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Soiling

noun
1.
The act of soiling something.  Synonyms: dirtying, soilure.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Soiling" Quotes from Famous Books



... yet he had thrown a new light on the strike, and he had reminded Joe of his long-forgotten guilt. And suddenly Joe knew. All are guilty; all share in the corruption of the world—the laborer anxious for mass-tyranny and distrustful of genius, the aristocrat afraid of soiling his hands, the capitalist intent on power and wealth, the artist neglectful of all but a narrow artifice, each one limited by excess or want, by intellect or passion, by vanity or lust, and all ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... the laughing Ruggles; "that's the fellow, but I'm sorry to say that since they made a major-general of him, he's become a reg'lar dude. He doesn't go out when it rains for fear of soiling his uniform, and the noise of powder makes him sick, so be careful how you handle ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... Yet amidst this helpless imbecility there was a touching trait of humble, self-devoting maternity, which made Maggie feel tenderly toward her poor mother amidst all the little wearing griefs caused by her mental feebleness. She would let Maggie do none of the work that was heaviest and most soiling to the hands, and was quite peevish when Maggie attempted to relieve her from her grate-brushing and scouring: "Let it alone, my dear; your hands 'ull get as hard as hard," she would say; "it's your mother's place to do that. I can't do the sewing—my eyes fail me." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... Many of the young women whom she met at the master's house had yellowed fingers and smoked in the anteroom; the Big Soprano had smoked; Anna and Scatchy had smoked; in the coffee-houses milliners' apprentices produced little silver mouth-pieces to prevent soiling their pretty lips and smoked endlessly. Even Peter had admitted that it was not a vice, but only a comfortable bad habit. And Anna had ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... though late that day, was unusually sumptuous, and Betterson and his boys brought to it keen appetites from their work. Vinnie's cooking received merited praise, and the most cordial good-will prevailed. Even little Chokie, soiling face and fingers with a "drum-stick" he was gnawing, lisped out his ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... Soiling Goods—To prevent a sewing machine that has been oiled from soiling the material, try the following method: Tie a small piece of ribbon, or cotton string, around the needlebar near the point where ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... know the strength of my voice). I imitated the calf, the whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind under the door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my own song, so that long after She had finished soiling me with cold water I continued wailing, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then She laughed tactlessly and cried out, "You're as untruthful ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... is produced at the time, or if the oil leaks out during the night, a small quantity should be used. In some of my patients I have been able to use but one ounce. In very few, indeed, does it cause an evacuation at the time. If there is a tendency to leakage a napkin should be worn to avoid soiling the bed-linen. The following morning after breakfast, the child is placed on the vessel and kept there until a bowel movement results or until fifteen minutes have elapsed. In a great many cases if the constipation has been obstinate for months, the bowel ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... sweet song with the sweeter converse of her lover—to regard it as in a measure an accompaniment to his love-words. For answer her husband seized the unhappy bird by the neck and wrung its head off. Then he cast the little body into the lap of the dame, soiling her with its blood, and departed in ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... leader. Shades of Anda and Vargas! Out there at Balintawak—rather fitly, "the home of the snake-demon,"—not three hours' march from this same spot, on the very edge of the city, Andres Bonifacio and his literally sansculottic gangs of cutthroats were, almost with impunity, soiling the fair name of Freedom with murder and mutilation, rape and rapine, awakening the worst passions of an excitable, impulsive people, destroying that essential respect for law and order, which to restore would take a holocaust of fire and blood, with a generation of severe training. Unquestionably ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... my uncle. He was so gentle and so calm, and there was an infinite charm in his smile. His son was as turbulent as I was myself, adventurous and rather hare-brained, so that we always liked being together. His sister, an adorable, Greuze-like girl, was reserved, and always afraid of soiling her frocks and even her pinafores. The poor child married Baron Cerise, and died during her confinement, in the very flower of youth and beauty, because her timidity, her reserve, and narrow education had made her refuse to see a doctor ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... receiued into some vessel set or hanged vnderneth: Some that wanted sheetes, hanged vp napkins, and cloutes, and watched them till they were thorow wet, then wringing and sucking out the water. And that water which fell downe and washed away the filth and soiling of the shippe, trod vnder foote, as bad as running downe the kennell many times when it raineth, was not lost. I warrant you, but watched and attended carefully (yea sometimes with strife and contention) ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... old flame Throws out clear tokens of reviving fire:" But Virgil had bereav'd us of himself, Virgil, my best-lov'd father; Virgil, he To whom I gave me up for safety: nor, All, our prime mother lost, avail'd to save My undew'd cheeks from blur of soiling tears. "Dante, weep not, that Virgil leaves thee: nay, Weep thou not yet: behooves thee feel the edge Of other sword, and thou shalt weep for that." As to the prow or stern, some admiral Paces the deck, inspiriting ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... I should particularly avoid soiling this page with an account of the operation for fistula which Courcillon, only son of Dangeau, had performed upon him, but for the extreme ridicule with which it was accompanied. Courcillon was a dashing young fellow, much given to witty sayings, to mischief, to impiety, and to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... that was done a steam-pipe split on the fore-deck and we had to go in the rain and patch it. I didn't know where things were; I didn't know the names of things; I didn't know how they should be done. I'd been a gentleman for six years, never soiling my hands except to clean my bicycle. When the Second said to me at tea-time, 'You'd better knock off and turn in. You'll be on watch to-night,' I began to realize what I was in for. I sat on the settee in our room and tried to think. No wonder my old shell-back ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... sated with sight of my son, all-dearest of figures. 220 Nor will I send thee forth with joy that gladdens my bosom, Nor will I suffer thee show boon signs of favouring Fortune, But fro' my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow, Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled; Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms, 225 So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread. But, an grant me the grace Who dwells ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... bottle which is cleaned by rinsing in boiling water. Indoors, paper bags or paper boxes made for the purpose are used to receive the sputum, and burned before they become dry. The use of rags, handkerchiefs, and paper napkins is dirty, and apt to cause soiling of the hands and clothes and lead to contagion. Plenty of sunlight in the sick room will cause destruction of the germs of consumption, besides proving beneficial to the patient. No dusting is to be done in the invalid's room; only moist cleansing. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... interest of the topics so pleasantly treated in the volume before us. We extract a few of them: Around the House; My Bees; What to do with the Farm; A Sunny Frontage; Laborers; Farm Buildings; The Cattle; The Hill Land; The Farm Flat; Soiling; An Old Orchard; The Pears; My Garden; Fine Tilth makes Fine Crops; Seeding and Trenching; How a Garden should look; The lesser Fruits; Grapes; Plums, Apricots, and Peaches; The Poultry; Is it Profitable? Debit and Credit; Money-making Farmers; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... instructor, the sergeant expressly stipulated that he should not be required to remove his shoes on entering the Rajah's room when a European was present. The origin of the custom of removing the shoes was clearly to avoid soiling the carpets in the house or tent, on which the inmates sat, ate, ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... Smith, the Rough Rider, who carried his mate out of the ruck at San Juan and twirls his hat awkwardly and explains: "Ef I hadn't a saw him fall he would 'a' laid thar yit!"—and go straight home and pretend to be proud of a snug little poodle of a man who doesn't play for fear of soiling his picture-clothes, and who says: "Yes, sir, thank you," and "No, thank you, ma'am," like a French doll before it has had the sawdust kicked out ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She won her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which they had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid their money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She was called "the man-tamer," gracefully acknowledging the compliment. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... affectations. . . . One of them had been greeted with roars of enthusiasm upon presenting himself with no other clothing than a "combination" of Mademoiselle Chichi's. Many were taking obscene delight in soiling the rugs and filling the sideboard drawers with indescribable filth, using the finest linens that they ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother. He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior, or on anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded for soiling the table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor. He never has the misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or tearing his clothes, for he has almost none to soil or tear. He is never expected to ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... much to put in," grumbled Mrs. Vane, who had the greatest horror of soiling her hands or her gloves; who, in short, had a particular antipathy to doing ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... soil, Trudging, drudging, toiling, moiling, Hands, and feet, and garments soiling— Who would grudge the ploughman's toil? Yet there's lustre in his eye, Borrowed from yon glowing sky, And there's meaning in his glances That bespeak no dreamer's fancies; For his mind has precious lore ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... still welcome. Difficulty and toil give the soul strength to crush, in a loftier region, the passions which draw strength only from the earth. So long as we listen to the purer promptings within us, there is a Power invisible, though not unfelt, who protects us—amid the toil and tumult and soiling struggle, there is ever an eye that watches, ever a heart that overflows with Infinite and Almighty Love! Let us trust then in that Eternal Spirit, who pours out on us his warm and boundless blessings, through the channels of so many kindred ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... power, if he were not the door between Robert and me? What care I, indeed, how vile he is, so he but serve my purpose? Let him try my heart and soul and senses as he will; I will one day purify myself of his presence and all this soiling, and find my peace in Robert's arms—or in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... dressers, on which the metal utensils for cookery shone clean and polished as silver. The room itself was scrupulously neat; but the furniture as well as the utensils, were scanty. The boards of the floor were of a pure white, and so clean that you might have laid anything down without fear of soiling it. A strong deal table, two wooden-seated chairs, and a small easy couch, which had been removed from one of the bedrooms upstairs, were all the moveables which this room contained. The other front ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... sexes alike. It was not, however, worn within doors. At the threshold of the inner apartments the sandals were laid aside; and visitors from a distance were presented with a vessel of water to cleanse the feet from the soiling of dust ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... it exceedingly pleasant. I could stand in a crowd of simple folks, without embarrassing them, and when a cab-horse fell down in the street, I used to run and help it up without being afraid of soiling my clothes. But, best of all, I was living independently and was not a ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... Franklin then, having started this enterprise, printed on a sheet of paper the great advantages of keeping the sidewalk clean, and sent one of these papers to each house. He urged that much of the soiling of the interior of the houses would thus be avoided, that an attractive sidewalk would lure passengers to the shops; and that, in windy weather, their goods would ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... whose crudities are utter abominations. We care nothing for mere names, though a good deed is none the worse for coming from a good hand; but the small fry of literature—the lackadaisical geniuses—Heaven bless the mark—who, scum-like, float upon the surface, soiling what they touch and disturbing by their presence what, but for them, might be free from offence—we ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... rolled off Kitty's mind as rain from a tin roof. Only once did she rise up in anger with a "Get out of my place! I'll not have ye soiling the air with yer dirty talk. Get out, I say! Ye don't know a gentleman when ye see ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... most Blessed! Lift thee clear Of soiling men! Thou wilt not grieve in heaven For my long love! ...Father, thou art forgiven. It was Her will. I am not wroth with thee... I have obeyed Her all my days! ... Ah me, The dark is drawing down upon mine eyes; It hath me! ... Father! ... ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... thoughts dropping away into remembrances of the day before—the two sitting together under the lime-trees. That was the unendurable bitterness; it was easy to forgive her Ulick, he was nothing compared to this deliberate soiling of the past. If she could not have avoided the park, she might have avoided certain corners sacred to the memory of their love-story—the groves of limes facing the Serpentine being especially sacred ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... five varieties, viz.: hard corn, soft corn, chicken corn, pop corn, and Indian corn. It is a very useful production, as it affords occupation to a large number of itinerant persons, who have peculiar ways of sub-soiling it, some by a knife, some by washes, and some by plasters. This vegetable is generally planted early, (shoemakers having a monopoly of the cultivation,) and, curiously enough, the larger the crop ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work," said Amy. "It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without soiling it." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... is light and the growers depend almost wholly on the use of large quantities of commercial fertilizer, they seem to meet with the best success by using the same field for several successive crops, but in some places they succeed best with plantings following a crop of cowpeas or other green soiling crops plowed under, with a good dressing ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... fashion: violet, white, blue, white, green, white, red, white, yellow, white, orange, white—the three primary and the three secondary colours, with white placed between each, so as to keep everything as distinct as possible, and avoid in the mixing all soiling of the tones. Monet, Sisley, and Renoir contented themselves with the abolition of all blacks and browns, for they were but half-hearted reformers, and it was clearly the duty of those who came after to rid the palette of all ochres, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... boy was clad in an immaculate white suit for the lawn party, and his mother cautioned him strictly against soiling it. He was scrupulous in his obedience, but at last he approached her timidly, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... fellows, who of necessity live by their wits in the city slums, are diamonds which could be fitted to shine. You take a diamond and throw it down in the dirt and filth, and put your foot on it and grind it in, and leave it there, sinking and soiling, day after day, year after year, and when somebody comes along and picks it out, how much will it gleam for him at first? ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... brother. After a few days this gave way to a more marked stupor which lasted nearly two years. This was characterized most frequently by a complete inactivity. She usually lay or sat motionless, sometimes with mouth partly open, letting the flies crawl over her face, gazing in one direction, soiling, wetting, resisting moderately or markedly any interference, and had to be tube-fed. But this was not the invariable state. The most constant feature was her mutism, but even that was a few times interrupted. Thus, when after a visit from her uncle (towards the end of July, 1902) ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... of soiling milch cows—that is, feeding exclusively in the barn—there are yet many conflicting opinions. As to its economy of land and feed there can be no question, it being generally admitted that a given number of animals ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... the clover, and selling it. Nothing would exhaust the land so rapidly as such a practice. We must either plow under the clover, let it rot on the surface, or pasture it, or use it for soiling, or make it into hay, feed it out to stock, and return the manure to the land. If clover got its nitrogen from the atmosphere, we might sell the clover, and depend on the roots left in the ground, to enrich the soil for the ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... it into a network of clear or variegated colors that dazzled the eye to behold. Innumerable were the lovely fabrics made of it. The frailest lace, in the most intricate and aerial patterns, that had the advantage of never soiling, never tearing, and never wearing out. Curtains for drawing-room arches were frequently made of it. Some of them looked ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... manifestly derived from personal observation. He dwells on the itching in the region of the anus, caused by the oxyuris, and the fact that they probably find their way into the upper part of the digestive tract because of the soiling of the hands. He knew that the tapeworms often reached great length,—he has seen one over sixteen feet long,—and also that they had a life cycle, so that they existed in two different forms. ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... or not. If you are a "tenderfoot" you can't do better than hold your tongue about the wonders of Europe and its cities, about your own various exploits here and there. You will learn a lot by not talking, and if you don't mind soiling your hands a little, and keeping an eye lifted to discover the way in which things are done, you will get on very well on ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... to toil from morn till night, And seem to think fiestas are all wrong; They kick because we let our roosters fight. And make Work! Work!! the burden of their song. But why should we be toiling, What need our hands of soiling, While plenteous fruits are growing; With bounteous ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... a little, but she said nothing. During the preceding forty-eight hours there had been passages between herself and Delaine that she did not intend Anderson to know anything about. In his finical repugnance to soiling his hands with matters so distasteful, Delaine had carried out the embassy which Anderson had perforce entrusted to him in such a manner as to rouse in Elizabeth a maximum of pride on her own account, and of indignation on Anderson's. She was not even sorry ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... an objection I could not bring to you of my own will—it rang hollow in my ears—perhaps I thought even too little of it:—and I brought to you what I thought much of, and cannot cease to think much of equally. Worldly thoughts, these are not at all, nor have been: there need be no soiling of the heart with any such:—and I will say, in reply to some words of yours, that you cannot despise the gold and gauds of the world more than I do, and should do even if I found a use for them. And if I wished to be very ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... you are my second father, my master, my first director, my only true friend. Yes, I want to ask your advice. I am afraid of soiling one day the robe which I wear, I am afraid of becoming an object of shame and compassion. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... Soiling our cup, will make our sense reject Fastidiously the draught which we did thirst for; A rusted nail, placed near the faithful compass, Will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy. Even this small cause of anger and disgust Will break the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... very slight effort enabled me to complete the separation without soiling the paper or fracturing the seal. This was all done within my desk, the leaf of the desk being raised and resting upon my head. In this position I could easily close the desk, in the event of any ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... away what proceeds from their young. But in birds there seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nestlings is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest. As the young of small birds presently arrive ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... poultry house. When she caught sight of her brother just about to go out with his breviary under his arm, she laughed aloud, and kissed him on his mouth, with her arms thrown back behind her to avoid soiling him. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... the coming employee. Then, at the top of the steps, he found that his pipe had already gone out. "What with filling my pipe and emptying it, lighting it and relighting it," he thought, "I don't seem to get much time for the serious concerns of life. Come to think of it, smoking, soiling dishes and washing them, talking and listening to other people talk, take ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... be obtained, it is usually a cheaper source of food for cows than soiling food or cured fodders, as the element of labor in giving the food is largely eliminated. The best pastures, viewed from the standpoint of production, are those grown on lands that may be irrigated during the season of growth. These consist of clover and certain grasses. Permanent ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... advantages of such a colony will be easily seen. If each one has a small piece of suitable land, (and he does not need a large one to follow grape-growing), the neighbors can easily assist each other in ploughing and sub-soiling; they will be able to do with fewer work animals, as they can hitch together, and first prepare the soil for one and then for the other; the ravages of birds and insects will hardly be felt; they can join together, and build a large cellar in common, where each one can deliver ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... from the debate? The people will believe the insinuations of the Liberal press; they will think that the Bourbons mean to attack the rights of property acquired by the Revolution, and some fine day they will rise and shake off the Bourbons. You are not only soiling your life, Lucien, you are going over to the losing side. You are too young, too lately a journalist, too little initiated into the secret springs of motive and the tricks of the craft, you have aroused ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... of the land, And beggarly entailing it, we two, To-day well fed, well grown, well dressed, well read, We might have been two horny-handed boors— Lean, clumsy, ignorant, and ragged boors— Planning for moonlight nights a poaching scheme, Or soiling our dull souls and consciences With plans for pilfering ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... a certain individual on the upper Agsan was guilty of soiling the clothes of a person that happened to be working under the house. As the owner of the sick dog (it had been mangled by a wild boar) had been previously warned of the possibility of something untoward happening, he was fined ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... garment he put on to avoid soiling his clothes when he made his hair-tonic mixture. And he really did mistake you for Carrie, Mollie. He admitted as much, and asked to be forgiven. It was his lunch you ate. He had prepared for a long stay ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... know the word has not a pleasant sound to many ears, that it seems to include degradation, and a kind of social slavery, and lies away down in a region to which your fine, cultivated, intellectual woman cannot descend without, in her view, soiling her garments. But for all this, it is alone in daily useful work of mind or hands, work in which service and benefits to others are involved, that a woman (or a man) gains any true perfection of character. And this work must be her own, must lie within the sphere ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... soiling the cloth, it will be wise to put this ridge beneath, round the bottom; for as the rim is the simplest possible form of continuous handle, so this is the simplest form of continuous leg. And we get the section given beneath the figure for ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... to see you in Parliament?" asked the Count. "Politics are apt to be a dirty game. One cannot touch dirt without soiling one's hands. We have a deputy here, the Commendator Morena—well, one does not like to speak about him. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Denis. Why do ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... quietly as possible. At the end of three months he deserted me, and for four years I did not even know where he had gone. During that time, however, I learned that my husband, who had been fearful of soiling his proud name by having it publicly joined with mine, was, in the sight of the law, a common criminal. I finally traced him to America, and five years after he deserted me I had the pleasure of confronting him with the facts which I had obtained. With passionate protestations of renewed ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... come freest from any of that Pollution, which is in such quantities scattered there, have at least some dust to wipe off before they get home: 'Tis hard staying so long in such a Cloud of black vapours and smoak, without having so much as a soiling remain; great odds it is, but something will stick for a sober reflection to banish, and a Prayer to correct. And who is there that wants more work of that ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous

... poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and the world loses in me, what? another old glove, full of words; half of them idle, the rest wicked, untrue, silly, or ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... sit in its cradle, much of the time; but it should occasionally be taken up, and tossed, or carried about, for exercise and amusement. An infant should be encouraged to creep, as an exercise very strengthening and useful. If the mother fears the soiling of its nice dresses, she can keep a long slip or apron, which will entirely cover the dress, and can be removed, when the child is taken in the arms. A child should not be allowed, when quite young, to bear its weight on its feet, very ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... road until it lay first in dark dimples and last in swollen mud rows and shallow pools. The 'pike kept its dignity under the heaviest rains. Its very mud was light and plaster-like, scarcely clinging to the wheels or soiling the horses' legs. Its flint ribs rung more sharply under the horses' shoes. Through the damp dusk aunt Corinne took pleasure in watching the fire struck by old Henry and the gray, against the trickling stones. They pulled the carriage curtains down, and Grandma Padgett had the oilcloth apron ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... a gentle swabbing and thoroughgoing "patting dry" after each soiling or wetting of the diaper, but no soap is required in this region but once a day, and even then it ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... a troop of people from the Street of Pride, knocking boldly enough at the gate; but they were all so stiff-necked that they could never enter a place so low without soiling their periwigs and horns, so they sulkily retraced their steps. In their wake there came up a group from the Street of Lucre: "And is this the Gate of Life?" asked one; "Yea," said the watchman overhead. "What must be ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... in literature as in life: wherever you turn, you stumble at once upon the incorrigible mob of humanity, swarming in all directions, crowding and soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the number, which no man can count, of bad books, those rank weeds of literature, which draw nourishment from the corn and choke it. The time, money and attention of the public, which rightfully belong to good books and their noble aims, ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... should turn his lions and tigers loose in a crowd of women and children. Somebody would surely be killed and others hurt. It is just as wrong to turn loose the germs of the sick by throwing the spit and the slops where they will get into a stream or where the flies may find them and by soiling their feet leave death in their ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison

... priest, saying, "You insist that God alone gives life! Nay, no, no, no! It was a German devil that gave me this life that now throbs within my body! And every moment I feel that that life is pollution. German blood is poisoned blood. German blood is like putrefaction and decay, soiling my innermost life." The young woman wept, prayed, plead, and finally in her desperation cried out, "Then I decide for myself! The responsibility is mine. I alone will bear it." And out of the hospital she swept with the dignity and beauty ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... had better stay up, if they do come," said she. "She enjoys music so much. She can keep on her new gown. Maria is so careful of her gowns that I never feel any anxiety about her soiling them." ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... take a strip of cheesecloth three or four inches wide and tie around the forehead, back of the ears, and behind the neck; or one may use a close-fitting skull cap. Tuck in all straying locks. The idea is, of course, to keep powder, grease paint and cold cream from getting into and soiling the hair. Now you are going to ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... term outranks the other, but it seems to me that if a woman regards her love as a sacred thing, she cannot permit an indefinite number of commonplace people even to attempt to stain it with their soiling touch." ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... Tom received his lessons from Uncle Josh outside; and, judging from his face when he came in at dinner-time, he had not found them particularly agreeable. Tom Hurst was a dainty youth, in fact, and shrank from soiling his fingers with the tasks allotted to him: and seeing that grim Uncle Josh had not spared him, the forenoon had been one long battle; for, try as he might, Tom could not keep a bridle ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... was pushed back, her dress looped up, and she made a picture in the evening glow that would have driven a true artist half wild with admiration; but poor Gus was quite shocked. The idea of Edith Allen, the girl he had meant to marry, grubbing in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... and Mother showed herself clever in parting a path among the bushes. She managed so that no bough sprang back to strike Joyce, and without tearing or soiling her own soft, white dress; one could guess that when she had been a little girl she, too, had had a wood to play in. They cut down by the Secret Pond, where the old rhododendrons were, and out to the edge of the fields; ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... green-silk stuff, and furniture of painted white-wood covered with green worsted velvet. As to the chamber of the old celibate it was furnished with Louis XV. articles, so dirty and disfigured through long usage that a woman dressed in white would have been afraid of soiling herself by contact with them. The chimney-piece was adorned by a clock with two columns, between which was a dial-case that served as a pedestal to Pallas brandishing her lance: a myth. The floor was covered with plates full of scraps intended for the cats, on which there ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... priests who were also going to the Mont Saint-Michel. As they were afraid of soiling their new cassocks, they gathered them up around their legs when they jumped over the little streams. Their silver buckles were grey with mud, and their wet shoes gaped and threw water ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... unlocked the cell of Sister Mary Seraphine, feeling a shamed humility that she should have made so sure she had to deal with "Wilfred," and have thought such scorn of him and Seraphine. Alas! The wrong deeds of those they love, oft humble the purest, noblest spirits into the soiling dust. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... clothing resembled the garments of the priests under the law, "white linen and golden girdles," representing the holiness or moral purity of their work. They shed the blood of the victim, so to speak, without soiling their garments; but the Lord Jesus, whose work of judgment this is, "stains all his raiment," (Isa. lxiii. 3,) "for the day of vengeance is ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... if bakers left off baking because it is hot work, if ploughmen would not plough because of the cold, and tailors would not make our clothes for fear of pricking their fingers, what a pass we should come to! Nonsense, my fine fellow, there's no shame about any honest calling; don't be afraid of soiling your hands, there's plenty of soap to be had. All trades are good to good traders. A clever man can make money out of dirt. Lucifer matches pay well, if you sell ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... hunt their brethren—the Brethren of the Coast? On my soul, Lord Julian, it is yourself does the misapprehending. Are there not even notions of honour left in England? Oh, and there's more to it than that, even. D'ye think I could take a commission of King James's? I tell you I wouldn't be soiling my hands with it—thief and pirate's hands though they be. Thief and pirate is what you heard Miss Bishop call me to-day—a thing of scorn, an outcast. And who made me that? Who made me ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... and perhaps take a bath. A certain sense of soiling which she could not conquer had followed her up from that glorious meeting. She felt a little ashamed of it, but it was there, and though she told herself "They were his people, poor things," she was glad to take off the clothes she ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... feet, but they were mixed and confused, but this had gone higher in the store than the rest; there were tracks going and returning. The foot was small, elegantly-shaped, and, from appearance, with an instep so high that water might flow freely under without soiling the sole. After examining it for awhile, Mr. Delancey was observed to set his own foot on it, as if to note if there were any similitude. He turned away with a puzzled look, but in a few minutes called Jeff ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... incapable of controlling and of behaving himself, confounding resolution with action, vague desire with resolution, and the role he assumed with the character he thought he possessed; wholly disproportionate to the ordinary ways of society, hitting, wounding and soiling himself against every hindrance on his way; at times extravagant, mean and criminal, yet preserving up to the end a delicate and profound sensibility, a humanity, pity, the gift of tears, the faculty of living, the passion for justice, the sentiment of religion and of enthusiasm, like ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... please—for the point is not worth arguing—certain it is that my appearance was better than it had been before. For being in the best clothes, one tries to look and to act (so far as may be) up to the quality of them. Not only for the fear of soiling them, but that they enlarge a man's perception of his value. And it strikes me that our sins arise, partly from disdain of others, but mainly from contempt of self, both working the despite of God. But men of mind may not be measured by such ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... irresistible. This was the constant companionship of a sister whose nature enabled her to find its complete universe in the only world that she had ever known: she walking ever broad-minded through the narrowness of her little town; remaining white though often threading its soiling ways; and from every life which touched hers, however crippled and confined, extracting its significance instead of its insignificance, shy harmonies instead of the easy discords which can so palpably be ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... pressing it down from time to time, until the job was finished and the little tree stood securely planted. A great feat accomplished. Daisy stayed not, but ran off to the road for the watering-pot, and bringing it with some difficulty to the spot without soiling herself, she gave the rose-bush a thorough watering; watered it till she was sure the refreshment had penetrated down to the very roots. All the while the cripple sat back gazing at her; gazing alternately at the rose-bush and the planting, and at the white delicate frock the child ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... had washed the sky clean, but again this vast, advancing host was soiling heaven and blighting earth as it passed over the land toward that ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... is not to blame," said Betty; "I left her in charge of Mrs. Churchill while I went to wash my hands after milking the cow, which these fine folk seemed to suppose could be done without soiling a finger." ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Prescott doggedly. "He did thrash me twice, and it hurt. I don't believe in soiling our hands on anything like this fellow, when it can be ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock

... with perfect recklessness. Don't you think now that I am right, little reader, you who cried this very day, because you were always getting into trouble, and getting scolded and punished for it? You who are always tearing your frock and soiling your nice white apron, spilling ink on your copy-book, and misplacing your geography, forgetting your pencil and losing your sponge, and so getting reproof upon reproof until you are heart-sick and discouraged? I know what Jessie Smith's father told HER the other day. "You ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... themselves victims of oppression as well as those who were born under the benign influences of freedom, have crude and unwise notions about the duty of requiring their children to do some kind of work. Too many Negro children are guarded from soiling their hands and developing their muscles with necessary and useful toil. The struggling, industrious widow as well as the well-conditioned housewife whose husband has a good home and makes a good living, seeks to relieve her children of ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... whole street stared. Satin had drawn near and was still further soiling herself against the ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... have things to contend with sometimes which are not altogether agreeable, but I trip along over them just as I do over muddy places in the street, for fear, you know, of soiling my robe, if I floundered in them!" said May, laughing. Helen did not understand the hidden and beautiful meaning couched under May's expressions; she had heard but little of her baptismal robe since the days of her early childhood, and had almost forgotten that she was "to carry it ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... funeral, an', next morning, had 'm mention casually to a half-inch how deep it was plowed an' what plows'd done the plowin'!—Take that plowin' of the Poppy Meadow, up above Little Meadow, on Los Cuatos. I just couldn't see my way to it, an' had to cut out the cross-sub-soiling, an' thought I could slip it over on him. After it was all finished he kind of happened up that way—I was lookin' an' he didn't seem to look—an', well, next A.M. I got mine in the office. No; I didn't slip it over. I ain't tried to slip nothing ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... because this will tend to make them soft and mushy. Strawberries must be stemmed after they are washed, and for this purpose a strawberry huller should be utilized. Such a device, which is shown in Fig. 1, permits the stems to be removed without crushing the berries and soiling the fingers. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... had not been down to the farm for a week and a day; And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May. Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been! But soiling another, Annie, will never make ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... into that beautiful substance, stearin, which you see lying beside it. A candle, you know, is not now a greasy thing like an ordinary tallow candle, but a clean thing, and you may almost scrape off and pulverise the drops which fall from it without soiling anything. This is the process he adopted[2]:—The fat or tallow is first boiled with quick-lime, and made into a soap, and then the soap is decomposed by sulphuric acid, which takes away the lime, and leaves the fat re-arranged ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

... for a "situation." But the times were hard, and situations were not to be had. Every clerk that could be dispensed with was sent away, and besides, merchants do not like to employ a fellow who wears gloves and looks afraid of soiling his hands. Dudley had his mother to support, and looked about bravely for work. But no work was to be had. He tried everything, as it seemed, until at last he asked stern old Mr. Bluff, who owned half a ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... gratification. The desire he felt for her person was all cruel. It was joined to the desire to humble her, to force her to consent by her own lips and motion and against reason, to grant the gift of herself even if unwilling. There was an enjoyment in soiling the body and mind of this beauty. Thus with refusal love began slowly to turn to a hatred full of malice. One night Aikawa Chu[u]dayu was present. O'Kiku as usual served the wine. Shu[u]zen turned to him impatiently—"The ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... efforts to rid themselves of attacking flies. The unfortunate foal is unable to take its natural nourishment in peace, and consequently does not thrive so well as does the offspring of an unmutilated mother. One of the feeble arguments set forth in favour of docking is, that it prevents a hunter from soiling the coat of his rider by his tail; but, as my husband truly says in his new edition of Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners, "This idea is an absurdity, because an undocked horse cannot reach his rider with his tail, if it is banged short, which ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... of wings, and what Sudden drench of dews upon The young brows, wreathed, all unsought, With the apple-blossom garlands Of the poets of those far lands Whence all dreams are drawn Set herein and soiling not The Book ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley

... he had halted would suit his present purpose well, he decided. It was where an uprooted tree, fallen across an incurving bank, made a snug little recess that was closed in on three sides. Spreading the newspaper on the turf to save his knees from soiling, he knelt and set to his task. For the time he felt neither hunger nor thirst. He had found out during his earlier experiments that the nails of his little fingers, which were trimmed to a point, could invade the keyholes in the little steel ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... lower than me: yes, just so, sweet, That I may run my fingers through your hair, And see your face turn upwards like a flower To meet my kiss. Have you not sometimes noted, When we unlock some long-disused room With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled, Where never foot of man has come for years, And from the windows take the rusty bar, And fling the broken shutters to the air, And let the bright sun in, how the good sun Turns every grimy particle of dust Into a little thing of dancing ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... she was everything I had." Hepsa burst into tears again, and little Genevieve's heart was so filled with compassion, that she sat down upon the dirty ground, at the side of the afflicted child, without ever thinking of the blue frock and clean pantalettes she was soiling. ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins

... room which he is finishing, disturbs the stillness which fills this purest air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which I am soiling it. Almost every other minute I find myself stopping to listen to the ceaseless river-psalm, or to gaze up into the wondrous depths of the California heaven; to watch the graceful movements of the pretty brown lizards jerking up ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill-fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife, Slips in a moment ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... alighted on the figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third of the incongruous fugitives. She had run there, seemingly, blindfold; the wall had checked her career: and being entirely wearied, she had sunk upon the ground beside the garden railings, soiling her dress among the summer dust. Each saw the other in the same instant of time; and she, with one wild look, sprang to her feet and began to hurry ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... who were soiling their uniform with the grease of saws, whose only fighting was against fever and water snakes, the news of an expedition into the Vicksburg side of the river was hailed with caps in the air. To be sure, the saw and axe, and likewise the levee and the snakes, were to be there, too. But there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a baby, and all the movements were to enable her to do something to it conveniently. At the same time her companion dropped on one knee, pulling her clothes a little up, and arranging them so as to prevent soiling them, she put the other leg out in front, and sat back on the heel of the kneeling leg. Then was another split, younger and lighter-haired, partly visible from below, but not so plainly as the dark-haired ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... torn clothes, filthy and smeared with sawdust, flung over a delicate, gilded chair; there sprawled my battered boots, soiling the polished, inlaid floor; a candle lay in a pool of hardened wax on a golden rococo table, and I saw where the smouldering wick had blistered the glazed top. And this was her room! Vandalism unspeakable! I turned on my ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... under the house in the low wide cobwebby space between the floor beams and the ground. The delightful sensation of being on an exploring expedition led him farther (and ultimately to a paternal thrashing for soiling his clothes), till he discovered a hollow place near one side, where he could nearly stand upright. He at once formed one of his schemes—to make a secret, or at least a private, workroom here. He knew ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the seminal vesicles and an active secretion on the part of the prostate gland and of Cowper's glands. The secretion from Cowper's glands will make its way along the urethra and appear at the opening of that duct, probably soiling the linen of the subject. The accumulated semen from the other glands will tend rather to aggravate than allay the sexual desires. Such a condition of the sexual apparatus is likely to cause a nocturnal emission, relieving this tension and emptying the gorged gland ducts. If ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... Spain and France will shortly do so, and Raleigh, in the face of such apathy, 'concludes that we are cursed of God.' Amid all this excitement, it is pleasant to find him remembering to be humane, and begging Cecil to impress the Queen with the need of 'not soiling this enterprise' with cruelty; nor permitting any to proceed to Guiana whose object shall only be to plunder the Indians. He sends Cecil an amethyst 'with a strange blush of carnation,' and another stone, which 'if it be no diamond, yet ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... wept, and with her untressed hair Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch; And he wiped off the soiling of despair From her sweet soul, because she loved ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... annoyed me. Now I thought of him with tenderness in my heart and reproached myself for my fastidiousness. I should have wept if I had not had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin blouse in the other. A walking boot is but a cold comfort. And my thriftiness denied my tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... little more than the unconscious faithfulness to instinct of the clean-limbed, placid brute, she can give peace to his tormented conscience; and, while he has suffered and struggled and lashed himself for every seeming baseness of desire, and loathed himself for every imagined microscopic soiling, she has walked through good and evil, letting the vileness of sin trickle off her unhidden soul, so quietly and majestically that all thought of evil vanishes; and the self-tormenting wretch, with macerated flesh hidden beneath the heavy garments of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... that was no affair of his, he reflected. A citizen of the intellectual world should be above soiling his thoughts with mean curiosities of that sort, and he drove the impertinent query down again under the surface of his mind. He refused to tolerate, as well, sundry vagrant imaginings which rose to cluster about and literalize the romance of her youth which Sister Soulsby had so frankly outlined. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... always said,—"Upon my word, you're a pretty little fellow!" and looked as if he would like to shake him, if it were not for soiling his gloves. ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May

... exults in forgiveness and mercy; that He rejoices in innocent happiness; that He loves courage, and brightness, and kindness, and cheerful self-sacrifice; that things mean, and vile, and impure, and cruel, are things that He does not love to punish, but sad and soiling stains that He beholds with shame and tears. This, it seems to me, is the Gospel teaching about God, impossible only because of the hardness of our hearts. But if it were possible, a child might grow to feel about sin, not that it was a horrible and unpardonable failure, a thing to afflict ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and smoothing their dishevelled hair, they brushed off the salt dust from the flagstones, soiling their gowns, and they went away in opposite directions, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... was capable of feeling so profound it startled him. To carry the Girl, his bride, through the valley and up the hill in the little spring wagon drawn by Betsy—that would have been his ideal way. But he had supposed that she would be afraid of soiling her dress, and embarrassed to ride in such a conveyance. Instead it was her choice. Yes, he could love her more. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... approbation. "My bounty as boundless as your desires. But, in a great city like this, it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and meritorious poverty. You could not go into the squalid dens of want and sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world. There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest dregs of the populace, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... day in her best evening-party dress, and say if she could move about with that ease which she would like. Such, however, must be the feeling of the inhabitants of Broek; they must be in perpetual fear, not only of soiling or deranging their clothes merely, but their very streets every step they take. But good-bye to Broek. I would not have missed seeing it but do not care to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... lure of dressing our persons; when we traversed the streets, with what attention did we not avoid every breath of wind which might discompose our hair; and with what caution did we not prevent the least speck of dirt from soiling our garments!" ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... impudence even than the panegyrists of other parties, the known facts of history, averred that the Church had never concealed the esteem it had for science, called heresies impure miasmas, and treated Buddhism and other religions with such contempt that he apologized for even soiling his Catholic prose by onslaught on ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... the slave power, it must by that time have been apparent to all, that adverse votes was what it most dreaded; but old-side Covenanters, Quakers, and Garrisonians could not cast these without soiling their hands by touching that bad Constitution. But that moral dilettanteism, which thinks first of its own hands, was not confined to non-voting abolitionists; for the "thorough goers" of the old Liberty Party, could not come down from their ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm



Words linked to "Soiling" :   maculation, staining, soil, pollution, spotting, change of state, contamination



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