"Refuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have gone away alone, but Ella begged so hard to be allowed to come with me that I had not the heart to refuse her, especially as there was no sufficient reason for so doing. So I consented, promising her that after our exploration was over, if time permitted, she should have a ramble on shore on the southern side of the mountain, when we would lay ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... principle, which was evidently intended to be established by the call of the House of Representatives; and only deliberated on the manner in which this could be done with the least bad consequences." His only question was as to the method of resistance, and he finally decided to refuse absolutely, and did so in a message setting forth his reasons. He said that the intention of the constitutional convention was known to him, and that they had intended to vest the treaty-making power exclusively in the Executive and Senate. On that principle ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... but everybody paid it cheerfully and with a good grace, and felt that they were getting off easy. About this time greenbacks came into circulation as money. It was legal tender and you could not refuse it. It made a great deal of hard feeling on many occasions but after a long time it set settled down to a premium on gold, which fluctuated from day to day. Finally the premium on gold was so high that currency was only fifty cents on a dollar, that is, ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... small chateau on the Vosges mountains; he owned land there, but had a large income from some sources quite independent of this property. Altogether, he was a good match, as she emphatically observed. She never seemed to think that I could refuse him after this account of his wealth, nor do I believe she would have allowed Sophie a choice, even had he been as old and ugly as he was young and handsome. I do not quite know—so many events have come to pass since then, and blurred ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "Because I refuse to deceive people any longer. I was brought up to believe a lie an abomination of the Lord—and I have been a living ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Well, I refuse to apologize. You see I was not prepared to find you so improved. Why, Mel, you're changed. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... accused them of impertinencie, that condemne and disalow such kindes of recreations, and blame those of injustice, that refuse good and honest Comedians, or (as we call them) Players, to enter our good townes, and grudge the common people such publike sports. Politike and wel ordered commonwealths endevour rather carefully to unite and assemble ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... An honest old man of no account. An easy-going fellow. He was much sought after by the Carlists. Greatly imposed upon. His whole family hated me. He was induced to refuse. Not knowing what to do, and being in haste, I named M. Affre. I ought to have been suspicious of him. His countenance is neither open nor frank. I took his underhand air for a priestly air; I did wrong. And then, you know, it was in 1840. Thiers proposed him ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... which, I write you this letter. He is responsible to the community in which he lives, and to the laws under which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws do not permit him to kill, to maim, or to punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask, or to refuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be tyrannical or cruel. If any of these laws have grown obsolete, it is because they are so seldom violated, that they are forgotten. You have disinterred ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... no State could legally annul a decision of the Congress or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The Government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the subtle spirit of the world. It is hard to come out and be separate, because in the dim twilight one is apt to mistake friend and foe. The bribes are so rich for those who conform, the dissuasive so strong for those who refuse to bow to the great golden image. But our duty is clear. We must be true to the spirit of Christ. We must live a holy and unworldly life; we must avoid all that might be construed as an unworthy compromise of the interests of our ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... the banks, who was deservedly popular owing to his genial character, the kind way in which he could refuse one an overdraft, and then suggest quite friendly and cheerfully to the applicant: "What do you think; shall we put the gloves on?" This gentleman had a very peculiar hobby, to attend the sick and dying, and to bury the dead. Some incidents connected with ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... Applegarth, pointing over the taffrail at a lot of straggling masses of quasi-looking stringy stuff that came floating on top of the water close by the ship, resembling vegetable refuse discarded from Neptune's kitchen garden. "That's the gulf-weed Mr Fosset was just ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... mentioned. In the first place, it is fatal to religious individualism. The close unity which joins us to Christ is not so much a unity of the individual soul with the heavenly Christ, as an organic unity of all men, or, since many refuse their privileges, of all Christians, with their Lord. "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.[98]" There must be "no schism in the body,[99]" but each member must perform its allotted function. St. Augustine is thoroughly in agreement with St. Paul ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... higher or lower degrees, profitable, [confusions! darkness! confusion!] yet it is absolutely necessary from an external cause': That is, with such abundant clearness, as that nothing can cause men to refuse to admit them, but that which argueth them ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that the interest of one generation of a community is identical with that of all succeeding generations. The two first propositions Mr Mill attempts to prove and fails. The last he does not even attempt to prove. We therefore refuse our assent to his ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Lancelot was about to refuse again when something crossed his mind, and he shouted back to Jensen to know whom he would send. Jensen, who had probably divined his thoughts, clapped his hand upon the shoulder of that prisoner of his who ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... have taken refuge behind the armchair rather than leave its shelter, I could not refuse; so I got up, said, "Rose," and looked at Sonetchka. Before I had time to realise it, however, a hand in a white glove laid itself on mine, and the Kornakoff girl stepped forth with a pleased smile and evidently no suspicion that I was ignorant of the steps of the dance. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... case. This time the Professor did not refuse, but took two. Holding up one of them between his fingers, he said, "This is the one I didn't take when ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... matter to reach them. Two days passed by, and they were becoming impatient, for as their stock of provisions was now growing short, they must depend on the Indians for their supply, and should they refuse it, they would be entirely in their power. Virginia and Oliver offered to make another expedition up the river to communicate with Captain Audley, but Vaughan considered himself bound to abide by his father's commands. Roger proposed that they should instead borrow the maiden's ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... that a fine young man like her foster-son should waste his life in pining for the love of a maiden who had lain asleep and enchanted for three hundred years. Yet the nurse loved him so dearly that she could not bear to cross him in anything, or to refuse to do anything that he asked. So she sat spinning and thinking for a little while, and ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... keep that name, half hog, half pig." "Verily," asked he, "and by what means may they be obtained from him?" "I will go, lord, as one of twelve, in the guise of bards, to seek the swine." "But it may be that he will refuse you," said he. "My journey will not be evil, lord," said he; "I will not come back without the swine." "Gladly," said he, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... grass-seed in spring, when the old weed seeds of autumn are well scattered; but surely we must give a Citizen Bird some good valuable food, not treating him like a pauper whom we expect to live always on refuse. ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... personal services of one man for the benefit of another and that the Federal Penal Act is violated by any State resolution which seeks to compel the services of labor by making it a crime to fail and refuse to perform contract employment!" This decision rendered by Mr. Justice Hughes and dissented from by Mr. Justice Holmes, an ex-Union soldier, and Mr. Justice Lurton, an ex-Confederate soldier, goes as far as any decision in upholding the spirit and intent of the Thirteenth ...
— Peonage - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 15 • Lafayette M. Hershaw
... objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,—the improbability seemed great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the situation with lamentations, six weeks later, he said to Davison: "When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my judgment, than following the opinion of others. I resisted the opinion ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Ivanovitch. And at the request of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you thirty-five roubles in the hope ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was accused—whether justly or unjustly no matter—it was clearly as impossible not to receive the accusation and to try the cause, as it would be for an English court of justice to refuse to admit a criminal action against Lord Grey or the Duke of Wellington. Was Miltiades guilty or not? This we cannot tell. We know that he was tried according to the law, and that the Athenians thought him guilty, for they condemned him. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Jane, that I cease to love thee. I am not so inhuman as to refuse my forgiveness to a penitent; yet I ask not thy penitence to insure thee my affection. I have told thee my conditions, and adhere to ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... shall be practicable and necessary, all manufacturing establishments in this State. It shall be unlawful for any person to interfere with, obstruct, or hinder, by force or otherwise, any officer appointed to enforce the provisions of this act, while in the performance of his or her duties, or to refuse to properly answer questions asked by such officer with reference to any of the provisions hereof. The Factory Inspector may divide the State into districts, and assign one or more Deputy Factory Inspectors to each district, and transfer them from ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... might even refuse actively to oppose the "moral claim" of the Irish Catholics to the use of the cathedrals and of the accumulated capital of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... not dare disturb him. Her orders were absolute. She could not refuse to admit me, seeing that I was already in the hall; but she stoutly refused to announce me. I argued with ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... then going to refuse to let us have the hay, refuse to sell it at full price, with the Parish Council guaranteeing payment? he asked in a tone that was angry, yet under perfect control?—Is ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... ye To suckle or to dance upon your knee, No other sons have I your hearts to woo— Grandchildren can be none from me to you. Therefore, my daughters, O, consider well Since you are young, and fair and so excel In every homecraft, were it not more wise No longer to refuse to turn your eyes Towards the suitors brave who, now your days Of mourning are accomplished, fix their gaze Upon your goings? Verily now 'twere right That you should each a noble Moabite Espouse, till, with another's love accost, Your childless grief in motherhood be lost. And I, why ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... the system, a system (as growth and disease show) that has its internal vegetation and crises of maturity, to which facility and error in the recovery of the past, and creation also, are closely attached. Thus we should utterly refuse to say that this momentum was capable of being extended indefinitely or was simplicity itself. It may be a good piece of literary psychology to say that simplicity precedes complexity, for it precedes complexity in consciousness. Consciousness ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... which he would have felt in seeing France did not confirm him in the idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls athirst with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may offer them to God. We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this interview or not till the following year that Francis put Brother Pacifico at the head of the missionaries ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... goodness sake, pull yourself together and try not to talk nonsense for once in your life," retorted Aunt Charlotte, tartly. "Embezzling my money, indeed!—I should just like to catch them at it. Of course it's nothing of the kind. But I've lately given them certain instructions which they virtually refuse to carry out, and in a case of that sort it's always better to discuss ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... Because I knew the inquiry just held by the Inspector of the Local Government Board to be an absolute farce! Because I know that the financial affairs of the borough are rotten-ripe! Because I utterly refuse to be a cat's paw in the hands of the Town Trustees any longer! ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... drive to the Southampton Row Passage at first, but, as she drew nearer, she changed her purpose; she did not like to go alone, for who knew what she might see there? It was out of the question to expect her mother to accompany her, but her friend and landlady would not refuse to do so; and she drove to Millman Street, and prevailed on Miss Tweddle to come with her ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... even stirred a kind of reacting sympathy. The rank vocabulary of malice and hate, that noisome fringe of the history of opinion, has received many of its most fulminant terms from critics of Voltaire, along with some from Voltaire himself, who unwisely did not always refuse to follow ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... "I refuse to be merely MR. WARING'S BROTHER," he answered, with some amusement, as he took the proffered hand in his own warmly. "If it comes to that, I'm Mr. Waring myself; and Cyril, whom you seem to know already, is only ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... mainly verbal, and unrelated to actuality," Rand said. "The important thing is that he did refuse, and Mill-Pack wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in every ounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it for them, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibility when Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... it was the opinion of Jane and her mother, that, as he was a whimsical, changeable old chap, it would be right for her to refuse me at first; and so she did, very much to the old man's annoyance, who then set his mind upon it, and swore that if she did not marry me, he would not leave her a farthing. After a few days of quarrelling, Jane ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... omitting to pass and maintain them, its constitutional obligations would be grossly disregarded. She herself relinquished the power of protection, she might allege, and allege truly, and gave it up to Congress, on the faith that Congress would exercise it. If Congress now refuse to exercise it, Congress does, as she may insist, break the condition of the grant, and thus manifestly violate the Constitution; and for this violation of the Constitution, she may threaten to secede also. Virginia may secede, and hold the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... that you will refuse. You can't deny—no sensible man could—that we've simply got to grow more food at home. The submarines have settled that ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... among the very few neighbors his vast possessions permitted, and the equally few friends his singular tastes allowed him. It was believed that a man owning such an enormous quantity of timber land, who should refuse to set up a sawmill and absolutely forbid the felling of trees; who should decline to connect it with the highway to Santa Cruz, and close it against improvement and speculation, had given sufficient evidence of his insanity; ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should, so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him, to which he ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... refuse him?" he wished he knew, and ere he slept he had resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier,—of a lewd tavern for the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, bravoes, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastic players, the refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blasphemous songs proper to the brutal and hardened course of life belonging to that sort of wretches. This system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly and moral ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... before giving an answer. The question was, which would most gratify the feelings he cherished towards the man of old blood, high station, and evil fortunes—to accept or refuse the offered toil. His deliberation ended in his giving orders to the bailiff to fee the young laird, but to mind he did not pay workmen's wages for gentleman's work—which injunction the bailiff ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Poultrie, making of Pastrie, etc. People coming and going, prest to dine and to sup, and refuse, and then stay, the colde Meats and Wines ever on the Table; and in the Evening, the Rebecks and Recorders sent for that we may dance in the Hall. My Spiritts have been most unequall; and this Evening I was overtaken with a suddain Faintnesse, such as I never but once before experienced. ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... a play against whose chances of success ten thousand powerful reasons can be adduced. It is remarkable that a manager nearly always foresees failure in a manuscript, and very seldom success. The manager's profoundest instinct—self-preservation again!—is to refuse a play; if he accepts, it is against the grain, against his judgment—and out of a mad spirit of adventure. Some of the most glittering successes have been rehearsed in an atmosphere of settled despair. The dramatist naturally feels an immense contempt for the opinions artistic and otherwise ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... rows Crackside has got going on all at once. He seems to revel in them. His latest move was to refuse to pay tithe, and when the parson levied a distress, he made all his tenants drunk and walked at their head blowing a post-horn. He's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... certainly hope she'll be better tomorrow, and able to tell something about herself," he went on to say, as he prepared to leave. "And, Hugh, it was fine of your mother to refuse to let her be taken over to the Scranton Hospital, when the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... would not. So Eliphalet was forced to write and refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive was very brief. It said only, "Alice has promised to marry me. Won't you and Aunt Hester ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... boldness in making this request, fairly astounded him at the first. He gazed at me in amazement. But I had many good reasons for pressing the matter; and, after listening to them awhile, he did not absolutely refuse, but told me he would think of it. Here, then, was a gleam of hope. Once master of my own time, I felt sure that I could make, over and above my obligation to him, a dollar or two every week. Some slaves have made enough, in this way, to purchase their freedom. It is a sharp spur ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... odors now, coming to them as they walked. Invisible banners of decay floating upon the night. Stench of fat kitchens, of soft bubbling alleys, of gleaming refuse. Indefinable evaporations from the dark bundles of houses wherein people had packed themselves away. They came like a rust ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... were gain to me, these I have accounted loss for Christ. (8)Nay more, and I account all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and account them refuse, that I may gain Christ, (9)and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God, upon faith; (10)that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... aid us by other means, this would not preserve us from shipwreck. As we were thinking what could be done for our safety, Champdore, who had been again handcuffed, said to some of us that, if Pont Grave desired it, he would find means to steer our barque. This we reported to Pont Grave, who did not refuse this offer, and the rest of us still less. He accordingly had his handcuffs taken off the second time, and at once taking a rope, he cut it and fastened the rudder with it in such a skilful manner that it would steer the ship ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... most cruel manner, and finally put him to death. One would think that he ought to have counseled peace and an exchange of prisoners, and he ought not to have refused to see his unhappy wife and children; but it was certainly very noble in him to refuse to break his word. ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... "with offers of very good commissions." But Providence, he tells us, and, we may add, a shrewd confidence in his own powers, "placed a secret aversion in his mind to quitting England upon any account, and made him refuse the best offers of that kind." He stayed at home, "to be concerned with some eminent persons in proposing ways and means to the Government for raising money to supply the occasions of the war then newly begun." He also wrote a vigorous and loyal pamphlet, entitled, The Englishman's, Choice and ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... thou wast gay, The blithest with the song! Though thou believ'dst me far away, An exile at Boulogne. 'Twas then, and not till then, my heart To love thee did refuse; My vows became (false that thou art!)— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... are the gentleman you would be thought, you will not refuse satisfaction for the diabolical calumnies you have so unprovokedly circulated against ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... to be allowed to consider themselves at home among the ricks and barns and wide fields; but at this moment things had become so tragic that they were cowed and unhappy,—not that Mary should still refuse Larry Twentyman, but that she should be going away for so long a time. They could quarrel with their elder sister while the assurance was still with them that she would be there to forgive them;—but now that she was going away and that it had ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... importance. At first the queen refused; but Mary Seyton told her that the young man's air and manner this time were so different from what she had seen two days before, that she thought her mistress would be wrong to refuse his request. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Again, Samuel based the exhortation to whole-hearted service of Jehovah on Jehovah's faithfulness and great benefits (vs. 22-24), It is suicidal folly to turn away from Him who never turns away from us; it is black ingratitude, as well as suicidal folly, to refuse to serve Him whose mercies encompass us. That divine good pleasure, which has no source but in Himself, flows out like an artesian well, unceasing. His 'nature and property' is to love. His past is the prophecy ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you won't refuse to try a few of these?" she said persuasively, as she neared their corner, "I shall be real disappointed if ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... the sins of all sinners on earth and all the devils in hell were upon your soul, He will not refuse you. Not even in the range of God's omniscience is there a reason why Christ will refuse any poor sinner who comes to ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... settle on the land and no more live on his ship of war, and he questioned Hakon if he thought Harald would share his kingdom with him were he to demand the half. 'Methinks,' quoth Hakon, 'that the Danish King will not refuse thee justice; but thou wilt know more concerning this matter if thou speakest thereon to the King; methinks thou wilt not get the realm save thou demandest it.' Shortly after this talk spake Gold Harald to King Harald ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... Mlle. Goldberg come to my lodgings. In the foolish past I had somewhat injudiciously acquainted her of where I lived. Now she came and asked to be allowed to see me, but invariably did I refuse thus to gratify her. I felt that time alone would perhaps soften my feelings a little towards her. In the meanwhile I must commend her discretion and delicacy of procedure. She did not in any way attempt ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... not a little wonder at this odd fancy; but they satisfied us presently, telling us that the day of judgment is to take mankind napping; therefore, to show they did not refuse to make their personal appearance as fortune's darlings use to do, they were always thus booted and spurred, ready to mount whenever ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... refusing to ignite. "It is folly," observed Goethe, "to expect that other men will consent to believe as we do"; and, having reconciled himself to this elemental obstinacy of the human heart, it no longer troubled him that those whom he felt to be wrong should refuse to acknowledge their errors. ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... did he dry the cowhide boots that had trudged through mud and snow, and the shaggy outside garment stiff with frozen sleet! taking heed, likewise, to the comfort of the faithful dog who had followed his master through the storm. When did he refuse a coal to light a pipe, or even a part of his own substance to kindle a neighbor's fire? And then, at twilight, when laborer, or scholar, or mortal of whatever age, sex, or degree, drew a chair beside him and looked into his glowing face, how acute, how profound, how ...
— Fire Worship (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... done April 14, 1646, none of all that was sufficient to give quiet to that field of Christendom. Mahometan perfidy took the pretext that the Joloan Prince Salicala and Paguyan Cachile, prince of the Guinbanos, [21] and seignior of Tuptup in Borney, should refuse to sign the peace. With that excuse those princes, aided in secret by those kings, peopled the sea with boats and caused unspeakable damage to Calamianes, Camiguin, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... within the walls of the City. The streets were all narrow: the houses were generally of three or more stories, built out in front so as to obstruct the light and air; there were many courts, in which the houses were mere hovels: there was no drainage: refuse of all kinds lay about the streets: everything that was required for the daily life was made in the City, which added a thousand noisome smells and noxious refuse. Then the Plague came and carried off its thousands and disappeared. Then the survivors ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... state: "Quand une femelle eprouve de l'antipathie pour un male avec lequel on veut l'accoupler, malgre tous les feux de l'amour, malgre l'alpiste et le chenevis dont on la nourrit pour augmenter son ardeur, malgre un emprisonnement de six mois et meme d'un an, elle refuse constamment ses caresses; les avances empressees, les agaceries, les tournoiemens, les tendres roucoulemens, rien ne peut lui plaire ni l'emouvoir; gonflee, boudeuse, blottie dans un coin de sa prison, elle n'en sort que pour boire et manger, ou pour repousser avec une espece de ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... answered recklessly. 'Bring in the whole world. But I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... sever been near this place; but I hardly thought about the strangeness of it then. He begged me so earnestly to see him; it was a matter of life or death, he said. What could I do, Nelly? He was my father, and I felt that I owed him some duty. I could not refuse to see him; and if he had some personal objection to coming here, it seemed a small thing for me to take the trouble to go and meet him. I could but hear what ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... which are but used to hide the obduracy of your resentment. Would you have me believe you, then leave the hut this instant, and retire from a country which every hour renders more dangerous. Do this, and I may think you have forgiven me; refuse it, and again I call on moon and stars, heaven and earth, to witness the unrelenting resentment with which you prosecute your mother for a fault, which, if it be one, arose ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... shelter from bad weather. He said, 'The island has no master; the Danube built it up for no one; the soil, the trees, the grass which grow on it belong to no one.' If it is ownerless, this island, why should not I take possession of it? I ask it of God, I ask it of the Danube. Why should they refuse it? I will raise fruit there. How? and what fruit? I do not know, but necessity will ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... also with increased responsibilities. They are in future known as 'the sanitary authorities'; they must make bye-laws, and enforce not only their own, but those made by the County Council; and, if they fail in their duty—as, for example, in the matter of removing house-refuse, or keeping the streets clean—they are liable to a fine. It is pleasant to think that, in future, any ratepayer may bring Mr. Bumble ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... is familiar. The epic hero may despise the churlish man, may, like Odysseus in the Iliad (ii. 198), show little sympathy or patience with the bellowings of the multitude, but he may not ostentatiously refuse all community of ideas with simple people. His magnificence is not defended by scruples about everything low. It would not have mattered to Odysseus if he had been seen travelling in a cart, like Lancelot; though for Lancelot it was a great misfortune and anxiety. The art and pursuits of a ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... question &c (doubt) 485; give the lie in his throat, give one the lie in his throat. deny flatly, deny peremptorily, deny emphatically, deny absolutely, deny wholly, deny entirely; give the lie to, belie. repudiate &c 610; set aside, ignore &c 460; rebut &c (confute) 479; qualify &c 469; refuse &c 764. recuse [Law]. Adj. denying &c v.; denied &c v.; contradictory; negative, negatory; recusant &c (dissenting) 489; at issue upon. Adv. no, nay, not, nowise; not a bit, not a whit, not a jot; not at all, nohow, not ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with such relapses, Skirrl showed extreme fatigue or ennui and often would refuse to work and simply sit before the open doors yawning. This happened even when he was extremely hungry and ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... nonsense, Polly; please don't be tiresome any more to-night," Mrs. O'Neill urged, lying down on the sofa again, as though she were too weary to be up another minute. "I can't discuss the matter with you, but Mr. Wharton has been too kind for me to refuse him this request." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... said; "I refuse to answer. I am comfortable where I am, and I mean to stay there. If you put Mr. Trevor against me, if you put Mrs. Aylmer against me, it will be all the worse for yourself; but if, on the other hand, you respect my ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... the whole to a standstill. Friction fatal to continued happiness might arise between the different departments of the General Government or between it and the component States. The people of some section might refuse to be bound by the General Government. During the heat of debate in the South Carolina Convention, a delegate had defiantly declared that his people would not take part in the new Government, if adopted, if not compelled ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... indulgences, absolution, masses and prayers for the living and the dead; he will grant them all. Ask him for his niece in marriage; ask him to marry you, to baptize you, to bury you; he will do it all—yes, all for nothing! It is not in his nature to refuse anything. Ask him for his new cassock, his cane, or his hat, his black silk stockings, or his silver buckles, and they are yours. No one so ready to forgive an insult or forget an injury as he. But, by the blood of the Mirabels, give him not a bottle of bad or sour wine, for he ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Babylon, after his successful war against Judea, he ordered a golden statue to be made,(1044) sixty(1045) cubits high, assembled all the great men of the kingdom to celebrate the dedication of it, and commanded all his subjects to worship it, threatening to cast those that should refuse into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Upon this occasion it was that the three young Hebrews, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias, who with an invincible courage refused to comply with the king's impious ordinance, were preserved after a miraculous manner in the midst of the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... has brought you, you are able to bear with fortitude whatever comes from her, knowing that you are but a man and that these things are inevitable; but if fortune has purposed to temper these adversities with some admixture of good, would you of yourself refuse to accept this gladly? Or should we consider that the good gifts of fortune are not just as inevitable as are her undesirable gifts? Yet such is not the opinion of even the utterly senseless; but you, it would seem, have now lost your good judgment, steeped as you are ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... way was to surround her with pretentious silliness instead of beautiful simplicity, then she must rise above her surroundings. Her spirit, at any rate, must refuse to be surrounded. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... well!—with your ultimate breath, When you answer the door to the knocking of Death, On your conscience, believe me, 'twill terribly dwell, If now you refuse ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... that scoundrel anything, refuse to pay it. He never won a penny in his life without cheating. Keep out of his way; keep out of the way of all men who prefer to deal only two hands." And with this advice Warrington stepped out into the hallway and ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... at the little tentative bit of sentiment she had so easily turned aside. Her advice to him was to refuse to fight, seeing that he had done sufficient for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... about to place the rope around his neck, he said that an innocent request was often granted to a poor criminal before he suffered death. He wished very much to smoke a pipe, as it would be the last pipe he should ever smoke in the world. The king could not refuse this request, so the soldier took his tinder-box, and struck fire, once, twice, thrice,—and there in a moment stood all the dogs;—the one with eyes as big as teacups, the one with eyes as large as mill-wheels, and the third, whose eyes were like ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... confident, that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover, Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However divinity-schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter each other about the doctrine and origin of human depravity, all will join devoutly in the credo, I believe in the total ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... made little difference whether the object of his passion was in his hand or in his chest, while it was all the same deep in his heart. Then his words seemed to imply that he wanted to take his farewell of it; and to refuse his request might only fan the evil love, and turn him from the good motion in his mind. She said: "Yes, sir," and stood waiting. ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... woman makes her husband submit to whose fidelity she suspects, when, although herself a prey to jealousy, she watches herself so narrowly that she avoids giving any pretext for an angry feeling. The king, therefore, in the present case, could not refuse; he accepted the offer, alighted from the carriage, gave his arm to the queen, and walked up and down with her while the horses were being changed. As he walked along, he cast an envious glance upon the courtiers, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and house were situated, he heard the confused murmur of a multitude, and soon perceived, on turning the corner, that a very large crowd was collected outside his door. There were men and women—many of the former armed with pikes and sabres—the latter, the refuse of the populace, who appeared like birds of evil omen at every scene of ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... me! leave town to-morrow! Just at the beginning of the season! Impossible!—I never saw such a precipitate rash young man. But stay only a few weeks, Colambre; the physicians advise Buxton for my rheumatism, and you shall take us to Buxton early in the season—you cannot refuse me that. Why, if Miss Broadhurst was a dragon, you could not be in a greater hurry to run away from her. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... when she could command her voice, 'dear kind Jack, you never refuse me anything. Don't say "no" to what I am ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... hands on her sloping lap, and sighed resignedly. Hardly a moment had elapsed since her arrival, but already her cause was lost. To subject Elma to the fatigue of returning home would be madness, when even an ordinary meeting had so disastrous effect; to refuse hospitality so charmingly offered would be ungracious in the extreme. There was nothing for it but to submit with a good grace, and submit she did, arranging to send up a box of clothing later in the afternoon, and promising to drive up again ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... country had just been brought to the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief of police without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother might not have had to apologize for, had refused to "recognize" some powerful Trade Union, just as a gondola might refuse ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... is useless for the living to refuse obedience. All rebellions to escape this servitude, to break the chain of centuries, all are lies! Febrer recalled the sacred wheel of the Hindoos, the Buddhist symbol which he had seen in Paris once when he attended an oriental religious ceremony in a museum. The wheel ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... from one tower to the other. A canal has been cut to drain as much rain water (the only water obtainable here) as possible into a small pond, but the pond was nearly dry and only had in it some filthy salt water densely mixed with camel refuse. It was of a ghastly green with patches of brown, and some spots of putrefaction in circular crowns of a whitish colour. The surface was coated with a deposit of sand, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... clear flour, and to so increase the yield as to leave some margin for profit. The first step in the solution of this problem was the invention by E. N. La Croix of the machine which has since been called the purifier, which removed the dirt and light impurities from the refuse middlings in the same manner that dust and chaff are removed from wheat by a fanning mill. The middlings thus purified were then reground, and the result was a much whiter and cleaner flour than it had been possible to obtain under ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... out of the hotel with violent words of despair. He never knew just where he spent that day—certainly not in the office at the Works; but wherever it was, it brought him face to face with his opportunity. Should he accept it? Should he refuse it? He said to himself that he could not decide. Perhaps he was right; he had shirked decisions all his life; perhaps so great a decision was impossible for him. At any rate, he thought it was. Something must decide for him. What should it be? All that afternoon he tried to make a small decision ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... vast throng, sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse of London, whose growth was fostered by bad criminal laws, bad prison regulations, and the worst conceivable police, such of the members of both Houses of Parliament as had not taken the precaution to be already at their posts, were compelled ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... whom your slightest wish is a law, and then when your mood changes, you treat her with neglect; and think you, that knowing all this, Mary Howard would look favorably upon you, even if there were no stronger reason why she should refuse you?" ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... recover some credit with the people, determined to disapprove of his majesty's conduct. The house formed itself into a committee, to take the state of the kingdom into consideration. They resolved, that whoever advised the king to refuse the royal assent to that bill, was an enemy to their majesties and the kingdom. They likewise presented an address, expressing their concern that he had not given his consent to the bill; and beseeching his majesty to hearken for the future to the advice of his parliament, rather than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... through the Princesse de Guemenee. As he had worn it the Queen had not imagined that he could think of giving it to her; much embarrassed with the present which she had, as it were, drawn upon herself, she did not like to refuse it, nor did she know whether she ought to make one in return; afraid, if she did give anything, of giving either too much or too little, she contented herself with once letting M. de Lauzun see her adorned with the plume. In his secret "Memoirs" the Duke attaches an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... can dispense with his presence on board of this vessel. My reason for making this observation is, that no chance should ever be thrown away. One of my lieutenants wishes to leave the ship on family concerns. He has applied to me, and I have considered it my duty to refuse him, now that we are on the point of sailing, and I am unable to procure another. But for your son's sake, I will now permit him to go, and will, if you will allow him to come on board of the Portsmouth, give ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... is a mock "marriage by capture." All the guests must leave by 1 A.M. In Catalonia only the nearest relations of the pair are allowed to attend the service, but many guests are asked to the house, and each must bring a gift. It is an insult to refuse an invitation of this kind. The guests are divided according to sex, and when the bridegroom is tired of the men he goes and throws sweets at the ladies, exclusive of his wife. Then dancing follows. ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... would be a terrible reign of discontent, strife, crime, revolution and chaos; whereas the prudent purchase of a small number of public utilities, under the present system of government, would entail none of these evils, since most workingmen could refuse positions that they did not care for or where the wages would not satisfy them, and do this without ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... rule Nichoune would disdainfully refuse to go down among the audience. This evening, however, she nodded a "Yes," and, taking a pile of little programmes from the wings, she descended the few steps which led from the stage to the body of the hall. Twenty hands were outstretched to help her down. She pushed them aside with mocking ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... if it should appear, that after the foretelling of his death (through despair of his fortunes it is said) he had it in his power to set up for King once more, and once more refused the opportunity? Men in despair lay hold on the least help, and never refuse the greatest. Now, the case was really so. After he had foretold his crucifixion, he came to Jerusalem in the triumphant manner the Gentleman mentioned; the people strewed his way with boughs and flowers, and were all at his devotion; the Jewish governors lay still for fear of the ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... prosperous colony almost an impossibility—even starvation, that most potent inducement to toil, seems powerless to promote habits of industry and agriculture. During the winter season they frequently undergo periods of great privation, but, like he Indian, they refuse to credit the gradual extinction of the buffalo, and persist in still depending on that animal for their food. Were I to sum up the general character of the Saskatchewan half-breed population, I would say: They are gay, idle, dissipated, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... said, "and our friend must not be absent from my side on this joyful occasion. I owe everything to him. He laid the foundation of my prosperity, and preserved my heir to me, for whom alone I am working and striving. If Wilhelm were with us now, he would not refuse my request, and with that thought before you, Herr Doctor, you will not pain me by refusing." The words came from Paul's heart, and showed that he felt keenly the desire to do homage, in his way, to Wilhelm's memory. Schrotter ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... not the truest admirers of what is good in it who will refuse to smile at the miseries of conscientious but baffled readers. Who can fail to sympathise with Douglas Jerrold when, slowly convalescent from a serious illness, he found among some new books sent him by a friend a copy of "Sordello." ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... sunk upon her knees. She uncovered her face, and exclaimed, while she looked fearfully round upon Huldbrand, "Alas! you will now refuse to look upon me as your own; and still I have done nothing evil, poor unhappy child that I am!" She spoke these words with a look so infinitely sweet and touching, that her bridegroom forgot both the confession that had shocked, and the mystery that had perplexed him; and hastening to her, ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... He could never refuse such appeals. If he had befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more odious than Small to his family ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... him; He will refuse you nothing, though the price Be as a prince's ransom. And your profit Shall ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... to fall in love with a lady who insisted on his marrying her. To do this he had to secure from the Pope a divorce from his former Queen, who chanced to be an aunt of the Emperor Charles. What was poor Pope Clement to do? Offend Charles who was just helping him crush the Florentines, or refuse his "Defender of the Faith"? Real reason for the divorce there was none. Clement temporized: and Wolsey with one eye on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... just want to offer. Here I am and all my worldly goods. Take me, I pray you. And not only pray you. Take me, I demand of you, in the name of God our king. I have a right to be used. And you have no right to refuse me. You have to go on with your message, and it is your duty to take me—just as you are obliged to step on any steppingstone that lies on your way to do God service.... And so I am waiting. I shall be waiting—on thorns. I know ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... the beautiful humility was changed into a knowledge of her own predestined glory; and, being raised bodily into immortality, and placed beside her Son, in all "the sacred splendour of beneficence," she came to be regarded as our intercessor before that divine Son, who could refuse nothing to his mother. The relative position of the Mother and Son being spiritual and indestructible was continued in heaven; and thus step by step the woman ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... battle. I shall crush them this time, and on my return the King will once more be generous to me, and I shall demand then, that for my reward he free me from Amneris and give me thee for my wife. When I have twice saved his kingdom, he cannot refuse me." ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... part of India where we cannot afford to spend from 13,000l. to 15,000l. a mile upon them. I am not prepared to accept this conclusion. I have been a good deal in America, and I know that our practical cousins there do not refuse to avail themselves of advantages within their reach, by grasping at those which are beyond it. In 1854, I travelled by railway from New York to Washington. We had several ferries to cross on the way, but we found that the railway with the ferries was much better than no Railway at all. In short, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... confirms Voltaire's anecdote upon that subject. Then opens a new scene and a new century; Lewis the Fourteenth's good fortune forsakes him, till the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene make him amends for all the mischief they had done him, by making the allies refuse the terms of peace offered by him at Gertruydenberg. How the disadvantageous peace of Utrecht was afterward brought on, you have lately read; and you cannot inform yourself too minutely of all those ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... case in which one state sued another? If a merchant in your town should buy goods from a wholesale house in Chicago or New York, and should fail or refuse to pay for them, how could the house get its pay? What laws would apply to the case? What principle seems to be ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... understand that if I had plenty of ready money I need only apply there, where you are yourself a director. I had the honor of sitting on the Bench of commerce with Monsieur le baron Thibon, chairman of the committee on discounts; and he, most assuredly, would not refuse me. But up to this time I have never made use of my credit or my signature; my signature is virgin,—and you know what difficulties that puts in ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... cattell. But may I thinke that Munster and Krantzius were so mad as to imagine that the Islanders liue vpon grasse and hay: To this passe of miserie was Nabuchodonozor brought vndergoing the yoke of Gods vengeance Daniel 4. vers. 30. We will easily graunt that beasts and cattell will not perhaps refuse many things, which men not onely of our countrey but of yours also eate, if the saide beasts be destitute of their vsuall food: as horses are fedde with corne and barley loaues: they will drinke milke also (like vnto calues and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... had taken up was impregnable. What is the good of your loyalty, he said in effect to the Cape Dutch, if you refuse to help us in the one thing needful? And this the one thing of all others the justice of which you Afrikanders should feel—that the Transvaal should "assimilate its institutions ... and the tone and temper of its administration, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... provided with another when next it shall be necessary. But if once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make some endeavor to conceive how precious these hours ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin |
