"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coco-nut fibre, which emitted clouds of smoke. With an unsteady rickety gait the beldame hobbled after her rapidly retreating son, who turned round from time to time, skipping and posturing derisively as if to taunt her, and then hurrying away again westward. Thus the two quaint figures retreated further and further, he in front and she behind, till they were lost to view. But still the drums continued to beat and the singers ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... he belittles himself before an audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a true word, fresh from the lips of a true man, is worth paying for, at the rate of eight dollars a day, or even of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an outbreak of jealousy against the renowned authors who have the audacity to be also orators. The sub-lieutenants of the press stick a too popular writer and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of with a rapier, as in France.—Poh! All ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... on granite than have web feet and paddle in muck," retorted Uncle Trufant, ready with the ancient taunt as to the big ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... of words would, in a private person, be called dishonest. It will also occur to most people that Mr. Gladstone might have spared the deeply wronged and loyal subjects of Her Majesty whom he was addressing, the taunt he levels at them in the second paragraph I have quoted. If asked, he would no doubt say that he had not the slightest intention of laughing at them; but when he deliberately tells them that it makes no difference to their interests whether they remain Her Majesty's subjects under a responsible ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... impressions to the god is well illustrated by Professor Petrie's discovery at Memphis of a number of votive ears of the god, intended to facilitate or to symbolise his reception of the prayers of his votaries. In fact, the taunt of the psalmist against the images of the heathen—"Eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, and yet they hear not"—is not a merely rhetorical one, as it seems to us, but real and practical, if spoken to men who gave their gods ears and eyes that ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... best to make me one," he answered bitterly. "I try to stand by you at all costs. I want to make amends to you, I want to prevent a crime. Yet there you lie and set your face against a compromise; and there you lie and taunt me with the thing that's gall and wormwood to me already. I know I gave you provocation. And I know I'm rightly served. Why do you suppose I went into this accursed thing at all? Not for the gold, my boy, but for the girl! So she won't look at me. And ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... abiding faith, however, that some day his mother would grow up and be lots taller than Minda's mother. He challenged his toddling playmate to deny that his mother would be as big as hers some day, a lofty taunt that ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... for an instant his self-possession, said in his anger more than he intended—more than he might easily unsay—enough to bruise the already smarting soul of Allcraft. A threat escaped his lips—a reproach—a taunt. He spoke of his power, and touched cuttingly upon the deep schemes of other men, more feasible than his own perhaps, and certainly more honest. Allcraft winced, as every syllable made known the speaker's actual strength—his own dependence and utter weakness. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... of Numa, the lion, pausing for a moment to hurl a soft fruit at the snarling face of his enemy, and to taunt and insult him, calling him eater of carrion and brother of Dango, the hyena. Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him. Low growls vibrated his heavy jowls and his great ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "A taunt and a joke which turned sour, 'my dear Watson'!" he exulted to the parrot. "A joke I was not intended to live ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... eager to work—the motive power was lacking. He was too easily contented with things as they were; there was no-one to taunt him with being poorer than others. Ditte was too good-natured; she was more given to taking burdens ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... so long as we can prevent them;" but the next moment the poor Wazir, to Gerome's delight, had measured his length on the ground. Either the night was very dark, or the whisky very strong; a tent-rope had avenged the taunt ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... "I don't deserve your taunt," I replied, "though I respect your motive, and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father's affairs. My dislike of the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... his feet in a trice, and half-unsheathed his sword to avenge this taunt on his manhood, but the pilgrim looked so unconcerned, and evinced so little emotion at this burst of anger, that the action and its result were merely momentary. Ulric resumed his seat, and the ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... unable to regard him as a simple cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt for taunt: ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... unwonted sense of security. Were not two powerful empires standing by, ready to defend her? Her wounded pride, also, was solaced by her admission on equal terms into such a league. Neither France nor any other could henceforth taunt her ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... it. Got to work on 'The Purple Slipper' while you people frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr. Farraday at the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... herself, in the impotence of anger, "they all love him, they all hate me! Why does he not mistreat me, insult me, taunt me—anything that will cost him their respect, their devotion! How bitterly they feel toward me for that remark! It will kill me to stay here and see them turn to him as if he were some ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... quietly at anchor from the impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance; "parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth were expected to be ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... make very poor masters and mistresses. It is better that they should give up the business of house-keeping, and betake themselves to the living in hotels or boarding-houses with which our English cousins taunt us, little knowing that the nomadic life they condemn is the outcome of their own failure to make good citizens of those offscourings of jail and poorhouse and Irish shanty which they send to us under ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... to her copper, relieved only by a single narrow white stripe running along her sheer-strake from her white figure-head to the rather elaborate white scroll-work that decorated her quarter. She was grandly sparred, with very heavy lower-masts, long mastheads, painted white, very taunt topmasts, topgallant and royal- masts, stayed to a hair, with a slight rake aft, and accurately parallel, and enormously long yards. The French ensign floated lazily from the end ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... wilt, possess." "Fall'n is Jerusalem!" the Hebrew cries. And patriot anguish fills his streaming eyes, "Hurl'd to the earth by Rapine's vengeful rod, "Polluted lies the temple of our God, "Far in a foreign land her sons remain, "Hear the keen taunt, and drag the captive chain: "In fruitless woe they wear the wearying years, "And steep the bread of bitterness in tears. "O Monarch, greatest, mildest, best of men, "Restore us to those ruin'd walls again! "Allow our race ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... His board to defend him and embolden his fellows: "I promise you now from this place I will never Flee a foot-space, but forward will rush, Where I vow to revenge my vanquished lord. The stalwart warriors round Sturmere shall never 250 Taunt me and twit me for traitorous conduct, That lordless I fled when my leader had fallen, Ran from the war; rather may weapons, The iron points slay me." Full ireful he went; Fiercely he fought; flight he disdained. ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... taunt me?" he said, in a low tone. "Will that result in any good now? Yes, I committed murder. I intended, if I did not commit, robbery. I killed—yes, I killed!—with a knife—as a murderer kills. But I do not ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... peered into the sitting-room, whither she had betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt her. He ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Guises felt the taunt that they were strangers in France, appears from a sentence of the cardinal's to the Bishop of Rennes (Trent, Nov. 24, 1563), wherein, alluding to the recent birth of a son to the Duke of Lorraine ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... last time that I shall see you, Crystal," said Maurice with a sigh, seeing that obviously she meant to allow his taunt to ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... eloquent, pouring out her scorn upon a mute victim. The audience knew what the woman in the play did not know, that it was for love of her that the man had sinned, to save her from a terrible danger which had hovered very near her life. The curtain fell, the woman leaving the room with a final taunt flung over her shoulder, the man seated at a table looking steadfastly into the fire with fixed, unseeing eyes. The audience drew a little breath and then applauded; the orchestra struck up and a buzz of ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their total repeal, prefaced his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought the subject forward in compliance with the request of the anti-corn-law delegates; and because, in the late discussion on the state of the nation, a taunt had been thrown out on the ministerial side, that, if the opposition thought that a repeal of the corn daws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the house. The motion was seconded by Mr. Fielden, and supported by Mr. Aglionby, who ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Hannibal, they sold, at public auction the land on which he was encamped, while he was upon it besieging the city, and it brought the usual price. The bidders were, perhaps, influenced somewhat by a patriotic spirit, and by a desire to taunt Hannibal with an expression of their opinion that his occupation of the land would be a very temporary encumbrance. Hannibal, to revenge himself for this taunt, put up for sale at auction, in his own camp, the shops of one of the principal ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is Max!" cried voices outside; and then a deep silence reigned in the room and in the street, for Gilet's known character made every one expect a taunt. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... significant thing that both Chan and Neilson looked oppressed and uneasy at the words. Like all men of low moral status they were secretly superstitious, and these boasting words crept unpleasantly under their skins. It is never a good thing to taunt the dead! Ray had spoken sheerly to frighten and shock them, thus revealing his own fearlessness and strength; yet his voice rang louder than he had meant. He had no desire for it to carry into the ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... her face. What was she saying to herself? What was she thinking? That he did not know she loved him! How would he? How could he? Had a word, an act, a single look of hers ever given him a hint that, when she had been with him as the White Moll, she cared! It was unjust, unfair, to fling such a taunt at herself. It seemed as though she had lost nearly everything in life, but she had not yet lost ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... to herself, but with the intention that I should hear what was going on. I hoped that my uncle's imprisonment would last but few days; still I was anxious. I thought it likely Dr. Flint would do his utmost to taunt and insult him, and I was afraid my uncle might lose control of himself, and retort in some way that would be construed into a punishable offence; and I was well aware that in court his word would not be taken ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... Since this taunt brought no response from her victim, she went on into the eating-room. It was already filling, and the duties ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention; taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall nor be amiss; and as many lies as will lie on a sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... haven't I told you that I have been arrested and put in prison several times—always on account of my papers? I told you the truth, and you shouldn't taunt me ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... taunt was pointed, it glanced off harmless. Mrs. Lecount had planted her sting once too often. Magdalen rose in complete possession of her assumed character and composedly terminated the interview. Ignorant as she was of what had happened behind her chair, she saw a change in Mrs. Lecount's look and manner ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of the House of Commons was made up of incongruous elements, whose interests were at variance on many questions. Peel actually came to the rescue of the ministers not once, but so many times as to give bitterness to the taunt hurled at them by a Radical orator: "Why! the right honorable member for Tamworth (Peel) governs England. The honorable and learned member for Dublin (O'Connell) governs England. The Whigs govern nothing but ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... heard this taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing his manly, loving, loyal little heart—the claims of his old life and his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy's generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn't need her, he thought; but she needed him. She needed ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... very still after the door had closed, and to keep him company in his solitude back swarmed all those dreary thoughts that Bob's cheery presence had for the time being banished; with a rush they came to jeer, taunt, and terrify. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily derided, as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you, of all men? Have you come to taunt me, to upbraid me, to delight your eyes with the sight of my misery? Have you come to laugh at ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... of bitter taunt. Scarce conscious, with her brain reeling, and her limbs trembling, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... which was given at the time, and has generally been believed since, is this: As soon as the battle was over, he was brought, disarmed and helpless, into King Edward's tent, and there Edward, Clarence, Gloucester, and others gathered around to triumph over him, and taunt him with his downfall. Edward came up to him, and, after gazing upon him a moment in a fierce and defiant manner, demanded of him, in a furious tone, "What brought him ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... he cried, his sun-tanned features flushing with a quick shame. "Don't think I've come here to remind you. Don't think I've come along to taunt you with the loss of our—our mad wager. I want to forget it. It became a gamble on a man's life, and—and I hate the thought. You're free of it, and I wish to God it had never ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... contemporaries. "C'est desesperant," he cried, throwing himself down in the arm-chair at Madame Schontz's; "c'est desesperant, nous nous marions tous!" Every marriage was like another gray hair on his head; and the jolly church bells seemed to taunt him with his fifty years and ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing &c v.; asteism^. squib, satire, skit, quip, quib^, grin. parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie^; farce &c (drama) 599; caricature. buffoonery &c (fun) 840; practical joke; horseplay. scorn, contempt &c 930. V. ridicule, deride, mock, taunt; snigger; laugh in one's sleeve; tease [ridicule lightly], badinage, banter, rally, chaff, joke, twit, quiz, roast; haze [U.S.]; tehee^; fleer^; show up. play upon, play tricks upon; fool to the top of one's bent; laugh at, grin ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tormentor. He had not intended to use his late pass, but Willie's taunt had altered everything. Afraid? He would soon show Willie! Also he would show Maggie! Likewise he would show—Well, Christina had no business to behave as if she were the only girl in the world, as if he were a fool. He had a right to enjoy himself, too. He had suffered enough, and ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced the girl her blue ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... hard for Ellen now to keep to what she thought right. Disagreeable feelings would rise when she remembered the impoliteness, the half-sneer, the whole taunt, and the real unkindness of several of the young party. She found herself ready to be irritated, inclined to dislike the sight of those, even wishing to visit some sort of punishment upon them. But Christian ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The vulgar taunt had sting enough to rouse Loveday to a wholesome contempt that saved her. She stood staring with a genuine scorn at the little articles of lace and artificial flowers which Cherry's beau had given her at the last fair. Yes, even at the riband which had been Cherry's special pride as bought by herself ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... inferior to him in mental calibre, and made a laughing-stock for Fenton and sweet Anne Page, and the lads and lassies of Windsor, and the chattering Welsh parson. "Have I lived," cried Falstaff, in the moment of his discomfiture, "to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?" He is a hard case, an inveterate sinner, as worthless as any man well could be, in the eyes of decorum and respectability; but those who know him well grow to be fond of him, even if they feel that ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... bright and rosy with the deepest happiness she had ever know. He had never spoken so plainly before. "Edith can never taunt me again with his silence," she thought. Though sounding well enough to the ear, how false were his words! Zell was giving the best love of which her heart was capable in view of her defective education ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... "You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we as ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the taunt bravely, though her feelings were cruelly hurt, too deeply hurt to allow her to follow her brother and appear to be thrusting her society on him. So she remained where he had left her, tightly grasping ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... annihilating look upon the base Indian, whose last sentence conveyed an unpardonable taunt to any Indian chief, the Sagamore, with the firmness of the rocks around him and ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... by the quarrel, because he understood something of Driscoll's feelings when stung by the taunt. Then he was curious about Drummond's object for making it, and wondered how much he knew. He kept them apart and when they stopped at noon Driscoll came ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... conceal it not. It doth offend My inmost soul, to hear the stranger's gibes, That taunt us with the name of "Peasant Nobles!" Think you the heart that's stirring here can brook, While all the young nobility around Are reaping honour under Hapsburg's banner, That I should loiter, in inglorious ease, Here on the heritage my fathers left, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... equable than ours, and their thunderstorms, though longer in duration, mere flashes in the pan compared to what we in our amphitheatre of hills have to undergo at the hands of the electric current. We never can find answer to that taunt, and if the D'Urbanites only follow up their victory by allusions to their abounding bananas and other fruits, their vicinity to the shipping, and consequent facility of getting almost anything quite easily, we are completely silenced, and it is a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... sir, Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare For public insult in the streets—before The eyes of the citizens. I'll follow thee Like an avenging spirit I'll follow thee Even unto death. Before those whom thou lovest- Before all Rome I'll taunt thee, villain,—I'll taunt thee, Dost hear? with cowardice—thou wilt not fight me? Thou liest! ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... some nameless one makes for the citizens, perhaps in thoughtful renunciation of the making of their laws. These, too, seem to have for their inspiration the universal taunt. They are, indeed, most in vogue when they have no meaning at all—this it is that makes the succes fou (and here Paris is of one mind with London) of the street; but short of such a triumph, and when a meaning is discernible, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... Duke did not brook this taunt unanswered. "My sword," he said, with emphasis, "was never in the scabbard, when your Majesty's service required it ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... insulted thus at every turn by such a man as General Harero? No! He felt himself, in courage, intellectual endowments, birth, ay, everything but the rank of a soldier, to be more than his equal. His heart beat quickly when he recollected that the latter taunt and threat had been given in the presence of Don Gonzales and his daughter. The malignity, the unfairness of this attack upon him at this time, was shameful, and deserved to be punished. Brooding ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... I ever done to be imprisoned like this? And was I not unhappy enough before, that you must needs come and taunt me with the happiness your daughter is enjoying now she ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... speak not of her. If I have been beguiled, if I have betrayed the feelings which I cannot help, but which I must hold sternly in check — be not thou the one to taunt me with my weakness. There is none like her in the world. I have known it for long. But even because I know it so well I may not even dream of her. It is not with me as of old, when her father spoke ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... needed at this juncture, was not so much a fiery defender of the faith, or a scholar to taunt the heretics in finely-pointed sarcasm with their want of learning, as a saint, demonstrating in his own life the beauty of holiness, while laying aside polemics, he expounded the philosophy of Catholic doctrine. The need for reform was patent ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... of the storm of shields, The conqueror in battle fields,— Hakon the brave, the warrior's friend, Who scatters gold with liberal hand, Heard Skreyja's taunt, and saw him rush, Amidst the sharp spears' thickest push, And loudly shouted in reply— 'If thou wilt for the victory try, The Norseman's king thou soon shall find! Hold onwards, friend! ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... chorister boys made him feel that his youth had slipped from him, and left him alone with his intellect and his epigrams. Sometimes he shivered with cold among those epigrams. He was tired of them. He knew them so well, and then so many of them had foreign blood in their veins, and were inclined to taunt him with being English. Ah! youth with its simple puns and its full-blooded pleasures, when there is no gold dust in the hair and no wrinkles about the eyes, when the sources of an epigram, like the sources of the Nile, are undiscoverable, and the joy of being led into sin has ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and he stamped the echo to the word. But, that done, instead of bearing the other down with a headlong rush characteristic of the man—as Tignonville feared—he held off warily, stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the taunt, resigned himself to the inevitable. Nothing that he could do might now avert the breaking storm; all his words would only be twisted into fresh griefs. But sad experience had taught him that to take refuge in silence ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... arches walking hurriedly, feeling his feet in unaccustomed shoes awkward and unmanageable, and the polish of his face a thing unbearable, they would come up in wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then taunt him for the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... nineteenth century of time, no amount of insanity, real or assumed, will make us think it in accordance with the high and noble nature of the philosophic prince, either to sneer at the poor old whiteheaded courtier he has murdered, or taunt the little trusting girl he has taught to love him. If it were not for the name of Shakspeare, Hamlet would be set down as nearly the beau-ideal of a snob—a combination of the pedantry of James and the unmanliness of Buckingham. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... stuff for a place in the memory,' said Fleetwood; and the late hour, with the profitless talk, made it a stinging taunt. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in January that McTaggart caught his first glimpse of Baree. He had placed his rifle against a tree, and was a dozen feet away from it at the time. It was as if Baree knew, and had come to taunt him. For when the factor suddenly looked up Baree was standing out clear from the dwarf spruce not twenty yards away from him, his white fangs gleaming and his eyes burning like coals. For a space McTaggart stared ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... expectest a fine description of this young woman, Alan Fairford, in order to entitle thee to taunt me with having found a Dulcinea in the inhabitant of a fisherman's cottage on the Solway Firth, thou shalt be disappointed; for, having said she seemed very pretty, and that she was a sweet and gentle-speaking creature, I have said all concerning her that I can tell ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst— Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first— Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid countenance, bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining fame and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of phantom appellations. It was possible, then, to leave behind us something more explicit than these severe, monotonous, and lying epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a painted picture and what we call the immortality of a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not belong to the dreaming class of men," said the Judge quietly. "Some months before my uncle's death, Clifford boasted to me of the possession of the secret of incalculable wealth. His purpose was to taunt me, and excite my curiosity. I know it well. But, from a pretty distinct recollection of the particulars of our conversation, I am thoroughly convinced that there was truth in what he said. Clifford, at this moment, if he ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... buildings, but he clung to the task that he had imposed upon himself. He explained to Dalton and the Virginian found no fault except for Harry's loss of time that might be devoted to amusement. Harry sometimes rebuked himself for his own persistency, but Bagby's taunt had stung a little, and he felt that it applied more to himself than to Dalton. He knew Shepard and he knew something of his ways. Moreover, his was the blood of the greatest of all trailers, and it was incumbent upon him to find the spy. Yet he was trailing in a city ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hump on yer back before yer talk about my neck," she shouted. It was the first time she had ever dared to taunt Jonah with his deformity, and the sound of her words frightened her. He would strike ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... was in their custody he was impatient to browbeat the youth and taunt him with his helplessness. But Arnold Baxter would not listen to it, so the graceless son had to bide ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the argument only for those who conceive liberty as opposed to restraint as such. For those who understand that all social liberty rests upon restraint, that restraint of one man in one respect is the condition of the freedom of other men in that respect, the taunt has no meaning whatever. The liberty which is good is not the liberty of one gained at the expense of others, but the liberty which can be enjoyed by all who dwell together, and this liberty depends on and is measured by the completeness ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... cool vines crept in about the window-sills and over the imprisoning panes, as if to taunt the victims who ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the male, King of Korea, dost thou not feel shame to flee away from the Queen of the East?' (This taunt is an allusion to the story of the conquest of Korea by the Empress Jin-go.) And the male comes invariably, and is also caught. In Izumo the first seven words of the original song have been corrupted into 'konna unjo Korai abura no mito'; and the name of the male dragon-fly, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... that he was aware of her love for Cecil, and she dreaded lest he should taunt her with it. Anything but that. He knew it, and held it back as his last and most cruel blow. Over his bronzed face flitted no expression of pity. She was to him like some delicate wounded creature of the forest, that it was a pleasure ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... statement with no suspicion of a taunt in it, but it stung Georgina's pride. Her eyes blazed defiantly and she tossed back her curls with a proud little uplift of the chin. It must be acknowledged that her nose, too, took on the trifle of a tilt. Her challenge was unspoken but so ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... keenly round him and became aware of shadowy forms of Indians creeping round the bushes in ambush, but he feigned not to see them and stood his ground undaunted, listening calmly to the interpreter's words. But when the Indian chief began to taunt him, his hot blood rose within him, and, snatching the boaster's knife from him, he stabbed him to the heart. A flight of arrows immediately poured on the little band from all sides, but they replied with deadly fire from their guns and after a fierce fight the first ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... the child "affect the virtue" when he has it not, it does, on the other hand, make many a boy and girl, especially in the early teens, concede to the demands of prevailing fashions in misconduct, when the conscience and the knowledge of right and wrong dictate a different course. The taunt "you dassent" is stronger than the still small voice saying "thou must not." And so Harry plays truant for the first time not so much because he is tired of school, or because the smell of the young spring allures him, ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... talents of the fathers of the Anglican church, he conceived it attributable to their moderation and wisdom, and not to their want of sincerity or of clear spiritual views, that they endeavoured, not to build a new church, but to purify and reform their old one. Hence, in reply to the taunt of the Romanists, "Where was your religion before Luther?" they could say, "Our religion preceded your corruptions, and ever was in the Bible;" thus claiming for their founder, neither Luther, nor ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... of them, as we know, this space had been eventful; but to the other it had seemed a lifetime—an age of hopes and fears, and latterly of cold despair, which had now been warmed once more to hope only to freeze again. For was not this man, to whom he had looked for aid, his cruel foe come back to taunt him—to behold him already half-way toward death, and to make its slow approach more bitter? But great as was his agony Solomon held his peace, nor offered to this monarch of his fate the tribute ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... "You taunt me, my dear lady, my dear girl. But be not so sure that times have changed. Out beyond, there, where we are going, I could put you a mile back from the river, and you would find yourself in a wilderness the most pathless in the world to-day, worse than the St. Lawrence ever knew at any time, more ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... upon his arm and stepped backward a little, regarding him despairingly. She did not mind the taunt, but the moral fibre of her nature always responded to opposition. She broke out excitedly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... triumphant, whispered something in her ear. There was a suppressed annoyance in Eveena's look which provoked me to interpose. On Earth I should never have been fool enough to meddle in a woman's quarrel. The weakest can take her own part in the warfare of taunt and innuendo, better and more venomously than could dervish, priest, or politician. But Eveena could no more lower herself to the ordinary level of feminine malice than I could have borne to hear her do so; and it ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Wrathfully answered; for he shrank not, he, From answering to his face. A caitiff hound, A reptile fool, is he who fawns on men Before their faces, while his heart is black With malice, and, when they be gone, his tongue Backbites them. Openly Polydamas Flung back upon the prince his taunt and scoff: "O thou of living men most mischievous! Thy valour—quotha!—brings us misery! Thine heart endures, and will endure, that strife Should have no limit, save in utter ruin Of fatherland and people for thy sake! Ne'er may such wantwit valour craze my soul! Be mine to cherish ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... entirely suppressed: and even when he was most exemplary, there was an apparent loftiness in his manner that was calculated to irritate; and the very grandeur with which he suppressed his passions, operated indirectly as a taunt to his opponent. The interview was prompted by the noblest sentiments; but it unquestionably served to widen the breach it was ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... poor girl, quite unaccustomed to control herself, would almost break out into some furious response to an unkind word or implied taunt, and remember just in time that she was pledged to the Lord's service and must not disgrace his cause. A swift, silent prayer for help then would always bring the promised aid of the Holy Spirit, and so by degrees Bertie learned to conquer ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... child might have done, but the joyous gallantry of the debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit of taunt or contempt, but simply as ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... won't be bamboozled, when she says firmly and with heat, "Why don't we do something?" She would like to scold a few Generals and Admirals, and she says she believes the Germans are much cleverer than ourselves. This last taunt she hopes will make people "do ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... assembled an army and invaded the territories of Rome. The senate sent Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them, whose forces encamping close by the Veientines, the latter ceased not to reproach and vilify the Roman name with every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the Romans by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided they became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle, broke and defeated them. Here, again, we see, what has already been noted, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... decided that the dispute over the town should be settled by combat. Rodrigo became the champion of Ferdinand of Castile. The other champion, Martin Gonzalez, began, as soon as the combat opened, to taunt the Cid. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... blue diamond as he spoke; but the offer, genuine as it undoubtedly was, acted as a taunt to me, and I bade him sternly put back the stone, and talk not ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... one, and the taunt had its meaning, for it is usually only the indigent and incapable who ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... for their enemy when he appeared, to leave the shelter of their forts, and to fight in the open. The Egyptian Ratib had the good sense to advise, "Stay in the forts," but Loring exclaimed: "No! march out of them. You are afraid!" and thus a taunt once again sufficed to banish prudence. The result of this action, which lasted only an hour, was the loss of over 10,000 Egyptian troops, of 25 cannon, and 10,000 Remington rifles. The survivors took refuge in the forts, and succeeded in holding ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... current of the river. Once or twice she cast disdainful glances at my feeble and emaciated form, but at last, in a melting tone, she said: "If you can't put the boat over, get up and give me the oar." This taunt made me strong, and the buxom mountain girl was soon at the mill. While awaiting the coming of the old miller, I concluded to take a stroll over the hill in search of further adventure. There I found, at a nice old-fashioned ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... becomes the victim of wounds that fester and lead to death.[462] Barbed arrows and Nalikas and broadheaded shafts are capable of being extracted from the body. Wordy shafts, however, are incapable of being extracted, for they lie embedded in the very heart. One should not taunt a person that is defective of a limb or that has a limb in excess, or one that is destitute of learning, or one that is miserable, or one that is ugly or poor, or one that is destitute of strength. One should avoid atheism, calumniating the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and at last settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. "What shall I do?" she said ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or after—a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly in the wrong, his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless, granting the original sin ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... roused my apathy, That He who rules creation May change the dismal hap of thee, And hasten to restore thee In safety from thy danger, To thine own, in joy and glory, To save us from the stranger. With princely grace to give redress, Nor a taunt to suffer back again; The fell Monro has felt thy blow, And should he dare attack again, Then as he flew, he 'll run anew, The flames to quench he 'll labour on, Of castle fired—when Staghead ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... regret for his own sake that Zola was unable to avoid offending those prejudices which were so powerful in his time. The novelist who adopts the method of the surgeon finds it necessary to expose many painful sores, and is open to the taunt that he finds pleasure in the task. On no one did this personal obloquy fall more hardly than on Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he accumulated unseemly details and risky situations ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... "Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more. I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is to be a village picnic—a gipsying, they call it—at East ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... vain for any show of weakness on Reynolds' part. This was not altogether to his liking. He wished to see his victim show signs of fear, to cry aloud and plead for mercy. He had done so himself, and he longed to find it in Reynolds that he might taunt him with ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... to the rocks, you low-lived, skulkin' murderers! It's a wonder some of you don't shoot me the way you did Juan Alvarez, down there." He waved his hand toward the point where the wooden cross rose against the sky, but no one answered the taunt. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the hidden taunt he did not respond to the challenge and Denver's mind reverted to H. Parkinson Dodge and his flattering offers for the mine. Ten thousand dollars cash, from a mining promoter, was indeed a princely sum; ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... taunt, but you have got to the end of your tether now, Jack. I have communicated with the woman whose son's fortune you have stolen. I expect to hear from Lady Devine in a day ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... you know your own face when you consult a looking-glass," Fred said; and the bitter taunt told well with the crowd, for they roared with laughter, and appeared to be changing their views regarding the guilt of ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the Saviour bleeds, While friend nor foe his anguish heeds, While many a taunt and bitter jeer Break harshly on his holy ear, He prays,—what can that last prayer be? Oh, wondrous love, he ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... sword, but in the sinews of their arms and the lightning of their eyes. If they but carry these they proclaim their rank for all to see. Let six attend taking neither sword nor shield, neither hat nor sandal, nor yet anything between. 'There are six thousand more,' shall be their taunt, 'but Ko'en Cheng's hospitality drew rein at six. He feared lest they might carry arms; behold they have come ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... from brow to chin,—and was gone again. "Hello, Fat Father!" piped the shrill little voice. "Hello,—Fat Father!" Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ended and the taunt began. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... This influenced his master's temper, and he went on to say that he could no longer permit such doings, and he reproached his secretary for risking his present and future for a woman who was worthy neither of love nor respect, and who was notoriously unfaithful to him. Montlouis heard this last taunt with compressed lips and a deep ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Lucilla felt the taunt base, as recalling to her the dependent position into which she had carelessly rushed, relying on the family feeling that had hitherto made all things as one. 'Henceforth,' said she, 'I take my share of all that we spend. I will ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that very night, and, nerved to a sort of desperation, did speak to his father, ending with the usual declarations that his choice was unalterable. Perhaps it was; but, whether or not, Richard Dryce went the very way to make it so when he laughed that discordant laugh, and, with a taunt against his son's weakness of purpose and his dependent position, told him to dismiss such a scheming little hussey from his thoughts, for he was to marry when he had permission, which would never be granted to such a match as the beadle wanted ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... know it will end in that way; but it is not they who taunt me with the most wounding ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you the truth," she answered gently. "You speak to me of our friendship. It was never anything serious to me. It was a taunt—a foolish ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... Mabel sits; Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, Her smile is sadder than her tears. But cruel eyes have found her out, And cruel lips repeat her name, And taunt her with her ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... taunt, which she had brought out against her better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... traducing the Senate of the United States, to blacken the character of Senators who are as honorable as they are, who are as patriotic as they ever can be, who have done as much to serve their party as men who are now the beneficiaries of your labor and mine, to taunt and jeer us before the country as the advocates of trust and as guilty ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... fog Still hear the tiger growl At the lion and striped dog That prowl with rusty throats to taunt and roar ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... more than I love books and indolence and flattery and the charitable wine which cheats me into a favorable opinion of myself. What more can an old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray you begone, because your loveliness is a taunt which I ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... nobly expiated, were never forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men, when they had nothing else to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two and twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spurned, betrayed, bereft, Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave; Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow— Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt never know. Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss; And now mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... see that my beast wants water?" Blue Jeans was deeply offended. Such opulence in anyone at such a moment would have seemed a needless taunt; that chance had selected the superintendent to flaunt it was surplusage of insult. Yet he could not even resent the superintendent's gesture, wide-flung and arrogant to all beholders. Again the superintendent looked to ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... Halliwell's Collection, from which this volume is abridged, no manuscript authority goes further back than the reign of Henry VIII., though King Arthur and Robin Hood are mentioned. The obscure Scottish taunt, levelled at Edward I. when besieging Berwick, is much in the manner of ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... quick lift of the head, looked at him questioningly. Raven saw anger also in the look, at last anger ready to spring. Both men had the same thought. Tenney wondered if the owner of the wood was going to taunt him again with yelling like a catamount, and Raven did actually put aside ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... thee thine undeserved taunt, Edward," answered the king, calmly, though the hot blood rushed up to his cheek and brow. "I trust, ere long, to prove thy words are as idle as the mood which prompted them. I feel not that repentance cools the patriot fire which urges me to strike ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... acquaintance with your husband: the word ratiocinate. It shines in his vocabulary, like a jewel in a muck-heap. And, even so, he continually misapplies it. For you must have observed he uses it as a sort of taunt, in the sense of to ergotise, implying, as it were—the poor, dear fellow!—a vein of sophistry. As for his cruelty to Jean-Marie, it must be forgiven him—it is not his nature, it is the nature of his life. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with the arrogance of their caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored "Consuistis in precibus 'Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,' dicere!" These men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man's brains and armed him with a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... evidence of their existence. They had been recited again and again by more eloquent tongues than that of the poet of Poitiers. Dante and Petrarch had held them up to immortal contempt. Boccaccio had made them the subject of ridicule in his popular stories. But neither remonstrance nor taunt had effectually abated the prevailing corruption. It remained that a new remedy should be tried, and the time for its ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... battalion. This kindly purpose was never fulfilled. I went sick, but had more sense than to go to hospital this time; and the troops returned from Tekrit. The Leicestershires on route put up a large hyena, but failed to run him down. My premature return became a famous taunt. 'He deserted,' Diggins would say when foiled in fair argument; 'deserted from Tekrit, deserted ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... am a jail-bird!" She flung the taunt at him, and her whole little figure was shaken with the intensity of her emotion. "If you think I'm going to pretend to be penitent—and grateful to you—you are wrong! I hate you, Jim, I loathe and despise you—you might have taken the blame ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow, Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blow To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse Completed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse: For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... very wide. 'Then why do you let me go?' she asked on an ascending note, and she did not mean to taunt him. It would be so easy for him to keep her, if he knew how. She expected a despairing groan, she half hoped for a violent embrace, but he answered quietly, 'I don't really let you go. It's you I love, not just your hair and your face and the way your nose turns up, and your hands and feet, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... opened. It was fine to hear them stamping their defiance; it made one want to get to grips with his aggressors. In the brief silences one could hear our chaps laughing. The danger seemed to fill them with a wild excitement. Every time a shell came near and missed them, they would taunt the unseen Huns for their poor gunnery, giving what they considered the necessary corrections: "Five minutes more left, old Cock. If you'd only drop fifty, you'd get us." These men didn't know what fear was—or, if they did, they kept ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... which caused her to widen the breach between wife and husband by every subtle means in her power; and it was when this idea began to lose colour and substance and drop away among the wreckage of past hopes, that the Baroness ceased to compliment and began to taunt Preston Cheney with his dependence upon his father-in- law, and to otherwise goad and torment the unhappy man. And Preston Cheney grew into the habit of staying anywhere longer ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... answer at first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl, who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... heard this taunt, he had at length not a word to say, and supported by Hsi Jen and the other attendants on to the couch, they divested him of his clothes. But they failed to understand the drift of what Pao-y kept on still muttering, and all they could make out was an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
