"Wean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chief of the Rising family, who obtained that country as an appanage, may have been of illegitimate birth, and that, his mother being impure, he may have been brought up in a hankering after the flesh-pots, from which it has been impossible to wean his descendants. ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... whispered, 'Beware, —Beware,' But she would not listen to it, she had set her heart upon him, and although she could not but admit he had many faults, yet she strove to believe that she had the power to wean him ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... helpless: some dreadful calamity must have befallen you. Do not turn from me; I do not ask you to reveal it: I only entreat you to listen to me and to become familiar with the voice of consolation and kindness. If pity, and admiration, and gentle affection can wean you from despair let me attempt the task. I cannot see your look of deep grief without endeavouring to restore you to happier feelings. Unbend your brow; relax the stern melancholy of your regard; permit a friend, a sincere, affectionate friend, I will be one, to convey some relief, some momentary ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... so i' the auld days. It was aye washin's clappin' aboon the stanes. Noo, mony o' the mithers hang the claes oot at nicht. Ilka thing is changed sin' I was a wean an' leevin' i' the auld Guildhall, the bairnies haen Bobby to lo'e, an' no' to be neglectet." She continued the conversation to include Tammy as he came around the kirk ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... his respects to the countess as soon as he had heard from his mother that she was in the city. Nor was his mother sorry that he should go. She had patiently submitted to the fact of his betrothal to Vittoria, which was his safeguard in similar perils; and she rather hoped for Violetta to wean him from his extreme republicanism. By arguments? By influence, perhaps. Carlo's republicanism was preternatural in her sight, and she presumed that Violetta would talk to him discreetly and persuasively of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the master-prophet, to swallow up every minor propensity. Love had doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond with an anguish, that exiled all smile from her lips, and trenched sad lines on her brow of beauty. But each day seemed to change the nature of her suffering, and every succeeding hour forced her ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... of such, I would hope: at once 340 To wean thee from the perils of thy youth And haughty spirit, I have thought it well That thou shouldst wed the lady Ida—more As ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Afflictions from Heaven 'are angels sent on embassies of love.' We must improve, and not abuse them, to obtain the blessing. They are commissioned to stem the tide of impetuous passion; to check inordinate ambition; to show us the insignificance of earthly greatness; to wean our affections from transitory things, and elevate them to those realities which are ever blooming at the right hand of God. When affliction is thus sanctified, 'the heart at ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... housekeepers that there was much need of teachers. I tried to get the New England women to stop feeding their families on dough—especially hot soda dough—and to substitute well-baked bread as a steady article of diet. In trying to wean them from cake, I told of a time when chaos reigned on earth, long before the days of the mastodons, but even then, New England women were up making cake, and would certainly be found at that business when the last trump sounded. But they ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... "The wean saw something like a white leddy that weised us the gate," said Tibb; "when we were like to hae perished in the moss-hags— certain it was that Shagram reisted, and I ken Martin thinks ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... wean my self from the love of revenge, I spent half the night very pensively; and rising by day-break, to ease me of my grief, and thoughts of my injury, I rov'd about every where, till at last going in to a publick gallery, very ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... freest form in which the mind or countenance ought to invest themselves." {129a} He argued against the translator of the Bible into Manchu that concessions should not be made to a Chinese way of thought, because it was the object of the Society to wean the Chinese from their own customs and observances, not to encourage them. But the opposite extreme was more congenial to Borrow. He would go to the market place in a remote Spanish village and display his Testaments on the outspread horsecloth, crying: "Peasants, peasants, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... with books and with pubescent paresis. Hating the things of the farm, care of the barn and the garden. Always neglecting his chores—given to books and to reading, Which, as all people allow, turn the young person to mischief, Harden his heart against toil, wean his affections ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... with morals— Whether she listen'd to Hob or Bob, Nob or Snob, The Squire on his cob, Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job, To the "Saint" who expounded at "Little Zion"— Or the "Sinner" who kept "the Golden Lion"— The man teetotally wean'd from liquor— The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Reverend Vicar— Nay, the very Pie in its cage of wicker— She gather'd such meanings, double or single, That like the bell With muffins to sell, Her ear was kept in ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the American struggle against the slave system did more to wean religious and God-fearing men and women from the old interpretation of Scripture than the use ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... came along she had observed a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with an infant, hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him? ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... breaking away from what had come to be an established custom. Of course, it was just this once and absurd to feel disappointed, only Molly, glancing over Judy's head at Adele standing by the window, had caught a glint of triumph in her eyes. What was she after, anyway? Did she wish to wean the tempestuous Judy from her old friends? The two girls exchanged ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... this, and he firmly resolved to remove his son entirely from what he considered the hateful influences of the Trenoweths. He resolved to go to Plymouth, to take his son with him, and, if possible, to send him away to sea, hoping thus to wean him from his folly, as he considered this love-madness. Frank, poor fellow, with the best intentions, was not capable of any sustained effort, and consequently he at length succumbed to his father; and, to escape his persecution, he entered a ship bound for ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... had expected some such passionate outbreak At the first news: you see now, Lady Agnes, These saints, who fain would 'wean themselves from earth,' Still yield to the affections they despise When the game's earnest—Now—ere they return— Your ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... the rich: why should they not be equally so amongst the poor? Nature has made original feeling alike in all; but the poor feel more deeply; for the rich suffer in heart midst countless luxuries and efforts from others to wean them from their sufferings, while the poor suffer midst numberless privations, and almost utter loneliness. Why then should I have ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... thrive. And already I see sex-differences asserting themselves. Pee-Wee is a bit of a stoic, while his sister shows a tendency to prove a bit of a squealer. But Poppsy is much the daintier feeder of the two. I'll probably have to wean them both, however, before many more weeks slip by. As soon as we get settled in our new shack and I can be sure of a one-cow supply of milk I'll begin a bottle-feed once in every twenty-four hours. Dinky-Dunk ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... knowledge of the situation of my brethren is too extensive to need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which they may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and as Job proposed to his friends, 'put your soul in their soul's stead;' thus shall your hearts be enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards them; and thus shall you need neither the direction of myself or ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... enough to bear the turning of our most sacred language into its depolarized equivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or later all his local and temporary ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mother was a Le Compton. This poor boy was nursed by a servant. Oh, she has some good qualities, and is certainly devoted to us—to this day her face brightens at sight of me—but she is essentially vulgar; and do you remember, Charles, I wished to wean him early; but I was overruled, and the poor child drew his nature from that woman for nearly eighteen months; it is ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... to like the suggestion, and remained. What was said and what was done on that walk never could be clearly recollected by Shadrach; but in some way or other Joanna contrived to wean him away from her gentler and younger rival. From that week onwards, Jolliffe was seen more and more in the wake of Joanna Phippard and less in the company of Emily; and it was soon rumoured about the quay that old Jolliffe's son, who had come home ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Hoping to wean her from worrying about Johnny, dad had bought the Bear Cat. Mary V had owned it for ten days now, and its mileage stood at 1400 and was just about ready to slide another "1" into sight. The Bear Cat had proven itself a ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... why are they given? God gives them, in the fulness of His goodness, in order to draw the soul from sin, from attachment to the creature, and to bring it back to Himself. But these same gifts with which He gratifies it—that He may wean it from earth and from self to love Him, at least from gratitude—we use to excite our self-love and self-admiration, to amuse ourselves with them; and self-love is so deeply rooted in man, that it is augmented by these gifts; for he finds in himself new charms, which he had not discovered before; ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... fact that most of the towns and cities in Leinster and Munster which were noted as specially Catholic, had not stirred a finger to help O'Neill in his war against Elizabeth. But they were put in circulation to prejudice the mind of King James against his Irish Catholic subjects, and to wean him away from the policy of toleration which he was said to favour. Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, and Jones, Bishop of Meath, hastened to warn the king against a policy of toleration. They threw the whole blame of the late war on the Jesuits and seminary priests, and ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... It works repentance. By repentance is meant, in Scripture, change of life, alteration of habits, renewal of heart. This is the aim and meaning of all sorrow. The consequences of sin are meant to wean from sin. The penalty annexed to it is in the first instance, corrective, not penal. Fire burns the child, to teach it one of the truths of this universe—the property of fire to burn. The first time it cuts its hand with a sharp knife, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... a wee boy could put into a whistle: it was awfully childish for a man and a gentleman to take up just a wean for a whistle." ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... of combating them directly, which would only serve to augment them, and to wean us from God, with whom alone we ought to be occupied, we should simply turn away from them, and draw nearer to God; as a little child, seeing a fierce animal approaching it, would not stay to fight it, nor even to look at it, but ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... weary to wean's frae oor waes, He comes when the bairnies are getting aff their claes; To cover them sae cosy, an' bring bonnie dreams, So Auld Daddy Darkness is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... Guildenstern are sent for, to wean Hamlet from his melancholy and to worm his secret out of him, because he has known them from his youth and is fond of them (II. ii. 1 ff.). They come to Denmark (II. ii. 247 f.): they come therefore from some other country. Where do they come from? They are, we hear, Hamlet's 'school-fellows' ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... wish to be high-minded, and dogmatize, and assert, and condemn. We too do not wish to meddle with matters too high for us, or for any human intellect. We too wish to refrain ourselves from asserting what—however pleasant—we cannot prove; and to wean ourselves—however really painful the process—from the milk, the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nations of Europe for the last 1500 years. But for that very reason, as for asking us to trust in The Lord, either ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... human nature than poor Marie, felt tolerably sure of his bride. Adolphe, who had seen something of the world, would not care very much for the girl of his own valley. Money and pleasure, and some little position in the world, would soon wean him from his love; and then Marie would accept her destiny—as other girls in the same position had done ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... that good might come, to accept the addresses of one man while she could not detach her heart from another. 'Have I ever really tried yet? she thought. 'Perhaps I am punishing him and poor Mr. Ward, because, as papa says, I have languished, and have never tried in earnest to wean my thoughts from him. He was the one precious memory, besides my dear mother, and she never thought it would come to good. He will turn out to have been constant to Clara all the time, though he did ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I say," said the fellow, quite coolly; and, thinkin he saw in me some show o' a spirit o' resistance, whilk there really was, he touched me wi' a bit thing like a wean's whistle, and winked to his neebor to come to his assistance, which the latter immediately did, and catched me by the ither breast o' ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... them! a charmed and mystic number, which, if it be broken in these young days,—as, alas, it may be!—will only yield a cherub angel to float over you, and to float over them,—to wean you, and to wean them, from this world, where all joys do perish, to that seraph world ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... to its Manhood, beyond what the Weakness and Inexperience of its infantine State could perform. I would have nursed up Crowds of Orphan Arts, and as they grew up, and could shift for themselves, I would have wean'd them, and brought a new Succession of others in their Place, as far as the Narrowness of the Fund would allow me. I would have brought over foreign Workmen of all Trades and Professions; I would have set up Glass Manufactures of all Kinds near our Collieries; I would have established our ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... Nor could she wean Louise from association with the piratical looking mariner at Cap'n Abe's store. The girl utterly refused to be guided by the older woman in either of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... curious to mark the changes in the nurse's face during that brief interval. At first it wore a look almost of repugnance as she regarded the unconscious child, and then that very unconsciousness seemed to awaken her womanly compassion. "Puir hapless wean, ye little ken what ye're coming to! Lack o' kinsman's love, and lack o' siller, and lack o' beauty. God forgie me—but why did He send ye into the waefu' warld ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the impending fate[1] of Israel, i. 1-9. The faithless Gomer abandons Hosea for a paramour, but he is moved by his love for her to buy her out of the degradation into which she has fallen, and takes earnest measures to wean her to a better mind. All this Hosea learns to interpret as symbolic of the divine love for Israel, which refuses to be defeated, but will seek to recover the people, though it be through the stern discipline ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... itself in fact in this dilemma: if it remains merely spiritual, developing no material organs, it cannot affect the world; while if it develops organs with which to operate on the world, these organs become a part of the world from which it is trying to wean the individual spirit, so that the moment it is armed for conflict such a religion has two enemies on its hands. It is stifled by its necessary armour, and adds treason in its members to hostility in its foes. The passions and arts it uses ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... with a great disobedience to ecclesiastical authority." This was in view of the Parnellite rebellion against priestly dictation. "The doctrines of the present day," said the good Cardinal, "are calculated (horror!) to wean the people from the priests' advice, to separate the priests from the people, and (here the Cardinal must have shivered with unspeakable disgust) TO LET THE PEOPLE USE THEIR OWN JUDGMENT." These are Cardinal's words, not mine. To make any comment ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... he went on with loud pretence of heartiness, "the minute I heerd your name called out for our dear Octavius, 'I must go over an' interduce myself.' It will be a heavy cross to part with those dear people, Brother Ware, but if anything could wean me to the notion, so to speak, it would be the knowledge that you are to take up my labors in their midst. Perhaps—ah—perhaps they ARE jest a trifle close in money matters, but they come out strong on revivals. They'll ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... too late for a parting word? Did he dread the ordeal of telling her his errand? Even he, so strong and resolute, who had so often smiled grim death out of countenance, feared the kiss which might wean him from the narrow way. And she must prove herself worthy of him. She must suffer in silence, trusting the All-powerful to bring him back ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... The original priests' report had it that the red gold was at some holy place of the tribes, a shrine of some sort. Well, you know the usual mission rule—if they can't wean the Indian from his shrine, they promptly dig foundations and build a church there under heavenly instructions. That's the story of this shrine of El Alisal where the priests started to build a little branch ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... upon the manners and customs of other nations, he should endeavour to wean himself from all partiality for his own; and I need not tell you that I am in full possession of that single qualification, which I hope will make you some amends for my defects in all the others; for ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... Denis; pious men, who will direct you and guide you and wean your heart from me and the world. You will soon bless me for this. Denis," she added, with a smile of unutterable misery, "my mind is made up. I belong now to the Virgin Mother of God. I never will be so wicked as to forsake her for a ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... a parental vigilance over their interests, protecting them against fraud and intrusion, and at the same time using every proper expedient to introduce among them the arts of civilized life, we may fondly hope not only to wean them from their love of war, but to inspire them with a love for peace and all its avocations. With several of the tribes great progress in civilizing them has already been made. The schoolmaster and the missionary are found side by side, and the remnants of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... Then I take you Sir, for some new silken thing wean'd from the Country, that shall (when you come to keep good company) be beaten into better manners. Pray good proud Gentlewoman, ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... impregnable, can make the land to feed her gulf. For the colonies in the Indies, they are yet babes that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their mother cities, but such as I mistake if when they come of age they do not wean themselves; which causes me to wonder at princes that delight to be exhausted in that way. And so much for the principles of power, whether national or provincial, domestic or foreign; being such as are external, and founded in ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... turning of our most sacred language into its depolarized equivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or later all his local and temporary symbols ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... sneering remarks of some of the set with whom she associated, yet she concluded it was better to make the best of the matter, and not, by a course of coldness, drive him utterly to destruction; so she agreed with her husband when he said he thought he had better go and see him, and, if possible, wean him ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... lass now is weepin' for her marrow that's sleepin', Wi' nae bield for his corp but the cowd Flanthers clay; He'll ne'er lift his limmers,(6) he'll ne'er wean his gimmers(7): Ay, there's Flowers o' ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... Alfred; he's ten months old and I've had to wean him, for I couldn't feed him any longer. I had nine others before this one, but three are dead. My eldest son, Eugene, is a soldier in Tonquin. You have my two big girls, Euphrasie and Norine, at the works. And I have three left at home—Victor, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... XV., who commissioned him to paint a series of pictures. Carle Vernet, the father of Horace Vernet, was also an artist. When quite young, he fell violently in love with the daughter of an opulent furnisher. The marriage was impossible, and his friends, to wean him from his love, sent him to Italy, where he studied the art of painting, and took a high prize—but he could not forget the woman he had loved. In his grief he resolved to give himself up to a monastic life, and his letters from Italy apprised his friends of ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Tottenham Court Road; and he desired to see Mr. Luker immediately, on the subject of a purchase which he contemplated making. The gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of Oriental antiquities, and had been for many years a liberal patron of the establishment in Lambeth. Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the worship of Mammon! Mr. Luker called a cab, and drove off instantly to his ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars black or gray who met him at every ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... "you've really thought it out thoroughly, Redwood. You're quite sure it wouldn't be wiser to warn Winkles, wean your little boy gradually, and—and rely ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... known, when seized with an epidemic disorder, to absent themselves from the rest of the flock, and hide themselves; and many touching stories are told of the artifices of necessity practised to wean them from their dead offspring, and make them adopt others; also of the manner in which they remain and watch the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... by report to be a country exceptionally given over to terrible superstitions, the people still thought their sanguinary Calvinistic deity, fashioned by a race of stern John Knoxes in their own image, would do some harm to an over-praised child, "to wean them from it." He was glad to see, however, that Frida at least did not share this degrading and hateful belief, handed down from the most fiendish of savage conceptions. On the contrary, she seemed delighted that Bertram should pat little Maimie on the head, and praise her sunny smile ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... desiring the enfranchisement of the Afric-American race, we would gladly wean them, at the cost of some additional ill-will, from the sterile path of political agitation. They can help win their rights if they will, but not by jawing for them. One negro on a farm which he has cleared or bought patiently hewing out a modest, toilsome independence, is worth more to the cause ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... wean a calf at the time of the full moon, it will make less fuss. You mustn't wean it when the sign is in the belly, or it will never grow fat. Pursue the same course with a pig, or ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... disgrace, and probably was expelled; for the author of "England to her three Daughters" in "Polimanteia," 1595, speaking of Harvey and Nash, and the pending quarrel between them, uses these terms: "Cambridge make thy two children friends: thou hast been unkind to the one to wean him before his time, and too fond upon the other to keep him so long without preferment: the one is ancient and of much reading; the other is young, but full of wit."[4] The cause of his disgrace is reported to have been the share he took in a piece called "Terminus ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... believed there was that much veeciousness in the wean," he said. Andy was cross—he had been to the police barracks, and told Sergeant M'Gee to look out for ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... believe that, for the criminal, execution within the prison walls, with no witnesses save some half-dozen official persons, would be infinitely more terrible than execution in the presence of a curious, glaring mob. The daylight and the publicity are alien elements, which wean the man a little from himself. He steadies his dizzy brain on the crowd beneath and around him. He has his last part to play, and his manhood rallies to play it well. Nay, so subtly is vanity intertwined with our motives, the noblest and the most ignoble, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... cried shrilly, the two scraggy muscles of her neck standing out long and thin as she screamed; "ye muckle lump—to strike a defenceless wean!—Dinna greet, my lamb; I'll no let him meddle ye.—Jock Gilmour, how daur ye lift your finger to a wean of mine? But I'll learn ye the better o't! Mr. Gourlay'll gie you the order to travel ere the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... foolish girl whose head could be turned by a handsome face or pretty compliments, or whose eyes could be dazzled by the glitter of wealth and rank. She was wedded to her music, and no lover, she vowed, should wean her from her allegiance. It was thus a shock to the world of pleasure-seekers at Bath to learn that the beauty, who had turned a cold shoulder to so many high-placed gallants, had promised her hand to an elderly, unattractive wooer ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... promis'd such a son. Hers was a hero, destin'd to command A martial race, and rule the Latian land, Who should his ancient line from Teucer draw, And on the conquer'd world impose the law.' If glory cannot move a mind so mean, Nor future praise from fading pleasure wean, Yet why should he defraud his son of fame, And grudge the Romans their immortal name! What are his vain designs! what hopes he more From his long ling'ring on a hostile shore, Regardless to redeem his honor lost, And for his race to gain th' Ausonian coast! Bid him with speed the Tyrian ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... had associated himself with a band of like-minded desperadoes—who made him their chief—and took to pillaging the members of every tribe that misfortune cast in his way. Now, it occurred to Ortrud that the best way to wean her son from his evil ways would be to get him married to some gentle, pretty, affectionate girl, whose influence would be exerted in favour of universal peace instead of war, and the moment she set eyes on Branwen, she became convinced that her ambition was on the point of attainment. Hence ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... after a little two strangers ventured to occupy with me; for "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good," and there happened to be on the car one piece of baggage,—a coffin, inclosed in a pine box. Our sitting upon it could not harm either it or us; nor did we wean any disrespect to the man, whoever he might be, whose body was to be buried in it. Judging the dead charitably, as in duty bound, I had no doubt he would have been glad if he could have seen his "narrow house" put to such a use. ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... collected in tiny pools among the stones, or trickling reluctantly down the dank, green water-weed. The young badger family had grown so strong and high-spirited that their dam, weakened by motherhood, and at a loss to restrain their increasing desire for outdoor air and exercise, determined to wean them, and to teach them many lessons, concerning the ways of the woodland people, which she had learned long ago from her parents, or, more recently, from her own experiences as a creature ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... methods used to wean our simple forefathers from their old heathen practices may be seen in a "Spell to restore fertility to land."[54] The preamble sets forth:—"Here is the remedy whereby thou mayest restore thy fields, if they will not produce well, or where any uncanny thing has befallen them, like magic or witchcraft." ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... by her Husband's side, Ruth does what Simon cannot do; 50 For she, with scanty cause for pride, [12] Is stouter of the two. And, though you with your utmost skill From labour could not wean them, 'Tis little, very little—all 55 That they can do ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... mother That has a restless wean, A wee stumpy bairnie, Heard whene'er he's seen— That has a battle aye with sleep Before he'll close his e'e; But a kiss from off his rosy lips Gives strength ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Disappointment, come! Though from Hope's summit hurl'd, Still, rigid Nurse, thou art forgiven, For thou severe wert sent from heaven To wean me from the world; To turn my eye From vanity, And point to scenes of bliss ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... wholly attached to these lowly pleasures, while he industriously shunned all opportunities of appearing in that superior sphere to which he was designed by nature and by fortune. He imputed his conduct to meanness of spirit, and advised with my father touching the properest expedient to wean his affections from such low-born pursuits. My father counselled him to send the young gentleman up to London, to be entered as a student in the Temple, and recommended him to the superintendence of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... psychic growth the results of the higher heredity, which are the most precious and potential things on earth. So, too, in our urbanized hothouse life, that tends to ripen everything before its time, we must teach nature, although the very phrase is ominous. But we must not, in so doing, wean still more from, but perpetually incite to visit, field, forest, hill, shore, the water, flowers, animals, the true homes of childhood in this wild, undomesticated stage from which modern conditions have kidnapped and transported ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... he drew a score, himsel' did sain, The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane; While the young ane closer clespit her wean, And turn'd frae Aiken-drum. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... good-folk came in the night, and they Have stolen my bonny wean away; Have put in his place a changeling, ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... to make his services more Catholic," said Paula. "But nothing will wean her from the old parochial idea. Why, she would not let me give my winter stockings to Sister Beata's poor girls, but made me darn them ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... deriving incalculable advantages from a long 449 residence in the eastern regions of Africa, may probably decree him to be the person to clear up this long-contested geographical point, unless the fascination of Arabian manners, or some Utopia in the interior regions of that continent, should wean him from the desire to re-visit ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... so, Philip. I thank him for the week—'tis but a short time to wean myself from happiness. I grant you, that were I to tease, to vex, to unman you with my tears, my prayers, or my upbraidings (as some wives would do, Philip), one day would be more than sufficient for such a scene ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... more useful way. Indeed, to the wise heads of those days, the pursuit of natural science seemed so much waste of good time which might otherwise be devoted to logic or rhetoric or some other branch of study more in vogue at that time. To assist in this attempt to wean Tycho from his scientific tastes, his uncle chose as a tutor to accompany him an intelligent and upright young man named Vedel, who was four years senior to his pupil, and accordingly, in 1562, we find the pair taking ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... neither shall they learn war any more. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb; and the cow and the bear shall feed; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and the sucking child shall play the hole of the asp, and the wean'd child put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth," that is our earthly tabernacle, "shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... age, had conspired to make him despond of the success of noble, as he recoiled from that of selfish aspirations. And the dreamy melancholy which resulted from his ill-starred love, yet more tended to wean him from the stale and hackneyed pursuits of the world. His character was full of beauty and of poetry—not the less so in that it found not a vent for its emotions in the actual occupation of the poet! Pent within, those emotions diffused themselves over all his thoughts ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... ordered the monarch, "for the youth has such beauty, both of body and mind, I am grieved he was born in Athens. Yet there is one short way to wean him from his doomed ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... suitable to its kind, made ready for them by the trees over them, as soon as every individual wood was grown up, fit for its steel; even like the children's coats, that are made for them as soon as they can wear them and you wean them of their swaddling clothes. Nor do you mutter, I pray you, at what Plato, Anaxagoras, and Democritus have said. Ods-fish! they were none of your lower-form ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... may be as completely, and, in some cases, will be more completely, realised amongst the secularities of ordinary life than amidst the sanctities of outward communion and companionship with Him. Jesus was beginning here to wean the man from his sensuous dependence upon His localised and material presence. It was good for him, and it is good for us all, to 'feel our feet,' so to speak. Responsibility laid, and felt to be laid, upon us is a steadying ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... idols, even though He tear our bleeding hearts asunder. If we are trusting in aught save Him, that upon which we are leaning will be snatched away, even though we fall at first into the depths of despairing sorrow. What He makes us suffer now is not to be considered, in view of His purpose to wean us from this world and prepare us for the next. Christ, as we learn from our text, is as inflexible as fate, and does not hesitate to secure the needful faith by remaining away, even though the message of the sisters was an entreaty in itself. Nay, more, he distinctly declares to his ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... visitations our prophet here speaks, but of that only which we have already touched; namely, when God layeth his correction upon his own children, to call them from the venomous breasts of this corrupt world, that they suck not in over great abundance the poison thereof; and he doth, as it were, wean them from their mother's breasts, that they may learn to receive other nourishment. True it is, that this weaning (or speaning, as we term it) from worldly pleasure, is a thing strange to the flesh. And yet it is a thing so necessary to God's ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... It's nae use, feyther. I'm no' gaein' to gie in to the wean. Ye've been tellin' yer stories to him nicht after nicht for dear knows how long, and he's gettin' to ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... cathedral and some others almost as grand were, in part, at least, results of the deep wish of Nicholas to wean his people from their semi-idolatrous love for dark, confined, filthy sanctuaries, like those of Moscow; but here, again, is a timid purpose and half-result; Nicholas dared set no adequate enginery working at the popular religious training or moral training. There ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Pipi! Pipi! Would draw Jove's eagle from his throne; Yes, Venus' turtle doves, I wean, And the vain peacock e'en, Would come, I swear, Soon as that tone had reach'd them ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... for he had formed a plan, which he announced to the ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the first half year, during which time Florence would remain at the Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly with a recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Are, by Robert Ballantine, lately brought over, With forty things more: now hear what the law says, Whoe'er will not wear them is not the king's lover. Though a printer and Dean, Seditiously mean, Our true Irish hearts from Old England to wean, We'll buy English silks for our wives and our daughters, In spite of his ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... my opinion, and I have to look as if I entered into all this German sensibility, and to know a pack of ballads—drugs, all of them, that my doctor absolutely prohibits. As yet I have not been able to wean her from her literary enthusiasms; she sheds torrents of tears as she reads Goethe, and I have to weep a little myself to please her, for she has an income of fifty thousand livres, my dear boy, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... seduce and eventually marries, but in "Clarissa" the heroine, after harrowing misfortunes, dies unrewarded. Richardson had always a moral end in view. He hated vice and honoured virtue, but he is too often prolix and wearisome. He wished to write novels that should wean the young from the foolish romances of his day. In "Pamela" he rewarded struggling virtue; in "Clarissa" he painted the cruel selfishness of vice; in "Sir Charles" he tried to represent the perfect Christian ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... myself are both old men, and we will witness the hero's felicity in retirement." Such was the intention of this virtuous and pious parent; who had, however, been long so habituated to passing his winters at Bath, that he could not, at once, wean himself of the custom: but he never resided with Lady Nelson, as has been falsely reported, from the moment he was convinced of his illustrious son's having been so egregiously misrepresented. Apartments, in the mean time, were actually prepared for him at Merton Place; and it was ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... loved without yearning to bestow upon them passionate caresses. The torments inflicted on her by my great-aunt, the sight of my grandmother's vain entreaties, of her in her weakness conquered before she began, but still making the futile endeavour to wean my grandfather from his liqueur-glass—all these were things of the sort to which, in later years, one can grow so well accustomed as to smile at them, to take the tormentor's side with a. happy determination which deludes one into the belief that it is not, really, tormenting; but in those ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Russians had appeared to be indifferent to Montenegro, and for three years the annual subsidy of a thousand sequins had not been paid. This omission was made use of by the French Consul at Dubrovnik, who with the aid of a Dubrovnik priest, one Dolci, set himself to wean the Montenegrins from their Russian friendship. Fonton, Russia's Consul at Dubrovnik, demanded the sequestration and the scrutiny of Dolci's papers; the demand was rejected, and when force was tried Dolci leaped at the examiner's ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... economy, and patient courage had done all, poor Abe was sometimes almost overwhelmed by hardships,—almost, but not altogether. He had a firm faith in God, and used to say, "My Father knows haa mich I can carry to a grain, and He wean't lay a straw too mony upon me, bless Him." In the midst of all the little Bishop maintained a happy heart and a cheerful countenance; he made as little of his poverty as some people do of their luxuries, and an ordinary observer might have ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow; Yet tenderness and time may rob the tear Of half its bitterness for one so dear: A nation's gratitude perchance may spread A thornless pillow for the widow'd head; May lighten well her heart's maternal care, And wean ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... REBELLION.—About five years ago it was predicted, through Mrs. Buchanan, that Catholicism in New York would undergo a change, as many spirits were actively at work to liberalize the minds of Catholics, especially at the time of Easter, and to wean them from their attitude of abject submission. There were no indications of such a tendency at that time, and the movement of the Catholic masses in sympathy with Dr. McGlynn, who tells the Pope that he shall not meddle with the politics of Americans or dictate ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... her best to wean him from the fatal habit. She even ventured to abstract his brandy bottle and dilute its contents. On being detected, she underwent a personal correction which was not soon forgotten. The poor creature, indeed, underwent ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... wean my grateful thoughts from Grandpa and Grandma Brunner. At times, I seemed to listen for the sound of his voice, and to hear hers so near and clear that in the night, I often started up out of sleep in answer to her dream calls. Finally I determined to disregard her parting words, and write her. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... should, by his own intelligence, look after the merits and defects of the six essential requisites of sovereignty.[165] The king who is observant of the laches of his foes, and judicious in the pursuit of morality, profit, and pleasure, who sets clever spies for ascertaining secrets and seeks to wean away the officers of his enemies by presents of wealth, deserves applause. The king should administer justice like Yama and amass wealth like Kuvera. He should also be observant of the merits and defects of his own acquisitions and losses and of his own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... agitations, and reforms in connection with Irish land which this generation has witnessed. The same may be said with regard to the other economic grievances. No one can be more anxious than I am to fasten the mind of my countrymen upon the practical things of to-day, and to wean their sad souls from idle regrets over the sorrows of the past. If I revive these dead issues, it is because I have learned that no man can move the Irish mind to action unless he can see its point of view, which is largely retrospective. I cannot ignore the ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... To wean from sin is the main end of prophecy. It is the main end of all revelation. God must chiefly desire to make His creatures like Himself. Sin makes a special revelation necessary. Sin determines the form ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... me, which bring home to one that here is really a thinking being, not a mere animal or sucking machine. His smiles are full of meaning. I have been so successful in my profession of nurse that I shall wean Armand in December. A year at the breast is quite enough; children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and I ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... body: never was any thing more neatly drest. But the Nurse and the Maid with the Child in the mean while at Jericho; for their very backs and sides seem to be absolutely broken with carrying it up & down from day to day. And most especially when the Child is wean'd, and the Wet-Nurse turn'd away, the Maid cannot let it penetrate into her brain; that she now not only the whole week must rock, sing, dandle, dress, and walk abroad with it; but that she is upon Sundaies also bound to the Child, like a Dog to a halter; and never can ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... even then it will take years to wean them from Maori flesh, which they prefer to all others; for the children will still have a relish for what their fathers so highly appreciated. According to them it tastes like pork, with even more flavor. As to white ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... sing again for me," I said, "and I'll discover whether you have any ability." For the way to wean any one from a desire is not by ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... wearied down,[35] I know; What pang is permanent with man? From the highest, As from the vilest thing of every day, He learns to wean himself: for the strong hours Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost In him. The bloom is vanish'd from my life; For O! he stood beside me, like my youth, Transform'd for me the real to a dream, Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn. Whatever fortunes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... LOVER.—Do not flatter yourselves, young women, that you can wean even an occasional wine drinker from his cups by love and persuasion. Ardent spirit at first, kindles up the fires of love into the fierce flames at burning licentiousness, which burn out every element of love and destroy every vestige of pure affection. It ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... enjoyed the felicity of domestic life, the affections of a beautiful bride; but the change was too sudden for his restless spirit. He was not made to enjoy the quiet of life, the task stood before him like a mountain without a pass, he could not wean himself from the vices of a marauder. He had abused the free offerings of a free country, had set law at defiance; he had dealt in human flesh, and the task of resistance was more than the moral ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... inexperienced in the Conventions of Society, I find a little trying. It does not harmonise with the retired, peaceful existence to which I am accustomed (and at my time of life, I think, entitled), in which it is my humble endeavour to wean myself from this earth which is so full of Emptiness and to prepare myself for that other and better Home into which we must all resign ourselves to enter. And happy, indeed, my dear Rupert, such of us as will be found worthy; ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... shall tell: O! be the cup of joy to thee consign'd, Of joy unmix'd, without a dreg behind! For no rough monitor thy soul requires, To check the frenzy of too rash desires; No poignant grief, to prove its latent worth, No pain to wean it from the toys of earth; Thy soul untroubled can alike survey This gloomy world, and Heaven's immortal day: Then while the current of thy blood shall flow, While Heaven yet lends thee to thy friends below; Round thee may pleasure spread a ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... could find it in my heart to pity him for loving you. Indeed, it has been in friendship that I have tried to interest him in a great national question—to wean him from his darling sin. But were you my wife he should never cross our threshold. The day that made us one should make you and Fareham strangers. It is for you to choose, Angela, between two men who love you—one near your own age, free, God-fearing; ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... believed Kirski had some connection with a secret society, but that it was obvious he had destroyed himself from despair; and that, indeed, the unhappy man had never been properly right in his mind since ever he had known him, though they had hoped, by getting him to do steady work and sure wages, to wean him away from brooding over the wrongs that had driven him from his native country. Edwards gave the officer his address, Brand saying that he had to leave England that same night, and would not be available for any further inquiry, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... ever. But the god is not unscrupulous. He would fain win her by gentle and fair means, even by wedlock. That chaplet of seven stars is his bridal offering. Why should not she accept it? Why should she be coy of his desire? It is true that he drinks. But in time, may be, a wife might be able to wean him from the wine-skin, and from the low company he affects. That will be for time to show. And, meanwhile, how brilliant a match! Not even Pasiphae, her mother, ever contemplated for her such splendour. In her great love, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm |
