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Blot   /blɑt/   Listen
Blot

noun
1.
A blemish made by dirt.  Synonyms: daub, slur, smear, smirch, smudge, spot.
2.
An act that brings discredit to the person who does it.  Synonyms: smear, smirch, spot, stain.



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"Blot" Quotes from Famous Books



... had ages ago ceased to be a blot in one of the fairest valleys in beautiful Derbyshire, for it was time-stained with a rich store of colours from Nature's palette; great cushions of green velvet moss clung to the ancient stone-work, rich orange rosettes of lichen dotted the ruddy tiles, huge ferns shot their glistening ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... (Simulating indifference) That horrible boy again, when the one thing I want is to blot the whole ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn

... the Martyr by the door which opens into it from the aisle. The centre of the chapel is occupied by the reconstructed pedestal of the martyr's shrine. The ugly wooden railing that surrounds it is a great blot on the appearance of the chapel; no doubt it is necessary that the pedestal should be protected by some kind of barrier, but a light and elegant railing of brass would answer every purpose without marring the general effect, as the present cumbersome erection shown in all the accompanying ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... poet calls "the golden exhalations of the dawn" began to warm the gray of the plain. The sun was in the roots of the grass. Four miles away the lights of Larned twinkled. The only blot on a fair landscape was the mule—in the middle distance. But there was a wicked gleam in the eye of the footsore ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... tell, or how much equivocation he must use in order to keep the truth from her? Yet would there be any mercy in telling that horrible story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon her youth, and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished? He knew by his own experience how possible it was to hope against hope, and to hope unconsciously; and he could not bear that her heart should be crushed as his had been by the knowledge of ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... always most charm, and least pain, to the poet or the artist when men are hidden away under their roofs. Then they do not break its calm with either their mirth or their brutality; then the vile and revolting coarseness of their works, that blot it with so much deformity, is softened and obscured in the purple breaths of shadow, and the dim ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... got into a trifle of a fix the last time we discussed that subject,' he said. 'I say, Chippy, do you reckon that it was a bit of a blot on us as scouts that ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... Marble Faun" appropriated the author's attention, after the sketch of 1858; and in this, which was probably written just before the commencement of the war, he had not yet clearly struck the key-note of the story. When he recurred to it, in the autumn of 1861, on beginning to "blot successive sheets as of yore," it was at last with the definite design of uniting the legend of the deathless man with the legend of Smithell's Hall. It is as if, having left England, he could no longer write an English ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... When churchmen scripture for the classics quit, Polite apostates from God's grace to wit; When men grow great from their revenue spent, And fly from bailiffs into parliament; When dying sinners, to blot out their score, Bequeath the church the leavings of a whore; To chafe our spleen, when themes like these increase, Shall panegyric reign, and censure cease? Shall poesy, like law, turn wrong to right, And dedications wash an AEthiop white, Set up each senseless wretch for nature's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... saw that the grey blot his coat made in the dusk was still moving a little—just vibrating a little bit in the twilight. He touched the bush with his rifle barrel, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... hearkened unto," but his power was to assert itself in deeds rather than in words. He appeared at the head of a troop of his own raising at Edgehill; but with the eye of a born soldier he at once saw the blot in the army of Essex. "A set of poor tapsters and town apprentices," he warned Hampden, "would never fight against men of honour"; and he pointed to religious enthusiasm as the one weapon which could meet and turn the chivalry of the Cavalier. Even to Hampden ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... after to-morrow, that Sunday, might never come!" he exclaimed suddenly, this time in utter despair. "Why could not this one week be without a Sunday—si le miracle exists? What would it be to Providence to blot out one Sunday from the calendar? If only to prove His power to the atheists et que tout soit dit! Oh, how I loved her! Twenty years, these twenty years, and she has ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which heats upon a throne, And blackens every blot. ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... pointing to each medallion that was filled gloriously with noble, and even with royal names, till at last she stopped short, and covering one medallion with her finger, she said, "Pass over that, dear Lady Killpatrick. You are not to see that, Lord Colambre—that's a little blot in our scutcheon. You know, Isabel, we never talk of that prudent match of great uncle John's: what could he expect by marrying into that family, where, you know, all the men were not sans peur, and none ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... the present life could have made a man happy, Sir Thomas had abundant grounds for happiness in this world. Yes, in this world, but not beyond it. For Sir Thomas was just simply and thoroughly a man of the world, and a most respectable man of the world too. No man could place his finger on a blot in his character or conduct. He lived for the world, and the world applauded him. He lived to please self, and to a ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... thus set, and show the tramp as little mercy as possible. Leniency, indeed, of any kind he simply regards as weakness. He would be a highwayman if the existing conditions of society allowed it, and if he had the necessary personal courage. As it is, he is a blot upon our country life, and an eyesore on our roads. Vagabondage is not a heritage with him, as it is with the genuine Gipsies. He has taken to it from choice, and the true-bred Romany will always regard him with contempt, as a mere ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... noble plot is fit for birth; And labouring France cries out for midwife hands. We missed surprising of the king at Blois, When last the states were held: 'twas oversight; Beware we make not such another blot. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... was it the eighth? Upon my life, I'm not quite clear as to that; blot the word a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... dreams, building her little castles to the clink of enameled tin cups, weaving her romances to the clatter of cutlery, smiling upon the mentally conjured faces of her boys amidst the steaming odors of greasy, lukewarm water. The one blot upon her existence is perhaps the Chinese cook, with whom she has perforce to associate. She dislikes him for no other reason than that he is a "yaller-faced doper that ought to been set to herd with a menagerie of measly skunks." But even this annoyance cannot seriously ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... oath as his father prayed, but said wearily, "Never fear, father, I shall trust none of the gay butterflies further than I can see the brightness of their wings; much less give them, any one of them, the chance to sully our escutcheon with another blot," and continuing he would woo his poor father to quiet by saying, "No, I know them too well; our motto is theirs, they are "always the same, always. Toedet tandem, eadem fecisse," and again he would woo him to quiet ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... avenge you of the malice of Zobeide, by calling you back to him; and when you shall be restored to his wishes, that you may remember the unfortunate Ganem, who is no less your conquest than the caliph. Powerful as that prince is, I flatter myself he will not be able to blot me out of your remembrance. He cannot love you more passionately than I do; and I shall never cease to love you into whatever part of the world I may go to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... was unequal to the task of explaining, without hurting anyone's feelings, that she had always regarded Cuthbert as a piece of cheese and a blot on ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... a claim in society which shall not be sacrificed. Her father, Ralph, did not descend to the hovel of the miserable peasant, choosing a wife from the inferior grade, who, without education, and ignorant of all refinement, could only appear a blot upon the station to which she had been raised. Her mother, sir, was not a woman obscure and uneducated, for whom ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... for the battle, hoping, amidst the waves of popular commotion, 'to blot out the name of God from the British Constitution.' Assuredly, thought we, we have the elements of no commonplace engagement here. 'Multifarious hosts,' fairly mustered, and 'battling' amid 'waves' in 'commotion' to 'blot out a name,' would be a sight worth looking at, even though, like the old shepherd in the Winter's Tale, their zeal should lack footing amid the waters. But though detained in the course of our search by the happinesses of the reverend gentleman, we felt that it was not with the genius of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... without a moon. Great gray cloud-banks swamped the sky, and there was a heavy mist that blurred the outline of tree and fence and made the broad, flat stretches of the marshes into one impenetrable blot of ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... he thought, characterise all family doings in such a family as that of the Germains. "I don't know of what kind you mean," he said, shuffling, and knowing that he shuffled. "I don't suppose my brother would do anything really wrong. But it's a blot ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood drawn too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were so jealous about the point of honor in those days; and gentlemen of good birth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their family coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence he returned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had of his mother, near to Winchester, and became a country gentleman, and kept a pack of beagles, and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... racial and cultural, as existed, for example, between the white settlers in America and the Indians. There are forces in human nature itself which make this absolute. The conquerors may quite silence the conquered; may treat them with infinite cruelty; may blot out all their records and destroy the memory of their race; but the blood of the conquered will go on flowing through all the generation of the children of the conquerors, and even, it seems probable, tend ever more and more to be the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the power of bearing or upholding all things.[164] Thou art thyself capable of bearing all things. Thou art fixed and steady (without being at all unstable). Thou art white or pure (being, as thou art, without any stain or blot). Thou bearest the trident that is competent to destroy (all things).[165] Thou art the grantor of bodies or physical forms unto those that constantly revolve in the universe of birth and death. Thou art more valuable than wealth. Thou art the conduct or way of the righteous (in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... no morbid sensibilities in Mrs. Piozzi's composition. She can tell all her sorrows without ever a tear. A mark of exclamation looks better than a blot. And yet she had suffered; but it had been with such suffering as makes the soul hard rather than tender. The pages with which she ends this narrative of her life ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... A Blot on the 'Scutcheon followed The Return of the Druses. In connection with the performance of this very fine play a quarrel arose which would not be worth mentioning if it did not happen to illustrate the curious energetic simplicity ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... continued Katherine, "and tackle the housekeeping the way I used to go at my lessons. I'm going to make that old shack that was always a blot on the landscape such a marvel of beauty that it won't know itself. I'm going to begin right there to seek beauty and give service and pursue knowledge and be trustworthy and glorify work, and above all, I'm going to Be Happy. Thank you so much, Nyoda, for telling me the things you did. You've straightened ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... were in my good graces, Till all my relations were put into places. But still I'm in principle ever the same, And will quit my best friends, while I'm Not-in-game. When I and some others subscribed our names To a plot for expelling my master King James, I withdrew my subscription by help of a blot, And so might discover or gain by the plot: I had my advantage, and stood at defiance, For Daniel[2] was got from the den of the lions: I came in without danger, and was I to blame? For, rather than hang, I would be Not-in-game. I swore to the queen, that the Prince of Hanover During her ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... of cloudlets drifting slowly across the sky so as to reveal, veil, partially obscure, or sometimes totally blot out the orb of night, may be a somewhat romantic, but is not a desirable, state of things in an enemy's country, especially when that enemy is prowling among ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... to be the Lord Mayor for the year ensuing. (The office is compulsory to an alderman, but he is excused upon the payment of L1,000.) The one selected is generally the one next in rotation, unless he has not paid twenty shillings in the pound, or there is any blot in his private character, for it does not follow that an alderman having served the office of sheriff must necessarily become Lord Mayor; the selection rests first with the livery, and afterwards with the Court of Aldermen; and in case of bankruptcy, or compounding ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Our holy Church has healed Far deadlier heart-wounds than a love-sick boy's. Be of good cheer, the Prince shall live to bless The father's rigor who kept pure of blot A 'scutcheon more unsullied ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... Kotwali. On enquiry I learnt that Hodson had gone a second time to Humayun's tomb that morning with the object of capturing these Princes, and on the way back to Delhi had shot them with his own hand—an act which, whether necessary or not, has undoubtedly cast a blot on his reputation. His own explanation of the circumstance was that he feared they would be rescued by the mob, who could easily have overpowered his small escort of 100 sowars, and it certainly would have been ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... a confident hand he felt the bundle of papers which were piled up in the open drawer. "Nay, more than that," he continued, "I remember the paper as if I saw it; it is thick, somewhat crumpled, with gilt edges; Mazarin had made a blot upon the figure of the date. Ah!" he said, "the paper knows we are talking about it, and that we want it very much, and so it hides itself out of ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... should in utterance die, Or, if written, should faintly appear— Should be heard in the sob of a sigh, Or be seen in the blot of a teal." ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... hotel proprietor, was perhaps the solitary person who did not understand her. In vain he waited patiently, as the seasons opened and closed, for her to accede to his importunities to sell her property. There the old inn stood, a blot within the terraced grounds and clean-cut park, unsightly to his eyes, and the humorous butt of his patrons. But Nancy had made her plans when the new order of things was first suggested, and she turned ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... is our servant Being heard at night, in the nineteenth century Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green meadow dipped to a ridge But love for a parent is not merely duty Depreciating it after the fashion of chartered hypocrites. Emilia alone of the party was as a blot to her Fine Shades were still too dominant at Brookfield Had Shakespeare's grandmother three Christian names? He thinks that the country must be saved by its women as well His alien ideas were not unimpressed by the picture Hushing together, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Monsieur the Viscount's attention quickened into eagerness, an eagerness deepened by the tender interest that always hangs round the names of those whom we have known in happier and younger days. The happy memories recalled by hearing of his old tutor seemed to blot out his present misfortunes. With French excitability, ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... Thou shouldst blot us out without a word, Our stricken souls must say we had incurred Just punishment. Warnings we lacked not, warnings oft and clear, But in our arrogance we gave no ear To Thine admonishment. And ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham

... you may find it advantageous to make preliminary outlines of what you wish to say. But above all, you must be willing to blot, to revise, to take infinite pains. You should remember the old admonition that easy ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... common; there was the same melancholy grandeur, the same character of romance, the same fantastical display. Nor were the secret passages, peculiar to the one, wanting to the history of the other. Both had their mysteries. One blot there was in the otherwise proud escutcheon of the Rookwoods, that dimmed its splendor, and made pale its pretensions: their sun was eclipsed in blood from its rising to its meridian; and so it seemed would be its setting. This foul reproach ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... ready, and useful, and looked very pretty, the only blot was the heavy dulness of poor Sophy, who seemed resolved to take pleasure in nothing. Winifred varied in opinion whether her moodiness arose from ill-health, or from jealousy of her little brother. This latter Albinia would not believe, especially ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a time when her legs refused to carry her further; her head throbbed violently; a dark veil seemed to gradually blot out things as she knew them. She ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... different men and business houses. When they came for money I told them I did not have a dollar, only what I earned, but that if the bills were correct, I would settle them as fast as I could earn the money. I determined to pay all of Mr. Blake's indebtedness, rather than there should be a blot upon his name or honor, and also for the sake of his two sons who had their lives to live. I had been sewing for Mrs. Letitia Ralph, the dressmaker, who gave me the children's clothes to make after she had fitted and basted them up for me. I had my own boys so beautifully ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... the idea of God, if there be a God, is infinitely higher than the idea of man, if there be man. If to plot out man's agency is to deface the book of knowledge, on the supposition of that agency existing, what must it be, supposing it exists, to blot out the agency of God? I have hitherto been engaged in showing that all the sciences come to us as one, that they all relate to one and the same integral subject-matter, that each separately is more or less an abstraction, wholly true as an hypothesis, but not wholly trustworthy ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... low muffled roar, accompanied by an occasional grinding crash, smote upon their ears through the heavy swish of the rain; the dull white monotonous expanse of the ice-field was abruptly broken into by a jagged irregular-shaped black blot ahead; and, almost before they had time to realise the extraordinary change, the Flying Fish had swept beyond the northern boundary of the immense expanse of paleocrystic ice, and was careering northward, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... we, chirruping in the chimney-tops, Twirling out a sooty broom, a blot against the blue. Ah, but when we called to him, and when he saw and ran to her, All our winter ended, and our world was ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... interests of the hunted cat and damaged property belonging to the waiting-room; but the elders of the party regarded him to be more intent on obtaining 'hush-money,' wherewith to blot out Rover's misdeeds and line his own pockets ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made, will I destroy, [or, blot out] from off the face ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... not as truly Philosophical, to admire the glowing Ruby, or the sparkling Green of an Emerald, as the fainter and less permanent Beauties of a Rose or a Myrtle. If there are Men of extraordinary Capacities who lye concealed from the World, I should impute it to them as a Blot in their Character, did not I believe it owing to the Meanness of their Fortune rather than of their Spirit. Cowley, who tells the Story of Aglas with so much Pleasure, was no Stranger to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... shot bump grab fled ship blot lump drab sled whip spot pump slab sped slip plot jump stab then drip trot hump brag bent spit clog bulk cram best crib frog just clan hemp gift plod drug clad vest king stop shut dash west grit ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... the first Triumvirate, showed plainly that the state was near collapse; and Hortensius, despairing of its restitution, retired from public life, confining himself to the duties of an advocate, and more and more addicting himself to refined pleasures. The only blot on his character is his unscrupulousness in dealing with the judges. Cicero accuses him [46] of bribing them on one occasion, and the fact that he was not contradicted, though his rival was present, makes the accusation more than probable. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... is that the relief of divorce is more accessible to men than to women. This obviously is a law made by men for their own advantage, but its existence is a blot on the fair fame of English justice, and also of English morality, that a husband's infidelity should be so lightly regarded. Let us hope the day is not far off when the conditions of divorce will be exactly the same for ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... abruptly gave up the fruitless, insensate attacks upon the walls and withdrew to the town, apparently defeated. The cause was obvious: Rasula had convinced them that Death already was lifting his hand to blot out the lives of those who ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... please; and I had the pen in my hand, and was just thinking whether I should be Mr Snooks or Mr Smith, when I received a slap on the shoulder, accompanied with—"Well, captain, how are you by this time?" In despair I let the pen drop out of my hand, and instead of my name I left on the book a large blot. It was an old acquaintance from Albany, and before I had been ten minutes in the hotel, I was recognised by at least ten more. The Americans are such locomotives themselves, that it is useless to attempt the incognito in ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... ecclesiastics now dependent on the State for support, the Brazilian Constitution decrees not only entire liberty of worship, but absolute equality of all before the law, without regard to their religious creed. The absence of this equality is the chief blot on some ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... colour is colour and life is life will the youth with his sublime folly wait for the meeting of his loved one." What matter if the winter days will come to them or if "the snow is always sure to blot out the garden—" to-day is spring, and love is love and youth ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... too well," said he, "what would become of you? Blaines College shall never blot out the Department of Charities. I nearly forgot a bit of news. Gloomy news. The Post is going to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... curvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the finest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used, in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement would spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine jointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling the adjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quite gratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only sign of preeminence ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... and dry in the late autumn of the lunar afternoon. Rising one behind the other were long slopes and fields of trampled brown where the mooncalves had pastured, and far away in the full blaze of the sun a drove of them basked slumberously, scattered shapes, each with a blot of shadow against it like sheep on the side of a down. But never a sign of a Selenite was to be seen. Whether they had fled on our emergence from the interior passages, or whether they were accustomed to retire after driving out the mooncalves, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home letter, "that likes and dislikes are very similar, don't you, Edith?" Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that her friend's chair was occupied by Norman Mann. He looked up ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason

... truly glad he had gone in that abrupt, speechless fashion—in spite of the heartache and the long years between them, really and truly glad. Nothing had been spoilt; they had snatched at no stolen joys. And the rapture, (what rapture!) of meeting would blot out all that they had suffered in ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature; the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your Zeluco in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... exquisite grief stirs within us at the sight and we can endure naught else but to suffer with them, when youth is blurred with sin, and gray heads are sick with shame and we, then, want to die and cry, O God! forgive and save them or else blot me out of Thy book of life—for who could bear to live in a world where such things are the end!—then, through the society of sorrow, and the holy comradeship in shame, we begin to find the Lord and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... harmless Christian Indians was utterly abhorrent, and will ever be a subject of just reproach and condemnation; and at first sight it seems incredible that the perpetrators of so vile a deed should have gone unpunished and almost unblamed. It is a dark blot on the character of a people that otherwise had many fine and manly qualities to its credit. But the extraordinary conditions of life on the frontier must be kept in mind before passing too severe a judgment. In the turmoil of the harassing and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... himself for twenty years in succession, but he will still remain a tailor to us. I do not think there is a soap in the world that will wash out this stain. How much do you think Mayer "Polkovoi" would have given to have us blot out the name bestowed upon him, "Polkovoi"? His misfortune was that his family was a thousand times worse than his name. Just imagine! In his passport he ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... valet was waiting outside the door, so I flew to my table and began to write. My hand trembled so I made a blot, and had to tear that sheet up; then I wrote another. Just a little word. I was frightened; I couldn't say loving things in a letter; I had not even spoken ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... and staring, saw again the white figure passing from sunshine into shadow. So it had been in Madame Vestris's crystal. How soon would the dark cloud blot it out ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... is written of Samuel (Ecclus. 46:23): "He lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy to blot out the wickedness of the nation." Therefore other saints can likewise be called ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... haughty men!" the wrathful monarch cried, The while his face grew dark with rage and fury, so defied; "Yea, heat the furnace seven fold, and in the fiercest flame Blot out forever from the ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... blot upon the character of Yoritomo is his treatment of his youngest brother Yoshitsune. It was he who had by his generalship and gallantry brought these terrible wars to a triumphant conclusion. He had crushed in the decisive battle of Dan-no-ura the last of the ...
— Japan • David Murray

... thole the wind and rain, Or wander friendless far frae hame; Cheer, cheer your heart, some other swain Will soon blot out lost ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... through the horror and glory of the day, it was only for a moment that he thrilled at the prospect of a relenting father. His interview with Rodolph had sunk deep into his soul, and not even the pomp and terror of war could blot from his mind the contemplation of the king and his solemn language. He knew not why, but he could scarce withdraw his eyes from the snow-white crest, which, still unwearied, hung upon the now retiring columns of the foe. The Count Rapatho had already ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... government, free men, free speech, free people, free schools, and free churches. Hollow counterfeits all! Free! It is the climax of irony, and its million echoes are hisses and jeers, even from the earth's ends. Free! Blot it out. Words are the signs of things. The substance has gone! Let fools and madmen clutch at shadows. The husk must rustle the more when the kernel and the ear are gone. Rome's loudest shout for liberty was when she murdered it, and drowned its death ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... His mind was hardened by use, and he could, without remorse, officiate as the spectator, or even as the author and director, of a scene of vulgar distress. But even he was somewhat startled upon the present occasion. The character and conduct of Emily in Mr. Tyrrel's family had been without a blot. She had not a single enemy; and it was impossible to contemplate her youth, her vivacity, and her guileless innocence, without ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... Wagner. I can easily buy another box for mamma where we got this one, at a chemist's in the Zeil. See how easily I can take off the blot that I dropped on the paper! Unless you look very close, you can hardly see the shine—and the ink has ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... fascinatingly, and he was almost frolicsome in his indifference to the comfort of the compositor. Still he had none of the frantic reconsiderations of Scott or Balzac. If he made a change in a word it was while it was fresh, and no one could obliterate what he had written with a more fearless blot of the finger, or one which looked more earnest and interesting. There was no scratching nor quiddling in the manner with which he fought for his art. Each day he thought out the problems he had set himself before beginning to write, and if a word offended him, as he ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... plaintive cry to call the servant, who was always at hand to assist him to sit down, to huddle himself up on some step, where he would remain for hours, motionless and silent, his mouth half-open, blinking his eyes, soothed by the strident monotony of the locusts, a human blot on the face of the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... you, my much-loved darling, the secret miseries of my heart; no, I do not blush for what my hand has just written, but my heart is sick and suffering, and I tell it to you. I suffer... I wish to blot out these lines, but why? Could they offend you? What do they contain that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... Bucintoro, whose boats are to be seen moored between here and the Molo, and whose members are, with those of sculling clubs on the Zattere and elsewhere, the only adult Venetians to use their waters for pleasure. As for the Royal Palace, it is quite unworthy and a blot on the Venetian panorama as seen from the Customs House or S. Giorgio Maggiore, or as one sees it from the little Zattere steamboat as the Riva opens up on rounding the Punta di Dogana. Amid architecture that is almost or quite magical it is just a common utilitarian facade. But that it was once ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... admitted more fully the alarming' symptoms she felt, were it not for the declining health of her daughter. If there be one misery in life more calculated than another to wither and consume the heart, to make society odious, man to look like a blot in the creation, and the very providence of God doubtful, it is to feel one's character publicly slandered and misrepresented by the cowardly and malignant, by the skulking scoundrel and the moral assassin—to feel yourself loaded with imputations ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... since the pits were only large enough to hold a tithe of them, till at length, horsemen and footmen mixed up together in inextricable confusion, their mighty mass became faintly visible quite close to us, a blacker blot upon ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... Summer redundant, Blueness abundant, —Where is the blot? Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same —Framework which waits for a picture to frame; 5 What of the leafage, what of the flower? Roses embowering with naught they embower! Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, Pant through ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... complaints can be heard, there you will have only the walls. You are beautiful, very beautiful, and you were not born for it, you were not born to be the bride of Christ! Believe me, my child, time will blot it all out. Later you will forget, you will love your husband ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... like the one she knew, yellow and cloth lined, but it was the same one! She knew that beyond a hint of doubt. For she remembered how, while sealing the thing for her, Mr. Templeton had laid it down on his table, upon his ink-wet pen, how he had carelessly blotted it. And here was the blot! ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... We gave the bottle a black eye, i.e. drank it almost up. He cannot say black is the white of my eye; he cannot point out a blot in my character. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... page in the war record of this country is without blot or blemish. His commanders unite in pronouncing him admirable for courage in the field, commendable for obedience in camp. That he should exhibit such excellent fighting qualities as a soldier, and ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... recognition of the new Republic, were made by Roosevelt. I have seen no evidence that Mr. Hay was consulted at the last moment. When the stroke was accomplished, many good persons in the United States denounced it. They felt that it was high-handed and brutal, and that it fixed an indelible blot on the national conscience. Many of them did not know of the long-drawn-out negotiations and of the Colombian premeditated deceit; others knew, but overlooked or condoned. They upheld strictly the letter of the law. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies withdraw your princely favor from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea, let me receive ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... because of it," he said, drawing up a chair near to her. "A great crisis has arisen in our lives that must make you forget other words I spoke this afternoon. Those other words and everything connected with them I blot out of my memory forever. I want you to do me an infinite service. If there had been no deep affection between us I should not dare to ask you. I want you to be my wife, to take me into your keeping, to trust me as an upright ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke

... and again dramatized on the narrow stage of my woman's imagination. But instead of bringing me release, it brought me heart-ache; instead of spelling victory, it came involved with the thin humiliations of compromise. For things could never be the same again. The blot was there on the scutcheon, and could never be argued away. The man I loved had let the grit get into the bearings of his soul, had let that grit grind away life's delicate surfaces without even knowing the wine of abandoned speed. He had been nothing better than the passive ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... ethical faults, for that is a merit, not a defect; but he is not quite perfect in art. His alternate persecution and patronage of Booth, though useful to the story, repeat the earlier fault of Allworthy, and are something of a blot. But he is individually much more natural than Allworthy, and indeed is something like what Dr Johnson would have been if he had been rather better bred, less crotchety, and blessed with more health. Miss Matthews in her earlier scenes has touches of greatness ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... destines him to the storms of political life; she is clever and perceptive. If your lives are united she will be happier than her mother. By acquiring the right to continue my work at Clochegourde you will blot out the faults I have not sufficiently expiated, though they are pardoned in heaven and also on earth, for he is generous and will forgive me. You see I am ever selfish; is it not the proof of a despotic love? I wish you to still ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... most refined philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, unmoved, the arena wet with the blood of Christian virgins, and the earth blackened with their ashes! Indeed, the deference ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... pomp, and before his grave was green, little Blot came to take his place, though she never filled it. Blot's career was a sad and brief one. Misfortune marked her for its own, and life was one too many ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,—though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... the street only the day before. The sight of this person she had always found offensive, and now, she felt, in view of what she had just learned, it must be even more so. Never, while this woman lived in the town, would she be able to throw the veil of forgetfulness over this blot upon her ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... me to make this little speech, and I do not wish to turn it into a sermon, but I must conclude by saying that, splendid as is the history of England in many points, there is one black blot upon the page, and that, the act of hers by which she renounced Christ's Vicar, by whom kings reign. You have done justice at last in returning to us those possessions which our forefathers dedicated to God's service. But there remains one ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... perceptions have left behind them—nay, with the impression, most positive and full, of the void I have just made about me. How can I suppress all this? How eliminate myself? I can even, it may be, blot out and forget my recollections up to my immediate past; but at least I keep the consciousness of my present reduced to its extremest poverty, that is to say, of the actual state of my body. I will try, however, to do away even with this consciousness ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... me, O, my God, have mercy! According to thy gentle lovingkindness, According to the multitude of all Thy tender mercies, blot out my foul transgression. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow; Hide thy face from my sins, and blot ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... grandson of that Louis XV., whose life of infamy is a foul blot upon the fame of France; and nothing can ever wash away the disgrace save an ocean ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... his gloves and laid them on the inlaid bureau. He had the physique of a director of public companies, and the grave manner that impresses shareholders. He talked of the weather, drew Cornish's attention to a blot of ink on the high-art wallpaper, and then put on his gloves again, well pleased with ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... their sable hides: So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, However the poor elves Might wash themselves, Nobody knew if they were clean or not— On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot! Not to forget more serious complaints That even while they join'd in pious hymn, So black they were and grim, In face and limb, They look'd like Devils, tho' they sang like Saints! The thing was undeniable! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Andrew, it will be for them to decide. Kenneth had already established himself as a lawyer back in the old home town. I shall urge him to return to that place with Viola as soon as they are married. His mother was a Blythe. There is no blot upon the name of Blythe. My daughter was born there. Her father was an honest, God-fearing, highly respected man. His name and his memory are untarnished. No man can say aught against the half of Kenneth that is Blythe, nor the half of Viola that is Carter. I should like the daughter of Owen ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... to do with the story, and so is only a blot on it, and I have no doubt the thing has been said much better before. Still, I ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... would croon over him "with murmurs made to bless," calling him their "tender novice" "in the first bloom of his nigritude," their belated straggler from the "rear of darkness thin," their little night-shade, not deadly, their infantile Will-o'-the-wisp caught before his sins, their "poor Blot," "their innocent Blackness," ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... Steiner. The latter recalled him and said: "General, I am here by your side; Mr. Stephens, you know, has crossed over the river." Coming to himself, he said: "Yes, I know I am fast passing away. Life's fitful fever will soon be over. I would not blot out a single act ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... said the expert. "Well, from that blot I went on. I looked at the edges, and they were cut too clean. A gentleman with a pair of scissors can't cut slips out of a paper like this. They were cut in the printer's office. Lastly, on holding them to the light, I found ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... repeated Mrs. Dugdale. "He hardly ever signed that to me in his life, though I am his very own daughter, and his eldest too. He never signed so to anybody but Fred. Bah! what a big blot He is almost past writing, poor dear man! Come, Agatha, you cannot refuse; you ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the water is about the way it averages, he won't have to wait longer than to-night for his rain." Which, indeed, was the case, for in the night, while they were all safely in the barabbara around the fire, the rain came as usual, sufficient to blot out all trace of their late ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... which awaited her resolution were but secondary considerations in the present state of her mind; her consent to a clandestine action she lamented as an eternal blot to her character, and the undoubted publication of that consent as equally injurious to her fame. Neither retracting nor fulfilling her engagement could now retrieve what was past, and in the bitterness of regret for the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of sight—seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and, idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I had taken the longest route ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... St. Paul's language becomes exceedingly suggestive of things that it is worth our while to forget, and the way in which we should forget them. Like him, we are not required to blot out the remembrance of the past. There could be no improvement if we did not remember past mistakes and profit by them. It is often our sweetest joy and highest pride to think of the days that are no more, of the wondrous history of ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves

... the simple-minded distribution of these colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace, of arcadian felicity; and the childish comedy of disease and sorrow struck me sometimes as an abominably real blot upon that ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... more expert hand to subjugate him again to obedience, and the training will be all the more painful from the previous insubordination. Of one thing the people may be proud, and that is, their having not stained this revolution with any of the crimes that have left so indelible a blot on ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... six, as my scribe had it. It was just the same with the other three—the number of the Psalm was right but the verse wrong. So here was a discovery, for all was painfully written smooth and clean without a blot, and yet in every verse an error. But if the second number did not stand for the verse, what else should it mean? I had scarce formed the question to myself before I had the answer, and knew that it must be the number of the word chosen in each text to make a secret meaning. ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... the royal scutcheon kept free from stain or blot! The story has descended from days now half forgot; 'Twas eleven hundred and forty this happened, as I've heard, The flower of German princes thought shame to break ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... condition of political syncope into which they have fallen, and, during this interval, to substitute its own constitutional powers for the unconstitutional powers of the Rebellion. Of course, therefore, Congress will blot no star from the flag, nor will it obliterate any State liabilities. But it will seek, according to its duty, in the best way, to maintain the great and real sovereignty of the Union, by upholding the flag unsullied, and by enforcing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... sons of the West, feeding the world from the plains of Dakota, for the Omars and the Brahmins? They would say to the Hindoos, "Blot out your philosophy, dead for a thousand years, look with fresh eyes at Reality and Life, put away your Brahmins and your crooked gods, and seek diligently ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller

... cheering spectacle. These premises were now a mere blot of desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn. All the copse up the Hollow was shady and dewy, the hill at its head was green; but just here, in the centre of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... slate" that she was forced to write of these things and of the "crowning delight of the summer," the tour through Switzerland. She said, "My picture gallery of memory is hung henceforth with glorious frescoes which blindness cannot blot or cause to fade." ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... opposition, but while a few politicians declaimed on the necessity of ending a ruinous war by recognising the independence of the United States, and others advised a cessation of arms and conciliation, the vast majority of the nation soon burned with ardour to blot out the recollection of Burgoyne's disgrace, by deeds of arms, and by reducing the colonies to their original subjection to the mother country. Not only did public meetings of corporate bodies, towns, and counties, display their attachment to the cause of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... studies, however, was not the only blot upon Lyly's Oxford life. From the hints thrown out by his contemporaries, and from some allusions, doubtless personal, in the Euphues, we learn that, as an undergraduate, he was an irresponsible madcap. "Esteemed in the University ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... fresh pleasure. Everything looked strange and new in her light, with an old, withered, yet unfading newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was, to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again grow solid. Then they would shoot up through it; and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the bottom of a deeper and bluer lake ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... I will efface that blot on my father's character. My father, who was such a brave soldier, whose career ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... more wicked thoughts or imaginations, while I was once full of them. Since I learned to seek the Lord and love his Bible, I have never had such peace, or purity. I love the name and tender mercies of my God." If in a few months, prayer saved that man's life, and so wholly changed it from a foul blot to a thing of purity, what can it not do again. No sin can ever be conquered until in humility either saint or sinner gets down upon his knees, and implores the love and power of the Lord in never ceasing prayer, to wholly emancipate him from ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... intervenes in the caves between the remains of pre-glacial and post-glacial man. As this deposit forms at a very slow rate, it indicates that, for long ages after the great destruction, man did not dwell in Europe. Slowly, "like a great blot that spreads," the race expanded again over ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... and die apart From all that once I knew? O Holy God, Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod, Which only wounds to heal? Is this the cross That I must carry, counting all for loss Which once was precious in the world to me? If Thou be God, blot out my memory, And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee. But here, though that old world beholds me not, Here, though I seek Thee through my lonely lot, Here, though I fast, do penance day by day, Kneel ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... for a little to look at Lord Mark's conviction as if it were a blot on the face of nature. "Do you mean because you had appeared to him to have ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... he came. There is music of Wagner that makes us feel as though he had been seeking to create great warm clouds, great scented cloths, wide curtains, as though he had come to his art to find something in which he could envelop himself completely, and blot out sun and moon and stars, and sink into oblivion. For such a healer Tristan, lying dying on the desolate, rockbound coast, cries through the immortal longing of the music. For such a divine messenger the wound of Amfortas gapes; for such a redeemer Kundry, driven through the world by scorching ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... the long dulness of the sultry way, Where "independent" settlers' careless cheer Made us indeed feel we were "strangers" here, Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot, On which "improvement" yet has made no blot, But Nature all-astonished stands, to find Her plan protected ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... answer—Whether or not it suits our conception of a God of love, it suits Scripture's conception of Him. For nothing is more clear—nay, is it not urged again and again, as a blot on Scripture?—that it reveals a God not merely of love, but of sternness; a God in whose eyes physical pain is not the worst of evils, nor animal life—too often miscalled human life—the most precious of objects; a God who destroys, when it seems fit to Him, and that wholesale, and seemingly ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... not been round the world for nothing. I see my blot, and you have hit it; you deserve to know all about the matter now. Match me that button, and you shall have ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... memory. He could not yet conceive that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her so important! That was, in fact, the only blot on his father's honour—a foul and grave blot it was. Heavily had the punishment fallen on those whom the father loved best! Alas, Philip had not yet learned what terrible corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy, even to men ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... your fault or your virtue, Eusebius, that you positively love these errors of human nature? You ever say, you have no sympathy with or for a perfect monster—if such there be—which you deny, and aver that if you detect not the blot, it is but too well covered; and by that very covering, for aught you know to the contrary, may be all blot. You would have catalogued this good lady among your "right estimable and lovely women!" and if you did not think ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... America to hang poor old women as witches; only a hundred and fifty years ago we find John Wesley, founder of Methodism, declaring that "the giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible." And if you investigate this witch-burning, you will find that it is only one aspect of a blot upon civilization, the Christian Mysogyny. You see, there were two Hebrew legends—one that woman was made out of a man's rib, and the other that she ate an apple; therefore in modern England a wife must be content with a legal status lower than a ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... There, as has already been pointed out, the monotony and lack of colour were to a certain extent in keeping with the character of the work, but in 'L'Attaque du Moulin,' where all should be colour and variety, the dull and featureless orchestration is a serious blot. 'Messidor' (1897) and 'L'Ouragan' (1901) had very much the same reception as the composer's earlier operas. The compact little phalanx of his admirers greeted them with enthusiasm, but the general public remained cold. 'Messidor,' written to a prose libretto by ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... of the States? Sad as have been the consequences of the war which followed secession—disastrous in its moral, material, and political relations—still we have good cause to feel proud that the course of the Southern States has left no blot nor stain upon the honor and ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... for duck shooting on the morrow. She was walking up and down a gravel path in the garden of Stogdon House, her sight of the heavens being partially intercepted by the light leafless hoops of a pergola. Thus a spray of clematis would completely obscure Cassiopeia, or blot out with its black pattern myriads of miles of the Milky Way. At the end of the pergola, however, there was a stone seat, from which the sky could be seen completely swept clear of any earthly interruption, save to the right, indeed, where a line of elm-trees ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... shall not touch it," cried Yolanda, snatching the parchment from the countess and holding it behind her. "If I would let you, you could not make the alteration; see, your hand trembles! You would blot the parchment and spoil all this fine plan of mine. Give me the quill, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... forget that at the moment," answered Maxton, while the blood mounted to his forehead. "It is the foulest blot upon my country's honour; but I at least am guiltless of upholding the accursed institution, as, also, are thousands of my countrymen. I feel assured, however, that the time is coming when that blot shall ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... is himself guilty of departing therefrom. He who should give breath stifleth him that could breathe. The land that ought to give repose driveth repose away. He who should divide in fairness hath become a robber. He who should blot out the oppressor giveth him the command to turn the town into a waste of water. He who should drive away evil himself committeth ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge



Words linked to "Blot" :   spatter, absorb, take in, draw, smirch, sop up, speckle, suck, take up, imbibe, suck up, fault, slur, mar, splotch, soak up, fingerprint, bespeckle, smear, defect, change surface, maculate, error, blemish, fingermark, sully, mistake, defile, splodge, tarnish, bespatter, fleck



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