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Stain   Listen
noun
Stain  n.  
1.
A discoloration by foreign matter; a spot; as, a stain on a garment or cloth.
2.
A natural spot of a color different from the gound. "Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains."
3.
Taint of guilt; tarnish; disgrace; reproach. "Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains." "Our opinion... is, I trust, without any blemish or stain of heresy."
4.
Cause of reproach; shame.
5.
A tincture; a tinge. (R.) "You have some stain of soldier in you."
Synonyms: Blot; spot; taint; pollution; blemish; tarnish; color; disgrace; infamy; shame.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stain" Quotes from Famous Books



... detecting a long, dark streak in the grass, consisting of stains, and stretching from the window for a good many yards into the garden. The streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a big, brownish stain. Under the same bush was found a boot, which turned out to be the fellow to the one found ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... the shadow of our night: Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain, Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn With sparkless ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... dead who lie Beneath the flowery sod and graven stone." "Yea," saith the answering Spirit, "for they rest Forever from the labors they have done. Their works do follow them to regions blest; No stain hereafter can their lustre dim; The dead in Christ from ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... charity was not for home wear; the distress he did not see troubled him very little. It is vain to seek for any sufficient apology for Romney's shameful treatment of his wife and children. If it were possible to forget this deep stain upon his character he would seem, in all other relations of life, to be entitled to esteem and commendation. For the poor and needy he was ready, not merely with his sensibility, but with his purse. To his friends ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... the room, hung up his saddle, and found her sitting near. What should he say? How would his color change? In what way could he face her with that stain ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... but his was a nature which time and sorrow could only mellow and sweeten; and for all that had come and gone, he loved his "books clothed in black and red," to sit at good men's feasts; and if silent at table, as the Countess of Pembroke reported, the "stain upon his lip was wine." Chaucer's face is to his writings the best preface and commentary; it is contented-looking, like one familiar with pleasant thoughts, shy and self-contained somewhat, as if he preferred his ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... an' in life—but it can't be. The lovin' mother sent this message to you, Alley. Take it from her; she bid me tell you that we are well an' happy; our name is pure, and, like yourself, widout spot or stain. Won't you pray for us before God, an' get him an' his blessed Mother to look on us wid favor an' compassion? Farewell, Alley asthore! May you slelp in peace, an' rest on the breast of your great Father in Heaven, until we all meet in happiness together. It's your father that's spakin' to ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... every word of yours as a dear consolation; I guard each of your promises as a holy hope. Voltaire has saved Calas. Sing for me, sir, and I will bless your memory to the day of my death. I am innocent!... For eight long years I have suffered; and I am still suffering from the stain upon my honour. I grieve for a sight of the sun, but I still ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... to Dr. Ernest E. Williams, Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) and Dr. Richard G. Zweifel, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) for the loan of specimens. We are further indebted to Dr. Zweifel for permission to clear and stain one specimen. Dr. William E. Duellman and Linda Trueb offered many constructive criticisms. Miss Trueb executed the drawings of the skull and finger bones. Mr. Martin Wiley provided x-ray photographs ...
— Systematic Status of a South American Frog, Allophryne ruthveni Gaige • John D. Lynch

... from the sinner, is evident from many instances in scripture, such as those of David (2 Sam. XII) of Moses (Deuteron. XXXII compare Num. XIV) to say nothing of Adam (Gen. III) and all his posterity, who endure the temporal punishment of original sin, even when its stain has been washed away by baptism. Now the church by virtue of the ample authority with which Christ has invested her (Matt. XVIII, John XX) and in particular her chief pastor (Matt. XVI) has from the beginning exercised the power of remitting the temporal punishment of actual sins. Thus S. Paul ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... flat and gleaming in the grasses by the well in the wood, just as it had lain in the thicket where the woodman threw it in the beginning of all these things. But on one corner of the bright blade was a dull brown stain. ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton

... fellow in the yeomanry cavalry—a plain soldier, I may say; and we know what women think of such: that they are a bad lot—men you mustn't speak to for fear of losing your character—chaps you avoid in the roads—chaps that come into a house like oxen, daub the stairs wi' their boots, stain the furniture wi' their drink, talk rubbish to the servants, abuse all that's holy and righteous, and are only saved from being carried off by Old Nick because ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... a private;—and yet I know, When I heard the rallying call, I was one of the very first to go, And ... I'm one of the many who fall: But, as here I lie, it is sweet to feel, That my honor's without a stain;— That I only fought for my Country's weal, And not for ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston

... ardour, and like love Are in my soul: love's glowing gentleness, The sunny grass of meadows and the trees, Towers of dark green flame, and that white town Where from the hearths, a fragrance of burnt wood, Blue-purple smoke creeps like a stain of wine Along the paved blue sea: yea, all this kindness Lies amid salt immeasurable flowing, The power of the sea, passion of love. I, Sappho, have made love the mastery Most sacred over man; but I have made it A safety ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... from the faltering hands and which posterity must needs finish. The white of the flag of France, not quite so white as in time of peace since thousands of her sons had taken it in their hands and pressed it to their lips before they went forward to die for it, yet without stain, since in all the record of the war there is no blot on the escutcheon of France. And the blue of the flag of France, true blue, torn and tattered with the marks of the bullets and the shrapnel, yet unfurling proudly in the breeze whilst the very holes were patched ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke

... Jerry-Jo swore one angry word and stopped short. Then the girl's mood changed. Quite gently and noiselessly she ran to Jerry-Jo and held the opened book toward him. His keen eye fell upon the tear-stain, but his coarser nature wrongly ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... set aside, drawing an invidious parallel between the conduct of the French king and the proceedings of his Britannic majesty; in which the latter is taxed with breach of faith, and almost every meanness that could stain the character of a monarch. In answer to the emperor's decree and this virulent charge, baron Gimmengen, the electoral minister of Brunswick-Lunenbourg, presented to the diet, in November, a long memorial, recapitulating the important ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... is that causes the consternation. The camera is manifestly too far away to show unmistakably what Maud picks up—say, a broken-off knife-point. Suppose that it is part of the plot to have the spectator also grasp the fact that there is a dark stain on the knife-point. We must get it closer. So we write the scene up to the point where Maud holds up the object, then we start another ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... 1863, it did not venture or did not remember to claim this specie as part of the reality behind its greenback circulation. It was never merged in other funds, nor converted, nor put at interest. The bag lay there intact, with one brown stain of blood upon it, where Romolo de Soto had grasped it while a cutlass gash was fresh across his hand. And so it was carried, in specie, in its original package: "Four hundred and twenty-three American eagles, and fifteen ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... the heart of one who lies, unable to get out into the Spring. His lamp had burned itself quite out; the moon was fallen below the clump of pines, and away to the north-east something stirred in the stain and texture of the sky. Felix opened the window. What peace out there! The chill, scentless peace of night, waiting for dawn's renewal of warmth and youth. Through that bay window facing north he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... my sojourn in Golden Chersonese is a bit of amber-colored glass bearing the world-renowned name of a London brewer. There is a dark stain on one side of it that came from the hairy foot of one of ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... Parlamente, "that we all have need of God's grace, being all steeped in sin; but, for all that, our temptations are not similar to yours, and if we sin through pride, no one is injured by it, nor do our bodies and hands receive a stain. But your pleasure consists in dishonouring women, and your honour in slaying men in war—two things expressly contrary to the law of ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Where poverty its grieving head may hide, Will breathe the music of her voice's tone; And if her face was blest with beauty rare 'Mid gilded sighs and worldly vanity, When heavenly peace has left its impress there Its loveliness from earthly stain is free. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... strength and sweetness than any estimate or eulogium of mine. 'Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulatory track, and narrow path of goodness; pursue virtue virtuously: leaven not good actions, nor render virtue disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul intentions; maim not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor circumstantially deprave substantial goodness. Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes' table, or that old philosophical pinax of the life of man: ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte

... that flit across their minds," he muttered, as he went along, "anymore than they can direct the shadows of the clouds that sail above them. They come and pass, and leave no stain behind. What, then, of omens, and that wretched effigy of death? Stuff—pshaw! Murder, indeed! I'm incapable of murder. I have drawn my sword upon a man in fair duel; but murder! Out upon the ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... science and art, we hereby protest to the civilized world against the lies and calumnies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the honor of Germany in her hard struggle for existence—in a struggle which has been forced ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... his identity. Warren would kill him; but it was not fear of death that put Cameron on the rack. He had faced death too often to be afraid. It was the thought of adding torture to this long-suffering man. All at once Cameron swore that he would not augment Warren's trouble, or let him stain his hands with blood. He would tell the truth of Nell's sad story and his own, and make ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... soon after took place, through the blind affection of the English Catholics for Mary, and their implacable hatred of Elizabeth; that, while it proved fatal to the life of one queen, has left on the memory of the other an indelible stain. It was a conspiracy of two zealous Catholics, to take the life of Elizabeth. The plot was revealed in confidence to Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of Derbyshire, possessing a large fortune and many amiable qualities, whom the Archbishop of Glasgow had recommended ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... had encountered calamities before, but he had never before been compelled to call in assistance to deliver his passengers at the stipulated port, since he had commanded a packet. He felt the necessity, in the present instance, as a sort of stain upon his character as a seaman, though in fact the accident which had occurred was chiefly to be attributed to a concealed defect in the mainmast. The honest master sighed often, smoked nearly double the usual number of cigars in the course of the afternoon, and when the sun went down ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... freed his blade; and it nerved my hand. To draw my-blade at such close quarters was impossible, but, dropping the bag which had saved my life, I dashed my hilt twice in his face with such violence that he fell backwards and lay on the turf, a dark stain growing and spreading on ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... sinning, her heart went up toward the Dispenser of all blessings, in earnest supplication that the objects of her love might be ever preserved unblemished in purity, and those of her compassion be brought from their blackness and stain unto the fountain of all ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... are, my love! I must give directions to the servants; I am quite sure that if I sat here and allowed John to spill the gravy over the new carpet, you'd be the first to find fault when you saw the stain to-morrow morning.' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... consuetudo) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... burned-out past—how was it that that past, at its worst, seemed easier to bear than this intolerable now? How had it come about that a memory of twenty years ago, a memory of how she had prayed that her unborn baby might die, rather than live to remind her of that black stain upon the daylight, its father, had become in the end worse to her, in her heart of hearts, than the thing that caused it? And then she fell to wondering when it was that her child first took hold upon her life; first ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your pride, a drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, a blot on your scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a death's-head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, a frog in your chamber, a fly in your ointment, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... has not any care Its passionless water to the sea to bear; The leaves have brown content; The wall to me has freshness like a scent, And takes half animate the air, Making one life with its green moss and stain; And life with all things seems too perfect blent For anything of life to be aware. The very shades on hill, and tree, and plain, Where they have fallen doze, and where they ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... has suffered much, particularly from the painting, in later times, of draperies round the loins, some of which have been worn or rubbed half off. Almost in the centre is a large stain, outlining the shape of a window, which Signorelli caused to be filled up, and which can still be seen on the outside of the Cathedral. The damp, oozing through the new plaster round the framework, partly destroyed the painting, but the ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... washerwoman had forgotten to starch. The giggling of the passers-by and the manifest unpopularity of her opinions pricked her to tears, and she mournfully perceived that she had ceased to be a poet. For that the day was given over to a high melancholy of grey clouds, which did not let the least stain of weak autumn sunlight discolour the black majesty of the Castle Rock, and that a bold wind played with the dull clothes of the Edinburgh folk and swelled them out into fantastic shapes like cloaks carried ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... boiled, beaten, and strained, they get a dark, slate-coloured blue which is mixed with rabbits' gall to make it adhere. The juice of bearberries gives them a bright red. From gunpowder and water they obtain a fine black, and from coal tar a stain for work of the coarsest kind. They rely chiefly, however, upon the red, blue, green, and yellow ochres found in many parts of the country. These, when applied to the decoration of canoes, they mix with fish oil; but ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... he had studied Merle. She was in better condition, he thought. She came only to his shoulder as he stood to seat her, but she was no longer bony. Her bones were neatly submerged. Her hair was still rusty, the stain being deeper than he remembered, and the freckles were but piquant memories. Here and there one shone faintly, like the few faint stars showing widely apart through cloud crevices on a murky night. Her nose, though no longer ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... the "Berliner Tageblatt" that Great Britain had declared war on Germany. The German Government repudiated the report and did all it could, by the personal apology of the secretary of state and by police protection, to make amends for what Herr von Jagow termed "the indelible stain on ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... sufficiently attentive to the moral dignity of the performances," concludes with this encomium on Mrs. Hemans' work:—"With the promise of talents not inferior to any, and far superior to most of them, the author before us is not only free from every stain, but breathes all moral beauty and loveliness; and it will be a memorable coincidence if the era of a woman's sway in literature shall become co-eval with the return of its moral purity and elevation." A ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... clearly that they adopted, as did their sainted Patriarch, the common opinion of the Greek Church, which was already spread in various parts of the Latin Church, in honor of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, because they thought it wholly pure and exempt from the stain of original sin. Their successors have always, with admirable zeal, maintained this opinion, which God in so far blessed, that they have now the advantage and consolation of seeing the institution of the ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... with Sherlock Holmes." He winked at her as he slipped from his horse's back, on the edge of a rocky knoll, fronting the jack-pines. "This is the place, I reckon." His quick eyes had caught a dark stain on a flat rock, which the rain had failed to cleanse entirely of the dead ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... has been ever since. That further notice has never been given. And yet nobody seems to feel as if an essential part of their life had ceased to be, so to speak. Curious. Bradshaw, after a short explanation, was allowed to go away without a stain—that is to say, without any additional stain—on his character. We left the authorities discussing the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... 45 the stain the penknife to spread out the torture the lawn the carnet to bear some one ill-will as fast as possible from ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... to her knees, and as she went down, the stain of the wet grass and the soil of the graveyard clay rose an inch up ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... saying unto us "Write!" and none there be who may refuse to obey. It may be gracious deeds and kindly words that we write upon it in letters of gold, or it may be that we blot and blur it with evil thoughts and stain it with unworthy actions, but write ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... of course; so might she be flayed alive; but she was not likely to survive either operation. The room, though far less important to her happiness than the view, was as much a part of her existence. She had lived in it seventeen years. She knew every stain on the wall-paper, every rent in the carpet; the light fell in a certain way on her engravings, her books had grown shabby on their shelves, her bulbs and ivy were used to their window and knew which way to lean to the sun. "We are all too ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... not a celebrity, in spite of the way in which Maxime Dalahaide had worked to help her. After a while I left England for Portugal. Meanwhile I had dyed my hair, and stained my complexion with a wonderful clear olive stain which does not hurt the skin, and shows the colour through. Here are the things I use, in this bag. I keep it always locked and ready ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... each bit. To this is added a little lime and a pinch of tobacco, and it is ready for the mouth. The resultant deep red saliva is distributed indiscriminately on the floor, walls, and furniture where it leaves a permanent stain. To hold the materials necessary for this practice brass betel nut boxes, secured from the Moro or of their own manufacture, as well as plaited grass boxes and pouches are constantly carried (Plates XVIIa and XLI). The ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... within my veins, O brave Achilles, I wish some Homer would Engrave in Marble, with Characters of gold The valiant feats thou didst on Flanders coast, Which at this day fair Belgia may boast. The more I say, the more thy worth I stain, Thy fame and praise is far beyond my strain, O Zutphen, Zutphen that most fatal City Made famous by thy death, much more the pity: Ah! in his blooming prime death pluckt this rose E're he was ripe, his thread cut Atropos. Thus man is born to dye, and dead ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... was gradually wearing away, as later experience continued to elucidate his veracity; but Mr. Marsden (who has rendered a special service to literature by his elegant and faithful translation of these remarkable travels,) has completely rescued his memory from all stain on that score, and proved him to be not only an accurate observer, but a faithful reporter of what he saw, and what he learned from others."—(Quarterly Review, No. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... a simpler matter to drift into free and easy manners and call them "bohemian" than to cleanse your reputation of their stain, or lift your mind from the mire to ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... of Chartres was short and simple, and, with the exception of temporarily obstructing two trams by the artless expedient of remaining motionless upon the permanent way, Pong emerged from the city without a stain upon ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... Christ-child. Absolute relaxation is shown, perfect trust—no tension, no anxiety, no passion—only a stillness and rest, a gratitude and subdued peace that are beyond speech. The woman is so happy that she can not speak, so full of joy that she dare not express it, and a barely perceptible tear-stain upon her cheek suggests that this peace has not always been. She has found her Savior—she is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... beast, of whom men are afraid, Lies peaceful and tame at the feet of the maid, While she, in her tender adorable grace, Is stroking his head as the tears stain her face. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... relating this interesting narrative, Mary had been lifting up her heart in silent thanksgiving to God for clearing her character from every stain of suspicion and establishing her innocence in the minds of her friends. By the time Amelia had finished her story, they had arrived at the door ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid

... stain his birth, I cannot forget that he has Wilders's blood in his veins. He is Cousin Bill's ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... feeling still strong upon him, Madden knelt between the two. Caradoc lay limp and motionless, with a dark stain slowly spreading on the boards under ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... stain'd and traced, Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced, And ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... birth on the great lone moor, cradled in a wonderful peat-smelling bog, with a many-hued coverlet of soft mosses—pale gold, orange, emerald, tawny, olive and white, with the red stain of sun-dew and tufted cotton-grass. Under the old grey rocks which watch it rise, yellow-eyed tormantil stars the turf, and bids "Godspeed" to the little child of earth and sky. Thus the journey begins; and with ever-increasing ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of ponderous wheels, and discoloured with iron-rust from them; here and there, in wandering streaks over its surface, was the grey stain of the salt water with which the street had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... me, this stain she would have cast upon my honor? That armor's polish was too intense to sustain it; it rolled off like a cloud from heaven. Italy's fortunes were my fortunes; it was impossible for me to betray them; this woman I would win to wed them. How long, how long my blood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... sent them all below to move slowly toward Alexandria. His position was one of great perplexity. The river ought to be rising, but was actually falling; there was danger if he delayed that he might lose some of the boats, but on the other hand he felt it would be a stain upon the navy to look too closely to its own safety, and it was still possible that the river might take a favorable turn. He had decided to keep four of the light-draughts above the bar till the very last moment, remaining with them himself, when he received news that ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... symbols and gorgeous garments. Now, symbolism is poor dramatic matter, but it can furnish forth moody food for music, and "Sky robes spun of Iris woof" appear still more radiant to the eye when the ear, too, is enlisted. Grossness and purulence stain the dramatic element in the piece, but when all is over pictures and music have done their work of mitigation, and out of the feculent mire there arises a picture of poetic beauty, a vision of suffering and triumphant innocency which pleads movingly ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... slightly of the masculine type; but only sufficient to give it firmness and self-reliance. Her school education had progressed farther, and she had read, and thought, and seen more of the world than Fanny. Yet the world had left no stain upon her garments, for, in entering it, she had been lovingly guarded. To her brother she looked up with much of a child's unwavering confidence. He was a few years her senior, and she could not remember the time when she had not regarded him as a man whose counsels ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature; and we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the only police machine without a villain. Our criminals are a most pleasing crew, and leave the dock with scarce a stain upon their character. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shun the surly butcher's greasy tray: Butchers, whose hands are died with blood's foul stain, And always foremost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various

... contradict the assertion that negative propositions are infinite is positive evidence in the shape of negation. If we give an expert a stain to examine and ask him whether it is a blood stain, and he tells us: "It is not a blood stain,'' then this single scientifically established assertion proves that we do not have to deal with blood, and hence "negative'' proof seems brought in a single instance. But as a matter of fact ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... thy worldly loss to thy soul's gain, Blest be the blow that freed thee from thy chain, Blest be the tears that wash thy spirit's stain, Vade ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... this? Why does the English nation, which has made itself memorable to all time as the destroyer of negro slavery, which has shrunk from no sacrifices to free its own character from that odious stain, and to close all the countries of the world against the slave-merchant,—why is it that the nation which is at the head of Abolitionism, not only feels no sympathy with those who are fighting against the slaveholding conspiracy, but actually desires ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... with fears of plunder and of death, preparations for flight were made, and in the great mosque women and children invoked the aid of Mahomet to shield them from an enemy more relentless than Arab or Saracen—a host whose banner-cry was dark and terrible: "Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." The city seemed doomed to capture. But—"there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." In the camp of the Crusaders the exultant leaders were already quarrelling over whose domain the conquered city should be when once its gates were ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... fancy win, I touched, despite my loathing sane, The cold, hair-covered, slimy skin, Not yet washed clean of deathly stain. ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... ladle and dips out the sweet-smelling wine from the wide-mouthed jar. And we can imagine how the cups fell clattering from the men's hands when Vesuvius thundered. In one shop, indeed, the excavators found an overturned cup on the counter and a wine stain on the marble. But the most interesting shops are the bakeries. There were twenty of them in Pompeii. You will see the ovens in the courtyard. They are big beehives built of stone or brick. The baker made a fire inside and ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... Days of 1899-1900, if you had watched these turgid waters flow by, your eyes would have seen tinges of red like blood; and following the stain of red, gashed lifeless things, which had been torn from the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... death produced a most intense effect on our troops. At first I feared it would lead to excesses; but now it has softened down, and can easily be guided. None evinced more feeling than General Johnston, who admitted that the act was calculated to stain his cause with a dark hue; and he contended that the loss was most serious to the South, who had begun to realize that Mr. Lincoln was the best friend ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... cup from Jesus of Nazareth, And his lips wear a purple stain. And Faust hands the cup to Pantagruel With the dregs for ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... himself to stain the outer planks of the dwelling, but not to use any decorative paints which an ordinary trapper or an Indian could not procure. A garden, with flowers as well as vegetables, and creepers for the veranda, he ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... mine! I swear it by everything in heaven, earth or hell—he must be mine! Yes, though I stain my soul with the blackest crime—though remorse and misery be my lot on earth—though eternal torment be my portion in the world to come—he must and shall be mine! Aid me, ye powers of hell, in this my scheme—make my heart bold, my hand firm, my brain calm; for the deed is full of horror, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... contracted it in her wet clothes. The doctors are mistaken; it is not pneumonia. Is it her love, then, that is killing her? No. Since that terrible night she no longer thinks of Frantz, she no longer feels that she is worthy to love or to be loved. Thenceforth there is a stain upon her spotless life, and it is of the shame of that and of nothing else that ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... Never mention her name to me again. Do not even think of her; it would be a stain upon her purity. Now you know what ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... may completely alter the whole military situation. Give us a chance. If you carry out your threat, you plunge this country into revolution, you dishonour us in the face of our Allies; you will go through the rest of your lives, every one of you, with a guilt upon your souls, a stain upon your consciences, which nothing will ever obliterate. You see, I have kept my word—I haven't said much. I cannot ask for the armistice you suggest. If you take this step you threaten—I do not deny its significance you will probably stop ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... as if offering the Holy Grail and the head of Saint John the Baptist on a charger. Impossible to associate class-consciousness with beings who looked as impersonal as fate, and would have regarded a fork out of alignment as a stain on their private 'scutcheon. They performed the rite of placing the oysters on the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... contrived to catch Farnie in the act of performing some ingenious breach of the peace, and, it being a Wednesday and a half-holiday, sent him into extra lesson. On the following morning, more by design than accident, Farnie upset an inkpot. Mr Smith observed icily that unless the stain was wiped away before the beginning of afternoon school, there would be trouble. Farnie observed (to himself) that there would be trouble in any case, for he had hit upon the central idea for the ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... hostilities with the greatest vigour, repeatedly decimating or scattering the hordes of Chinamen who were opposed to him, and, in conjunction with the English, victoriously taking Pekin. A kind of stain rested on the expedition by reason of the looting of the Chinese Emperor's summer-palace, but the entire responsibility of that affair could not be cast on the French commander, as he only continued and completed what the English began. On his return to France, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... that the very people who are most critical of the line of policy actually adopted, were also most severe when it appeared that the alternative might be chosen. The British nation would have indeed remained under an ineffaceable stain had they left women and children without shelter upon the veldt in the presence of a large Kaffir population. Even Mr. Stead could hardly have ruined such a case by exaggeration. On some rumour that it would be so, he drew harrowing pictures ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... which had befallen me and my child, he ordered his horse to be saddled forthwith, in order to ride to Pudgla to bear witness to our innocence: this, however, his old father would nowise suffer, thinking that his nobility would receive a stain if it came to be known that his son had conversed with a reputed witch by night on the Streckelberg. He had caused him therefore, as prayers and threats were of no avail, to be bound hand and foot, and confined in the donjon-keep, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... her?—But you may be sure that I will, if I can have but one second. However, that is not at all likely, until we see what the consequences of her crime will be: And who can tell that?—She may—How can I speak it, and my once darling daughter unmarried?—She may be with child!—This would perpetuate her stain. Her brother may come to some harm; which God forbid!—One child's ruin, I hope, will not be followed by ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... life, but with all my strength I pray of you, do not this thing to save mine, which is of little value and perhaps best ended. Remember, prince Aziel, that being what you are, a Jew, this act of offering, however small it seems, is yet the greatest of sins, and one with which you should not dare to stain your soul for the sake of a woman, who has chanced to love you to your sorrow. Be guided, therefore, by the true wisdom of Issachar and by my humble prayer. Make an end of your doubts and let me die, knowing that we do but part a while, since in the Gate ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... hour in intense cold, till we reached a height where the last stain of lichen disappeared, and the desolation was complete and oppressive. This area of tufa cones, dark and grey basalt, clinkers, scoriae, fine ash, and ferruginous basalt, is something gigantic. We were three hours in ascending through it, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Jonah may or may not have been three days inside a fish, but that does not make him a merman. And in all the other cases of European nations who escaped the monstrous captivity, we do admit the purity and continuity of the European type. We consider the old Eastern rule as a wound, but not as a stain. Copper-coloured men out of Africa overruled for centuries the religion and patriotism of Spaniards. Yet I have never heard that Don Quixote was an African fable on the lines of Uncle Remus. I have ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... before her father's men Three days we've fled together, For should he find us in the glen, My blood would stain the heather. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... mind. The child had never imagination enough to visualise these stories in the true essence, but she seized upon external detail-the blue lights, the white shimmering garments, the moon and the church clock, the clanking chain and the stain of ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... pure as if the gentle rain Of his baptismal morn had sought His bosom's depths, and e'ery thought Had sweetly cleansed from earthly stain: ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... the slightest manifestation of penitence, had been rent in pieces by the Fiend. Still the idea recurred to her. Might not her daughter, armed with perfect purity and holiness, with a soul free from stain as an unspotted mirror; might not she, who had avouched herself ready to risk all for her—for she had overheard her declaration to Richard;—might not she be able to work out her salvation? Would confession of her sins and voluntary submission ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... visionary butterfly, 290 Waiting my word to enter and make bright, Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. This body had no soul before, but slept Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 295 Fastened their image on its passiveness; Now, it will wake, feel, live—or die again! Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be Art—and further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... for sale by some of the venders of medicinal herbs. This abuse may be discovered by opening the berries: those of buckthorn have almost always four seeds; of the alder, two; and of the dogberry, only one. Buckthorn berries, bruised on white paper, stain it of a green colour, which the others ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... a bit of good!" the French doll told Raggedy Ann, "for I remember I had orange juice spilled upon a nice white frock I had one time, and the stain would never come out!" ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle



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