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Durance   Listen
noun
Durance  n.  
1.
Continuance; duration. See Endurance. (Archaic) "Of how short durance was this new-made state!"
2.
Imprisonment; restraint of the person; custody by a jailer; duress. Shak. "Durance vile." "In durance, exile, Bedlam or the mint."
3.
(a)
A stout cloth stuff, formerly made in imitation of buff leather and used for garments; a sort of tammy or everlasting. "Where didst thou buy this buff? let me not live but I will give thee a good suit of durance."
(b)
In modern manufacture, a worsted of one color used for window blinds and similar purposes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Durance" Quotes from Famous Books



... mind a plan of action. She realized she must get from Mrs. Waller letters to her friends in Atlanta and they must be fully informed of the injustice that was being done her and take legal action for her release from this durance vile to which she had been subjected. Those friends, of course, had been told by Chester Hunt that she was crazy. They had taken his honesty for granted and had been hoodwinked by his seeming distress over the condition of his brother's wife. The question was, how soon must she leave ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... agreeably surprised at the treatment to which I was subjected by my capturers. Instead of being loaded with chains and confined in a cell beneath the castle's moat, I was given perfect liberty, and had quite a pleasant suite of rooms. I should scarcely have known that I was in durance had not one of the less refined of the brigands shown me a revolver, and playfully informed me that its contents were intended for me if I attempted to escape. The Chief was absolutely charming. He treated me in the most courteous manner, and ended his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... had been twenty-four hours in durance, and there was some reason to suppose that her spirit might be subdued to the emergency of her situation, Mr. Tyrrel thought proper to go to her, to explain the grounds of her present treatment, and acquaint her with the only ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... Released at last from durance vile, and placed on board of an Erie canal-boat, on my way to Canada, I for a moment breathed the sweets of liberty. Perhaps the interval gave me opportunity to indulge in certain reveries which I had hitherto ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... whose foul miasm blears Thy vision, and the distant gleam obscures That dimly through thy prison casement peers. E'en to the darkened dungeon that immures Thy soul, some feeble glimmer finds its way. Crushed beneath earthly durance, still endures Some lingering fire below that weight of clay, Some generous zeal, some honest hardihood, Some faith—some charity.—And whence are they? If not of Him whose quickening breath endued All ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... rope about the base of it, still firmly tied on the side opposite the prisoner. And there crouched he, in the same posture of durance as before, except that now he had his legs well under him. His handcuffed hands lay ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... his interlocutor might be a detective, or one who wished to verify a suspicion. Having but that moment arrived, and knowing nothing of the trial which was going on, he could think only of his reason for his return to Leauvite, and was glad to make an end of incognito and sorrowful durance, and wearisome suspense, and he did not hesitate, nor try any art of concealment. He looked directly into Larry's eyes, almost defiantly for an instant, then seeing in that rugged face a kindly glint of the eye and a quiver about ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... are quite satisfactory," said I; "the three first words are metaphorical, and the fourth, lagged, is the old genuine Norse term, lagda, which signifies laid, whether in durance, or in bed, has nothing to do with the matter. What you have told me confirms me in an opinion which I have long entertained, that thieves' Latin is a strange mysterious speech, formed of metaphorical terms, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... bumping having made this out of the question. But the interior was by this time a veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be obtained, as the Company had not thought it necessary to provide their windows with screens. For twenty-five hours we remained in durance vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our rescue and conveyed us to ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... our own lads, until, finding themselves hemmed in on all sides, they flung down their arms and begged for quarter, which was of course given them. Upon this, seeing that the skipper and Smellie were both safe, I turned to go below, thinking that I should perhaps discover poor Austin in durance vile in one of the state-rooms. I descended the cabin staircase, and was about to pass into the saloon when I happened to catch sight, out of the corner of my eye, of some dark object moving in an obscure corner under the staircase. Turning to ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... stunned him. They had decided that there was more to be gained by letting Peter Ames think he was above suspicion than by keeping him on the anxious seat. Peter unrestrained was of more value to them than Peter in durance vile. And from that moment forward there would not be an hour of the day or night when he was far ahead of the shadower who followed his trail. There would be a sly, invisible pursuer at his heels, and an eye ever ready ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... and other ungenteel names. He called for the assistance of some of his brethren, and the defendants were with some trouble taken to the watch-house. They were very jolly on the way, and when lodged in durance, amused themselves with abusing the Constable of the night, and took especial care that no one within hearing of the watch-house should get a wink of sleep for the remainder ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of these dreadful denunciations, and notwithstanding the warning and example before me, I commit myself to lasting durance. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... seemeth his medicinal quality is affixed not {149} to his prosperity, but person; so that during his durance, he was fully free ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various

... perceived that the pity was awarded to him and not to the sufferer. The feeling against Mr. Turnbull was at the present moment so strong among all the upper classes, that Mr. Bunce and his brethren might have been kept in durance for a ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... pleasure-gardens behind the Pope's ancient palace in Avignon stands a bench from which one can overlook the Rhone, the flowery banks of the Durance, hills and fields, and a part ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... you might well conceive. How, then, if I were to knock, should I prevail in persuading these people—whoever they might be—of my identity? Infinitely more had I the air of some fugitive rebel, and it was more than probable that I should be kept in durance to be handed over to my friends the dragoons, if later they came to ride that way. I was separated from those who knew me, and as things now stood—unless this were, indeed, Lavedan—it might be days before they found ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... conflict and presently found himself in durance vile. Captain Scraggs, luckily, forgot the motto and escaped, but inasmuch as he was on hand next morning to pay a fine of thirty pesos levied against each of the culprits, he was instantly forgiven. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... ascending, as the smoke-wreaths Rise from the hearthstones of our native hamlets, Their music strikes the ear like Gascon patois!. . . (The old man seats himself, and gets his flute ready): Your flute was now a warrior in durance; But on its stem your fingers are a-dancing A bird-like minuet! O flute! Remember That flutes were made of reeds first, not laburnum; Make us a music pastoral days recalling— The soul-time of your youth, in country pastures!. . . (The old man begins to ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... who had seen our entrance, came forward and congratulated me on my convalescence. It was the first time I had ever been ill, and the pleasure of being released from durance was like that of a weary child let loose from school. I was grateful and happy. The assurance I received from the first glance of Ernest, that what his mother had promised to reveal had made no change in his feelings; that the love, which I had almost begun to think an illusion ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... thunder rocks him asleep, which breaks other men's slumbers; nobility lightens in his eyes, and in his face and gesture is painted the god of hospitality. His great houses bear in their front more durance than state, unless this add the greater state to them, that they promise to outlast much of our new fantastical buildings. His heart never grows old, no more than his memory, whether at his book or on horseback. He ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... rapid sketch of the resources and hopes of liberty in the south, and, taking a map, traced the limits of the republic, from the Doubs, the Aire, and the Rhone, to La Dordogne; and from the inaccessible mountains of Auvergne, to Durance and the sea. A serene joy passed over the features of the three, thus quietly originating a plan which was, with an earthquake's power, to make every throne in Europe totter, and to convulse Christendom ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... in the department of Hautes-Alpes in S.E. France. It is built at a height of 4334 ft. on a plateau which dominates the junction of the Durance with the Guisane. The town itself is formed of very steep and narrow, though picturesque streets. As it lies at the foot of the descent from the Mont Genevre Pass, giving access to Turin, a great number of fortifications have been constructed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... court of King Arthur, who had been a prisoner for a year and a day, by reason of his having slain a kinsman of the king's. His name was Sir Balin the Hardy, and he was a good man of his hands, though needy. He had been but lately released from durance, and was standing privily in the hall and saw the adventure of the damsel with the sword. Whereat his heart rose, both to do the deed for the sorrowing maid and because of her beauty and sadness. Yet, being poor and meanly arrayed, he pushed not ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document was a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.'s representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain N. F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then followed a very accurate description of the individual—his height, age, general looks, voice, and manner—every detail of which ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... my dear father was brought to Stirling. Though a captive in the town, I was not then confined to any closer durance than the walls. While he was yet passing through the streets, rumor told my aunt that the Scottish lord then leading to prison was her beloved brother. She flew to me in agony to tell me the dreadful tidings. I heard no more, saw no ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... endued; if he his ample palm Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont, To some enchanted castle is conveyed, Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains, In durance strict detain him, till, in form Of money, Pallas sets the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... foot was this unhomely, rugged turret-top of submarine sierras. Here, when his ship was broken, my lord Duke joyfully got ashore; here for long months he and certain of his men were harboured; and it was from this durance that he landed at last to be welcomed (as well as such a papist deserved, no doubt) by the godly incumbent of Anstruther Easter; and after the Fair Isle, what a fine city must that have appeared! and after the island diet, what a hospitable spot the minister's table! And ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his right cheek-bone to the corner of his mouth ran a scar, very well healed. Instead of detracting from the beauty of his face it added a peculiar fascination. And the American imagination, always receptive of the romantic, might readily and forgivably have pictured villas, maids in durance vile, and sword-thrusts under the moonlight. But the waiter, who had served his time in one or another of the foreign armies, knew that no foil or rapier could have made such a scar; more probably the saber. For the Italian officer on horseback ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... her that however much she loathed the man, every hope of liberty hung upon his favor. And so she gained courage to look about her and to plan some means of outwitting him or some mode of escape from durance. The latter alternative seemed hopeless, for it seemed that the castle was built upon a lonely crag, its heavy walls, which dated from feudal times, imbedded in the solid rock. From her bedroom window, below the buttressed ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... crave the reader's return to the abbey, where Ralph was left in strict durance, and possibly in some danger from the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... neither wife nor maiden with whom he had held converse, but was evil spoken of. While Rhun went in haste towards Elphin's dwelling, being fully minded to bring disgrace upon his wife, Taliesin told his mistress how that the king had placed his master in durance in prison, and how that Rhun was coming in haste to strive to bring disgrace upon her. Wherefore he caused his mistress to array one of the maids of her kitchen in her apparel; which the noble lady gladly did; and she loaded her hands with the best rings that she ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... summoned to the council. The subject of discussion was the manner in which the Tuscarora had passed the stockade, and the probability of his being true. The serjeant was disposed to distrust all red-men, and he advised putting Nick under arrest, and to keep him in durance, until the return of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... irksome durance, but with wound duly cared for, Alain had abundant time to muse over the mistakes and misfortunes of the past. After the inquiry he was necessarily committed for trial at the next criminal session; and fell at first into a semi-mechanical existence. But slowly ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... colours, the Prime Minister made a clean sweep of the rising, and in less than two months the Rt. Hon. Louis Botha was once again master of the situation from the shores of the Indian Ocean in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west. And when the rebel leaders were cogitating over the situation in durance vile, the Prime Minister was sending a message from German South West Africa, on February 26, asking Parliament to ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... like a slug on a cabbage-leaf, and let him alone; and she would not. How could she? She was not a slug, but an eagle. And 'tis not the nature of an eagle to hang hour after hour upon a cabbage-leaf. So, as King Edward had at the first kept her in durance for his own ends, my gracious Lord Duke did entreat him to continue the same on his account. As for my Lady Duchess, I say not; I know her not. This only I know, that my Lady Foljambe is her kinswoman. And, most times, there is a woman at the bottom ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... purposes. From Blida I went by train to Oran, a considerable port in Algiers. There was nothing particular to see or do except visit a certain Morocco chief who had started the late troubles at Fez and was here in durance vile (chains). Among the few tourists I met a Hungarian and his English wife and we became fairly intimate. His wife told me he was the dread of her life, being scorching mad on motor-cars. It happened ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... if all should be exceptional in the life of this remarkable man, he was allowed an interval during this period in which to flash once more upon the world in another expedition to Guiana, in search of the gold mine which he had declared to be there. After the ill-fated voyage he returned into durance vile, and when at last the time came for the axe which had so long hung over him, to fall, his words showed that at least in adversity he had learned, like the great Arian chieftain Clovis, to burn ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... brave garcon! I respect you for your resolution. There is a vessel of mine being loaded now, and if you will really go on board in such a way as you propose I think we can manage it, and your durance will not last more than a few hours. You will be a Regulus ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... account of Hannibal's march, from which, wholly erroneous as it is, this description seems to have been taken; not that even Livy has made such a gross mistake about the Druentia, or Durance, which falls into ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... all the Masons, and they stayed in durance vile Till the jury found them guilty, when the Judge said, with a smile, "I'm forced to let the prisoners go, for I can find," said he, "No penalty for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... that overflows the goblet—and the last moment of delay that exhausts the patience. By the time the sun sank below the horizon, the duchess was in a fidget that passed all bounds, and, though several hours were yet to pass before the day regularly expired, she could not have remained those hours in durance to gain a royal crown, much less a ducal coronet. So she gave orders, and her palfrey, magnificently caparisoned, was brought into the courtyard of the castle, with palfreys for all her ladies in attendance. In this way she sallied forth, just as the sun had gone down. It was a mission of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... it then, Mrs. Pott, that your neighbour, Mrs. Dods, has got a lover in Mr. Bindloose—unless the banker has been shaking hands with the palsy. Why do you not forward her letter?—you are very cruel to keep it in durance here." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... of the sovereign; or to the real strength of government. But as so much stress was then laid on the necessity of this new project, it will not be amiss to take a view of the effects of this royal servitude and vile durance, which was so deplored in the reign of the late monarch, and was so carefully to be avoided in the reign of his successor. The ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... were, perhaps, past facts which he did not wish the world to remember. His frequent fits of raging temper arose from this irksome feeling, and was his way—a futile way—of revenging himself on his jailors for the durance in which they kept him. The man who believed himself to be omnipotent in South Africa, and who was considered so powerful by the world at large, was in reality in the hands of the very organisations he had ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... son, nor love the mother, Which lovers praise and pray to; but that love is Which she in eye and I in heart do smother. Then muse not though I glory in my miss, Since she who holds my heart and me in durance, Hath life, death, love and ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... loomed high above the vessel as she grandly swept her way among the crowded shipping of the Upper Bay. On the huddled steerage-deck Moresco, quickly and mysteriously free from durance and not at all abashed by what had happened to him, led a little cheering, in which his countrymen joined somewhat faintly. On the promenade-deck Vanderlyn was acting as the leader of enthusiastic rooters for his ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... of the Queen, telling her that he would requite her of all that he had done against her. "Let him not suffer," said he, "because you see him stand there bound." But she ordered that Hagen be led away to durance. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... the same year. Although the burglars were not discovered in connection with these post office robberies, and none more daring of their kind have occurred since, they probably were imprisoned for some other misdemeanour. Was it—it may well be asked—this same gang of burglars released from durance vile who committed the post office robbery which in 1901 took place at Westbury-on-Trym, a suburb of Bristol, three miles distant from the city? For daring it might well have been they, as the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... food and clothing, and of general hard usage. They had sat in judgment upon him and his men, condemning them to remain as prisoners till they had orders from Holland as to their ultimate destination. He even said, that he was willing to continue in durance, provided we could keep them out of Puloroon. The conference being ended, Mr Courthop came back to Nylacka in the galley, and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... throne. Prince Henry, successor to the crown, would perish with his father and the peers in Parliament. They would seize the royal heirs who remained, Prince Charles and the Princess Elizabeth, hold them in durance, while the Catholics would choose the heir-apparent and appoint a Protector for the kingdom. It was a daring plan and the prospect of its execution lightened their toil, and intensified the ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... and yielded themselves prisoners. And while they were in this condition, lo! the knight their captain said to those who counselled their slaughter, "It is not for any save for King Afridun to kill them, that he may gratify his wrath; therefore it behoveth us to keep them in durance by us till the morrow, when we will journey with them to Constantinople and deliver them to our King, who shall deal with them as he please." Said they, "This is the right course;" and he commanded to pinion them and set guards ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... the man who has been tried and found strong and sound? Where is the friend of reason and of knowledge? I see only sceptics and weaklings. I see only prisoners in the durance of the senses, And every fool and every spendthrift Thinks himself as great a master as Aristotle. Think'st thou that they have written poems? Call'st thou that a Song? I call it the cackling of ravens. The zeal of the prophet must free poesy From the embrace of wanton youths. My song I have inscribed ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... me, thou art as crafty, to have an eye to the main-chance. As the tailor, that out of seven yards stole one and a half of durance.[216] He served at that time the devil in the likeness of Saint Katherine: Such tailors will thrive, that out of a doublet and a pair of hose can steal their wife an apron. The doublet-sleeves three fingers ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... his fidelitie that he should haue no harme: but notwithstanding all promises, [Sidenote: The archbishop of Canturburie not suffred to visit the vniuersitie of Oxenford.] vpon his comming in he was shut vp fast in the Tower, and so for a time remained in durance. The archbishop of Canturburie minding in this season to visit the vniuersitie of Oxenford, could not be suffered, in consideration of priuileges ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... has always been cruel to me." Then Anton explained to her that Madame Zamenoy had made a formal demand to see her niece, and had even lodged with the police a statement that Nina was being kept in durance in the Jews' quarter; but the accusation was too manifestly false to receive attention even when made against a Jew, and Nina had reached an age which allowed her to choose her own friends without interposition ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... sleeping, drinking, eating-to my mind; Betrayed by every one, my mistress too! O Marc Rene! [M. d'Argenson] whom Censor Cato's ghost Might well have chosen for his vacant post, O Marc Rene! through whom 'tis brought about That so much people murmur here below, To your kind word my durance vile I owe; May the good God some fine ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... with more than mortal ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. "O wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cry'd, 95 (While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid!" reply'd) "Was it for this you took such constant care The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare? For this your locks in paper durance bound, For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around? 100 For this with fillets strain'd your tender head, And bravely bore the double loads of lead? Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair, While the Fops envy, and the Ladies stare! Honour forbid! at ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... power of refutation," the naturalist eagerly exclaimed, "by Paley, Berkeley, ay, even by the immortal Binkerschoek, that a compactum, concluded while one of the parties, be it a state or be it an individual, is in durance—" ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... was at first interpreted leniently by the Pope. Galileo was allowed to reside in qualified durance in the archbishop's house at Siena. Evidently the greatest pain that he endured arose from the forced separation from that daughter, whom he had at last learned to love with an affection almost comparable with that she ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... the tale to Vulcan; he, apprized Of that foul deed, at once his smithy sought, In secret darkness of his inmost soul Contriving vengeance; to the stock he heav'd His anvil huge, on which he forged a snare Of bands indissoluble, by no art To be untied, durance for ever firm. The net prepared, he bore it, fiery-wroth, 340 To his own chamber and his nuptial couch, Where, stretching them from post to post, he wrapp'd With those fine meshes all his bed around, And hung them num'rous from the roof, diffused Like ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... of Arc's behaviour was as modest and courageous as it had been in her days of success and liberty. In the first times of her durance, d'Aulon, who, as we mentioned, had been captured at the same time, appears to have been allowed to remain with her. On his telling her that he feared Compiegne would now probably be taken by the enemy, Joan of Arc said such a thing could ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... should despair be? Since, distinct above Man's wickedness and folly, flies the wind And floats the cloud, free transport for our soul Out of its fleshly durance dim and low,— Since disembodied soul anticipates (Thought-borne as now, in rapturous unrestraint) Above all crowding, crystal silentness, Above all noise, a silver solitude:— Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in time May permanently bide, "assert the wise," There live in peace, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... re-enact in play, and romantic scenes and circumstances that I might call up before me, with closed eyes, when I was tired of Scotland, and home, and that weary prison of the sick-chamber in which I lay so long in durance. ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... these their costly arms the spoilers rent, And softly both convey'd to Theseus' tent: Whom, known of Creon's line, and cured with care, He to his city sent as prisoners of the war, 160 Hopeless of ransom, and condemn'd to lie In durance, doom'd a lingering death to die. This done, he march'd away with warlike sound, And to his Athens turn'd, with laurels crown'd, Where happy long he lived, much loved, and more renown'd. But in a tower, and never to be loosed, The ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... practice their chicanery, "the natural protector of man even against ministers and the king. A party of tobacco inspectors having searched his curate's house, he pursues them so energetically on horseback that they hardly escape him by fording the Durance. Whereupon, "he wrote to demand the dismissal of the officers, declaring that unless this was done every person employed in the Excise should be driven into the Rhine or the sea; some of them were dismissed and the director ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... said Manfred, relapsing into rage; "yes, yes, that is not doubtful -. But how did he escape from durance in which I left him? Was it Isabella, or this hypocritical old Friar, ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... husband Capt. Wm. Kidd, being comitted unto the Comon Goale[2] in Boston for Pyracie, and under Streight durance, as Alsoe in want of necessary Assistance, as well as from Your Petitioners Affection to her husband humbly pray's that your Excell'cy and Councill will be pleased to permitt the sd Sarah Kidd to have Communication with her husband, for his reliefe; in such due Season and maner, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... that extent to be corrected, leaves small allowance for my service to good M. Ansiot, rendered while my elder and younger brothers—the younger completing our group of the ungovernessed—were continuously subject to collegial durance. Their ordeal was, I still blush to think, appreciably the heavier, as compared with mine, during our longer term of thrifty exile from Paris—the time of stress, as I find I recall it, when we had turned our backs on the Rue Montaigne and my privilege ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... robber. Mistaking the servant with the sword in his hand for the desperado returning to the attack, and realizing his own helpless condition, the consul fired two shots at him, wounding him with both shots. The would-be murderer is now (September 3,1885), captured and in durance vile; the servant lies here in a critical condition, and the consul and his sorrowing family are ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have much the air of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... in durance vile, Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle, Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest, Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast; His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls, Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles, While rumbling, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... Spanish army under Alva now turned northward, forced a passage of the Elbe and routed the troops of John Frederic at the battle of Muelberg, near Torgau, on April 24, 1547. John Frederic was captured wounded, and kept in durance several years. Wittenberg capitulated on May 19, and just a month later Philip of Hesse surrendered at Halle. He also was kept a prisoner for some years. Peace was made by the mediation of Brandenburg. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... all the utmost valor that he boasts To force a pass; dogs shall devour him first. To whom brave Hector louring, and in wrath. Polydamas, I like not thy advice Who bidd'st us in our city skulk, again 350 Imprison'd there. Are ye not yet content? Wish ye for durance still in your own towers? Time was, when in all regions under heaven Men praised the wealth of Priam's city stored With gold and brass; but all our houses now 355 Stand emptied of their hidden treasures rare. Jove in his wrath hath ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... the question forces itself in the midst of all this "ironic" waiting on the part of the Persians in Spartan durance for a future apotheosis of splendour and luxuriance,—what is the moral? "Hunger now and thirst, for ye shall be filled"—is that it? Well, anyhow it's parallel to the modern popular Christianity, reward-in-heaven theory, only on a less ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... Frenchman, whom we shall have to quote freely in the immediately ensuing pages, does not venture to be more precise in reference to the meeting of Polo and Rusticiano than to say of the latter: "In 1298, being in durance in the Prison of Genoa, he there became acquainted with Marco Polo, whom the Genoese had deprived of his liberty from motives ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... by the American community. Every one knew that Mr. Greeley's connection with the New York exposition was merely of a good-natured, nominal sort. It therefore became the fashion among traveling Americans to visit him while thus in durance vile; and among those who thus called upon him were two former Presidents of the United States, both of whom he had most bitterly opposed—Mr. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... for they claimed the right of walking in processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal buildings demolished—not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... Ferrers, I mean, only I stick to the old name from habit—was nursing one of her pupils with the measles. The little rascal—it is a boy—had refused to be nursed by any one else; and there she is in the curate's house kept in durance vile; and, to make matters worse, there is some talk of her going out ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... From the latter quarter the Rhone is traced winding up in a wide and rapid current, till it reaches the highly cultivated islands at the foot of Mont Don, and pursues its course with increased grandeur towards the southward. The neighbourhood of its junction with the Durance is marked in this quarter by a barrier of mountains of less height than those above-mentioned, but more abrupt and wild in their forms, at whose foot appear casual glimpses of the two rivers, winding like narrow silver threads into the horizon. "Vous avez passe ce diantre de ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... communication. At the mouth of the river, on the other hand, the supply of adult salmon could be found with certainty, but they must be obtained from the ordinary salmon fisheries in June and held in durance until October or November, and the possibility of confining them without interfering seriously with the normal action of their reproductive functions was not yet established. The latter plan was finally adopted, and in 1871 the first attempt at this method ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various

... and that nobody was able to give the slightest hint as to his probable whereabouts. This, however, did not very greatly trouble the young captain-general; Sachar, the instigator and leader of the whole treasonable conspiracy, was safely lodged in durance vile, under conditions which rendered his escape a practical impossibility, the victory of the queen's troops over the rebels had been signal and complete, the queen herself was safe and sound, and Dick was disposed to think that, under the circumstances, he would have ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... whatever pang may smite me now Smite with surprise. The destiny ordained I must endure to the best, for well I wot That none may challenge with Necessity. Yet is it past my patience, to reveal, Or to conceal, these issues of my doom. Since I to mortals brought prerogatives, Unto this durance dismal am I bound: Yea, I am he who in a fennel-stalk, By stealthy sleight, purveyed the fount of fire, The teacher, proven thus, and arch-resource Of every art that aideth mortal men. Such was my sin: I earn its recompense, Rock-riveted, and chained in height and cold. ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... as though he were wedged in among the claws of a giant crab, but without the sense of retention that might be hoped for under such circumstances. The lowest crutch held one leg in aching durance; there was but just room for the other between the two upper horns, and the saddle was so short and hollow in the seat that its high-ridged cantle was the only portion from which he derived any support—a support that ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... gentle knot That did in willing durance bind My happy soul to hers for life By cruel ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid

... accumulated a mass of learning, are utterly at a loss how to display, or how to use their treasures. What is the reason of this phenomenon? and to which class of children would a parent wish his son to belong? In a certain number of years, after having spent eight hours a day in "durance vile," by the influence of bodily fear, or by the infliction of bodily punishment, a regiment of boys may be drilled by an indefatigable usher into what are called scholars; but, perhaps, in the whole regiment not one shall ever distinguish himself, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... errant, in the times of Merlin and the good King Arthur, who, while ranging the world in quest of adventures, were bewitched by lovely wood fairies or were lulled into delicious slumber by some syren's song, or were shut up in pleasant durance in enchanted castles. Accounts of similar character are found, even in the pages of grave chroniclers of modern date, to say nothing of what books of fiction tell, and what we observe with our own eyes, in the actual world. The ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... and soonest recompense Dole with delight, which in this place I sought; To thee no reason, who knowest only good, But evil hast not tried: and wilt object His will who bounds us! Let him surer bar His iron gates, if he intends our stay In that dark durance: Thus much what was asked. The rest is true, they found me where they say; But that implies not violence or harm. Thus he in scorn. The warlike Angel moved, Disdainfully half smiling, thus replied. O loss of one in Heaven to judge of wise Since Satan fell, whom folly overthrew, And now ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... Doria" had left the Capes of the Delaware. Two of her crew had deserted, and, being apprehended by the authorities on shore, were lodged in Lewiston jail. But the sheriff and his deputies found it easier to turn the key on the fugitive tars, than to keep them in control while they lay in durance vile. Gathering all the benches, chairs, and tables that lay about the jail,—for the lockup of those days was not the trim affair of steel and iron seen to-day,—the unrepentant jackies built for themselves a barricade, and, snugly entrenched behind it, shouted ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... convenience of those who possessed telescopes. Galileo was employed a month in exhibiting his own to the principal persons in Venice; and our unfortunate astronomer was surrounded by a crowd who kept him in durance for several hours, while they passed his glass from one to another. He left Venice the next morning, to pursue his inquiries in some less inquisitive place. But the great bulk of the philosophers of the day were far from joining in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... dep. of Vaucluse, France; an ancient city beautifully situated on the left bank of the Rhone, near the confluence of the Durance, of various fortune from its foundation by the Phocaeans in 539 B.C.; was the seat of the Papacy from 1305 to 1377, purchased by Pope Clement VI. at that period, and belonged to the Papacy from that time till 1797, when it was appropriated ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; the wild lamentation of the women as they gashed the arms of the young girls with sharp mussel-shells, and flung the blood into the air with dismal outcries. A scene of ravenous feasting followed, in which the French, released from durance, were summoned to share. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... yield not in such tone, my gallant foe!" he said, with eager courtesy, and with his own hand aiding him to rise. "Would that I were the majesty of England, I should deem myself debased did I hold such gallantry in durance. Of a truth, thou hast robbed me of my conquest, fair sir, for it was no skill of mine which brought thee to the ground. I may thank that shrieking mad woman, perchance, for the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... aside. "We seek the Countess of Clare who, we have reason to believe, is held in durance here. In the name of the King, we require you ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... enlarge our view, by comprehending, first, the Vallais of the Rhone, secondly, the countries of the Seine and Rhone, above the mountains through which those two rivers in conjunction have broke, below Lyons; and, lastly, that country of the Rhone and Durance which is almost inclosed by the surrounding mountains, meeting at the mouth of the Rhone. But this reasoning will equally apply to the countries of the Garonne, the Loire, and ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... he was finally released, he obtained a job with Ed Higgins at a slight increase in wages over what he had been receiving while in durance vile. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... feat worthy of Beowulf's self; and the greatest wonder, perhaps, among all the wealth of Crowland, was the twelve white bear-skins which lay before the altars, the gift of the great Canute. How Gilbert had obtained his white bear, and why he kept him there in durance vile, was a mystery over which men shook their heads. Again and again Hereward asked his host to let him try his strength against the monster of the North. Again and again the shrieks of the ladies, and Gilbert's own pity for the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... grating, with which, according to the fashion of ancient times, the lower windows of the castle were secured, gave an interest of a different kind, and might be supposed, by a romantic imagination, an imprisoned damsel communicating a tale of her durance to a palmer, in order that he might call upon the gallantry of every knight whom he should meet in his wanderings, to rescue her ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... by; held in durance in the capital, with liberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregard not to have gone in ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... that Louis's piety was afterwards rewarded by the miraculous recovery, through St. Thomas's intercession, of his son from a dangerous illness. Louis was the first of a series of royal pilgrims to the shrine. Richard the Lion Heart, set free from durance in Austria, walked thither from Sandwich to return thanks to God and St. Thomas. After him all the English kings and all the Continental potentates who visited the shores of Britain, paid due homage, and doubtless made due offering, at the shrine of the sainted archbishop. ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... chosen wisely," was the grave reply, "or they may have made mistakes. Such things have been known. By the bye, I suppose that my durance is at ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Arthur sails into the unknown world it is in a ship of glass. The "descent into hell," as a Celtic poet paints it, shakes off the mediaeval horror with the mediaeval reverence, and the knight who achieves the quest spends his years of infernal durance in hunting and minstrelsy, and in converse with fair women. The world of the Mabinogion is a world of pure phantasy, a new earth of marvels and enchantments, of dark forests whose silence is broken by the hermit's ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... wonders what was here the "little deceit." At Grasse, he had longed for the papers a certain lawyer has, which tell much of the city's life a hundred and fifty years ago, and at Sisteron, he sat by the Durance, wondering how he could induce a kind and good old lady of a remote corner of Provence to lend him an ancient manuscript, which even the gentle Cure said she "obstinately" refused to "impart." Blessed are they who can be satisfied with guide-books, as his friends who had visited Avignon and ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... a Shillk, one of the worst tribes of the Upper Nile, whom it is forbidden to enlist. He began by refusing to obey an order, he pushed an officer out of his way, and he struck an Arab Shaykh. Consequently, he passed the greater part of the time in durance vile at the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... "quite sufficient to warrant me in committing you to durance vile, might be preferred. You may thank my generosity that it is not. These houses, as you know, Mr. Patterson, are not only dangerous, but damaging to men of potent ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... land, how high soever, would refuse to accept of him for a husband, by which words, she pointed out herself to him, as plainly as might either stand with the Modesty or Majesty of a Maiden Queen.' But, says Fuller with extreme candour, 'either because his long durance had some influence on his brain, or that naturally his face was better than his head, or out of some private fancy and affection (which is most probable) to the Lady Elizabeth,' who, another writer declares, 'of that moderate Share of Beauty that was between ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... am bound on a journey. Your consciences will tell you if I deserved yesterday's indignity, and how far you might have obviated it. But I have communed with myself and decided to overlook all personal offence. It is enough that certain of our fellow-townsmen are in durance, and I go to release them. In short, I travel to-day to Plymouth to seek the best legal advice for their defence. In my absence I commit the good behaviour of Troy to your keeping, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... her castle was not merely a scene of thoughtless pleasure. Within its circle she held crouds of degenerate shepherds, groveling through the omnipotence of her incantations in every brutal form. Even the spectres and the elves that disobeyed her authority, she held in the severest durance. She compressed their tender forms in the narrowest prison, or gave them to the stormy winds, to be whirled, with restless violence, round about the ample globe. In a word, her mansion was one uninterrupted scene of ingenious cruelty and miserable despair. To be surrounded ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... dismal durance pent, Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate, Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent, Watching the lonely waters soon and late, And clouds that pass and leave them to their fate, Or company ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... aut Ararim cum provincia Massiliensi retinebant. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 32, in tom. ii. p. 178. The province of Marseilles, as far as the Durance, was afterwards ceded to the Ostrogoths; and the signatures of twenty-five bishops are supposed to represent the kingdom of Burgundy, A.D. 519. (Concil. Epaon, in tom. iv. p. 104, 105.) Yet I would except Vindonissa. The bishop, who lived under the Pagan ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... the plot of a Gilbertian opera. It placed the Government on the horns of an Irish bull. Either the law must kill or torture prisoners condemned for mild offenses, or it must permit them to dictate their own terms of durance. The criminal code, whose dignity generations of male rebels could not impair, the whole array of warders, lawyers, judges, juries, and policemen, which all the scorn of a Tolstoy could not shrivel, shrank into a laughing-stock. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... burnish'd wheels the Night In a pale dress doth vanish from the light. This the bless'd Ph[oe]nix' empire is, here he, Alone exempted from mortality, Enjoys a land, where no diseases reign, And ne'er afflicted like our world with pain. A bird most equal to the gods, which vies For length of life and durance with the skies, And with renew'd limbs tires ev'ry age His appetite he never doth assuage With common food. Nor doth he use to drink When thirsty on some river's muddy brink. A purer, vital heat shot from the sun Doth ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... pleased. "I will have you understand," said he, "that I am the commander in this campaign, and that Artaphernes, in making you the sailing-master of the fleet, had no intention that you should set up your authority over mine." So saying, he went away in a rage, and released Syclax from his durance with his own hands. ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... cage's secrets. The cage not long ago fell into disuse. It was once used as a temporary lock-up for drunk or disorderly persons, or others who had traversed the local by-laws of morality. Local justice descended upon them, and they were cast into durance until morning should bring soberness with a headache, or, in more serious cases, until proper conveyance could be got round for Godstone. The cage has seen at least one exciting rescue. This was some fifty or sixty years ago, when ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... nervous en. durance, it is only upon the second or third night that the common man sleeps hard. The students had expected to slumber like dogs on the first night after their trials. but none ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... two I remember that I drifted on to some consideration of myself, for their presence opened old paths where were in durance things that did their best to escape, and were disquieting. I thought also of Calliope, of whose story I had heard a little from one and another. And it seemed to me that possibly Delia More's laughter and her wistfulness summed ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... this, and changes his tone; he complains and groans. A servant is sent, whom the rebel entreats to set him free. Without trying to find any excuse for utter refusal, the servant answers, "I have windows to take care of, too," and goes away. At last, after the child has been in durance for several hours, long enough to tire him and to make him remember it, some one suggests an arrangement by which you shall agree to release him, and he to break no more windows. He sends to beseech you to come and see him; you come; he makes his proposal. You accept it immediately, saying, ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau



Words linked to "Durance" :   captivity, immurement, imprisonment



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