"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your best to make me one," he answered bitterly. "I try to stand by you at all costs. I want to make amends to you, I want to prevent a crime. Yet there you lie and set your face against a compromise; and there you lie and taunt me with the thing that's gall and wormwood to me already. I know I gave you provocation. And I know I'm rightly served. Why do you suppose I went into this accursed thing at all? Not for the gold, my boy, but for the girl! So she won't look at me. And it serves me right. But—I say—do you ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the difficult task you craved for, Armand," was all the answer that Blakeney made to the taunt—"to obey a leader whom you no ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... nearer, and you will certainly find that haymaking time is a time of joking, especially it there are women among the laborers; but the coarse laugh that bursts out every now and then, and expresses the triumphant taunt, is as far as possible from your idyllic conception of idyllic merriment. That delicious effervescence of the mind which we call fun has no equivalent for the northern peasant, except tipsy revelry; the only realm of fancy and imagination for the English clown exists at the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... more obstinate? It is a small superiority to be rather richer than she, but to give up all 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 ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... of man, but it seems as though God Himself were turned against them, to become their enemy. The heavens seem as brass to their cries and tears, and the enemy has reason to challenge them with the taunt, "Where is now your God!" The waters of a full cup are wrung out in days like these; and the cry is extorted, "How long, O ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... of imagination in the two poets, is quite insuperable. But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her. God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would do so if she ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... demi-mondaine, and that had brought her to the apartment to notify Susy d'Orsel of his intention to break with her. Might not a quarrel have arisen between the two women and the new mistress, exasperated by some taunt, had thrown the unfortunate Susy d'Orsel out of the window?... That would be a ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... have you come? is it at such a time that you taunt me with the remembrance of my past folly, or your—your—" She paused for a moment, confused and hesitating, but presently recovering herself, rose, and added, in a calmer tone, "Surely you have no excuse for this intrusion: you will suffer me ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by the quarrel, because he understood something of Driscoll's feelings when stung by the taunt. Then he was curious about Drummond's object for making it, and wondered how much he knew. He kept them apart and when they stopped at noon Driscoll ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... considerable skill, but Wayne employed his cavalry and infantry so effectively that he drove the redskins from cover and pursued them with great slaughter almost to the walls of the British fort. The British commander demanded an explanation. Wayne replied with a taunt which amounted to a challenge and which was probably intended to be such; but the British refused to be drawn into hostilities. Had Wayne attacked and dispersed the British garrison, he would hardly ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... taunt, which she had brought out against her better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 from the cheeks of his British ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... well as taunt in the way he uttered that last word. I was conscious of being at a loss, but put a bold front on the matter and proceeded as if conscious ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... very easy to bear this taunt. But David had learned to conquer himself before he set out to conquer giants. So he answered quietly instead of flashing back an ...
— David the Shepherd Boy • Amy Steedman
... anything of divine infallibility in this clamour of that small though loud portion of the community ever governed by factitious influence, which under the name of the PUBLIC, passes itself upon the unthinking for the PEOPLE." Naturally enough Byron regarded this pronouncement as a taunt if not as a challenge. Wordsworth's noble appeal from a provincial to an imperial authority, from the present to the future, is not strengthened by the obvious reference to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... while he was speaking. But he was red-hot with indignation and didn't care a jot for the consequences. And Jake came at him. If the foreman's taunt had roused him, it was nothing to the effect of his reply. Jake crossed the room in a couple of strides and his furious face was thrust close into Tresler's, and, in a voice hoarse with passion, he ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... passed, an hour passed; my blood had grown quieter, colder; the consciousness that I was doing all this for nothing, that I was even a little absurd, that Malevsky had been making fun of me, began to steal over me. I left my ambush, and walked all about the garden. As if to taunt me, there was not the smallest sound to be heard anywhere; everything was at rest. Even our dog was asleep, curled up into a ball at the gate. I climbed up into the ruins of the greenhouse, saw the open country far away before me, recalled my meeting with Zinaida, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Where have you been? Has some insulting taunt Cast by a coward in a public place Where you could not resent it, stung your patience? These are the pebbles small men throw ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... vessel he recognised when he saw it the sign of the admiral's ship, and shouting out he addressed Themistocles with mockery about the accusation brought against the Eginetans of taking the side of the Medes, 57 and reproached him. This taunt Polycritos threw out against Themistocles after he had charged against the ship of Sidon. And meanwhile those Barbarians whose ships had escaped destruction fled and came to Phaleron to be under ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... and the sins of his life gathered themselves in fearful and oppressive array, as if to stifle him, and the phantom of poor Margaret with her lamp—which had haunted him from the beginning of his illness—seemed to taunt him with having been too fainthearted and tardy to be worthy to espouse her cause. The faith to which he tried to cling WOULD seem to fail him in those awful hours, when he could only cry out mechanical prayers for mercy. Then there had come a night when ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hated this name because of Mrs. Magwire, whose most merciless taunt was, "Sure ye're well named, ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... practical necessity. This virtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol; certainly Mr. Lowes Dickinson will not question it. It has been the boast of hundreds of the champions of Christianity. It has been the taunt of hundreds of the opponents of Christianity. It is, in essence, the basis of Mr. Lowes Dickinson's whole distinction between Christianity and Paganism. I mean, of course, the virtue of humility. I admit, of course, most readily, that a great deal ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... that night. The boys could not resist calling out "Friend Mary" or "Hello, Roses Red," though each boy knew that his taunt would bring on a fight. Piggy fought boys who were three classes above him. He whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes from the lower grades; but the fighting took him away from his trouble, and ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... Stamp Act was an admirable or justifiable measure; or would approve of telling the Americans that they ought to have been grateful for their long exemption instead of indignant at the imposition. 'We do not put a calf into the plough; we wait till he is an ox'—was not a judicious taunt. He was utterly wrong; and, if everybody who is utterly wrong in a political controversy deserves unmixed contempt, there is no more to be said for him. We might indeed argue that Johnson was in some ways entitled to the sympathy of enlightened people. His hatred of the Americans ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger against her. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... vivid as to run through the nation and electrify it. Then, perhaps after more rumbling and rambling, came a clean, clear, historical illustration carrying conviction; then, very likely, a simple and strong argument, not infrequently ended by some heavy missile in the shape of an accusation or taunt hurled into the faces of his adversaries; then, perhaps at considerable length, a mixture of caustic criticism and personal reminiscence, in which sparkled those wonderful sayings which have gone through the empire and settled deeply into the German ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... or has not to do with it," I broke in, for although I do not think that he meant them as a taunt, but merely as a statement of fact, Saduko's words stung me to the quick, especially as my conscience told me that they ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... other countries to slavery by force, and prepare their own for it by servile sophistry, as we see the huge serpent lick over its trembling, helpless victim with its slime and poison, before it devours it! On every stanza so penned would be written the word RECREANT! Every taunt, every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and freedom, would recall to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And what shall we say to him—the sleep-walker, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... territories of Rome. The senate sent Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them, whose forces encamping close by the Veientines, the latter ceased not to reproach and vilify the Roman name with every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the Romans by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided they became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle, broke and defeated them. Here, again, we see, what has already been ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... by the thought of its miraculous power, or meditated to use it for selfish ends, it deserves the taunt of the yet more selfish world. And it is reason for great rejoicing, that the difficulties of transition from the isolated to the harmonic mode of life are so great. God thus sifts his people. None are worthy to enter upon this work ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I—what was I?" She shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would taunt me with that." ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Lee's first intention was to move along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge directly toward Washington.* The appearance of his army on Hooker's flank would be a kind of taunt and threat, calculated to draw the latter out of his shell, and induce him to make an attack. In such a case, as the rebels were in the highest spirits, in consequence of their recent victory at Chancellorsville, their commander ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... leave the room without replying to this last taunt; but she remembered that her indifference to it might provoke suspicion, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought the subject forward in compliance with the request of the anti-corn-law delegates; and because, in the late discussion on the state of the nation, a taunt had been thrown out on the ministerial side, that, if the opposition thought that a repeal of the corn daws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the house. The motion was seconded by Mr. Fielden, and supported by Mr. Aglionby, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bearing the other down with a headlong rush characteristic of the man—as Tignonville feared—he held off warily, stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... "Run and 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 ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... 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 humour ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no notice of this taunt. It had no power to hurt her, its venom being neutralized by a secret knowledge of her own in which her mother ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not by extirpating the old inhabitants and filling their places with Italian emigrants, but by Romanizing the provincials themselves. The Optimates in Rome sneered at the wretched emigrant, the runaway from the Italian army, the last of the robber-band of Carbo; the sorry taunt recoiled upon its authors. The masses that had been brought into the field against Sertorius were reckoned, including the Spanish general levy, at 120,000 infantry, 2000 archers and slingers, and 6000 cavalry. Against this enormous superiority of force Sertorius ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... taunt," I replied, "though I respect your motive, and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father's affairs. ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that | |governs puss-wants-a-corner with the same iron rule | |that in later life determines who shall be asked to | |play bridge and who shall be outlawed. | | | |"Your parents aren't your own," was the taunt that | |Ruth heard from playmates. Some of the little girls | |added the poison of sympathy to the information. And| |Ruth Camilla Fisher at 12 found herself a stranger | |in a strange land. | | | |She extradited herself Tuesday night with a revolver| |shot in the temple. In ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... men and women indiscriminately. A fallen warrior perchance cries for mercy, "Spare me! may I live?" says he. If the name of his conqueror's chief or king is invoked, the request is sometimes granted; if not, the only reply is a taunt, followed by a thrust or a deadly blow. Thus the scene of murder and blood goes on until the fugitives have reached their strongholds, or until the shades of evening put an ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... Germany needed at this juncture, was not so much a fiery defender of the faith, or a scholar to taunt the heretics in finely-pointed sarcasm with their want of learning, as a saint, demonstrating in his own life the beauty of holiness, while laying aside polemics, he expounded the philosophy of Catholic doctrine. The need for reform was patent ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,—namely, that it is better to be ruled by one master than by many,—I quite agree with them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of Wales was proclaiming his rights and his wrongs, denouncing the impostor, and clamouring for admission at the gates of Guildhall! The crowd enjoyed this episode prodigiously, and pressed forward and craned their necks to see the small rioter. Presently they began to taunt him and mock at him, purposely to goad him into a higher and still more entertaining fury. Tears of mortification sprang to his eyes, but he stood his ground and defied the mob right royally. Other taunts followed, added mockings stung ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heels, you must not twit me with poltroonery. If you charge me with such faint-heartedness while other persons are present, I'll deny it flat. When I sit in the company of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the fellow talks!—he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as the marble, founded ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest height. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... against him and spake of him as a tyrant; so he turned to his courtiers and ministers and said to them, "As for me, by Allah of All-might,[FN173] I am not the king's brother! Nay, I am but one whom the king imprisoned upon a word he heard from me and he used every day to come and taunt me therewith. Ye deem me the king's brother; but I am Abu Sabir and the Lord hath given me the kingship in virtue of my patience. As for the king who sought protection of me and I plundered him, 'twas he who first wronged me, for that he plundered ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... larboard bow!" The cry was uttered in a foreign tongue from the masthead of a corvette of twenty guns, a beautiful long, low, flush-decked craft with dark hull, taunt raking masts, and square yards, which, under all the sails she could carry with a southerly breeze right aft, was gliding rapidly over the now smooth surface of the northern ocean. The haughty flag of old Spain, and the language spoken on board, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... has been thus created Faust-like, by reason of the impossibility of pre-adapting its mechanism to the exigences of every case, works to unforseen and undesired ends—sometimes even to absurd ones. And, with thinkers of a certain phase of modern thought, it has been a favourite taunt against the average British mind, that it rather delights in the contemplation of such abnormal workings of the great automatic law in which it has created. Some manifest mistake or error has occurred. The man supposed to be ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... madly hither and yon until brought up standing at the boundaries of Her Britannic Majesty on the one side or those of the Indian Bureau on the other. Across the border-land Sitting Bull snapped his fingers at his pursuers. Across the reservation lines did many a jeering chief hurl taunt and challenge at the baffled soldiery. When winter came on there were still a few strong bands of Sioux and Cheyennes dancing to the war-drums in the fastnesses of the Big Horn, whence Miles and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... "As usual, you taunt me," she said, "but what does that matter? I could bear even an insult from you to-night, I am so excited and so pleased. I believe in the Lombard Deeps Gold Mine. I intend to put all the money I can lay hold of into it. Of course you will assay the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... "Don't taunt me, woman, or I'll let you starve to death! Archie," he went on, his delight in her bright in his eyes, "this might be just the right moment to propose marriage. Your presence is a little embarrassing, but all the conditions here are unusual. Ruth, I'm so proud ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... whether he thought her also nice-looking; St. John was considering the immense difficulty of talking to girls who had no experience of life. Rachel had obviously never thought or felt or seen anything, and she might be intelligent or she might be just like all the rest. But Hewet's taunt rankled in his mind—"you don't know how to get on with women," and he was determined to profit by this opportunity. Her evening-clothes bestowed on her just that degree of unreality and distinction which made it romantic to speak ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... "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 beside the law of man is no law, would be right; ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... and spent, leaning mightily on his young friend made his way to the great hall. And as we have recounted, though all were struck by oddness and meanness of the stranger's clothes, yet only Sir Kay made point to taunt him. Yet did he make no answer to these taunts but waited with a great meekness for his turn before the King. And that he should wait with such meekness was strange for he seemed to be a ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Zygmunt Krasinski into a strange life of compromise, evasion, and sacrifice. To put it brutally, he was not a fighting man; so far as action went, he feared his father more than he loved his country, and there was a sting of truth in the bitter taunt addressed to him by his brother-poet Slowacki: 'Thou wert afraid, son of a noble.' He was often conscious of his weakness as when he wrote to Henry Reeve in 1830: 'I am a fool, I am a coward, I am a wretched being, I have the heart of a girl, I do not dare to brave a ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... had he borne that taunt from Godfrey! How often had he been told before boys whom he esteemed and loved at school, and whose good opinion he was desirous to retain, that he was dependent upon the bounty of Colonel Hurdlestone, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... up with the yellow starch, Yellow starch—poor folks do want, And nothing the rich men will to them give, To them give, but do them taunt; For Charity from the country is fled, And in her place hath nought left but need; Well a day! And corn is grown to so high a price, It makes poor men cry with weeping eyes. Well a ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... rejected or scorned by a woman sometimes makes a great man of himself, with the motivation more or less developed to make her sorry or humiliated. Anger may prompt a man to go in to win his enemy's girl. A taunt or an insult sometimes spurs the victim of it to towering ambition to show the world and especially the abuser better, and to be able to despise him in return; and there are those who have been thus stung ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... subject of the song is a recital of the exploits of the men, their employments, their intended movements, the news of the coast, and the character of their employers. It is usual, in these extemporary strains, for the Kroomen attached to a man-of-war to taunt, with good-humored satire, their friends who are more laboriously employed in merchant vessels, and not ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... what I believed to be a place of safety. And I fought my best against the foe, and was brought nigh unto death. This I did, though I can boast of but a weak and slender frame. And it is hard that the first greeting of one so well loved as you should be a taunt.' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... debate, Or seen a new-made mayor's unwieldy state; Where change of fav'rites made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judg'd a cause; How would'st thou shake at Britain's modish tribe, Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe? Attentive truth and nature to descry, And pierce each scene with philosophic eye, To thee were solemn toys, or empty show, The robes of pleasure and the veils of woe: All aid the farce, and all thy mirth ...
— English Satires • Various
... no answer to the taunt. She was looking at the station-agent with a humorously expectant regard. He did ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Protestant custom to taunt Roman Catholics with being divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to draw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the only 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, there are Popes against Popes, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... drive back so agreeable as the previous one. Du Meresq, chafing at the confinement his fast swelling foot would probably entail, and provoked at coming to grief after Lilla's taunt was in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the Spanish vessel lay dead upon his bloody deck, and if any answered the jeering taunt it was drowned by the laughter and cheering of the English crew. They had eliminated the first ship from the game. They had diminished their enemies by a third, and full of confidence they swept ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... phenomenal. If Dr. Ogle had to make up the population returns of Strath Spey he could not fail to be profoundly astonished by the comparative blankness of the mortality columns. Frederick the Great, when his fellows were rather hanging back in the crisis of a battle, stung them with the biting taunt, "Do you wish to live for ever?" If his descendant of the present day were to address the same question to the seniors of Speyside, they would probably reply, "Your Majesty, we ken that we canna live for ever; but, faith, we mak' a gey guid attempt!" ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... of surging warriors, the loud-voiced, impetuous brave twice burst his way, and seemed at one and the same time, in his superb poise and gesturings, to be urging the entire body to join him in instant assault on the troops, and hurling taunt and anathema on the besieged. Whoever he was, he was in a veritable fury. As many as half of the Indians seemed utterly carried away by his fiery words, and with much shouting and gesticulation and brandishing of gun and lance, were yelling approbation of his views and urging Stabber's ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... your eyes upon me, and curve your lips with that unspoken taunt; at least, I was not the slave of a boy! Sit still, sit still, I say! it is no use flinging your tiger glances at me; I have no time for quarreling. While I was his slave, General Harrington's liberality had no bounds, and, dreading ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... 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
... negative, and justified the omission of any such provision by contraverting the position I had advanced upon moral grounds. This he did in a speech of some length, and with remarkable ingenuity and good sense; proving—to the satisfaction of his fellow-townsmen at least—that to taunt a malefactor openly with his misdeeds, was not the way to reform him, while it was a sure mode of producing a contrary result; and winding up with an assurance, that the law was a good law, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... You taunt me because you think I have no home. Do you flatter yourself that I am dependent ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Apollo. He answers: Though the Jurors are on oath, yet Zeus gave the oracle, and he is mightier than an oath.—Cho. What, Zeus take a matricide's part?—Apollo details the base manner of Agamemnon's murder.—Cho. taunt Apollo that Zeus himself rose by imprisoning his father.—Apollo rejoins that imprisonment is remediable, but blood once spilt can never be brought back.—Cho. appeal to impossibility of restoring such a criminal to the house he has polluted.—Then Apollo puts forth ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... thinks that classical studies of themselves cultivate the taste and the sentiments, let him look into Salmasius's Responsio. There he will see the first scholar of his age not thinking it unbecoming to taunt Milton with his blindness, in such language as this: "a puppy, once my pretty little man, now blear-eyed, or rather a blindling; having never had any mental vision, he has now lost his bodily sight; a silly coxcomb, fancying ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... honor," said the host, pointing to his sign, and bowing reverently to his old master, "the Moseley Arms did it. Mr. Daniels used to taunt me with having worn a livery, and has said more than once he could milk his cow, but that your honor's arms would never lift me into a comfortable seat for life; so I just sent him a message by the way of letting him know my good fortune, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... shaft, keenly barbed and doubly envenomed, and it sped as with the fierce hiss of a viper. Was it possible in this the final and most dreadful stage of Christ's mission, to make Him doubt His divine Sonship, or, failing such, to taunt or anger the dying Savior into the use of His superhuman powers for personal relief or as an act of vengeance upon His tormentors? To achieve such a victory was Satan's desperate purpose. The shaft failed. Through taunts and derision, through blasphemous challenge and diabolical ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... grammar, dear,' was Priscilla's only reply to this taunt, as she delicately ejected a pearl, 'you should say her mouth full.' For Priscilla's grammar was as good ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Andrew Malden rambled on. He talked of the Mexican war; told of Vera Cruz and the battle of Monterey. "Bravest thing you ever saw, boy. One of those Greasers rode square up to our line and flung a taunt in our faces, and rode away in disdain, while all ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... did not resent him. It was the Past dragging at her life. It was inherited predisposition, the unregulated passions of her forebears, the mating of the fields, the generated dominance of the body, which was not to be commanded into obscurity, but must taunt and tempt her while her soul sickened. She put a hand on herself. She must make this man realize once and for all that they were as far apart as Adam and Cagliostro. "I never called to you," she said at last. "I did not know of your existence, and, if I had, then I certainly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... execution. He was broken on the wheel, and was two hours in dying (June 22). Contrary to usage, a Protestant preacher was brought to attend him on the scaffold. He came most reluctantly, expecting insult, but not a taunt was uttered by the fanatic populace. 'He came up the scaffold, great silence all about.' Marsilly lay naked, stretched on a St. Andrew's cross. He had seemed half dead, his head hanging limp, 'like a drooping ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... crept toward his pocket ... then he remembered—he had lost that which he sought ... on the side of Cheap Mountain. If Simmons would turn, say something further, taunt him, he would kill him with his hands. But Simmons did none of these things; instead he walked slowly, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... use a power which it has not? "It is required of a man according to what he hath," saith the Scripture. I commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would that he had got his logic of him! If Congress does not possess the power, why taunt it with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Why mock it by demanding impossibilities? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is, in matters of legislation, omnipotence itself; the very source of all constitutional power; for, asking Congress ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... put to death, almost everything that he cared for he has lost, and he from head to feet is sick of a loathsome disease; and he sits in the midst of his deprivation and sorrow. His friends gather around him; and with this old assumption in their minds some of them begin to taunt him. They say, Now, Job, why not confess, why not own up as to what you have been doing? Of course, you have been doing something wrong, or all this would not have happened. This is the tone that one of his critics takes. This is the kind of comfort that he receives in the midst of his sorrow. ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... devil, take care of his claws," answered the captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Tyrrell lived to tell his tale. It was probably a true one, though many doubted it. The Frenchman had quarrelled with the king, men said, and had murdered him from revenge. Just why he should have murdered so powerful a friend and patron, for a taunt passed in jest, was far ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Barn-Burners, Old Hunkers, Hard Shells, Soft Shells, Log-Rollers, Pipe-Layers, Woolly Heads, Silver Grays, Locofocos, Fire-Eaters, Adamantines, Free Soilers, Freedom Shriekers, Border Ruffians. They spring from a bon-mot or a retort. The log-cabin and hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... the taunt. Manners saw it, and would have done much to have recalled his hasty words, but ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... lofty pennons flaunt? What mighty echoes haunt, As of great guns, o'er the main? Hark to the sound again— The Congress is all a-taunt! The Cumberland's ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... finally passed the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Their conduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friend of Atterbury and a zealous Tory. "The wild Indians," he said, "give no quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill and prowess of every adversary ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Lucilla felt the taunt base, as recalling to her the dependent position into which she had carelessly rushed, relying on the family feeling that had hitherto made all things as one. 'Henceforth,' said she, 'I take my share of all that we spend. I will not sell ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spoke, with apparent carelessness, but those who knew him best saw that the taunt had stung him. And as he moved, he caught Lesley's eye. He had not known that she was to be there; and by something in her expression—by her heightened color, perhaps, or her startled eye—he saw at once that she had heard the man's rude ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in number, and the emperor had the right of either nominating or recommending the candidates whom he preferred. Needless to say, those candidates were invariably elected. It was, of course, monstrous arrogance for Caligula to boast that he could make his horse a consul if he chose, but the taunt ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... mighty contempt and anger, the retort of David and his taunt, and advanced in all his power and glory towards him, while David, never taking his eyes off the giant's face, quietly put his hand in his bag, slowly took out one of the stones he had so carefully selected, and slung it with the unerring aim ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... January 21, 1794, the opposition was able to taunt the government with the feebleness and failure of the military operations of the past year. An amendment to the address recommending proposals of peace was moved in both houses. In the lords it was supported only by 12 against 97 votes, the Duke of Bedford and Lords Lansdowne, Stanhope, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... me. Even a sensitive conscience may condone the killing of a tyrant who is slowly and surely destroying you, body and soul, under sanction of law. But we punish convicts who fight for revenge or liberty, and protect the officials who taunt and torture them ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... despairing, ferments here into one terrible pool. Women in gaudy-colored dresses, their bared breasts and brawny arms contrasting curiously with their wicked faces, hang lasciviously over "half-doors," taunt the dreamy policeman on his round, and beckon the unwary stranger into their dens. Piles of filth one might imagine had been thrown up by the devil or the street commissioners and in which you might bury a dozen fat aldermen without missing one; little shops where ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... if some being, having right to reproach and power to taunt, whispered to her as she slept, stern remonstrances against the idle, voluptuous, and dreaming life she was leading, mocking her for passing her time in the maudlin delights of love, calling upon her to arouse her latent energies and shake off ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... her lover, and the announcement of the means by which he may be released made to her in slumber by the Fay Morgana. Her maidens seek to rouse her with choral appeals, in which are heard phrases of her hunting song. Meanwhile mocking spirits appear about Merlin and taunt him in characteristic music. Then follows the compact with the demon, which releases him. He rushes into the battle accompanied by an exultant song from Viviane; but soon the funeral march, as his followers bear him from the field, tells the mournful story of his fate. A ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... I don't care. I can't be unhappy about anything. I shall never be unhappy again, never, never, never, while grass grows or water runs. The thought of you will always make me wild with joy. (Some quick taunt is on her lips: he interposes swiftly.) No: I never ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... what my appearance would be in the gown, or the taunt I flung at him, moved the Boy, I cannot say, but suddenly his ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... shallow streams he has forded; the deep rivers he has swum. He is tired and hungry, and his quiver has no arrows, but he brings a prisoner in his arms. Lay the deer's flesh on the fire, and bring hither the pounded corn. Taunt him not, for he is valiant, and has fought like a ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... fully and clearly in the sight of all men? Sometimes he thought so. The humdrum conventional world could not brook his daring, his insouciance, his constant desire to call a spade a spade. His genial sufficiency was a taunt and a mockery to many. The hard implication of his eye was dreaded by the weaker as fire is feared by a burnt child. Dissembling enough, he was ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... her husband? Did she and Robert kill him together? Or did she only hasten his death by her neglect of him in some illness? Did she dare him to ride some devil of a horse which she knew he could not master; did she taunt him into some foolhardy feat; or did she deliberately kill him—with or without her lover's aid? I cannot guess, but of this I am certain. His death was on her conscience. Directly or indirectly she was ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... herself into the saddle before he could reach her side. With less ease, but with creditable horse-management, Selwyn mounted the chestnut and drew alongside the bay, who was cavorting airily, as if to taunt the larger horse with the superior charm of the creature ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... The taunt produced its effect. The axe fell upon tho thong, and Nathan leaped to his feet. He extended his wrists. The Indian hesitated again. "The chief shall see the Jibbenainosay!" cried Nathan; and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... better mood than myself to encounter insult, and what had been a simple difference between us flamed into a quarrel which reached its culmination when he mentioned Oliver's name with a taunt, which the boy, for all his obstinate clinging to his journalistic idea, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... The last taunt struck home, and Mr. Gardner of Wellsville, making a mighty suspiration, drank so long and deep that the world wavered when he handed the flask back to Prescott, and a most generous fire leaped up and sparkled in his veins. But when he undertook to step forward the treacherous earth ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Protestantism taunt Catholicism for excluding knowledge of astronomical truths from European Catholic universities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while real knowledge of geological and biological and anthropological truth is denied or pitifully diluted in so many American Protestant colleges ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... not taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we feel it; passion will not be simulated. What we know, and can do well, must all be repeated from our own ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... 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 to seek her hand, as soon as my professional ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to me one of the grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of artistic expression. The words fire, energy, abandon, found in him unprecedented meanings. I never heard a speaker or actor who could give such a sting to hauteur or the taunt. I never heard from any other the charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on mere ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... in a towering passion. "While you thought her rich, you gave no heed to board or anything else; and since she has become poor, I do not think her appetite greatly increased. You taunt me, too, with having no means of earning my own living. Whose fault is it?—tell me that. Haven't you always opposed my having a profession? Didn't you pet and baby 'Johnny' when a boy, keeping him always at your apron strings, and now that he's a man, he's not to be turned adrift. No, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... substance of which extract I give the most full assent. "The Greek Drama, we know, had its origin from the loose, licentious raillery of the rout of Bacchus, indulging to themselves the freest follies of taunt and invective, as would best suit to lawless natures, inspirited by festal mirth, and made extravagant by wine. Hence arose, and with a character answering to this original, the Satiric Drama; the ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... revenged the insult now offered him by riding before their young leader's residence, displaying a tawdry magnificence in his dress, sparkling with gold and silver, and with the inscription, "For the Men of Chili," set in his bonnet. It was a foolish taunt; but the poor cavaliers who were the object of it, made morbidly sensitive by their sufferings, had not ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the stadholder, who had been making so many direct personal appeals to the people, and who was now the more incensed, recognising the taunt of the president as an arrow taken from Barneveld's quiver. There had long ceased to be any communication between the Prince and the Advocate, and Maurice made no secret of his bitter animosity both ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... marriage he swore vengeance, for this thing had been a sore blow to his pride. All along the three rivers men talked of it, nor did they hesitate to taunt and make sport of Rene to his face. He sought to make up in swashbuckling and boasting what he lacked in courage. So men came to hate him and it became harder and harder for him to obtain work. At last, in great anger, he quit the brigade altogether and for two summers he had been seen ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... the first newspaper article in favor of woman suffrage written by a woman over her own name, was met by the taunt that she had imbibed her views from the women of the North. But this was merely ignorance of history, for the story of woman suffrage in the South really antedates that in New England. The new woman of the new South, who asks for equal rights with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... active magistrate, he fostered a tribe of the greatest rogues in the country, and permitted them to harbour within a mile of the house of Ellangowan. To this there was no reply, for the fact was too evident and well known. The Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in his way home amused himself with speculations on the easiest method of ridding himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fame as a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first opportunity of quarrelling with the pariahs of Derncleugh, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
