"Abjure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... S.], recidivist. time server, time pleaser[obs3]; timist|, Vicar of Bray, trimmer, ambidexter[obs3]; weathercock &c. (changeable) 149; Janus. V. change one's mind, change one's intention, change one's purpose, change one's note; abjure, renounce; withdraw from &c. (relinquish) 624; waver, vacillate; wheel round, turn round, veer round; turn a pirouette; go over from one side to another, pass from one side to another, change from one side to another, skip from one ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the chalked arms must be outside. The favourite attitude is that of the Rhodian Colossus, with the elbows bent to the fore and the hands clasped behind the head. To increase their prestige of terror, the Jinkomba abjure the use of human language, and, meeting a stranger, ejaculate with all their might, "Har-rr-rr-rr-rr!" and "Jojolo! Jojolo!" words mystic and meaningless. When walking in procession, they warn the profane out of the way by striking one slip of wood upon another. They are wilder in appearance than ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... gave, for one swift instant, a glance at Trenchard, who was, very clumsily, climbing into the carriage. Nikolai looked at him gravely. His round, red face was quite expressionless as he turned back and began to abjure his horses in that half-affectionate, half-abusive and wholly human whispering exclamation that Russians use to their ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... her husband. The major, by way of congratulating her, declared that her novel was immoral rubbish, and that her love of vicious paradoxes was only a peculiarly depraved form of coquetry. He added, however, that he loved her in spite of her follies, and that if she would formally abjure them he would as formally offer her his hand. They say that women like to be snubbed by military men. I don't know, I'm sure; I don't know how much pleasure, on this occasion, was mingled with Anastasia's wrath. But her wrath was very quiet, and the major ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... my property, and whose family is as ignoble as Lord Melbourne's own, and not to have offered the same to me. In the eleventh page of the Letters I published after the quelling of Bonaparte are these words: 'I was the first to abjure the party of the Whigs, and shall be the last to abjure the principles. When the leaders had broken all their promises to the nation, had shown their utter incapacity to manage its affairs, and their inclination ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... deprive them of any strong claim to originality." "No," said he gaily, "I shall never believe that Frenchmen are changed, until I hear that there is no ballet in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... seriousness of the step. They forget that when the pledge has once been given, there is no turning back, The knot cannot be untied. If a thoughtless mistake has been made, the inevitable results will nevertheless follow. The maxim is current, that "marriage is a lottery." It may be so if we abjure the teachings of prudence—if we refuse to examine, inquire, and think—if we are content to choose a husband or a wife, with less reflection than we bestow upon the hiring of a servant, whom we can discharge any day—if we merely ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... submit to the laws of the State—to deliver up all contumacious and rebellious persons within their district—to deliver up all deserters from the regular service—to sign a declaration of allegiance to the United States, and to South Carolina in particular, and to abjure the British crown, and to surrender all British property. Compliance with these conditions, was to ensure them full pardon for their treasons to the State, and the enjoyment of their property as citizens ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... woman, charitably exhorted and admonished by competent judges, does not return spontaneously to the Catholic faith, publicly abjure her errors, and give full satisfaction to her judges, she is hereby given up to the secular judge to receive the reward ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... pilier plus eloigne, la tete nue, tenant sa main sur le coeur comme un signe de son repentir; parce que la tradition dit, qu'aiant ete atteint et convaincu du crime d'heresie, le Chapitre l'avoit interdit des fonctions de son Benefice; mais qu'aiant ensuite abjure son erreur, le meme Chapitre le retablit dans tous ses droits, honneurs, et privileges: cependant il fut ordonne qu'en memoire de l'egarement et de la penitence de ce Chanoine, ces Statues demeureroient attachees aux piliers de leur Eglise, lorsqu'elle fut rebatie des ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... own act, freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... jealousy, disdain; Racked by suspicion as by certainty; Forgotten, left to feed my flame alone. And while I suffer thus, there comes no ray Of hope to gladden me athwart the gloom; Nor do I look for it in my despair; But rather clinging to a cureless woe, All hope do I abjure for evermore. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that are used in the weaving of you. Your father looks to your spiritual wants. Your mother concerns herself with the material. Yet the old carpenter's preaching is, methinks, more to your taste. You are a rank latitudinarian, man. Sir Stephen would cry fie upon you, and Joshua Pettigrue abjure you! Well, out with the light, for we should both be stirring at cock-crow. That is ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Catherine, rapidly; "that he has been proved to be in connexion with that sorcerer who has aimed at your life; that the chiefs of the accursed Huguenot party are concealed in Paris, awaiting but your death to place the crown upon his brow; that he also looks to this event to abjure once more the true Catholic faith, and return into the bosom of heresy; that by giving power into his hands, you endanger the safety of the state; that by committing the rule of the country to a Heretic and a Seceder, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... "this isn't at all a common, every-day day, and I don't want to do every-day things in it. I want something new and unusual to happen. Can't you abjure those wretched beasts of yours for once, and come with us to that sweet little canyon at the far end of the Ute, where we went the summer after I was married? We want to show it to Rose, and ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... infant. A sister of Baron d'Aubigne, Madame de Vilette, took Francoise to her home at the Chateau de Marcey, where she passed her infancy. After an imprisonment of four years, the baron was released; but, as he refused to abjure Calvinism, Cardinal Richelieu would not permit him to remain in France. He consequently, with his family, embarked for Martinique. During the passage, Francoise was taken ill and apparently died. As one of the crew was about to consign the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... his intention to change his allegiance—a kind of period of repentance. The required time of residence was then raised to five years for the nation and one for the State. During that time he must maintain a good moral character, must abjure allegiance to all other sovereigns, and must renounce all hereditary titles and orders of nobility. In this way one speaker said he hoped to shut out those refugees from the twenty thousand French nobility, who might choose to fly to the United States. Another expected ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic 50 I here abjure; and, when I have required Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,— To work mine end upon their senses, that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... rotten and unruly member; "Give the generall the oath!" cries one (but his conscience being a little tender); "I'll abjure you with a pestilence!" quoth George, "and make you remember The 'leaventh of February (53) longer than the fifth of November!" ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... sadly, benevolently. "Mon cher," said he, "if I could but persuade you to abjure the wine-cup and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had bid Eternal farewell to unmingled joy And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart; It is the toy of fools, and little fit For such a world as this. The wise abjure All thoughts whose idle composition lives In the entire forgetfulness of pain. —I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Nature: why dost thou employ them to so little advantage? I here promise you, on my most sacred word, pardon for the past, and protection for the future, will you but name to me the villain who bribed you to assassinate Conari, abjure your bloody trade, and accept an honest employment in the service of the Republic. If this offer is rejected, at least quit with all speed the territory of ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... of our Huguenot ancestors, who, at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had quitted their country, their home and their dear ones, rather than abjure their faith. The letters had been written to an old grandfather, a man too aged to go the way of the exile, who was able, for some inexplicable reason, to remain unmolested in his retreat upon the Island of Oleron. The letters testified to the fact that the exiles had been submissive and ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... noblest lore, to know that all we know is naught." Self-approval is enough reward. The whole duty of man is to himself, but he must "hold Humanity one man" and, looking back at what he was, determine not to be again that thing. "Abjure the Why and seek the How." The gods are silent. The indivisible puny Now in the length of infinite time is Man's all to make the best of. The Law may have a Giver but ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... love thee far better than all else on the earth, Zillah, still I cannot abjure my Christian faith, and, like a hypocrite, pretend to be a true follower of Mahomet. At best, we can be but a short time here on earth, and if I was unfaithful in my holy creed, how could I hope at last to ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... arch-supports for my feet. I'm on them so much that by bedtime my ankles feel like a chocolat mousse that's been left out in the sun. Yet this isn't a whimper, Matilda Anne, for when I turn in I sleep like a child. No more counting and going to the medicine-chest for coal-tar pills. I abjure them. I, who used to have so many tricks to bring the starry-eyed goddess bending over my pillow, hereby announce myself as the noblest sleeper north of the Line! I no longer need to count the sheep as they come ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... men. He has something more to guard against than the ordinary temptations of society. There is, as you may possibly know, a taint in his blood—the taint of hereditary intemperance. I warned him of this and implored him to abjure wine and all other drinks that intoxicate, but he was proud and sensitive as well as confident in his own strength. He began to imagine that everybody knew the family secret I had revealed to him, and that if he refused wine in public ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... that Mr. Ricardo can require me to abjure an inference so reasonable as this? If so, I must frankly acknowledge that I am out of the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... out of the water in lofty precipitous cliffs, their summits crowned with dark luxuriant cedars. It was to this island that a large number of the Japanese who had been converted to Christianity by the celebrated Roman Catholic missionary Xavier were carried when they refused to abjure the religion they had adopted. Conducted up to the summits of the cliffs, they were cast over the edge, bound hand and foot, at low water, meeting certain death as they reached the rocks below. Here the mangled remains lay till the tide coming in carried them off to sea. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... than jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German, telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold, and he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of fagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and vogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could save himself, but only repeated that he had been convicted by false witnesses on errors never entertained by him. They clapped their hands and then withdrew, and the executioners applied the fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... not detached instances of oppression, but rather a sample of the general system of administration. The covenant, which had been so solemnly taken by the whole kingdom, and, among the rest, by the king himself, had been declared to be unlawful, and a refusal to abjure it had been made subject to the severest penalties. Episcopacy, which was detested by a great majority of the nation, had been established, and all public exercise of religion, in the forms to which the people were most attached, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... interview with Eleazar, who tells him that he knows the Jew, who once saved the Cardinal's little daughter from the flames. Brogni vainly entreats him to reveal {164} the name. He promises to save Recha, should Eleazar be willing to abjure his faith, but the latter remains ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... continuance of her quietness without a marriage, and therefore I remit the success to Almighty God."[827] The situation of Elizabeth's servants was, indeed, extremely embarrassing. Their mistress had laid an insuperable obstacle in the way. She did not, indeed, require Anjou to abjure his faith, but her demands virtually involved this. Not only did she refuse to grant the duke, by the articles of marriage, public or even private worship for himself and his attendants, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, but she wished to bind him to make no request to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... explained, and his majesty's favourable interpretation and pardon asked for anything omitted in the Bill or done amiss.(1348) A report had got abroad that the City had caused a clause to be inserted in the Bill forbidding any one to engage in building operations who refused to abjure the Covenant. This made the Common Council very angry, and the mayor and sheriffs were desired to investigate the matter.(1349) On the 5th February (1667) the Bill passed the Commons, and two days later received the assent ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... greenwood girl and boy Had loiter'd to their lure, And men in cities closed their books To dream of Spring and running brooks And all that ever was of joy For manhood to abjure. ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... would be easier not to wash it, and it was bad enough to justify the term "muck," which was applied to it by the kitchen oracles, who rejoiced exceedingly in our discomfiture. We left the dairy half inclined to abjure butter-making for the future. In a day or two we began to reflect, that as we had a "Farm of Four Acres," we must mange to do something with it, and what so profitable to a large family as making butter? So, ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... chattering society, and thereafter, up to to-day, a domestic country gentleman of literary pursuits, I have avoided (as far as possible) fashionable gatherings of every sort, social, theological, or political. Not that I abjure—it is far otherwise—any kind of genial intercourse with my fellows; a few friends are my delight, but I never would belong to a club, though sometimes specially tempted by indulgence as to terms (more than once having been offered a free and immediate entry), nor to any ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... this act, received arbitrary power to arrest and imprison on suspicion, without check or restraint of law, at their will and pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who persisted in heresy, or relapsed into it after abjuration, were sentenced to be burnt at the stake—a dreadful punishment, on the wickedness of which the world has long been happily agreed. Yet we must remember that those who condemned teachers of heresy to the flames, considered ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... relics of a man beloved! Thou lifeless corpse! Here, on thy death-cold hand, Do I abjure all foreign ties for ever! And to my country's cause devote myself. I am a Switzer, and will act as one, With my whole ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... said John, abstractedly, and in his fancy saw Miss Garnet explaining to her friends, with a restrained smile, that in Suez to join the church was to abjure the theatre. But another ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... that woman should lose any of that refinement and delicacy of spirit which, as a celestial halo, ever encircles the pure in heart. We contend not that she shall become noisy and dictatorial, and abjure the quiet graces of life. We claim not that she, any more than her brother, should engage in any vocation or appear in any situation to which her nature and abilities are not fitted. But we ask for her, as for man, equality before the law, and freedom to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... hanged he was, on a ready-made gallows in the street. He was let down shortly, "brought around" with rum, and the oath was offered again. He refused it. This had not been looked for. It had been taken for granted that he would abjure his fealty to the king at the first tightening of the cord. A conference was held, and it was declared that retreat would be undignified and unsafe, so the Tory was swung up again, this time with a yank that seemed to "mean business." He hung for some ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... now with rage Valverda's glances roll, And mark the vengeance rankling in his soul: 70 He bends his wrinkled brow—his lips impart The brooding purpose of his venom'd heart; He bids the hoary priest in mutter'd strains, Abjure his faith, forsake his falling fanes, While yet the ling'ring pangs of torture wait, 75 While yet Valverda's power suspends his fate. "Vain man, the victim cried, to hoary years "Know death is ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... lose you for ever, but your dear image shall be constantly before me in those dark abodes of penitence and woe. Thither must I go, and leave all these dear scenes, and the dearer sight of you, consigned to unrelenting misery. Not humbly, alas! to pray; not to abjure the world; for ah! I cannot abjure that world which contains the fondest object that links me to life. I go not in the humble mood of a repentant sinner, to weep over a guilty life, but in the desponding resolution of a fond woman, eager to keep her faith unbroken to him of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... maime to your discretion To abjure a certaine and a pleasing good For an uncertaine harme you would impose In malice on another. Yo'are a man In whome the glorious soule of goodnes moves With such a spacious posture that no woman, But such a squemish baby as my daughter, Would be ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... of striking outline, full of dark personal motive; it was perhaps history most of all that this company was, as a matter of course, governed by such considerations as put divorce out of the question. "Ces gens-la don't divorce, you know, any more than they emigrate or abjure—they think it impious and vulgar"; a fact in the light of which they seemed but the more richly special. It was all special; it was all, for Strether's imagination, more or less rich. The girl at the Genevese school, an isolated ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... inconstant, cruel, I cannot excuse myself. But, O Silvestre, in the name of the love you once bore me, have pity on us! Reform, abjure your evil courses! Do not, I implore you, condemn my husband to this abyss of depravity, do not wreck my married life!" Now I understood what had procured me the honour of a visit from this woman, and I triumphed devilishly that I was ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... not one in use by the Mohammedans, Dick saw that his idea that the old man was a Hindoo, who had been forced to abjure his religion, was a correct one. The old man motioned to them to take their ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown and abjure all political connection, contract, or association with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... that all this was ineffectual , she approached him with the request that he teach her the word of God, saying, "If it be thy wish that I forsake idol worship, then fulfil my desire, and I will persuade that Egyptian husband of mine to abjure the idols, and we shall walk in the law of thy God." Joseph replied, "The Lord desireth not that those who fear Him shall walk in impurity, nor hath He pleasure in ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Ellis was heard, pleading with a fair and anonymous Central, whom he addressed with that charming impersonality employed toward babies, pet dogs, and telephone girls, as "Tootsie," to abjure juvenility, and give him 322 ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the mesmeriser, (an agreeable and well-informed person,) and stated to him that the object of our visit was to prevail on him to exhibit to us a specimen of his mysterious talent. To this he at first replied that he was rather seeking to abjure a renown that had become troublesome—half the world viewing him as a conjurer, and the other half as a getter-up of strange comedies; 'but,' he kindly added, 'if you will promise me a strictly private meeting, I will, this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... appearance at that hour. Though Americans incline to the Continental manner of living, this true Westerner found himself a sudden convert to English methods. In a word, he was in love, and his lady could not err. To please her he was prepared to abjure iced ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... wealth from her dependencies, but lavishes it upon objects unworthy of herself. She achieves victories with their aid, but appropriates the spoils and trophies exclusively to herself. For centuries she refused to commit trusts to Irishmen, or confer privileges upon them, unless they would abjure ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... double windows, and forty tons of anthracite, than June bursts upon us with ninety degrees in the shade. Then how we despise our contrivances for keeping warm, and bless the ice-man! We wish the house was all piazza, and if it were not for burglars and mosquitoes, would abjure walls and roof and live in the open air. Just here is our dilemma. We go "from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strands" and back again every twelve months, whether we will or no, and are obliged to live in the same house through it all. It's really a desperate ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... drawn—spectrum analysis will not be acknowledged as inferior to purely spiritual research. Nor, before developing his sixth sense, will the man of science concede the error of his theories as to the solar spectrum, unless he abjure, to some degree at least, his marked weakness for conditional and disjunctive syllogisms ending in eternal dilemmas. At present the "Adepts" do not see any help for it. Were these invisible and unknown profanes to interfere with—not ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... spirits for a certain period, and each binding himself in case he broke the compact to pay over a certain sum of money to his partner in the bond. Young Hale saw that to effect a complete reformation of his life it was needful for him to abjure the practice of drinking healths. He therefore vowed never again to drink a health; and he kept his vow. Never again did he brim his bumper and drain it at the command of a toast-master, although his abstinence ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... thus thrown upon himself, without the nerve or the spirits for external amusement, few situations are more forlorn. The Parisian French are intensely calculating and selfish; illness and grief are so alien to their tastes that, to the best of their ability, they ignore and abjure them. As long as health permits, out-of-door life or companionship solaces that within; the stranger may be enchanted; but when confined to his apartment and dependent on chance visitors or hireling services, he longs for a land where domestic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... majorities. Any man—ran this terrible statute—denying the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of Christ, or that the books of Scripture are "the Word of God," or the resurrection of the body, or a future day of judgement, and refusing on trial to abjure his heresy, "shall suffer the pain of death." Any man declaring (amidst a long list of other errors) "that man by nature hath free will to turn to God," that there is a Purgatory, that images are lawful, that infant baptism is unlawful; any one denying the obligation of observing ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... indignant at it. He feared that it was deliberately preconceived and for the purpose; and went on to repeat what Lord Aberdeen had told me, that Sir R. Peel had been within an ace of quitting parliament, and was determined to abjure party and stand aloof for ever, and never resume office. I replied as before, that in the House of Commons it was impossible. He went on to sketch the same kind of future for himself. He was weary of labour at thirteen or fourteen hours a day, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... command of their actions, and with that, their consciences, into the hands of a usurper (and that Edward is one in Scotland our annals and his tyrannies declare), they sell their birthright and become unworthy the name of men? In that deed they abjure the gift with which God had intrusted them; and justly, the angels of his host depart from them. You know the sacred axiom, Virtue is better than life! By that we are commanded to preserve the one at the expense of the other; and we are ready to obey. Neither the threats ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... live in the country and think about the town. Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be the ordinary things; terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary. I am on the side of the man who lives in the country and wants to go to London. I abominate and abjure the man who lives in London and wants to go to the country; I do it with all the more heartiness because I am that sort of man myself. We must learn to love London again, as rustics love it. Therefore (I quote again from the great Cockney ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... the sole of my own boot, I took it into my head that it was absurd for me to aspire at all— rather, that I ought to account myself a disgrace and an abomination. Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has decided to abjure his better qualities and human dignity, he falls headlong, and cannot choose but do so. It is decreed of fate, and therefore I am ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... creed. When I treat of the ceremonies of the Holy Week, I merely treat of their effect, and do not challenge the good and learned Dr. Wiseman's interpretation of their meaning. When I hint a dislike of nunneries for young girls who abjure the world before they have ever proved or known it; or doubt the ex officio sanctity of all Priests and Friars; I do no more than many conscientious Catholics both abroad and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... abjure their allegiance; for they have found out that their king is a king Log, and can do them no good. A king, set up in opposition to God's will, cannot save. The ruin of their projects teaches godless men at last that they have been fools ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up The pine and cedar; graves at my command Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have requir'd Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... to every thing he demanded. To some of these requisitions the spirit could not consent, without authority from his master, the chief of devils. At length all these concessions were adjusted. The devil on his part also prescribed his conditions. That Faustus should abjure the Christian religion and all reverence for the supreme God; that he should enjoy the entire command of his attendant demon for a certain term of years; and that at the end of that period the devil should dispose of him, body and soul, at his pleasure [the term was ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... possible still higher and more imperative claim—to such a nature as hers is no love and no true good at all. And this thirst for the highest alike in love and life includes her lover as well as herself. The darkest terror that overtakes her in all those after-scenes comes when he is about to abjure country, honour, and God on her account. To her, the Gypsy, without a country, without a faith save faithfulness to the highest right, without a God such as the Spaniards' God, this might be a small thing. But for him, Spanish noble and Christian knight, she knows it to ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... folly in talking unnecessarily of one's private affairs. I have just now been interrupted by one of my new neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemptible in my eyes, by his silly, garrulous pruriency. I know it has been a fault of my own, too; but from this moment I abjure it as I would the service of hell! Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence; but'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. Still, imprudence ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... undoubtedly in the matter of divorce a sharp conflict between Catholic ideas and the practice and opinion of Protestant countries. That exists, and will continue, under every variation of government. It is an eternal antinomy. But whom does it aggrieve? We Catholics voluntarily abjure the blessings of divorce, but we should never dream of using the civil law to impose our abnegation on those of another belief. If there is any doubt upon that point it can very easily be removed. The civil law of marriage can be conserved ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... I charge thee, O my child, Thou must not seek the forest wild. Ah, what to me were life and bliss, Condemned my darling son to miss? But with my Rama near, to eat The very grass itself were sweet. But if thou still wilt go and leave Thy hapless mother here to grieve, I from that hour will food abjure, Nor life without my son endure. Then it will be thy fate to dwell In depth of world-detested hell. As Ocean in the olden time Was guilty of an impious crime That marked the lord of each fair flood As one who spills a ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... me," cried the king, exasperated. "Rather than draw back, I would sacrifice my kingdom, and would abjure my family. Yes, I would strike until this arm had utterly destroyed all those who had ventured to make themselves the enemies of the gentlest and best of creatures." And, as he said these words, Louis struck his ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... during the night. "She has known too much of courts to endure royalty. She reigns as the widow of M. de Fontenai. If Tallien falls, she will have the power of choosing from all his successors. When old age comes at last, and conquests are hopeless, she will turn devote, fly to her native Spain, abjure the face of man, spend her money on wax-dolls and cockle-shells; and after being worshipped by the multitude as a saint, and panegyrized by the monks as a miracle, will die with her face turned to Paris after all, as good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... well there, the three weeks we stayed, and am far from well just now. You see, the weight of the atmosphere, which seems to me like lead, combined with the excitement, is too much at once. Oh, it won't be very bad, I dare say. I mean to try to be quiet, and abjure for ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... consternation how they had been deceived and betrayed. Without delay they were sold by the merchants to the slave-dealers, and by the slave-dealers to the Saracens. Forty of them were purchased for the caliph and carried to Bagdad, where they were forced to abjure Christianity, and ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... the more I feel that we do the things we are impelled to do, the works prepared for us to walk in, as the old collect says. How often, in real life, do we see any one making a clean sweep of all his conditions and surroundings, to follow the path of the soul? How often do we see a man abjure wealth, or resist ambition, or disregard temperament, unexpectedly? Not once, I think, to speak for myself, in the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... occupations which did so much to soften monkish austerities in the Middle Ages, were recognised early as needful to the system. Even the ascetics by the Red Sea and in Nitria did not deprive themselves of all literary solace, although the more fanatical would abjure it, and many would be too poor to have it. The Rule of Pachomius, founder of the settlements of Tabenna, required the brethren's books to be kept in a cupboard and regulated lending them. These libraries are referred to in Benedict's own Rule. We hear of St. Pachomius ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... shrank in dismay from this, the most important and honourable charge that had ever been bestowed upon him. It drew him away from the new path in which he did not yet feel at home, because the love he could not abjure constantly thrust him into the world, into the midst of the life and tumult from which Heaven itself commanded him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the hills. Or he took the arm of a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Feltre, and walked with him from the green tables and the establishment's renowned dry still Sillery to a Papist chapel. As it was not known that he had given his word to abjure his religion, the pious gamblers did no worse than spread an alarm and quiet it, by the citation of his character for having a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... than he came aft and told me his story; which, in brief, was to the effect that he had originally belonged to our navy, but had deserted, out of affection for Mendouca—who had shown him great kindness—when that individual chose to shake off his allegiance and abjure his country. And now, of course, he dreaded nothing so much as recognition and seizure, for not only was he a deserter, but he had also been guilty of taking an active part in more than one deed of piracy perpetrated by his chief; he therefore implored me to let him keep ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... place his perfect love on a wretched thing, is miserably debasing, and shocking to thought; but that loving perfectly and well, he should by hellish human circumvention be brought to distrust and dread, and abjure his own perfect love, is most mournful indeed—it is the infirmity of our good nature wrestling in vain with the strong powers of evil. Moreover, he would, had Desdemona been false, have been the mere victim of fate; whereas ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... we no living bard of merit?—none? Awake, George Colman! —Cumberland, awake! Ring the alarum bell, let Folly quake! Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen, Let Comedy resume her throne again, Abjure the mummery of German schools, Leave new Pizarros to translating fools; Give, as thy last memorial to the age, One classic drama, and reform the stage. Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head, Where Garrick trod, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... No wonder! for the child is sadly changed. They will see her soon; a Christian prophet comes to break the heathen spell of the island. The men of yonder village consent to abjure the worship of Apollo. They come with the teacher of a new religion to consecrate the spot anew. The busy crowd, as on a day of festival, embark to claim again the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an Embargo Liberty, a handcuffed Liberty, Liberty in fetters, a Liberty traversing between the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! Its parentage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... nothing but a dangerous folly. Well, it is dangerous, like climbing the Alps, but one gets a great view from the top. And, oh! from there how small men look and how near are the heavens. I mean, my dear boy, that although I have asked you to abjure seances and so forth, I do pray of you to cultivate the spiritual. The physical, of course, is always with us, for that is Nature's law, without which it could not continue. But around and beyond it broods the spirit, as ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... desert, leave, resign, abjure, discontinue, quit, retire from, cast off, forego, recant, retract, cease, forsake, relinquish, surrender, cede, forswear, renounce, vacate, depart from, give ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... prince and noble, man and knight, Ye see your master pledged to worthy deed. Abandon ease, abjure delight, Lift up your hand, each in his right, Offer God the savings from thy greed. I take my leave, imploring each, indeed, To risk his life for Christian gain, To serve his God and 'suage ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... be expected of no ambassador. Most nobly did the devoted friend and pupil of the great statesman remember his duty to the illustrious Prince and their High Mightinesses. Most promptly did he abjure his patron now that he had fallen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the giaour, who amid the darkness caused by a total eclipse of the moon and the stars, offered to bring him to the palace of subterranean fire, where he should behold the treasures which the stars had promised him, and the talismans that control the world, if he would abjure Mohammed, adore the terrestrial influences, and satiate the stranger's thirst with the blood of fifty of the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... very well. Some of them make the contrast between the misery of others and our own comforts so immediately the apparent—mind, I only say apparent—ground of thankfulness, that they are not fit for teaching. I do think that if you could put Dr. Watts to the question, he would abjure any such intention, saying that only he meant to heighten the sense of our obligation. But it does tend to selfishness and, what is worse, self-righteousness, and is very dangerous therefore. What right have I to thank God that I am not ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... than the solitude it destroyed. It shall be no such thing, but only the trouble of a journey. I feel too, as I grow older, the vis inertiae, and fancy that locomotion is more difficult, but let us abjure the doctrine, for it baulks much pleasure. Pray—pray as the children say—come to us, think of it first as not impossible, then weigh fairly the objections, and if they resolve themselves into mere aversion to change, overcome them by an assurance ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... offence, With action violent, and boisterous tone, Hurl'd on that glorious man, whose pious labours Shield from every ill his grateful country! That man, whom friends to adoration love, And enemies revere.—Yes, M'Donald, Even in the presence of the first of men Did I abjure the service of my country, And reft my helmet of that glorious badge Which graces even the brow of Washington. How shall I ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... putting himself into my hands, and would submit to whatever I should decide in the matter. It would be humiliating and subject him to misconstruction by others if he took conflicting oaths, but he was willing to abjure the obligation he had taken, if I demanded it, and would voluntarily renew his allegiance to the United States with full purpose ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... secondary obligation. This effect of legal oaths is attested by the prevalence of profane swearing, and by the frequent use of oath-like forms of asseveration, not regarded as profane, by persons of a more serious character. Except in the religious sects that abjure the use of oaths, nine persons out of ten swear more or less, and spontaneously confirm statements which are in the least degree strange or difficult of belief, or promises to which they wish to give an air of sincerity ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... caused great personal inconvenience to the undersigned, and whereas he is tired of martyrdom and exile: Therefore, be it hereby promulgated, that the undersigned doth here and now publicly declare himself ashamed of the said opinions, and doth abjure them: And doth declare his Majesty George III. the greatest of kings since Dionysius of Syracuse and Nero; and his great measure, the Stamp Act, the noblest legislation since the edict of Nantz. And further, the undersigned doth uphold the great Established Church, ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... their noble fraternity before we were many stages on the road; and although I am happy to say I was not compelled to take part in their potations, for the simple reason that they had none left to offer me, I was constrained to sing songs, shout shouts, abjure allegiance to the Union Jack, and utter aspirations for the long life of Charlie Parnell and Father Mickey (I believe that was the reverend gentleman's name), and otherwise abase myself, for the sake of peace, and to prevent my head making acquaintance with the shillalahs of the company. I ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... what we said to one another in the count's picture gallery. I called to you to rescue me at any price. I told you that if I could purchase deliverance thereby, I was ready to commit a crime. That to be with you again I would abjure the faith of my fathers, although I knew I should die of penitence after the perpetration ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... twice six moons (let winds, turn'd porters, bear This oath to Heav'n), for twice six moons, I swear, No Muse shall tempt me with her siren lay, Nor draw me from Improvement's thorny way; Verse I abjure, nor will forgive that friend, Who in my hearing shall a rhyme commend. It cannot be—Whether I will, or no, Such as they are, my thoughts in measure flow. Convinc'd, determin'd, I in prose begin, But ere I write one sentence, verse creeps in, And taints me thro' and thro': by this ...
— English Satires • Various
... a moral behavior is required, which is hardly necessary as a precondition of merely chemical work. The disciple of the art is to free his character, according to the directions of the masters from all bad habits, especially to abjure pride, is diligently to devote himself to prayer, perform works of love, etc.; no one is to direct his senses to this study if he has not previously purified his heart, renounced the love of worldly things, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... James. "Dost thou, indeed, repent thee of thy iniquities? Dost thou abjure the devil and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... similar situation, have uttered such vows, to abjure them when they find themselves face to face with the man who has betrayed them, and whom they love. Maud was not of that order. Certainly she loved dearly the seductive Boleslas, wedded against her parents' will the perfidious one for whom she had sacrificed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... most agreeable dinner it was. The company consisted of twelve persons, Lord and Lady Ashburton, etc. I like Lady Ashburton extremely. She is full of intelligence, reads everything, talks most agreeably, and still loves America. She is by no means one of those who abjure their country. I have seen few persons in England whom I should esteem a more delightful friend or companion than Lady Ashburton, and I do not know why, but I had received a different impression of her. Lord Ashburton, by whom I sat at dinner, struck me as ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... and respected" Luther a very polite letter, ordering him to appear at Worms and granting him a safe-conduct thither. Luther said, on receiving the summons, that if he was going to Worms merely to retract, he might better stay in Wittenberg, where he could, if he would, abjure his errors quite as well as on the Rhine. If, on the other hand, the emperor wished him to come to Worms in order that he might be put to death, he was quite ready to go, "for, with Christ's help, I will not flee and leave the Word in the lurch. My ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... urns were dying out. The Master of Life and Death, graciously smiling and courteously inclining toward him, said: 'Guest of my Banquet, the hour has struck in which thou art to swear to serve me; in which thou must abjure thine ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... earlier, and which confronted Louis Philippe three centuries later—that is to say, having been raised to sovereign power by a party which was not in the majority, he soon found himself obliged to separate from this party and to abjure his religious beliefs, as others have abjured or will yet abjure their political beliefs; consequently, just as Octavius had his Antony, and Louis Philippe was to have his Lafayette, Henri IV was to have his Biron. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... silent. She believed in God, but not so thoroughly as to abjure the exercise of a subsidiary providence of her own. The more people trust in God, the less will they trust their own judgments, or interfere with the ordering of events. The man or woman who opposes the heart's desire of another, except in aid ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of the 'Dialogues' Galileo was summoned before the Inquisition, and, notwithstanding his feeble health and the infirmities of advanced age, he was, after a long and tedious trial, condemned to abjure by oath on his ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... by the passage of our armies.' They want to repair the injustice as follows: Belgium will pay Germany $96,000,000! Give this proposal your vote. When Galileo had discovered the fact that the earth moved around the sun, he was forced at the foot of the stake to abjure his error, but he murmured, 'Nevertheless it moves.' Well, gentlemen, as I fear a still greater misfortune for my country I consent to the payment of the $96,000,000 and I cry 'Nevertheless it moves.' Long live our country ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... painted their gods, like their despots, wicked and envious. To appease them, man offered up the sacrifice of all his enjoyments. He environed himself in privations, and reversed the order of nature. Conceiving his pleasures to be crimes, his sufferings expiations, he endeavored to love pain, and to abjure the love of self. He persecuted his senses, hated his life; and a self-denying and anti-social morality plunged nations ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... daily more circumscribed, till at length the use of them will be entirely superseded, or at best confined to the higher orders of society; who, it is probable, may be induced in the long run both by the growing perfection of their native manufactures, and by patriotism, to abjure the consumption of all goods that may have a tendency to augment the prosperity of their common oppressor. The colonists, in fact, have only to advance a few steps further in the manufacturing system to be completely independent of foreign supply. Already fabricating ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Ingoldsby Bray, so bold and so brave, Never shall wash himself, comb or shave, Nor adorn his body, Nor drink gin-toddy, Nor indulge in a pipe— But shall dine upon tripe And blackberries gathered before they are ripe, And forever abhor, renounce and abjure Rum, hollands, and ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... that priest. [Anselmo covers his face with his hand.] My better angel hath my mind illumed— Hath shown me thy past life. Thy heavy sins, In black array, hath weigh'd before mine eyes; That silent voice, which every bosom sways, Hath spoken deeply—bidden me abjure Him who mock'd all. That gentle voice hath said, That of us twain, immortal bliss alone Can crown the union; which to be obtain'd, Must on this earth be won by penance strict, Unceasing prayer, and thy resumed vows. Is it not ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... my indisposition to mischief, nay, I might add, my virtues; that henceforth I trampled reverence and the recollection of former esteem under my feet. I lost all regard to his intellectual greatness, and all pity for the agonies of his soul. I also would abjure forbearance. I would show myself bitter and inflexible as he had done. Was it wise in him to drive me into extremity and madness? Had he no fears for his own secret ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the tenth century is the golden age of this literature. Its temporary decline after this period was owing to the invasion of the Arabians, when many of the inhabitants were converted to the Mohammedan faith and many more compelled to suffer persecution for their refusal to abjure Christianity. After the subjection of Armenia to the Greek empire, literature again revived, and until the fourteenth century was in a flourishing condition. In 1375, when the Turks took possession of the country, the inhabitants were again driven ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... doubt whether, apart from the representations of the "books" they abjure as special "revelations," there is any thing in the history of the world which will justly a sober-minded man in coming to any positive conclusion as to this promised "progress" this infidel millennium, either the one way or the other. The chief facts, apart from such special information, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... crookedness, on the rising hopes of the country. During the discussions that led to the formation of the league, it was emphatically announced by certain members of the Confederation that on no ground and for no purpose would they abjure one principle they ever announced. Above all, they avowed their purpose to urge on the country the duty of armed resistance whenever its success appeared probable. The Government heard of these avowals, and ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... and publicly recant their former acts, declaring themselves miscreants. Juan de Nargas had just retired from the Governorship after seven years' service, and the Archbishop called upon him likewise to abjure his past proceedings and perform the following penance:—To wear a penitent's garb—to place a rope around his neck, and carry a lighted candle to the doors of the cathedral and the churches of the Parian, San Gabriel and Binondo, on every feast day during four months. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... congratulate, good-will disgrace *Grex, gregis flock segregate, egregious Habeo, habitum have, hold habituate, prohibit Itum (see Eo) Jacio, jeci, jactum throw, hurl reject, interjection Jungo, junctum join conjugal, enjoin, juncture Juro swear abjure, perjury Jus, juris law, right justice, jurisprudence Judex (from jusdico) judge judgment, prejudice *Juvenis young rejuvenate, juvenilia Latum (see Fero) *Laudo, laudatum praise allow, laudatory Lego, lectum ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor |
