"Black sheep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of three brothers there was one—not black sheep, but white. There was one who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second brother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out to South Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one of the cities of Cape Colony. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... this over with the rest, and Shack was invited to join them, much to the secret satisfaction of the "black sheep" of Carson, Max found that they were all opposed to his being the one to go forth. They claimed that he would be needed right along in order to continue the ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... whom we have been able to trace was Rodger Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor Sir Charles was the elder. The second brother, who died young, is the father of this lad Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of the family. He came of the old masterful Baskerville strain, and was the very image, they tell me, of the family picture of old Hugo. He made England too hot to hold him, fled to Central America, and died there in 1876 of yellow fever. Henry is the last of the Baskervilles. In one hour and five ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... that Bernick's evident uneasiness and embarrassment at the mere idea of the reappearance of Lona and Johan may lead us to suspect that all is not as it seems; but simple annoyance at the inopportune arrival of the black sheep of the family might be sufficient to account for this. To all intents and purposes, we are completely in the dark as to the course the drama is about to take; and when, at the end of the first act, Lona Hessel marches in and ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... shoulders of the one next in front. This is continued until all the players are taken by Jacky Lingo, who then runs off around the ground with them. The owner goes after them, faces Jacky Lingo, and says, "Have you seen anything of my black sheep?" ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... We are of different stuff. And after all, Janet and I are your only black sheep. Jock has his convictions in a strong, practical working order, as real to him as ever his drill and order-book were. Good old fellow, he strikes me a good deal more than ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... channels and who had failed, either by lack of ability or bad conduct, to keep up with the pace set by classmates at the Academy; there were others who were known as failures in civil life and as the "black sheep" of eminent families; and there were some who must have been utterly unknown before the war, as they ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... And through Avernus tread the dark domain To meet me. Not in Tartarus' abyss, Sad shades of sin and never-ending pain, I dwell, but on the blest Elysian plain Join with the just in fellowship. Now heed: There the chaste Sibyl, if with victims slain, Black sheep, ye seek her, shall thy footsteps lead, And show thy destined ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... my young manhood. A man that was known to be an Abolitionist had better be known to have the plague. Every door was shut to him. If he was born under circumstances that admitted him to the best society, he was the black sheep of the family. If he aspired by fidelity, industry, and genius, to good society, he was debarred. "An Abolitionist" was enough to put the mark of Cain upon any young man that arose in my early day, and until I was forty years of age. It was punishable to preach on ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... to know, Mamma," said Emily Hotspur, the day before the ball, "whether Cousin George is a black sheep or a white sheep?" ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... grasp its marvelous opportunities for studying the wonderful mystery of the variations of human nature. In the very essence of things therefore, he recognizes the human elements in his own profession and does not hold that the newspaper man is perfect or that it does not harbor types of black sheep the likes of which may not be found in other flocks. At the same time nothing raises his gorge quicker than to hear the uninformed or unthinking deliver themselves, parrot-like, of the formula "that's only a newspaper lie" or to see some man climb high by the aid of the newspaper and ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... the son, was a black sheep. He had been mixed up in all kinds of scandals before. His own father had turned him out of doors, and he was married to a woman whose father died in prison. Could a better combination of circumstances for a newspaper be conceived? The crime was discovered too late for the morning papers ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... story of this kind is that of a flamen of Jupiter,—a story which many years ago I told in detail in the Classical Review. Here I may just be allowed to reproduce it in outline. In the year 209 a young C. Valerius Flaccus, the black sheep of a great family, was inaugurated against his will as Flamen Dialis by the pontifex maximus P. Licinius.[724] It was within the power of the head of the Roman religion to use such compulsion, but it must have been difficult and unusual to do so without the consent of the victim's ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... wild and often barren of vegetation for long stretches. There were some extensive ranches, however, as this is the section favored for settlement by a class of Englishmen called "remittance men." These are mostly the "black sheep" or outcasts of titled families, who having got into trouble of some sort at home, are sent to America to isolate themselves on western ranches, where they receive monthly or quarterly remittances of money ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... They did well, too, and moved with the times, and kept their heads high for more generations than I can call home; and then they comed to what all families, whether gentle or simple, always come to soon or late. And that's a black sheep for bell-wether. Bad uns there'll be in every generation of a race; but the trouble begins when a bad un chances to be up top; and if the head of the family is a drunkard, or a spendthrift, or built on too free and flowing a pattern for this work-a-day shop, then the next generation ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind—the black sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh, they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is the code of the North to take them as you find them, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... placed her more than ever on Vivian's bad list. The monitress considered that it completely cancelled the bathing episode, and regarded "that wild Irish girl" as the black sheep of the house, ready to lead astray such innocent lambs as Lettice Talbot who were impressionable enough to be influenced by her example. Miss Maitland, though grieved at such a relapse from the marked improvement that Honor had shown, was fortunately a better judge of character. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... courtesy lords of high descent, but burdened with numerous offspring; together with a riding-master who wrote novels, and an elderly clergyman appointed by the Bishop of Gibraltar. I dare say there may have been a few black sheep in the colony; but the picture which Mrs. Annie Edwardes gave of it in her novel, "Susan Fielding," was exaggerated, though there was truth in the incidents which she introduced into another of her works, "Ought We to Visit ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... regiments is of comparatively rare occurrence. Even when the 3rd West India Regiment was in existence, there was less in the three negro regiments than in one of the Line; while drunkenness is confined to the few black sheep who will be found in every body of men. Riots or disturbances between West India soldiers and the inhabitants of the towns in which they are quartered are unheard of, and in every garrison they receive the highest ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... as letters come from Ireland. I have written, but it is not in the nature of things that Mr. Castleford should not accept such proofs as have been sent him. I have no hope, and shall be glad when it is over. The part of black sheep is not a pleasant one. Say not a word, and do not let my father come up. He could do no good, and to see him believing it all would be the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spit, you miserable creature, if you spit into the sheath of my knife, or if you run between my legs, I shall change you into a black sheep.' ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... respectable lot on the whole. The Ida Ludingtons have been good babies, good children, good girls, good women, and, I hope, will prove to have been respectable old women. In the spirit land, when we all meet together, there will be no black sheep among us, nor even anybody that we shall need to send to Coventry: But I do not see why special affinities should not assert themselves there as here, and cliques form among us. You will belong to them all, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... carrying with it weighty responsibilities, which he could not away with as easily as he had cast aside his country. There were few ties to bind him to England. He had become that unenviable member of a family—the black sheep. He had run deeply into debt; a fact that had grievously told against him when he had to face the accusations which had ruined his career. In withdrawing from England he had probably left only two friends, Sir Charles and Lady Martin, who would ever trouble to send a kindly thought after him. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... always looked upon Jeremiah as the black sheep of the family. Now, in addition to their poverty, he had cast ridicule upon them by his actions, and contempt by his punishment in the stocks. So they decided to put him out of the way and be rid of him, once ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... left, whose finger-post directed the road 'to Tollarton.' He seemed less disconcerted than Sponge, who kept inwardly anathematizing, not only 'Obin and Ichard,' but 'Diddle, diddle, doubt'—'Bah, bah, black sheep'—the whole tribe of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... reformed; and when he uttered worldliness, she persuaded herself he was but jesting. But alas! she had no adequate notion—not a shadow of one—of the selfishness of the man-child she had given to the world. This matter of the black sheep in the white flock is one of the most mysterious of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... in turn, craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... to bring in his prisoners by the light of day, for although he had collected together a large flock of black sheep, yet did he not dare openly to consign a preaching friar ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... plotting injury to her parent orb. But there is another inhabitant of the skies whose purposes have not been similarly free from popular suspicion. Needless to say I refer to the black sheep of the sidereal family, that "celestial ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... forth to her own cabin, was met by the sight of Mrs. Stanislaw dragging all her possessions into the corridor. It appeared that even for the few remaining days at sea the tigress could not lie down with the black sheep! A sweet and sympathetic soul, who also lived down the same alley and had the same horror of contaminating influence, had therefore offered to take her in. The picturesque incident was being witnessed and silently approved by women in the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... I was off for a burglar they could not have looked worse over it, for in those days among the decent canny country folks it was mostly the black sheep that were herded by the sergeant. But, my word, those same black sheep did their country some rare service too. My mother put up her mittens to her eyes, and my father looked as ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her fourth finger, on which a small ring glistened, sharply against the cream jug. "If I were every body's pet lamb or black sheep, I couldn't have more shepherd's crooks about me. Have you joined the laudable band, Mr. Mann, and am I requested to thank ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... disaster and death. I know Mr. Pike, now, and if ever he discovers the identity of Mr. Mellaire, murder will be done. Mr. Mellaire is not Mr. Mellaire. He is not from Georgia. He is from Virginia. His name is Waltham—Sidney Waltham. He is one of the Walthams of Virginia, a black sheep, true, but a Waltham. Of this I am convinced, just as utterly as I am convinced that Mr. Pike will kill him if he learns who ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... them are honest, hard-working boys, but there are some black sheep among them. I know one boy who tried to commit highway robbery, stopping a person whom he ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... slowly feeling his may, the veterinarian GRUNERT. He is a small man in a coat of black sheep's fur, cap and tall boots. He taps with the handle of his whip against the door post in order to call attention to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... "There are black sheep in every fold," returned the colonel with a cold smile. "It would be unprofessional, I suppose, to name your client, so ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... was always counted, they say, Rather a bad stick anyway, Splintered all over with dodges and tricks, Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six"; I, the truant, saucy and bold, The one black sheep in my father's fold, "Once on a time," as the stories say, Went over the hill on a winter's day— Over ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... market day; the men wore brown serge coats, close white breeches and black gaiters, with straw hats bound with black. The countrymen from Saint Herbot were there in their black shaggy goat or sheepskin overcoats, the hair turned outwards (there are flocks of black sheep throughout Finistere), without sleeves, and the white breeches, black gaiters, and straw hats. The women of Huelgoat wear large white turnover collars and caps with long ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep—whom many fell away from in dread—pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, sitting beside ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... You're not so quick as usual, then. I'd been accused of the murder at the Santa Anna Hotel. I hooked it, and got over to Mexico, so to Spain and France. I'd always been a black sheep, you know, but that was the first really serious trouble I'd got into. However, as I said, five years later, when Wildred and I met, I was in Canada; I'd turned actor (I'd always a little talent that way), and was doing pretty well. He pointed ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes had met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I had said something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought I with a little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for the cloth. 'I—hope ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... white sheep and black sheep and frolicsome lambs in the shepherd's flock, and each one had a name of its own. There was Babbette, and Nannette, and Pierrot, and Jeannot,—I cannot tell them all, but Jean knew ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... No black sheep (or lamb) could we in any way imagine as a companion of Mary—gentle, affectionate, pure little Mary. All her associates must ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... There is no one to explain fully to the English people that while in England educated society keeps pretty well to itself, there are in America no hurdles—or none that a lively animal may not easily leap—to keep the black sheep away from the white, or the white from straying off anywhere among the black, so that a large part of the English people has imbibed the notion that there are really no refined or cultured circles in ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... do you suppose Rayner and the Riflers generally will regard your calling on their black sheep?" ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... older brother, the former Archduke Leopold, who dropped his title and dignities, and, as a Swiss citizen, adopted the name of Leopold Wulfling. This Leopold is generally regarded as a black sheep. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... that, socially speaking, Johnny is a Black Sheep. I know that I have brought him up badly, and that there is not an unmarried man or woman in the United States who wouldn't have brought him up very differently. It's a great pity that the only people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... as he loved me. But we could not endure each other's politics and I was trying to exist on my professional fees, in the law office of one of our ex-governors. I was kindly tolerated by everybody about me but had neglected social relations, being a black sheep on every hot question of ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Union, or when members separate from it for the sake of the momentary advantage offered by the bourgeoisie. Especially in the case of partial strikes can the manufacturer readily secure recruits from these black sheep (who are known as knobsticks), and render fruitless the efforts of the united workers. Knobsticks are usually threatened, insulted, beaten, or otherwise maltreated by the members of the Union; intimidated, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... ba black sheep, the stars seem to shine through her voice so everything has to be still, and when she has finished singing her song goes up off the earth, higher and higher... till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird with ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... ugliness. The crimson scar across his cheek stood out so sharp and black with corrugations, that it was fearful to see it. His fierce, waxed moustache was more white than black. He was dressed in black sheep skin, and he had a red flat cap on his head, of which the great tassel fell sometimes over his ears and sometimes over his nose, according to the movement of the ogre-like body. They were silent for ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... that if we, who represent the national sentiment do not seek election, the Moderates who do not represent that sentiment will. I do not agree. I do not know what the Moderates represent and I do not know what the Nationalists represent. I know that there are good sheep and black sheep amongst the Moderates. I know that there are good sheep and black sheep amongst the Nationalists. I know that many Moderates hold honestly the view that it is a sin to resort to non-co-operation. I respectfully agree to differ from them. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... a valley, through which ran a river; and the borders of the valley were wooded, and on each side of the river were level meadows. And on one side of the river he saw a flock of white sheep, and on the other a flock of black sheep. And whenever one of the white sheep bleated, one of the black sheep would cross over, and become white; and when one of the black sheep bleated, one of the white sheep would cross over, and become black. And he saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... prince, whose real name was probably Abu Said, was the emir of the Kara-koyunla dynasty, or black sheep tribe of the Turkmans, who had risen to independence after the death of Timor, and who had long contended with the prince of the white sheep tribe for ascendancy. These two tribes derived their distinctive appellations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... of Megalia," he said. "I am a black sheep, very black. I am a blackguard. You say it, Donovan. You say it, ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... wasna Bailie MacConachie?" and the figure was plainly roused. "Him in the Dundee train? Laddies, there's a black sheep in every family, and that man is a poor, helpless brother o' mine that's taken to bad habits, and I've juist to support him and keep him oot o' sicht. It's an awfu' trial," and the figure wept, but immediately brisked itself up again. "Of course I'm Bailie ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... to pass. A Gwyddel Shepherd will come to live in the neighbourhood, and on one of his journeys to the mountain to shepherd his sheep, when fate shall see fit to bring it about, there will run before him into the cave a black sheep with a speckled head, and the Gwyddel shepherd will follow it into the cave to catch it, and on entering, to his great astonishment, he will discover the treasures and take possession of them. And in this way it will come to pass, in some future age, that the property ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, marry have I, three bags full, One for my master, and one for my dame, And one for the little boy ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... Estelle, the "black sheep" ever since she began to support them by engaging in trade, drew aloof now, was at home as little as she could contrive, often ate a cold supper in the back of her shop. She said nothing to Lorry of the family shame; she simply drew nearer to him. And out of this changed situation came, unconsciously ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... good manners don't seem to decay: simplicity, sincerity, kindness, don't really go out, any more than the other things, and fortunately the other things are confined only to a small group in every civilization, to the black sheep of the great, whity-brown or golden-fleeced ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... paid for new uniforms in such cases, and it awarded medals. By recognizing the good, and by weeding out as fast as possible the bad members of the Force, Roosevelt thus organized the best body of Police which New York City had ever seen. There were, of course, some black sheep among them whom he could not reach, but he changed the fashion, so that it was no longer a point of excellence to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Bah, bah, black sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, marry, have I, Three bags full; One for my master, One for my dame, But none for the little boy Who ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... in defence of her old friend, who had lost all claim upon that friendship since the offer of the bribe had been made,—so that it was understood among them all that Lizzie was to be regarded as a black sheep;—but hitherto Lord Fawn himself had concealed his feelings before Lucy. Now unfortunately he spoke out, and in speaking was especially bitter against Frank. "Mr. Greystock has been most insolent," he said as they were all sitting together in the library after dinner. Lady Fawn made a sign ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... majority of the people, have faithfully discharged their sacred obligations, if men be found, professing the religion of Christ and understanding its precepts, willing to enrol themselves as the hired bravoes of a "Black Sheep Society," and to butcher their neighbours for a petty reward? The Roman Catholic religion condemns murder as strongly as the Protestant religion; yet how happens it, that a whole community professing that faith winks at the crimes of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... stick, and they all signed Satan's book together,—when W. B——, aged forty, testified that Satan assembled a hundred fine blades near Salem Meeting-House, and the trumpet sounded, and bread and wine were carried round, and Satan was like a black sheep, and wished them to destroy the minister's house, (by thunder probably,) and set up his kingdom, and "then all would be well,"—when one woman summoned her three children and some neighbors and a sister and a domestic, who all testified that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sheep that spoilt the chances of the fold—the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the poor child grieve over her ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... band, he had broken loose from the unyielding rigidity of his family, solidly rooted, if I remember rightly, in a well-to-do London suburb. On their respectable authority he introduced himself meekly to strangers as a "black sheep." I have never seen a more guileless specimen ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... malice—how much more the frothy foolery and maudlin gossip of the empty of this empty generation. "What was it to me if the grown children of our idle community, the male babblers, and the female cutters-up of character, voted me, in their commonplace souls, the blackest of black sheep? I was still strong in the solid respect of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... now speak of another sister, Caramel, though I do so with grief. However, there is a skeleton in every fold—I mean to say, a black sheep in every cupboard. She was undeniably beautiful, and had a romantic postcard face. Her figure was perfect. Her intelligence was C 3. In a weak moment she accepted a thinking part in a revue at the "Frivolity," and her career ended, as might have ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of the nature of the beast, is bound to cry 'Yes.' So you see, their natures are different one from the other. The muzhik has his nature, and the gentleman has his. When the peasant has a full stomach, the gentleman passes sleepless nights. Of course, every fold has its black sheep, and I have no desire to ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage state, from which we are not removed by very many generations. This view seems indeed recognised in the common expression that such men are the black sheep of the family. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... stormed by the Arabs, and the luckless fathers within put to death. Hard by was Rebecca's Well: a dead body was lying there, and crowds of male and female mourners dancing and howling round it. Now and then a little troop of savage scowling horsemen—a shepherd driving his black sheep, his gun over his shoulder—a troop of camels—or of women, with long blue robes and white veils, bearing pitchers, and staring at the strangers with their great solemn eyes—or a company of labourers, with their donkeys, bearing grain or grapes to the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... simple device which answers the purpose. In an ordinary flock about one sheep in a hundred is a black one. If a portion of the flock has gone astray, there is likely to be a black one in it. So by counting his thirty black sheep each day Tampico kept rough count of ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in 1888 it was renewed, and in that year the Salisbury government introduced two reform bills, one providing for the gradual creation of fifty life peerages, to be conferred upon men of attainment in law, diplomacy, and administrative service, and the other (popularly known as the "Black Sheep Bill") providing for the discontinuance of writs of summons to undesirable members of the peerage. The bills, however, were withdrawn after their second reading and an attempt on the part of Lord Carnarvon, in 1889, to revive the second of ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... I must go back and watch over my black sheep, if I would have them blue!" said Levy; and he retreated towards the threshold. But at that shout of "Avenel forever!" as if at a signal, various electors of the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue hostelry, sweeping past Levy, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Walter, Henry's agent, is making love to Judy, and she prefers him to the young and unsophisticated Bobbie Forrester, who also loves her. It is Judy's eighteenth birthday, and her relations feel that it is time to tell her about Aunt Catherine, the black sheep of the family, who is supposed to have run off with another woman's husband. It is the day of the village bazaar, and amid a lot of hustle and bustle Catherine enters—the prodigal daughter most inopportunely returned! ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... "a Kunkel! Perhaps you don't know—but I'm one of the Symes of Maine. Great-grandfather a personal friend of Alexander Hamilton's, and all that. My family don't expect much of me since I'm the black sheep, but," a dull red had surged over his face, "they expect something better of me ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... still unwarned by the discomfitures of the morning, he propounded some questions which his companions could not answer; among which was, "Why are there black sheep?" How he would have solved this difficult problem in natural history, I do not know. Mystification sat on all faces, when the individual who had before attacked Mr. Latham's misstatements, took up the defence of the puzzled colonists ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical case of a man living ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... MORAL: The wisest lambs they are Who, when they're assailed by thirst, Keep well away from a public bar; For of all black sheep, or near, or far, ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... not go too far, and walked about with his hands in his pockets and looked on. All this amused him greatly; even the little ingratitudes she met with, which went to Lucy's heart, made her husband laugh. It pleased his satirical vein to see how human nature displayed itself, and the black sheep appeared among the white even in a model village. But as for Lucy, though she would sometimes cry over these spots upon the general goodness, it satisfied every wish of her heart to be able to do so much for the cottagers. They did not, perhaps, stand so much in awe of her as they ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... eating blueberry pie at unwholesome hours in a shingled dining-room on a bare New England hill-top, rose pallidly between Durham and the verdant brightness of the Champs Elysees, and he protested with a slight smile: "Oh, but my married sister is the black sheep of the family—the rest of us never sank as ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... you are! And what can you make of it? There you are face to face with the fact that a man who was a black sheep twenty or thirty years ago has been all this time making believe to be a white sheep so successfully as never was. Or, stranger still, that a woman who has brought up a family of model daughters—daughters whom it would be no exaggeration to speak of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths' child, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an erring ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... aware of these terrible powers and too often do they avail themselves of them—much oftener than any one has an idea of. One day as I was riding along I came upon a strange and ghastly object—a basket containing the bloody head of a black sheep, a cocoanut, 10 rupees in money, some rice and flowers. These smaller items I did not see, not caring to examine any closer; but I was told by some natives that those articles were to be found in the basket. The basket was placed at the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... you've got reasons for throwin' taunts at my claims for my son Jean. Yes, he's got Indian in him an' that 'll be the worse for the men who will have to meet him. I'm tellin' you, Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family. If you ride down his record you'll find he's shore in line to be another Poggin, or Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin', or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin' elbows with you right heah that my Indian ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of black sheep-skin, while the Women wear high white turbans. The tents are adorned with beautiful carpets, not only the floors, but the sides, and it is the chief employment of the women to weave them. As for the men, they spend most of their time in sauntering about among ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... privileges by storming the practically defenceless Bastille. The Bastille interfered no more with the liberty of Paris in 1789 than the Tower with the liberty of London. The only people in any particular peril of it were the 'black sheep' of the noblesse, as to whom even Jefferson, in the sketch of a charter of French Rights which he drew up in June 1789 and sent to Lafayette and the bookseller St.-Etienne, proposed that their personal liberty should be subject to a special kind of imprisonment at the prayer of their relations, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... disappear. Such an explanation of his failures was by no means original with Smith, the serious results of an untimely spoken word having been long associated with divers magic performances. Joe even tried on his New York victims the Pennsylvania device of requiring the sacrifice of a black sheep to overcome the evil spirit that guarded the treasure. William Stafford opportunely owned such an animal, and, as he puts it, "to gratify my curiosity, "he let the Smiths have it. But some new "mistake in the process" again resulted ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the sound of his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your throat and play at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-baa, black sheep!' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... particularly Prof. Hathaway. He put out his hand and patted my shoulder when I went out and I knew he was mighty sorry. He has been awfully decent to me always especially since I have been playing round with his daughter Elsie this fall and I guess it made him feel bad to have me turn out such a black sheep. I wished I could tell him the whole story but I couldn't. I just had to let him think it was as ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... MacLean had wrestled with the vocabulary on memorable occasions—to no avail; and although she had long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with him, it troubled her none the less. And because Michael came the nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for him ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... De Willoughbys very well," she said. "Oh, yes, very well indeed—in a way. We hear a good deal of them. De Courcy's wife was a friend of mine. This one is De Courcy, the other is Romaine, and there was one who was considered a sort of black sheep and broke with the family altogether. They don't know where he is and don't care to know, I suppose. They have their own views of the matter. Oh, yes; I know them ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... together give a lovely pink, and any shade of gray can be made by carding different proportions of black and white or half-black and white. A valuable gray is made by carding black and white wool together (and by black wool I mean the natural black or brownish wool of black sheep). Mixing of deeply dyed and white wool together in carding is, artistically considered, a very valuable process, as it gives a softness of colour which it is impossible to get in any other way. ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... century and a half, until about A.D. 1400. Then it was taken by Timur, from whom the sultan Ahmed Ben Avis fled, and, finding refuge with the Greek emperor, contrived later to repossess himself of the city, whence he was finally expelled by Kara Yusuf of the Kara-Kuyunli ("Black Sheep") Mongols in 1417. About 1468 the descendants of the latter were driven out by Uzun Hasan or Cassim of the Ak-Kuyunli ("White Sheep") Mongols. He and his descendants reigned in Bagdad until Shah Ismail I., the founder of the Safawid royal house of Persia, made himself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... first nigger to join the church on this side of the Mason and Dixie line. During slavery we all joined the white folk's church set in the back. After slavery in 1866 they met in conference and motioned to turn all of the black sheep out then. There was four or five they turned out here and four or five there, so we called our preacher and I was the first one to join. Old master asked our preacher what we paid him to preach to us. We told him old shoes and clothes. Old master says, 'Well, that's damn poor pay.' Our preacher ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... certainly, Mr. Axtell, that dog is Dashwood, he is a perfect gentleman," and this is what all Boston terriers should be. Of course, I am speaking of the well bred, properly trained, blue blooded dog, not the mongrel that so often masquerades under his name. Still, as there are black sheep in every family, a dog showing an ugly, snapping, quarrelsome disposition will occasionally be met with which, to the shame of the owner, is not mercifully put out of the way and buried so deep that he can not be scratched up, ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... Beth, complacently, "is an excellent thing in the abstract. It has its black sheep, of course; but I think no more than any ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... obstinately refused to hear one word in his defence, and would believe no good of him. He was quite honest in his desire to do the best that was possible for the child, and in the feeling that it would be better to keep all knowledge of her father from her. He looked upon Hugh Davidson as a black sheep. A black sheep could do no good to any one; therefore, he argued, he should not come near this ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... it's the most awfully oncomfortable book that ever was written. You know what the Lord says in it—or you ought to—about what we do for the least of these his brethren; that means such as you, only you're a sort of black sheep in the family; and if words have any sense at all, the Lord takes my givin' you a dinner the same as if I gave it to him. Now s'pose the Lord came to my house, as he did to Mary and Martha's, and I should git him up a slimpsy dinner of second-hand victuals, and stand by a-chucklin' that I had ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Thy black sheep's faithful shepherd Who knew not how to flee, Is torn by the desert leopard, And comes ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... sideways. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, the pink colour coming and going in her cheeks was very delicate and girlish. After all, this could never be the black sheep. He had been quite right to sit down. It was astonishing how seldom it was that his instincts betrayed him. He breathed a ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you approaching, we two agreed to stand out from among the black sheep. The rest of the craft in there are one and all slavers, and if you take or destroy them they will only get their due," said the ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... so far from losing power, was actually gaining it, and that not only among the lower classes. As Lucretius mockingly said, even those who think and speak with contempt of the gods will in moments of trouble slay black sheep and sacrifice them to the Manes. This feeling of fear or nervousness, which lies at the root of the meaning of the word religio,[571] had been quieted in the old days by the prescriptions of the pontifices and their jus divinum, but it was always ready to break out again; as we have seen, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... and she made a quick decision to travel with them. When she calmly announced her intention of going out West her mother had exclaimed in consternation; and her father, surprised into pathetic memory of the black sheep of the family, had stared at her with glistening eyes. "Why, Madeline! You want to see that wild boy!" Then he had reverted to the anger he still felt for his wayward son, and he had forbidden Madeline to go. Her mother forgot ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... "Black Sheep," by Edna Hyde, is an excellent specimen of blank verse by our gifted laureate. Line 14 seems to lack a syllable, but this deficiency is probably the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... is invariably the centre of an interested group. As the company scapegrace and black sheep of the battalion he occupies in his mates' eyes a position of considerable importance. His repartees are famous, and none knows better than he how to score off an unpopular officer or N.C.O. He has the distinction also of ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... have been some twinges of disappointment, there could hardly have been surprise, when the black sheep directed his choice without a look elsewhere to Hetty. She stood up, smiling but rather pale, and he rushed her to the head of the room, securing the most conspicuous place before his rival, who with his partner took the place of second ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... deny it," answered Scrogie, a little discountenanced—"a mere accident—no one can guard every point.—Egad, but I had like to have been baffled again, for Bulmer sent the lad Jekyl, who is not such a black sheep neither but what there are some white hairs about him, upon a treaty with Tyrrel, that my secret agent was not admitted to. Gad, but I discovered the whole—you will scarce ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... tell Father the very next time. I don't think she would have, because we made a rule, when we were poor and honest, not to bother Father if we could possibly help it. And we keep it up still. But Archibald didn't know that. Then this cousin, who is, I fear, the black sheep of the Bastables, and hardly worthy to be called one, used to pull the girls' hair, and pinch them at prayers when they could not call out or do ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses, And faith he went the pace and went it blind, And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind. We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... being for years the black sheep of the ancient family, that he should come into possession of Osbaldistone Tower and Manor touched his vein ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... starve him and all-his subjects; he would frustrate all his family schemes, he would renounce him, he would unpope him, he would do anything that man and despot could do, should the great shepherd dare to re-admit this lost sheep, and this very black sheep, into the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... July is not to be despised; it will store no clover or linden honey for the "grand seignior and the ladies of his seraglio," but plenty of the rank and wholesome poor man's nectar, the sun-tanned product of the plebeian buckwheat. Buckwheat honey is the black sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and character in it. It lays hold of the taste in no equivocal manner, especially when at a winter breakfast it meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. Bread ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... smack the children, so this last remark of hers had long fallen flat. Alison came in almost immediately after the children, and then, after a longer interval, Harry, looking red and sleepy, took his place by the table. Harry was undoubtedly the black sheep of the family. Both Alison and David bestowed on him one or two anxious glances, but Grannie was too absorbed in some other thought to take much notice of him this morning. Immediately after breakfast the children knelt down, and Grannie repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud. Then ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the Hopkins household were slight compared with the records against "the black sheep" of the colony, the family of Billingtons from London. The mother, Helen or Ellen, did not seem to redeem the reputation of husband and sons; traditionally she was called "the scold." After her husband had been executed ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... somewhere to that effect? Also remember a little that there was an Europe as well as an England? In sum, Euge." Such praise from such a man was balm to Froude's wounds and tonic to his nerves. Practically expelled from his college, regarded by his own family as almost a black sheep, he found himself taken up, and treated as an equal, by a writer of European fame, whom of all his contemporaries he most admired. In deference to Carlyle he rewrote his opening paragraphs, and added useful dates. European history ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Delatour. I had seen Mademoiselle Lucie grow up from childhood. She was charming. But she married and passed largely out of our life. Monsieur Delatour grew old. He had made his will leaving the property chiefly to his daughter. But there was a nephew, a spendthrift—what you call in English the black sheep—and after Monsieur Delatour died this mauvais sujet offered me money to swear that there was a later will. The object? To tie up the estate, to delay the settlement, to force a compromise with the daughter. I took the money. I perjured myself. There was ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... visitation of the Benedictine foundation of St Benedict, at Montpellier, partly a monastery and partly a college. The Prior is strictly questioned about the conduct of the students. He gives a good character to most of them: but the little flock contained some black sheep. Peter is somewhat light-headed ("aliquantulum est levis capitis") but not incorrigible; he has been guilty of employing "verba injuriosa et provocativa," but the Prior has corrected him, and he has taken the correction ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... Vengeance, however, followed discovery, and swift was the retribution which overtook the troubadour when guilty of faithless conduct. The tragic story of Guillem de Cabestaing, who came from that district of Roussillon which is said to be famous for its red wine and its black sheep, will serve to show how love could not be bound by laws of honor and how quick punishment came to pay the score. Guillem, the son of a poor knight, came at the age of twelve to enter the service of my lord Raimon of Roussillon, who was also his father's lord, and there in the castle he began ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Kaid came forward to meet him with a little black sheep in his arms, struggling, frightened at finding itself captured, bleating painfully. The wool was separated, and Owen was invited to feel this living flesh, which in a few hours he would be eating; it would have been impolite to the Kaid to refuse to feel the sheep's ribs, so ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... pledge, far less one that is in point of office a servant of the public, I understand that he lost the music bells in Edinburgh, for playing "Ower the Water to Charlie," upon the tenth of June. He is a black sheep, and deserves ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... persecuted. In society they were tabooed; in business shunned. By the rabble they were hooted and pelted. Clowns in the circus made them the subjects of their jokes. Newspaper scribblers lampooned and libelled them. Politicians denounced them. By the Church they were regarded as very black sheep, and sometimes excluded from the fold. And this state of things lasted for years, during which they kept up a steady agitation with the help of platform lecturers, and regularly threw away their votes—so it was charged—in a "third party" ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... of Koolfu are professedly Mahommedans; the rest are pagans, who once a year, in common with the other people of Nyffee, repair to a high hill in one of the southern provinces, on which they sacrifice a black bull, a black sheep, and a black dog. On their fetish houses are sculptured, as in Youriba, the lizard, the crocodile, the tortoise, and the boa, with sometimes human figures. Their language is a dialect of the Youribanee, but the Houssa is that of the market. They are civil, but the truth is not in ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... north of the Platte, Bud's two black sheep balked. Bud himself, worn by sleepless nights and long hours in the saddle, turned furiously when Jerry announced that he guessed he and Ed wouldn't ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... wine, Brother Bonney—pious Brother Bonney—after a long pause, as if inquiring whether all the whites members had been served, and fully assuring himself on that important point, then raised his voice to an unnatural pitch, and looking to the corner where his black sheep seemed penned, beckoned with his hand, exclaiming, "Come forward, colored friends! come forward! You, too, have an interest in the blood of Christ. God is no respecter of persons. Come forward, and take this holy sacrament to your{275} comfort." The ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... rugged and expert. With the tenacious energy of his race he had taken passage unknown to his father on a frigate bound for the Chinchas Islands for a cargo of guano, manned by a crew of many races—deserters from the English navy, bargemen from Valparaiso, Peruvian Indians, black sheep of every family, all under command of a Catalonian, a niggardly ruffian, more prodigal with blows than with the mess. The outbound trip was uneventful, but on the return voyage, after passing the Straits of Magellan, they ran into the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez |
