the time, and, under worse circumstances, would menace worse misfortunes. Neither is this all; there are other infirmities in our eastern system than the vicious selection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... conjuror's trick." "It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. And after all really they're ebony skinned: The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind, A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned." "Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?" "He may and not care and so leave the chewink To gather them for him—you ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... the history of other countries, furnishes nothing parallel to it. Look at the great events in our own former history, and in every one of them, which, for importance, we can venture to compare with the Reform Bill, we shall find something to disgrace and tarnish the achievement. It was by the assistance of French arms and of Roman bulls that King John was harassed into giving the Great Charter. In the times of Charles I., how much injustice, how much crime, how much bloodshed and misery, did it cost to assert ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Hadria. "Helen was persuaded to cross the seas from her Spartan home to set Troy ablaze, and tarnish her fair fame, but it would take twenty sons of Priam to induce a damsel to come over dry land to Craddock Dene, to cook our dinners and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... privatization. Continuing economic recovery in western Europe should boost exports and production, but Slovakia's position with foreign creditors and investors could suffer setbacks in 1998 if progress on privatization and restructuring stalls and if domestic political problems continue to tarnish ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... moreover, M. Langevin had acted very liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own; finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a young man, and the obstinacy of an ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... subtly—though unintentionally—suggesting that the manor lord had returned and therefore the womenfolk must haste with ministering, greatly restored his self-esteem. Again the sword began to lose its tarnish; again it flashed in his hand with zest; again in imagination his company stepped off with the precision ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... may plan glories for Erin their mother, Weak plans and wicked plans chasing each other; To me worse than the loss of a sceptre and crown Is a spot that might tarnish my children's renown, 'Tis the laurels they win are the jewels I prize, They're the core of my heart and the light of my eyes; For my children are gems and crown jewels to me, And art thou not ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... is no modish thing, The bookman's tribute that I bring; A talk of antiquaries grey, Dust unto dust this many a day, Gossip of texts and bindings old, Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold! ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... turn-up red nose and long red moustaches. A pointed Persian cap with a crimson cloth crown covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. He was dressed in a shabby yellow Caucasian overcoat, with black velveteen cartridge pockets on the breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his shoulder was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A raw-boned, hook-nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his weight; two lean, crook-pawed greyhounds kept ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... war less thoughtful, less wise, less merciful when he created man in His own sublime image? Ther chemist found this property in clay after er thousand nations hed spurned it under ther feet; this soul in clay, which will not tarnish, which can be drawn out inter finest wires and thinnest leaves; hev yo' ther audacity ter proclaim thet ther subtle chemistry of death cannot reveal anything bright and indestructible fur man, when these pore mortal senses shall have spent ther energies; when this ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... plates, is made of one or two parts of tin, and one of lead. Before soldering, the surfaces must be quite bright and close together; and the contact of air must be excluded during the operation, else the heat will tarnish the surface and prevent the adhesion of the solder: the borax and resin commonly in use, effect this. The best plan is to clean the surfaces with muriatic acid saturated with tin: this method is invariably adopted by watchmakers and opticians, who never use borax and resin. The point of the soldering-tool ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... that I felt a loathing for myself, and such strong self-disgust must surely have prevailed in the end to make me false to duty if, as I have said, I had not an absolute faith that his Excellency required no man to tarnish his honor ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... experience has been had. They have the university in Manila, very notable in its members, which has filled the islands with learned men. It is in no respect defective; but is excellent in everything. And although all do not join the church, knowledge does not at all tarnish a captain's reputation; rather, it is enamel upon gold. For he who has the most alert understanding enters and goes out better on occasions, and gives in public the better reason for what is proposed. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... last time. I think myself happy, my lords, that the grave has not yet closed over me, and that I am still alive to raise my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy! My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as vast in extent as proud in reputation. Shall we tarnish its lustre by a shameful abandonment of its rights and of its fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, which survived in its entirety the descents of the Danes, the incursions of the Scots, the conquest ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fare, travel abide, remain bestow, present bestow, deposit din, noise quern, mill learner, scholar shamefaced, modest hue, color tarnish, stain ween, expect leech, physician shield, protect steadfast, firm withstand, resist straightway, immediately dwelling, residence heft, gravity delve, excavate forthright, direct tidings, report bower, chamber rune, letter borough, city baleful, destructive gainsay, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Mangnall's Questions, and a ladylike knowledge of botany and geology, the knack of making poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the Herz-manner, and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a female, than those fugitive charms which a few years will inevitably tarnish. It is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but he does also find it shares with all mundane concerns the qualities of inadequacy and error. It suffers from the common penalty of noble propositions; it is hampered by the insufficiency of its supporters and advocates, and by the superficial tarnish that necessarily falls in our atmosphere of greed and conflict darkest upon the brightest things. In spite of these admissions of failure and unworthiness in himself and those about him, he ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... shed; but the king still showed himself implacable, and commanded that they should he led away, and their heads stricken off. Sir Walter Mauny interceded for them with all his might, even telling the king that such an execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes streaming with tears, threw herself ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... that upon their quest, Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale rencountered in the depths of a great forest. Now, Sir Galahad was dight all in harness of silver, clear and shining; the which is a delight to look upon, but full hasty to tarnish, and withouten the labour of a ready squire, uneath to be kept fair and clean. And yet withouten squire or page, Sir Galahad's armour shone like the moon. And he rode a great white mare, whose bases and other housings were black, but all besprent with fair lilys of silver sheen. Whereas ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... less sensible of my private afflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready to expose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, and dishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish your glory, and have all the world say that a nation who first dedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours? Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but the use of moderation in the greatest prosperity, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... James said, as if honest steel and good cloth were reckoned as churls, and as if this were the very land of Cockaigne, as Sir Richard Whittington had dreamt it. Neither he nor St. Andrew himself would know their own saltire made in cloth of silver, 'the very metal to tarnish!' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cathedral which is behind every living composition and manifests itself through it, is in these pieces so vague and attenuated that it fades into the background of the concert-hall, is like gray upon gray. The gems and gold thread and filigree with which this work is sewn tarnish in the gloom. Something is there, we perceive, something that moves and sways and rises and ebbs fitfully in the dim light. But it is a wraithlike thing, and undulates and falls before our eyes like flames that have neither redness nor heat. Even the terrible bagpipe of the second rhapsody for oboe; ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... must tell ourselves in order really to live in this world. Hence the obligation to perfect life, to make it high and beautiful, to make a masterpiece of it. Hence too our contempt and hatred for those who wish to tarnish life, either by their thoughts or ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... think so," her father said. "As it is gold it will not tarnish. And as no one knows where it is it will probably not be picked up, for no one will be able to see it any more than I. And I don't believe many persons come down here after dark. It is rather a lonely part of the shore. I ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... and they hardly dared to think so, even when they were all alone, each in her cell; for the concentration of conventual life magnifies small spiritual sins in the absence of anything really sinful, and to admit that she even faintly wishes she might be some one else is to tarnish the brightness of the nun's scrupulously polished conscience. It would be as great a misdeed, perhaps, as to allow the attention to wander to worldly matters during times of especial devotion. Nevertheless, the envy showed itself, very perceptibly and much against the will of the sisters themselves, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger Than the color of our kind. Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... for field and sky was the old, dreamy mistiness of pure delight—spiritual—that he had not known for many years. It was the spirit of his youth come back—that distant youth when the world was without a shadow; when his own soul had no tarnish of evil; when passion was unconscious and pure; when his boyish reverence was the only feeling he knew toward every woman. And lying thus, as the sun sank and the shadows stole slowly across the warm bands of sunlight, and ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, bursts forth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapor and tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and environment, we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love;—though, alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... solemn-faced. The most silent man in the bunch, was Noisy Cooper, who scarcely ever spoke a word unless forced to do so by an insistent question. Bat Coyne had been a cattle man down in Texas, while Mary Johnson —so called because of his pink and white complexion, which no amount of sun or wind could tarnish—was said to have come from the East. He had left there for reasons best known to himself, working on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... is praising thee; Who wouldst not bear, too modestly refin'd, A panegyric of a grosser kind. Britannia's daughters, much more fair than nice, Too fond of admiration, lose their price; Worn in the public eye, give cheap delight To throngs, and tarnish to the sated sight: As unreserv'd, and beauteous, as the sun, Through every sign of vanity they run; Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in city-halls, Lectures, and trials, plays, committees, balls, Wells, bedlams, executions, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... was? That would never, never do. No one must know that she was in America, about to step into the wildest of wild adventures. No; she must not be found out. The king, who had been kind to her, and the court must never know. From their viewpoint they would have declared that she was about to tarnish a distinguished name, to outrage the oldest aristocracy in Europe, the court of Italy. But she had her own opinion; what she proposed to do was in itself harmless and innocent. But this gentleman who leaned out of the window? What should she do with him? What had possessed her to sing ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... indeed, wholly beyond the power, even of an imagination like his, to go on investing with its own ideal glories a sentiment which,—more from daring and vanity than from any other impulse,—he had taken such pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him, to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the form of love, which he ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... life" was carried out in the beautiful Province of Ontario, while the low, even voice of the Mohawk described the historical event, giving to the tale the Indian term for the word "peace," which means "the silver chain that does not tarnish." ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... again addrest the trierarchs, and calling each of them by his father's name, and his own name, and the name of his tribe, he entreated those who had made any reputation for themselves not to be false to it, and those whose ancestors were eminent not to tarnish their hereditary fame. He reminded them that they were the inhabitants of the freest country in the world, and how in Athens there was no interference with the daily life of any man. He spoke to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... was lost in the father. He rose hastily from his seat, and walking toward the window, wiped off a tear which he was afraid would tarnish the ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... buried and lost sight of under mountains of rubbish. True that he now denied a number of books published under supposititious names, and which had been universally attributed to him; but enough remained, which he could not deny, to tarnish, if not to cancel his fame. To these he has since, with the reckless and inconsiderate greed that cares not for the public, so long as it finds a publisher, considerably added. His self-sufficiency is unparalleled; and in the preface to an edition of his works ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... such miraculous powers of beautifying the complexion, all contain, in different proportions, preparations of mercury, alcohol, acids, and other deleterious substances, which are highly injurious to the skin; and their continual application will be found to tarnish it, and produce furrows and wrinkles far more unsightly than those of age, beside which they are frequently absorbed by the vessels of the skin, enter the system, and ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... the special excellences of such a saloon of polished and richly colored marble, that decay can never tarnish it. Until the house crumbles down upon it, it shines indestructibly, and, with a little dusting, looks just as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day after the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the wall. To the sculptor, at this first View ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... death of Pennington Lawton! The case of his fraudulently alleged bankruptcy! The case of the whole damnable conspiracy to crush this girl to the earth, to impoverish her and tarnish the fair name and honored memory of her father. It's cards on the table now, Mr. Mallowe, and I'm going ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... handsome; and, at the Time specifyde, there was brought up to the Door an old white Horse, blind of one Eye, with an aquiline Nose, and, I should think, eight Feet high. The Bridle was diverse from the Pillion, which was finely embroidered, but tarnish, with the Stuffing oozing out in severall Places. Howbeit, 'twas the onlie Equipage to be hired in the Ward, for Love or Money . . . so Ned sayd. . . . And he had a huge Pair of gauntlett Gloves, a Whip, that was the smartest Thing about him, and a kind of Vizard over ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... court has so often seen observed! What will your people think, and what will envy say, if he screens his life beneath your shield and he makes it a pretext not to appear [on a scene] where all men of honor seek a noble death? Such favors would too deeply tarnish his glory; let him enjoy [lit. taste] without shame [lit. blushing] the fruits of his victory. The count had audacity, he was able to punish him for it; he [i.e. Rodrigo] acted like a man of courage, and ought to maintain it ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... Independence, and of its promulgation to the world on the 20th of May, 1775. And yet, in the face of this strong phalanx of unimpeachable testimony, there are a few who have attempted to rob North Carolina of this brightest gem in the crown of her early political history, and tarnish, by base and insidious cavils the fair name and reputation of a band of Revolutionary patriots, whose memories and heroic deeds the present generation and posterity will ever ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... greenish tinge, upon which is laid gold leaf. Over this leaf is another film of glass, extremely thin, so that the actual metal is isolated between two glasses, and is thus impervious to such qualities in the air as would tarnish it or cause it to deteriorate. To prevent an uninteresting evenness of surface on which the sun's rays would glint in a trying manner, it was usual to lay the gold cubes in a slightly irregular manner, so that each facet, as it were, should reflect at ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... couldn't she have a fault or two? Isn't there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfection? Doesn't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Isn't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would require? It would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... what have I to do with their knavery, folly, or wisdom? Society, it is true, has thought fit to recompense me for their virtues: such is the order of things. But I cannot persuade myself that I have received the least tarnish from any of their vices. I am a friend to the philosophy of the times, and would have every man measured by the standard ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... enchasser[O]). Then the armorer, or cup and casket maker, added to this kind of decoration that of flat inlaid enamel; and the silver-worker, finding that the raised filigree (still a staple at Genoa) only attracted tarnish, or got crushed, early sought to decorate a surface which would bear external friction, with ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... in vulgar souls, Envy steps in and stops his rise; Envy with poisoned tarnish fouls His lustre, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... notes which had in former times been written for him. She knew how much her father's voice had become injured, and knowing equally well his intrepid courage, feared, not without reason, that he would tarnish his brilliant reputation. Garcia displayed even more than ever the great artist. A hoarseness seized him at the moment of appearing on the stage. "This is nothing," said he: "I shall do very well"; and, by sheer strength of talent and of will, he ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... and female, who had been exclusively occupied about the person of Marie Antoinette, few, excepting this illustrious pair, and the inestimable Clery, remained devoted to the last. The saint-like virtues of these Princesses, malice itself has not been able to tarnish. Their love and unalterable friendship became the shield of their unfortunate Sovereigns, and their much injured relatives, till the dart struck their own faithful bosoms. Princes of the earth! here is a lesson of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... average, than six millions of public money in that institution, might be passed over as a harmless misrepresentation; but when it is attempted by substantial acts to impair the credit of the Government and tarnish the honor of the country, such charges require more serious attention. With six millions of public money in its vaults, after having had the use of from five to twelve millions for nine years without interest, it became the purchaser ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... the relationship and did me reverence. When he rose his eyes were full of tears ... O little brother mine! I am fast going to my death—let me take all your sin away with me. May no taint from me ever tarnish your innocence! ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... of us didn't know there were 2nd Lieutenants. And now, in thousands of homes we feel that there is nothing else. 2nd Lieutenant! It is like a new word to us—one, I daresay, of many that the war will add to our language. We have taken to it, Roger. If a son of mine were to tarnish it—' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... at Konigsberg with the Imperial staff, left in supreme command by the Emperor, and already thinking of his own sunny kingdom of the Mediterranean, and the ease and the glory of it. In a few weeks he, too, must tarnish ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... being only whitewashed, and the same effected in rather the "olden time;" to remedy which fanciful inconvenience, on my return to Bristol, I sent an upholsterer[8] down to this retired and happy abode with a few pieces of sprightly paper, to tarnish the half ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... last-cherished Illusion was in the succumbing frailty of him that undertook the task, the world and its wise men having come to the belief that in thwackings there was ignominy to the soul of man, and a tarnish on the lustre of heroes. On that score, hear the words of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he also held that he loved. He was the Arab bound for the well for which he thirsted, single-minded as to that, and without much present consciousness of tarnish or sin.... But what might arise in his mind when his thirst was quenched? Ian did not care, in these blissful days, to think ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... to speak of General Moreau, I will recall by what fatal circumstances he was led to tarnish his glory. Madame Bonaparte had given to him in marriage Mademoiselle Hulot, her friend, and, like herself, a native of the Isle of France. This young lady, gentle, amiable, and possessing those qualities which make a good wife and mother, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... after that, and never a sight of the door. It's only recently it has come back to me. With it there has come a sense as though some thin tarnish had spread itself over my world. I began to think of it as a sorrowful and bitter thing that I should never see that door again. Perhaps I was suffering a little from overwork—perhaps it was what I've heard spoken of as the feeling of forty. I don't know. But certainly the keen brightness ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the truth dawned more upon me with the coming day, that I was by this one stroke immensely rich. The treasure was gold— rich, ruddy gold, all save one of the great round shields, and that was of massive silver, black almost as ink with tarnish; while its fellow-shield—a sun, as I now saw, as I afterwards made out the other to be a representation of the moon—was of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... some solemn pledge had passed between them—a spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex disarray of this world to the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... homefarers from office and factory had begun to tarnish the brilliance of this show, when the women had begun to scatter—this one to dinner with her man, that one back to the hall-room supper by whose economies she saved for her Saturday afternoon vanities—Bertram ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... absurd; you can't arrest a minor for debt, and I shall not be of age these two years. My uncle is, as you say, what is called a man of honour, but he is not one of those over-scrupulous fools who will pay any demand, however dishonest and unreasonable, rather than tarnish the family honour, forsooth! No! he will pay what the law compels him, and not a farthing more I leave you to decide whether the law is likely to be of much use to you in the present 84case. Now, listen to me; though you cannot obtain the money by the means ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... winds and sun had left her no complexion to speak of, but the glory of her red hair, gold-red, with purple sheen, nothing could tarnish. Her eyes, too, deep blue with rims of gray, that flashed with the glint of steel or shone with melting light as of the stars, according to her mood—those Irish, warm, deep eyes of hers were worth a man's ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... not write to Henry, lest I should any way involve him in my misfortunes: he is formed to shine in the polite world, and his connexion with me might tarnish the lustre of his character in the eyes of the 'nice-judging fair.' I hope, however, that he will not utterly discard me from his heart, though I cannot dance a reel. I beg that he will break open the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... despair cried out, "... it does appear as if the Texas troops on this frontier were determined to tarnish the proud fame that Texans have won in other fields."[760] The Arkansans were no better and no worse. The most fitting employment for many, the whole length and breadth of Steele's department, was the mere "ferreting out of jayhawkers ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Cornelia. It was a naming that grew of itself. Forty years ago the pair had been married—John, a sturdy, sunny-tempered young fellow of twenty-one, six feet in his stockings, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and with a name and a nature clean of all tarnish; Cornelia Blackshears, a typical mountain girl of the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... soothes, Not with flatteries, but truths, Which tarnish not, but purify To light which dims the morning's eye. I have come from the spring-woods, From the fragrant solitudes;— Listen what the poplar-tree And murmuring ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fell like a thunderbolt upon the old warrior, already embittered by his reverses: he was heart-broken that such storm-clouds should tarnish the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... do him justice by tucking up the robber:-Yet who will say I am bound to wait for this justice, and submit to being plundered in the first instance, if I have myself the means and spirit to protect my own property? But if an affront is offered to me, submission under which is to tarnish my character for ever with men of honour, ant for which the twelve judges of England, with the Chancellor to boot, can afford me no redress, by what rule of law or reason am I to be deterred from protecting what ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... to what the world requires, but of that fine perfection of mental and moral constitution, which, in its own natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in every occasion or circumstance of life. It is the pure gold, and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not curiously prepared the soil, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... me"? The short dialogue stared at her in red letters upon the dark. "Assume that you like me—" "You may assume it." "I do." She read the packed little sentences over and over, and studied herself with care. No, honestly, nothing jarred. There was no harm; she didn't feel any tarnish upon her. And yet—she was looking forward to Martley Thicket with a livelier blood than she had felt since Easter when James had kissed her in the shrouded garden. A livelier blood? Hazarding the looking-glass, she thought ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... innocence, and apprehension of the law, which she knew had often punished the guiltless instead of the criminal. 'Tis true she attempted to assume, in the eyes of others, a fortitude which belied her fears, and even affected to smile at the possibility of her lover's honor and character suffering any tarnish from the ordeal to which they were about to be submitted. Her smile, however, on such occasions, was a melancholy one, and the secret tears she shed might prove, as they did to her brother, who was alone privy to her grief, the extent of those ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... not numerous: a certain bold faced countess, the fire in whose eyes had begun to tarnish, and the natural lines of whose figure were vanishing in expansion; the soldier, her nephew, a waisted elegance; a long, lean man, who dawdled with what he ate, and drank as if his bones thirsted; an elderly, broad; red faced, bull necked ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... be smeared with vaseline, which is cheap, and put away out of the dampness. The planes should be taken apart and each part smeared. To clean them again for use, then becomes an easy matter. The best method of removing rust and tarnish is to polish the tools on a power buffing wheel on which has been rubbed some tripoli. They may then be polished on ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... Hilary Kincaid. So said her heart the instant glance met glance. The tarnish of hard use was on all his trappings; like sea-marshes on fire he was reddened and browned; about him hung palpably the sunshine and air of sands and waves, and all the stress and swing of wide designs; and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... would Sir Hugh's haughty spirit brook the disgrace of publicity and the nine-days' wonder of the world when they knew that his wife, Lady Redmond—the successor of all the starched and spotless dames who hung in the old guest-chambers—should so forget herself and him as to tarnish his reputation by an act so improper ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... same time, a slight breeze sprang up, fresher yet to inhale, and began to tarnish the surface of the still waters in patches; it traced designs in a bluish green tint over the shining mirror, and scattering in trails, these fanned out or branched off like a coral tree; all very rapidly with a low ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... long string and make every allowance for the vexations of her situation; but if she began seriously to tarnish Karen's happiness he would have to pull the string smartly. The difficulty—he refused to see this as danger either—was that he could not pull the string upon Madame von Marwitz without, by the same gesture, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... an egg and that is why the spoon with which it has been eaten turns black. Even if silverware is not used, it tarnishes, especially in towns, because there is so much sulphureted hydrogen in the air. In perfectly pure air, it would not tarnish. Silver is harder than gold, but not hard enough to be used without some alloy, usually copper. Tableware is "solid" even if it contains alloy enough to stiffen it. It is "plated" if it is made of some cheaper metal and covered with silver. The ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... hand that tarnish'd flower, That shrines beneath her modest canopy Memorials dear to Romish piety; Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints! in fervent hour The work perchance of some meek devotee, Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth The sanctities she worshipp'd to their worth, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... need to hide himself. He was the strongest, the most knowing, the most cunning. He moved among men their acknowledged chief. He guided and controlled them. He never lost his dignity by daily use. He could steal a horse like Diomede, he could mend his own breeches like Dagobert, and never tarnish the lustre of the crown by it. But in later times the throne has become an anachronism. The wearer of a crown has done nothing to gain it but give himself the trouble to be born. He has no claim to the reverence ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... cared for the appreciation of the public of which he had experienced the fickle favors; his knowledge of life, his simple tastes, his love of nature, and the greatness of his mind, of which no ambition or worldly feeling could tarnish the simplicity and even sublimity. In giving him two individualities the novelist was better able to combine the passionate sarcasms of Cadurcis with the smiles of goodness and tolerance of Herbert, and to show him to us as he was wont to converse, mixing the wittiest remarks ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... his whole estate. The widow goes through all her forms: New lovers now will come in swarms. O, may I see her soon dispensing Her favours to some broken ensign! Him let her marry for his face, And only coat of tarnish'd lace; To turn her naked out of doors, And spend her jointure on his whores; But, for a parting present, leave her A rooted pox to last ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... I worship grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him that made me; and may his blessing alight on my endeavors for serving my country faithfully! To him I resign ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... bowl to her lips, and crams down all the rice, shovelling it with her two chop-sticks into her very throat. Next the little cups and covers are picked up, as well as the tiniest crumb that may have fallen upon the white mats, the irreproachable purity of which nothing is allowed to tarnish. And so ends ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the progress of humanity on these shores, accepting nothing but the honors and rewards that belong to merit. What kind of an American does the Negro intend to be? He intends to be an American who will never mar the image of God, reproach the dignity of his manhood, or tarnish the fair title of his citizenship, by apologizing to men or angels for associating as an equal, with some other American who does not happen to be black. He will place the love of country above the love of race; he will consider ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... flashed the memory of Ned Landon and his malignant intention—born of baffled desire and fierce jealousy— to tarnish the fair name of the girl he coveted,—then, his uncle's quixotic and costly way of ridding himself of such an enemy at any price. He understood now old Jocelyn's talk of his "bargain" on the last night of his life,-and what a futile bargain it was, after all!—for was not ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... faults; but they are faults that, though they may in a small degree tarnish the lustre and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional despotism, or want ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... empire. I don't know what your pocket map of the universe is, the map, I mean, by which you judge all sorts of other general ideas. To me this planet is a little ball of oxides and nickel steel; life a sort of tarnish on its surface. And we, the minutest particles in that tarnish. Who can nevertheless, in some unaccountable way, take in the idea of this universe as one whole, who begin to dream of taking ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... ambition and darkened the splendor of victory. The scene is closed, and we are no longer anxious lest misfortune should sully his glory. He has traveled on to the end of his journey and carried with him an increasing weight of honor. He has deposited it safely, where misfortune can not tarnish it, where malice can not blast it. Favored of Heaven, he departed without exhibiting the weakness of humanity. Magnanimous in death, the darkness of the grave could ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... borrow body and form and hue And tower in torrents of floral flame, The crimson bougainvillea grew, What starlit brow uplifted to the same Majestic regress of the summering sky, What ultimate thing—hushed, holy, throned as high Above the currents that tarnish and profane As silver summits are whose pure repose No curious eyes disclose Nor any footfalls stain, But round their beauty on azure evenings Only the oreads go on gauzy wings, Only the oreads troop with dance and song ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... Scotland, under the ward of the High Constable! What reason can be given for this? is the blighting speech of a convicted recreant of strength sufficient to tarnish my royal escutcheon?" ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... creeping through the veins, dulling the perspective of life and leadening the brain, whose carping companions draw attention to the bitters in the cups of Youth's Delights, and mutter that the golden crowns we struggle for shall tarnish as soon as they are placed on our tired brows!" Suddenly my bitter reverie was broken by the knight and the lady calling in startled tones. I replied, and presently they were upon me, Dawn very ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Russia, and, also from South America. Its color does not tarnish by exposure to the air, and appears to be equally permanent with that of pure gold; the metal is indestructible by fire. Platina is capable of being alloyed with all metals; is fused with difficulty, but by great labor may be rendered malleable: ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... we are now put in the crucible In which every worthless metal is tried, In which gold is cleansed from every tarnish; The Scripture is true in everything it says; It says we must suffer before we can be cured; It is through repentance we shall find forgiveness, And the restoring of all ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would tarnish his reign with the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to subdue, not once to tarnish! All petty humiliations were forgotten in one look at "Lavvie's Drawing-Room;" all stain of insolent words vanished from Valentine's memory in the atmosphere of the Studio. Never was a more superficial judgment pronounced than when his friends ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... well to clean brass andirons, handles, &c. with vinegar. It makes them very clean at first; but they soon spot and tarnish. Rotten-stone and oil are proper materials for cleaning brasses. If wiped every morning with flannel and New England rum, they will not need to be ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... terrible moment which would bear his son, a few days before him, to the grave. His sharpest agony was the thought of the shame that would envelop his family. The first scaffold erected in that gently mannered island would arise for Gabriel, and that ignominious punishment tarnish the whole population and imprint upon it the first brand of disgrace. By a sad transition, which yet comes so easily in the destiny of man, the poor father grew to long for those moments of danger at which he had formerly trembled, those moments in which his son might have died nobly. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of justice and virtue. Such a man became most naturally an object of Governor Barnard's seduction. The perversion of his abilities might be of use in a bad cause; the corruption of his principles might tarnish the best. But the arts of the Governor, which had succeeded with so many, were ineffectual with Mr. Adams, who openly declared he would not accept a favour, however flatteringly offered, which might in any manner connect him with the ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... our country, withering and blighting its fairest prospects and brightest hopes. Who has said that these petitions are unjust in principle, and on that ground ought not to be granted? Who has said that slavery is not an evil? Who has said it does not tarnish the fair fame of our country? Who has said it does not bring dissipation and feebleness to one race, and poverty and wretchedness to another, in its train? Who has said, it is not unjust to the slave, and injurious to the happiness and best interest ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Restrain, good Heaven! down, down, thou rebel passion, And, judgment, take the reins. Madam, 'tis well— Your soldier falls degraded; His glory's tarnish'd, and his fame undone. O, bounteous recompence from royal hands! But you, ye implements, beware, beware, What honour wrong'd, and ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... thy sons an' thy dowters live happy, An' niver know t' woes o' distress; May thy friends be for iver increeasin', An' thy enemies each day grow less. May tha niver let selfish ambition Dishonour or tarnish thy swoord, But use it alooan agean despots Whether reignin' at hooam ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman |
