"Vow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I am faithful to a vow! Faithless am I save to love's self alone. Were you not lovely I would leave you now; After the feet of beauty fly my own. Were you not still my hunger's rarest food, And water ever to my wildest thirst, I would desert you—think not but I would!— ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... unusual facility. Pigeons, differently from any other domesticated animal, can easily be mated for life, and, though kept with other pigeons, rarely prove unfaithful to each other. Even when the male does break his marriage-vow, he does not permanently desert his mate. I have bred in the same aviaries many pigeons of different kinds, and never reared a single bird of an impure strain. Hence a fancier can with the greatest ease select and match his birds. He will also see the good ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... I vow the Fiery Tongue hath caught Quaint echoes of the passing time; Thus laughs it at my idle thought, My longing for a fairer clime: 'So—so you'd like some southern shore, To gather flowers the winter through, As if there were on earth no more For ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... she registered a vindictive vow that, should the circumstances of her residence in Monkshaven afford the opportunity, she would endeavour to give ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... of lord Walton. On the day appointed for the wedding, Arturo has to aid Enrichetta (Henrietta, widow of Charles I.) in her escape, and Elvira, supposing he is eloping with a rival, temporarily loses her reason. On his return, Arturo explains the circumstances, and they vow never more to part. At this juncture Arturo is arrested for treason, and led away to execution; but a herald announces the defeat of the Stuarts, and free pardon of all political offenders, whereupon Arturo is released, and marries "the fair ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... agonies of his death. It was in the morning of July 21, 1676, that he died. Next day I entered into my closet, in which was the image of my divine spouse, the Lord Jesus Christ. I renewed my marriage-contract, and added thereto a vow of chastity, with a promise to make it perpetual, if M. Bertot my director, would permit me. After that I was filled with great joy, which was new to me, as for a long time past I had been ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Like SAMPSON'S heart-breakers, it grew In time to make a nation rue; Tho' it contributed its own fall, 255 To wait upon the publick downfal, It was monastick, and did grow In holy orders by strict vow; Of rule as sullen and severe As that of rigid Cordeliere. 260 'Twas bound to suffer persecution And martyrdom with resolution; T' oppose itself against the hate And vengeance of th' incensed state; In whose defiance it was worn, 265 Still ready to be pull'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... rigorous, the thermometer in winter being often twenty-nine degrees below zero, whilst sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit is about the highest range ever attained in summer. From the extreme difficulty of respiration, few of the monks ever survive the period of their vow, which is fifteen years, commencing at ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... upon the ramparts and pleaded for mercy in a voice choked with tears: "Shupria, the country which has sinned against thee, will yield to thee of her own accord; place thy officers over her, she will vow obedience to thee; impose on her a ransom and an annual tribute for ever. I am a robber, and for the crime I have committed I will make amends fifty-fold." Esarhaddon would listen to no terms before a breach had been effected in the city walls. This done, he pardoned the prince ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had helped to strengthen Harvey Carr's natural resolution and steadfastness of purpose in life. When the famished and hideous-looking survivors of the crew of the City of Hope were picked up two days later the orphaned sailor lad made a vow to devote himself to his sisters and "live clean." And he had kept his vow, though for many years he had lived as trader, mate, or supercargo, among people and in places where loose living was customary with ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... which went into my heart, and seemed a voice that cried, "Run, thy brother is dying." I ran into the room above; I took the blow into my breast; I said, "Now he is dead, there is nothing to give me comfort. Who will undertake thy vengeance? When I show thy shirt, who will vow to let his beard grow till the murderer is slain? Who is there left to do it? A mother near her death? A sister? Of all our race there is only left a woman, without kin, poor, orphan, and a girl. Yet, O my brother! never ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... eighty miles in width, by two hundred in breadth. Whydah is the principal town on the seacoast. The story runs, that, about two hundred and seventy-five years ago, Tacudons, chief of the Foys, carried a siege against the city of Abomey. He made a solemn vow to the gods, that, if they aided him in pushing the city to capitulate, he would build a palace in honor of the victory. He succeeded. He laid the foundations of his palace, and then upon them ripped open ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... tears. "I know very little of the law of my fathers," said he; "but Sarah's mother was firm in her belief as a daughter of Israel, and I vowed to her on her deathbed that our child should never be baptized. I must keep my vow: it is to me even as a covenant with God Himself." And so the little Jewish ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... very subtle, but Willy Cameron saw her face and understood. It was strange beyond belief, he felt, this loyalty of women to their men, even after love had gone; this feeling that, having once lain in a man's arms, they have taken a vow of protection over that man. It was not so much that they were his as that he was theirs. Jim Doyle had made her a prisoner, had treated her brutally, was a traitor to her and to his country, but—he had been hers. She was glad that he had ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to the head.[1] "Perfect life and high merit in-heaven a lady higher up," she said to me, "according to whose rule, in your world below, there are who vest and veil themselves, so that till death they may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepts every vow which love conforms unto His pleasure. A young girl, I fled from the world to follow her, and in her garb I shut myself, and pledged me to the pathway of her order. Afterward men, more used to ill than good, dragged me forth from the sweet cloister;[2] ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... Shamash at Sippara, or Marduk at Babylon, there seems little to connect her with the prostitute-votaries of Ishtar at Erech. She ordinarily lived in the convent, or "bride-house" of Shamash. She was given a portion, exactly like a bride, on taking her vow and becoming the "bride" of Shamash. But her property did not go to the convent. At her father's death, with her consent, her estate might be administered by her brothers, or she could farm it out. At any rate, she was provided for during her lifetime. But at her death, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Thy birth, by Thy death upon the cross, and by Thy glorious resurrection, that Thou wilt deign to let me see the sun, if not otherwise, at least in dreams. But if Thou wilt grant me to behold it with these mortal eyes of mine, I engage myself to come and visit Thee at Thy holy sepulchre." This vow and these my greatest prayers to God I made upon the 2nd of October in the year 1539. Upon the following morning, which was the 3rd of October, I woke at daybreak, perhaps an hour before the rising of the sun. Dragging myself ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... before; but I did not say before, that nobody is so likely as a wood-engraver to cut his stick." Speaking of his wife, he says,—"To be sure, she still sticks to her old fault of going to sleep while I am dictating, till I vow to change my Womanuensis for a Manuensis." How keenly and well the pun serves him in burlesque, in his comic imitations of the great moralist! He hits off with inimitable ridicule the great moralist's dislike ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... choice of Antium, there to place the gift Vow'd to the goddess for our mother's health, We will the senate know, we fairly like: As also of their grant to Lepidus, For his repairing the AEmilian place, And restoration of those monuments: Their grace too in confining of Silanus To the other isle Cithera, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... soothe him. He had hardly reached his home ere he heard that the savage had kept his vow. He had shot and killed an innocent man, one Garret Van Voorst, who was thatching the roof of a house. The chiefs of the tribe were terror-stricken, through fear of the white man's vengeance. They did not dare to go to the fort lest ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... glances, rose, and hurried away to her room, while the others remained silent, nursing bitter hatred to fever-heat in their hearts, the proud Mrs. Ellsworth blaming Dainty most unjustly for her deserved discomfiture, and registering a secret vow ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... green leaves went, And they are gone once more, And I have never kept my vow, Which makes my heart full sore. But I will never "dee i' t' shell," But make that vow again— That I will be a better lad ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... that those people were ashamed to stoop to in their hunt for that friendless girl's life. What they wanted to show was this—that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow and trying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... week Christ on His Cross, sacrificing Himself for us and all mankind; and may that sight help to cast out of us all laziness and selfishness, and make us vow obedience to the spirit of self- sacrifice, the Spirit of Christ and of God, which was given to us at our baptism. And let us give, as we are most bound, in all humility and contrition of heart, thanks, praise, and adoration, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... I am," remarked Dicky, trying to look surprised. "Well, my idea is let's be a sort of Industrious Society of Beavers, and make a solemn vow and covenant to make something every day. We ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... that one can't break that vow." This was said by the young girl who seemed most eager to know about everything. "Do you hear that, all of you?" she added. "Jan won't leave his wife though all the glories of Portugallia are ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... mankind, Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life: send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy name; that as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant between them made, and may ever remain in perfect love and peace together, and live according to thy laws, through Jesus Christ our ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... beautiful works.' An infant who is to become a Soneeassee has from his birth the badge of Sheva upon him: no razor ever touches his hair, and his locks are matted and dishevelled, when other children's are neatly combed and anointed. When he approaches manhood, he takes the vow of celibacy, he receives from the hand of the Brahmin the muntra or mystical creed, the dried skin of an antelope, and a piece of coarse, unbleached cotton, stained yellow with ochre, which he can use as a plaid, it ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... incomprehensible. What were they waiting for? For what end were these two lying and deceiving? Not for the ends of their love. There was no such thing. The hope of regaining him for herself made her break her vow of not leaving the tower that night. She must talk at once to her father, who was wise, and would understand. She ran down the spiral stairs. At the moment of opening the door at the bottom she heard the sound of the first shot ever fired ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... and it has been suggested that their action was "running amuck'' in the true Malay sense. Another proposed derivation for amouchi is Sanskrit amokshya, "that cannot be loosed,'' suggesting that the murderer was bound by a vow, an explanation more than once advanced for the Malay amuck; but amokshya in such a sense is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... cramp in my fingers, I'll vow, mem. And all to no purpose. But when your laship pins it up with poetry, it fits so pleasant the next day as anything, and is so ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Spencer, 'I took the first foreign appointment that offered. And my poor father, who had spent his utmost on me, and had been disappointed in all his sons, was most of all disappointed in me. I held myself bound to abide by my rash vow; loathed tame English life without her, and I left him to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a pillar of the stone upon which his head had rested, poured oil upon it, and called the name of the place Bethel. Then he made a vow that if God would go with him and provide for him he would serve Him and give to Him a tenth part of ...
— The Farmer Boy; the Story of Jacob • J. H. Willard
... and his mother came to Seriphos How Perseus vowed a Rash Vow How Perseus slew the Gorgon How Perseus came to the AEthiops How Perseus came home again The Argonauts How the Centaur trained the Heroes on Pelion How Jason lost his sandal in Anauros How they built the ship 'Argo' in Iolcos How the Argonauts ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... was the heroic, and also the unconventional soul of the family. The ancient dames of the house never mentioned his name. On hearing it they lowered their eyes and blushed. Although a soldier of the church, a holy knight who had taken the vow of chastity on entering the Order, he always carried women in his galley—Christian women ransomed from the Mussulman, who were in no haste to return to their homes, or else infidels captured ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... enables the submarine navigator clad in a diver's suit to step into the wall of water and prosecute his labors on the bed of the ocean. Jules Verne even foresaw the callous and inhuman character of the men who command the German submarines to-day. His Captain Nemo had taken a vow of hate against the world and relentlessly drove the prow of his steel boat into the hulls of crowded passenger ships, finding his greatest joy in sinking slowly beside them with the bright glare of his submarine electric lights turned full upon the hapless women and children over whose sufferings ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... I waited. It would always be the same. I think it, is a little better for me to write to you, like this, instead of waiting till you wake up and then telling you, because I'm foolish and might cry again, and I took a vow once, long ago, that you should never see me cry. Not that I'll feel like crying when we talk things over tomorrow. I'll be "all right and fine" (as you say so often) by that time—don't fear. I think what makes me most ready to cry now is the thought ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... answered quickly in English, "that it's going to be killed for our entertainment." His pink colour faded, and in Arabic he begged the Caid to give orders that, if the lamb were for them, its life be spared, as they were under a vow never to touch meat. This was the first excuse he could think of; and when, to his joy, a message was sent after the slayer of innocence, he added that, very unfortunately, they had a pressing engagement which would tear them away from the Caid's ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was being wantonly cruel to her to the last in thus putting before her eyes a picture of the might-have-been just when it was too late. In a few hours from now the great vow would be spoken, the irrevocable knot tied which bound her to another man. Her troth was already plighted, her confession made to Pater Bonifacius—in a few hours from now she would be Bela's wife, and if Andor did come back now, she must be as nothing to ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... moment accompany her on a delightful picnic to Troublous Times Castle, and Maggie herself, with sparkling eyes and burning cheeks, was all agog to go, and was now inclined to pooh-pooh the terrors she had endured in the hermit's hut, there was nothing for Mrs. Ricketts to do but to forget her vow and send off the two young people with ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... I see in cutting the pages [of Chambers' book, "Ice and Water"]...that you fulminate against the scepticism of scientific men. You would not fulminate quite so much if you had had so many wild-goose chases after facts stated by men not trained to scientific accuracy. I often vow to myself that I will utterly disregard every statement made by any one who has not shown the world he can observe accurately." In a letter to Dr. Dohrn, of Naples, January 4th, 1870, Darwin wrote: "Forgive me for suggesting ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the nave they buried the lad Godwin, with chant and dirge; and when the funeral was done Hereward went up toward the high altar, and bade Winter and Gwenoch come with him. And there he knelt, and vowed a vow to God and St. Guthlac and the Lady Torfrida his true love, never to leave from slaying while there was a Frenchman left alive ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... taint Of sin, or legal debt; For with his own Laws he can best dispence. He would not else who never wanted means, Nor in respect of the enemy just cause To set his people free, Have prompted this Heroic Nazarite, Against his vow of strictest purity, To seek in marriage that fallacious Bride, 320 Unclean, unchaste. Down Reason then, at least vain reasonings down, Though Reason here aver That moral verdit quits her of unclean: Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his. But see here comes thy reverend Sire With careful ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Paul having remained yet many days took leave of the brothers, and sailed to Syria; and Priscilla was with him, and Aquila, having shaved his head at Cenchrea; for he had a vow. [18:19]And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, and entering himself into the synagogue reasoned with the Jews. [18:20]And they asking him to stay a longer time with them he did not consent, [18:21]but taking leave ...
— The New Testament • Various
... a quest. And she tells me. She knowed all about them, fur Martha was considerable of a reader. Some of them was longer and some of them was shorter, them quests, but mostly, Martha says, they was fur a twelvemonth and a day. And then you are released from your vow and one of these here queens gives you a whack over the shoulder with a sword and says: "Arise, Sir Marmeluke, I dub you a night." And then it is legal fur you to go out and rescue people and reform them and spear ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... when winter is ended, and the song of birds tell us of the promise of spring, if we go to the woods, we find traces of the vow of the sun-god. The trees are budding in buds of rosy hue, the willow branches are decked with silvery catkins powdered with gold. The larches, like slender dryads, wear a feathery garb of tender green, and ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Toward thy far-off Tuscan home! Alarms for young Francisco's weal, And doubts into thy breast steal; While retrospection carries back Thy memory o'er time's beaten track And stops at that dread hour when thou With burning eyes and flashing brow, Call'd Heaven to hear the solemn vow Dictated with the latest breath Of the fond mother on the untimely bed ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... middle of January, my cousin Edward brought me a parcel, under the name of Grafton. I had, some little time before, acquainted both my aunts of my frolic. They will, I am sure, be discreet ; indeed, I exacted a vow from them Of strict secrecy ; and they love me with such partial kindness, that I have a pleasure in reposing much confidence in them. I immediately conjectured what the parcel was, and found the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... vocation would be made known to him through Father Peter Faber. He hastened to Mainz, and at their first interview Canisius was convinced that he was called to join the new Society. He made the Spiritual Exercises, and on the fourth day bound himself by a vow to do so. He returned to Cologne as a novice, and continued to live much as before, pursuing his theological studies and making a deep impression on all those with whom he came in contact. Associated with two other novices, also ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... life.... Then he called to him the gentle knight, Sir William Douglas, and said before all the lords, 'Sir William, my dear friend, ye know well that I have had much ado in my days to uphold and sustain the right of this realm; and when I had most ado I made a solemn vow, the which as yet I have not accomplished, whereof I am right sorry; the which was, if I might achieve and make an end of all my wars, so that I might once have brought this realm in rest and peace, then I promised in my mind to ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... fire-eating marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible, they vow to introduce the undissected roast, the bonfire, the spit and the cook with imperturbable heel into the cuisine of less-favored lands ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... Christianity. But they speak neither like Catholics nor like Protestants, but like persons who are wavering between the two systems, or who have made a system for themselves out of parts selected from both. They seem to hold some of the Romish rites and doctrines in high respect. They treat the vow of celibacy, for example, so tempting, and, in later times, so common a subject for ribaldry, with mysterious reverence. Almost every member of a religious order whom they introduce is a holy and venerable man. We remember in their plays nothing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would succour it, and that, as it had not been able to fall under the verdurous boughs of its venerable father and lie in the fat earth covered up by his fallen leaves it would not abandon it; because, finding itself in the beak of the cruel crow, it had there made a vow that if it escaped from her it would end its life in a little hole. At these words the wall, moved to compassion, was content to shelter it in the spot where it had fallen; and after a short time the nut began to split open and put ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Bridegroom find them dim. Our orient breaths perfumed are With incense of incessant prayer; And holy-water of our tears Most strangely our complexion clears; Not tears of grief, but such as those With which calm pleasure overflows; Or pity, when we look on you That live without this happy vow. How should we grieve that must be seen Each one a spouse, and each a queen, And can in heaven hence behold Our brighter robes and crowns of gold! When we have prayed all our beads, Some one the holy Legend reads, While all the rest with needles paint The face and graces of the Saint; Some ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... good order, and happiness of the domestic life. Montesquieu, Pothier, and Dr. Taylor all insist that the cases of husband and wife ought to be distinguished, and that the violation of the marriage vow, on the part of the wife, is the most mischievous, and the prosecution ought to be confined to the offense on her part. ("Esprit des Lois," tom. 3, 186; "Traite du Contrat de Mariage," No. 516; "Elements of Civil Law," ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a few words to each of these classes of people. First, let me speak to those who refuse to be bound by any vow or promise, because they do not care to lead a godly life. They imagine that if they are not confirmed they are free to do as they like. But it is not so. They are bound by the vows and promises of their Baptism, and they ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... kiss he would have vow'd; But blessings crouding forc'd their way: Then mounted he his Courser proud; His time elaps'd, he could ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... crow they denominate Jim, With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear, Stands forth at the window—and what holds he there, Which he hugs with such care, And pokes out in the air, And grasps as its limbs from each other he'd tear? Oh! grief and despair! I vow and declare It's Le Scroope's poor, dear, sweet, little, curly-wigged Heir! Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair, Alternately sucking his thumb ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... thunderbolt had always a meaning, which was sometimes hard to find; but here the gods had not left the inquiring votary utterly in doubt. The nakedness of the stricken maiden was a riddle that the priests could read. It was a manifest sign that a virginal vow had been broken, and that some of the keepers of the eternal fire were tainted with the sin of unchastity. The destruction of the horse seemed to portend that a knight would be found to be a partner in ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... of many years in this land of the Indies I have waited for a man of discreet determination for a certain work. The virgin herself led me to the gutter where you groaned in the dark, and I here vow to build her a chapel if this ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... She vow'd, she swore she wad be mine, She said she lo'ed me best o' onie; But, ah! the fickle, faithless quean, She 's ta'en the carl, and left ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... aloud: "Mercy! I yield." At first, remembering the evil deaths of the forty good knights, Gareth was unwilling to spare him; but the Red Knight besought him to have mercy, telling him how, against his will, he had been bound by a vow to make war on Arthur's knights. So Sir Gareth relented, and bade him set forth at once for Kink Kenadon and entreat the king's pardon for his evil past. And this the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... Chesterfield paid to old Samuel Johnson, 'The utmost I can do for him is to consider him a respectable Hottentot.' If I did not know that instead of proving a punishment it would gratify you beyond measure, I would take a vow not to speak to you again for a month; but the consciousness of the happiness I should thereby bestow upon you, vetoes the resolution. Do you know that even a Comanche chief, or a Bechuana of the desert, shames your inhospitality? I assure you I am the victim of hopeless ennui, am driven to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... constrained to declare that their purse was too light for her liberality. Not having anything else to do, and her uselessness vexing her, she took to doctoring the poor and concocting medicines. Hers, however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore, that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not interfere with ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Christ and administering his gifts. Christ, in his twelfth year, was presented in the temple, and first entered on His father's business; and the baptized child, when it has grown to an age to become conscious of its vow and of its privilege, again renews it in full knowledge of what it undertakes, and receives again sacramentally a fresh gift of grace to assist it forward on its way. In maturity it seeks a companion to share its pains and pleasures; and, again, Christ is present ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... the cottage, and during that walk, with her firm, warm hand fast in mine and her clean, elastic step beside me, I swore to myself that neither she nor Roger should ever regret what she had done to me, nor know it, if I could keep the knowledge from them. The last part of this vow was impossible of fulfillment, finally, but the first, thank God! has never been broken, or even for a moment strained, and I like to hope that this may count a little to my credit, in the ultimate auditing, for she was terribly ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... that young brow, As with look and voice unfaltering She breathed her solemn vow: No regretful glances cast she On the pomps that she had spurned, Nor the dream of love and pleasure From which ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... lodge and betakes herself to the bushes, followed by the favorite. But if it should happen that he has a particular preference for another from whom he expects the same favor, or if he is restrained by a vow, or is already satiated with indulgence, he politely declines her offer by placing his hand in her bosom, on which they return to the assembly and rejoin the dance." It is worthy of remark that in the language ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ravelled hesp, and I need guidance and direction if I am ever to come out of this confusion and to come to any good. Protestant and Presbyterian as I am,' he goes on, 'if I could only find a director who would take trouble with me and command me as I take trouble with and command my servants, I vow to you that I would put the reins without reserve into his hands. Will you not take me in hand? You know me of old. We used to talk in dear old John Meine's back-shop on week-nights and upstairs on Sabbath nights about these things. And long as it is since we saw much of one another, I feel ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... wicked hopes he had formed, his brother proved victorious, his envy and malice knew no bounds, and he swore he would burn the chamber where Orlando slept. He was overheard making his vow by one that had been an old and faithful servant to their father, and that loved Orlando because he resembled Sir Rowland. This old man went out to meet him when he returned from the duke's palace, and when he saw Orlando the peril his dear young master ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... no such thing, I vow! 'Tis winter still within my body: Upon my path I wish for frost and snow. How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy, The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, And lights so dimly, that, as one advances, At every step one strikes a rock or tree! Let us, then, use ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... you. I vow, if you hain't got something ahead in t'other world, I'd like to know who has—that's all; so, if Joe has no objections, and I rather ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pleasant to sit there craning one's neck round to breathe at the window, for the seats ran lengthways of the carriage, and keeping all crushed up to keep out of the way of a cross fire of tobacco juice from the opposite benches. Made a vow there and then ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... and, in the person of Roswell Martin, to be the distraction and despair of the courts of Windsor County and Vermont, until a decision of the Supreme Court so outraged that son's sense of the sacredness of the marriage vow, that he shook the granite dust of Vermont from his feet, and turned his face to the west, where he became the original counsel in the Dred Scott case, married and had ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... And like a Traitor to the name of God, Did'st breake that Vow, and with thy treacherous blade, Vnrip'st the Bowels of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one's self to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to convert you; I am ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... nature; and, Heavenly Father! keep me sane in mind, that I may always know the everlasting punishment which awaits me, if I prove recreant to the vows which I herewith do take upon me, with my own free will, in thy holy sight—and I pray thee, Almighty God! should I prove false to the vow or vows I now make, in becoming a member of this Holy Brotherhood, to shut from me the light of thy countenance—to visit the wrath of thy indignation upon me—to let my walks here on earth be paths of desolation, at the end of which be famine and ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... for four years and on their return to America established themselves in New York, where the MacNeil studio is. He is the teacher of modeling of the National School of Design, New York. He has made a specialty of Indian subjects, "The Sun Vow," "The Coming of the White Man," and the "Moqui Runner" being some of his best pieces. To him the Indians are as fine as Greek warriors and most worthy of careful study. Whatever he does in sculpture is in its very essence national. He is extremely refined, a superb ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... for it. And, in order to fix her entirely in my Interest, I used all my Rhetorick to persuade her to a private Marriage, which however for good Reasons she did not think proper to agree to; yet she gave me her solemn Vow, that no other Man but myself should call her Wife, and that in the mean Time, she should reckon herself in Duty bound to have the utmost Regard ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... his vow, and the Abbey of St. Martin was quickly begun. At first there was difficulty about the stone, which was brought all the way from Caen quarries, until, according to an old writer, a pious matron dreamed that stone in large quantities was to be found near at hand. Her vision leading to the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... hopes he had formed, his brother proved victorious, his envy and malice knew no bounds, and he swore he would burn the chamber where Orlando slept. He was overheard making this vow by one that had been an old and faithful servant to their father, and that loved Orlando because he resembled Sir Rowland. This old man went out to meet him when he returned from the duke's palace, and when he saw Orlando, the peril his dear young master was in made him break out into these ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... his might; I have planned thefts and breakings of his word When my pent heart grew sore with fermentation Of malice too long undone, yet could not stir him. Oh, I will make a battle of the Thing, Where men vow holy peace, to magnify him. Is it not rare to sit and wait o' nights, Knowing that murderousness may even now Be coming down outside like second darkness Because my ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... for it. Most peculiar thing, though. There's a vast, billowy sort of a cloud. Twists and weaves around as if alive. Looks like seaweed or something; and Carr, I swear there are things floating around in it. Wrecks. Something damn peculiar, anyway. I vow I saw a signal. People marooned there or something. Sorta scared me and I didn't stay around for long as there was an awful pull from the mass. Had to use full reversal of the gravity ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... warm and protecting. I think the very fulness of it brought her a kind of content with which, but for Llewellyn and his contract, she would have been willing to go on indefinitely. It made him hers in a primary and essential way, beside which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed chiefly decorative, like the capital of a pillar firmly rooted. There may be an appearance that she took a good deal for granted; but if there is, I fear that in the baldness of this history it has not been evident how much and how variously Arnold depended on her, in how many ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... no period of life so happy as that in which a thriving lover leaves his mistress after his first success. His joy is more perfect then than at the absolute moment of his own eager vow, and her half-assenting blushes. Then he is thinking mostly of her, and is to a certain degree embarrassed by the effort necessary for success. But when the promise has once been given to him, and he is able to escape into the domain of his own heart, he is as a conqueror who has mastered ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... have received the benefits of literary culture, giving such evening lessons throughout our cities and villages. Should I ever return, I shall propose to some of the like-minded an association for such a purpose, and try the experiment of one of these schools of Christian brothers, with the vow of disinterestedness, but without the robe and the subdued priestly manner, which even in these men, some of whom seemed to me truly good, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... subject of divorce. One of your standing denunciations on the South is the terrible laxity of the marriage vow among the slaves. Well, sir, what does your Boston Dr. Nehemiah Adams say? He says, after giving eighty, sixty, and the like number of applications for divorce, and nearly all granted at individual quarterly ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... (but O that envious Destinie, Or Stygian vow, or thrice accursed charm Should in this place free passage thus denie Unto my shafts as messengers of harm! Had I but once transfixt thy froward breast, How would'st thou then——I staid ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... Mordaunt, "it might have been some personal enemy of the king, who had made a vow of vengeance and accomplished it in this way. Perhaps it was some man of rank who had grave reasons for hating the fallen king, and who, learning that the king was about to flee and escape him, threw himself in the way, with a mask on his face and an axe in his hand, not as substitute for the ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... will ye accept The passing tribute of a humble friend? Stranger indeed to you and to your faith, But O! I hope not stranger to the zeal, Which warm'd your bosoms in Religion's cause. When impious men commanded you to break The vow which bound your souls, and which in youth Warm Piety's emphatic lips had made. Say! will ye suffer me on that rude tomb, Where she reposes (whose benignant smile, Whose animated, life-inspiring eye, And faded form, majestic, still appears In Thought's ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... he looked at them too often, so he hid them between two smooth stones in his cave, and vowed that he would take them out only once in the year, at Easter, when our Lord has risen and it is meet that Christians should rejoice. And this vow he faithfully kept; but, alas, when Easter drew near, he found he was looking forward to the blessed festival less because of our Lord's rising than because he should then be able to read his pleasant lauds written on fair sheepskin; and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would willingly know who you are who request my assistance in ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... language. I was unable to lay hold of things to which my soul no longer felt attachment. Then it was that the height and the breadth of my love came before me; my Henriette rose in all her majesty in this desert where I existed only through thoughts of her. That form so worshipped made me vow to keep myself spotless before my soul's divinity, to wear ideally the white robe of the Levite, like Petrarch, who never entered Laura's presence unless clothed in white. With what impatience I awaited the first night of my ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... around the great ring of cone-shaped tepees, here and there, a loud-singing warrior swears to avenge a former wrong, and thrusts a bare brown arm against the purple east, calling the Great Spirit to hear his vow. All having made the circuit, the singing war party gallops ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... avers 'tis built on Truth, And that on Temperance. This youth Declares that Science bears the pile; That graybeard, with a holy smile, Says Faith is the supporting stone; While women swear that Love alone Could so unflinchingly endure The heavy load. And some are sure The solemn vow of Christian Wedlock Is the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... the male parts of generation. The person who was at the féte, in the year 1780, and who gave me this account (the authenticity of which has since been confirmed to me by the governer of Isernia) told me also that he heard a woman say, at the time she presented a vow, "Santo Cosmo, benedetto, cosi lo voglio." Blessed St. Cosmo, "let it be like this!" The vow is never presented without being accompanied by a piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee at the moment ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... Aramis, with the unwitting Porthos in tow, is plotting against the king, who D'Artagnan has sworn with his life to defend. Athos, once the most upright defender of nobility, is now forced to break his sword before his monarch, and renounce the sacred vow he pledged with his son in Twenty Years After to respect royalty in all its forms. Never, even, do the four come face to face in the course of the entire novel. Time has sent them in different directions, and managed to separate them when constant villains ...
— Dumas Commentary • John Bursey
... it the obeisance of one hundred and eight bows. I also took out the manuscript of my "twenty-two desires," and pledged their accomplishment to the Buddha. I then considered myself the luckiest of men, to have thus been enabled to worship such a holy emblem of Buddha's power and to vow such vows in its sacred presence, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... of the night were greatly intensified, and I began to bless the unusual circumstances that had brought us together and made us friends, as it were, from the first moment of our acquaintance; and I registered a mental vow that the bond thus created between us should never be broken, if it lay in ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... you also, false cardinal," cried Anne Boleyn, throwing aside the arras, and stepping forward. "I have overheard what has passed; and from my heart of hearts I thank you, Henry, for the love you have displayed for me. But I here solemnly vow never to give my hand to you till Wolsey is ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... their eternal seats arise. Those that have studied to the last the Veda's, the Vedanga's page, Where saintly kings of earth have passed, Nahusa and Yayati sage; The sires of holy families, the true to wedlock's sacred vow; And those that cattle, gold, or rice, or lands, with liberal hands bestow; That ope th' asylum to th' oppressed, that ever love, and speak the truth; Up to the dwellings of the blest, th' eternal, soar thou, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... not prevent me," said d'Artagnan, "if I knew where the Duke of Buckingham was, from taking him by the hand and conducting him to the queen, were it only to enrage the cardinal, and if we could find means to play him a sharp turn, I vow that I would voluntarily risk ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 2 the two A'S just distinguished, 3 the AI is practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost VOW. The excursion has ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... something or other. As, "There was a law in a certain nation that no one should sacrifice a calf to Diana. Some sailors, when in a terrible tempest they were being tossed about in the open sea, made a vow that if they reached the harbour which they were in sight of, they would sacrifice a calf to the god who presided over that place. Being ignorant of the law, when they landed, they sacrificed a calf." They are prosecuted. The accusation is, "You sacrificed a calf to a god to whom ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... borders in her book, and she loved the sick lamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp arrows, or the poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. She tried, by way of mortification, to eat nothing a whole day. She puzzled her head to find some vow ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert |
