"Abstain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 35th Eliz., cap. 1, re-enacted with all its rigour in the 16th Charles II, cap. 4, 1662; 'That if any person, above sixteen years of age, shall forbear coming to church for one month, or persuade any other person to abstain from hearing Divine service, or receiving the communion according to law, or come to any unlawful assembly, conventicle, or meeting—every such person shall be imprisoned, without bail, until he conform, and do in some church make this open submission following:—I do humbly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... may be: "To do; is it right or wrong? May I perform this act, or must I abstain therefrom?" In this case, we inquire whether it be lawful or unlawful to go on, but we are sure that it is lawful not to act. There is but one course to pursue. We must not commit ourselves and must refrain from acting, until such a time, at least, as, by inquiring ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... man whom she can trust to keep a treaty with her and supplement the common interpretations and legal insufficiencies of the marriage bond, who will respect her always as a free and independent person, will abstain absolutely from authoritative methods, and will either share and trust his income and property with her in a frank communism, or give her a sufficient and private income for her personal use. It is only fair under ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... son, is also worth a place: - Kenneth was Chaunter of Ross, and perpetual Curate of Coinbents, which vicarage he afterwards resigned into the hands of Pope Paulus in favour of the Priory of Beauly. Though a priest and in holy orders he would not abstain from marriage, for which cause the Bishop decided to have him deposed. On the appointed day for his trial he had his brother Rory at Chanonry, when the trial was to take place, with a number of his followers. Kenneth presented himself before the Bishop in his long gown, but under it he had ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... reproaching him with remissness in writing home and to her. The accusation of extravagance, which later he really merited, was at this moment a trifle previous, money being scarce and credit also. "Stamps and omnibus fares are expenses I cannot afford," he assured his sister; "and I abstain from going out in order ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... him the honour of a sister or a daughter was sacrificed, equally as a matter of course. But why should I thus disguise the truth? Alas! in nine instances out of ten, this patron was the common paramour of every female in the family. Were I composing a state memorial I should abstain from all allusion to moral good or evil, as not having now first to learn, that with diplomatists and with practical statesmen of every denomination, it would preclude all attention to its other contents, and have no result ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... time the tone and temper of leading agitators were all that could be desired. "Abstain," said Mr. Davitt, "from all acts of violence, repel every incentive to outrage. Glorious indeed will be our victory, and high in the estimation of mankind will our grand old fatherland stand, if we can so curb our passions and control our actions in this ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... enough to abstain from provoking further the wrath of her amiable landlady, and continued to eat her soup in silence. But Mrs. Mudge neer forgot this interference, nor the cause of it, and henceforth with the malignity of a narrow-minded and spiteful woman, did what she could to make Paul uncomfortable. Her fertile ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... surprise and great relief, had risen to his feet apparently unhurt, though much dishevelled. He rushed frantically towards the gorge, which the yells of the hogs told us they were now approaching. I had made up my mind that I would abstain from killing another, as, if Peterkin should be successful, two were more than sufficient for our wants at the present time. Suddenly they all burst forth—two or three little round ones in advance, and an enormous old sow with a drove of ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... curious to remark that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the wheel, or has preferred other expedients to its development. And not only did the Martians either not know of (which is incredible), or abstain from, the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly little use is made of the fixed pivot or relatively fixed pivot, with circular motions thereabout confined to one plane. Almost all the joints of the machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... but the Emperor handed me at this meeting a confidential copy of the draft of the proposed new Fleet Law, with an intimation that he had no objection to my communicating it privately to my colleagues. I was careful to abstain even from looking at it then, for I saw that, from its complexity and bulk, it would require careful study. So I simply put it in my pocket. But I repeated what I had said to the Chancellor, that the necessity for secure sea-communications rendered it vital for us to be able to protect ourselves ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... for very much thinking in this matter is the recent speech of President Wilson that heralded the present discussion. All Europe was impressed by the truth, and by President Wilson's recognition of the truth, that from any other great war after this America will be unable to abstain. Can America come into this dispute at the end to insist upon something better than a new diplomatic patchwork, and so obviate the later completer Armageddon? Is there, above the claims and passions of Germany, France, Britain, and the rest of them, a conceivable right thing to ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... that he touched life in that relation. Literature then must be for him, in some form or other, an attempt to quicken the individual pulse, to augment the individual sense of significance. He must abstain from what was probably a higher work; but he must not lose faith thereby. He must set himself with all his might to preach a gospel of beauty to minds which, like his own, were incapable of the larger mental sweep, and could ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... act of Secession, I accompanied him to the plantation spoken of. It involved a little steamboat journey, sundry rides in chaise or buggy, and the crossing of more than one of the many creeks or rivers intersecting the low, sandy, swampy coast. I purposely abstain from particularizing the locality. It was toward the close of a mild, humid day when we reached the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... words of advice which conscience whispered should be heeded. Love was the theme of not a few, yet all warned him to flee from evil. He returned the parcel, and, as he did so, he pledged himself that if he drank any it should be with moderation: and that, as soon as he felt its ruinous effects, to abstain altogether. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Rodilard, a certain cat, Such havoc of the rats had made, 'Twas difficult to find a rat With nature's debt unpaid. The few that did remain, To leave their holes afraid, From usual food abstain, Not eating half their fill. And wonder no one will That one who made of rats his revel, With rats pass'd not for cat, but devil. Now, on a day, this dread rat-eater, Who had a wife, went out to meet her; And while he held his caterwauling, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... preaching, which she therefore much attended upon and loved, but which never satisfied her, as she felt a want and yearning after something more. She was so pleased at our being near her, and lodged at her house, she could not abstain from frequently declaring so, receiving all that we said to her with gratitude, desiring always to be near us; and following the example of her husband, she corrected many things, with the hope and promise of persevering if ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by the showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he found out a new thing—namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by right prescribed Never is meet! So to abstain doth spring From "Darkness," and Delusion teacheth it. Abstaining from a work grievous to flesh, When one saith "'Tisunpleasing!" this is null! Such an one acts from "passion;" nought of gain Wins his Renunciation! But, Arjun! Abstaining from attachment ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... Laura. I believe he is pushing some connubial complaint against me at the Court. We have been married seventeen months. I submitted to the marriage because I could get no proper freedom without, and now I am expected to abstain from the very thing I sacrificed myself to get! Can he hear that in Vienna?' She snapped her fingers. 'If not, let him come and behold it in Milan. Besides, he is harmless. The Archduchess is all ears for the very man of whom he is jealous. This is my reply: You told me to marry: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... would be preached in the course of the vigil, and that at a later hour the great chandelier, containing two thousand four hundred lamps, would be lit to illuminate the church. Finally, the worthy bishop called upon all members of his flock, in consideration of the solemnity of the day, to abstain from sensual pleasures, in order that they might the more piously and worthily contemplate the sacred objects submitted to their view, and digest the spiritual nourishment to be offered ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... face very white; "if there is one thing in this rotten world of custom and convention and immoral morality which I honestly respect, it is the memory of my mother. Therefore you will please abstain from contemptuous reference to her by look ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... twenty-three lines further on, it rests "throughout and exclusively on facts." It is difficult to know what conclusion to come to regarding a naturalist and University professor who can commit himself to such a contradiction. I shall abstain from any comment and let the reader ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... Russell that Thouvenel, the French Foreign Minister, was in complete agreement with England's policy[150], and on May 9, in a more extended communication, Cowley sent word of Thouvenel's suggestion that both powers issue a declaration that they "intended to abstain from all interference," and that M. de Flahault, French Ambassador at London, had been given instructions to act in close harmony ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practise my Art. I will not cut persons ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... being true, I must beg to be excused, if I abstain from mentioning names, places, and dates, when I enter on German ground. Let it be enough to say that I am writing of a bygone year in the present century, when no such thing as a German Empire existed, and when the revolutionary spirit of France was still an object ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... this there would be none certainly, for indeed she was hardly fit for any place but her own bed. If inclined and able to leave her room, she should be made welcome to the use of Mrs. Orme's dressing-room. It would only be necessary to warn Peregrine that for the present he must abstain from coming there. The servants, Mrs. Orme said, had heard of their master's intended marriage. They would now hear that this intention had been abandoned. On this they would put their own construction, and would account in their own fashion for ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... fleet to escape at once from siege and capture. It is not pestilence —by the God that lives! it is not either plague or impending danger that makes us, like birds in harvest-time, terrified by a scarecrow, abstain from the ready prey—it is base superstition—And thus the aim of the valiant is made the shuttlecock of fools; the worthy ambition of the high-souled, the plaything of these tamed hares! But yet Stamboul shall be ours! By my past labours, by torture and imprisonment ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... KEDRON.—"I was brought up in a temperance school, and when I shipped before the mast I stuck to my principles, though everyone else on board drank excepting two boys whom I persuaded to abstain. In a very severe storm off a lee-shore, when it was so cold they had to break the icicles off the ropes to tack the ship, all drank but myself and these two boys. The men would work very well for a few minutes, and then slack off and take another drink, until they were all keeled up, and ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... life is a rather expensive piece of information. In the mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury. I only abstain from doing them any good, in the full belief that we ought not to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was in the room, felt for her cunt, and spent in her in a minute, she had not taken her bonnet off. My spending hurt me, my doctor had told me I could go with a woman without fear of injuring her, but that for my own sake I had better abstain. She got up, and took off her bonnet, to see if lying down had hurt it. "I'll have you again," said I. "Let me wash, you've spent such a lot, it's all running down my thighs." Again I fucked her; and next morning my ailment came back. My doctor said ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... thing in the face, and think it fairly out. The result is, that, although I daresay nobody has recognized any difference in my way of doing business, there is one who must know a great difference: I now think of my neighbour's side of the bargain as well as of my own, and abstain from doing what it would vex me to find I had not been sharp enough to prevent him from doing with me. In consequence, I am not so rich this day as I might otherwise have been, but I enjoy life more, and hope the days of my ignorance ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Dutch were scarcely ever at peace with the Algonkins. The laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres, which extended as far as Richmond. Penn came without arms; he declared his purpose to abstain from violence; he had no message but peace, and not a drop of Quaker blood was shed in his ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... studies Singing must consider that Praise or Disgrace depends very much on his Voice which if he has a Mind to preserve he must abstain from all Manner of Disorders, ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... less vanity and less perverseness than his disciples. He did not leave behind him any true philosopher among them; any who followed his mode of argumentation, his subjects of disquisition, or his course of life; any who would subdue the malignant passions or coerce the looser; any who would abstain from calumny or from cavil; any who would devote his days to the glory of his country, or, what is easier and perhaps wiser, to his own well-founded contentment and well-merited repose. Xenophon, the best of them, offered up sacrifices, believed in oracles, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... mountain—while admiring or deploring those which have been extinct for centuries, or which are a thousand miles away. They are afraid that if they catch the spirit of their age in verse, they will give it a temporary stamp; and therefore they either abstain from writing, and take to abusing the age on which they have unluckily fallen, or else come to the same resolution after an unsuccessful attempt to revive faded stimulants. Dante embodied, for instance, his countrymen's rude conception of future ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... me, to abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine and cider, as a beverage, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... from bad language, chew tobacco more cautiously, surrender the use of the fireplace, permit doors and windows to be opened and shut to air or warm the prison, reprove their children with less violence, borrow and lend useful articles to each other kindly, put on their attire with modesty, and abstain from ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... punishment; but those things which may easily be reformed do bring on us greater punishment:" and what can be more easy than to reform this fault? "Tell me," saith he, "what difficulty, what sweat, what art, what hazard, what more doth it require beside a little care" to abstain wholly from it? It is but willing, or resolving on it, and it is instantly done; for there is not any natural inclination disposing to it, any strong appetite to detain us under ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... peculiar to themselves about purgatory, the creation of souls, and some of our mysteries. They repeat baptism every year, they retain the practice of circumcision, they observe the Sabbath, they abstain from all those sorts of flesh which are forbidden by the law. Brothers espouse the wives of their brothers, and to conclude, they observe a ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... protection we were preserved the night passed, and are here before Thee this morning in health and safety; we dedicate this day, and all the days we have to live to Thy service; resolving, that we will abstain from all evil, that we will take heed to the thing that is right in all our actions, and endeavour to do our duty in that state of life in which Thy Providence has placed us. We would remind ourselves that we are always, wherever we may go, in Thy presence. We ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler
... exercising a predominating influence over material life, by making this subordinate to the spiritual requirements. The fourth word of the Decalogue prescribes, then, that the Israelite should for ever remember the holy day of sabbath, as a representative of religion, and should, during that day, abstain, and cause all his dependants to abstain, from all manual labour and earthly occupation, that might distract him from the contemplation of heavenly subjects, which should exclusively occupy his mind on ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... for the public good so soon as they are favored by him. When the pillar in the Piazza de' Spagna, commemorative of his dogma of the Immaculate Conception, was to be erected, the people of Rome refused to be present, or to have anything to do with it, unless the pope promised to abstain from interference. His Holiness did promise, but so far broke his word as to be present one day while it was being erected, and on that day a man was killed. A little while ago there was a Lord Clifford, an English Catholic nobleman, residing in Italy, and, happening to come ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... press." The other was in the form of a still more ironical notice put up in the grounds, "desiring that people who wish to see the house may drive up to the hall-door and ring the bell, but that they are to abstain from walking on the flagstones and looking in at ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... a miserable thing if it were not at the same time the pain of the true believer who sees his divinity dragged in the dust. I would abstain even from touching her hand if I could place her on some inapproachable height where nobody could come ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... social engine by which to restrain crime and secure some measure of order. Blood was, in their view, more holy than anything else. It put religion in the background. The kin group was the realized ideal. The gods were comparatively insignificant.[1759] In old Arabia a man engaged in a blood feud must abstain from women, wine, and unguents.[1760] Within the kin group there was no blood revenge, but a guilty person was held personally responsible. A guest friend ("stranger within thy gates") was not liable to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... earnest and patriotic—the praise showered upon them and the responsibility placed upon them seemed to uplift them—the man with the hoe became a free citizen and behaved as such. On Wednesday, March 14, the soldiers posted bulletins in different parts of the city calling on their comrades to abstain from liquor and violence and to prevent others from committing lawless deeds. Not satisfied with mere words small companies of militia visited the places where drinks were sold and emptied the barrels and bottles into the gutter. For days the Astoria Hotel looked and smelled ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... contending chiefs, decided that they must wait until they could take counsel—which they promised to do at once—with certain pilots better instructed than themselves in the position of the Santiago. Meanwhile, a truce was arranged between the parties, each solemnly engaging to abstain from hostile measures, and to remain ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Marshal Bazaine, in spite of all the Emperor may say to induce him to try to stand alone. This, I apprehend, will be the difficulty, and may cause much delay, unless the United States kindly lend a helping hand. Would it not be wise for us to abstain for a few months from all interference, direct or indirect, and thus give Napoleon and Maximilian time to carry out their farce? Mexico would thus be rid of the French flag in the least possible time. If the French troops ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... in cruelty, though those who are civilized abstain from it on principle. On the whole Mr. Chaffanbrass is popular at the Old Bailey. Men congregate to hear him turn a witness inside out, and chuckle with an inward pleasure at the success of his cruelty. This Mr. Chaffanbrass knows, and, like an actor who is kept ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... far as a man can win, success during his lifetime. As Professor Huxley said, in lecturing on "The Coming of Age of 'The Origin of Species,'" "the foremost men of science in every country are either avowed champions of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing them." His prescience has in less than a generation been justified by the discovery of intermediate fossil forms of animals too numerous to be here recounted. The break between vertebrate and invertebrate animals, between flowering and non-flowering plants, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... now so to educate the girl that she shall do what is right, simply because it is right, and not because it is useful or politic so to do; that she shall abstain from what is wrong, simply and, only because it is wrong, and not because it will be harmful to her if she do not. These two statements would, however, be fully expressed by the first one, for it is evident that ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... mistress of the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The most haughty monarchs trembled before the Republic. Antiochus Epiphanes had invaded Egypt, and was marching upon Alexandria, when he was met by three Roman commissioners, who presented him with a decree of the Senate, commanding him to abstain from hostilities against Egypt. The king, having read the decree, promised to take it into consideration with his friends, whereupon Popillius, one of the Roman commissioners, stepping forward, drew a circle round the king ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... did her words give me! That sweet child's trusting friendship was a reward for all I had suffered. I resolved to abstain still from the evil courses to which my companions were endeavouring to lead me. I gave a glance over the stern, as if I had been looking to see what had become of the gig which had boarded at that end of the ship, and I ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the gates, my son," the priest said. "I shall be only a few minutes with the abbot; who, as Friar Roger says, will, I doubt not, be glad enough to grant him leave to abstain from ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... in these chronicles, to confine myself to the facts directly relating to the malignant activity of Dr. Fu-Manchu, I shall abstain from burdening you with details of my private affairs. As an instrument of the Chinese doctor, it has sometimes been my duty to write of the beautiful Eastern girl; I cannot suppose that my readers have any further curiosity respecting ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... application to business, between thirty and forty years of age, had long been subject, at intervals, to an irregular pulse: a few months ago he became weak, with difficulty of breathing, and dry cough. In this situation a physician of eminence directed him to abstain from all animal food and fermented liquor, during which regimen all his complaints increased; he now became emaciated, and totally lost his appetite; his pulse very irregular both in velocity and strength; with great difficulty of breathing, and some swelling ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... other things I call luxuries, without meaning, by this appellation, to throw the smallest degree of reproach upon the temperate use of them. Beer and ale, for example, in Great Britain, and wine, even in the wine countries, I call luxuries. A man of any rank may, without any reproach, abstain totally from tasting such liquors. Nature does not render them necessary for the support of life; and custom nowhere renders it indecent ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; But the colt who is wise will abstain from the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... having charge of patients are particularly enjoined to abstain from mentioning to visitors the names of those in their charge, their peculiarities, or any other circumstances, a knowledge of which might be painful to ...
— Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California - Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861 • Stockton State Hospital
... a Cloudy, and VVindy day, after a Moon-shine clear Night, for the brightness of the Night (through fear) making them abstain from feeding, and the Gloominess of the Day emboldening and rendering them (through Hunger) sharp, and eager upon food, they ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... to Major Hannay's wishes, and to abstain from arguing with the men the question of Bathurst being given the cold shoulder, Dr. Wade had already organized the ladies in his favor. During the afternoon he had told them the tiger story, and had confidentially ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... wholly to the past, towards which the duty of the present is simply to preserve, to guard every stone, to prop if need be, but to disturb nothing, to stay from falling as long as human power can stay it, but to abstain from supplanting one jot or one tittle of the ancient work by the most perfect of modern copies—it is surely the donjon-keep of Falaise. But, like every other building in France, the birthplace of the Conqueror is hopelessly handed over to the demon of restoration. They who have turned all the ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... is that your mind on Sundays is full of everything but the gospel. You work so hard during the week that you rob the Lord of his twenty-four hours. The man who works on Sunday as well as the rest of the week is no worse than you who abstain on that day, because your excessive devotion to business during the week kills your Sunday; and a dead Sunday is no Sunday at all. You throw yourself into church as much as to say, 'Here, Lord, I am ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... controversy on good works began, and George Major zealously championed the restored formula, Melanchthon, probably mindful of his former troubles in this matter, signally failed to support and endorse his friend and colleague. Moreover, he now advised Major and others to abstain from using the phrase: Good works are necessary to salvation, "because," said he, "this appendix [to salvation, ad salutem] is interpreted as merit, and obscures ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... beside the point. My grievance is, that in my old age I am forced to drink porter which disagrees with my liver, and am compelled to abstain from spirits which have a sustaining and medicinal effect on that organ, and this deprivation is solely due to the unnatural and inexplicable existence of Englishmen. It may be that nature grew Englishmen for the sole purpose of interfering ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... utter disregard of prudence and of the local difficulties to be encountered between the Nile and El Obeid. But the radical fault of the whole enterprise was a strategical one. The situation made it prudent and even necessary for the Government to stand on the defensive, and to abstain from military expeditions, while the course pursued was to undertake offensive measures in the manner most calculated to favour the chances of the Mahdi, and to attack him at the very point where his superiority could be most ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... in singing our song of New Year greeting, "What a Happy New Year," while extending to one another the right hand of fellowship. At the close of the service all present pledged themselves, by standing, to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... the nearest post with a message, to be sent forward to the King of Tezcuco, with the tidings of the arrival of a strange white being in the land; and asking for instructions as to what was to be done with him. In the meantime, the merchants told Roger that they wished him to abstain from going out into the various villages and towns at which ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... jumping. 'Curious, isn't it?' A correspondent at Rochester, 'who experienced much satisfaction in the perusal of the article' above alluded to, was yet 'a little dissatisfied with the closing portion of it.' The proposition of the writer to 'abstain entirely from animal food,' on the score of humanity, he considers 'especially ridiculous.' He has 'the gravest authority for stating, that every drop of water that quenches our thirst or laves our bodies, contains innumerable insects, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... that the British masses would not justify a war in defence of slavery. The American Government, while it met with firm and dignified protest Great Britain's disregard of international obligations, was careful to abstain from giving any excuse for British hostility. "One war at a time," said Abraham Lincoln, in deciding to surrender Mason and Slidell. But Americans kept careful account of every item of outrage on the part of England, and in due time the bill was presented—and ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence, and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... any reasonable mind—that men who have all their lives been subject to compulsory labor should, on having this labor left to their discretion, be disposed at first to relax, and, in some instances, totally abstain from it, was equally to be expected. But we have no reason to despond, nor to imagine that, because such has occurred in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... them it is as if drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who have settled among them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give up drinking, but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot abstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it not the same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands' or even to hundreds, of others—of ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy
... in a peculiar character. They abhor circumcision, but are very particular in distinguishing between clean and unclean animals, and likewise in keeping the Sabbath with extraordinary strictness. The Psalms of David are in use, but they are held to be inferior to their own book. They abstain from garlic, beans, and several kinds of pulse, and likewise most carefully from every description of food between sunrise and sunset during a whole moon before the vernal equinox; in addition to which, an annual festival ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... come back and reoccupied their houses in the town without any fear of being molested or questioned by Government officers. Nor would the people of the town object to their residing among them again, provided they pledged themselves to abstain in future from molesting them. Goorbuksh Sing, only a few days ago, offered the contractor, Hoseyn Allee, the sum of five thousand, rupees if he would satisfy the Resident that Dal Partuk had nothing whatever to do with the Peernuggur dacoitee, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... do, such an interest in your welfare, I must earnestly recommend you to abstain from them," said Mr Trotter. "It is a very bad habit, and once acquired, not easy to be left off. I am obliged to drink them, that I may not check the perspiration after working in the hold; I have, nevertheless, a natural abhorrence of them; but my champagne and claret days ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two, the pen is more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds, destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature is more ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... jokes of all kinds. I have seen great evil, and some bloodshed, result from practical jokes; and I think that, being a sufferer in consequence of your fondness for them, I have a right to beg that you will abstain from such doings in future—at least from such jokes as involve risk to those who do not choose ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... luck of the country in his note-book? These, and a great many others, are the questions that they ask among themselves and put to the foreigner when they see him writing; and if he desires to conciliate the good-will of the people, and to win their confidence, the missionary must abstain from walking and writing while ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... pledge of total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and, laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it, Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to one of the greatest ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fine saying or a genial word of admiration. And all is done with that airy lightness, yet precision of touch, which distinguishes Heine beyond any living writer. The charge of venality was loudly made against Heine in Germany: first, it was said that he was paid to write; then, that he was paid to abstain from writing; and the accusations were supposed to have an irrefragable basis in the fact that he accepted a stipend from the French government. He has never attempted to conceal the reception of that stipend, and we think his statement ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... who shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth,' who would advocate will-worship and their own good deeds in opposition to the all perfect atonement of Jesus. Such truly is what ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... had promised Pugh to abstain from using force. I might have shivered the box open with my hammer, and then explained that it had fallen, or got trod upon, or sat upon, or something, and so got shattered, only I was afraid that Pugh would not believe me. The man is himself such an untruthful man that ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... for Christ's sake, with the assurance of God's faithful presence and protection. With these encouragements he intermingles admonitions suited to their circumstances. He exhorts them as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts and all the other vices of their former life in ignorance; to commend their religion by a holy deportment which shall put to shame the calumnies of their adversaries; to perform faithfully all the duties of their several stations in life; to be humble, sober, vigilant, ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... apostolic decree that the Gentiles should observe certain ceremonies of the Law: for it is written (Acts 15:28, 29): "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." Therefore the legal ceremonies can be observed since Christ's ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... of Marine issued orders that every one connected with the admiralty must abstain from giving information of any kind regarding ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... and expostulated in vain, Villeroy was sent on the same errand, but had no better success. A few days later Portland had a long private audience of Lewis. Lewis declared that he was determined to keep his word, to preserve the peace of Europe, to abstain from everything which could give just cause of offence to England, but that, as a man of honour, as a man of humanity, he could not refuse shelter to an unfortunate King, his own first cousin. Portland ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the marked enlargement of this signature takes the place of the flourish, and shows an unconscious emphasis of the ego. It would be almost unreasonable for us to expect that so impressionable a man, who was also feeling his power and fame, could abstain from showing outward signs of his own consciousness of abnormal success. Yet, in the private letters of Dickens, the simple "C. D." is very frequent; a few examples of it are given in this article, and their present number in no way represents the numerical relation ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... auditors, to side with no sect as such, to give no individual by his indorsement a mean advantage over any other, nor any one a handle of private persecution by his open anathema. Moreover, he should abstain from that particularity in secular themes which so easily wanders from all sight of spiritual law amid regions of uncertainty and speculative conjecture. He should shun explorations less fit for prophets ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... considered myself bigger or broader than this Edward Bok: simply that he was different. His tastes, his outlook, his manner of looking at things were totally at variance with my own. In fact, my chief difficulty during Edward Bok's directorship of The Ladies' Home Journal was to abstain from breaking through the editor and revealing my real self. Several times I did so, and each time I saw how different was the effect from that when the editorial Edward Bok had been allowed sway. Little by little I learned to subordinate myself and to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... partially observed. All those who have a regard for character fast more or less according to the degree of their zeal or strength of their constitutions; some for a week, others for a fortnight; but to abstain from food and betel whilst the sun is above the horizon during the whole of a lunar month is a very ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... those kine carried it: they have devised ruminating and lying in the sun. They also abstain from all heavy thoughts which ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... not permit my wife or my betrothed to be present in public unless I were by her side. Your majesty took me for what I was, a simple Briton, who could be relied upon as a guard, because I had neither friends nor family in Rome, and was content to live a simple and quiet life. I am willing to abstain from marriage in order that I may still do my service as heretofore; but if I have to attend entertainments, you cannot rely upon my constant vigilance. It is for you to choose, Caesar, whether you most require vigilant guards, who could be trusted ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... me suddenly, as if she were fixing her eyes on some vision on the outer rim of consciousness. 'No: there's one other way,' she exclaimed; 'and that is, not to do it! To abstain and refrain; and then see what we become, or what we don't become, in the long run, and to draw our inferences. That's the game that almost everybody about us is playing, I suppose; there's hardly one ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... course, implies abstaining from every kind of injury, and preserving a conscientious regard to their rights. In this last respect, it allows us to exercise a prudent attention to our own interest, provided the means be fair and honourable, and that we carefully abstain from injuring others by the measures we employ for this purpose. The great rule for our guidance, in all such cases, is found in the immutable principles of moral rectitude; the test of our conduct in regard to individual instances is, that it be such as, were our own ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... abstinence—the abstinence which enabled him to save. That quieted my conscience until I began to wonder why one man should make another pay him for exercising one of the virtues. Then came the question: what did my father abstain from? The workmen abstained from meat, drink, fresh air, good clothes, decent lodging, holidays, money, the society of their families, and pretty nearly everything that makes life worth living, which was perhaps the reason why they usually died twenty years or so sooner than people in our ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... imagine what queer, fretful-looking lines were beginning to show themselves on George's brow. He would have looked old enough for a grandfather in a few years, if I had gone on trying to realize the hope he expressed, that I would abstain from the performance of all household tasks. And I should have looked quite as old as he, I suspect, for I believe that the consciousness of neglected duties is one of the heaviest burdens which ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... reason to apprehend any inconvenience; because, in a short course of time, the wants of the States will naturally reduce themselves within A VERY NARROW COMPASS; and in the interim, the United States will, in all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects to which the particular States would be inclined to resort. To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which ...
— The Federalist Papers
... special licences for this purpose. It was the reverse of likely that men of a temperament which urged them to raid the African shores in search of their human quarry, and to sail their black cargoes through the tropics, would abstain from making the fullest and most general use of an opportunity thus offered, as the Spanish officials invariably found was the case to their cost, and occasionally, as has been said, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... heaven and one hand as near there as he could get it, and there in the pale moonlight, with only his wondering wife, and the angels, and a cow or two, for witnesses, he swore he would from that moment abstain from all intoxicating liquors until death should them part. Then looking down and tenderly smiling into the eyes of his wife, he said: "Is it not well, dear one?" With a face beaming all over with a new ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... nevertheless refrained. Almost all the officers were of this number. Seeing that this monstrous food had revived the strength of those who had used it, it was proposed to dry it, to make it a little more palatable. Those who had firmness to abstain from it, took an additional quantity of wine. We endeavoured to eat shoulder-belts and cartouch-boxes, and contrived to swallow some small bits of them. Some eat linen: others the leathers of the hats, on which was a little grease, or rather dirt. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... consummation of this function that the sacrifice should rest upon caprice known and avowed. To suppose it wicked as a mere process of executing the laws would rob it of all its grandeur. It would stand for nothing. Nay, even if the power were conceded, and the sovereign should abstain from using it of his own free will and choice, this would not satisfy the wretched Turk. Blood, lawless blood—a horrid Moloch, surmounting a grim company of torturers and executioners, and on the other side revelling in a thousand unconsenting women—this hideous image of brutal ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... national necessity dictated the action, and I was therefore not at liberty to abstain ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvellous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations. But assuredly, in the face of such contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as I do, from giving ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... freemen we can not but sympathize in all efforts to extend the blessings of civil and political liberty, but at the same time we are warned by the admonitions of history and the voice of our own beloved Washington to abstain from entangling alliances with foreign nations. In all disputes between conflicting governments it is our interest not less than our duty to remain strictly neutral, while our geographical position, the genius of our institutions and our people, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... form a uniform body of jurisprudence for the interpretation of the laws of the Union. This end would not have been accomplished if the courts of the several states had been competent to decide upon cases in their separate capacities, from which they were obliged to abstain as federal tribunals. The supreme court of the United States was therefore invested with the right of determining ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... herself had evinced lively pleasure, whenever he went to see them, and deep regret when he left them; while her colour rose, sometimes, when he came upon her suddenly. But these indications that he was not altogether indifferent to her had but determined him, more resolutely, to abstain from taking advantage of the gratitude she felt for the ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... saying how unpleasant it would be to him if anything should happen which might for a moment disturb the returning harmony between Sweden and Great Britain, he apprised them that he was not directed to abstain from hostilities should he meet with the Swedish fleet at sea. Meantime he himself; with ten sail of the line, two frigates, a brig, and a schooner, made for the Gulf of Finland. Paul, in one of the freaks of his tyranny, had seized upon all the British effects in Russia, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... human system, a |always detrimental to the human| |menace to the home, and their use as|system, an enemy to perfect | |a drink an outrage against society, |health and happiness, and an | |the State and the Nation, I hereby |offense against good form and | |promise to not only abstain from |respectable society, I hereby | |them myself, but to use my influence|express myself against the use | |against their manufacture, sale, and|of this vile poison. I shall | |consumption. |also endeavor to discourage its| | ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... teach them what is right and what is wrong; to aid them in their work; to comfort them in their sorrows; and to rejoice with them in their gladness. It is the duty of the children to love their parents; to obey them in all things; to respect older persons; and to abstain from bad habits and ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... beliefs, the Golampis think it hardly worth while to be truthful, to abstain from slander, to do justice and to avoid vicious actions. "The practice," they say, "of deceit, calumniation, oppression and immorality cannot have any sensible and lasting injurious effect, and it is most agreeable to the mind and heart. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... they sometimes occur. By proclaiming itself the friend of the proletarian, the Government has been enabled to establish an iron discipline, beyond the wildest dreams of the most autocratic American magnate. And by the same professions the Government has led Socialists from other countries to abstain from reporting unpleasant features in what they ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... thought, and he went about to strike a bargain. 'Oh, birds,' said he, 'are ye willing to be fish? For I have no fishes swimming in my pond, yet my heart desires them greatly. So if ye are willing to be fish and will stay in my good pond and swim there, gladdening my eyes, I will abstain from killing you but instead will set you in the pond ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the world believe, as the instrument of heaven to punish the enemy of the Church, but he did not learn with any great rejoicing of the conversion of John from the error of his ways. Orders were sent him at once to abstain from all attack on one who was now the vassal of the pope, and he found it necessary in the end to obey, declaring, it is said, that the victory was after all his, since it was due to him that the pope had subdued ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... kingdom. That this may be done successfully, that is, that a man may live on a diet, no part of which is drawn from the animal kingdom, has been abundantly proven. The experience of many millions of human beings in India and other Oriental countries who abstain from the use of flesh on religious grounds, and to whom cow's milk is almost a novelty, is a practical demonstration of the fact that the vegetable kingdom is able to supply to human beings ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... agreed upon during the exchange of views provided for in Article V of this agreement. Russia on her part undertakes not to quarter troops in Outer Mongolia, excepting Consular Guards, nor to interfere in any question affecting the administration of the country and will likewise abstain from all colonization. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... sales in Europe. The senior servants had a certain share of emolument allotted to them from a commission on the revenues. The junior servants were rigorously confined to salaries, on which they were unable to subsist according to their rank. They were strictly ordered to abstain from all dealing in objects of internal commerce. Those of export and import were left open to young men without mercantile experience, and wholly unprovided with mercantile capitals, but abundantly furnished with large trusts of the public money, and with all the powers of an absolute government. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be performed by representatives! Brahmanas then perform acts that are reserved for the Sudras, and the Sudras betake themselves to the acquisition of wealth. Then Kshatriyas also betake themselves to the practice of religious acts. In the Kali age, the Brahmanas also abstain from sacrifices and the study of the Vedas, are divested of their staff and deer-skin, and in respect of food become omnivorous. And, O son, the Brahmanas in that age also abstain from prayers and meditation while the Sudras betake themselves to these! The course of the world looketh ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... good many agents in Ireland engaged in that work. There is no difficulty in obtaining recruits, for there is scarcely a young Irishman who does not long to be with his countrymen, who have won such credit out here, and many abstain from joining only because they do not know how to set about it. The work of the agents, then, is principally to arrange means for their crossing the channel. It is well that the supply is steadily kept up, for, I can assure you, every battle fought makes ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... obedience of Adam was tested in the Garden by the prohibition of one tree—a tree pleasant to look upon, and good for food—so was the obedience of the Nazarite tested. He was not forbidden to eat poison berries, nor was he merely required to abstain from the wine and strong drink which might easily become a snare; fresh grapes and dried raisins were equally prohibited. It was not that the thing was harmful in itself, but that the doing the will of GOD, in a matter of seeming indifference, was ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... foolishest insignificant rubbish of Court-gossip, not tending any bad road, if they have a tendency. That they are adapted to the nature of the beast, and of the situation,—this he will carefully abstain from remarking. ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... a similar spirit, Archbishop Hughes, although he had yielded to the pressure made on him and issued an address to the Irish, calling on them to abstain from violence, yet accompanied it with a letter to Horace Grreeley, directly calculated to awaken or intensify, rather than allay their passions. He more than intimated that they had been abused and oppressed, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... Carlyle when he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are wild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard as steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they abstain from teaching the child to get ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... girls and women will abstain from handling themselves with their hands (manual masturbation), but will practice what we call mental masturbation. That is, they will concentrate their minds on the opposite sex, will picture to themselves various lascivious scenes, until they feel "satisfied." This method is extremely injurious ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... characteristics given above, is a broad gulf, as broad and deep as that between Heaven and Hell, between nourishing, life-giving substances and the poisons named above. Of the one we are to use temperately, but from the latter we are to totally abstain. "Thou shalt not" is ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... assemblies of the people, which happened to fall on that day, were always deferred. Hesiod enumerated the days when it might be proper to commence certain undertakings, and those when it was necessary to abstain from every employment; among the latter, he mentions the fifth of every month, when the Infernal Furies were supposed to bestride the earth. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... exceptional intellectual resource. There is here surely that sudden and unaccounted-for change of character which the second-rate novelist and dramatists may permit himself, but from which the first-rate should abstain. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... were usually compelled, through hunger, to give themselves up. In cases where several escaped, they became bushrangers, and rendered travelling in the interior unsafe, for, their lives being already forfeited, they had no motive to abstain from pillage and murder. It appears that one at least of the Governors of the convict establishments, took a malicious pleasure in taunting those under his care. At length he fell a victim to his own conduct. It may ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... should continue to govern in the Two Sicilies, that the Dukes should be restored to their Duchies, and that Venetia should be guarantied to Austria. He felt this, as the terms of the treaties that were made very clearly show; for he was careful to abstain from pledging himself to anything of a definite character. If he had perfected his original work, and been possessed of the power to effect a new settlement of Italy, he would, we presume, have stipulated for the continuance of the Bourbon power in the southern portion ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... tell them," the colonel went on, "that you are on secret service; that you will tell them as much as you can safely do, but they must abstain from pressing you with questions. We all know that you have been acting as assistant to Mr. Uhtoff, because it was mentioned in orders that you had been detailed for that duty; but they know no more ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... and out of doors, are recorded. In fact it was well to abstain from good words in conversation with St. Joseph of Cupertino, for he would give a shout, on hearing a pious observation, and fly up, after which social intercourse was out of the question. He was, indeed, prevented by his superiors from appearing at certain sacred functions, because his flights ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... to marry the Protestant Elizabeth, whom, had she been a peasant, he would unquestionably have burned, if in his power. Throughout Germany, also, especially in high places, there was a disposition to cover up the religious controversy; to abstain from disturbing the ashes where devastation still glowed, and was one day to rekindle itself. It was exceedingly difficult for any man, from the Archduke Maximilian down, to define his creed. A marriage, therefore; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... publishing the following letter, I do not consider that I am infringing on the rule I have followed in obedience to my mother's wishes, that is, to abstain from giving publicity to all letters which are of a private and confidential character. This one entirely concerns her scientific writings, and is interesting as showing the confidence which existed between Sir John Herschel and herself. This great philosopher was ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... involved so much labor that the demand was never satisfied. The strict search instituted at the frontiers stopped the importation of books,[131] and carriers refused to transmit them. In their dread of the Inquisition, these folk found it safer to abstain from book traffic altogether. Public libraries were exposed to intermittent raids, nor were private collections safe from such inspection. The not uncommon occurrence of old books in which precious ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... less strict: and so they authorized their people to take part in the election of the new lay managers of the properties of the churches. This wise policy was attended with the most happy results. The chancellor's plans were everywhere completely marred. He had reckoned that the Catholics would abstain from voting, and so allow a "liberal" (infidel) minority, however small, to dispose ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... of daily life, the command not to touch even the hand of one's nearest and dearest. How contrary to Western notions of affection and good feeling! How cold and hard it seems. Egotistical too, people would say, to abstain from giving pleasure to others for the sake of one's own development. Well, let those who think so defer till another lifetime the attempt to enter the path in real earnest. But let them not glory in their own fancied unselfishness. For, in reality, it is only the seeming appearances ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... Mysterious of connubial love refused: Whatever hypocrites austerely talk Of purity, and place, and innocence, Defaming as impure what God declares Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all. Our Maker bids encrease; who bids abstain But our Destroyer, foe to God and Man? Hail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else! By thee adulterous Lust was driven from men ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean; he is a Pythagorean philosopher; he is a wise man—that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One can ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... siege to Schenck. But the Spanish garrison held out obstinately all through the winter and did not surrender until April 26,1636. The Dutch army had suffered much from exposure and sickness during this long investment and was compelled to abstain for some months from active operations. Ferdinand thereupon, as soon as he saw that there was no immediate danger of an attack from the north, resolved to avenge himself upon the French for the part they had taken in the preceding ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson |
