"Pledge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being sold during that period into more lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery beyond what can be fairly claimed under the Constitution. I suppose, however, this is not desired, but that it is desired for the military ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... to say? It is true, her extreme economy has often vexed me; to-day it gladdens my heart; for, thanks to her parsimony, I shall find with her what I need for my army. She will deny these millions to me, to be sure; but you told me where to look for them, and I pledge you my word I know how to find and take them! Hush, not another word! I shall have what I want within an hour. Go now, Maret. You will meet the Prince de Benevento in the antechamber. Send him to me. I have to address a few parting ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... promised him that I would do so. He then called a boy and directed him to take me to the matron, and to show me around afterwards. I found the matron even more motherly than the president was fatherly. She had me register, which was in effect to sign a pledge to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverages, tobacco, and profane language while I was a student in the school. This act caused me no sacrifice, as, up to that time, I was free from all three habits. The boy who was with me then showed me about ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... four slaves of B, who summoned him before the sukallu. The judge laid on him a fine of two hundred and ten minas of copper. B then deposited a pledge with A, either himself, or a slave, to perform work equivalent to the amount of the debt. If B, or any representative of his, pays the money, the pledge is void. "Whoever shall withdraw from this agreement, Ashur and Shamash shall be his judges, he shall pay ten minas of silver and ten minas of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... unsubdued after a struggle which seems to have lasted some years; Artabanus himself displayed great valor; and at length the Syrian monarch thought it best to conclude a peace with him, in which he acknowledged the Parthian independence. It is probable that he exacted in return a pledge that the Parthian monarch should lend him his assistance in the expedition which he was bent on conducting against Bactria; but there is no actual proof that the conditions of peace contained this clause. We are left ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... you that I have some childish tastes left, and am not so depraved as you have been trying to make me out for the last hour—I will drink your health in it. It would serve you right if I made you pledge me in the ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the work of education as thus conceived; and one notable feature of his scheme was that they should be laymen; even with regard to the Superior of the Society, De la Salle, though himself a Priest, bound the Brethren down to a pledge that they would not, when he was gone, elect a Priest into his room. It is needless to say that he had no prejudice against the priestly office as such; but he was genuinely persuaded that the work which he wished to have done could best be performed by laymen; partly because they ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... gone so far as to have the ring cut from his finger before sailing for America, that he might leave it as a parting pledge ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... so gravely, yet cheeringly, that a bright hope beamed into Stephen's mind; and when Miss Anne held out her hand to him, as a pledge of her promise, she felt a warm tear fall upon it. He rose up from the ground now, and stood out into the moonlight before her, looking up into her ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... wealth; I will give you what you love more—power, and rank too, if you wish it. The whole Church shall listen to you. What you desire shall be done in this realm—yes, and across the world. I speak no lie; I pledge my soul on it, and the honour of those I serve, which I have authority to do. In return all I ask of you is your wisdom—that you should read the future for me, that you should show ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... therefore seems to be the clearest manifestation of perfection, and the best evidence of its possibility. If perfection is, as it should be, the ultimate justification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral dignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... as he stroked his thin beard, "when I tuk the pledge I swore et I hoped t' drop dead 'fore I see myself tek another drink. I 'm jest goin' t' shet my eyes 'n' hold out my glass. I don' care what ye gi' me s' long es ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... if her love is great enough for her to commit suicide, in case he should not return. Finally he asks her to take an oath to that effect. But she refuses, saying that such an oath would give him no pledge that he might not have already from insight into her heart. He is not content with this, and before he leaves, engages an assassin to kill her in case Antony should put him to death. After his departure, Mariamne declares to her mother that ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of the advice of the minister, Count Romanzow—"such an order would be regarded as one that did not express his Imperial Majesty's real sentiments and wishes, but had been extracted from his Majesty under false representations or external control, and that the army would continue to maintain its pledge and to pursue the contest till the invader was ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... shall not sign away my liberty," continued James, "by putting my name to a pledge. I shall drink when I please, and ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... seldom pass'd her door, 5 And always found her kind; She freely lent to all the poor,— 'Who left a pledge behind'. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... purchased what are known as the Union Bank bonds, it was within the power of any stock dealer to learn that they had been issued in disregard of the Constitution of the State whose faith they assumed to pledge. By the Constitution and laws of Mississippi, any creditor of the State may bring suit against the State, and test his claim, as against an individual. To this the bondholders have been invited; but conscious that they have no valid claim, have not sought their remedy. Relying upon empty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... first direct attack upon his divine superiority! Was he, at his wife's instance, to give a pledge that he would not go into a certain house under any circumstances? This was the process of bringing his nose down to the ground which he had feared. Here was the first attempt made by his wife to put her ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... becomes my wife with the will of her father and her kin; and that if you try to stand between us, although I may not fight you, seeing what I am and what you are, I'll kill you like a rat when and where I get the chance! Yes," he added, in a savage snarl, "I pledge my knightly honour that I will kill you like a rat, if I must follow you across the ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... had nothing left for the evening, not even the wherewithal to buy a loaf. To whom could she apply? How could she manage to hide the truth any longer from him when he came home hungry? She made up her mind to pledge the black silk dress which Madame Vanzade had formerly given her, but it was with a heavy heart; she trembled with fear and shame at the idea of the pawnshop, that familiar resort of the poor which she had never as yet entered. And she was tortured by such ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... will consider thee in another cup of sack. Here's to thee, which having drunk off this my sentence: Pledge me. Thou hast done, or assisted to nothing, in my judgment, but deserves to be pardon'd for the wit of the offence. If thy master, or any man here, be angry with thee, I shall suspect his ingine, while I know him, for't. How ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... things seen by gaslight. With Hubert's instant memory of the night before, came the temptation to dismiss its happenings as a dream and go back to his former way of living. But he could not do so in honesty. He had made a pledge to a supposed Being, whom he must now treat as a reality until the most honest experiment proved Him not to he, or to be inaccessible. Clearly a line of procedure formed itself in his mind. He must seek to know those laws, or principles, that governed the ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the plot. Damon and Pythias with their servant Stephano arrive in Syracuse in the reign of the tyrant, Dionysius. There Damon is arrested on the denunciation of the informer Carisophus, and is sentenced to death as a spy. Reprieve for six months is allowed him on the pledge of Pythias's life as bail, and at the last minute he returns, just in time to save the life of his devoted and willing friend. Such signal proofs of the sincerity of their affection win for both of them not only life but ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright, As in that well-remember'd night, When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper'd love. Since then, how often hast thou press'd The torrid zone of this wild ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to her breast in the first overwhelming tide of possession which had ever swept over her. These were her own people, flesh of her flesh! They had dared to love against insuperable odds, and, succumbing at last, had left her as the pledge of that love! She would ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... very well: From one of this same Polish realm of yours, Who promised a return, should come the chance, Of courtesies that he received himself In Muscovy, and left this pledge of it— Not likely yet, it ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... as given by the Haghar Tuaricks; it is probably meant as a satire. According to this people, a female slave escaped from their country, and travelling over the desert, reached her native place in Soudan. But she bore within her bosom a pledge that still half bound her to her ancient masters. She brought forth a male child, and loved him and reared him; so that in process of time he took a wife, and from this union sprung the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... fed on the body of the Pantheistic Deity creating the Universe by self-sacrifice, commemorates in sacramental observance this mysterious passion; and while partaking of the raw flesh of the victim, seems to be invigorated by a fresh draught from the fountain of universal life, to receive a new pledge of regenerated existence. Death is the inseparable antecedent of life; the seed dies in order to produce the plant, and earth itself is rent asunder and dies at the birth of Dionusos. Hence the significancy of the phallus, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... and scanned over it hastily. "And so it has come to this, has it?" she said, looking admonishingly at Mattie. "A letter from that sailor-boy, the son of them common Dutch people. Your father shall see this. Our daughter has stooped so low as to pledge herself to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Priest, laughing, "it is only in our abbey that we confine ourselves to the 'lac dulce' or the 'lac acidum' either. Conversing with, the world, we use the world's fashions, and therefore I answer your pledge in this honest wine, and leave the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a sovereign independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... the postilion blown his horn, to announce the arrival of a traveller, than the Baron was seen among the servants at the door; and, a few moments afterwards, the two long-absent friends were in each other's arms, and Flemming received a kiss upon each cheek, and another on the mouth, as the pledge and seal of the German's friendship. They held each other long by the hand, and looked into each other's faces, and saw themselves in each other's eyes, both literally and figuratively; literally, inasmuch as the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... came from the South, would be made very welcome in Liverpool, of course I knew. If private enterprise could bring it, it might be brought. But the very declaration made by Lord John Russell was the surest pledge that England, as a nation, would not interfere even to supply her own wants. It may easily be imagined what eager words all this would bring about; but I never found that eager words led to feelings ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... done, indeed, of him," Sir Hugh said, warmly. "Truly a courteous and knightly action. And so you have both given your pledge to fight no more in this campaign. By St. George, I should not be ill-pleased if someone would put me under a similar pledge, for I tell you that I am heartily sick of it. Never did so disordered an army start from England. An army led by bishops and priests is ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... much, Miss Martell. I will make no loud and absolute promises, but it seems to me, while I stand here in your presence, I could not do a mean or ignoble thing again. But in that degree that I revere you, I distrust myself. But I pledge you my honor, that I will try to do what you ask, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... "I pledge your Imperial Majesties, who shine upon the world like twin stars in the sky. All hail to your Majesties!" and I drank, ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... well served as if its entertainment were alone consulted. In the smaller towns there are usually temporary associations, organized for the simple purpose of obtaining lecturers and managing the business incident to a course. Not unfrequently, ten, twenty, or thirty men pledge themselves to make up any deficiency there may be in the funds required for the season's entertainments, and place the management in the hands of a committee. Sometimes two or three persons call themselves a lecture-committee, and employ lecturers, themselves risking the possible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a dance, With their pledge of temperance, And their plans for donkey sociation; And their pockets full they crams By their patriotic flams, And then swears 'tis for the ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... A pledge bound Mr. Lincoln to make Mr. Seward his Secretary of State. The radical and the puritanic elements in the Republican party were terribly scared. His speeches, or rather demeanor and repeated utterances since the opening of the Congress, his influence on Mr. Adams, who, under Seward's inspiration, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... disappeared. The lesson appeared to have been sufficient. Rock-salt, so they say, when fired into the skin, hurts." The name of my informant cannot be divulged; but he is a most earnest worker in the Great Cause, and I, Taltavull, will pledge ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... from a neighbouring tree Appeared a robe of linen tissue, pure And spotless as a moonbeam—mystic pledge Of bridal happiness; another tree Distilled a roseate dye wherewith to stain The lady's feet [135]; and other branches near Glistened with rare and costly ornaments. While, 'mid the leaves, the hands of forest-nymphs, ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... Davis might not force Lee and Johnston to one last desperate fight. Lincoln added that all he wanted after the surrender was to get the Confederates back to their civil life and make them good contented citizens. As for Davis: well, there once was a man who, having taken the pledge, was asked if he wouldn't let his host put just a drop of brandy in the lemonade. His answer was: "See here, if you do it unbeknownst, I won't object." From the way that Lincoln told this story Grant and Sherman both inferred that he ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... should be stated, had a quasi pre-inaugural pledge from President Taft in favor of a Federal Bureau of Mines. Toward this we have made a start. A bill establishing this Bureau has already passed both the House and the Senate, and bids fair to become a law. But the activities of this new ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... he found in the end that what with building, taking his pleasure, and doing no work, he had squandered all his money and likewise that of the King. Even so he wished to return, but he was more influenced by the sighs and prayers of his wife than by his own necessities and the pledge given to the King, so that, in order to please his wife, he did not go back; at which the King fell into such disdain, that for a long time he would never again look with a favourable eye on any painter from Florence, and he swore that if Andrea ever came ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... the North suthin in the way uv compensation, for the troo theory uv a Republikin Government is compermise. On our part we pledge ourselves to kum back, and give the North the benefit uv our kumin back, so long ez Massachusetts condux herself akkordin to our ijees uv what is rite. But ef this ekitable adjustment is rejected, all I hev to say then is, ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... well, but not too well. Some workers had divulged it to their friends. Others of the prisoners had discovered that something was going on, and had been let into the affair on a pledge of secrecy. By the time the tunnel was completed its existence was known to something more than one hundred out of the eleven hundred prisoners. These were all placed on their word of honor to give ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was able himself, and calling in a physician to bind up her wounds. During her sickness, the relationship between Hemmings and the lady seems to have been of the most intimate character. She gave him a pair of diamond ear-rings to pledge for four hundred dollars, which money was a portion of an amount which was to be called into requisition for the necessary engagements and other expenses incurred at the opening of a theatre in Pittsburg, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... But shall the New Redeem the pledge the Old Year made, Or prove a self-asserting heir? But healthy hearts few qualms invade: By shot-chests grouped in bays 'tween guns The gossips ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... changed four times in 11 years. In 1840 it was at Toronto; next year the union of the Provinces having been effected, it was at Kingston. From 1843 to 1849 it was at Montreal. Toronto then became the capital; and now it has moved to Quebec, under a pledge to come back at the expiration of four years. Respecting the final result of the late movements of Carvajal in Mexico it is not easy to form a conclusion, as the accounts are very contradictory. Notwithstanding ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the forgiveness of sin, the adoption into the family of God, the sanctification of the soul and the pledge of eternal life are ascribed to the due reception of Baptism—not, indeed, that water or the words of the minister have any intrinsic virtue to heal the soul, but because Jesus Christ, whose word is creative power, is pleased to attach to this rite ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... more money we can get along faster. "Procrastination is the thief of time," you know. I trust that real action will be taken at this convention to the end of increasing our membership to at least one thousand by the time of the 1923 convention. It can be done—yes, easily. If only each member would pledge himself or herself to get three new members during the year the 1923 convention would find us with the desired membership; and I am sure that a considerable excess would be found on ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... Senator Revels, "I have this to say: The Republican Party now dominating there pledged itself to universal amnesty. That was in their platform; these speakers pledged themselves to it and the legislature redeemed that pledge, unanimously adopting a resolution asking Congress to remove the political disabilities of all the citizens of Mississippi, which resolution they placed in my hands, and made it my duty to present here, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... sure, quite sure, that in some way or other she was very dear to Robert Roy. If the next minute he had taken her into his arms, and said or looked the words which, to an earnest-minded, sincere man like him, constitute a pledge for life, never to be disannulled or denied, she could have hardly have felt more completely ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... thank thee for thy tale, and the request thy lips have not spoken shall be granted. Those men shall not die! I, the Queen of England, will save them. I pledge thee here my royal word. I will to my noble husband and ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not without a severe struggle that I overcame a besetting propensity to confine myself to sedentary pursuits. The desire of retaliation soon became extinct. My pledge to my friend and sympathizer, that in two years I would cry quittance to my foe, would occasionally act as a spur in the side of my intent; but my two best aids in supplying me with the motive power to keep up my gymnastic practice were habit and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and walked thither alone, standing for several minutes by the three graves, with a sensation as if his father was demanding of him an account of the boy he had watched, and brought to his ancestral home, and cared for through his orphaned childhood. But for the prayer-book, the pledge that there had been peace at the last, how could ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... do mislead the morn;" Lodge's "Her eyes are sapphires set in snow, Resembling heaven by every wink; The Gods do fear whenas they glow, And I do tremble when I think, Heigh ho, would she were mine!" Jonson's "Drink to me only with thine eyes And I will pledge with mine," etc.; Herrick's "Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes Which starlike sparkle in their skies;" Thomas Stanley's "Oh turn away those cruel eyes, The stars of my undoing; Or death in such a ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... pledge myself to these figures;" i.e., "The next speaker will very likely show them to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... of Penn, in the settlement of his province, was neither land, gold nor dominion, but "the glory of God, by the civilization of the poor Indian." Upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, the pledge contained in his charter was redeemed by a friendly compact with the "poor Indian" which was never to be violated, and by a uniform and scrupulous devotion to his rights and interests. Oldmixon and Clarkson inform us, that ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... soon as he could stand, a priest was summoned to tie the knot too long ignored. He had vowed, while pinned down by the weight of stone, to amend his life and atone to Agnes, if God in his mercy should see fit to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment in executing his pledge to Heaven. That his spirit had been effectually chastened, one reads between the lines of this entry in his diary, which may still be seen in the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston: "Hope my providential escape will have a lasting ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... Electoral suffrages, Independence and so forth, we will take, therefore, to be a temporary phenomenon, by no means a final one. Though likely to last a long time, with sad enough embroilments for us all, we must welcome it, as the penalty of sins that are past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are coming. In all ways, it behoved men to quit simulacra and return to fact; cost what it might, that did behove to be done. With spurious Popes, and Believers having no private judgment,—quacks pretending to command ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the troubled king, "what can I do? No law of mine can stop this awful thing. It is an enchanted vine sent to torment us. Hear me, my people! Proclaim it, ye my heralds! I pledge my kingly word to give up my crown and kingdom, and change places with any one of my subjects who will wither and instantly sweep away this direful vine. I, your king, am as helpless as a child to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... pork, my boy, now, for you'll have plenty there. Come, gentlemen, fill your glasses; we'll drink happiness to our new messmate, and pledging him, we pledge ourselves to try to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... accounting to the Abbot for those that are known," said Brother Basil with a certain edge to his voice that Padraig knew well. "I think, however, that he really believes he has had dealings with the werewolf. There are men who would run, shaking with terror, to pledge their souls to the foul fiend if they saw their profit in it. If he knew the truth he could sell his knowledge easily, and I am not disposed to undeceive him now. Since Ruric gave me his promise to end this evil I have thought much of the matter, and I believe that the Abbot will ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... will avenge this insult, noble Queen, Done in your maiden's person to yourself: And I will track this vermin to their earths; For tho' I ride unarm'd, I do not doubt To find, at some place I shall come at, arms On loan, or else for pledge; and, being found, Then will I fight him, and will break his pride, And on the third day will again be here, So that I be not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... whole group of courtiers, young and old, had assembled about Don Alonzo, and every man below thirty years was ready to pledge himself to the enterprise. But the older courtiers and the archbishop Oppas were beseeching the king to refrain. "Respect, O king," they said, "the custom held sacred by twenty-seven of thy predecessors. ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... king, I was admitted to thy presence," said Almamen, "thou didst make question of the sincerity and faith of thy servant; thou didst ask me for a surety of my faith; thou didst demand a hostage; and didst refuse further parley without such pledge were yielded to thee. Lo! I place under thy kingly care this maiden—the sole child of my house—as surety of my truth; I intrust to thee a life dearer ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... promising to call again on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might have to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... better still: his ways were in God's hand. And after all, what did it matter where one strove to serve one's Maker—east or west or south or north—and whether the stars overhead were grouped in this constellation or in that? Their light was a pledge that one would never be overlooked or forgotten, traced by the hand of Him who had promised to note even a sparrow's fall. And here he spoke aloud into the darkness the ancient and homely formula that is man's stand-by in face of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... family plate, to the value of a hundred pounds, was, after much haggling from Methusaleh, received as a pledge for the small deficiency; which, by the way, had increased since the return of the party to the Salisbury Hotel, to thirty-four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence; Mr Moses having first left it to Lord Downy's generosity to give him what he thought proper for his trouble in the business, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the most peerless, the most beautiful, the most difficult and cold lady in all France. I drink to those her thousand graces, of which Fame has told us, and to that greatest and most vexing charm of all—her cold indifference to man. I pledge you, too, the swain whose good fortune it maybe to play Endymion to ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... later, the aversion of the Old Ranger for office was again overcome, as will appear from the following: "I entered this Legislature, as I had the last, without any pledge or restraints whatever; I then was, and am yet, only an humble member of the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... and right. Knowing this, seeing me here before you with my best hopes at stake, do you tell me that something has happened which makes the bond between us of no effect, which lays upon you a duty superior to that of the pledge you ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... is the hour; and sunk in slumber now Lies Agamemnon. Shall he nevermore Open his eyes to the fair light? My hand, Once pledge to him of stainless love and faith, Is it to be the minister of his death? Did I swear that? Ay, that; and I must keep My oath. Quick, let me go! My foot, heart, hand— All over I tremble. Oh, what did I promise? Wretch! what do I attempt? How all my courage Hath vanished ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... present of the garnet bracelets, I shall keep as carefully as I preserve my own life; and I beg you will accept, in return, my heart-housewife, with the tortoise-shell memorandum-book, as a trifling pledge ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of Stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere While day arises, that sweet hour ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... were now free. In 83 he landed at Brundisium. He was joined by Cneius Pompeius, then twenty-three years old, with a troop of volunteers. Sulla did not wish to fight the Italians. He issued a proclamation, therefore, giving them the assurance that their rights would not be impaired. This pledge had the desired effect. The army of the Consuls largely outnumbered his own. Sulla lingered in South Italy to make good his position there. The Samnites joined the Marians, and moved upon Rome with the intent ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... a good fellow, after all, Jones, and I for one will meet thee half way, and pledge thee in mine own liquor, and change a bit of my tender crane shot yesterday for a leg of thy goose." So saying, Standish smote the sailor upon his shoulder, and took his great paw into the grasp of a hand small and shapely, but of such iron grip that the burly ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... Pennsylvania, across Maryland, and, in the form of the Shenandoah Valley, made a natural highway to the interior of North Carolina. New York City and Philadelphia saw in an intimate connection with the rising west the pledge of their prosperity; and Baltimore, which was both a metropolis of the south and of the middle region, extended her trade north to central New York, west to the Ohio, and south into Virginia, and, like her rivals, sent her fleets to garner the commercial harvest of the ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... good folk, by the chimney side, O sweet's the holy Christmas-tide! Drink hael! Drink hael! and pledge again: "Here's peace on earth, good-will ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... the Court of St. Cloud, the Prussian monarchy would, within half a century, have been swallowed up in the same gulf with the Batavian Commonwealth and the Republic of Poland; and by some future scheme of some future Bonaparte or Talleyrand, be divided in its turn, and serve as a pledge of reconciliation or inducement of connection between some future rulers of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... let thy constant mind Oft think of her you leave in tears behind." "Dear maid, this last embrace my pledge shall be! The anchor's weigh'd! ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... cup it presents at her lips, she stands, France, with her future staked on the word it may pledge. The vengeance urged of desire a reserve countermands; The patience clasped totters hard on the precipice edge. Lopped of an arm, mother love for her own springs quick, To curdle the milk in her breasts for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... possesseth not a goodly meadow or corn-field. 'Yea! good sir!' saith he, 'I have indeed a good meadow and a good corn-field. The twain are worth a hundred gulden.' Then say I to him: 'Good, my friend, wilt thou pledge me thy holding? and an thou givest me one gulden of thy money every year I will lend thee twenty gulden now.' Then is the peasant right glad, and saith he: 'Willingly will I pledge it thee.' 'I will warn thee,' say I, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... field; Not the full crop we bring, but only sheaves At random ta'en from autumn's golden yield— One handful from a forest's fallen leaves; Yet shall this grain be seed Wherewith to sow the furrows year by year— These wither'd leaves of other springs the pledge, When thou shalt hear, over our hawthorn hedge The mavis to his ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... away all the troops and police from Jubaland, it is good. We pledge ourselves to act as true Government askaris ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... cannot by buying goods for his employer's use pledge his master's credit, unless his master authorized him to do so, or unless the master has previously paid for goods bought by the servant in like manner on a former occasion. If a master contracts with a servant to provide certain things and pays him for so ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... epic poem too, the Mahabharata, is full of episodes showing a profound regard for truth and an almost slavish submission to a pledge once given. The death of Bhishma, one of the most important events in the story of the Mahabharata, is due to his vow never to hurt a woman. He is thus killed by Sikhandin, whom he takes to ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... delivered up to the Persians as a hostage against his will by Belisarius, as I have told already. Chosroes kept this John a prisoner, and refused to let him go, declaring that the Romans had not performed all the terms of the treaty for which John had been given in pledge by Belisarius, but he was prepared to let him be ransomed as a prisoner of war. His grandmother, who was still alive, got together the money for his ransom, not less than two thousand pounds of silver, and would have ransomed her grandson; but when this money arrived at ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... evening Mrs. Van announced to her guests that "by request of one who should be nameless," punctuating her pledge of secrecy with a pronounced glance at Benton, there would be a masquerade affair on the evening before Cara's departure for New York. She said this was to be an informal sort of frolic in fancy dress, and the only requirement would be that every grown-up ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... "I'm not going to tie myself up by any such pledge. I'm not sure of myself, or sure of anything, except that I'm a free man, and that Madge won't be my sister. I shall remain free. She herself once said in effect that I could take a straight course when once I got my bearings, and I shall permit no more ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... camp here for a few hours," he explained. "If you will pledge me your word of honor that you will make no attempt to escape I will give you the use of your legs until after breakfast, M'seur. What ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... "I pledge my word for it, Julia," he had declared to his wife, "it will take more than a Republican President to sever Virginia from the Union—in fact, I'm inclined to think that it will take a thunderbolt from heaven, or ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... not be construed as authorizing a law excluding any citizens of other States from the immunities and privileges to which they were entitled under the Constitution. The Legislature of Missouri gave this pledge, but it remained open whether free negroes and mulattoes were citizens in other States, and whether they were to be made citizens in Missouri. In the admission of Missouri there was for the first time an unmixed issue ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... God in His mercy has balanced it by a great happiness, since you will become a mother. This child will be your comfort. In his name I implore you, I adjure you to forgive M. Julien's error. It will be a new bond between you, a pledge of his future fidelity. Can you remain apart in your heart from him whose ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... your pardon for contradictin' your riverence. I signed the pledge, and I'll keep it, with Maggie to help me. I put me three thousand into a partnership with me friend Dempsey, who was runnin' the Golconda House—'tis over on the East Side, with a fine bar trade—and I'm doin' well, ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... solid person—an uncle of his named Horne Hewitt, a rather colorless country squire who had been a good soldier, and was the military adviser of the committee. He was charged with expediting the government pledge, along with the concerted military plans, to the half-mutinous command in the west; and the still more urgent task of seeing that it did not fall into the hands of the enemy, who might appear at any moment ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... her hands went out to him. "If it is true ... you are caring—and if I must not belong to you, there is a way you can belong to me without trouble for any one. If—if we make pledge of betrothal ... for this one night, if you hold me this one hour ... I am safe. For me that pledge would be sacred—as marriage, because I am still Hindu. Perhaps I am punished for far-away sins—not worthy to be wife and ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... They regretted the course they had followed and yet could see no way of safety opening to them. Suspicious by nature, Sebastian judged the American by himself. If their positions were reversed, he knew he would break any pledge he might make and go straight to the sheriff with his story. Therefore they could not with safety release the man. To kill him would be dangerous. To keep him prisoner was possible only for a limited time. Whatever course they followed seemed precarious ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... in talking the matter over with my wife, she asked, 'Why not send him the pin? It is valuable, and in time of need he might dispose of it for his comfort.' In saying this she took the ground that it was left with her as a pledge, not as a gift. I therefore handed it to my sister to send to him for this purpose. But it appears by his keeping it and sending it back in the way he did, that he did consider it a gift, and hence he would not and did not dispose of it for necessary things for his own comfort. This pin was the ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... hesitated, she herself held out her hand to him, saying, "what must I do more? must I offer this pledge to you?" ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... such a traffic for a moment. All the feelings of nature revolted at it. Lord de Blaquiere observed, "it was the first time the question had been proposed to Irishmen as legislators. He believed it would be supported by most of them. As to the people of Ireland, he could pledge himself that they were hostile to this barbarous traffic." An amendment having been proposed by Mr. Manning, a division took place upon it, when leave was given to bring in the bill, by a majority of one ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... with her or without her, reign you shall as King o' Scots. I pledge myself to that, and I pledge those others, so ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... fowl. The reason of which distinction seems to be, that, cattle and swans being of a reclaimed nature, the owner's property in them is not lost merely by their temporary escape; and they also, from their intrinsic value, are a sufficient pledge for the expense of the lord of the franchise in keeping them the year and day. For he that takes an estray is bound, so long as he keeps it, to find it in provisions and keep it from damage[q]; and may not use it by way of labour, but ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... five rupees," and he told the thing to his wife that evening. She, being a woman, said, "When did money-lender ever make a bad bargain? The wolf runs the corn for the sake of the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods. Pledge it not ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... to see a trout tickled," answered Lambourne, "I care not how many witness my skill. And so here I drink success to my enterprise; and he that will not pledge me on his knees is a rascal, and I will cut his legs off by ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... hell, and burst the bonds of the graves. He, as man, and yet God, had been through the dark gate, and had returned through it in triumph, the first-born from the dead; and his resurrection was an everlasting sign and pledge that all who belonged to him should rise with him, and death ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... in a ball, he threw it, and she adroitly caught it in two hands. Then she stooped and took off one of her little embroidered slippers. She dropped it into Chang's waiting fingers. Enraptured with this gift, which was a pledge of love and faith, he carried it to his lips ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... of praise is a good thing, and leads to the increase of virtue. Receive the honour of the Clarissimatus, as a testimony to the excellence of your past life and a pledge of your future prosperity. Observe, you are not called Clarus, but Clarissimus. Everything that is most excellent may be believed of him who is saluted by such a ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... than a fair profit, but he steadily adhered to what he believed to be right, notwithstanding Jasper once or twice expressed dissatisfaction at his not having made better sales, and particularly at his failing to sell a piece of cloth, because he would not pledge his word as to its colour and ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... neither Campbell nor his poem made their appearance, which we regretted for several reasons, and also that the memory of Burns was not drunk out of his punch-bowl. For this relique of the bard, a Jew of the name of Isaac, gave 60l. in pledge, and begged the key to keep in memory of the poet, when it was bought by its present possessor; and an Irish gentleman, not long ago, sent a 300l. check for it, and threatened Mr. Hastie with the law when he refused to give him up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... ashamed to talk that way to a lady that's got to earn her living, when you go about with jewellery like that on you?... It ain't in my line, and I do it only as a favour... but if you're a mind to leave that brooch as a pledge, I don't say no.... Yes, of course, you can get it back when ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... to the islands had secured by settlement and purchase certain rights to the recognition and maintenance of which the faith of Spain was pledged. I have had reason within the past year very strongly to protest against the failure to carry out this pledge on the part of His Majesty's ministers, which has resulted in great injustice and injury to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... pots, snuffers, cups, and flagons. Their greatest trophy seems to have been a large silver-gilt bowl, given in 1626 by a Mr. Hulet (Owlett), weighing sixty ounces, and shaped like an owl, in allusion to the donor's name. In the early Civil War, when the Company had to pledge their plate to meet the heavy loans exacted by Charles the Martyr from a good many of his unfortunate subjects, the cherished Owlett was specially excepted. Among other memorials in the possession of the Company was a silver college cup bought in memory of Mr. John Sweeting, who, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... companion of liberty in all its battles and its triumphs; the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom. *m ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... honor to meet there at that time and consummate it. I was there on Monday morning at the time designated. Mr. G. came in at 11 o'clock and said he had changed his mind and would not take the houses. I said all right, but his word of pledge of honor would have no value with ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... difficult for a scholar, were however as much of a mystery to her, as to all around her. Still, by the aid of that instinctive tact which so often enlightens the mind of woman was she certain of the fact Profiting by this know ledge, she assumed the task of endeavoring to obtain an honorary pledge from her protege, that, if permitted to join the hunters, he would return to the valley at the end of the day. But though the language of the woman was gentle as her own kind nature, and her entreaties that he would give some evidence ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the business had to share in the punishment for what had occurred. The Smiths lost all faith in Harris. Joe says that Harris broke his pledge about showing the translation only to five persons, and Mother Smith says that because of this offence "a dense fog spread itself over his fields and blighted his wheat. "When Joe returned to Pennsylvania an angel appeared to him, his mother says, and ordered ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... held prisoner by the Spaniards at Manila, by telling him of the distress of his brother's wife, who had been left behind when Amir quitted the island, and had been delivered of twins, after he had been kidnapped by the Spaniards. Dalrymple entered into a pledge to restore Amir, and at the same time effected a commercial treaty between the East India Company and the Sulu chiefs. By this it was stipulated that an annual cargo should be sent to Sulu, and sold at one hundred per cent. profit, for which a return cargo should be provided ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... every piece of property? If not, its course is clear. This nation has a vital faith,—or had one,—well grounded in its traditions. Conserve this; or, if it has been impaired, renew its vigor. This faith is our one sole pledge of order, of peace, of growth, of all that we prize in the present, or hope for the future. That it is a noble faith, new in its breadth, its comprehension and magnanimity,—this would seem in my eyes rather to enhance than diminish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... and still more the soothing medical properties of the Persian baths had restored to me the use of my foot—for though it gave naught save the most feeble support, it sufficed me in my eagerness to appear before you—I set forth to perform my pledge. And in the interval you have conferred such a boon upon me that you have not only removed my lameness but have made ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... of you, Adrienne," he said coldly. "I would trust her with my life. But I have no right to pledge the trust of others—and that's what I should be doing if I told her. We have our duty—you and I—and all this . . . ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... 19th day of April, 1839, Belgium and Holland, which from 1815 to 1830 had formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, signed a treaty of separation from, and independence of, each other. It is in this treaty that the original pledge of Belgian neutrality is to be found. The clause of the treaty reads: "Belgium in the limits above described shall form an independent neutral State and shall be bound to observe the same neutrality toward all other States." On the same day and at the same place, (London,) a treaty, known in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... trotting along from the castle yard. In the kitchen he had seized the roebuck by the neck as a fair prize, and, pursued by men-servants and maids, dropped the animal on the ground three paces in front of us. Thus indeed the woman's prophecy, which was the pledge for the truth of all that she had uttered, was fulfilled, and the roebuck, although dead to be sure, had come to the market-place to meet us. The lightning which falls from heaven on a winter's day cannot annihilate more completely than this sight did me, and my first endeavor, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... not appear too particular, he limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and fulfilled his pledge—hastily, for Perch's time ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... blessed by Heaven, will serve to the glory of the Eternal, who governs the universe. May your vows, received by God, be the pledge of your happiness! You must watch over it carefully, but the husband's mission is by far the gravest; he becomes the guide and father of his wife. I place full confidence in your virtues and good qualities. As for thee, my child, it is thy duty to be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and as they gathered round me and inquired after home and friends, I could but look in sadness for many familiar faces, to be seen no more on earth. I said, 'Boys, I was present when your colors were presented to you by the Board of Trade. I heard your colonel pledge himself that you would bring those colors home or cover them with your blood, as well as glory. I want to see them, if you have them still, after your many battles.' With great alacrity, the man in charge of them ran into an adjoining tent, and brought them forth, carefully wrapped in an ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... entreatingly, "I pray you that you ask good Master Carew to lend me that book! Tell him that Mistress Margery Lovell will lay her best jewels to pledge that she returneth the book safe. I must see that ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... infinitely more than is conveyed, or secured, by all the registries of deeds under the sun. We are each of us to see a time when we shall feel the truth of this. If but these first few words of the Psalm are true in my case, if "the Lord is my Shepherd," all the rest of the Psalm is a record, a promise, a pledge, of past, ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams |
