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Taint   Listen
verb
Taint  v. t.  
1.
To imbue or impregnate with something extraneous, especially with something odious, noxious, or poisonous; hence, to corrupt; to infect; to poison; as, putrid substance taint the air.
2.
Fig.: To stain; to sully; to tarnish. "His unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love."
Synonyms: To contaminate; defile; pollute; corrupt; infect; disease; vitiate; poison.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Taint" Quotes from Famous Books



... the blaze and smoke,—would be likely to keep better. In fact, fish thus preserved,—as is often done with herrings, ling, codfish, mackerel, and haddock,—will remain good for months without suffering the slightest taint of decomposition. It was an excellent idea; and, Ben having communicated it to the others, it was at once determined that it should ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... den de res', ebben de men. When dey put her on de block dey put all her chillun aroun her to show folks how fas she can hab chillun. When she sold her family nebber see her agin. She nebber know [HW: how] many chillun she hab. Some time she hab colored children an' sometime white. Taint no use to say anything case effen she do she jes git whipped. Why on de Moore plantation Aunt Cheney, everbody call her Aunt Cheney, have two chillun by de overseeah. De overseeah name war Hill. He war as mean as de devil. When Aunt Cheney not do what he ask he tell granny Moore. Ole Granny ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... containing prayers for the king has been violently torn. This incident symbolises very aptly the attitude of America. The country has not yet recovered from the hostility which it once professed to George III. It assumes that a difference of policy always implies a moral taint. The American Colonies broke away from the mother country; therefore George III. was a knave, whose name may not be mentioned without dishonour, and all the brave men who served him in serving the colonies are dishonoured also. It is not quite clear why this feeling has ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... was alarming, with a spotted fever in the neighbourhood." Mrs. Coates's maid had, in repeating the news, "turned the sore throat into a spotted fever, or a scarlet fever, she did not rightly know which, but both were said by the apothecary to be generally fatal, where there was any Jewish taint in ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... woman's truly such, And the young man has led the life Without which how shall e'er the wife Be the one woman in the world? Love's sensitive tendrils sicken, curl'd Round folly's former stay; for 'tis The doom of all unsanction'd bliss To mock some good that, gain'd, keeps still The taint of the rejected ill. ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... words. She was thankful for the slightest evidence of kindness from her self-constituted protectors. She even exaggerated the amount of consideration which she received. She was not free from the hereditary taint of pride; but in her it took a new form and unprecedented expression. The sense of indebtedness spurred her on to discover ways by which she could avoid being a burden upon the generosity of her benefactors,—ways by which her obligations ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... "Or is there a taint of insanity in your family history? Alone and practically penniless like yourself! You weren't even stirred by gratitude. You just married her. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... the line of development which Catholicism as an institution has consistently followed, and must continue to follow to the end. I can see no other fate in store for the soma of Catholicism; the germ-cells of true Christianity live their own life within it, and are transmitted without taint to those who are born ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... massy! 'taint you, is it? And you compared yourself with that little, peaked-faced chap that's around just the same—you with shoulders as broad as them are, and two stars on ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... "'Taint laik as if you wus goin' to be alone out theah," comforted Mansy Storm, who was busy putting away a little cake she had made with her own hands for Celia's lunch basket. "Youah husband ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... rest of the children of Adam, the soul of Mary was never subject to sin, even in the first moment of its infusion into the body. She alone was exempt from the original taint. This immunity of Mary from original sin is exclusively due to the merits of Christ, as the Church expressly declares. She needed a Redeemer as well as the rest of the human race and therefore was "redeemed, but in ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... earnest and respectful remonstrances of those who had a right to render their advice. In this case, the affliction of the mind must have been reinforced by some peculiarity in the constitution. He inherited a melancholy taint from his father, and this seems to have been dreaded as a family disease; for the infant don Louis, who likewise resided in the palace of Villa-Viciosa, was fain to amuse himself with hunting and other diversions, to prevent his being infected with the king's disorder, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... question for reflection, where the punishment for Arthur's first real sin should rest? Was it for that young heart, till now free from all taint or corruption, save the corruption of pride, to suffer alone? or was it for the older and stronger spirit—the spirit stronger still in pride, and so much older in firmness, and power, and discipline, to ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... husband in a state of beastly intoxication, and for this reason, independently of her knowledge of his vile and heartless disposition, and infamous character, she detested him. After entering, he looked about him, and even with the taint light of the rush she could mark that his unnatural and revolting features were lit up with a ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... going away—to be married. In spite of her trouble, Miss Mehitable noted the taint of heredity. "It's in her blood," she murmured, "and maybe Minty ain't ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... Josh," said he, leaning towards the table and clutching hold of the bottle: "try a taste o' this hyur rot-gut—'taint the daintiest o' drink to offer a man so genteelly dressed as you air this morning; but thur's wuss licker in these hyur back'oods, I reckun. Will ye mix? Thur's water in the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... honey, won't you? I want to know if it's worth savin'. I've burnt up two or three receipts in my life, and had de bills to pay over; and I'se got rale careful, you know. 'Taint pleasant to pay money twice over for de ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with satisfaction that she was below the age specified, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... of which is difficult to subdue by a little rational treatment), opthalmia, and umbilical hernia, and sometimes, but not frequently, inguinal hernia, are the principal diseases. The opthalmia I suspected as originating from taint, probably having been primarily carried from the coast, as it was not so frequently met with as to warrant the idea of its being either a contagion or the effects of poisonous sands or winds, as supposed to exist. The hernia is caused by the ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... the Squire failed to send him to school. When asked about it, he said, "Wal, I 'low he knows a good deal more'n I do now, an' 'taint no sort o' use to learn so much. Spiles a boy to fill him chock full." But Sammy was bent on learning, any how; and in the long winter mornings, before day, he used to study hard at such books ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... one parent is consumptive and the other vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous or consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no comfort to their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they had better, in most cases, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... chose at first to paint thee— Growing up toward thy teens; No corruption near to taint thee Passing ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... the whispers away. How could I trust my enemy? If such a book existed, which seemed improbable, there was a taint of disloyalty to Desire in the thought of reading ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... a handsome and gallant fellow, but said to be very rich, at least as rich as Somerled, and ten years younger. Aline and I might be mistaken about the girl's feelings for Ian. Very likely it was no more than a romantic sort of gratitude; and though I absolved the child from the smallest taint of mercenary motive, it was almost impossible that a sleepless night had not given her some wise counsel. She was too sensitive and quick-witted a girl, I reflected, not to have seen that she could not go on living with her mother, and that it was a necessity ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Such people could show no valid claim to land or life, so we confiscated both. The British Islands were infested with criminals from the earliest times. Our ancestors were all pirates, and we have inherited from them a lurking taint in our blood, which is continually impelling us to steal something or kill somebody. How to get rid of this taint was a problem which our statesmen found it difficult to solve. In times of war they mitigated the evil by filling the ranks of our armies from the gaols, and manning our navies ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could shake it or could move me." This she says with great deliberation and distinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... too late to scold arterward. Wot I sez is, do you' scoldin' an' yo' whippin' 'fo' dere's any cause fer it—'taint no good to do it arterward; 'twon't ondo nuffin' wot's done," said Henny; but her wisdom was lost on the party, who had already started on their way, aunt and niece riding double, and Dan walking ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... longer, Fanny; 'taint no place for you, nohow. Jest crawl up to the tree, and keep behind it. Keep both eyes wide open tight, but don't let the redskins ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... 'sprang from no sense of national exhaustion. On the contrary, wealth had never increased so fast.... Nor was there any ground for despondency in the aspect of the war itself.' This was written in 1875 by an author so singularly free from all taint of Chauvinism that he expressly resolved that his work 'should never sink into a drum and trumpet history.' A few figures will be interesting and, it may be added, conclusive. Between 1793 when the war began and 1802 when the Peace of Amiens interrupted it, the public income of Great Britain increased ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... was none the worse—permanently—for what had happened in that distant scene—that play within a play? How was she the worse? She was "not a bad woman!"—as she had said so passionately to Janet, when they joined hands. There was no lasting taint left in mind and soul—nothing to prevent her being a pure and faithful wife to George Ellesborough, and a good mother to his children. It was another Rachel to whom all that had happened, a Rachel she ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fate of my child," said the Earl, "be the consequences what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have only permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more horrible taint to which I was made to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day after,—this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... speaking of. This consideration of the thing itself, at a time when I thought not I the least on the subject which I am now treating of, suggested it to me. And if this be a weakness to which all men are so liable, if this be a taint which so universally infects mankind, the greater care should be taken to lay it open under its due name, thereby to excite the greater care in its ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... cause to look upon Vincent as one of the most powerful of their enemies. But although he hated the heresy with all the strength of his upright soul, Vincent's charitable heart went out in pity to those who were infected with its taint, and it was with compassion rather than indignation that he would speak of St. Cyran and his adherents. Not until they had been definitely condemned by the Church did he cease his efforts to win them from their ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... this evil, so pervasive in its influence, so certain to taint the fresh springs of young life with impure knowledge, if not to foul them with unclean acts, that parents still too often elect to ignore. The boy, full of eager curiosity, anxious, above all things, to catch up the ways of the other fellows, afraid, above all ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... me as the apple of my eye. Suspicion has been cast upon Mrs. Corbin, and that suspicion I have good reason for believing well founded. If you associate with her—if you are seen upon the street with her, your fair fame will receive a taint. ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... ice wrench free, crash on with a hollow din; Men of the wilderness were we, freed from the taint of sin. The mighty river snatched us up and it bore us swift along; The days were bright, and the morning light was sweet with jewelled song. We poled and lined up nameless streams, portaged o'er hill and plain; We burnt our boat to save the nails, and built our boat again; We ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... seems not to exist within things substantially beautiful, or yet by aid of images that coalesce out of the evolving memory of them, but outside of everything actual It is not merely that the dream itself is one of ideal purity; the wave of impulse is pure, and flows without taint of media that seem almost to know it ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... the fate that must necessarily befall a couple of ordinary hounds when overtaken by half a dozen full-grown wolves. On such occasions we do not spend much time in grief over a loss of any kind, "it taint according to mountain law," ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... of remorse for crime by reason of their vileness, they were guilty of many barbarous usages. "These wretches," says Dr. Hodges, "out of greediness to plunder the dead, would strangle their patients, and charge it to the distemper in their throats. Others would secretly convey the pestilential taint from sores of the infected to those who were well; and nothing indeed deterred these abandoned miscreants from prosecuting their avaricious purposes by all methods their wickedness could invent; who, although they were without witnesses to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... his head deprecatingly. "Don't seem lak I evah able to rickermembah dat boy's name, nohow. His grampa' 'uz a Hynds, likewise his ma, but she 'sisted on marryin' er furriner, an' de boy takes atter de furriners 'stead er we-all. 'Taint de po' boy's fault, but ol' Mis' Scarlett hated 'im wuss 'n pizen. De only notice she take er de boy is ter warrant 'im fo' trispassin'. Dat 's how come folkses ter say—" ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... should it be weighed down with the rich blood typical of the tropics? Must the life-current of one race bind the other race in chains as strong and enduring as if there had been no Anglo-Saxon taint? By the laws of God and nature, as interpreted by man, one-half of my boy was free, and why should not this fair birthright of freedom remove the curse from the other half—raise it into the bright, joyous sunshine of liberty? I could not answer these questions of my heart that almost maddened ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... God; for what but God do we mean when we talk of loving the best thoughts and the highest beauty? No God, no best; but at most better and worse. And how shall a man's delight in his growing knowledge not be blighted by a hidden taint, if he is persuaded that at the core of the universe there is only blind unconscious force? But if he believe that God is infinite power working for truth and love, then can he also feel that in seeking to prepare his mind for the perception of truth and his heart ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... this a sin? Less mischievous things are branded with the name in the common-place parlance of the world. The cold and phlegmatic may not understand this; but they who can love know how bitterly every after-hour of life may be poisoned with the taint which hapless love has infused into the current of future years, and can believe how many a heart equal to the highest enterprise has been palsied by the touch of despair. Sweet and holy is the duty of child to parent; but sacred also is the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... to the Legation at The Hague and told simply what they knew. We got the real story of Miss Cavell, cruelly done to death by "field-gray" officers. We got full descriptions of the system of deporting the civil population—a system which amounted to enslavement, with a taint of "white slavery" thrown in. When the Belgian workmen were suddenly called from their homes, herded before the German commandant, and sent away, they knew not whither, to work for their oppressor, as they were entrained they sang the "Marseillaise." They knew they would ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... younger born, yet we are very old In understanding, and our knowledge makes us bold. Boldly we look at life, Loving its stress and strife, And hating all conventions that may mean restraint, Yet shunning sin's black taint. ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... to me,' says I, 'like Great Britain ought to be made to keep such gin-swilling, scurvy, unbecoming mud larks as you at home instead of sending 'em over here to degrade and taint foreign lands. We kicked you out of America once and we ought to put on rubber ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... And she was merely a slave from accidental circumstances—being free born, and having, but a month before, been the pride and ornament of a respectable though lowly family. Once let her liberty be restored, and the scarcely perceptible taint of a few weeks' serfdom be removed from her, and she would be, in all social respects, fully the equal of the poor, trembling maid of Ostia, to whom, a few years before, the patrician had not ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... often happen that improper views will govern so large a proportion as two thirds of both branches of the legislature at the same time; and this, too, in spite of the counterposing weight of the Executive. It is at any rate far less probable that this should be the case, than that such views should taint the resolutions and conduct of a bare majority. A power of this nature in the Executive, will often have a silent and unperceived, though forcible, operation. When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a ...
— The Federalist Papers

... hereditary taint, Dad—don't blame me!" retorted Molly with lazy impudence, pulling his head down and kissing him on the top ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... and all others who took passage on armed ships intermittently engaged in commerce raiding could not expect to be immune, for such vessels acquired a "hostile taint." This was Germany's contention; but the United States refused to agree to the German idea that, because a few British vessels might be guilty of wrongful use of armament, all British ships must ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... reason, and by considering facts, that I have come to the conviction that a people, who, after ten centuries of slavery, have re-conquered liberty, have need of war. War is necessary to consolidate liberty, and to purge the constitution from all taint of despotism. War is necessary to drive from amongst us those men whose example might corrupt us. You have the power of chastising the rebels, and intimidating the world; have the courage to do so. The emigres persist in their rebellion, the sovereigns ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... fresh spring air, unconscious of the London taint, and laughed. "Why, what's the matter with the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... of England, but fits him the better for the class he has to address. His powers are uncommon and unfettered in their play; his aim is worthy. He is fulfilling and will fulfil an important task as an educator of the people, if all be not marred by a taint of self-love and arrogance now obvious in his discourse. This taint is not surprising in one so young, who has done so much, and in order to do it has been compelled to great self-confidence and light heed of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the senate, (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34.) Yet the expression, regnum nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly with the word ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... immoralities, propagated among them by his vile example, might, too probably, bring down a curse upon them? And, after all, who knows but that my own sinful compliances with a man, who might think himself entitled to my obedience, might taint my own morals, and make me, instead of a reformer, an imitator of him?—For who can touch pitch, and not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... "Well, 'taint for I to say the old tower's a-going to fall, and I hope Sir Jarge won't ever live to larf the wrong side o' his mouth; but stopping of a ring never brought luck with it yet, and it brought no luck to my lord. First he lost his dear son and his son's wife in Cullerne ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... the chastening of our spirits He is the great Co-worker with us. In the bearing of burdens and the enduring of trial and sorrow He joins hands with us to lead us on. In the purifying of every power from the taint of sin He ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... of the unfit, we cannot say. Possibly or even probably the ill results would be inappreciable. It must not be forgotten that the marriage of near relatives is only harmful because or if it hands on to the children of the union an hereditary taint in a strengthened form, a result which is likely to follow in civilised life because hereditary taints are allowed to flourish unchecked by prudence and controlled by natural selection only so far as humanitarianism will permit it. These hereditary degeneracies however are probably largely ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... summer with Miss Plimpkins. I noticed him at church Sunday. Come down to make a little visit and bring Miss Plimpkins a nice present ag'in, I guess. He is mighty grateful to her for taking such good care of him while he was sick. A uncommon handsome man. But 'taint a bit likely he'll think of a baby like you. He is a man old enough to know better—near forty, likely. He was monstrous polite to me; always finding the hymns, and passing his book to me. And I noticed Sunday he ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... was still plain William Pitt, without title or riband, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he should retire, after saving the State, he must sell his coach horses and his silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread, his hands were clean. They had never received, they had never given, the price of infamy. Thus the coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the force of your eloquence, enabled him, with his keen interest in all public affairs, to await the result with confidence. In you he possessed a counsellor pleasant in the transaction of business, rigid in his sense of justice, free from all taint of avarice. You never fixed a scandalous tariff for the sale of his benefits; and thus you reaped your reward in a wealth of public opinion, not in gold. It was because that just Prince proved you ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... looked up at her during the slow, difficult sentences with their half choked articulation; but he was experiencing some strange emotions, and one of them was a novel respect for his wife. All he said was: "'Taint no use talking. I won't never ask him to take me ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... When the physician who had been sent for arrived, M. Langis accompanied him into the chamber of the sick girl. She was delirious: seated upright, she kept continually passing her hand over her brow; she sought to efface the taint of a kiss she had received one moonlight night, and the impression in her hair of the flapping of a bat's wings that had caught in her hood. These two things were confounded in her memory. From time to time she said: "Where is my portrait? Give me ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... talk don't 'mount to snuff 'Bout this kinder life a-being rough, And I'm sure it's plenty good enough, And 'tween you and me, 'taint as tough— ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... upon us.' That is blessedness. It is the only thing that makes the heart to be at rest. It is the only thing that makes life truly worth living, the only thing that brings sweetness which has no after taint of bitterness and breeds no fear of its passing away. To have that unsetting sunshine streaming down upon my open heart, and to carry about with me whithersoever I go, like some melody from hidden singers sounding in my ears, the Name and the Love of my Father ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... meat, the long pipe that runs by the bone should be taken out, as it is apt to taint; as also the kernels of beef. Do not purchase joints bruised by ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... is not their education which is to blame, but the inborn sinfulness of their corrupt and fallen natures. Such an education is regarded by those who advocate it as pre-eminently useful. There is no nonsense about it, no cant of idealism, no taint of socialism. It keeps the "lower orders" in their places, and forbids them to dream of rising above "that state of life unto which it" has pleased "God to call them." As it is a reductio ad absurdum of the conventional type of education, my objection to it is that it makes ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... well of him," replied his firm-minded niece; "and even I admit that I love him, as far as a girl of such a cold constitution as mine may; but I tell you, uncle, that if I discovered a taint of vice or want of principle in his character, I could ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... horses, if you will excuse the interruption," the man said. "There is my one failing. I used to be with a circus, and the lion and I were good friends. Perhaps some taint of the wild beast odor clings to me, which causes horses to rear up ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... more! my heart doth faint When I the life recall Of her who lived so free from taint, So virtuous deemed by all,— That in herself was so complete I think that she was ta'en By God to deck his paradise, And with his saints to reign, Whom while on earth each one did prize The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... false nature—'tis not in The harmony of things,—this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew - Disease, death, bondage, all the woes we see— And worse, the woes we see not—which throb ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... within the man that made the play so interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and florid as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret sickness which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was rather a kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would have, the sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at all. And yet he must act from his physical ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... unwillingly, to the discredit of the Weymouth pine,—a symptom of some ancestral taint, perhaps,—that it suffers less than most trees from being thus encroached upon. Yet it does not entirely escape. True, it leans neither to left nor right, its trunk is seldom contorted; if it grow at all it must grow straight ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... distinction which your Majesty does not deserve at the hands of the immortals. See, Heaven's hosts acknowledge thee their second saviour; For now thy bow's unerring shafts (as erst The lion-man's terrific claws) have purged The empyreal sphere from taint of ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... the words, to which he had listened intently, re-perused, throughout, this record of the stone; and finding that the general purport consisted of nought else than a treatise on love, and likewise of an accurate transcription of facts, without the least taint of profligacy injurious to the times, he thereupon copied the contents, from beginning to end, to the intent of charging the world to hand them down as a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... as impure as anything else that Dore has done; but they are also vapid, and without any one merit whatever in point of art. The illustrations to the 'Contes Drolatiques' are full of power and invention; but those to 'Elaine' are merely and simply stupid; theatrical betises, with the taint of ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... almost every step would be attended by danger. But for the present at least he was free. Free! The word had never appealed to him so strongly before. He drew in great draughts of the mountain air. They seemed in a way to cleanse his lungs from the prison taint. ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... my late-espoused Saint Brought to me like Alkestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save; And such, as yet once more, I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind: Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined So clear, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... pass if a subtle poison had not been creeping in to taint religious institutions. Taken by themselves, these infantile observances do not necessarily harm family life, the support of the state; for a man can believe a considerable deal of nonsense, and yet go about his daily work in a natural and cheerful manner. But when ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... concerned, down to the very lowest (and among those who scaled the carriages, were many of the commonest men and boys), than for its innocent vivacity. For, odd as it may seem to say so, of a sport so full of thoughtlessness and personal display, it is as free from any taint of immodesty as any general mingling of the two sexes can possibly be; and there seems to prevail, during its progress, a feeling of general, almost childish, simplicity and confidence, which one thinks of with a pang, when ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... silently looked me over. At last he arose, and, stepping up to me, lifted my hat with one hand, and laid the other upon my head. I understood very well what his movements meant. He was looking for outward evidences of negro blood. So far as my complexion went a suspicion of African taint might very well have been entertained. I had been assisting my father in harvesting his wheat crop, and my face and hands had a heavy coating of tan, but my hair was straight and stiff. I could see that the old gentleman ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. Eve of ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... coming of the afternoon breeze the irregularly jagged line of tree-tops stood unchanging, as if traced by an unsteady hand on the clear blue of the hot sky. In the space sheltered by the high palisades there lingered the smell of decaying blossoms from the surrounding forest, a taint of drying fish; with now and then a whiff of acrid smoke from the cooking fires when it eddied down from under the leafy boughs and clung lazily about the ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... I sent my love to thee, Thou with a smile didst take it in, And entertain'dst it royally, Though grimed with earth, with hunger thin, And leprous with the taint of sin. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... do with children in whom these strange habits and beliefs, or rather wants of belief, are as much part of their nature as is their physical organisation? Darwin has told us how, after generations had passed, the puppy with a taint of the wolf's blood in it would never come straight to its master's feet, but always approach him in a semicircle. Not Kuhleborhn nor Undine herself is less susceptible of alien culture than the pure-blooded Gipsy. We can domesticate the goose, we can tame the goldfinch ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?" "'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? Not arf!" "Anything to sell the papers, you know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" "Johnny get yer gun, get yer gun!" "Some one must be punished for this. Might have caused a panic, you know." "True? Good Lord, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... its material side French colonial policy took account of the Indian, it did so much more on its religious side. Quebec was the farthest outpost of Catholicism. New France was for ever to be free from the taint of heresy, allowing none but Catholic settlers within her gates; and Huguenots, as we have seen, were specifically excluded. The Indians were to be rescued from heathen darkness and led into the sacred light of the Church. Jesuit missions ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... that those who wait upon the Great Kaan with his dishes and his drink are some of the great Barons. They have the mouth and nose muffled with fine napkins of silk and gold, so that no breath nor odour from their persons should taint the dish or the goblet presented to the Lord. And when the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instruments, of which he has vast store of every kind, begin to play. And when he takes the cup all ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... must not our guest be sensible that all this is folly and affectation? You have men enough to serve you without enlisting banditti, and your own honour is above taint. Why don't you send this Donald Bean Lean, whom I hate for his smoothness and duplicity even more than for his rapine, out of your country at once? No cause should induce me to tolerate ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... rose: I picked it with my hand, and, you see, a drop of my blood is on it; when you can give me a rose with a drop of your blood on it as free from taint as the stain mine makes, I shall have an answer that will not be unworthy ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... I see none so fair as the poor girl who lives opposite me, and who, alas! though so fair, is one of those whom the taint of caste has cursed. She lives a lonely, innocent life in the midst of corruption, like the lilies I find here in the marshew, and I have great pity for her. 'God defend her,' I said to-night to a fellow clerk, 'I see no help ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... she bent down and kissed the old lady good-bye. There was no guile, no taint of suspiciousness, in Mary ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Nor in my madness was I silent: and, should any chance offer, did I ever return a conqueror to my native Argos, I vowed myself his avenger, and with my words I stirred his bitter hatred. From this came the first taint of ill; from this did Ulysses ever threaten me with fresh charges, from this flung dark sayings among the crowd and sought confederate arms. Nay, nor did he rest, till by Calchas' service—but yet why do I vainly ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... to the condition of the vegetables that are used in soup. The fresh vegetables that are used should be in perfect condition. They should have no decayed places that might taint or discolor the soups, and they should be as crisp and solid as possible. If they are somewhat withered or faded, they can be freshened by allowing them to stand in cold water for a short time. When dried vegetables are to be used for soup making, they should first be soaked well ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... "Oh, 'taint bein' poor I mind," laughed Willie, now quite himself again. "It's knowin' nothin' an' bein' nothin' that discourages me. If I'd only had the chance to learn somethin' when I was a youngster I wouldn't have to be goin' it blind now like I do. There's times, Celestina," added ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... same time certain circumstances being given, certain shocks arriving to bring his under-nature to the surface, he had all the requisites for a blackguard. He was a shopkeeper in whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally crouched down in some corner of the hovel in which Thenardier dwelt, and have fallen a-dreaming in the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... the performers and organizers had the club almost to themselves. From the outset the strong labouring men had contemptuously refused to have anything to do with what was often, I admit, a foolish and "gassy" affair; but their wives and sons and daughters had been very well pleased, until the taint of superiority drove them away. The club died when its democratic ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... distinction is seen in the moral purity of the Christian Scriptures as contrasted with the so-called sacred books of all other religions. That which is simply human will naturally be expected to show the moral taint of lapsed humanity. The waters cannot rise higher than the fountain-head, nor can one gather figs from thistles. In our social intercourse with men we sooner or later find out their true moral level. And so in what is written, the exact grade of the author will surely appear. And it is by ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... confederates, whose massacre of negro soldiers fighting for freedom she endorsed and applauded. The descendants of those black soldiers, who were engaged in the prolonged struggle for freedom, can rejoice in the fact that no single act of those patriots is in keeping with the Englishman's prediction; no taint of brutality is even charged against them by those whom they took prisoners in battle. The confederates themselves testify to the humane treatment they unexpectedly received at the hands of their negro captors. Mr. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... the world where all shall know, even as they are known? Men, too—alas! how fast their number grows—whom I have known, have loved, and lost too soon; and all gleaming out of the gloom, as every image of the dead should do, in pure white marble, as if purged from earthly taint? To ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... 'taint dis big ebery day. Sence de creek's been up I haint been able to git across, and dere's piles o' letters ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton

... expect I am going to swallow that yarn, Gilbert Lawson?" the old man said. "You'd better shut up. 'Taint the ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White

... defended. The most acrimonious of all his works is his Defence of Justification by Faith, an answer to what Bunyan calls "the brutish and beastly latitudinarianism" of Edward Fowler, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, an excellent man, but not free from the taint ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... Boone till you come back. Girls can be trusted anywhere, but it may take the whole Army of the West, yet, to follow up and look after two little runty boys. And let me tell you something, Bev, something I heard Aunty Boone say this morning." She said: "Taint goin' to be more 'n a minnit now till them boys grows up an' grows together, same size, same age. They been little and big, long as they goin' to be. Now you know what you're ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... acquainted; and he did not fail to observe and note down many curious circumstances and traits of character, in themselves highly amusing, but, for obvious reasons, unfit subjects for publication. Not one taint of satire or ill-nature, however, ever sullied the wit which flowed spontaneously from a mind sportive sometimes even to exuberance." His artistic critiques will be found in the following works: The Bee: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various

... letters plentifully with vinegar and taken such rough precautions as were possible to remove the taint of infection from the letters, he started about four o'clock. The evening was most melancholy. For, though no rain any longer fell, there was a continual pattering of drops from the trees and a ghostly creaking of branches in a light and almost imperceptible wind. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... population. Of course, a considerable number of eminent men can be listed who unquestionably suffered from various neuropathic traits. But it was not those traits that made them eminent; on the contrary, these were handicaps. Somewhere back in their ancestry a taint was introduced into a sound superior strain, and produced this disharmonic ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He courts ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... to enjoy the sardonic metaphysics of the case with Putney. He said gravely that he had been talking of the matter with Dr. Morrell, and he had no doubt that there was a taint of insanity in every wrong-doer; some day he believed the law would take cognizance of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... interrupt the contemplation of things as they are, by the endeavor to discover of what selfish uses they are capable (and of this order are painting and sculpture), ought to take rank above all pursuits which have any taint in them of subserviency to life, in so far as all such tendency is the sign of less eternal and less holy function.[6] And such rank these two sublime arts would indeed assume in the minds of nations, and become objects of corresponding efforts, but for two fatal and ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... put it back myself, and a good job for that 'taint went out of the family and off to the mouths of strangers, so ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... o'regrown, And all their echoes mourn. The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green, Shall now no more be seen, Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes. As killing as the Canker to the Rose, Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze, Or Frost to Flowers, that their gay wardrop wear, When first the White thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherds ear. Where were ye Nymphs when the remorseless ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... mouth is turned to foolishness, beauty in thee is a taint, every gift a fault, all knowledge a defect.... Thou art but a hen good to raise ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... arrested, his designs are likely enough to succeed; nay, though laws be passed to restrain him, he may strike out a new path. This is to be understood of a commonwealth which has to some degree become corrupted; for in one wherein there is no taint of corruption, there being no soil in which evil seed can grow, such designs will never suggest themselves to ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... organized and much longer in operation. He spies also on friend and neutral, while we only use this back-door method of gleaning information from an enemy. The word, too, has associations that are ugly, and I fancy that our spies do not boast of their service, but spy-hunting is a service that has no taint, and there is much satisfaction both to the conscience and intellect in routing out the underground worker who, for "filthy lucre," would sell the blood of his fellow man. The traitor and the spy have in all ages been rightly considered ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... after reflection, "that the assiduous practice of religion generally results in some intense effects on the soul. Only they may be of two kinds. Either it develops the soul's taint and evolves in it the final ferments which putrefy it once for all, or it purifies the spirit and makes it clean and clear and exquisite. It may produce hypocrites or good and saintly people; ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... runs through history. Even where the New Testament prevails, its teaching must still be dulled and clouded by its sterner neighbour. Let us retain this honoured work of literature. Let us remove the taint which poisons the very spring of ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... overcome the taint I spoke of—you knew what it was when you gave me your promise—and working hard, with you to cheer me, in a new land under the open sun, I shall crush it utterly. Semi-poverty, with an ill-paid task that demanded but half my energies, would try you, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... which advanced him to each position of trust until it made him head of the Government. And it was to this noble quality of his character that he owed his death. Corruption had grown up in connection with the offices of State, and Garfield's last mission was to purge the Government of this taint. He was resolved to set his face against "the waste of time and the obstruction to public business caused by the greedy crowd of office-seekers." And he also announced that "rigid honesty and faithful service would be required from ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford

... of nuts over meats is that they are absolutely free from any possible taint of disease. Those delectable foods, the walnut, the pecan, the hickory nut and the almond, are never the vehicle for parasites or other infections. Nuts are not subject to tuberculosis or any other disease which may ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... light-winged toys Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness My speculative and officed instruments, That my disports corrupt and taint my business, Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, And all indign and base adversities Make ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... harmless, and most useful to the fox hunter, for he cleans out the earths. Mr. E. Dunn, late master of the Old Berkshire, tells me that they are of great service in this way, as they dig and enlarge the earths, and so prevent the taint of mange clinging to the sides if a mangy fox ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... I do as I'd be done by, and give you a friendly warning, such as I'd have anybody do by a child of mine, if they was around the world. For my part, I always consider it a safe plan to wait and see what other people think about them, before I make up to anybody myself. 'Taint expected that a woman that's got a character to lose should commit herself in the eyes of the world. Remember, too, that on account of your being in a public capacity, so to speak, you'd ought to be ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security—almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... dread Did once amate:[78] my heart abhorred then To give consent unto so foul a deed: That wretched death should reave so worthy a man. On false fortune I cried with loud complaint, That in such sort o'erwhelms nobility. But he, whom never grief ne fear could taint, With smiling cheer himself oft willeth me To leave to plain his case, or sorrow make For him; for he was far more glad apaid Death to embrace thus for his lady's sake, Than life or all the joys of life, he said. For loss of life, quoth he, grieves me no more Than loss of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... spectacle of having little fiddles tucked under their chins. In spite of which, the younger one might, if I am correctly informed—I will raise the veil so far as to say I KNOW she might—have soared for life from this degrading taint, but for having the class of mind allotted to what I call the common herd, and being so incredibly devoid of veneration as to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... is never heard by the ears of educated people nor uttered by their lips: it circulates among the classes which create it; and the size of this dictionary is therefore not necessarily appalling to a Frenchman's eyes: it does not represent the corruption of the language, because slang does not taint the speech of those classes who control and make the standard speech and literature of the nation. If a dictionary of English slang were published now, how many young ladies and gentlemen of the educated classes, either in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... talent. Some people assert that genius is inconsistent with domestic happiness, and yet Southey was happy at home and made his home happy; he not only loved his wife and children though he was a poet, but he loved them the better because he was a poet. He seems to have been without taint of worldliness. London with its pomps and vanities, learned coteries with their dry pedantry, rather scared than attracted him. He found his prime glory in his genius, and his chief felicity in home affections. I ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... cold deliberation in this statement which was more cruel than cynicism, for it was sincere. Conyngham looked at Estella. Her face had lost all colour, her eyes were burning—not with the dull light of fear, for the blood that ran in her veins had no taint of that in it—but with anger. She knew who it was that Sir John Pleydell sought. She looked at Conyngham, and his smile of cool intrepidity made her heart leap within her breast. This lover of hers was at all events a brave man—and that which through all the ages reaches the human heart ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... which he had spoken helped to create a doubt which already had almost an existence of its own. Anton Trendellsohn was prone to suspicions, and now was beginning to suspect Nina, although he strove hard to keep his mind free from such taint. His better nature told him that it was impossible that she should deceive him. He had read the very inside of her heart, and knew that her only delight was in his love. He understood perfectly the weakness and faith and beauty of her feminine nature, and her trusting, leaning ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... wolf—and surely there was more of wolf than of dog in Black Bart—has a finer sense for the lay of ground than anything on four feet. He knows how to come down the wind on his quarry keeping to the depressions and ravines so that not a taint of his presence is blown to the prey; and he will skulk across an open plain, stealing from hollow to hollow and stalking from bush to bush, so that the wariest are taken by surprise. As for Black Bart, he knew the kind of going which ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... much broke up since I came out of the bastile," said the old man. "'Taint jest the place for a gentleman, I can tell you that. It's mighty down-settin' on one's pride, which I had a heap of afore I was sent to ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... might meet him by the way; and always he did his best to obtain an insight into the pressing questions of the time. Though in truth of a very liberal mind, he imagined himself a mass of prejudices; his Norman blood (considerably diluted, it is true) sometimes appeared to him as a hereditary taint, constituting an intellectual, perhaps a moral, disability; in certain moods he felt hopelessly out of touch with his age. To anyone who spoke confidently and hopefully concerning human affairs, Lord Dymchurch gave willing attention. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... as regards the nature of the body, in fact in this respect he was loth to be deprived thereof, according to 2 Cor. 5:4: "We would not be unclothed, but clothed over." He did, however, wish to escape from the taint of concupiscence, which remains in the body, and from the corruption of the body which weighs down the soul, so as to hinder it from seeing God. Hence he says expressly: "From the body of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... from his father and eldest brother. He had an open good-humoured face, and was very kind-hearted; but was subject to peculiar fits of insanity, during which he did wild and foolish things for the mere love of notoriety. He had two natures—one bright and good, the other sullen and criminal. A taint of madness ran in the family—came down from drunken and unprincipled fathers of dead generations; under different conditions, it might have developed into genius in one or ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... neglected. They simply require to be properly fined and carefully attended to. The casks in which they are shipped should be thoroughly cleansed and treated before being filled, in order to take out any taint of spirits they may contain; or any excess of tannin, which is always present in Dew wood. If these different matters be looked to they will improve to a wonderful extent on the voyage, and after being allowed a week or fortnight's rest on arrival, they will be found in a highly satisfactory condition. ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... unto my husband, No suit that may concern my wedlock's breach, I yield unto it; but To pass the bounds of modesty and chastity, Sooner[19] will I bequeath myself again Unto this grave, and never part from hence, Than taint my soul with ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... conditions combine to make the work most needed and fraught with the greatest usefulness to the community as a whole. There should be no extravagance, and the believers in the need of irrigation will most benefit their cause by seeing to it that it is free from the least taint of excessive or reckless expenditure of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... believing himself proof against evil influences. There we see already spiritual love groping for material objects in order to gain earthly support; not every man is a Dante, not every man is capable of keeping his soul free from the taint of this earthly sphere. But even the "plait-cutter," so well known to the reader of newspapers, the collector of garters, and similar desperadoes, require a relic, a fetich which they apparently worship. To the same category belongs ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... important, the commission found that in their daily operations, military installations were "generally free from the taint of racial discrimination."[20-79] It confirmed the general assessments of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the American Veterans Committee among others, pointing out that black and white servicemen not only worked side by side, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... Here is no taint of manner, no pretty posture or habit, but the simplicity of poetry and the simplicity of Nature, something on the yonder side of imagery. It is to be noted that this noble passage is from Tennyson's generally weakest kind of work—blank verse; and ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... were to be contemplated in the restoration of the United States to their primitive boundaries and united power. But it was not without deep apprehension of moral taint and ulterior evil consequences, that a wise patriot could look even then to any attempt of the old matrimonial partners to dwell again in a common household, upon the old terms, and with no real settlement of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... in old age, you happy man, your fields Will still be yours, and ample for your need! Though, with bare stones o'erspread, the pastures all Be choked with rushy mire, your ewes with young By no strange fodder will be tried, nor hurt Through taint contagious of a neighbouring flock. Happy old man, who 'mid familiar streams And hallowed springs, will court the cooling shade! Here, as of old, your neighbour's bordering hedge, That feasts with willow-flower the Hybla bees, Shall oft with gentle murmur lull to sleep, While the leaf-dresser ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... there doffed her silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady Godiva. A glance at the princess's form in puris naturalibus sufficed to convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two young people was celebrated that very evening amidst ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... you find it to be worth, that unless we believe that Jesus Christ died for all, I do not know what claim He has on the love of the world. We shall admire Him, we shall bow before Him, as the very realised ideal of humanity, though how this one Man has managed to escape the taint of the all-pervading evil remains, upon that hypothesis, very obscure. But love Him? No! Why should I? But if I feel that His death had world-wide issues, and that He went down into the darkness in order that He might bring the world into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... bull-necked, and freckled face, With two left legs, and Judas-colored hair, And frowsy pores, that taint ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... the visitor with due solemnity, "I assure you that whatever else I may be, I am as free from the taint of this unmentionable attribute as a babe unborn. Isabel, you will ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... is, of a Calvinistic taint, broken up by absolute license of dissent, maintaining a mere outward conformity to an extremely lax discipline—affronted Isaac Hecker's ideal of the communion of man and God; man seeking and God giving the one only revelation of divine truth, unifying and organizing ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... the 'glory' (which here seems to mean, as in John v. 44, xii. 43, approbation from God). 'There is no distinction,' but all varieties of condition, character, attainment, are alike in this, that the fatal taint is upon them all. 'We have, all of us, one human heart.' We are alike in physical necessities, in primal instincts, and, most tragically of all, in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... stage settings—and at the same time makes possible the quick transitions that are the glory of the Elizabethan drama. Here, of course, is where we make connection with the moving picture, whose fascinating realism and freedom from the taint of the footlights have perhaps been sufficiently insisted upon in what has been already said. In the moving picture, with the possibility of realistic backgrounds such as no skill, no money, no opportunity could build up on the ordinary stage—distant prospects, marvels of ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... warrior more free of any taint of caution than Strathdene could not be imagined, but otherwise he was as arrant a scamp as ever. While he waited for strength to "carry on" in the brave, new, English sense, it amused him to "carry on" in ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... this and many other marvels which to-day are extravagant dreams. To what ideal height will the process of evolution lead mankind? To no very magnificent height, it is to be feared. We are afflicted by an indelible taint, a kind of original sin, if we may call sin a state of things with which our will has nothing to do. We are made after a certain pattern and we can do nothing to change ourselves. We are marked with the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... circumstances, that one of the most persistent false notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... himself, though his reasons against the proposed arrangement turned entirely on his objection to Mr. Tyke's sermons, which were all doctrine, and his preference for Mr. Farebrother, whose sermons were free from that taint. Mr. Vincy liked well enough the notion of the chaplain's having a salary, supposing it were given to Farebrother, who was as good a little fellow as ever breathed, and the best ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... which the duration of ages is but as an atom to a world! Shall I not, when this momentary separation is past, again meet ALMEIDA to part no more? and shall not a purer flame than burns upon the earth, unite us? Even at this moment, her mind, which not the frauds of sorcery can taint or alienate, is mine: that pleasure which she reserved for me, cannot be taken by force; it is in the consent alone that it subsists; and from the joy that she feels, and from that only, proceeds the joy she ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth

... without the physical necessity of doing any thing ungentlemanly. But there are hundreds of others hanging on to the profession in a most precarious position from day to day, who would do any thing for business, and who taint the whole mass with the disgrace of their proceedings. These are the persons who resort to the arts of the lowest tradesmen, such as under-working, touting for employment, sneaking, cringing, lying, and the like. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... senate-house, the secret conclave nor the popular assembly, can shield one from the force of that primary law of human action—thou shalt not sin against thine own soul. Purity of purpose and sincerity of conduct must preserve the citizen from the taint of evil, or he will become corrupt, and if he do not disgust, ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house—from the grey-hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Misfortune appeals not to woman's heart unalleviated. He threw himself on my protection; and where the feelings own no taint, their purity is not sullied,—even ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... the blood of Jesus which also provides for the cleansing of that part of our nature that clings to the things of life which in themselves are not sinful but are God-given blessings. Our unsanctified affections must also become purified from every taint of depravity. That this may be accomplished, it becomes necessary that the heart yield up to the death every cherished object, even though it be a God-given blessing; it must be yielded up and laid upon the altar as a "burnt offering." The affections cannot be purified until the object of the ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers

... thy cheek divine; But a stain on it stands of the life-blood offered for thine. What thanks shall we give that are mixed not and marred with dread For the price that has ransomed thine own with thine own child's head? For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with blood, [Str. 2. And a plague to the blood-red hand. The rain shall not cleanse it, the dew nor the sacred flood That blesses the glad live land. In the darkness of earth beneath, ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... blazes do they want now; and who comes off here at this time o' night? 'Taint time to turn out yet, I'll swear, for I don't seem to have ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... Chateau barked vehemently, as if the very air bore some ominous taint; but La Corriveau knew she was safe: they were shut up in the courtyard, and could not trace her to the tower. A harsh voice or two and the sound of whips presently silenced the barking dogs, and all was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... which are seldom discovered or suspected. We have undertaken a difficult and painful task, and we shall accomplish it; unrestrained by a false delicacy, we shall drag forth from the dark and mysterious labyrinths of great cities, the hidden iniquities which taint the moral atmosphere, and assimilate human ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... are as much high treason, as to conspire the death of the king, or violate the chastity of the queen. And this upon the same reason, as was before given; because the prince of Wales is next in succession to the crown, and to violate his wife might taint the blood royal with bastardy: and the eldest daughter of the king is also alone inheritable to the crown, in failure of issue male, and therefore more respected by the laws than any of her younger sisters; insomuch that upon this, united with other (feodal) principles, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... almost made John laugh as he watched it. Turning to look at this, the smaller ram paced off to the right, followed now by the larger ram. Both creatures now, as if they had some sense of danger, stood with their majestic heads raised, looking steadily about and apparently scanning the air to catch the taint of danger. Thus they offered a good mark to ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... great sinners. But the disease is the same—in breaking one commandment, the whole law is violated; and, however in some the moral leprosy does not make such fearful ravages as in others, the slightest taint conveys moral, spiritual, and eternal death. ALL, whether young or old, great or small, must be saved by grace, or fall into perdition. The difference between the taint of sin, and its awfully developed leprosy, is given. Who so ready to fly to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... belle encore que la beaute', according to the good La Fontaine. She had the soft abandonment, the supple and elegant movements, and the graceful carelessness of the creoles.—(The reader must remember that the term "Creole" does not imply any taint of black blood, but only that the person, of European family, has been born in the West Indies.)—Her temper was always the same. She was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton



Words linked to "Taint" :   impurity, disinfect, pollute, defile, foul, smut, vitiate, corrupt, spoil, infect, superinfect, impureness, deflower



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