"Stain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never fall In attitude as gracefully As my fair bride that is to be;— Nor ever Autumn's leaves of brown As lightly flutter to the lawn As fall her fairy-feet upon The path of love she loiters down.— O'er drops of dew she walks, and yet Not one may stain her sandal wet— Aye, she might dance upon the way Nor crush a single drop to spray, So airy-like she seems to me,— My bride, my bride ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... woman here with the new soul, Like my own Psyche—fresh upon her lips Alit the visionary butterfly, 290 Waiting my word to enter and make bright, Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. This body had no soul before, but slept Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 295 Fastened their image on its passiveness; Now, it will wake, feel, live—or die again! Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be Art—and further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul is ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... credulity to women—with that necessary estrangement from home which it is just within the verge of credibility to suppose might produce such an hallucination as is here described. We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as a stain upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead of the delightful phantom—the creature dear to half-belief—which Bannister exhibited—displays before our eyes a downright concretion of a Wapping sailor—a jolly warm-hearted ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... undertaking a personal visit to every part of his government. He was a most prolific legislator, founding his rules, to some extent, on the laws of the Incas. He was shrewd but narrow minded and heartless; and his judicial murder of the young Inca, Tupac Amaru, has cast an indelible stain on his memory. ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... gate, and let her in, And fling It wide, For she has been cleansed from stain of sin," Saint Peter cried: And ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... flapjacks for Demi, he loves them so, and it's such fun to turn them and put sugar in between," cried Daisy, tenderly wiping a yellow stain off Annabella's broken nose, for Bella had refused to eat squash when it was pressed upon her as good for "lumatism," a complaint which it is no wonder she suffered from, considering the ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... same plan every year, and so it came to pass that year after year on the King's birthday the people came from here and there and everywhere and brought their white gifts—the gifts which showed that their love was pure, strong, true and without stain, and year after year the King sat in his white robes on the white throne in the great white room and it was always the same—he regarded not one gift above another so ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... unfortunate in noses. Their noses are unspiritual, thick at the end; and there is an expression about the mouth of enormous self-complacency. The specimens of this amount to superb sometimes, when the curves of the mouth are Apollo-like. Unfortunately there is too often a deep stain of wine in the cheeks, or a general suffusion; and unless the face is quite pale, one can find no other hue,—no healthy bloom either in ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... good along with Sherlock Holmes." He winked at her as he slipped from his horse's back, on the edge of a rocky knoll, fronting the jack-pines. "This is the place, I reckon." His quick eyes had caught a dark stain on a flat rock, which the rain had failed to cleanse entirely of the dead ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... that I speak falsely, Prince Abi, yes, that I stain my lips with lies," said Pharaoh with indignation. "Well, I forgive you this also. Go hence and await the issue and know by this sign that truth is in my heart. When the Princess Neter-Tua is born, ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... the public a notice as to his behavior in some central club or business spot frequented by all men of that level of society; exactly where varied from town to town. It was the ultimate sanction, making the challengee's refusal to either apologize or fight a public stain upon ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson
... even its very dirt has a charm which the neatness of no other place ever had. All depends, of course, on what we call dirt. No one would defend the condition of some of the streets or some of the habits of the people. But the soil and stain which many call dirt I call color, and the cleanliness of Amsterdam would ruin Rome for the artist. Thrift and exceeding cleanness are sadly at war with the picturesque. To whatever the hand of man builds the hand of Time adds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... may stain his birth, I cannot forget that he has Wilders's blood in his veins. He is Cousin ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and obviously the victim of a foul murder speedily changed to one of angry curiosity. Who had wrought this crime? Crime it undoubtedly was—the man's attitude, the trickle of blood from his slightly parted lips across the stubble of his chin, the crimson stain on the sand at his side, the whole attitude of his helpless figure, showed me that he had been attacked from the rear and probably stricken down by a deadly knife thrust through his shoulders. This was murder—black murder. And my thoughts flew ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... title-deeds, or an ocean with his commerce, compared with conscious rectitude, with a face that never turns pale at the accuser's voice, with a bosom that never throbs with the fear of exposure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and disclose no stain of dishonor? To have done no man a wrong; to have put your signature to no paper to which the purest angel in heaven might not have been an attesting witness; to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... mother's fond kisses, enraptured with love; There are joys never sullied with stain; There are dreams brighter far than the dreams born above, And the raptures that banish all pain; And the world is so good that it cannot be true, And its paths lead to Heart's happy goal, While the joys of content every longing imbue In the Little ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... to disarm and make short work of him, the karo[u] Makishima Gombei prevented them. With difficulty he dragged Shu[u]zen's sword out from the deep cut it had made in the beam of the partition. "Stain not good weapons with the blood of a rascal and thief, who shall undergo the torture and the disgrace of the execution ground. Be sure his lordship will be well avenged. It is ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Colonels John Chrystie and Scott, of the regulars, and Captains James Mead, Strahan, and Allen, of the militia, and Captains Ogilvei, Wool, Joseph Gilbert, Totten, and McChesney, took council of their desperate situation. Colonel Scott told them that their condition was desperate, but that the stain of Hull's surrender must be wiped out. "Let us die," he said, "arms in hand. Our country demands the sacrifice. The example will not be lost. The blood of the slain will make heroes of the living. Those who follow will avenge our fall ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... Violet— May they help thee to forget All that love should not remember, Sweet as meadows after rain When the sun has come again, As woods awakened from December. How they wash the soul from stain! How they set the spirit free! Take them, ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... at the piece of furniture; then catching sight of the blood-stain, he raised the small trap-door or peep hole, in the top of the oblong box which stood breast high, supported on a ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... agitating me is whether any stain was left under that pillow. We want to be sure of the connection between this possible weapon and the death by stabbing which we all deplore—if ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Eden's bowers, As pure, as fragrant, and as fair, As when ye crown'd the sunshine hours Of happy wanderers there. Fall'n all beside—the world of life, How is it stain'd with fear and strife! In Reason's world what storms are rife, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... tenderness. But the man is so lowered that neither of them can ever forget the degradation. And, though it might never come to that, though this terrible passion might be concealed from her, still it was a grievance to him and a disgrace that he should have anything to conceal. It was a stain in his own eyes on his own nobility, a slur upon his escutcheon, a taint in his hitherto unslobbered honesty, and then the sin of it;—the sin of it! To him it already sat heavy on his conscience. In his ear, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... proof. Go, hasten, act as you like. We shall see if the vile calumnies of an incendiary can stain the pure reputation of an honest woman. We shall see if a single speck of this mud in which you wallow can ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... a quick glance and looked away. Pauline would not meet Verena's anxious gaze. She kept on looking down. Occasionally her lips moved. There was a red stain on her cheek. Penelope with one of her sharpest glances ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... bleed upon the thorns of life. Like a strain of sad, sweet music which comes floating by us on the wings of night and silence, like the exhalation of the violet dying even upon the sense it charms, like the snowflake dissolved in air before it has caught a stain of earth; like the light surf, severed from the billow, which a breath disperses, such is the character of the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... striche gar lauth, ganz erbaermlich vnd gar Claeglich mit heller stimbe drei mahl nacheinander Graffen zu Cilli, vnd Nimmehr zerreiss die Panier, Zerbrach die Wappen da war Allererst ein Clagen, dass es nicht einen Menschen, sondern ein harten stain hete Erbarmen Moegen."] ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... of solid Form is entirely a matter of experience. We see nothing but flat colours; and it is only by a series of experiments that we find out that a stain of black or grey indicates the dark side of a solid substance, or that a faint hue indicates that the object in which it appears is far away. The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in the light! so shalt thou know That fellowship of love, His spirit only can bestow Who reigns in light above. Walk in the light! and sin, abhorr'd, Shall ne'er defile again; The blood of Jesus Christ, the Lord, Shall cleanse from every stain." ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of its strength and sweetness than any estimate or eulogium of mine. 'Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulatory track, and narrow path of goodness; pursue virtue virtuously: leaven not good actions, nor render virtue disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul intentions; maim not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor circumstantially deprave substantial goodness. Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes' table, or that old philosophical pinax of the life of man: whether ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... could have plucked them like flowers and bound them up in bunches with my belt. And yet somehow I liked them from the first minute; such a happy, careless, light-hearted race, again I say, never was seen before. There was not a stain of thought or care on a single one of those white foreheads that eddied round me under their peaked, blossom-like caps, the perpetual smile their faces wore never suffered rebuke anywhere; their very movements were graceful and slow, their laughter was low and musical, there ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... over the revolver toward his hand, as she pointed to the tell-tale yellow stain on his fingers. At the same time her eyes measured the nearness of her own hand and of his to the weapon. She ached to grip it in one swift movement. She was sure she could do it, and yet she was not sure; and so it was that she ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... by thee, but infamy? Thou hast stain'd the spotless honour of my house, And frighted thence noble society: Like those, which sick o' th' palsy, and retain Ill-scenting foxes 'bout them, are still shunn'd By those of choicer nostrils. What do you call ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... heavy shoes, the toes green with grass stain; the leather so seasoned by morning dews as to be like wood for hardness. These were to keep his feet protected from briers or from the bees scattered upon the wild white clover or from the terrible hidden thorns of the honey-locust. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... fears of plunder and of death, preparations for flight were made, and in the great mosque women and children invoked the aid of Mahomet to shield them from an enemy more relentless than Arab or Saracen—a host whose banner-cry was dark and terrible: "Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." The city seemed doomed to capture. But—"there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." In the camp of the Crusaders the exultant leaders were already quarrelling over whose domain the conquered city should ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... fathers) that you all may know That I alone am not unmatchable In crimes of this condition, lest perhaps You might conceive, as yet the case appears, That this foul stain, and guilt runs in a bloud; Before this presence, I accuse this Lady Of as much ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... when the hopelessly wounded were exchanged. To be branded "hopelessly wounded" was to him a stain, a stigma. It put him among the clutterers of the earth. It stranded him on the shore of life. ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mother, we are here to defend your liberty and independence to the death! We do not want war; on the contrary, we wish for peace; but honourable peace, which does not make you blush nor stain your forehead with shame and confusion. And we swear to you and promise that while America with all her power and wealth could possibly vanquish us; killing all of us; ...
— True Version of the Philippine Revolution • Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy
... way to the side of the wall, and found the knobs of the electric lights. He turned two on and looked around him. Wingrave was lying a few yards off, with a small red stain upon his shirt front. His face was ghastly pale, and he was breathing thickly. The young man looked at him for several moments, and then made his way to the side table where the sandwiches were. One by one he took them from the dish, and ate deliberately. When he had finished, ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hall—mastering himself to speak—his hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes bent towards the polished floor which the evening sunlight, filtered through the gules of the leaded windows, splashed here and there with a crimson stain. She sat in the great leathern chair at the head of the board, and, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... of battle / the gallant leaders were, Around them over helmet / flew there many a spear Through shield all brightly shining, / from hand of mighty thane: And on the glancing armor / was seen full many a blood-red stain. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... up idly some magazine or other, one of those great lemon-coloured, salmon-hued, slaty paper volumes which lie in rows on the tables of my club. I will not stop now to enquire why English taste demands covers which show every mean stain, every soiled finger-print; but these volumes are always a reproach to me, because they show me, alas! how many subjects, how many methods of presenting subjects, are wholly uninteresting and unattractive to my trivial mind. This time, however, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... able to bear to leave the bailiff without seeing the pigs bought. But now it was different. For he and Alice had the weight on their bosoms of being thieves without having meant it—and nothing, not even pigs, had power to charm the young but honourable Oswald till that stain had been ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... another angel's will. Because, according to Dionysius quoted above (A. 1), as one angel enlightens another, so does he cleanse and perfect another. But cleansing and perfecting seem to belong to the will: for the former seems to point to the stain of sin which appertains to will; while to be perfected is to obtain an end, which is the object of the will. Therefore an angel can move another ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... of King Charles I. carved by Bernini, as it was brought in a boat upon the Thames, a strange bird (the like whereof the bargemen had never seen) dropped a drop of blood, or blood-like, upon it; which left a stain not to be wiped off. This bust was carved from a picture of Sir Anthony Van Dyke's drawing: the sculptor found great fault with the fore-head as most unfortunate. There was a seam in the middle of his fore-head, (downwards) which is a very ill ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... he told her of the theft of the papyrus, and explained the few details he possessed with regard to von Kerber's declared enemy, he would only add fuel to the distrust already planted in her heart. That would achieve no tangible good, while no casuistry would wipe away the stain on his own honor. So here was he, burning with desire to assure her of his devotion, forced into silent pact with the very ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... and crimson, The frost-bit flowers were dead, But Sweetheart Indian Summer came With love-winds round her head. While fruits God-given and splendid Belonged to her domain: Baskets of corn in perfect ear And grapes with purple stain, The treacherous winds persuaded her Spring Love was in the wood Altho' the end of love was ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... here is a poor little silver hoop among the diamonds. And they were not all happy; for this ruby has seen a death-parting, and the pearls are not whiter than the face that had waited for twenty years. But not one ring has the stain of a broken troth, nor the soil of a purchase. The people suffered, they waited, they died,but they never so much as thought of any one but each other, in all the world!' Wych Hazel folded her hands in her lap again, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... night-gown and Turkish cap, now leaning on the shoulder of her brother, the Captain, deceased. And anon she would make a ghastly image of him lying all along in the courtyard at Hampton Court, with the purple bullet-marks on his white forehead, and a great crimson stain on his bosom, just below his bands. This was the one she most loved to look upon, although her father sorely pressed her to put it by, and not dwell on so uncivil a theme, the more so as, in Crimson Characters, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... her brain now made her think of the beating of hailstones on her father's roof one night when as a child she had lain and listened to them. Then she noticed that the autumn shadows seemed to make the river darker than the shadows of spring—or was it already the stain of dead leaves? Hale could have told her. Those leaves were floating through the shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-zagged softly down to join them. The wind was helping them on the water, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... faithful to the motto of our fathers: 'In all war, there is but one of two outcomes for the man of courage: to conquer or to die.'[8] O, that my love for our common country be not barren! O, that Hesus keep our arms! Perhaps then the Chief of the Hundred Valleys will have washed off the stain which covers a name he no longer dares to bear.[9] Courage, friend Joel, the sons of your tribe are brave of the brave. What blows will they not deal on this day which makes for ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... Another Stain-Mixture is made, by mixing one ounce of sal ammoniac, one ounce of salt of tartar, and one pint ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... best men in the town, who participate in the associations, receive themselves a reasonable profit, and supply the credit and advantages necessary for the safety of wholesale enterprises. They have thus far worked with their workmen for the latter's profit, with perfect honor and without a stain of scandal. The great advantage, after all, is to themselves; for a workman owning his own home, accumulating comforts and a family, is indissolubly tied to the city ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... is eclips'd will one day shine again: Though winter frowns, the spring will ease my pain. Time from the brow doth wipe out every stain. [Exit SOL. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous; and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and steady in his wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple; he stooped a little, but his step was still firm; and his sinewy hands were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure. His face was covered with those wrinkles which are got in open air, and which, rightly looked at, are no more than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... honey, not the plunder of the bee from meadow or sand-flower or mountain bush; from winter-flower or shoot born of the later heat: not honey, not the sweet stain on the lips and teeth: not honey, not the deep plunge of soft belly and the clinging ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... the glittering news that Adna brought home. Small wonder it spilled his coffee. And that wife of his not only had to go and yell at him about a little coffee-stain, but she had to announce that she hardly saw how she could get ready to go right away—and who was ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... not stain my blade by killing you,' said Gordon; and turning with the other gentlemen who had seen the foul stroke, he walked ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... kissed the holy pane And threw on the pavement a bloody stain." —"Lay of the Last ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... me a few days ago that Mr. Lowell's book you once mentioned to me. Anyone who 'admires' you shall have my sympathy at once—even though he do change the laughing wine-mark into a 'stain' in that perfectly beautiful triplet—nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself (though not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithet in that 'Yorkshire Tragedy'—which has better things, by the ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... pale face. Villon's gaze questioned him. Olivier shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Villon knew that the wound was mortal, and his own blood seemed like water within him. He carried the girl across the grass to the marble seat and rested her on it, the red stain on the green coat growing wider and ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is another that shines upon our roll of honour—the same serene great spirit—no thought of self, but only a great love and desire to serve—and a great fearlessness. Her message, before she went out alone at dawn to her death, which added another stain to the enemy's pages dark with blood, was the message of one who saw the eternal verities, the things worth living ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... of his faint eyes, Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies A tear some dream has loosened from his brain! Lost angel of a ruined Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded like a cloud which ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... passions, Men that suffer, men that slay, All the tragedy that fashions Life and death for such as they. Yet these things are but as fleeting Shadows, that more lightly pass Than the sunlight, which retreating Leaves no stain upon the grass. O my friends! I judge ye lightly, Listen to the tales I tell. Answer, have I spoken rightly? Judge me, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... setting aside this profession? Indeed, we cannot consent to such a step. You would lose ground in our opinion, in that of your family, and in that of the public. You would pass for an inconsiderate, fickle young fellow, and the slightest stain on your reputation would be a mortal blow to us. There is one way of reconciling all difficulties,—the only one in my opinion. Complete your studies with all the zeal of which you are capable, and then, if you have still the same inclination, go on with ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... description. He seems to have obtained a piece of pine, of considerable size, possessing extraordinary acoustic properties, from which he made nearly the whole of his bellies. The bellies made from this wood have a singular stain, running parallel with the finger-board on either side, and unmistakable, though frequently seen but faintly. If we may judge from the constant use he made of this material, it would seem that he regarded it as a mine of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... God among them, though not of them, separate yourselves. Why should the righteous partake of the same plagues with the wicked? O ye children of the harlot! I cannot well tell how to have done with you, your stain is so odious, and you are so senseless, as appears by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... separation seems to have taken place between satire and wit, which leaves the former like the toad, without the "jewel in its head;" and when the hands, into which the weapon of personality has chiefly fallen, have brought upon it a stain and disrepute, that will long keep such writers as those of the Rolliad and Antijacobin from ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... can raise from forty to fifty thousand pounds without much difficulty. My name is, as you know, as good as that of any firm in the City. For nearly forty years it has been above stain or suspicion. If we carry on our plans at once, and lay this money out judiciously, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not to be touched and not to be spoken of with hard words. Fifty years ago the abolitionists of the North differed only in opinion from the slave owners of the South in hoping for a speedier end to this stain upon the nation, and in thinking that some action should be taken toward the final emancipation of the bondsmen. But they also have progressed; and, as the Southern masters have called the institution blessed, they have called it accursed. Their numbers have increased, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... and was much surprised at sight of his old gambling acquaintance of better days, for his better days were those of robbery before he had added the deeper stain of murder. Brandt soon allayed active fears and suspicions by giving the impression that in his descensus he had reached the stage of robbery and had got on the scent of some rich booty in the mountains. "But how did you know I ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... be taken against English abolitionists, because they act and think chiefly upon the evidence furnished by American hands; besides which, slavery in the West Indian colonies was felt by the majority of the nation to be so dark a stain upon our national character, that, although burdened with a debt such as the world never before dreamt of, the sum of 20,000,000l. was readily voted for the purposes of emancipation. Whether the method in which ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... is keeping one's self pure; for every stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are so many impure things; ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... either invent or glean from tradition the gist of Buccleuch's diplomatic remonstrances, first with Salkeld, for Scrope was absent at the time of Willie's capture, then with Scrope. Buccleuch, in fact, wrote that the taking of Willie was "to the touch of the King," a stain on his honour, says a contemporary ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... Cicero, greed, feeding itself on usury, rapine, and dishonesty, was so fully the recognized condition of life that its indulgence entailed no disgrace. But Cicero, with eyes within him which saw farther than the eyes of other men, perceived the baseness of the stain. It has been said also of him that he was not altogether free from reproach. It has been suggested that he accepted payment for his services as an advocate, any such payment being illegal. The accusation is founded on the knowledge that other advocates allowed themselves ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... was murder. A cruel, treacherous act, which the greater number of colonists condemned and the record of which is a dark stain on the ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... he roars in pompous strain, And, like an angry lion, shakes his mane. The Nine, with terrour struck, who ne'er had seen, Aught human with so horrible a mien, Debating whether they should stay or run, Virtue steps forth, and claims him for her son: With gentle speech she warns him now to yield, Nor stain his glories in the doubtful field; But wrapt in conscious worth, content sit down, Since Fame, resolv'd his various pleas to crown, Though forc'd his present claim to disavow, Had long reserv'd a chaplet for his brow. He bows, obeys; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was great, and it kept the sturdy master of La Mariniere standing motionless for a minute or two in a dream, with the open letter in his hand, forgetful alike of the messenger waiting outside, and of his wife behind him at the table. A dark stain of colour stole up into his sunburnt face, his strong mouth quivered, then set itself obstinately. So! this thing was to happen. Treason to Herve, was it? No, it was for his good, for everybody's good. Sentiment was ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. But there was no stain." ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... called private, which accompany a man everywhere, which are the essential part of his public character, and of these it becomes us to speak, for it is to these that we are met to do homage. I mean integrity, devotion to pure ends, a high ambition, manly independence, and honor that never knew a stain. Why should we disguise from ourselves that there are great prejudices to the profession of an actor? Who does not know that our noble guest has lived down every one such prejudice, not falling into the old weakness of the actor, and for which Garrick could not escape the sarcasm of Johnson, of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... wise or witty, Lore of "the Eternal City," Or derive delight and pleasure From the blood-stain'd deeds of Caesar, Thus bewildering his senses 'Mong these cases, moods, and tenses? Still the wrong-placed words arranging, Ever in their finals changing; Out and in with hic and hockings, Like a loom for working stockings. Latin lords and Grecian ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... perchance," said Fontenette. "I suepose thaz a great thing to remove those old stain' ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... hardly have desired a more glorious fate. His murder gained for him martyrdom with its immortal glory, and he could scarce have met his death under happier auspices. Visiting a king's residence to fetch his bride he died by the order of a man whose memory is sullied by no other stain, a man renowned in war, a maker of laws for the good of his people, and eminent in an ignorant age as ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... thick folds behind the head of the bed. She gazed upon the comte's pallid face; remarked his right hand enveloped in linen whose dazzling whiteness was emphasized by the counterpane patterned with dark leaves thrown across the couch. She shuddered as she saw a stain of blood growing larger and larger upon the bandages. The young man's breast was uncovered, as though for the cool night air to assist his respiration. A narrow bandage fastened the dressings of the wound, around which ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... profound chemical work, and listened to courses of chemical lectures, should she come to domestic life, which presents a constant series of chemical experiments and changes, and go blindly along as without chart or compass, unable to tell what will take out a stain, or what will brighten a metal, what are common poisons and what their antidotes, and not knowing enough of the laws of caloric to understand how to warm a house, or of the laws of atmosphere to know how to ventilate one? Why should the preparation of food, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hat something seemed to tighten around her heart. It belonged to her father. His personality was stamped all over it. She even recognized a coffee stain on the under side of the brim. There was no need of the initials L. C. to tell her whose it had been. A wave of despair swept over her. Again she was on the verge of breaking down, but controlled herself ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... gates are open. That will be at five o'clock. It is eleven now, so we had better get some sleep. In the morning I must see that your dress is all right. Nita has given me a bottle of walnut juice, to stain your face ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... with murder is to reduce murder to robbery; to confound in common minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when, by the last act of cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater security may be obtained, upon what principle ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... her as he had studied Merle. She was in better condition, he thought. She came only to his shoulder as he stood to seat her, but she was no longer bony. Her bones were neatly submerged. Her hair was still rusty, the stain being deeper than he remembered, and the freckles were but piquant memories. Here and there one shone faintly, like the few faint stars showing widely apart through cloud crevices on a murky night. Her nose, though no longer ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Doll Tearsheet, and "Greasy Jane" in the song, and all the rest of them? It is of the last importance that we should know. Yet never a hint is vouchsafed us in the text. It is clear that Shakespeare cannot bring himself to write about Anne Hathaway's birthday—will not stain his imagination by thinking of it. That is entirely human-natural. But why should he loathe Christmas Day itself with precisely the same loathing? There is but one answer—and that inevitable-final. The ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... dried, And where the orphan wanders sad and lone, Where poverty its grieving head may hide, Will breathe the music of her voice's tone; And if her face was blest with beauty rare 'Mid gilded sighs and worldly vanity, When heavenly peace has left its impress there Its loveliness from earthly stain ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... on the threshold of the door. He picked it up eagerly, and pressed it to his lips. A peculiar delicate perfume which thrilled his senses lurked in its gossamer folds. As he was about thrusting it into his breast-pocket, he noticed in one corner a small blood-stain fresh and wet. He had then bitten his lip in ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... with so great integrity and solicitude, and who have had so long an experience. I am sure that your Majesty will first give me a hearing, and afterwards command that amends be made for my wrongs, by punishing those who have tried to stain my honor and my good reputation in life and character. This I beseech your Majesty to do, in consideration ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... could not bear the sight, especially the nobles, who had lived on almost equal terms with him. There were murmurs, and Parmenio was accused of being engaged in a plot, and put to death. It was the first sad stain on Alexander's life, and he fell into a fierce and angry mood, being fretted, as it seems, by the murmurs of the Macedonians, and harassed by the difficulties of the wild mountainous country on the borders of Persia, where he had to hunt down the last Persians who held out against him. At a ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slowly, and are sluggish in their course, remaining, at times, for weeks or months, with but little change. As a rule, however, they terminate sooner or later, either by absorption, leaving a more or less permanent pigment stain with or without slight atrophy (non-ulcerating tubercular syphiloderm), or ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... the citied hills of San Francisco; the bay was perfect, not a ripple, scarce a stain upon its blue expanse, everything was waiting breathless ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... However deep this stain may be considered, one must remember that the standard of honor at the court of Louis XIV. did not encourage delicacy in matters of love, and Mme. Scarron knew only the standard of society; her morality was no more extraordinary than was her intelligence, and it was to her credit that she preserved ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... sent for the two princes, and would have killed them both with his own hand, had not old king Armanos his father-in- law, who was present, held his hand: "Son," said he, "what are you going to do? Will you stain your hands and your palace with your own blood? There are other ways of punishing them, if they are really guilty." He endeavoured thus to appease him, and desired him to examine whether they did indeed commit the crime of which they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... turning aside; 'I will not stain my hands with the blood of my kin. Go! the world is large ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... I have done would have been better done When my sad mother lived and could feel joy. This striking without thought is better than hunting; She showed more terror than an animal, She was more shiftless ... A little blood is lightly washed away, A common stain that need not be remembered; And a hot spasm of rightness quickly born Can guide me to kill ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... indestructible mover, to the guidance of which Providence has confided human perfectibility! One would suppose that the utterers of such sentiments must be models of disinterestedness; but does the public not begin to perceive with disgust, that this affected language is the stain of those pages for which it oftenest ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... such as mortify me as much as they must pain you. He says that your fortune and family connections are not sufficient to permit the alliance. Oh, I implore you not to suppose these to be my sentiments. I know your family is devoid of ignoble stain, and that your fortune was once second to none. Had I the disposal of Laura's hand it ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... again, Which no unworthy thought could stain: But if it has been taught by thine To forfeit both Its word and oath, Keep it, for then ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... hubbub of the town. When I turned my boat to the shore the day was close at hand. The stars were gone, and a pale, cold light, more desolate than the dark, streamed from the east across which ran, like a faded blood stain, a smear of faint red. Upon the forest the mist lay heavy. When I drove the boat in amongst the sedge and reeds below the bank, I could see only the trunks of the nearest trees, hear only the sullen cry of some river bird ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... its subject, which is God," is single perfection above all other sciences, "which are, as Solomon speaks, but queens or concubines or maidens; but she is the 'Dove,' and the 'perfect one'—'Dove,' because without stain of strife; 'perfect,' because perfectly she makes us behold the truth, in which our soul stills itself and is at rest." But the same passage shows likewise how he viewed all human knowledge and human interests, as holding their due place in the hierarchy of wisdom, and among ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... I bring you rather The thorny brambles from the market-place, With crimson-spots, the stain of civic blood, That flowed at your ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... this hard decree, To crush a heart so free From guilt or stain? Oh! fell edict unheard ere this! Thou doomest a maid who showers bliss Upon the mortal race. She the sad earth would grace, And would give life ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... surprised; no opportunity of surrender was given; the attack led, not to a battle, but to a massacre. The whole fleet was destroyed, with an unsparing barbarity and a vindictive bloodthirstiness that must leave a stain for ever upon ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... forth the tyranny of the government and the innocence of the people, the Prince, in his own name and that of the estates, announced the determination at which they had arrived. "The tyrant," he continued, "would rather stain every river and brook with our blood, and hang our bodies upon every tree in the country, than not feed to the full his vengeance, and steep himself to the lips in our misery. Therefore we have taken up ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Gramont," returned M. de Bois. "Once more, I tell you that she has saved your escutcheon from a stain which could never have been effaced. And for this act you spurn her, you scorn her generosity; you tell her she is not worthy of rendering you a service, instead of bowing down before her as you,—as we all might well do, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... merrily pursued the road to ruin, without worrying about his wife's behaviour. Not so M. de Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary. He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him. We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the carriage of the marquise, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... came to untimely ends. All your virtuosos in heraldry are content to know that they had ancestors who lived five hundred years ago, no matter how they died. A match with a low woman corrupts a stream of blood as long as the Danube, tyranny, villainy, and executions are mere fleabites, and leave no stain. The good Lord of Bath, whom I saw on Richmond-green this evening, did intend, I believe, to ennoble my genealogy with another execution: how low is he sunk now from those views! and how entertaining to have lived to see all those virtuous patriots proclaiming their mutual ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Saxon's sin original, met his call, And vowed her to the vengeance. Bravest hearts Hate most the needless slaughter. Oswy mused: 'Long since too much of blood is on this hand: Shall I for pride or passion risk once more Northumbria, my mother;—rudely stain Her pretty babes with blood?' To Penda then, Camped on the confines of the adverse realms, He sent an embassage of reverend men, Warriors and priests. Before them, staff in hand, Peaceful, with hoary brows and measured tread, Twelve heralds ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... plea of his imitation of nature—a plea, too, urged in ignorance of nature, for nature does actually endeavour—if such a word as endeavour maybe used where all is done without effort—to subdue the rawness of every colour, and even to stain the white-wash we put upon her works, and covers the lightest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... ham, exposed to the noonday sun, was beginning to melt, and that a drop of fat threatened to fall upon his Sunday coat. Hastily beating a retreat, he pulled off his coat, jocosely remarking that his wife would scold him roundly were he to stain it, a confession which made the bystanders roar with laughter, and which cost ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Sally! go into the garden an' see after your master. Tell him it's goin' on for six, an' Mr. Tryan 'ull niver think o' comin' now, an' it's time we got tea over. An' he's lettin' Lizzie stain her frock, I expect, among them strawberry beds. Mek her come in ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote that swelled the sounds, Made up a tumult that for ever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies. I then, with error yet encompass'd, cried, 'O master! What is this I hear? What race Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?' He then to me: 'This miserable fate Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived Without or praise or blame, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... had come upon them all in their head, would, at the least, see the queen compromised with the cardinal, and if the latter should really come out from the trial as the deceived and duped one, Marie Antoinette should, nevertheless, share in the stain. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach |
