"Stain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... particular became very savage and cruel. They never hesitated to flog or knock down a native on the slightest pretext, insomuch that these unhappy men were again driven to plot the destruction of their masters. Adams, Christian, and Young were free from the stain of wanton cruelty. Young in particular was kind to the natives, and a favourite both with men ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... believe that less than my heart, which bitterly belies it."[143] This coincides with the first undisguised account given in the Confessions, which has been already quoted, and it has not that flawed ring of cant and fine words which sounds through nearly all his other references to this great stain upon his life, excepting one, and this is the only further document with which we need concern ourselves. In that,[144] which was written while the unholy work was actually being done, he states very distinctly that the motives were those which are more or less ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... sir. In fact, the plan that has come into my mind at this moment is for Sergeant Terry and myself to stain our faces and bodies with juice from the berries of the boka bush that is growing inside our lines. Then we'll rob two of the native prisoners of their clothing, under which we can each carry a service revolver and a creese. That is, sir, if ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... everywhere exhibited, that acting upon very ill- judged advice he spoke to the King upon the subject, and begged to be allowed to surrender himself as a prisoner at the Bastille, until his character was cleared from stain. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... brandished about as a child flourishes a whip, and presently laid it down, worried it, flung it about, and had a rare frolic with it. Tiring of that, he closely examined the fence, going over it inch by inch, and pecking every mark and stain on it. When startled by a bird flying over or alighting near him, he sprang back instantly, slipped over behind the fence or post, and hung on by his claws, leaving only his head in sight. He was a true woodpecker in his manners; bowing to strangers who appeared, driving away ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the cleric. But when she reached his face her eyes lingered there. It puzzled and in a sense attracted her. His features were cleanly cut and prominent, his complexion was naturally pale, but wind and sun had combined to stain his cheeks with a slight healthy tan. His eyes were deep-set, keen and bright, the eyes of a visionary perhaps, but afire now with the instant excitement of living. A strange face for a man of his apparently humble origin. Whence had he come, and where ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is, close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here with the success that attended a similar attempt at ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... now dead, and his death had averted the disgrace which overhung his name; now he was still alive, and his escape from death had righted all the wrong he had done. Then his escape had only deepened the shame he had fled from; his death had fixed a stain of a blood-guiltiness on his misdeeds, and was no caprice of fate, but a judgment of the eternal justice. Against this savage conclusion Matt ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... than existed in his heart. The association of a long journey had necessarily thrown him upon her society, and there had been times when he had found her agreeable; there had also been that memorable episode when her poor, pale face, with its stain of blood over the white forehead, had drawn forth his deepest pity, and roused him to some approach to tenderness. But with the occasion the feeling had passed; and the tenderness, born of so piteous a sight, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... instituted to raise our souls from death to life, and to heal our spiritual wounds. Baptism may be aptly compared to the door of the sheepfold. It is the gate through which men must enter into the fold of Christ, it is the entrance to His Church. It clears away the guilt and stain of original sin, and restores the soul from a state of enmity to the friendship and grace of God. None can really belong to Christ, none can be of His true fold who have not entered by way of the door, who have not been baptized. Many ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... a cistern or well in a garden behind, in which likewise there were vines with ripe grapes, forming pleasant arbours or shady walks; and in every garden there grew some tobacco, then hardly known, but now commonly used in England, with which the women of the place were then in use to stain their faces, to make them look young and fresh. In these gardens there likewise grew pepper, both Indian and common, fig-trees with fruit both white and red, peach-trees rather of humble growth, oranges, lemons, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... impracticable. I remarked that the huge kitchen chimney of the building,—a deep hollow recess which stretches across the entire gable, and in which, it is said, two thrashers once plied the flail for a whole winter,—bore less of the stain of recent smoke than it used to exhibit twenty years before; and inferred that there would be fewer wraith-lights seen from the castle at nights than in those days of evil spirits and illicit stills, when the cottars ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... hours in passing 'Mid that silence, till a fear Of some unseen ill crept slowly Through the trembling minstrels near, Then with many a dark foreboding, They, the threshold hastened o'er, Paused not where a stain of crimson Curdled ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... long lived in Rome 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 a grace, and nothing is so prosaic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... is, I shall have pleasant memories of his Grace. According to my ability I have endeavoured to be good to him, and I have no stain on my conscience because of his friendship. If I took his money and his jewels,—or rather your money and your jewels,—do you think ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... dissimilar—stand Wellington and O'Connell. The one smote down the modern Alexander upon Waterloo's field of death, but the page of his reputation is dim with the tears of the widow and the orphan, and dark with the stain of blood. The other, armed only with the weapons of truth and reason, has triumphed over the oppression of centuries, and opened a peaceful pathway to the Temple of Freedom, through which its Goddess ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... all, she had not chosen rightly. Love untarnished lived in his heart; yet, as she had told him out in the desert, love could never change the deed. That remained—black, grim, unblotted, the unalterable death stain. Why, then, should they meet? Why seek even to know of each other? Close together, or far apart, there yawned a bottomless gulf between. Silence was better; silence, and ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Professor Maskelyne, in his letter to the London "Times," dated July 13, 1859, to be "on rather than in the paper"; and it also proved in this instance, to use the phraseology of the same letter, to be "removable, with the exception of a slight stain, by mere water." But who will draw hence the conclusion of the Professor with regard to the fluid used on the Collier folio, that it is "a water-color paint rather than ink,"—unless "ink" is used in a mere technical sense, to mean only a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... lesson, taken to heart, had spelt salvation to her—for half of the time; for as many hours of the day as he went on telling her to do something. Those hours, in a way almost incredible to herself when they were over, had been almost happy—would have been altogether happy, but for the stain that soaked through in memory and in anticipation, from the other ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... ransomed spirit, Once freed from the stain of sin, Whose pride increases Till all love ceases To nourish it from within! Its doom is the darkened regions Where the rebel angel legions Live their long night of sorrow; Where no expectant morrow, No mercy-tempered ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... if they would blush at being caught in an act of humanity, like school-boys caught praying. Still, to my mind, the white purity of their desire to get financial results was often muddied by the dark stain of a humane motive. I may be wrong (as people say), but I know I am not (as ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... to church before burthening herself with a man, which proves that she was an honest woman until she was wheedled out of her virtue. She was one of those girls who take great care not to be contaminated, but who, if by chance they get deceived, let things take their course, thinking that for one stain or for fifty a good polishing up is necessary. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... circulation, suits the Peanut best. In all cases the soil most suitable for the Peanut must contain a certain amount of calcareous constituents. The color of the soil should be gray, with few or no traces of iron to stain the pods. As a rule, the brightest pods bring the most money, and as the color of the pods is always influenced by that of the soil in which they grow, it becomes a matter of importance to select that which is of the right description. Land of the above nature ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... away my stain, Nothing but the blood of Jesus; What can make me whole again, Nothing but the ...
— Indian Methodist Hymn-book • Various
... recollection, for the happiness they have been sedulous to procure for him. Let him sprinkle with his tears, let him hallow with his remembrance, let him consecrate with his finest sensibilities, the urns of Socrates, of Phocion; of Archimedes; of Anaxarchus; let him wash out the stain that their punishment has made on the human species; let him expiate by his regret the Athenian ingratitude, the savage barbarity of Nicocreon; let him learn by their example to dread superstitious fanaticism; to hold political intolerance in abhorrence; let him fear to harrass merit; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... harsher and more vindictive of the two. For what could be more wretched than to be cut off and debarred from all the privileges of senatorship, and yet not to be freed from its toil and trouble? What position can be more trying for a man with such a stain on his name than not to be allowed to hide himself from public view, but to have to show himself in a position of eminence to the gaze and pointing fingers of the world? Moreover, can you imagine anything, from the point of view of the public interest, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... imprisoned and helpless, be the plea in extenuation of it what it may, is damnable and unpardonable wickedness. Meanwhile, there is not and has never been in the United States a jail in which revengeful, malicious and unjustifiable punishments have not been inflicted, and in which cruelty does not stain the record of each ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... that disaster has befallen you, and they will have uneasy souls, and Alec will look into their guilty faces with the eyes of a wrathful lover, which at such times can be superhuman, terrible, heart piercing. There is no knowing whose blood will stain his hands then; for he will accept from no one but yourself the assurance that you have left him of your own ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... himself than in giving Rickman that free hand. In six months there was a marked improvement in the tone of Metropolis and the reputation of its editor, and, but for the unexpected which is always happening, Jewdwine might in the long run have emerged without a stain. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... French. As to declaring slavery sacred, that is a work which must be left to the preachers of the South. All the ingenuity in the world cannot lift up this fallen cause. Had the confederates a thousand reasons for complaint and for revolt, there would always rest on their rebellion an indelible stain. No Christian, no liberal person will ever interest himself for men who, in this nineteenth century, insolently proclaim their desire to perpetuate and extend slavery. Though it is still permitted to the planters to listen to theories that have infatuated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... boy, as I looked questioningly at the ruddy stain; "you've cut your forehead a bit, that's all. Thank goodness, you've woke up at last! I thought at first you'd handed in your checks. Now, I say, just get up and come with me to the drawing-room. Momma's ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was possessed with a feeling that she would involve them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she must ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... of Toledo where the Cid shall appear in all the glory of triumphant vindication. The interest in the hecatombs of Moors and even in the fall of Valencia is a secondary one. What really matters is that the Cid's fair name be cleared of all stain of disloyalty and the dona Elvira and dona Sol wed ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... him at the business-like equipment of the room. The low ceiling made him seem abnormally tall. Ann Veronica wiped a scalpel, put a card over a watch-glass containing thin shreds of embryonic guinea-pig swimming in mauve stain, and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Peter. The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. The Adventure of the Three Students. The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez. The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. The Adventure of the Abbey Grange. The Adventure of the Second Stain.] ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sap: Black walnut sap changes color from oxidation almost instantly. Bench grafts must be made quickly and put in place at once or the unions will dry out. If the root does not stain hands in grafting the graft usually fails. In outdoor grafting if the sap stands in pockets the sugar will ferment, killing the graft. There is a new Jersey (3) bulletin which shows black walnut sap as unstable, quickly forming sugar ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... must be clean and smooth, and the cracks filled with black putty, which must be allowed to dry. The stain to be applied two or three times, and left to dry for a day or two. Then it is to be rubbed with boiled oil until sufficiently polished. Until the oil is applied the color will be bluish. Scraping and staining gun-carriages, or keeping them ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... to their virtues than in their own time. Much more is this the case with those around whom our affections cling more closely. The communion of memory, far more than that of life, is unalloyed by sharp interruptions, or by any stain. That communion now, though saddened, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... furnishing this Government with the magnificent war-steamer which was pronounced by Captain Stockton "the cheapest, fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world," Ericsson has never been paid a dollar. It remains to be seen whether the present Congress will permit this stain upon the national good faith to continue. If it does, its "votes of thanks" are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the lovers meet, in the lodge of flowers beneath the stars. Here the story should end, though one could ill spare the pretty lecture the girl reads her lover as they ride at adventure, and the picture of Nicolete, with her brown stain, and jogleor's attire, and her viol, playing before Aucassin in his own castle of Biaucaire. The burlesque interlude of the country of Torelore is like a page out of Rabelais, stitched into the cante-fable by mistake. At such lands as Torelore ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... to be written, Guicciardini was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted Francesco Maria's character and conduct in dark colours. At the same time this Duke of Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the age. The greatest stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year 1527, when, by dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he suffered the passage of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards hesitated to relieve Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the last Italian Condottiere ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... approached the female, the dark shadow started from the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale light returned, the two phantoms were as in the grasp of the shadow that towered between them; and there was a blood-stain on the breast of the female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up—they were gone. And again the bubbles of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... a back staircase to his bedroom, Crauford unlocked a chest, took out a bundle of clerical clothes, a large shovel hat, and a huge wig. Hastily, but not carelessly, induing himself in these articles of disguise, he then proceeded to stain his fair cheeks with a preparation which soon gave them a swarthy hue. Putting his own clothes in the chest, which he carefully locked (placing the key in his pocket), he next took from a desk on his dressing-table a purse; opening this, he extracted ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tablespoonful of this extract taken with a wineglassful of warm water, and repeated at intervals of two hours whilst needed, even for the more severe cases of dysenteric diarrhoea. The berries contain chemically much tannin. Their stain on the lips may be quickly effaced by sucking at a lemon. In Devonshire they are eaten at table with cream. The Irish call them "frawns." If the first tender leaves are properly gathered and dried, they can scarcely be [53] distinguished ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... its defensive weapons, shuddered, and was still. For a moment Rick inspected his work, then sat back with a sigh. Staining microscopic animals was delicate work, but this specimen had turned out perfectly. At the instant the stain hit the animal, it had shot out its trichocysts, or stinging hairs. Rick hoped they would photograph. He needed a good picture for the science project ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... she said, as they rode home, "I have often enough thought I should like to be one of them; and when I was a child, and was in a passion, more than once planned to stain my face and run away to the nearest camp I could come upon. Indeed, I think I was always a rebel and loved wild, ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and hiss, And ship wreck'd seamen, far from home. Toss amid the briny foam; Till the proud wave, with one stern sweep, Buries the secrets of the deep; Revealing far, on upper land, A lawless bandits' wand'ring band, With sword and rapier, stain'd with blood, Still thirsting for the crimson flood; They show no mercy on their kind, But kill or plunder all they find. Then dies the flash, as ocean's moan Sends back a low, sepulchral groan, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a stain on his character. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... as were his trappings, no less grim was the set of his strong jaw or the glint of his gray eyes, nor did the patch of brown stain that had soaked through the left shoulder of his jacket tend to lessen the martial atmosphere which surrounded him. Fortunate it was for the brigands of the late Yellow Franz that none of them chanced in the path ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Each one of all these seemed to come now and tweak at him, as the songs of blackbirds tweak the heart of one who lies, unable to get out into the Spring. His lamp had burned itself quite out; the moon was fallen below the clump of pines, and away to the north-east something stirred in the stain and texture of the sky. Felix opened the window. What peace out there! The chill, scentless peace of night, waiting for dawn's renewal of warmth and youth. Through that bay window facing north he could see on one side the town, still wan with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... agree to the needed carpenter's work; a painter gave her a brush and sufficient wood-stain to freshen up all the woodwork of the store. Miss 'Rill came and helped her clean the place and kalsomine the walls and ceiling. A storekeeper gave her enough enameled oilcloth to cover neatly the long table. Hopewell ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... laws of his country, and had outraged the feelings of her class. Through her own father's influence he had been sent to gaol as a criminal, and she would naturally stand by her father's position. Even without this stain upon his life, his case seemed hopeless: he was only a working-man who had "got on," while she was the daughter of a man who stood high in one of the most influential professions. He knew that the doors of the best houses in the land were open to prominent King's ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... head. And as for you that are indeed of 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... individual staminate flower of the catkin produces 4-5 undersized stamens, the anthers of which are devoid of either pollen or pollen-mother-cells. So far I have made only temporary preparations of the crushed anthers in stain but careful study of these mounts discloses no sign of pollen grains or mother cells, so we may tentatively conclude that no pollen is produced by the tree; in other words it is male-sterile. The stage at which degeneration of the pollen-forming tissue occurs in the anthers and its nature will have ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... exquisite satisfaction. Having proceeded thus far with his toilet, he sat down to his breakfast, spreading upon his lap the shirt which he had taken off, to preserve his white trousers from spot or stain—his thoughts alternating between his late waking vision and his purposes for the day. He had no butter, having used the last on the preceding morning; so he was fain to put up with dry bread—and very dry and teeth-trying it was, poor fellow—but his eye lit on his ring! Having swallowed ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... lost to all his former mirth, Britannia's genius bends to earth, And mourns the fatal day: While stain'd with blood he strives to tear Unseemly from his sea-green hair 5 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... mother. "On such a day as this the world seems too lovely for war and warlike passions to be permitted to enter it. When men might be so happy, why need they stain their hands with each ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... only that, e'er since his dying day, In other soil his bones in exile lay, But not a stone within thy walls was reared To him, O Florence, whose renown Caused thee to be by all the world revered. Thanks to the brave, the generous band, Whose timely labor from our land Will this sad, shameful stain remove! A noble task is yours, And every breast with kindred zeal hath fired, That is ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... I have been your nurse, and brought you up, let me beg you to consider, 'he who kills shall be killed,' and that you will stain your reputation and forfeit the esteem ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... the Johur commanded, while 8000 Rajputs ate the last "beera" together, and put on their saffron robes. The gates were thrown open, "and few survived to stain the yellow mantle by ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... connected with no organisation, representing no shade of Polish opinion. The only effect in Poland was that of profound regret, not at the failure, but at the mere fact of the attempt. The history of our captivity is free from that stain; and whatever follies in the eyes of the world we may have perpetrated, we have neither murdered our enemies nor acted treacherously against them, nor yet have been reduced to the ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... arctic wolf, and still retains all his wolfish instincts and peculiarities. There is probably no more hardy, enduring animal in the world. You may compel him to sleep out on the snow in a temperature of 70 deg. below zero, drive him with heavy loads until his feet crack open and stain the snow with blood, or starve him until he eats up his harness; but his strength and his spirit seem alike unconquerable. I have driven a team of nine dogs more than a hundred miles in a day and a night, and have frequently worked them hard for forty-eight hours ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... "a stain upon the sanctity of this catholic town, that a thing of this kind should have taken place; the quieter the affair is kept, the better: no doubt, senor alcalde, a coffin can he prepared to-night, to carry away the body; those who carry it, must know nothing of what we have seen; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... strange aching that, when we would curse And cannot.—You have betrayed me—I have done— I am content—I know that he is guiltless— That both are guiltless, without spot or stain, Mutually consecrated. Poor old Man! And I had heart for this, because thou lovedst Her who from very infancy had been Light to thy path, warmth to thy blood!—Together [Turning to OSWALD.] We propped his steps, he leaned upon ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... the only crime that Charles in his whole life committed Mr. Macaulay does not reproach him—the consent to the execution of Lord Strafford—that indeed, as he himself penitentially confessed, was a deadly weight on his conscience, and is an indelible stain on his character; but even that guilt and shame belongs in a still greater degree ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the obnoxious Jim Crow car laws. In every way possible we are calling attention to the barbarity of the convict lease system, of which Negroes and especially the female prisoners are the principal victims, with the hope that the conscience of the country may be touched and this stain on its escutcheon be forever wiped away. Against the one room cabin we have inaugurated a vigorous crusade. When families of eight or ten men, women and children are all huddled promiscuously together in a single apartment, a condition common among ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... indignation got the better of her—once, notably, when, owing to careless delay on the part of the Ministry, General Gordon perished at Khartoum, a rescue party failing to reach him in time. In a letter to his sisters she spoke of this as "a stain left upon England," and as a wrong ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... MISS PHOEBE begins to see as she sits there so quietly, with her hands pressed together as if upon some treasure? It is PHOEBE of the ringlets with the stain ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... Republican state committee and of the Republican national convention. Weed did not have Morgan's wise, courageous course as war governor, Union general, and United States senator to guide him, but he knew that his personal character was of the highest, his public life without stain, and that he had wielded the power of absolute disinterestedness. Morgan was a fine specimen of manhood. He stood perfectly erect, with well poised head, his large, lustrous eyes inviting confidence; and the urbanity of his ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... which you are morally bound to each other. Remember the vows which you have consecrated upon the altar of your heart. Remember the condition to which you have brought her by your folly. Bear in mind that if you forsake her under the present circumstances that an indelible stain will remain for ever upon your character; but above all, my dear son, remember the link which binds you inevitably together,—a link of living humanity, akin to you both. Remember then that you are a father, and that she is a mother,—titles that were conferred upon you both by the birth of ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... she survived her sons and grandsons, must have bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel orders of Nero. Gallio, after ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... be thought to have abjured her integrity of soul, inasmuch as her fault had a ready excuse by virtue of her ignorance. Insensate mother, who allowed the forfeiture of her child's chastity in order to avenge her own; caring nought for the purity of her own blood, so she might stain with incest the man who had cost her her own maidenhood at first! Infamous-hearted woman, who, to punish her defiler, measured out as it were a second defilement to herself, whereas she clearly by the selfsame act rather swelled than lessened the transgression! Surely, by the very act ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... long dark avenue brought them alongside the city of the sick, which till then had been only a stain of light on the sky, and they looked through the railings at the hospital blocks which lay spaced over the level ground like battleships in a harbour. She reproached her being as inadequate because no intuition told her in which block her mother was. After a further ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... poems contain a great deal that is interesting. The most ambitious is The New Purgatory, to which the book owes its title. It is a vision of a strange garden in which, cleansed and purified of all stain and shame, walk Judas of Cherioth, Nero the Lord of Rome, Ysabel the wife of Ahab, and others, around whose names cling terrible memories of horror, or awful splendours of sin. The conception is fine, but the treatment is hardly adequate. There are, however, some ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... of his brain And of his heart thou canst not see; What looks to thy dim eyes a stain, In God's pure light may only be A scar, brought from some well-won field, Where thou wouldst ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper- hole, we beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be blood. Though now he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw pertained not to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... infinite mercy of God that I didn't kill him. He found it out. He has forgiven me. He's worth fifty millions of me. But my hands are red with his blood, and I can't touch your pure garments. They would stain them red—and I should see red again before my eyes some day. A man like me is not fit to marry any woman. A murderer is beyond the pale. So I said I didn't love her to save her from the knowledge of this horror. And now I'm going to the other side of the world to work out my salvation—but ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... all in this matter. The honour of my house has been compromised; I believe you to be the guilty person; at least you are now in the secret; and you can hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze below my windows; but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonour, I shall at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Museum has been ever since. That further notice has never been given. And yet nobody seems to feel as if an essential part of their life had ceased to be, so to speak. Curious. Bradshaw, after a short explanation, was allowed to go away without a stain—that is to say, without any additional stain—on his character. We left the authorities discussing the matter, ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... curious to observe that the very people who are most critical of the line of policy actually adopted, were also most severe when it appeared that the alternative might be chosen. The British nation would have indeed remained under an ineffaceable stain had they left women and children without shelter upon the veldt in the presence of a large Kaffir population. Even Mr. Stead could hardly have ruined such a case by exaggeration. On some rumour that it would be so, he drew ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and at Basle in 1529 and 1536. He wrote also four books on the Pisan War. Would that he had confined himself to his histories! Unfortunately he wrote a poem, which was never published, entitled Citta Divina, representing the soul released from the chains of the body, and freed from earthly stain, wandering through various places, and at last resting amid the company of the blessed in heaven. Our souls are angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were unwilling to attach themselves either to God or to the rebel hosts of heaven. So, as a punishment, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... work, but without success. Even in places where help was wanted excuses were made to me— trivial excuses that meant but one thing— that they did not desire any one in their employ who had a stain upon ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... thus did both those nobles die, Whose courage none could stain. An English archer then perceived ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... confidence of the Church, and his work. He sulked away into Cyprus; he had his nephew, for whom he had given up all these other things. A little fault may wreck a life, and the whiter the character the blacker the smallest stain upon it. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... to support a candidate, be his nomination unimpeachable, his intellectual honesty unchallenged, his legislative record without stain, who, posing as the champion of our canals, nevertheless lends himself, through connivance at fraudulent contracts and the appointment of needless officials, to the squandering of the moneys set apart for their use. We invite you ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... desertion of his generous and affectionate friend and patron,—or rather this open revolt from him, this shameless attack upon him in the hour of his extreme distress and total ruin,—forms indeed the foulest of the many blots which stain the memory of this illustrious person: it may even be pronounced, on a deliberate survey of all its circumstances, the basest and most profligate act of that reign, which yet affords examples, in the conduct of its public men, of almost every species of profligacy ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... stood very still, looking down in silence, with a throb of fear and aching tenderness he dared to slip his arm around her waist and kiss the trembling lips. And then he noticed for the first time a deep red strawberry stain in the corner of her mouth. In spite of her struggles he laughingly insisted on kissing it away—a fact which led to his first revelation of her character—could he ever forget the glory and wonder of it! She had seized his ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... cover the poverty of his invention under the 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... mirthlessly, with thinning lips. The box before him was open. His fingers worked quickly—a little wax behind the ears, in the nostrils, under the upper lip, deftly placed-hands, wrists, neck, throat, and face received their quota of stain, applied with an artist's touch—and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, transformed into a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the underworld, replaced the box under the flooring, pulled a slouch hat over his eyes, extinguished the gas, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... and would Right gladly gloss it over; They dare not boast their deed of blood, But seek the stain to cover. They feel the shame within their breast, And charge therewith each other; But now the Spirit cannot rest, For Abel 'gainst his brother Doth ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... his appointed course steadily. So the servant tied himself to the moon with a rope, and being thus secure from falling, he took the mop from the bucket, and began to blacken the moon first on the back. But the thick gilding of the pure moon would not suffer any stain. The servant painted and smeared, till the sweat ran from his forehead, until he succeeded at last, with much toil, in covering the back of the moon with tar. The Devil below gazed up at the work with his mouth open, and when he saw the work half finished he danced with joy, first ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... a little further forward. John saw that the bleeding from his head had ceased. There was a dark stain down either cheek, but it was drying there, and as Lannes had foreseen, his hair and the cap had acted as a bandage, at last checking the flow effectively. His breathing was heavy and jerky, but John believed that he would revive before long. It was not possible that one so vital as ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... oppression and ruin which they brought upon the family of the Nabob, by the infraction of treaties, and by the disrepute which in his person was sustained by the government he represented, and by the stain left upon the justice, honor, and good faith of the English nation. We charge him with their farther aggravation by sundry false pretences alleged by him in justification of this conduct, the pretended reluctance of the Nabob, the fear of offending him, the suggestion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... derision. "Oh, what a joy you have lost! What triumph for you, could you have stabbed me to the heart and left me here dead indeed! What a new career of lies would have been yours! How sweetly you would have said your prayers with the stain of my blood upon your soul! Ay! you would have fooled the world to the end, and died in the odor of sanctity. And you dared ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... large one. In the centre was a table on which were strewn several packs of cards; some chairs lay on the ground; the oil from an overturned lamp was forming a great black stain on the green table-cloth. In the corner by the window, three officers with drawn swords, were defending themselves against the attacks of some twenty Greeks, armed with knives. In the confusion, none had noticed the entry of ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... was confident, and if grieved not afraid. Leam's little life, so innocent and uneventful as it must have been, could hold no such tremendous evil, could have been smirched with no such damning stain, as that at which she seemed to hint. Grant even that there had been something more between her and Alick Corfield than he would quite like to hear—which was his first thought—still, that more must needs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... reverence which he undoubtedly felt for his old comrade, and which in the past he had shown by the moral courage that even ventured to utter a remonstrance, against the infatuation that threatened to stain his ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... her mother and aunts, who hoped she might be right. But Katy had not missed the train, as was indicated by the letter which Uncle Ephraim without a word put into Helen's hand, leaning on old Whitey's neck while she read aloud the attempt at an explanation which Katy had hurried written, a stain on the paper where a tear had fallen attesting her distress at the ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... brave soul of her he had wanted to put a stain. He could not do that! He no longer ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... 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 is free. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... they should resume their former roles of principal and clerk. Hilda worked daily at letters, circularizing, advertisements, and—to a less extent—accounts and bills; the second finger of her right hand had nearly always an agreeable stain of ink at the base of the nail; and she often dreamed about letter-filing. In this prosperous month of August she had, on the whole, less work than usual, for both ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... allowing no strife of opinions and sophisms, for the excellent certainty of 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... commander seemed now to stand more erect, there was a freer glance to his eye, his lips were more compressed and firm, he felt that what had been to him heretofore an indelible stain, a stigma upon his character, was now effaced; he was not only respectably born, but even gently and highly so. His father was knighted by his king, his blood was as pure and ancient as any in England. He could now take Helen Huntington to his ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... were as white As moonbeams shining in the night, Betray the fever's awful pain, And fading, show a darker stain. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... ordain'd me, when I issued thence. Not so, if Dame from heaven, as thou sayst, Moves and directs thee; then no flattery needs. Enough for me that in her name thou ask. Go therefore now: and with a slender reed See that thou duly gird him, and his face Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence. For not with eye, by any cloud obscur'd, Would it be seemly before him to come, Who stands the foremost minister in heaven. This islet all around, there far beneath, Where the wave beats it, on the oozy bed Produces store of reeds. No other plant, Cover'd with leaves, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... 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; for time ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... been a constant source of self-reproach to him. If only its victim had been repugnant to him, he would have been greatly helped in the continual verdicts of the Court of his own conscience, which frequently discharged him without a stain on his character. How came it, then, that he so soon found himself back in the dock, or re-arguing the case as counsel for the prisoner? Probably his sentiments towards the young man himself were responsible for some of his ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... off the beginnings of doubt impatiently. He retraced his grievances and dwelt on the glory of his revenge as he reached his secret place after the crime. But the stain darkened in the heart of his mind; and before dawn crept through cracks in the roof above his lair, dissolution ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... "you have told me one of the saddest stories that I have ever known, and I can find nothing but sympathy and regret for you in my heart. You have been but the victim of an atrocious wrong—no stain rests upon your character, if there appears to be upon your name, and so I ask you again, will you give me your daughter, if I find that I have been so fortunate as to have won her love? What you have related to me ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... almost have been ready to stake his life on the lad's honesty. He was so frank, so square, so "white." The professor had grown to have the warmest kind of a liking for him. In study and in sport, he had stood in the first rank, and so far there had not been the slightest stain ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... daring and animated young man, addressing Mr. Folliard; "and you, Cummiskey, get to your legs. No person shall dare to injure either of you while I am here. O'Donnel—stain and disgrace to a noble name—begone, you and your ruffians. I know the cause of your enmity against this gentleman; and I tell you now, that if you were as ready to sustain your religion as you are to disgrace it by your conduct, you would not become a curse to it and the country, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. Unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character. It is a violation of the Constitution. I believe it is against law. It is not the least of our national misfortunes that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... day, as I left Richard, this he said to me: 'My honour, Katherine, is now in your keeping.' By the lifting of one eyelash, I will not stain it." ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... and most shameful blot on the face of the earth, the grave the most repulsive of scandals, drawing the trench of its corruption and stain round the girdle ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... painter was, 'by constitution, prone to tears.' Yet his charity was not for home wear; the distress he did not see troubled him very little. It is vain to seek for any sufficient apology for Romney's shameful treatment of his wife and children. If it were possible to forget this deep stain upon his character he would seem, in all other relations of life, to be entitled to esteem and commendation. For the poor and needy he was ready, not merely with his sensibility, but with his purse. To his friends he was ever faithful and liberal. After attaining professional eminence he ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... certain shareholders I know of, the money they lost through trust in your name, and in that of the family. It is hardly a legal claim, or if it be, they are too poor to urge it—but I hold it as a bond of honour. Will you do this, Frederick? Then I shall be happy, knowing there is not a single stain on ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... man at the door, the amiable Mr. Hobhouse came out into the hall, and in his friendly way approached to see what the matter was; and very interested indeed he became when he heard. The pocket book, said the farmer, bore the name of James Bolton inside, and the maid was shuddering over a dull stain on the cover when Mr. Hobhouse appeared. The man went on to explain that he and a friend had been visiting the scene of the tragedy early that morning and had discovered the pocket book among the rocks ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... covered with a very coarse reed-mat, with interstices half an inch wide. The fireplace, which is six feet long, is oblong. Above it, on a very black and elaborate framework, hangs a very black and shiny mat, whose superfluous soot forms the basis of the stain used in tattooing, and whose apparent purpose is to prevent the smoke ascending, and to diffuse it equally throughout the room. From this framework depends the great cooking-pot, which plays a most important part ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird |
