"Tarnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, bursts forth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapor and tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and environment, we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love;—though, alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... hoops or ridges, (French, enchasser[O]). Then the armorer, or cup and casket maker, added to this kind of decoration that of flat inlaid enamel; and the silver-worker, finding that the raised filigree (still a staple at Genoa) only attracted tarnish, or got crushed, early sought to decorate a surface which would bear external friction, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... saddening consciousness how differently he could have felt formerly. It was, indeed, wholly beyond the power, even of an imagination like his, to go on investing with its own ideal glories a sentiment which,—more from daring and vanity than from any other impulse,—he had taken such pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him, to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the form of love, which he so often conjured up, for its substance, he now degenerated into ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... country the general dotage seems to have reached a sort of climax, for there you have the people actually forgetting, deriding, or denying their greatest men who form the only lasting glories of their history; they have even done their futile best to tarnish the unsoilable fame of Shakespeare. In that land you,—who, according to your own showing, started for the race of life full of high hopes and inspiration to still higher endeavor—you have been, poisoned by the tainted atmosphere ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... be happy only in its own way. Yet, after all, Phoebe was human; and some very sorrowful tears were shed, for a few minutes, over that gift laid on the altar. Though the drops were salt, they would not tarnish the gold. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... the Time specifyde, there was brought up to the Door an old white Horse, blind of one Eye, with an aquiline Nose, and, I should think, eight Feet high. The Bridle was diverse from the Pillion, which was finely embroidered, but tarnish, with the Stuffing oozing out in severall Places. Howbeit, 'twas the onlie Equipage to be hired in the Ward, for Love or Money . . . so Ned sayd. . . . And he had a huge Pair of gauntlett Gloves, a Whip, that was the smartest Thing about him, and a kind of Vizard ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Virtue, for such is the decree of the Most High, is evermore obliged to pass through the ordeal of temptation, and the thorny paths of adversity. If, in this day of her trial, no foul blot obscure her lustre, no irresolution and instability tarnish the clearness of her spirit, then may she rejoice in the view of her approaching reward, and receive with an open heart the crown that ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... system is admirably adapted to the whole continent; and while I would not violate the laws of national or treaty stipulations, or in any manner tarnish the national honor, I would exert all legal and honorable means to drive Great Britain and the last vestige of royal authority from the continent of North America, and extend the limits of the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... It was his diadem; Nor ever tarnish-taint of shame Could dim its luster—like a flame Reflected in a gem, He wears it blazing on his brow Within the courts of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... is I who keep you, my future prospects would be destroyed. What client would confide his interests to the imbecile who ruined himself for the woman who has been the talk of all Paris? I am not a great lord, I have neither an historical name to tarnish, nor an immense fortune to lose. I am plain Noel Gerdy, a advocate. My reputation is all that I possess. It is a false one, I admit. Such as it is, however, I must keep it, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... more upon me with the coming day, that I was by this one stroke immensely rich. The treasure was gold— rich, ruddy gold, all save one of the great round shields, and that was of massive silver, black almost as ink with tarnish; while its fellow-shield—a sun, as I now saw, as I afterwards made out the other to be a representation of the moon—was of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... not worthy to name," the man answered, with reverence. "If it accepts your reason why she should stay—if your love is found to be without tarnish of self—it will work ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated. From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics the advocates ...
— The Federalist Papers
... forth separate and large, and as it were a little bill, from among the domes of its companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints of gold and tarnish in the green; and the sun so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher here laid ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... does it matter? Life is so short, one is a coward indeed to fret over it. I cannot undo what I did. I cannot, if I could. To betray him now! God! not for a kingdom, if I had the chance! Besides, she may live still; and, even were she dead, to tarnish her name to clear my own would be a scoundrel's baseness—baseness that would fail as it merited; for who could be brought to ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Enough! No more of your fugacious stuff, Trite anecdotes and stories! Rude martyrs of Sam. Johnson's name, You rob him of his honest fame, And tarnish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... to revenge himself for this failure of his base and selfish design, never let an opportunity slip of thwarting or annoying the man whose high public character his petty malice could not reach, and whose private worth his mean envy could not tarnish. His letters to Washington, the tone of which heretofore had been uncivil enough, now became harsh and insolent, full of fault-finding, and bristling all over with biting reproofs and unmanly insinuations. ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... love is the greatest thing that has been given to man. The man who has loved knows that the biggest things in the world have been done for the love of woman. Love is bigger than nations or races. It's human, not white, or black, or yellow. It's above all we can do to tarnish it with our little prejudices. When it comes ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... "is it possible Colonel Morton, that you intend to fight that man? He is a mute, if not a positive maniac. Such a meeting, I fear, will sadly tarnish the ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... glories for Erin their mother, Weak plans and wicked plans chasing each other; To me worse than the loss of a sceptre and crown Is a spot that might tarnish my children's renown, 'Tis the laurels they win are the jewels I prize, They're the core of my heart and the light of my eyes; For my children are gems and crown jewels to me, And art thou not one of them, ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... the rice, shoveling it with her two chopsticks into her very throat. Next the little cups and covers are picked up, as well as the tiniest crumb that may have fallen upon the white mats, the irreproachable purity of which nothing is allowed to tarnish. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... from one door to another, and entered spacious and faded chambers, some rudely shuttered, some receiving their full charge of daylight, all empty and unhomely. It was a rich house, on which Time had breathed his tarnish and dust had scattered disillusion. The spider swung there; the bloated tarantula scampered on the cornices; ants had their crowded highways on the floor of halls of audience; the big and foul fly, that lives on carrion and is often the messenger of ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cared for the appreciation of the public of which he had experienced the fickle favors; his knowledge of life, his simple tastes, his love of nature, and the greatness of his mind, of which no ambition or worldly feeling could tarnish the simplicity and even sublimity. In giving him two individualities the novelist was better able to combine the passionate sarcasms of Cadurcis with the smiles of goodness and tolerance of Herbert, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... oh! bitter and humiliating reflection, in that most wretched and disgraceful of all situations, a suspected traitor, I am not indeed what I seem to be. It is not for me here to enter into the history of my past life; neither will I tarnish the hitherto unsullied reputation of my family by disclosing my true name. Suffice it to observe, I am a gentleman by birth; and although, of late years, I have known all the hardships and privations attendant on my fallen fortunes, I was ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... recorded in history to endless time, than have lived to old age unknown, unhonoured. Nor can I desire better, than, having been the chosen and beloved of his heart, here, in youth's prime, before added years can tarnish the best feelings of my nature, to watch his tomb, and speedily rejoin him in ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... one of those rounded and supple figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and lip than its native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously to the fingers of the toying wind. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... our black wards, even as we persist in misunderstanding the "Yankee." But no gibbet rose in that storm-swept waste; our very leaders now occupy positions of honor and trust under the flag they defied. Let us not requite the generosity of our erstwhile foes by an attempt to tarnish their well-earned laurels. Rather let us praise and emulate them—strive with them in a nobler field than that of war. When the North and South blend in one homogeneous people, as blend they must, when the blood of the stern Puritan mingles with that of the dashing Cavalier, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... was persuaded to cross the seas from her Spartan home to set Troy ablaze, and tarnish her fair fame, but it would take twenty sons of Priam to induce a damsel to come over dry land to Craddock Dene, to cook our ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... which is supposed to have taken place at Jaffa, the government devolved upon his brother Baldwin, who sustained its glory and interests with a steady hand. About the year 1118, he was succeeded on his throne by his nephew, who bore the same name, and who, although sometimes unfortunate, did not tarnish the honour of his family. Melisandra, his eldest daughter, married Foulques of Anjou, and conveyed the kingdom of Jerusalem into the hand of her husband, who enjoyed it ten or twelve years, when he lost his life by a fall from a horse. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... Gewaender," vol. i. p. 48. Prizes are offered at Lyons for the best mode of manufacturing gold and silver thread that will not tarnish. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... case with all great men, his faults and virtues have been equally exaggerated. The Recollets, whom he always favoured, could never speak too well of him, whilst the Jesuits, whom he distrusted, did all they could to tarnish his reputation. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... was remarked for the elegance of manner, and the liveliness of conversation, which continued to be his distinctions to the close of his career. Unfortunately, the fashion of the time not only allowed, but seems to have almost required, an irregularity of life which would tarnish the character of any man in our more decorous day. His unfortunate intercourse with Viscountess Bolingbroke, better known by her subsequent name of Lady Diana Beauclerk, produced a divorce, and in two days after a marriage. She was the eldest daughter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... their fellow-townsmen. Many tears of pity were shed; but the king still showed himself implacable, and commanded that they should he led away, and their heads stricken off. Sir Walter Mauny interceded for them with all his might, even telling the king that such an execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... from water (Arab. "Rutub"), before the air can tarnish them. The pearl (margarita) in Arab. is Lu'lu'; the "unio" or large pearl Durr, plur. Durar. In modern parlance Durr is the second quality of the twelve into ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... by the way, have a special name of honor), partly for the reason that this is not a matter of general information, and partly because of the unwillingness to impart information to a foreigner which is felt to tarnish the luster of the Imperial glory. A librarian of a public library refused to lend a book containing the desired facts, saying that foreigners might be freely informed of that which reveals the good, the ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... a picture of human nature as a whole. "I count Rochefoucauld's Maxims," says one critic, "a bad book. As I am reading it, I feel discomfort; I have a sense of suffering which I cannot define. Such thoughts tarnish the brightness of the soul; they degrade the heart." Yet as a faithful presentation of human selfishness, and of you and me in so far as we happen to be mainly selfish, the odious mirror has its uses ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... homefarers from office and factory had begun to tarnish the brilliance of this show, when the women had begun to scatter—this one to dinner with her man, that one back to the hall-room supper by whose economies she saved for her Saturday afternoon vanities—Bertram and Mark drifted with the current ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... opportunity for Vaudreuil, and he did not fail to use it. Jealous of his rival's exploit, he spared no pains to tarnish it; complaining that Montcalm had stopped half way on the road to success, and, instead of following his instructions, had contented himself with one victory when he should have gained two. But the Governor ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... composition and manifests itself through it, is in these pieces so vague and attenuated that it fades into the background of the concert-hall, is like gray upon gray. The gems and gold thread and filigree with which this work is sewn tarnish in the gloom. Something is there, we perceive, something that moves and sways and rises and ebbs fitfully in the dim light. But it is a wraithlike thing, and undulates and falls before our eyes like flames ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... will not incur the disgrace of confessing to all the world that you are unable to fulfil your word- -not to rest before having overthrown Napoleon, and made your entrance into Paris. Nor will you tarnish your glory on account of your eyes. You will not become a faithless father and friend to your soldiers, whom you have so often greeted as your children, and who have always confided in you; nor will you break our courage and paralyze our souls by ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... wait for this justice, and submit to being plundered in the first instance, if I have myself the means and spirit to protect my own property? But if an affront is offered to me, submission under which is to tarnish my character for ever with men of honour, ant for which the twelve judges of England, with the Chancellor to boot, can afford me no redress, by what rule of law or reason am I to be deterred from protecting what ought to be, and is, so infinitely dearer to every man ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... dangerous than the adorers of a changeable Deity, who, they imagine, is pleased with the extermination of a large portion of mankind, on account of their opinions. Our speculations are indifferent to God, whose glory man cannot tarnish—whose power mortals cannot abridge. They may, however, be advantageous to ourselves; they may be perfectly indifferent to society, whose happiness they may not affect; or they may be the reverse of all this. For it is evident that the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... colonies being laid before parliament; by reason of which, measures injurious and inefficacious had been carried into execution, from whence no salutary end could have been reasonably expected; tending to tarnish the lustre of the British arms, to bring discredit on the wisdom of his majesty's councils, and to nourish, without hope of end, a most unhappy civil war. That, deeply impressed with the melancholy state of public ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... were better for them to conceal their misfortunes than to proclaim them; that many a fortress had been saved by the courage of its defenders, and their determination to conceal its weakened condition at all sacrifices. 'Above all things,' he said, 'do not tarnish the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had lain awake with the agony of those Eastern debts. Not to pay was to tarnish the name of a Southern gentleman. He could not sell the business. His house would bring nothing in these times. He rose and began to pace the floor, tugging at his chin. Twice he paused to stare at Mr. Hopper, who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded silence, stamped it with his ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... experiment has been entirely in favor of legislation for admitting women to the ballot-box. And I do not believe that in putting these higher responsibilities upon women we degrade their character, that we subject them to uncongenial pursuits, that we injure their moral tone, that we tarnish their delicacy, that we in any way make them less noble and admirable as women, as wives, and mothers. I believe that by realizing the intention of the Constitution, which uses words that are so fully explained by our courts and by our writers upon the uses of words, we simply open a wider avenue ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... or e'er thou stampest on thy soul Eternally such misery as thine, And writest on God's conscience-blasting scroll, A wife's dishonour, and a tarnish'd line, To weigh ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... never boasted, who never discussed their intentions or plans until they were carried out, were the men to take the law into their own hands when their honor was involved, no matter who was hurt. Such a catastrophe would not only bring to light her own misery, but the unavoidable publicity would tarnish still further the good name of her people at home. Even were only an attempt on Dalton's life made, and an official investigation held—as she was convinced would be the case—the scandal would be almost as bad. Rather than have this occur she would make any sacrifice, even that of humiliating ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a brother soothes, Not with flatteries, but truths, Which tarnish not, but purify To light which dims the morning's eye. I have come from the spring-woods, From the fragrant solitudes;— Listen what the poplar-tree ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I worship grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet! For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him that made me; and may his blessing alight on my endeavors for serving my country faithfully! To him I ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... aimed by that villainous writer, the honourable gentleman said, was struck at him. He was a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, and he must reply ere the foul stain was permitted to tarnish his name. He came from a sunny land where all the women were beautiful and all the men brave, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than permit any obscure ink-slinger to impeach his fair fame. He carried the honour of his country in his heart; he would sooner ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... he does also find it shares with all mundane concerns the qualities of inadequacy and error. It suffers from the common penalty of noble propositions; it is hampered by the insufficiency of its supporters and advocates, and by the superficial tarnish that necessarily falls in our atmosphere of greed and conflict darkest upon the brightest things. In spite of these admissions of failure and unworthiness in himself and those about him, he ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... as though some solemn pledge had passed between them—a spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex disarray of this world to the edge of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... dogs wistfully sniffing at passers-by in hopes of finding a permanent friend; tired, blind work horses standing in the sun and resignedly being overloaded for the day's haul; fire sales of fur coats; candy sales of gooey hunks; a jewellery special of earrings warranted to betray no tarnish until well after Christmas; brokers' ads and vaudeville billboards and rows upon rows of awful, huddled-up, gardenless homes with families lodged somewhere between the first and twelfth stories—the general ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... all. It is still capable of doing effective service. After all the rust and tarnish of three centuries, these words of Luther are remarkably fresh, and seem almost like a living utterance of to-day. Their critical value is not indeed great, although by no means contemptible, for the quick sagacity of the Reformer in detecting the meaning and the force of the Scriptural argument, ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, and of its promulgation to the world on the 20th of May, 1775. And yet, in the face of this strong phalanx of unimpeachable testimony, there are a few who have attempted to rob North Carolina of this brightest gem in the crown of her early political history, and tarnish, by base and insidious cavils the fair name and reputation of a band of Revolutionary patriots, whose memories and heroic deeds the present generation and posterity will ever delight ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... was lost in the father. He rose hastily from his seat, and walking toward the window, wiped off a tear which he was afraid would tarnish ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... he didn't know the old noblesse oblige spirit of the Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to the point under ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... embeleso m. rapture. embestir assail, attack. embolismo m. confusion, maze, embarrassment, falsehood. embolsarse pocket. embozado m. muffled one. embozar cloak, muffle. embriagar intoxicate, transport, enrapture; —se get intoxicated. empaar dim, tarnish. empapar soak, steep. empedernido, -a hard-hearted. empearse persist, insist. empeo m. determination, desire. empero adv. however, notwithstanding. empezar begin. empleo m. employment, use. emponzoar poison, taint. empuje ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... brutes no longer, Till some reason you shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger, Than the colour of our kind. Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... that your Imperial Majesty will please to believe me to be sensible that the honours which you have so graciously bestowed upon me, it is my duty not to tarnish; and that your Majesty will further believe that, highly as I prize those honours, I hold the maintenance of my reputation in my native country in ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... is the breath of a moment. Mirth cannot tarnish glory,—the mirror in which the gods ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to sin and debasement. They offer the young man the wine-glass, the gambling-table, the gratification of lust and passion. They offer the young woman flattery, gay dress, the dance, pleasures that will tarnish her womanly purity. We all know the ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... such miraculous powers of beautifying the complexion, all contain, in different proportions, preparations of mercury, alcohol, acids, and other deleterious substances, which are highly injurious to the skin; and their continual application will be found to tarnish it, and produce furrows and wrinkles far more unsightly than those of age, beside which they are frequently absorbed by the vessels of the skin, enter the system, and seriously ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... of your attempting an intrigue with her gracious Majesty, the Queen! Hark'ee, fellow, begone! and thank my moderation that I do not punish you upon the spot, for your infernal presumption! Yet I would scorn to tarnish the lustre of my good sword with the blood of such a thing ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... was changed? The question has been repeatedly asked, was this money to be ultimately paid or not? He would say this: unquestionably it was to be paid, if the country was bound to its payment by good faith. He would not tarnish the fair fame of the country for any sum whatever, upon any occasion, but more especially upon an occasion on which England had received a valuable consideration. When we incurred this responsibility on the behalf of Holland, we received from that country the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... glorious news for her. But, as if to tarnish its delight, like an envious sprite of evil, deep down in her mind lay that other news, just read—the ambiguous ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... bare its heart. He has been inhaling its delicious soul this half hour: let us see what he does with it." And as they looked they saw Reyburn lift the half-forgotten flower, whose pale bloom had begun to tarnish ever so little, glance at it lightly and give it a careless fillip to the marble floor of the hall where he was walking up and down, and where, as he came back, he set his heel upon it without knowing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... corn of others passed through the hoppers of Shakspere's brain and came out fine flour, ready for use by the theatrical bakers. With the pen of pleasure and brush of fancy he painted human life in everlasting colors, that will not fade or tarnish with age or wither with the winds of adversity. The celestial sunlight of his genius permeated every object he touched and lifted even the vulgar vices of earth into the realms ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... glass, of a greenish tinge, upon which is laid gold leaf. Over this leaf is another film of glass, extremely thin, so that the actual metal is isolated between two glasses, and is thus impervious to such qualities in the air as would tarnish it or cause it to deteriorate. To prevent an uninteresting evenness of surface on which the sun's rays would glint in a trying manner, it was usual to lay the gold cubes in a slightly irregular manner, so that each facet, as it were, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... It is better to be dumb, than to utter such words as these. As you know well, there is not a breath to tarnish this ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... Ah, who comes forth To thy side, Goddess, from within? How shall I name him? This spare, dark-featured, Quick-eyed stranger? Ah, and I see too His sailor's bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnish'd, With one arm bare!— Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumours The favour'd guest of Circe, brought by the waves? Art thou he, stranger? The wise Ulysses, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... her and his manner to others, she believed that she could now understand all that he intended. She was to be held in disgrace perhaps for a long time, but appearances were to be kept up. No breath of scandal was to tarnish the reputation of the Rodchurch postmaster; the curious world must not be allowed the very slightest peep behind the scenes of his private life; and she, without explicit instructions, was to assist in preventing any one—even poor humble Mary—from ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the granddaughter of M. Langevin; that, moreover, M. Langevin had acted very liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own; finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a young man, and the obstinacy of an ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... that James was a miser, Cora began to see other things, because, once there's a spot for doubt to work, the tarnish soon spreads. James would not buy her a ring, but put five pounds in the bank for her, which didn't interest Cora much; and that's how it stood with them; while as to the other pair, the friction was ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... he shouted, "I have ever seen the 49th turn their backs! Surely the heroes of Egmont will never tarnish ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... lay where he was. I would do my companions what honour I can, but the stern code of the chronicler permits no quibbling with the fact that Mosey and Bum wound up the evening with a series of gestes and apothegms, such as must not tarnish these pages—Willoughby occasionally taking part, rather, I think, through courtesy than sympathy, and ably closing the service with a fescennine anecdote, beginning, 'It is related that, on one occasion, the late ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... were not numerous: a certain bold faced countess, the fire in whose eyes had begun to tarnish, and the natural lines of whose figure were vanishing in expansion; the soldier, her nephew, a waisted elegance; a long, lean man, who dawdled with what he ate, and drank as if his bones thirsted; an elderly, broad; ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... since been my custom (among other contrivances) not only to leave my keys in the locks, but to employ the wench now-and-then in taking out my cloaths, suit by suit, on pretence of preventing their being rumpled or creased, and to see that the flowered silver suit did not tarnish: sometimes declaredly to give myself employment, having little else to do. With which employment (superadded to the delight taken by the low as well as by the high of our sex in seeing fine cloaths) she seemed always, I thought, as well pleased as if it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the murderers of my children! But I am less sensible of my private afflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready to expose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, and dishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish your glory, and have all the world say that a nation who first dedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours? Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but the use of moderation in the greatest prosperity, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... man, with a little turn-up red nose and long red moustaches. A pointed Persian cap with a crimson cloth crown covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. He was dressed in a shabby yellow Caucasian overcoat, with black velveteen cartridge pockets on the breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his shoulder was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A raw-boned, hook-nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his weight; two lean, crook-pawed greyhounds kept turning round just under the horse's legs. The face, the glance, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... days, however, we had gotten the ship into high order and ready for sea, and now the glory and honour of command, like my only epaulet, that had been soaked while on duty in one or two showers, and afterwards regularly bronzed in the sun, began to tarnish, and lose the new gloss, like every thing else in this weary world. It was about this time, while sitting at breakfast in the gunroom one fine morning, with the other officers of our mess, gossiping about I hardly remember what, that we heard the captain's ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... others! Disregarding the kinsmen of her lord, let her live in her husband's house and eat, at the day's close, the flour of fried barely! Let her come to be regarded as unenjoyable (in consequence of the stains that would tarnish her)! Let her be the mother of a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... have been talking, not of ordinary conformity to what the world requires, but of that fine perfection of mental and moral constitution, which, in its own natural necessary acting, leaves nothing to be desired, in every occasion or circumstance of life. It is the pure gold, and it knows no tarnish; it is the true coin, and it gives what it proffers to give; it is the living plant ever blossoming, and not the cut and art-arranged flowers. It is a thing of the mind altogether; and where nature has not curiously prepared the soil, it ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... creature. She felt unmistakably that she was forgiven for her infidelity due to the Infant in the darkness beyond the opposite aisle. The face of the Lady of VII Dolours miraculously smiled at her; the silver heart miraculously shed its tarnish and glittered beneficent lightnings. Doubtless she knew somewhere in her mind that no physical change had occurred in the picture or the heart; but her mind was a complex, and like nearly all minds could disbelieve ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... instrument construction, however, a thin coat of silver is seldom to be recommended, on account of its liability to tarnish and its rapid destruction when any attempt is made to repolish it. For these reasons, nickel or gold plating ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... was a friend of Lydia Becker and a cousin of Mrs. Belloc. John's death had been a horrible numbing shock to Honoria, and she felt hardly in her right mind for three months afterwards. Then on reflection it left some tarnish on her family, even if the memory of the dear dead boy, the too brilliant boy, softened from the poignancy of utter disappointment into a tender sorrow and an ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... early origin" (about saint veneration and relics, a purifying fire, celibacy, &c., &c.), "now so prevailed as in course of time almost to thrust true religion aside, or at least to exceedingly obscure and tarnish it." ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... condition; let him learn to honour their past fortune in their present pitiable lot. Therefore, said Handwan, he must mind that he did not rob of his empire the man with whom he sought alliance, nor bespatter her with the filth of ignobleness whom he desired to honour with marriage: else he would tarnish the honour of the union with covetousness. The courtliness of this saying not only won him his conqueror for son-in-law, but saved ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... woman,—why couldn't she have a fault or two? Isn't there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfection? Doesn't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Isn't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would require? It ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... discovered before the autumn was over the heart of Mr. Cyrus Worthington at her feet hardly deserves record in her history but for the fillip which it gave to her spirits. Tribute is tribute, and Mr. Worthington was a warrantable gentleman. The tarnish she had discerned upon her armour, the foxmarks upon her fair page, dispersed under his ardent breath; she realised herself desirable and loveworthy; she arose from the thicket in which she cowered with the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the age of forty, I visited that church. I looked earnestly at the altar-piece. I was astonished, hurt, disgusted. It was a coarse daub. The freshness of the painting had been long changed by the dark tarnish of years, and the blighting of damp atmosphere. There were some remains of beauty in the expression, and elegance in the attitude; but, as a piece of art it was but a second-rate performance. Age dispels many illusions, and suffers for it. Truly youth and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Let me for a space be free from this dastard age creeping through the veins, dulling the perspective of life and leadening the brain, whose carping companions draw attention to the bitters in the cups of Youth's Delights, and mutter that the golden crowns we struggle for shall tarnish as soon as they are placed on our tired brows!" Suddenly my bitter reverie was broken by the knight and the lady calling in startled tones. I replied, and presently they were upon me, Dawn very much ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... solemn-faced. The most silent man in the bunch, was Noisy Cooper, who scarcely ever spoke a word unless forced to do so by an insistent question. Bat Coyne had been a cattle man down in Texas, while Mary Johnson —so called because of his pink and white complexion, which no amount of sun or wind could tarnish—was said to have come from the East. He had left there for reasons best known to himself, working on sheep ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... to salute, in the name of the aesthetic freedom he represented, those enduring elements of human loveliness and beauty in that figure which three hundred years of hypocritical puritanism have proved unable to tarnish. What creates the peculiar savagery of hatred which his name has still the power to conjure up among the enemies of civilisation has little to do with the ambiguous causes of his final downfall. These, of course, gave him up, bound hand and foot, into their hands. But these, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... which it has not the secret. Thus it does idiotic things which its master many a time has much difficulty in making good. But the thing that must be destroyed first of all is the old false taste. Present-day literature must be cleansed of its rust. In vain does the rust eat into it and tarnish it. It is addressing a young, stern, vigorous generation, which does not understand it. The train of the eighteenth century is still dragging in the nineteenth; but we, we young men who have seen Bonaparte, are not the ones who ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... carries in his knapsack the baton of the Field Marshal, so every girl in her teens knows that there lie hidden in the recesses of her armoire, the robes and coronet and full insignia of a first-rate novelist. She may not choose to take them out and air them, the crown may tarnish by disuse, the moth of indolence may corrupt, but there lies the panoply in which she may on any day appear fully dight, for the astonishment of an awakening world. Jane Austen and Maria Edgworth are heroines, whose aureoles shine in ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... lead, the paint prepared with it and ordinary linseed oil does not dry or harden so rapidly. For the purpose of causing it to be more siccative, the oil was boiled with a large quantity of litharge, but by this method the white was liable to tarnish on meeting with foul air. Instead of litharge, experiments have led to the choice of salts of zinc, such as the chloride or sulphate, a small percentage of which, on being mixed with the oil or oxide, confers upon it the property of rapidly hardening. The same result ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... this planet, it has been growing upon me that this order of men and women, wearing such a uniform as you wear, and with faces strengthened by discipline and touched with devotion, is the Utopian reality; but that for them, the whole fabric of these fair appearances would crumble and tarnish, shrink and shrivel, until at last, back I should be amidst the grime and disorders of the life of earth. Tell me about these samurai, who remind me of Plato's guardians, who look like Knights Templars, who bear a name that recalls the swordsmen of Japan ... and whose uniform you yourself ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... case. If we do we shall tarnish the laurels of Caesar, who would have shown no genius in killing the republic had the republic been already dead. There was still respect for the law and the constitution. Pompey's hesitation when supreme power was within his grasp, Caesar's own pause ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... to. But although it looks equally well at first, it soon becomes tarnished, and spoils the effect of the embroidery. Gold and silver threads are difficult to work with in England, and especially in London, as damp and coal-smoke tarnish them almost before the work is out of the frame. Mrs. Dolby recommends cloves being placed in the papers in ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... July. When the chestnut-tree blooms, the meridian of the year is reached. By the first of August it is fairly one o'clock. The lustre of the season begins to dim, the foliage of the trees and woods to tarnish, the plumage of the birds to fade, and their songs to cease. The hints of approaching fall are on every hand. How suggestive this thistle-down, for instance, which, as I sit by the open window, comes in and brushes softly across my hand! The first snowflake tells of winter not more plainly than ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... be of age these two years. My uncle is, as you say, what is called a man of honour, but he is not one of those over-scrupulous fools who will pay any demand, however dishonest and unreasonable, rather than tarnish the family honour, forsooth! No! he will pay what the law compels him, and not a farthing more I leave you to decide whether the law is likely to be of much use to you in the present 84case. Now, listen to me; though you cannot obtain the money by the means you proposed, you can, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... strong? Burke, in his incomparable speech in the English Parliament on the East India bill, spoke for many great men in history when he thus alluded to the younger Fox: "He has faults; but they are faults, that though they may, in a small degree, tarnish the lustre, and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. In those faults there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional despotism, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... of Gerald Grantham. The image of Matilda floated in his mind, and, to the recollection of her beauty, he clung with an aching eagerness of delight that attested the extent of its influence over his imagination. Had there been nothing to tarnish that glorious picture of womanly perfection, the feelings it called up would have been too exquisite for endurance; but alas! with the faultless image, came also recollections, against which it required all the force of that beauty to maintain itself. One ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... avail To wound or to tarnish you; Because you are neither sold nor bought, Because you have not the power to fail But live beyond our furthest thought, Strange Numbers, of infinite clue, Beyond fear, beyond ruth, You strengthen also me To be ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... from my perverted taste, looked rather awkward in being only whitewashed, and the same effected in rather the "olden time;" to remedy which fanciful inconvenience, on my return to Bristol, I sent an upholsterer[8] down to this retired and happy abode with a few pieces of sprightly paper, to tarnish the half immaculate ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... soil to:/ to a certain extent tarnish.—/behaviours./ Shakespeare often uses abstract nouns in the plural. This usage is common in Carlyle. Here, however, and elsewhere in Shakespeare, as in Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii, 100, the plural 'behaviours' may ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... would not contest the sovereignty of the seas with the great naval power of the day, and he even, when he once felt himself strongly lodged in Asia, disbanded his naval force,[14361] that so it might be impossible for disaster at sea to tarnish his prestige. He was convinced that Asia could be won by the land force which he had been permitted to disembark on its shores, and probably anticipated the transfer of naval supremacy which almost immediately followed on the victory of Issus. The complete defeat ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... wish to go. I weary of life. There is no stain upon my soul. And yet, I grieve that you must tarnish yours with my blood. But," his eyes brightening and his tone becoming more animated, "Rosendo, I will pray the blessed Virgin for you. When I am with her in paradise I will ask her to beg the gentle Saviour to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Sandy and left him tingling. Love came to him, the first, clean white flame of first love, burning like a lamp in the heart of a man. It was for this, he knew, that he had been woman-shy, that he had cherished his own thought of womanhood as something so rare a thought might tarnish it. First love, shorn of boy fallacies, strong, irresistible, protective, passionate. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in his life, touched leather, gripping the horn of his saddle as if he would squeeze ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... brush, which will surely scratch and mar the fine surface. Most silver polishes are made of chalk prepared in different ways, but beware of the one which cleans too quickly: it is liable to remove the silver with the tarnish. Silver must not be allowed to become badly stained, thus necessitating hard rubbing and additional ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... it. The radicals were satisfied with the various enactments as they stood, and if there were infractions it became a matter of the police and sheriffs, and the Governor could not be held accountable. And he laid stress on the fact that the people did not want a Governor to tarnish the dignity of his ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... cannot be my son, Not the son of noble fathers. But if some great chance, which no one Can be free from, should have happened, Since the delicate sense of honour Is a thing so fine, so fragile, That the slightest touch may break it, Or the faintest breath may tarnish, What could he do more, do more, He whose cheek the blue blood mantles, But at many risks to have come here It again to re-establish? Yes, he is my son, my blood, Since he shows himself so manly. And thus then betwixt two doubts A mid course alone is granted: 'Tis to seek the King, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... one another to and fro in the keen old man's spirit. Vengeance said let Gerard come back and feel the weight of the law. Prudence said keep him a thousand miles off. But then Prudence said also, why do dirty work on a doubtful chance? Why put it in the power of these two rogues to tarnish your name? Finally, his strong persuasion that Gerard was in possession of a secret by means of which he could wound him to the quick, coupled with his caution, found words thus: "It is my duty ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... think on the scale of the Roman empire. I don't know what your pocket map of the universe is, the map, I mean, by which you judge all sorts of other general ideas. To me this planet is a little ball of oxides and nickel steel; life a sort of tarnish on its surface. And we, the minutest particles in that tarnish. Who can nevertheless, in some unaccountable way, take in the idea of this universe as one whole, who begin to dream of taking control ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... "Pere Goriot" and "Eugenie Grandet" were buried and lost sight of under mountains of rubbish. True that he now denied a number of books published under supposititious names, and which had been universally attributed to him; but enough remained, which he could not deny, to tarnish, if not to cancel his fame. To these he has since, with the reckless and inconsiderate greed that cares not for the public, so long as it finds a publisher, considerably added. His self-sufficiency is unparalleled; and in the preface to an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various |
