"Disengage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived by this inductive process, he sums up in the term—social-political-conservatism; but his conservatism is, we conceive, of a thoroughly philosophical kind. He sees in European society incarnate history, and any attempt to disengage it from its historical elements must, he believes, be simply destructive of social vitality. {164} What has grown up historically can only die out historically, by the gradual operation of necessary laws. The external ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... in this state of stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him, obliged me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there, to his eyes and hands: still I endured all without flinching, till ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... humorous spirit, in which Mr. Browning has described them. The small list of poems which are historical more than anything else, might be recruited from the Dramatic Idyls; but, for various reasons, this publication must stand alone; and even here, it is often difficult to disengage the actual fact, from the imaginary conditions in which it appears. Our present group is ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... reply, when a figure of terrific mien, and enormous dimensions, rushed angrily towards me, and, taking me up in my crystal chair, bore me precipitately to the earth. In my struggles to disengage myself, I awoke: and on looking about me, with difficulty could persuade myself that I was an inhabitant of this world. My sensations were, at first, confused and unpleasant; but a reflection on the MIRROR OF TRUTH, and its divine expositor, in ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... me no choice to doubt of its species. The moment my fingers touched its smooth coat, I recognised it by the "feel;" but I felt the wicked creature in a double sense, for before I could disengage my hand from the clutch I had so rashly taken, its sharp teeth had pierced my thumb, until they nearly met through the flesh. At the same instant its screech sounded in my ears shrill ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... clung around the neck of Mr. Pelby, struggling and kicking with all his might against the effort of his mother to disengage him; who finally succeeded, and bore him, screaming at the top of his ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... pursue him!" exclaimed Blucher, vainly trying to disengage himself from the hands of his wife and the general. "Let me go—do not detain me! I must pursue him—I must take him prisoner! If he has fled from his army, he must return to France, and if he wants to return to France, he must pass through Germany. Let me go! He must not be permitted to escape ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... thoughtfully, "while she was unconscious it took me ten minutes to pry open her fingers and disengage a rather heavy dog-whip from her clutch.... And there was some evidences of blood on the lash and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... a pucker between the eyebrows and a humorous twitch in the corners of his mouth. So when two pedestrians, strangers, meet and politely attempt to draw aside but with misdirected chasses that leave them still confronting one another, they disengage at length and go their ways ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... struck out fiercely, knowing that they need expect no mercy after the devil's work in which they had been engaged. Holloway, our sergeant of horse, springing furiously in, laid himself open to a thrust which stretched him dead upon the ground. Before the dragoon could disengage his weapon, Sir Gervas cut him down, while at the same moment the stranger got past the guard of his antagonist, and wounded him mortally in the throat. Of the four red-coats not one escaped alive, while the bodies of our sergeant and of the old couple who had been the first victims increased ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Schiller bent his whole strength to disengage himself from the crushing burden of his debts, and to attain the goal marked out for him by his Parents' wishes,—an enduring settlement and steady way of life. Two things essentially contributed to enliven his activity, and brighten his prospects into the future. One ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... War without thinking of conquering his enemy at once in the first battle,(*) and Frederick the Great, although in a more limited sphere, and with interests of less magnitude at stake, thought the same when, at the head of a small Army, he sought to disengage his rear from the Russians or the Federal ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... significance of the play. After you have once become an intelligent spectator of real life you can no more go back to drawing-room chit-chat, gossip, and flirtation than you can lay down Shakespeare's 'Tempest' for a weak little parlor comedy. I am too shrewd a man, Marian, to try to disengage you from the past by exhortations and homilies; and now that you have become my friend, I shall be too sincere with you to disguise my purposes or methods. I propose to co-operate frankly with you in your effort, for in this way I ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... them; in this terrible embrace respiration failed, both fell. Andre Certa raised himself above Martin Paz, whose poignard had escaped his grasp. The mestizo raised his arm, but the Indian succeeded in seizing it before it had struck. The moment was horrible. Andre Certa in vain attempted to disengage himself; Martin Paz, with supernatural strength, turned against the mestizo the poignard and the arm which held it, and plunged it ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... out the real cause of her indifference. Her correspondence with her lover was soon discovered, and, when urged upon that topic, she had too much truth and honour to deny it. The uncle finding, that she would make no efforts to disengage her affection, after a little time forced her abroad, where she was received with a ceremony due to her quality, but restricted from the conversation of every one, but the spies of this severe guardian, so that it was impossible ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Let us disengage ourselves from care about the passing things of time; let us soar above our worldly possessions. The bee does not less need its wings when it has gathered an abundant store, for if it sink in ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... of the liver; on passing the hand backward along the inferior surface of the liver, the point could be felt projecting through its posterior border. On account of two sharp barbs on the spear-point, it was necessary to push the harpoon further in to disengage the barbs, after which it was easily removed. Recovery followed, and the patient ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the ecstasy of that moment by the pound of hoofs and the crashing of brush. He could not disengage himself before a horse and rider were upon them. Nevertheless Pan recognized the intruder and leaped away from the bench with the instinctive swiftness for defense that had been ingrained ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... Maison Carree and Pont du Gard in France. Like any modern monument, these are visible to the traveller. But the majority of these monuments have been recovered from the earth, from sand, from river deposits, and from debris. One must disengage them from this thick covering, and excavate the soil, often to a great depth. Assyrian palaces may be reached only by cutting into the hills. A trench of forty feet is necessary to penetrate to the tombs of the kings of Mycenae. Time is not the only agency ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... cold, did not very gracefully disengage herself from the high muddy wheel and step. When she mounted to the porch she saw that Mrs. Hutter was a woman of middle age, rather stout, with strong face full of fine wavy lines, and ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... wife—my Amine—for Heaven's sake, save her!" cried Philip, struggling in vain to disengage himself. Amine also, who had run to the side of the raft held out her arms—it was in vain—they were separated more than a cable's length. Philip made one more desperate struggle, and then fell down ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... minds of the philosophers or teachers who would fain relieve the unhappiness of the world, has been always to suggest ways in which this vulnerability may be lessened; and thus their object has been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and affections of men from things which must always be fleeting. That is the principle which lies behind all asceticism, that, if one can be indifferent to wealth and comfort and popularity, one has a better chance of serenity. The essence of ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his feet, stretched his limbs lazily, and turned to disengage his sister's veil from a vicious thorn-bush in our way. Not succeeding immediately, I lent my assistance, and the delicate tissue being at last rescued with some care, turned to say farewell to the chief of all the Nittinats, when lo! ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the western sky, where an overblown fiery rose seemed to have scattered all its petals broadcast. "Sure, that's on'y the sun settin' red like," he explained, indifferently, and would have resumed his excavations if he had not been seized and hustled half-way up the cliff before he could disengage his mind from his brigades and batteries. Both heads soon bobbed up over the edge without accident; for Pat climbed like a monkey when once he had grasped the situation. His grandmother's attitude toward Joe McEvoy constrained her to receive ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... merely expressive of a doubt of my sanity. For a grown man to be playing with two little boys at three o'clock of a Tuesday afternoon, may have seemed bizarre enough in her view. To me, however, endeavouring to disengage myself from my conqueror and assume an attitude in keeping with my age and reputation, her features were ominously ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... go on, the five higher principles gradually disengage themselves from the etheric double, and shake this off as they previously shook off the grosser body. They pass on, as a fivefold entity, into a state to be next studied, leaving the etheric double, with the dense body of which it is the counterpart, thus becoming an ethereal ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... work was now rather imposed than offered, and I became a drudge for the bread I eat: but my dependence and servility grew in proportion, and I was now in a situation which could not make any extraordinary exertions to disengage itself from either—I found ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... of his genius for investigation, was so engrossed in his researches that he could not seem to disengage the simple pendulum from the compound pendulums to which he devoted his attention; besides, he attributed to the oscillation an absolute generality of isochronism, which they did not possess; nor did he know how to apply his famous discovery ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... ambulances, and artillery to retreat in comparative safety. It became necessary, however, to abandon one gun of Captain Reynolds' battery, as several of the horses were shot and there was no time to disengage them from the piece. Three broken and damaged caisson bodies were also left behind. The danger at this time came principally from Hoke's and Hays' brigades, which were making their way into the town on the eastern side, ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... to retaliate upon himself. A soldier, who was passing at the moment, lost no time in giving an alarm at the camp, when Capt. Harrison came with a party of soldiers to the assistance of our comrade; but Mr. Jeffery had, by this time, contrived to disengage his hand; and, our people appearing, the natives desisted from farther attempts upon him. It turned out that their object in offering this apparent violence, was merely to secure an evidence on our side of the final punishment ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... disengage her hand, the trouble in her face increasing. A moment he resisted; then, realizing what he did, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of parrying Seconde, there is but one Opposite, which is done by feinting below, and as the Adversary is going to cross your Sword, in order to parry, you must disengage by a little Circle, with the Hand in Seconde, which preventing the Enemy's Sword, gives an Opportunity of hitting him above, if the Wrist is lower than I have observed, or in Flanconnade, if the Wrist is high. ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears and joy,—if Want with his scourge,—if War with his cannonade,—if Christianity with its charity,—if Trade with its money,—if Art with its portfolios,—if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time, can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... that a north wind began to blow with great force, and the ships of the Tatars which lay near the shore of the island were driven foul of each other. It was determined, therefore, in a council of the officers on board, that they ought to disengage themselves from the land; and accordingly, as soon as the troops were reembarked, they stood out to sea. The gale, however, increased to so violent a degree that a number of the vessels foundered. The people belonging to them, by floating on pieces of the wreck, saved themselves upon an island ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... of the mob, combined with the general's weight, proved too much for his charger, which plunged violently. Russo was held on accidentally by his spurs. There was a lively interlude until an orderly seized the bridle, and the general was able to disengage the rowels from the animal's ribs. When tranquillity was restored, the soldiers marched off to their quarters, and Colonel San Benavides boarded the Unser Fritz. He invited Iris, Schmidt, Coke, and Hozier to breakfast with the President ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... communication with the war ships had been cut off. Realizing the extremity of his danger, he resolved to avoid an engagement, and leave the army at Rockfish in his rear, and by celerity of movement, and crossing rivers at unsuspected places, to disengage himself from the larger bodies and fall upon the command of Caswell. Before marching he exhorted his men to fidelity, expressed bitter scorn for the "base cravens who had deserted the night before," and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... electricity in materials might be retained by surrounding them with bodies which did not conduct the current. He electrified some water in a jar, and communication having been established between the water and the prime conductor, his assistant, who was holding the bottle, on trying to disengage the communicating wire, received a ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... bough, blissfully basking in the sun. Your hand is raised, open, ready to descend on it and seize it. Hardly have you made the movement when the insect drops to the ground. It is a wearer of armoured wing-cases, slow to disengage the wings from their horny sheath, or perhaps an incomplete form, with no wing-surfaces. Incapable of sudden flight, the surprised insect lets itself fall. You look for it in the grass, often in vain. If you do find it, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... there are many reasons that tempt my friend Tranquillus to buy—the nearness of the city, the convenient road, the modest dimensions of his villa and the extent of the farm, which is just enough to pleasantly disengage his thoughts from other things, but not enough to give him any worry. In fact learned schoolmen, like Tranquillus, on turning land-owners, ought only to have just sufficient land to enable them to get ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... a high forehead to which the quality of the skin gave a singular polish—it glittered even when seen at a distance; a nose which achieved a high free curve; and a tendency to throw back her head and carry it well above her, as if to disengage it from the possible entanglements of the rest of her person. If you had seen her walk you would have felt her to tread the earth after a fashion suggesting that in a world where she had long since discovered that one ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... observe. Twig the cull, he is peery; observe the fellow, he is watching us. Also to disengage, snap asunder, or break off. To twig the darbies; to knock off ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... time to rid himself of the diplomats, who were inconvenient witnesses of what was in progress. On December 31 a telegram was sent by the Ministers of France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, in which they said that "Apparently our presence is displeasing to the King and he is trying to disengage himself from us. He has begged us on several occasions to depart and last night he insisted, with the asseveration that in forty-eight hours it would be too late. We suspect that His Majesty is playing a very ambiguous game...." And on January 9 the French Minister telegraphed, among other ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... disengage our thoughts from the war; we cannot, and we ought not. Still less can we take refuge from it in idle dreams of peace and security; but at a time when every paper and book that we see is full of the war and its sufferings, there must be men and women who would do well ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... unless they have some concurrent reason for it. The prejudice in favor of your wisdom is shook by your change. You confess that you have been wrong, and yet you would pretend to dictate by your sole authority; whereas you disengage the mind by embarrassing it. For why should I prefer your opinion of to-day to your persuasion of yesterday? If we must resort to prepossessions for the ground of opinion, it is in the nature of man rather to defer to the wisdom of times past, whose ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Aristotle, Till a More or Lavater step into his place: Then the world turns and makes an admiring grimace. Once the men were so great and so few, they appear, Through a distant Olympian atmosphere, Like vast Caryatids upholding the age. Now the men are so many and small, disengage One man from the million to mark him, next moment The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of your comment; And since we seek vainly (to praise in our songs) 'Mid our fellows the size which to heroes belongs, We take the whole age for ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... The whole four horses immediately disappeared, but rose and plunged again, and dashed and struggled hard for their lives. Loud were the shrieks of those who witnessed this spectacle. A boat came almost instantaneously to the spot, but as the rowers pushed up to try to disengage the horses, the poor animals, as they alternately reached the surface, made desperate exertions to get into the boat, so that extreme caution was necessary in approaching them. They did succeed in liberating one of them, which immediately swam along the streets, amidst the cheering ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... last cried she, clinging to him, for he had once or twice attempted to disengage himself, and reseat her on the bench; "your heart is steeled, or it would understand mine. It would at least pity the wretchedness it has created. But I am despised, and I can yet find the watery grave ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of objections is an egregious trifling with that great complex mass of evidence which, as we have said, applies to the whole of Christianity or to none of it. As if to baffle the efforts of man consistently to disengage these elements of our belief, the whole are inextricably blended together. The supernatural element, especially, is so diffused through all the records, that it is more and more felt, at every step, to be impossible to obliterate it without obliterating the entire ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... or a fear, was wakened in me which was not mine, for I remember I could not explain it, even though, at the time, the anxious direct question was put to me. Nor can I now. It would puzzle a psycho-analyst most assured of the right system for indexing secret human motives to disengage one shadow from another in an ancestral darkness. That is why I merely put down here the names to be found on a chart of the North Sea, and say no more about it, being sure they will mean nothing except to those to ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... morality. An enlightened conscience, or a rational conviction of duty, will consist essentially in the viewing of life with a certain remove from its local incidents. In conduct, as in all matters where validity or truth is concerned, the critical consciousness must disengage itself and view the course of things in its due proportions, allowing one's dearest interests to lie where they lie among the rest. I have read so admirable a representation of the moral function of the logical imagination in a recent paper by ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... to kill a female monkey, which carried a young one on her back. The little creature, as if insensible of its mother's death, continued to cling to the dead body till they reached their evening quarters; and even then it required considerable force to disengage it. No sooner, however, did the little creature feel itself alone, than it darted towards a wooden block, on which was placed the wig of Le Vaillant's father, mistaking it for its dead mother. To this it clung ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... grieved at finding Old Jacob in this unseemly condition, and I also was ruffled by his very rude reference to my cousin. I endeavored to disengage my hand from his, and replied with some dignity that Mr. Wilkinson at present was in New York, whither he had returned several days previously. But Old Jacob declined to relinquish my hand, and, with more mysterious winks, declared in a muzzy voice that I might trust him, ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... and within and about you, trees rustle, children and sparrows utter their small cries, and the statues look on for ever. Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery entrance, I set to work on the events of the last night, to disengage (if it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... writhed round in the man's grasp, and shortening his sword, he thrust it through the brown beard and deep into the throat behind it. Marceau fell back with a choking cry, the blood bubbling from his mouth and his wound; but before his murderer could disengage his weapon, De Catinat and the American, aided by a dozen of the retainers, had dragged him down on to the scaffold, and Amos Green had pinioned him so securely that he could but move his eyes and his lips, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ought we to consider the effect of the friction, or that of the shock? This is a question of difficult solution. Is it a slight augmentation of temperature which favours the phosphorescence? or does the light return, because the surface is renewed, by putting the animal parts proper to disengage the phosphoric hydrogen in contact with the oxygen of the atmospheric air? I have proved by experiments published in 1797, that the shining of wood is extinguished in hydrogen gas, and in pure azotic gas, and that its light reappears whenever we mix with it the smallest bubble of oxygen ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... passion in its service, yet we have not fervor to undertake any thing to save our souls, or to crucify our passions. Here penance, watchfulness over ourselves, or the least restraint, seems intolerable. Let us begin sincerely to study to die to ourselves, to disengage our hearts from all inordinate love of creatures, to raise ourselves above the slavery of the senses, above the appetites of the flesh and all temporal interest; and in order to excite ourselves to love God with fervor, let us seriously ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... stakes, to support them in their inclining position, being careful to place all the beans on the under sides of the bricks or other matters. The mice in eating the beans, in such cases, will also destroy the pack-thread, and by such means disengage the brick or other weighty body, which by falling on them readily destroys them. Mice are always best got rid of by some sort of simple open ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... cried the young man. "You don't escape me now." For Philip was trying feebly to disengage his hands. Amiable youths bent out of the box and invited him to ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... these, that in the keyhole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious: but the other needs Skill and sagacity, large share of each, Ere its good task to disengage the knot Be worthily perform'd. From Peter these I hold, of him instructed, that I err Rather in opening than in keeping fast; So but the suppliant at my feet implore." Then of that hallow'd gate he thrust the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... hand that held the pencil, and which was extended to him, and tried to make a passage through the crowd to the exit. Pushed and pushing, he smiled and apologized for his inability to disengage his arms that were held by the crowd as if in a vise, in order to salute the friends he recognized. At length he reached, giving vent to a grunt of satisfaction, the hall where visitors were sitting on divans, chatting, either less eager to view the pictures or satisfied in their desires. There, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... hangs in the Pitti Palace at Florence, wears a pair of these rich, heavy sleeves, fastened slightly at the shoulder, and worn over a shorter sleeve belonging to her dress. Thus we see how it was that a lady could disengage her sleeve at the right moment, and give it to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... as we have seen, generate sulphureted hydrogen and muriatic acid, upheave tracts of land, and omit streams of melted feldspathic materials; salses, on the contrary, disengage little else but carbureted hydrogen, together with bitumen and other products of the distillation of coal, and pour forth no other torrents except of mud, or argillaceous materials mixed up with water. Daubeney, op cit., p. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... shaft is shown in fig. 55, and the coupling to enable the screw propeller to be disconnected from the engine, so that it may revolve freely when the vessel is under sail, is shown in fig. 56. When it is required to disengage the propeller from the engine, the pins passing through the opposite eyes shown fig. 56, are withdrawn by means of screws provided for that purpose, and the propeller and the engine are ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... of the state. These additions have been to the effect that these gods were of the same form as men, and even that some of them were in appearance similar to certain others amongst the rest of the animal creation. The wise course, however, would be for the philosopher to disengage from these traditions the false element, and to embrace that which is true; and the truth lies in that portion of this ancient doctrine which regards the first and deepest ground of all existence to be the Divine, and this he may regard as a divine utterance. In all probability, every ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... on the finger of a broken statue of Venus in the area, to remain, while he was engaged in the recreation. Desisting from the exercise, he found the finger, on which he had put his ring, contracted firmly against the palm, and attempted in vain either to break it, or to disengage his ring. He concealed the circumstance from his companions, and returned at night with a servant, when he found the finger extended, and his ring gone. He dissembled the loss, and returned to his wife; but, whenever he attempted to embrace her, he found himself prevented by something dark and ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... conversion. You have thus made up the company of the reprobate. Cut off these four classes of sinners from this sacred assembly, for they will be cut off from it at the great day! Stand forth now, ye righteous! where are you? Remnant of Israel, pass to the right hand! True wheat of Jesus Christ, disengage yourselves from this chaff, doomed to the fire! O God! where are thine elect? and what remains there ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... force, whatever it may be, that lies behind writing, we may disengage from it all subsidiary motives, such as the desire for money, philanthropy, professional occupation; but the main force is, I think, threefold—the motive of art pure and simple, the desire for communication with one's fellows, and the motive of ambition, which ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of musicians play with spirit fine selections from the last operas, or favorite airs from old ones; the eye gratified by the sight of pleasant faces, or dwelling enraptured on the beautiful landscape spread before it—how can the brain disengage itself to think of Liberty, won through toil and battle, only to be preserved by self-denial and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of despair came over the maid's face, and she struggled to disengage her hands from her mistress's grasp, but Jeanne kissed her, in spite of her struggles, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... very good or very bad, and yet be only such because he is particularly so. Singularity, eccentricity, speciality, isolation, oddity, and hundreds of other things which might be mentioned, all involve particularity. But we do not intend, to "grammar-out" the question, nor to disengage and waste our gas in definitions. The particular enters into all sorts of things, and it has even a local habitation and a name in religion. What could be more particular than Particular Baptism? Certain ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... matter"; it had from the first all the advantage that is given by interests stronger and more substantial than those of mere literature; and, conversely, all the hindrance that such irrelevant interests provide, when "mere literature" attempts to disengage itself and govern its ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... that the faces threw light upon each other. Accordingly, he gave now a touch to Walter, and now to Elinor, and the features of one and the other began to start forth so vividly, that it appeared as if his triumphant art would actually disengage them from the canvas. Amid the rich light and deep shade, they beheld their phantom selves. But, though the likeness promised to be perfect, they were not quite satisfied with the expression; it seemed more vague than in most of the painter's works. He, however, was satisfied ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of entire intense, supreme happiness. She shivered, and yet something burning seemed to permeate her whole being under her skin, from the nape of her neck to her feet, like a stream of burning spirit, and she would not have had the strength to disengage herself or to take a step forward, so she leant her head instinctively and very tenderly against Andre's shoulder. He kissed her hair, touched her forehead with his lips, and at last put them against hers. The girl felt as if she were going to die, and remained ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... treat me so cruelly! Do not cast me off!" pleaded Bertha, as her cousin tried to disengage herself from her encircling arms. "If you are wretched, so am I—because you are! Only tell me the reason for this terrible sorrow. I was awaiting you in your room; but, as you did not come, I felt sure my ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... place to embark on the discussion of a subject of such extreme complexity. The investigation of the Unconscious is a science in itself, in which different schools of thought are seeking to disengage a basis of fact from conflicting and daily changing theories. But there is a certain body of fact, experimentally proven, on which the authorities agree, and of this we quote a few features which directly interest ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... offered up for the sins of all—that the offering of Christ is for ever repeated. To this Protestantism has objected vehemently, that there is but one offering once offered—an objection in itself entirely true; yet the Romish doctrine contains a truth which it is of importance to disengage from the gross and material form with which it has been overlaid. Let us hear St. Paul, "I fill up that which is behindhand of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church." Was there then, something behindhand of Christ's sufferings ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... they were obliged to submit. When Archie came to bid farewell to his parents, he found it to be a much more difficult task than he had expected. The tears would come to his eyes, in spite of himself, as he embraced his mother; and, as soon as he could disengage himself from her arms, he seized his bag and hammock, and rushed out of the house to conceal his emotion. When they reached the depot, they found that the draft to which they belonged numbered nearly two hundred men, some of whom were old sailors, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... world, as to hinder thyself and family from those duties towards God, which thou art by grace obliged to; as private prayer, reading the scriptures, and Christian conference. It is a base thing for men so to spend themselves and families after this world, as that they disengage their heart to God's worship. Christians, 'The time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... praiseworthy determination, he was hastening down stairs, with the utmost rapidity, when he encountered a female, whom he took, in the darkness, to be Mrs. Sheppard. The person caught hold of his arm, and, in spite of his efforts to disengage himself, detained him. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wind that followed was all they had expected it would be—and more. Their clothes were whipped about their legs as if about to disengage themselves and fly away from their owners forever. And several times they were forced to stop and turn their backs to catch their breath and gather strength ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... is slight. A properly trained, courageous dog will hold the largest boar for several minutes in the manner described and will not let him go till forced to from sheer exhaustion. But if he is obliged to disengage himself before assistance arrives, he will very ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... gently to disengage himself, but the soft arms clung and the figure was convulsed with its agitation. "No, no!" she kept repeating. "You sha'n't go. You sha'n't leave me here alone.... ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... are you?" demanded she, struggling to disengage herself, and unable to see the swarthy features of her captor, who stood behind her. No answer being made, she cast her eyes downwards, and beheld the colour of the arms that encircled her. "Father! Mr. Glenn! Mr. Boone!" she ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... adjusted across his back that, if need be, he could disengage it at once, the quiver fastened also and Tayoga's bow in ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... walking with a woman who has your arm, and you cross the street, it is better not to disengage your arm, and go round upon the outside. Such effort evinces a palpable attention to form, and that is ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... the first shops one passes are piled heaps of large fish, whose scales glitter in the sun, in spite of the dust. Fawn-coloured dogs, in much greater numbers than at Galata, run between your legs—and wo to whosoever should disengage himself too energetically from these hideous brutes, which are protected by Mussulman bigotry! The habits of these animals, whose number amounts to above a hundred thousand, are exceedingly singular. They belong to no one, and have no habitation; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... hurried and breathless. This was new to Bibbs; it was a perceptible change since he had last seen her, and he bent upon her a steady, whimsical scrutiny as they stood at the curb, waiting for an automobile across the street to disengage itself ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... he passes over the creaking and shaking barbacoa. These fragile bridges are often so much worn, that the feet of the mules slip through the layers of mud and reeds, and whilst making efforts to disengage themselves, the animals fall over the edge of the barbacoa, and are hurled into the chasm below, dragging down the crazy structure along with them. In consequence of these accidents, the way is often for weeks, or even ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shots, better armed and better trained than the Apaches, drove the bucks back from the boulder bed where they were deployed. One certainly was killed, another probably. As quickly as they could with safety disengage themselves the braves drew down into the shelter ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and wondering if ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... and glory, which we are fond of to that degree as to abandon riches, peace, life, and health, which are effectual and substantial good, to pursue this vain phantom. And of all the irrational humours of men, it should seem that the philosophers themselves have the most ado, and do the least disengage themselves from this the most restive and obstinate of all the follies. There is not any one view of which reason does so clearly accuse the vanity, as that; but it is so deeply rooted in us, that I doubt whether ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the crew of the Gustavus were summoned aft to disengage the brig from the sloop, and the captain was issuing orders in his most effective style. "Bear off! Why don't you bear off! Cut away the laniards of those shrouds, and clear the main chainwales! Bring an axe here, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... cavalry. When only a lieutenant, he happened to be near the king on a bridge which crossed the Oder. The king asked him, "if both the avenues of the bridge were possessed by the enemy, what he would do to disengage himself." Seidlitz, without making an answer, immediately leaped his horse over the rails into the river, and notwithstanding its breadth and rapidity, swam safe ashore. The king, who took it for granted that he must be drowned, on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... the fork, and stabbed it firmly—there was a suggestion of ruthlessness about her action that made Simpson shudder again—into a slab of meat, which she dropped on a plate, using a callous thumb to disengage it from the tines. She covered it with gravy and began to eat without further ceremony. The cripple followed her example, slobbering the gravy noisily; some of it ran down his chin. Neither of them paid any attention ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... in this agony, he saw the heavens open and about eight thousand champions, all covered with white armor, descend, who fell instantly to encourage him by giving him this assurance: that they were come to fight for him and to disengage him from that doubtful combat. And when, with infinite comfort, and tears in his eyes, he besought them to do him the favor to let him know who they were that had so highly obliged him: "We are," said they, "the souls whom you have saved and delivered ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... indeed. His Despatches, passionately long-winded, are exceedingly stiff reading to the like of us. O reader, what things have to be read and carefully forgotten; what mountains of dust and ashes are to be dug through, and tumbled down to Orcus, to disengage the smallest fraction of truly memorable! Well if, in ten cubic miles of dust and ashes, you discover the tongue of a shoe-buckle that has once belonged to a man in the least heroic; and wipe your brow, invoking the supernal and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... buoyancy of the staff. Nothing now remains to be done but to haul it to him, with either a long stick or another fish-gig (for an Indian, if he can help it, never goes into the water on these occasions) to disengage it, and to look out for ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... be told that the law compels you to live with her, unless you be rich enough to disengage yourself from her; but the law does not compel you to remain in the same country with her; and, if a man have no other means of ridding himself of such a curse, what are mountains or seas or traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be) of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a life of labour? ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... believe you do, contrive some means by your answers to Lord Elmwood to pacify him, without involving me in ruin. Hint at my affections being engaged, but not to whom; and add, that I have given my word, if he will allow me a short time, a year or two only, I will, during that period, try to disengage them, and use all my power to render myself worthy of the union for ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... for the student to start in on this class of mind-reading, is for him to experiment occasionally while performing his physical contact mind-reading experiments. For instance, while engaged in searching for an object let him disengage his hand from that of the projector for a moment or so, and then endeavor to receive the impressions without contact. (This should be done only in private experiments, not in public ones.) He will soon discover that he is receiving thought ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... disengage her arm, but she was persistent. She took no notice of Allan, who tried to lead her away. I stole a glance at her through the darkness. Her face was white, but there were no signs of fear there, nor were there any signs of childishness in her ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile, he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the people, the means of his safety ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... these corps were much exhausted, and knowing that they had suffered severely, I determined to interpose a new line with the advancing troops, and thus disengage General Scott and hold his brigade in reserve. Orders were accordingly given to General Ripley. The enemy's artillery at this moment occupied a hill which gave him great advantage and was the key to the whole position. It was supported ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... disengage myself before I was trampled on, and nearly suffocated by the pressure of my shipmates, who, burning to gain the prize, or to avenge our fall, rushed on with the most undaunted bravery. I was supposed to be dead, and treated accordingly, my poor body being only used as a stop for the gangway, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cat," Dick replied, "whose head had stuck in a can it was drinking from, and who knocked the unwelcome helmet on the floor in an effort to disengage it." ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... was exhausted, careless, afraid to stumble, ready to fall. She fancied she could hear his breathing. A wave of languid warmth overtook her, she seemed to lose touch with the ground under her feet; and when she felt him slip his hand under her arm she made no attempt to disengage herself from that grasp which closed upon ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... underwent," he said, "the inconveniences that moderation brings along with it in such a disease. I was pitied on all hands; to the Ghibelline I was a Guelph, and to the Guelph a Ghibelline." In the midst of his personal grievances he could disengage and raise his thoughts to reflections on the public misfortunes and on the degradation of men's characters. Considering closely the disorder of parties, and all the abject and wretched things which developed so quickly, he ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... without bringing on a battle. But Lee, instead of being able and ready to disengage his cavalry advance-guard and to fall back to a chosen field, was now anchored to the ground where he found himself, not alone by the concentration of the main body of the cavalry at the very front, but also and even more firmly by the presence of the infantry ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... longtime Palestinian leader Yasir ARAFAT in November 2004, the election of his successor Mahmud ABBAS in January 2005 brought about a turning point in the conflict. In February 2005 the Israeli Government voted to disengage from the Gaza Strip by dismantling all Israeli settlements and removing all Israeli settlers. This process was completed in September 2005. Nonetheless, Israel maintains offshore maritime control as well as airspace control. The future political status ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... was through the convention at Parkinson's Ferry. He did not believe that any revolutionary proceedings had yet been taken, or that the convention was an illegal body, but he was determined to separate the wheat from the chaff, and disengage the moderate and the law-abiding from the disorderly. By the light of his own experience he had learned wisdom. He also had drawn a lesson from the French Revolution, and knew the uncontrollable nature of large popular assemblages. The news from Philadelphia, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... descent, and how the next instant the weight of the horse tore it down along with him. Finally, falling still lower and turning right round on its back the horse got wedged in between two rocks from which position he was fortunately unable to disengage himself, for had he fallen any further he would have been ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... credit even as a thinker and a man would like to repeat the superficial and shallow flippancy and irreligion of the last century. Two things have been specially insisted on. We have been told that if we are to see the truth of things as it is, we must disengage our minds from the deeply rooted associations and conceptions of a later theology, and try to form our impressions first-hand and unprompted from the earliest documents which we can reach. It has been further urged on us, in a more believing spirit, that we should follow ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... to make explicit the confused hints that threaten to stupefy him; he will find that he can follow out each of them only by rejecting and forgetting the others. To free his imagination in any direction he must disengage it from the contrary intent, and so he must either purify his object or leave it a mass of confused promptings. Promptings essentially demand to be carried out, and when once an idea has become articulate it is not enriched ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... she were suffering, and from time to time made an effort to disengage herself and ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... are obvious. When the game is struck, its struggles disengage the arrow head, and the shaft being dragged by the cord attached to its middle, soon tires the otter out. The seal spears, used for the finishing coup, are made in the same way, and in addition have attached to the long shaft a bladder, which continually draws the animal to the surface. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... morning. Then, binding their prisoner's hands behind him, and tying his feet firmly together, they laid down to sleep, with an Indian on each side and the remaining one to keep guard. As soon as the blaze of the fire died away, Mayall tried to disengage his hands, which began to pain him cruelly, but all in vain. If he could once free himself, he could reach his home before the sun could rise again, and once more see his wife and children; but ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... the sempstress, trying to disengage herself gently from the little hands. "There is nothing to be done but obedience. The ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... contained, according as I found it expedient. Hence there will be some few instances of repetition, which however I hope will not give any great disgust: as what is repeated, was so interwoven in the argument, that I could not well disengage it from the text, where it occurs a ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... himself to one; and in that one he wrought unceasingly, always bringing method to aid talent, until, through various grades of immaturity, he passed to a perfection peculiarly his own, in which thought and expression are fused with such exceeding art as to elude all attempts to disengage them. If we can accept the Culex in its present form as genuine, the development of Virgil's genius is shown to us in a still earlier stage. Whether he wrote it at sixteen or twenty-six (and to us the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... different species of poetic composition. The greatest Masters in the Epopee often introduce metaphors, which have only a general relation to the subject; and by pursuing these through a variety of circumstances, they disengage the reader's attention from the principal object. This indeed often becomes necessary in pieces of length, when attention begins to relax by following too closely one particular train of ideas. It requires however great ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... on it the scheme of a more extraordinary elevation. He made his addresses to the lady Elizabeth, then in the sixteenth year of her age; and that princess, whom even the hurry of business and the pursuits of ambition could not, in her more advanced years, disengage entirely from the tender passions, seems to have listened to the insinuations of a man who possessed every talent proper to captivate the affections of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... country. We assisted at her conversazione, which was numerous. She pressed us to pass the winter at Genoa; and indeed I was almost persuaded: but I had attachments at Nice, from which I could not easily disengage myself. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... The crisis is a necessity created by the evil elements of the eighteenth century. When the mineral was in a state of fusion in the bowels of the earth, it became mixed with foreign and gross elements. But we cannot now disengage the impure accessory by breaking the mass with a hammer. If it be put into the crucible just as it is, the elements will separate of themselves. The theology of Holland, like that of every other Protestant country, is now in the crucible. The heat is intense, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... she had far less trouble to resist the duke's temptations, than to disengage herself from his perseverance: she was deaf to all treaties for a settlement, with which her ambition was sounded: and all offers of presents succeeded still worse. What was then to be done to conquer an extravagant virtue that would not hearken to reason? He was ashamed to suffer ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in the mirror of the deep, or creeping up the crested mountain, and tracing their outline on the expanse of the sky. At first agglomerated in a single confused mass, the lesser part of this immense whole seemed, as we advanced, by degrees to unfold, to disengage themselves from each other, and to grow into various groups, divided by wide chasms and deep indentures; until at last the clusters, thus far still distantly connected, became transformed, as if by magic, into three distinct cities, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... pleasure, but I did not dare to promise her without speaking to you beforehand." "Madam," said I, "do what you please; but whatever you may say of your friend, I defy all her charms to tear my heart from you, to whom it is so inviolably attached, that nothing can disengage it." "Be not too positive," returned she; "I now tell you, I am about to put your heart to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... waist—the third buried his hand among the curls that clustered beneath the widow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... an inundation of visits pouring in upon us, for all the English are acquainted, and herd much together, and it is no easy matter to disengage oneself from them, so that one sees but little of the French themselves. To be introduced to people of high quality it is absolutely necessary to be master of the language. There is not a house where they do not play, nor ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to the fight; and at Montl'hery, when Charles was in considerable personal danger, wounded in the throat, and likely to be made prisoner by a French knight who had hold of his horse's rein, Tiel Wetzweiler charged the assailant so forcibly as to overthrow him and disengage his master. Perhaps he was afraid of this being thought too serious a service for a person of his condition, and that it might excite him enemies among those knights and nobles who had left the care of their master's person to the court fool. At any rate, he chose rather to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... go,—honey," whispered the Colonel, gently. His eyes did not leave Eliphalet. He tried to disengage himself, but her fingers were clasped about his neck in a passion of fear and love. And then, while she clung to him, her head was raised to listen. The sound of Stephen Brice's voice held her as in a spell. His words were coming ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... there was a crowd in the shop, and Jones, in his anxiety to defend the establishment, had closed with Mrs. Morony, and was, as it were, wrestling with her. His effort, no doubt, had been to disengage her hand from the unfortunate mantle; but in doing so, he was led into some slight personal violence towards the lady. And now Miss Biles, having deposited her money, attacked him from behind, declaring that ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... village, which sheltered us for a time. The enemy started in pursuit. Unluckily, as we issued from the village, our guns traversing a hollow road, we were stopped by ditches and channels full of mud, in which the guns stuck fast. As I was trying to disengage them the English reached us, and surrounded us so as to cut off all retreat. Then I surrendered with 3 or 4 officers and about 40 soldiers who were with me, and the guns. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... time to give me a kiss and a hug before I could disengage myself, and the next moment my sweet sister Mary had her arms round my neck, and, half ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... Fiercely he strove to disengage his weapon, but Hordle John bent his arm slowly back until, with a sharp crack, like a breaking stave, it turned limp in his grasp, and the mace dropped from the nerveless fingers. In vain he tried to pluck it up with the other hand. Back and back still his foeman bent him, until, with a roar ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the highest reality he can apprehend. He cannot transcribe it simply because he does not possess the necessary apparatus of knowledge, and because if he did possess it his passion would flag. It is not often that Spinoza can disengage himself to write as he does at the beginning of the third book of the Ethics, nor could Lucretius often kindle so great a fire in his soul as that which made his material incandescent in AEneadum genetrix. Therefore the poet turns to myth as a foundation upon ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... more, the power which this lady had over Mrs. Rowe, drew her, with an obliging kind of violence, to spend a few months with her in the country. Yet, even on these occasions she never quitted her retreat without sincere regret, and always returned to it, as soon as she could with decency disengage herself from the importunity of her noble friends. It was in this recess that she composed the most celebrated of her works, in twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living; the design of which is to impress the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... round and white; his lance is tall; long are the scalp-locks of his enemies. Thus would Homer and Virgil have heightened the picture, and Park-man is clearly attentive to the best models. Even when he describes what his eye has seen he cannot disengage his impression from the associations of literature. It is thus that he sets before us Braddock's ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... innocently romping together, he happened to catch hold of her in his arms; and what strange impulse it was, that rendered him so reluctant to part with her out of that posture, that she was obliged to struggle with all her strength to disengage herself. ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... wind, and those which were not in the yokes after a short while broke from the keepers, and galloped off, followed by the horses, sheep, and dogs. The oxen in the yokes also became quite unruly, trying to disengage themselves from ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... eagle dropped, as if from the sky, on to the otter's carcass. Pauppukkeewis drew his bow and sent an arrow through the bird's body. The eagle made a dying effort and lifted the carcass up several feet, but it could not disengage its claws, and the weight soon brought the bird ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... and it often happens that they fall into oblivion before they have been seriously judged. Meanwhile, a slow progress is imperceptibly made, and, in measure as theoretical principles more clearly disengage themselves, a few industrial applications spring up and have the effect of awakening curiosity. An impulse is thus given, and from this moment a movement in advance goes on increasing at a headlong ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... must permit me first to disengage my honour. Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson |
