"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lady Dudleigh writhed or not did not at all appear. She seemed as cool and calm as ever. Perhaps she had so schooled her nature that she was able to repress all outward signs of emotion, or perhaps she had undergone so much that a taunt could have no sting for her, or perhaps she had already contemplated and familiarized herself with all these possible views of her conduct to such an extent that the mention of them created no emotion. At any rate, whatever she felt, Sir Lionel ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... where the White Point Gardens drank the sun, And rippled to the lift of springing grass, The women came; And after them the aged, and the lame That war had hurled back at them like a taunt. And always, as they talked of little things, How violets were purpling the shade More early than in all remembered Springs, And how the tides seemed higher than last year, Their gaze went drifting out across the bay To where, ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... in this alarming condition the grandmother appeared, and began to taunt me with the utmost malignity. She was Mrs. Herne, "the hairy one," who had conceived inveterate spite against me at the time when Petulengro had proposed that I should marry his wife's sister. This poison had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... The taunt would have angered me had his condition been other than it was; but coming from one so possessed of the devil of terror, it did no more than ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... and their proportions more easily to be adjusted and observed."—Ib., p. 72. "By mouthing, is meant, dwelling upon syllables that have no accent: or prolonging the sounds of the accented syllables, beyond their due proportion of time."—Ib., p. 76. "Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall not be amiss."—SHAK.: Joh. Dict., w. Thou. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it."—Prov., xxx, 17. "Copying, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... timid half smile on her face, and a glistening welcome in her eyes. His gaze stopped short of the object which had inspired his hostess with such interest, and dropped to the figured carpet at the guest's feet; for the feeling the recognition awakened was clouded with the taunt Demedes had flung at him in the hall of the monastery, and he questioned the rightfulness of this appearance. If she were not the daughter of the Prince of India, she was an—impostor was ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... 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 hedgesparrow, 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 ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... from her room afterward, wearing the tiny white pins, and with a sweet seriousness in their faces. A noble purpose had been born in their hearts; but alas for chivalry! the first thing they did was to taunt Virginia with the fact that she could never be a knight because ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... their Lord. Like the Jews at the time of Christ's first advent, they were not prepared to welcome Jesus. They not only refused to listen to the plain arguments from the Bible, but ridiculed those who were looking for the Lord. Satan and his angels exulted, and flung the taunt in the face of Christ and holy angels, that His professed people had so little love for Him that they did ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl, who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have Tuvvy's advice, but that was quite another ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... had sluggishness taken possession of him, and with it came those promptings of the flesh which, but a few months ago, he easily subdued, but which the lapse of time had once more made perilous. To any who should have ventured to taunt him with forgetfulness of Veranilda, he would have fiercely given the lie; and with reason, for Veranilda's image was as vivid to him as on the day when he lost her, and she alone of women had the power to excite his deepest and tenderest emotions. Nevertheless, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... You cannot help it! You cannot escape from me now! You cannot go to sea! You cannot turn your back upon wretched me. I have you safe now! Safe!" and she clutched his hands triumphantly. "Ah! and what a wretch I am, to rejoice in that! to taunt him with his blindness! Oh, forgive me! I am but a poor wild girl—a wild Indian savage, you know: but—but—" and she ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... 'Tis this has roused my apathy, That He who rules creation May change the dismal hap of thee, And hasten to restore thee In safety from thy danger, To thine own, in joy and glory, To save us from the stranger. With princely grace to give redress, Nor a taunt to suffer back again; The fell Monro has felt thy blow, And should he dare attack again, Then as he flew, he 'll run anew, The flames to quench he 'll labour on, Of castle fired—when Staghead High raises ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... unwholesome cabbages for the purpose of saving four or five rixdollars in the year. Frederic was, we fear, as malevolent as his father; but Frederic's wit enabled him often to show his malevolence in ways more decent than those to which his father resorted, and to inflict misery and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished his hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgelling. His practice, however, as to that matter, differed in some important respects from his father's. To Frederic William, the mere circumstance ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this, and a few hours only after my brother's penalty had been paid into the Treasury, the two young gentlemen met in the nobles' wine-room by the Frohnwage, and von Rochow, heated by wine and heeding neither moderation nor manners, began to taunt Ursula's betrothed. After putting it to him that he had left the task to Herdegen of picking up the glove, "which peradventure he had thought was of too heavy leather," to which the other made ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for Ellen 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 ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... under which they grow up to manhood and womanhood preclude the possibility of efficiency. It is the bitterest portion of the lot of the poor that they are deprived of the opportunity of learning to work well. To taunt them with their incapacity, and to regard it as the cause of poverty, is nothing else than a piece of blind insolence. Here and there an individual may be to blame for neglected opportunities; but the "poor" as a class have no more chance ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... old impressions capable of misleading us; the charms of novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the disputes of men, who taunt each other either with following the false impressions of childhood or with running rashly after the new. Who keeps the due mean? Let him appear and prove it. There is no principle, however natural to us from infancy, which may not be made to pass for a false impression either of education ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... darksome durance was compressed, I 2 King of Edonians, Dryas' hasty son[5], In eyeless vault of stone Immured by Dionysus' hest, All for a wrathful jest. Fierce madness issueth in such fatal flower. He found 'twas mad to taunt the Heavenly Power, Chilling the Maenad breast Kindled with Bacchic fire, and with annoy Angering the Muse that in the flute ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithets unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right to taunt truly in answer. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... me if you like," cried Dick, goaded to fury, and the whole bitterness of a lifetime surging up in passionate speech. "I have got past feeling it. Your life has been one continual taunt of me. You have thought me a dull, good-natured boor, delighted to have a word thrown at him now and again by the elegant gentleman, and rather honoured than otherwise to be ridden over roughshod, or kicked ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... are certainly more people than that in the great Land of Oz," laughed Salye. "Why don't you raise an army and conquer them, and be Queen of all Oz?" she asked, trying to taunt Ann and so to anger her. Then she made a face at her sister and went into the back yard ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... get some more crocks, Hester," she added. Debby was annoyed at herself in talking of family in the child's presence. With Debby's knowledge of Hester's parentage, it was as though she had thrown a taunt in the child's face. When Hester returned, bearing in her arms the two, large flower-pots, Debby made a point of showing her unusual consideration, asking her opinion as to the best flowers to be potted and whether she did not wish a plant for her ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... coward!" The young man flung this taunt out at me viciously; but I had enough to do to hold myself steady, there by the grave's edge, and did not ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... and promises to marry whomsoever shall succeed in bending it, and in shooting the arrow through a series of twelve rings.—Telemachus is the first to try his luck, hoping to redeem his beloved mother. But alas, his strength fails him, and he has to hand the bow on to the suitors, who so goad and taunt him, that the boy draws his sword. But they are stronger, Telemachus stumbles and the beggar catches him in his arms, and unfolds his mantle to protect him whispering: "Telemachus my son, I am thy father." The youth sinks on his knees, but Odysseus enjoins ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Mel. Taunt on, sir; I spared you when you were unarmed—I am unarmed now. A man who has no excuse for crime is ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... cheek turned white with the taunt the words might be supposed to imply. He held her two hands ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the floor for beds, a general basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through the barred windows the crowds outside that flocked to the place to see the Yankees, and, when not checked by the guards, to revile and taunt them. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... afterwards: it is moreover evident, that however degraded the lunatic may be in the estimation of vigorous and enlightened intellects, yet this depreciated object, by the enjoyment of occasional periods of bright understanding, has abundant cause for taunt and triumph over the victim of unsoundness; whose state is "contra-distinguished from lunacy," and as far as has been hitherto ascertained, does not revel in the luxury of a lucid interval. But these vicissitudes of intellectual obscurity and lustre have no real ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... were to be regarded as 'acts of destiny'. They were to count this as their first day of service and sworn allegiance.[435] Neither he nor the emperor would remember past misdeeds. He then gave them quarters in his own camp, and sent round orders that no one in the heat of any quarrel should taunt a fellow soldier with mutiny ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... poet, too— Taught by the muses how to smite the harp And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, I never murder even the girls I ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour. Mr Pickering's rare interviews with his subconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in the small hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, as he lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... significant thing that both Chan and Neilson looked oppressed and uneasy at the words. Like all men of low moral status they were secretly superstitious, and these boasting words crept unpleasantly under their skins. It is never a good thing to taunt the dead! Ray had spoken sheerly to frighten and shock them, thus revealing his own fearlessness and strength; yet his voice rang louder than he had meant. He had no desire for it to carry into the ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... 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
... O oak-wood, how empty are thy leaves!'.... That sounds like a taunt, don't you think, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... don't cry," she pleaded. "It doesn't matter what that horrid old Miss Row says, and we all love you. Don't cry, dear." She was too young to comprehend what was hurting Penelope most—the words that rankled, and stung; the charge of ingratitude; the taunt; the throwing up to her of favours she had received—things no lady should ever permit herself ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... hate it. The flatteries of a princess and her imitating train turn my head, till an old choral strain, or a clutch that my good angel gives me, a welling-up of my own genius in my heart, comes to draw me back, to cool me, to taunt me as traitor, to rend me with the thought that in self I have utterly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... for her would be a very great superiority; if her pride cannot bear to be under the small obligation, how will she make up her mind to the greater? If she cannot bear to think that her husband might taunt her with the fact that he has enriched her, would she permit him to blame her for having brought him to poverty? Wretched boy, beware lest she suspects you of such a plan! On the contrary, be careful and economical for her sake, lest she should accuse you of trying ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... she registered her name and cast her vote. The act was in harmony with a life steadily consecrated to a high purpose from which she has never wavered, though she has met a storm of invective, personal taunt and false accusation, more than enough to justify any person less courageous than she in giving up a warfare securing her only ingratitude and abuse. But Miss Anthony has no morbid sentiment in her nature. There is at least one woman in the land—and we believe there are a good many more—who ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Most of the best Radicals I have known were men of gentle birth and breeding. Not all: others, just as earnest, just as eager, just as chivalrous, sprang from the masses. Yet the gently-reared preponderate. It is a common Tory taunt to say that the battle is one between the Haves and the Have-nots. That is by no means true. It is between the selfish Haves, on one side, and the unselfish Haves, who wish to see something done for the Have-nots, ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... "control! Are these the phrases with which you taunt me? But," dropping his voice again, he added, "you are right in suggesting that I have discharged my office when I demand, to what end those very marked attentions are paid ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... expenditure in luxuries. We won't spend more, publicly, it appears, than eight hundred thousand a year, on educating men gratis. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what we spend privately a year, in educating horses gratis. Let us, at least, quit ourselves in this from the taunt of Rabshakeh, and see that for every horse we train also a horseman; and that the rider be at least as high-bred as the horse, not jockey, but chevalier. Again, we spend eight hundred thousand, which is certainly a great deal of money, in making rough minds bright. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... who had meantime been looking on, now replied to the taunt of Dante, prophesying that he should soon have good reason to know that the art he spoke of had been acquired; upon which Dante, speaking with more considerateness to the lofty sufferer, requested to know how the gift of prophecy could belong to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... replied Percy, "where ever he is; by whom surrounded. I would taunt him as a deceiving, heartless villain, and if he demand satisfaction, by heaven, it would be joy for ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... himself, and in another sense. Every time he gave her money in this fashion, Geoffrey felt like a man who has paid off a debt of honour. She had taunted him again and again with her poverty—the poverty she said that he had brought her; for every taunt he would heap upon her all those things in which her soul delighted. He would glut her with wealth as, in her hour of victory, Queen Tomyris glutted dead Cyrus with ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... away, and Lothaire looked at them with his air of gratified malice. "You will not lord it over your betters much longer, young pirate!" said he, as he followed his mother, afraid to stay to meet the anger he might have excited by the taunt he could not deny himself the pleasure of making; but Richard, who, six months ago could not brook a slight disappointment or opposition, had, in his present life of restraint, danger, and vexation, learnt to curb the first outbreak of temper, and to bear patiently ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... get rid of the feathers, although he had made several clever attempts. He had tried to catch them with his mouth and paws, but they had evaded him in the most wonderful manner, and had maddened him at times by floating round him, and even alighting on his very nose, as if to taunt him. In vain he slapped his nose sharply with his paw each time he felt that nasty, irritating, tickling sensation. He always gave his nose a hard knock, while the feathers went floating gaily off as before. He gave it up at last, and lay down in his ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... the crowd was scarcely over, when the strong masterful voice of the governor rasped out the coarse taunt, which, according to one reading, was made coarser (and more lifelike) by repetition, 'Thou art mad, Paul; thou art mad.' So did a hard 'practical man' think of that strain of lofty conviction, and of that story of the appearance of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... The taunt went home. The beauty of Mr. Ryfe's face was at no time in its expression—certainly not now. Miss Bruce, too, seemed well disposed to fight it out. Obviously it must be war to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Mabel sits; Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears. But cruel eyes have found her out, And cruel lips repeat her name, And taunt her with her ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... 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, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... increased. It became voluminous. Homeric salvos shook the air. And never one of the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough to live down the hateful cry of that day, "HEAD HIM OFF!" which was to become a catch-word on the streets, a taunt more stinging than any devised by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the ancestral doubt, a fighting-word, and the great historical joke of Canaan, never omitted in after-days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took that short walk across ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the desolate wives, mothers, and children mourning for dear ones who have fallen in a vain and hopeless struggle, it seems to me our duty is very plain. We must forgive their past treason, and welcome and encourage their returning loyalty. None but cowards will insult and taunt the defeated and defenceless. We must feed and clothe the destitute, instruct the ignorant, and, bearing patiently with the bitterness and prejudice which will doubtless for a time thwart our efforts and misinterpret our motives, aid them ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... When all is said, the view from the exceeding high mountain is a view of the Kingdom of this world only; from the place called Calvary you can see the Kingdom of God as well. From this point of vantage alone the permanent values of life are visible; and to the taunt flung at us, the taunt so terrifying to the young, "You are losing life," the enigmatic reply from the Cross is that you have to lose life to gain it; that permanent and eternal values are acquired by those who have the self-restraint ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... the sinews of their arms and the lightning of their eyes. If they but carry these they proclaim their rank for all to see. Let six attend taking neither sword nor shield, neither hat nor sandal, nor yet anything between. 'There are six thousand more,' shall be their taunt, 'but Ko'en Cheng's hospitality drew rein at six. He feared lest they might carry arms; behold they have come naked. Ti-foo ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... been decided that the dispute over the town should be settled by combat. Rodrigo became the champion of Ferdinand of Castile. The other champion, Martin Gonzalez, began, as soon as the combat opened, to taunt the Cid. ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... mean this as a taunt, but it was taken as such by the keeper, who came forward quickly, seized the glass, and drained it. Having done so he stood for a moment like one awaking from a dream. Then, without a word of thanks, he dropped the glass, sprang into the shrubbery, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and at last settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. "What shall I ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Cethegus very calmly, "it was not all, Cataline. And, but that we are joined here in a purpose so mighty that it overwhelms all private interests, all mere considerations of the individual, you, my good sir, should learn what it is to taunt a man with fear, who fears not anything—least of all thee! But it was not all. For as we turned from a side lane into the Wicked(1) street that scales the summit of the Esquiline, my eye caught something lurking in the dark shadow cast over an angle of the wall by a ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... daggers, before which stood Menko, preventing her from advancing, and regarding her with eyes which burned with reckless passion, wounded self-love, and torturing jealousy. "Yes, coward!" she repeated, "coward, coward to dare to taunt me with an infamous past and speak of a still more ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... and unjust to taunt me with having been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. Allow me to state that no other person under the same circumstances would have distributed the tenth part; yet had I been utterly unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to check me with being so, after all I have undergone, and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... himself before an audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... stock arguments of "advanced" politicians has been the failure of the "moderates" to obtain any recognition from Government, and the enlargement of the Legislative Councils took the sting out of that taunt. Independently, however, of the reforms, the extreme violence of language and of methods which had come into vogue was bound to produce some reaction. Amongst the educated classes, many respectable fathers of families, whatever their political opinions may be, have ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... able to stifle his indignation but for the grave example of Atwater, who gave no more heed to Jack's shoe than he had given to his base taunt, but, silently gathering up his book again, brushed the sand from it, found his place, and resumed his reading, as composedly as if nothing had happened. Neither did Frank say any thing. But Ellis, near whom the shoe had fallen, tossed it back with a threat ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... his dream, nor the sad, reproachful gaze of those beautiful dark eyes. He jumped from his bed and dressed hastily. He would give his wife some kind words, at least that morning. Conscience should not taunt him with ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... I had finished speaking, you would have perceived, sir, that your taunt was undeserved. I have no wish to conceal anything from you—on the contrary, one of my chief objects in seeking this interview was to inform you of the deep and sincere affection I entertain for Miss Saville, and of my intention of coming forward ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... in this stanza, the clerks at least understood, and it excited their "noble rage;" they hinted, that it ill became a person, who did not dress nearly as well as themselves, to give himself such airs, and to taunt his betters with poverty; they said that they supposed, because he was an Englishman, as they perceived by his accent, he thought he might insult Scotchmen as he pleased. It was vain for him to attempt any explanation; their pride ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... answer this taunt, and was saved from the necessity of doing so by the announcement that Tom Fox and ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... discord, and few or none preach truly and sincerely the Word of God.... Yet the Temporalty be not clear and unspotted of malice and envy. For you rail on Bishops, speak slanderously of Priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers, both contrary to good order and Christian fraternity. If you know surely that a Bishop or Preacher erreth, or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and declare it to some of our Council, or to us, to whom is committed ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... 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, her dewy, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... the guns nor, without Rufe, the means to open the war, and they believed Rufe had gone for arms. So they had chafed in the store all day, and all day Lewallens on horseback and on foot were in sight; and each was a taunt to every Stetson, and, few as they were, the young and hot-headed wanted to go out and fight. In the afternoon a tale-bearer had brought some of Jasper's boasts to Rome, and, made reckless by moonshine and much brooding, he sprang up to lead ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... 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
... That taunt threw the liquor seller into a still greater rage. With a yell he sprang at Prescott. But again Dick ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... Stung by 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. Immediately ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... domestic life have always attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely to taunt ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... something better than this," replied Elsie. "Why should you taunt me with ignorance, anyway? What do you know about the world? You're just a foreman in a little country mill and because you are satisfied with a narrow little life like that you think everyone else ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... up knowledge as a successful tradesman heaps up money, he is apt to believe that his wealth makes him free of the company of letters, and a fellow craftsman of the poets. The mark of his style is an excessive and pretentious allusiveness. It was he whom the satirist designed in that taunt, Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter—"My knowledge of thy knowledge is the knowledge thou covetest." His allusions and learned periphrases elucidate nothing; they put an idle labour on the reader who understands them, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... the trail of Numa, the lion, pausing for a moment to hurl a soft fruit at the snarling face of his enemy, and to taunt and insult him, calling him eater of carrion and brother of Dango, the hyena. Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him. Low growls vibrated his heavy jowls and his great rage transmitted to his sinuous ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... at anchor from the impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance; "parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth were expected to be able ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... chin,—and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill little voice. "Hello,—Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ended and the taunt began. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... has been waiting for me in my box, to serve a purpose never thought of by the villain who wrote it. There is the Case, as he called it—only quoted to taunt me; utterly unlike my own case at the time—there it has been, waiting and lurking for me through all the changes in my life, till it has come to be ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... now, what kind of taunt it is, that Brutus throws in this same patriot's face after it had been proclaimed, by his order, through the streets of Rome, that Tyranny 'is dead': after Cassius had ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we as in the beginning, Nature's law, which ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Social Democratic Movement," said Prince Buelow in the Reichstag on one occasion, "I should say, 'Criticism, agitation, discipline, and self-sacrifice, I. a; positive achievements, lucidity of programme, V. b.'" The taunt is not undeserved. The Socialist Movement in Germany has suffered, like so many German movements, through a rigid adherence to logical theories. Under the leadership of old revolutionary thinkers like Bebel it has failed to adapt itself to the facts of modern German life. The ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... not half the strength when real temptation comes, because he has always been looking at the outside effect of his life, instead of looking inward, to see if he is true to his promise. Avoid priggishness, but do not be afraid of being called a prig when it is only the taunt by which someone hopes to shame you into doing that which you know in your ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... revenge itself upon them when in chains. The most injurious slanders were loudly proclaimed in the streets; insulting pasquinades and inflammatory libels were posted up at every corner; and horns were blown in the neighborhood of their prisons, to taunt them with the exultings of the rabble. [86] When these rejoicings of his enemies reached him in his dungeon, and Columbus reflected on the inconsiderate violence already exhibited by Bobadilla, he knew not how far his rashness and confidence might carry him, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... our opponents taunt us, but when we think not only of the present day, but of the nearly two thousand years during which Christianity has flourished, not in England only, but over all Europe, that is to say, over the quarter ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... had gone altogether too close to the cage at the end, and, in that repetition of her taunt about "furnishing" supplies for the wedding, she had at length betrayed something which her skill and the intricate enamel of her experience had hitherto, and with entire success, concealed—namely, the latent vulgarity of the woman. She was wearing, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Haue I liu'd to stand at the taunt of one that makes Fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... told you that I have been arrested and put in prison several times—always on account of my papers? I told you the truth, and you shouldn't taunt me for ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... girl, quite unaccustomed to control herself, would almost break out into some furious response to an unkind word or implied taunt, and remember just in time that she was pledged to the Lord's service and must not disgrace his cause. A swift, silent prayer for help then would always bring the promised aid of the Holy Spirit, and so by degrees Bertie learned to conquer herself and to lead others to see ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... had a wholesome lesson read you, Master Nowell," said Mistress Nutter; "but I do not come hither to taunt you. I am quite satisfied with the victory I have obtained, and am anxious to put an end to the misunderstanding ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... are damned, beyond all cure, To taunt, and starve, and trample on The weak and wretched; and the poor Damn their broken hearts to endure 235 Stripe on stripe, with groan ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... taunt would hurt him. Besides, she liked to throw it at the memory of a woman whom she had hated—Cipriani de Lloseta's ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... hardly generous to taunt me so, Madame, I do very bitterly regret what has taken place. But you might do me the justice to remember that what I did I did as much for others as for myself. As much, indeed, for you ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... poor, down-trodden second master at Salem House, the school of Mr. Creakles. Mr. Mell played the flute. His mother lived in an almshouse, and Steerforth used to taunt Mell with this "degradation," and indeed caused him to be discharged. Mell emigrated to Australia, and succeeded well in the new country.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... him. He was standing by the room's one window, now, staring unseeingly out of it, his hands deep in his pockets, taking in the knowledge of the failure of his appeal. Under the realization of this he tossed a final taunt at his partner over ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... this great building enterprise known as the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stone was laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed to know what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt and rebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to their critics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago." This is just what the Church Council which has been holding its sessions in Baltimore during the last three ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... "Nor taunt of enemy shall move, Nor bitterest suffering shall degrade, My heart—for with my people's love My daring will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... achieve freedom; but our women in black had freedom thrust contemptuously upon them. With that freedom they are buying an untrammeled independence and dear as is the price they pay for it, it will in the end be worth every taunt and groan. Today the dreams of the mothers are coming true. We have still our poverty and degradation, our lewdness and our cruel toil; but we have, too, a vast group of women of Negro blood who for strength of character, cleanness of soul, and unselfish devotion of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... man. The shock of anger at frightful tales from Belgium—little children with their hands cut off (no evidence for that one); women foully outraged; civilians shot in cold blood—sent many men at a quick pace to the recruiting agents. Others were sent there by the taunt of a girl, or the sneer of a comrade in khaki, or the straight, steady look in the eyes of a father who said, "What about it, Dick?... The old country is up against it." It was that last thought which worked in the brain of England's ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... courtesan—ah! what a master of the theatre I am!—in company with a handful of faithful disciples. The others have run away to save their cowardly skins in the tumult. The mobs that hailed him as King of the Jews now taunt him, after the manner of all mobs. His early life I shall borrow outright from the Buddha legends. He shall be born of a virgin; he shall live in the desert; as a child he shall confute learned doctors in the temple; and later in ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... bowlegged, hunch-backed little Judkins (a sight to make a recruiting-sergeant shudder) forever taunt one with having enlisted as ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... he has a right to insult her with his licentious passion; and should the unhappy creature shrink from the insolent overture, he will sneeringly taunt ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... entire life remained firm in the faith of his fathers, he and his work were at once condemned: he was suspended by the Catholic authorities as a misbeliever, denounced by Protestants as an infidel, and taunted by both as "a would-be corrector of the Holy Ghost." Of course, by this taunt was meant nothing more than that he dissented from sundry ideas inherited from less enlightened times by the men who just then ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... what is more, there ought to be flowers in it. The whole house, let me tell you, should be a very garden of fragrant and luscious blooms. Instead of which it is full of mocking cenotaphs such as this. When Araminta went away she flung over her shoulder a parasol and a Parthian taunt. She said, 'I'm certain there'll be no flowers in the house while I'm away,' and now it seems she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... Was it not a covert taunt at my wealth and his own nothingness in the house? This may never have occurred to him, but I thought it had, and once more I left him. It was night, and I would go ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the blood rise to the English leader's thin sallow face at the taunt, but he answered quietly enough, "Let the boy speak to him and then go back," and a way was opened up for me to where my father sat, a bound and helpless prisoner, on his huge ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... hidden taunt he did not respond to the challenge and Denver's mind reverted to H. Parkinson Dodge and his flattering offers for the mine. Ten thousand dollars cash, from a mining promoter, was indeed a princely sum; better by far than the offer of half a million ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... and then gave myself wholly up to considering what was the best line of conduct to pursue with regard to Lord Dawton. "It would be pleasant enough," said Anger, "to go to him, to ask him boldly for the borough so often pledged to you, and in case of his refusal, to confront, to taunt, and to break ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ever brightening sunlight I could see the lithe figure swaying; no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the red lips and gleaming teeth. Then—and it was music good to hear, despite its taunt—she laughed defiantly, turned, and ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... my earliest 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
... saw no fish nor fowl, nor beast within her haunt, That met a stranger in their kind, but could give it a taunt: Since flesh might not endure, but rest must wrath succeed, And force the fight to fall to play in pasture where they feed, So noble nature can well end the work she hath begun, And bridle well that will not cease her tragedy in ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... The taunt went home to the hearts of his accusers, and, writhing under the lash thus boldly applied, Judge Blackburne hastened, to intervene. Unable to stay, on legal grounds, the torrent of scathing invective by which O'Brien was driving the blood ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... and building up rebellion among the Southern people. Instead of heeding the advice of Colonel Gardner to reenforce the forts, it removed him from command, and within two months the President submitted silently to the taunt of the South Carolina rebel commissioners that it was in punishment for his loyal effort to save the Government property. Whatever the motive may have been, the Government was now fully warned, as early as November 11, a week before the first secession jubilee in Charleston, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... and impressed me very strongly. While he kept to the question, what he said was close, good, and moderate, though delivered in rapid speech, and with a voice not sufficiently modulated. But when he began to reply to a taunt of Colonel Benton's, that he wanted to be President, the force of his speaking became painful. He made protestations which it seemed to strangers had better have been spared, 'that he would not turn on ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... 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 ...
— Brut • Layamon
... twice her brother repeated the taunt—twice asked her, with a confidence he did not feel, what was the matter with the plan. At last, "It's too vile!" she cried passionately. "It's too horrible! It's to sink to what he is, and worse!" Her voice trembled with the intensity ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... its history, and its powers. They were brilliant and beautiful; full of classical learning and allusion, and sparkling as a casket of diamonds, thrown upon, and rolling along, a Wilton carpet. It seemed to be his pleasure to taunt the opposition to enforce an angry or irritable reply, and then to launch the arrows of his biting wit and sarcasm at whoever dared the response, in such rapid profusion, as to astonish the House, and overwhelm ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... 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
... 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
... was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily derided, as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mutinous!" said the old Colonna. And as the band swept on, the rude foreigners, encouraged by their leaders, had each some taunt or jest, uttered in a barbarous attempt at the southern patois, for the lazy giant, as he again appeared in front of his forge, leaning on his anvil as before, and betraying no sign of attention to his insultors, save by a heightened glow of his swarthy visage;—and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... young man made no reply. His eyes were again on the hills and gleaming with a sudden fascination. From far above, they seemed to call to him, to taunt him with their imperiousness, to challenge him and the low-slung high-powered car to the combat of gravitation and the elements. The bleak walls of granite appeared to glower at him, as though daring him to attempt their conquest; the smooth stretches of pines were alluring ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... battle weary / rested the warriors all. Volker and Hagen / passed out before the hall, And on their shields did lean them, / those knights whom naught could daunt. Then with full merry converse / gan the twain their foes to taunt. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... interview may not be out of place. Carlyle was perfectly frank, even to us of whom he knew but little. He did not stand off or refuse to talk on any but commonplace subjects. What was offered to us was his best. And yet there is to be found in him a singular reserve, and those shallow persons who taunt him with inconsistency because he makes so much of silence, and yet talks so much, understand little or nothing of him. In half a dozen pages one man may be guilty of shameless garrulity, and another may be nobly reticent throughout a dozen volumes. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... have I ever done to be imprisoned like this? And was I not unhappy enough before, that you must needs come and taunt me with the happiness your daughter is enjoying now she ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... 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 she hasted down ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn from that? He would laugh at anyone who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked? Even if he told them, would ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst; Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first; Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my brain ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... struggle in Midlothian, show that he was conscious that an election in which he was personally concerned was going on in Yorkshire. Naturally, our opponents made the most of this, and we had constantly to meet the taunt that we were asking the electors to vote for a man who had refused to countenance our proceedings, and who would never, as a matter of fact, sit as the representative of Leeds in the House of Commons. In ordinary times we should undoubtedly ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... it does, on the other 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 ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... Anthony was trying to do the right. Love had not all gone to feed the fires of hatred. Tina still trusted that Anthony felt more for her than he seemed to feel; she was still far from suspecting him of a wrong which a woman resents even more than inconstancy. And she threw out this taunt simply as the most intense expression she could find for ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... "Boy, don't taunt me, don't make my sufferings more than they are," and Brady heaved a prodigious sigh. "I have given up drinking. It's this way: An old-time friend of mine, who has made eighteen million dollars in a diamond ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... others, for adhering to this faith? Argue with them, educate them up to your standard if you like—but is it fair, is it just, is it in accordance with that spirit of liberalism and tolerance which their opponents profess, to taunt, abuse, and bully to the full length that words will permit? They are not facile at expression, these same men of the soil. The flow of language seems denied to them. They are naturally a silent race—preferring deeds to ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... sword, but in the sinews of their arms and the lightning of their eyes. If they but carry these they proclaim their rank for all to see. Let six attend taking neither sword nor shield, neither hat nor sandal, nor yet anything between. 'There are six thousand more,' shall be their taunt, 'but Ko'en Cheng's hospitality drew rein at six. He feared lest they might carry arms; behold they have come ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... to this taunt at the moment; but the next day, when Hal's new bow and arrow came home, he convinced him that he knew how to use it ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas |
