"Tarnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same time, a slight breeze sprang up, fresher yet to inhale, and began to tarnish the surface of the still waters in patches; it traced designs in a bluish green tint over the shining mirror, and scattering in trails, these fanned out or branched off like a coral tree; all very rapidly with a low murmur; it was like a signal of awakening ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... It was his diadem; Nor ever tarnish-taint of shame Could dim its luster—like a flame Reflected in a gem, He wears it blazing on his brow Within ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... another cause. No engineer of standing would lend himself to many of the schemes that have been pushed through in the West. But in order to build a "cheap" road, it is only necessary to get a "cheap" engineer, and that is a commodity easily picked up. If their ignorance and blunders tarnish the fair fame of the profession, it cannot be helped. But if American engineers of standing had been allowed to finish the railways begun by them, and to take care of them and see that they were not abused after they were finished, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... misfortunes than to proclaim them; that many a fortress had been saved by the courage of its defenders, and their determination to conceal its weakened condition at all sacrifices. 'Above all things,' he said, 'do not tarnish the honor of our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... as well as prove the certain means of immediately abolishing the African slave trade throughout the world. I would not repeat this recommendation upon the present occasion if I believed that the transfer of Cuba to the United States upon conditions highly favorable to Spain could justly tarnish the national honor of the proud and ancient Spanish monarchy. Surely no person ever attributed to the first Napoleon a disregard of the national honor of France for transferring Louisiana to the United States for a fair equivalent, both ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... moments that I felt a loathing for myself, and such strong self-disgust must surely have prevailed in the end to make me false to duty if, as I have said, I had not an absolute faith that his Excellency required no man to tarnish his ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... sweet dream the sweetest?— When a kindred heart thou meetest, Unpolluted with the strife, The selfish aims that tarnish life; Ere the scowl of care has faded The shining chaplet Fancy braided, And emotions pure and high Swell the heart and fill the eye; Rich revealings of a mind Within a loving breast enshrined, To thine own fond ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... been had. They have the university in Manila, very notable in its members, which has filled the islands with learned men. It is in no respect defective; but is excellent in everything. And although all do not join the church, knowledge does not at all tarnish a captain's reputation; rather, it is enamel upon gold. For he who has the most alert understanding enters and goes out better on occasions, and gives in public the better reason for what is proposed. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... intertwined streaks, there outspread in separate irregular patches—glorious ornaments of the sea-shore, fashioned by no human art!—Nature's own home-made jewellery, which the wear of centuries has failed to tarnish, and the rage of tempests has been powerless ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... it was more and more observed that the Parliament did not follow the triumphant chariot of Cardinal Mazarin, whose imprudence in hazarding the fate of the whole kingdom in the last battle was set off with all the disadvantages that could be invented to tarnish the victory. ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... pass in silence over the calumnious and dishonourable accusations which poisoned her years of triumph, and with which it has been sought to tarnish her memory. In these days we slander our prophets instead of killing them—a procedure which may cause them greater suffering, but has no effect upon ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... reached a sort of climax, for there you have the people actually forgetting, deriding, or denying their greatest men who form the only lasting glories of their history; they have even done their futile best to tarnish the unsoilable fame of Shakespeare. In that land you,—who, according to your own showing, started for the race of life full of high hopes and inspiration to still higher endeavor—you have been, poisoned by ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... extensively manufactured in London, and are far cheaper than refracting telescopes of corresponding size. Their great drawback is the want of permanence in the silver film. In the city the film will ordinarily tarnish in a few months from the sulphurous vapors arising from gaslights and other sources, and even in the country it is very difficult to preserve the mirror from the contact of everything that will injure it. In consequence, the possessor of such a telescope, ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... for Erin their mother, Weak plans and wicked plans chasing each other; To me worse than the loss of a sceptre and crown Is a spot that might tarnish my children's renown, 'Tis the laurels they win are the jewels I prize, They're the core of my heart and the light of my eyes; For my children are gems and crown jewels to me, And art thou not one ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... speaking sooth, Gather the fleet flower of your youth, Take ye your pleasure at the best; Be merry ere your beauty flit, For length of days will tarnish it Like ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... comfortably established in the persuasion that his picture was, on a somewhat smaller scale, the pendant required by "The Marriage of Cana," that gigantic masterpiece whose astonishing brilliancy the dust of three centuries has not been able to tarnish. Accordingly, every year at the epoch of the Exhibition, Marcel sent his great work to the jury of examiners; only, to deceive them, he would change some details of his picture, and the title of it, without disturbing ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... he continued smoothly, "only one thing has ever remained evident, and well-defined for long, and that, my lady, is money. Nearly everything else seems to tarnish, but still money keeps its lustre. Ah! Now we begin to understand each other. Strange you should not realize it sooner. I cannot understand what actuated so many persons, supposedly rational, to sign such a ridiculous document. That ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... fell like a thunderbolt upon the old warrior, already embittered by his reverses: he was heart-broken that such storm-clouds should tarnish the end of his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... than whom no wiser, or, generally speaking, more fortunate monarch ever sat upon the throne of England; yet whose life is a striking illustration, how family dissensions can tarnish the most brilliant lot to which Heaven permits humanity to aspire; and how little gratified ambition, extended power, and the highest reputation in war and in peace, can do towards curing the wounds ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... to. But although it looks equally well at first, it soon becomes tarnished, and spoils the effect of the embroidery. Gold and silver threads are difficult to work with in England, and especially in London, as damp and coal-smoke tarnish them almost before the work is out of the frame. Mrs. Dolby recommends cloves being placed in the papers in which ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... enthusiasm, which compelled his respect, aroused his admiration. She was not a common woman, and he could not succeed in blinding himself to that fact. Even the garish, cheap environments, the glitter and tinsel, the noise and brutality, had utterly failed to tarnish Beth Norvell. She stood forth different, distinct, a perfectly developed flower, rarely beautiful, although blooming in muck that was overgrown with noxious weeds. Winston remained clearly conscious that some peculiar essence of her native character had ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... GOD whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me; and may His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully! To Him I resign myself, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... by that villainous writer, the honourable gentleman said, was struck at him. He was a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, and he must reply ere the foul stain was permitted to tarnish his name. He came from a sunny land where all the women were beautiful and all the men brave, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than permit any obscure ink-slinger to impeach his fair fame. He carried the honour of his country ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... granddaughter of M. Langevin; that, moreover, M. Langevin had acted very liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own; finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a young man, and the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... and now scarlet where blood has stained it, and now brilliancy itself—for the tinsel of young love (if, as wise men tell us, it be but tinsel), at least makes a prodigiously fine appearance until time tarnish it. I entreat you, dear lady, to accept this traced-out thread with assurances ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... fond heart has invariably responded to his own; and I have done nothing to either insult his honor or tarnish the fidelity of my affection for him. He has falsely accused me. He has treated me disrespectfully; and now manifests a determination to dissolve our union. Since the moment that I yielded up the chastity ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... The heat need not be raised so much as to make the alkali tarnish the platina, although if that effect does take place it does not ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... fashionable life, was remarked for the elegance of manner, and the liveliness of conversation, which continued to be his distinctions to the close of his career. Unfortunately, the fashion of the time not only allowed, but seems to have almost required, an irregularity of life which would tarnish the character of any man in our more decorous day. His unfortunate intercourse with Viscountess Bolingbroke, better known by her subsequent name of Lady Diana Beauclerk, produced a divorce, and in two days after a marriage. She was the eldest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between these two, womanlike, she would elect to ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... clean brass andirons, handles, &c. with vinegar. It makes them very clean at first; but they soon spot and tarnish. Rotten-stone and oil are proper materials for cleaning brasses. If wiped every morning with flannel and New England rum, they will not need to be ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... before applying it to plate, any hard or heavy substance will fall out, and then with light pressure with the brush that is medium soft (and prepared on grindstone as before mentioned, if a new one) brush the plates, with an occasional breathing on the surface, clean the old oil or tarnish, and then peg out each hole many times, until you are sure every hole is clean, by pegging both sides, and then with a soft dust brush dust thoroughly by striking the brush into the holes on both sides. Of course, remove all end stones, and clean out with soft pith, holding ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... effected in rather the "olden time;" to remedy which fanciful inconvenience, on my return to Bristol, I sent an upholsterer[8] down to this retired and happy abode with a few pieces of sprightly paper, to tarnish ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... world requires, but of that fine perfection of mental and moral constitution, which, in its own natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in every occasion or circumstance of life. It is the pure gold, and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not curiously prepared the soil, it is in vain to try ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... parallel to it. Look at the great events in our own former history, and in every one of them, which, for importance, we can venture to compare with the Reform Bill, we shall find something to disgrace and tarnish the achievement. It was by the assistance of French arms and of Roman bulls that King John was harassed into giving the Great Charter. In the times of Charles I., how much injustice, how much crime, how much bloodshed and misery, did it cost to assert the liberties of England! ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... its promulgation to the world on the 20th of May, 1775. And yet, in the face of this strong phalanx of unimpeachable testimony, there are a few who have attempted to rob North Carolina of this brightest gem in the crown of her early political history, and tarnish, by base and insidious cavils the fair name and reputation of a band of Revolutionary patriots, whose memories and heroic deeds the present generation and posterity will ever ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... All grades of aluminum bronze make fine castings, taking very exact impressions, and there is no loss in remelting, as in the case of alloys containing zinc. The 5 per cent. aluminum alloy is a close approximation in color to 18 carat gold, and does not tarnish readily. Its tensile strength in the form of castings is equivalent to a strain of 68,000 pounds to the square inch. An alloy containing 2 or 3 per cent. aluminum is stronger than brass, possesses ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... heap spilled out on the sand. There were heaps of gold and silver coins, the silver black with tarnish but the gold still bright. There were pearls, rubies, diamonds, beryls, emeralds, opals, sapphires, amethysts. And bracelets, necklaces, pendants, sunbursts, brooches, rings, pins, combs, buckles, lockets, buttons, crucifixes. And carved pieces of jade and ivory and coral and jet. And coronets, ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... under the ward of the High Constable! What reason can be given for this? is the blighting speech of a convicted recreant of strength sufficient to tarnish my ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Rome, And be sure that you remember All of you my strict commands, That no hand shall dare divest him Of his veil:— [Chrysanthus is led out. Why, why, O heavens! [aside. Do I pause, but from my breast here Tear my bleeding heart? How act In so dreadful a dilemma? If I say who he is, I tarnish With his guilt my name for ever, And my loyalty if I 'm silent, Since he being here transgresses By that fact alone the edict: Shall I punish him? The offender Is my son. Shall I free him? He Is my enemy and a rebel:— If between these two ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... reconcile, their determinations are slow. Why, then, should we distrust them, and, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired, and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe for its fortitude and patriotism? And for what is this done? To bring the object we seek nearer? No; most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a greater distance. For myself (and I take no merit in giving the assurance, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... we must remain friends, but you shall not continually tarnish my poetry with your accursed science! I thank my Creator that He made me ignorant enough to admire the beauties of nature. You are continually peeping behind the scenes, and pointing out the grease paints, the lime-lights and the sham effects. Let me enjoy the beauty of the tableau, no matter how ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... who scarcely ever spoke a word unless forced to do so by an insistent question. Bat Coyne had been a cattle man down in Texas, while Mary Johnson —so called because of his pink and white complexion, which no amount of sun or wind could tarnish—was said to have come from the East. He had left there for reasons best known to himself, working ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... to leave my keys in the locks, but to employ the wench now-and-then in taking out my cloaths, suit by suit, on pretence of preventing their being rumpled or creased, and to see that the flowered silver suit did not tarnish: sometimes declaredly to give myself employment, having little else to do. With which employment (superadded to the delight taken by the low as well as by the high of our sex in seeing fine cloaths) she seemed always, I thought, as well pleased as if it answered one of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... with reverent hand that tarnish'd flower, That shrines beneath her modest canopy Memorials dear to Romish piety; Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints! in fervent hour The work perchance of some meek devotee, Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth The ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that produced them ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... individuals and more, male and female, who had been exclusively occupied about the person of Marie Antoinette, few, excepting this illustrious pair, and the inestimable Clery, remained devoted to the last. The saint-like virtues of these Princesses, malice itself has not been able to tarnish. Their love and unalterable friendship became the shield of their unfortunate Sovereigns, and their much injured relatives, till the dart struck their own faithful bosoms. Princes of the earth! here is a lesson of greatness ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... trained in history and law grows to think on the scale of the Roman empire. I don't know what your pocket map of the universe is, the map, I mean, by which you judge all sorts of other general ideas. To me this planet is a little ball of oxides and nickel steel; life a sort of tarnish on its surface. And we, the minutest particles in that tarnish. Who can nevertheless, in some unaccountable way, take in the idea of this universe as one whole, who begin to dream ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... trade, men from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, was such as to make them leaders. They were brave and unselfish, faithful, and trusting of the future. With the plainest personal habits and tastes, taking no tarnish from the luxury that rose about them, seeing things larger than dollars on their horizon, they made the best aristocracy that this country has seen. Their coat of arms bore the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... ask him what would become of me if he abandoned me, and who would protect me if he refused to do so. The brilliant career he dreamed of is ended, you say. Ah, well! I will console him, and though we are unfortunate, we may yet be happy. Our enemies are triumphant—so be it: we should only tarnish our honor by stooping to contend against such villainy. But in some new land, in America, perhaps, we shall be able to find some quiet spot where we can begin a new and better career." It was almost impossible ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the road, nor was there a single vestige of the scenes of the night, to tarnish the loveliness of a glorious morn. Struck with the contrast between man and nature, the fearless trooper rode by each pass of danger, regardless of what might happen; nor did he rouse himself from his musing, until the noble charger, snuffing the morning ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... happy, my lords, that the grave has not yet closed over me, and that I am still alive to raise my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy! My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as vast in extent as proud in reputation. Shall we tarnish its lustre by a shameful abandonment of its rights and of its fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, which survived in its entirety the descents of the Danes, the incursions of the Scots, the conquest of the Normans, which stood firm ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Lieutenants. And now, in thousands of homes we feel that there is nothing else. 2nd Lieutenant! It is like a new word to us—one, I daresay, of many that the war will add to our language. We have taken to it, Roger. If a son of mine were to tarnish it—' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... oh! bitter and humiliating reflection, in that most wretched and disgraceful of all situations, a suspected traitor, I am not indeed what I seem to be. It is not for me here to enter into the history of my past life; neither will I tarnish the hitherto unsullied reputation of my family by disclosing my true name. Suffice it to observe, I am a gentleman by birth; and although, of late years, I have known all the hardships and privations attendant on my fallen ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... more than fame or glory; it is the service of humanity. A passion for humanity will cure the passion for gold, will teach the true value of life as something that only the infinite can estimate and will give to the heart those true riches that do not tarnish and that ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... invariably paid to the scholars committed to my care, and the astonishing proficiency which, generally speaking, will be an accompaniment of competency, instruction, assiduity and perseverance, devised this detestable and fiendish course in order to tarnish and injure my unsullied character, it being generally known and justly acknowledged that I never gave utterance to an unguarded word—that I have always conducted myself as a man of inoffensive, mild, and gentle ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... brother soothes, Not with flatteries, but truths, Which tarnish not, but purify To light which dims the morning's eye. I have come from the spring-woods, From the fragrant solitudes;— Listen what the poplar-tree And murmuring waters ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mixed with water, and a sponge, rub it well on the plate, which will take the tarnish off; if it is very bad, repeat the whitening and water several times, making use of a brush, not too hard, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... however, a thin coat of silver is seldom to be recommended, on account of its liability to tarnish and its rapid destruction when any attempt is made to repolish it. For these reasons, nickel or gold plating is much to ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... last-cherished Illusion was in the succumbing frailty of him that undertook the task, the world and its wise men having come to the belief that in thwackings there was ignominy to the soul of man, and a tarnish on the lustre of heroes. On that score, hear the words of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... happy. She had not been cleared. She bought and dispersed Bibles, contributed more money to the plate, contralto'd gloriously in all the hymns, but would not tell her soul. In vain Abel Ah Yo wrestled with her. She would not go down on her knees at the penitent form and voice the things of tarnish within her— the ill things of good friends of the old days. "You cannot serve two masters," Abel Ah Yo told her. "Hell is full of those who have tried. Single of heart and pure of heart must you make your ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... the hand from his knee as if it were a coiled reptile. "You insult her even by mentioning such a thing. The man does not live who could tarnish her name. I have watched her since she was a little child. I know her as well as if she were my sister, and I respect ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... though some solemn pledge had passed between them—a spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex disarray of this world to the edge of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... their contribution to the progress of humanity on these shores, accepting nothing but the honors and rewards that belong to merit. What kind of an American does the Negro intend to be? He intends to be an American who will never mar the image of God, reproach the dignity of his manhood, or tarnish the fair title of his citizenship, by apologizing to men or angels for associating as an equal, with some other American who does not happen to be black. He will place the love of country above the love of race; he ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... of the hotel looked, as James said, as if honest steel and good cloth were reckoned as churls, and as if this were the very land of Cockaigne, as Sir Richard Whittington had dreamt it. Neither he nor St. Andrew himself would know their own saltire made in cloth of silver, 'the very metal to tarnish!' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... innocence, and their shame, That had so wronged him; and, this done, came death, To seal the assurance of his dying breath, And wipe the last faint tarnish from ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... specifyde, there was brought up to the Door an old white Horse, blind of one Eye, with an aquiline Nose, and, I should think, eight Feet high. The Bridle was diverse from the Pillion, which was finely embroidered, but tarnish, with the Stuffing oozing out in severall Places. Howbeit, 'twas the onlie Equipage to be hired in the Ward, for Love or Money . . . so Ned sayd. . . . And he had a huge Pair of gauntlett Gloves, a Whip, that was the smartest Thing about ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... held that he loved. He was the Arab bound for the well for which he thirsted, single-minded as to that, and without much present consciousness of tarnish or sin.... But what might arise in his mind when his thirst was quenched? Ian did not care, in these blissful days, to ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... of the May," whispered he, reproachfully, "is yon wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves that you look so sad? Oh, Edith, this is our golden time. Tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of the mind, for it may be that nothing of futurity will be brighter than the mere remembrance of what ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... follow the bleeding feet, our hearts swell with indignation, with sorrow and love, and that instinctive admiration for the noble and pure, which proves that our birthright too is of Heaven, however we may tarnish or even deny that highest pedigree. The chivalrous romance of that age would have made of Jeanne d'Arc the heroine of human story. She would have had a noble lover, say our young Guy de Laval, or some other generous and brilliant ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... another; they are less dangerous than the adorers of a changeable Deity, who, they imagine, is pleased with the extermination of a large portion of mankind, on account of their opinions. Our speculations are indifferent to God, whose glory man cannot tarnish—whose power mortals cannot abridge. They may, however, be advantageous to ourselves; they may be perfectly indifferent to society, whose happiness they may not affect; or they may be the reverse of all this. For it is evident that ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... so every girl in her teens knows that there lie hidden in the recesses of her armoire, the robes and coronet and full insignia of a first-rate novelist. She may not choose to take them out and air them, the crown may tarnish by disuse, the moth of indolence may corrupt, but there lies the panoply in which she may on any day appear fully dight, for the astonishment of an awakening world. Jane Austen and Maria Edgworth are heroines, whose aureoles ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... reason thus: Since absolute good is happiness, 'tis clear that all the good must be happy for the very reason that they are good. But it was agreed that those who are happy are gods. So, then, the prize of the good is one which no time may impair, no man's power lessen, no man's unrighteousness tarnish; 'tis very Godship. And this being so, the wise man cannot doubt that punishment is inseparable from the bad. For since good and bad, and likewise reward and punishment, are contraries, it necessarily follows that, corresponding to all that we see accrue as reward of the good, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... his love of glory, and how little he cared for the appreciation of the public of which he had experienced the fickle favors; his knowledge of life, his simple tastes, his love of nature, and the greatness of his mind, of which no ambition or worldly feeling could tarnish the simplicity and even sublimity. In giving him two individualities the novelist was better able to combine the passionate sarcasms of Cadurcis with the smiles of goodness and tolerance of Herbert, and to show him to us as he was wont to converse, mixing the wittiest remarks ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... with it. His overalls were gray with it. The weather-beaten bloom of his face shone through it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a dry season. But no dinginess of travel or shabbiness of attire could tarnish the splendor that radiated from his youth and strength. The old man upon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was combed and curried to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished; but alas for age! Had I been the bride, I should have taken ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... sadly solemn thing to cast such a child as she is into the world's whirlpool of sin and sorrow. To-day she is as spotless in soul as one of our consecrated annunciation lilies; but the dust of vanity and selfishness will tarnish, and the shock of adversity will bruise, and the heat of the battle of life that rages so fiercely in the glare of the outside world will wither and deface the sweet blossom we have ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Ah, who comes forth To thy side, Goddess, from within? How shall I name him? This spare, dark-featured, Quick-eyed stranger? Ah, and I see too His sailor's bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnish'd, With one arm bare!— Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumours The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves? Art thou he, stranger? The wise ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... a certain bold faced countess, the fire in whose eyes had begun to tarnish, and the natural lines of whose figure were vanishing in expansion; the soldier, her nephew, a waisted elegance; a long, lean man, who dawdled with what he ate, and drank as if his bones thirsted; an elderly, broad; ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... to revenge himself for this failure of his base and selfish design, never let an opportunity slip of thwarting or annoying the man whose high public character his petty malice could not reach, and whose private worth his mean envy could not tarnish. His letters to Washington, the tone of which heretofore had been uncivil enough, now became harsh and insolent, full of fault-finding, and bristling all over with biting reproofs and unmanly insinuations. ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... pleasures that lead to sin and debasement. They offer the young man the wine-glass, the gambling-table, the gratification of lust and passion. They offer the young woman flattery, gay dress, the dance, pleasures that will tarnish her womanly purity. We all know ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... to say so, and they hardly dared to think so, even when they were all alone, each in her cell; for the concentration of conventual life magnifies small spiritual sins in the absence of anything really sinful, and to admit that she even faintly wishes she might be some one else is to tarnish the brightness of the nun's scrupulously polished conscience. It would be as great a misdeed, perhaps, as to allow the attention to wander to worldly matters during times of especial devotion. Nevertheless, the envy showed itself, very perceptibly ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... the greatest sorrow. Death, acute disease, sudden and great losses—these are sometimes easily borne compared with those intricate difficulties which, without name and without appearance, work themselves into the web of our daily life, and, if not rightly met, corrode and tarnish ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... uncouth corn of others passed through the hoppers of Shakspere's brain and came out fine flour, ready for use by the theatrical bakers. With the pen of pleasure and brush of fancy he painted human life in everlasting colors, that will not fade or tarnish with age or wither with the winds of adversity. The celestial sunlight of his genius permeated every object he touched and lifted even the vulgar vices of earth into the realms of virtue ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... plates, is made of one or two parts of tin, and one of lead. Before soldering, the surfaces must be quite bright and close together; and the contact of air must be excluded during the operation, else the heat will tarnish the surface and prevent the adhesion of the solder: the borax and resin commonly in use, effect this. The best plan is to clean the surfaces with muriatic acid saturated with tin: this method is invariably adopted by watchmakers and opticians, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... very same Hilary Kincaid. So said her heart the instant glance met glance. The tarnish of hard use was on all his trappings; like sea-marshes on fire he was reddened and browned; about him hung palpably the sunshine and air of sands and waves, and all the stress and swing of wide designs; and on brow and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... things come to her house without sharing them with others! Disregarding the kinsmen of her lord, let her live in her husband's house and eat, at the day's close, the flour of fried barely! Let her come to be regarded as unenjoyable (in consequence of the stains that would tarnish her)! Let her be the mother of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to Holland so often as the policy of this country was changed? The question has been repeatedly asked, was this money to be ultimately paid or not? He would say this: unquestionably it was to be paid, if the country was bound to its payment by good faith. He would not tarnish the fair fame of the country for any sum whatever, upon any occasion, but more especially upon an occasion on which England had received a valuable consideration. When we incurred this responsibility ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... such as he to realise that it did not matter in the least, because, though children grew up and away, childhood remained—a bright banner carried from hand to hand, always in a new grasp before the old one could tarnish it. More, he saw that it was this very evanescence which had for him given childhood its sadness that also gave it its beauty; if there were anywhere on earth a race of perpetual children it would not be beautiful. For he saw that it was ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Etruscilla is probably a base or plated denarius, the silver having been worn off. Silver coins sometimes acquire a black tarnish, so that they are not to be distinguished from brass without filing the edge, or steeping them in acid. If a genuine brass coin, it should have the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would tarnish his reign with the disgrace of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Tarnish, etc., on Firearms, Machinery, Tools, Cutlery, Safes, Saws, Skates, Stoves, Hardware, etc., without injury to the polish. In use over 10 years. Highest Testimonials. Samples 50 cents, three for $1.00, sent free of ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... will do him justice by tucking up the robber:-Yet who will say I am bound to wait for this justice, and submit to being plundered in the first instance, if I have myself the means and spirit to protect my own property? But if an affront is offered to me, submission under which is to tarnish my character for ever with men of honour, ant for which the twelve judges of England, with the Chancellor to boot, can afford me no redress, by what rule of law or reason am I to be deterred from protecting what ought to be, and is, so infinitely dearer to every man of honour than his whole ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... give her a long string and make every allowance for the vexations of her situation; but if she began seriously to tarnish Karen's happiness he would have to pull the string smartly. The difficulty—he refused to see this as danger either—was that he could not pull the string upon Madame von Marwitz without, by the same ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... know the old noblesse oblige spirit of the Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to the point under ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger Than the color of our kind. Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... plunged into it, was inextricably entangled, and easily destroyed. Perozes himself, several of his sons, and most of his army perished. Mruz-docht, his daughter, the chief Mobed, and great numbers of the rank and file were made prisoners. A vast booty was taken. Khush-newaz did not tarnish the glory of his victory by any cruelties; he treated the captives tenderly, and caused search to be made for the body of Perozes, which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... formation of republics on the principles of justice and virtue. Such a man became most naturally an object of Governor Barnard's seduction. The perversion of his abilities might be of use in a bad cause; the corruption of his principles might tarnish the best. But the arts of the Governor, which had succeeded with so many, were ineffectual with Mr. Adams, who openly declared he would not accept a favour, however flatteringly offered, which ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... law courts? Do you call a man honourable when he has done something for which he must blush when he is alone? Is a man honourable when he has done things for which no one can reproach him and for which he cannot be punished, but which tarnish his conscience? I think there are things that are lower and viler than cheating at the card-table; and the indulgence with which society looks on makes me feel as though society is an accomplice, and I think it is perfectly revolting. There are things that are so disloyal, so dishonest, that ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... "Eugenie Grandet" were buried and lost sight of under mountains of rubbish. True that he now denied a number of books published under supposititious names, and which had been universally attributed to him; but enough remained, which he could not deny, to tarnish, if not to cancel his fame. To these he has since, with the reckless and inconsiderate greed that cares not for the public, so long as it finds a publisher, considerably added. His self-sufficiency is unparalleled; and in the preface to an edition ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... the tightened rein, Slipping the spur from the booted heel, Tenderest voices cry 'Turn again,' Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel, High hopes faint on a warm hearth stone— He travels the ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... towards us Spread out and known at last, and we are sure That beauty is a thing beyond the grave, That perfect, bright experience never falls To nothingness, and time will dim the moon Sooner than our full consummation here In this odd life will tarnish or ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... vol. i. p. 48. Prizes are offered at Lyons for the best mode of manufacturing gold and silver thread that will not tarnish. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... prosperity, even if it is a prosperity that can soil. But the tarnish washes off in night and rain. Ripley may look its best early on a Saturday morning, before the flood rushes down the road. When the little village lies clean and fresh in the sun, and the inns are busy with white tablecloths and cooking potatoes, and the children sit on the edge of the green ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... determination that puzzled no one so much as the women, for to Lee no woman, old or young, had found cause to be unfriendly. But he had read that the army is a jealous mistress who brooks no rival, that "red lips tarnish the scabbard steel," that "he travels ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... seeks merely its own happiness in the beloved one, and will give him leave to be happy only in its own way. Yet, after all, Phoebe was human; and some very sorrowful tears were shed, for a few minutes, over that gift laid on the altar. Though the drops were salt, they would not tarnish the gold. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... This woman loves me ardently, and knows all my weak points, if therefore, I am unwilling to be united with her, she will make my faults public, and thus tarnish my character and reputation. Or she will bring some gross accusation against me, of which it may be hard to clear myself, and I shall be ruined. Or perhaps she will detach from me her husband, who is powerful, and yet under her control, and will unite ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... murmured audibly: "No, in spite of everything, the fatherland first, first the Philippines, the child of Spain, first the Spanish fatherland! No, that which is decreed by fate does not tarnish the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... with sauce combined Broccoli white, without a tarnish; 'Tis hard to tell if 'tis design'd For vegetable or for garnish. Pillow'd on a butter'd dish, My Chicken temptingly reposes, Making gourmands for it wish, Should the savor reach their noses. Oh, my tender pullet ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... less sensible of my private afflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready to expose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, and dishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish your glory, and have all the world say that a nation who first dedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours? Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but the use of moderation in the greatest prosperity, the exercise of mercy toward a vanquished ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... merry in his 'Rehearsal Transprosed.' This Parker had a 'knack' at making himself odious; he had a curiosa felicitas in attracting hatreds, and wherever he lodged for a fortnight he trailed after him a vast parabolic or hyperbolic tail of enmity and curses, all smoke and fire and tarnish, which bore the same ratio to his small body of merit that a comet's tail, measuring billions of miles, does to the little cometary mass. The rage against him was embittered by politics, and indeed ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... no modish thing, The bookman's tribute that I bring; A talk of antiquaries grey, Dust unto dust this many a day, Gossip of texts and bindings old, Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold! ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... spoke Isfendiyar: "Thou wouldst be generous And bear a spotless name, and tarnish mine; But I am not to be deceived by thee: In fetters thou must go!" Rustem replied: "Banish that idle fancy from thy brain; Dream not of things impossible, for death Is busy with thee; pause, or thou wilt die." "No more!" exclaimed the prince, "no ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... sisters, her nature was so burning, that when water touched her, she went frist! like a hot coal. There are sisters who have accused her of secretly cooking eggs, in the night, between her toes, in order to support her austerities. But these were scandals, invented to tarnish this great sanctity of which all the other nunneries were jealous. Our sister was piloted in the way of salvation and divine perfection by the Abbot of St. Germaine-des-Pres de Paris—a holy man, who always finished his Injunctions with a last one, which was to offer to God all our troubles, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... I could do nothing but pant with excitement as the truth dawned more upon me with the coming day, that I was by this one stroke immensely rich. The treasure was gold— rich, ruddy gold, all save one of the great round shields, and that was of massive silver, black almost as ink with tarnish; while its fellow-shield—a sun, as I now saw, as I afterwards made out the other to be a representation of the moon—was ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... the general joy detain, Starve and defraud the people of thy reign! Content ingloriously to pass thy days, Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise; Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright, Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight? Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be 250 Or gather'd ripe, or rot upon the tree. Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late, Some lucky revolution of their fate: Whose motions, if we watch and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... assuming such miraculous powers of beautifying the complexion, all contain, in different proportions, preparations of mercury, alcohol, acids, and other deleterious substances, which are highly injurious to the skin; and their continual application will be found to tarnish it, and produce furrows and wrinkles far more unsightly than those of age, beside which they are frequently absorbed by the vessels of the skin, enter the system, and seriously disturb the ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... for the Company to suffer the blot upon their arms to remain: indeed, their safety in India required that no tarnish of defeat should rest permanently upon their name. The British troops at Candahar and Jelalabad were ordered to march upon Cabool, where, as an enduring mark of the retributary visit, in addition to pillaging the shops, setting fire to the houses, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... often punished the guiltless instead of the criminal. 'Tis true she attempted to assume, in the eyes of others, a fortitude which belied her fears, and even affected to smile at the possibility of her lover's honor and character suffering any tarnish from the ordeal to which they were about to be submitted. Her smile, however, on such occasions, was a melancholy one, and the secret tears she shed might prove, as they did to her brother, who was alone privy to her grief, the extent of those terrors which, notwithstanding her disavowal ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... from office and factory had begun to tarnish the brilliance of this show, when the women had begun to scatter—this one to dinner with her man, that one back to the hall-room supper by whose economies she saved for her Saturday afternoon vanities—Bertram ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... listening to the liquid melody of those clear tones, that love and sorrow had transfused her life at last to woof and warp of innermost joy that death itself could neither tarnish nor obscure. In a few moments she came down and joined Ray, where he stood upon the door-stone, with one arm resting over the shoulder of little Jane, and watched with him the antics of a youth who postured before them. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... n't she have a fault or two? Is n't there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Is n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would require? It ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... reasoned one; because the ferment had been in her mother, and her grandmother was a friend of Lydia Becker and a cousin of Mrs. Belloc. John's death had been a horrible numbing shock to Honoria, and she felt hardly in her right mind for three months afterwards. Then on reflection it left some tarnish on her family, even if the memory of the dear dead boy, the too brilliant boy, softened from the poignancy of utter disappointment into a tender sorrow and an infinite pity ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... almost oppressed by the vicious multitude." Of their doctrines he says: "Fictions, of early origin" (about saint veneration and relics, a purifying fire, celibacy, &c., &c.), "now so prevailed as in course of time almost to thrust true religion aside, or at least to exceedingly obscure and tarnish it." ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... who, from principle, see nothing but a hateful conspiracy in the revolution of the 20th of March, will accuse me of having embellished facts, and designedly distorted the truth. No matter: I have depicted this revolution as I saw it, as I felt it. How many others are pleased, to tarnish the honour of the nation, to represent their countrymen as composed of rebels or cowards! For my part, I think it the duty of a good Frenchman, to prove to all Europe, that the king was not guilty ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... best in the world of thought. In a letter addressed to her when he was past forty, he says, "You never stained your face with walnut-juice nor rouge; you never wore gowns cut conspicuously low; your ornaments were a loveliness of mind and person that time could not tarnish." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... beyond the border-line of definite thought; while Evelyn's mind rapidly reverted to the more congenial atmosphere of things terrestrial. An unknown force was urging her to speak openly to her husband, to rid herself of the shadow that had begun to tarnish the bright surface of life. It would be easier to speak in dusk than in bald daylight—easier also before the bloom of reunion had been rubbed off by the prosaic trivialities of life. In her present position, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... exact information on the subject of the Imperial concubines (who, by the way, have a special name of honor), partly for the reason that this is not a matter of general information, and partly because of the unwillingness to impart information to a foreigner which is felt to tarnish the luster of the Imperial glory. A librarian of a public library refused to lend a book containing the desired facts, saying that foreigners might be freely informed of that which reveals the good, the true, and the beautiful ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... most satisfactory to the masculine eye. Ah, thou eager-fingered Time, that shall, in days to come, wither the roses in my beauty's cheeks, dim the fire in my beauty's eyes, draw my beauty's bow-lips inward, tarnish the golden hair, and gnarl the slender, shapely fingers, little shall I heed you in your passing if you but leave the ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... of this matter got about the day before, and most unfortunately all the newspapers contradicted it as a scandalous report, set on foot with a design to tarnish the lustre of a certain great character. This was the style of the morning and evening papers of Saturday, and of those who converse upon their authority; so that upon the coming in of the Gazette about ten o'clock at night, it was really diverting to see the effect it ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... great God, whom I worship grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him that made me; and may his blessing alight on my endeavors for serving my country faithfully! To him I resign myself, and the just cause which ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... from his staff; but if, on the contrary, malicious slanders are defaming this ally, he is Hercules enough and brave enough to punish them. His bravery and gallantry were conspicuous throughout the Kentucky campaign, and it is hoped that this late tarnish on his fame will be removed; or if it be not, that ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... dialogue stared at her in red letters upon the dark. "Assume that you like me—" "You may assume it." "I do." She read the packed little sentences over and over, and studied herself with care. No, honestly, nothing jarred. There was no harm; she didn't feel any tarnish upon her. And yet—she was looking forward to Martley Thicket with a livelier blood than she had felt since Easter when James had kissed her in the shrouded garden. A livelier blood? Hazarding the looking-glass, she ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... assurances that his secret should be inviolably kept, and his injunctions faithfully obeyed. No men of the world consulted how to force him back to the world of men that he fled from! No colonels to scan him with martinet eyes, and hint how to pipeclay a tarnish! Waife's apprehensions gradually allayed and his confidence restored, one fine morning George took ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... legitimate. Nevertheless one's buttons remain for ever a nuisance. I do not complain that I should have to make my bed, polish my boots, keep my clothes neat. These are the obvious decencies of life. But the daily shining-up of metal buttons which need never have been made of metal at all, which tarnish in the damp and indeed lose their lustre in an hour in any weather, which, moreover, look much prettier dull than bright—this is enough to convert the most bloodthirsty recruit ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... and keeps the rooms always scented by fumigations to destroy the moths. She employs workmen, from time to time, to adjust six clocks that never go, and clean five jacks that rust in the garret; and a woman in the next alley lives by scouring the brass and pewter, which are only laid up to tarnish again. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... books. And feels at ease that he is free: From taint or tarnish of the crooks. To ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... great God whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory! and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it! and may humanity, after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself, individually, I Commend my life to Him who made me; and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my country faithfully! ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... It is better to be dumb, than to utter such words as these. As you know well, there is not a breath to tarnish this lady's ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... we are not worthy to name," the man answered, with reverence. "If it accepts your reason why she should stay—if your love is found to be without tarnish of self—it will ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... reality. Owing to our discovery of the way in which to compel the waters to serve us as our motive power, we have no blackening smoke or steam, so that our furniture and fittings are preserved from dinginess and tarnish. It was possible to have the saloon delicately painted, as you see,"—here he opened the door of the apartment mentioned, and we stepped into it as into a fairy palace. It was much loftier than ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Bourbons never take them," answered Marcos. For he was not a pushing man, but one of those patient waiters on opportunity who appear at length quietly at the top, and look down with thoughtful eyes at those who struggle below. The sweat and strife of some careers must tarnish the brightest lustre. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... put in the crucible In which every worthless metal is tried, In which gold is cleansed from every tarnish; The Scripture is true in everything it says; It says we must suffer before we can be cured; It is through repentance we shall find forgiveness, And the restoring of all that ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... compound of the imaginative and the real the master-passion is formed, how sensitively it regards all that can reflect credit on the beloved object, and with what ingenuity it endeavors to find plausible excuses for every blot that may happen, either by accident or demerit, to tarnish the lustre of a picture that fancy has so largely aided in drawing, will understand the rude nature of the shock that she had received. But Adelheid de Willading, though a woman in the liveliness and ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the cup of his content was filled to the brim; but as yet, neither his mother nor Herr Ritter told him the name of his unknown friend. Then it grew towards the end of summer, and the ferns and the brake began to tarnish in the woodlands, and Dolores Delcor sickened, and failed, and whitened more and more from day to day, till at last she could do no work at all, but lived only at the hands of 'Tista and Herr Ritter. ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford |
