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More "Gainsay" Quotes from Famous Books



... how beautiful she is, and how kind! I know now why my father was so devoted to her, and no one can ever gainsay her!" ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... kissed the child, The courtiers turned away, "The heritage is thine," he said, "Let none thy right gainsay. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... not to," he replied in a flutelike tone. It seemed to me that, while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... soil and the commodities of our own labour—which, with the sweat of our brows, even up to the knees in mire and dirt, we have laboured for—shall be taken by warrant of supreme authority which the poor subjects dare not gainsay?' Another member, Sir Andrew Hobby, on the opposite side, started up, and said, 'that betwixt Michaelmas and St Andrews tide, where salt before the patent was wont to be sold for 16d. a bushel, it is now sold for 14d. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... thoughts dwell upon caprice or tricks of woman, for if you say me nay, yet will I make you my wife, and force you unto me. But you will not gainsay me, for behold you love me, so rest upon your bed for the three weeks which must pass before the caravan is ready for the journey, so that in health and strength and surpassing loveliness ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... replied my good master, "not wishing to gainsay you. But from what has been conserved of the book of Enoch, which is clearly apocryphal, I suspect those angels to have been not ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... conquer your great name, But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase— Beating or beaten she will laugh the same), You have obtain'd great pensions and much praise: Glory like yours should any dare gainsay, Humanity ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... between them on the renewal of their meetings. It was all contained in what she had then almost immediately said to him; it was represented by the remark she had needed but ten minutes to make and that he hadn't been disposed to gainsay. He could toddle alone, and the difference that showed was extraordinary. The turn taken by their talk had promptly confirmed this difference; his larger confidence on the score of Mrs. Newsome did the rest; and the time seemed already far off when he had held out his small thirsty cup ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... purchase all the scrip that offered, at a great reduction, of course, from face value. Whether the half-breeds were wise or foolish it is needless to say. One thing was plain, they had made up their minds. Under the circumstances it was impossible to gainsay their assertion that they were the best judges of their own needs. All preliminaries having at last been settled, the taking of declarations and evidence began on the 23rd of June, and, shortly afterwards, the issue of convertible scrip certificates, or scrip certificates ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... Grandees and the folk of my household and the officers of my realm to be upon their feet, as in his service and obey him in whatso he shall bid them do; and thou, if he speak to thee of aught, do it and hearken unto his say and gainsay him not in anything during this coming day." Ja'afar acknowledged the order with "Hearkening and obedience" and withdrew, whilst the Prince of True Believers went in to the palace women, who came up to him, and he said to them, "When this ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... Socrates, I should be ashamed to gainsay what you have said; if I did, it would neither be a noble statement nor a ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... replied Lash. "Gimme a girl with flesh an' color, an' blue eyes a-laughin'. Miss Castaneda is some peach, I'll not gainsay. But her face seemed too white. An' when she flashed those eyes on me, I thought I was shot! When she stood up there at first, thankin' us, I felt as if a—a princess was round somewhere. Now, Nell is ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... "I may not gainsay that," said the Fleming. "Well, say I were content to trust you thus far, why not return my cattle, which are in your own hands, and at your disposal? If you do not pleasure me in something beforehand, what can I expect ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... confessed. "I was to blame." The bereaved mother did not gainsay her, and she felt that, whatever was the justice of the case, she had met her ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... roses, every day Will whip you hence, And bind you, when you want to play, For your offence. I'll shut my eyes to keep you in, I'll make you fast it for your sin, I'll count your power not worth a pin. Alas, what hereby shall I win If he gainsay me? ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... and Furniture, etc. To which he Answered he had taken several prizes and had had them condemned and his Vessel, etc., according to the Laws of Nations and Rules of War was a good prize and therefore he had nothing to gainsay the Condemnation. ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... professor spoke, he seemed to kindle with the emotion of such supreme contentment that no one had the heart to gainsay his assertion. Ben Zoof alone ventured an unlucky remark to the effect that if the comet had happened to strike against Montmartre, instead of a bit of Africa, it would have ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... gainsay him. We were in no trim for receiving broadsides, or grappling with sea-dogs, however merry the ports might be for a man in my plight. Our business was to bring the Misericorde safe into Leith Roads, and to that venture ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... who are yet unborn; and I impeach the waters which they drink and the garments which they put on; their bread and their wine, and the very stones in their walls. If there be any one in Zamora to gainsay what I have said, I will do battle with him, and with God's pleasure conquer him, so that the infamy shall remain upon you. Don Arias Gonzalo replied, If I were what thou sayest I am, it had been better for me never to ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... the truth, friend," replied the trapper. "Yis, the woods be my home; and ef livin' in 'em gives man a right, few would gainsay my claim. Yis, it's thirty years agone sence I hefted the fust trout from this pool, and br'iled him on the bank there,—and a toothsome supper he made for me, too. Lord-a-massy, boy," exclaimed the old man, half ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... his achievements, who was morbidly sensitive, and if not conceited was intolerably conscious, who had met with incredible kindness, and had suffered no more than was good for him, though he might not have merited his pain any more than his joy, I do not know that I should gainsay him, for I am not at all sure that I was not just that kind of youth when I paid my ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... King in the matter. 'Tis but a form. The post of Ranger of Locksley is yours, merely for the asking. Who could gainsay your right to it? Give me the letter; and I will be your messenger. I go to-morrow to Gamewell, and will journey to Nottingham the next day. Now, since I understand that this holy man would wish to see you alone, and I would like ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... this I can hardly find in English to quote for you. But fine as it is, will you not observe the matter-of-factness (call it healthy, if you will, and I shall not gainsay you) beneath Shakespeare's noble language? It says divinely what it has to say; and what it has to say is full of solemn thought. But, for better or worse (or, rather, without question of better or worse), Blake's imagination is moving on a different plane. We may think ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... were never made. Long orations by generals upon the battle-field, by royal personages in their cabinets, by conspirators in secret conclave, are reported by him with muck minuteness, and none can gainsay the accuracy with which these harangues, which never had any existence, except in the author's imagination, are placed before the reader. Bentivoglio's stately and graceful style, elegant descriptions, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... what you please,' answered Maulevrier, bluntly. 'I shall not gainsay you, so long as you do not slander my sister; but as long as I live I shall regret that I, knowing something of London society, did not interfere to prevent Lesbia being given over to ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... but beautiful by virtue of its coincidence with the truth, as there is beauty in those lines securer and stronger far than the melody of their cadence, because they tell of a loyalty of man's being which, being once made sensible of it, he cannot gainsay. Whence we all come, whither we must all make our journey, there is home indeed. But necessity, not remembered delights, draws us thither. That which we must obey is our father if we will; but let us not delude ourselves into the expectation of kindness ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... who was she, to undertake to gainsay these prelates, these doctors? How dared she speak before so many able men—men who had studied? Was there not presumption and damnable pride in an ignorant girl's opposing herself to the learned—a poor, simple girl, to men in authority? Undoubtedly fears of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... feebleness of our arms, the dimness of our sight, may all be overcome. At His touch the raw recruit is as the disciplined veteran; the prophet who cannot speak because he is a child, gifted with a mouth and wisdom which all the adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor to resist. Do not be disheartened by your inexperience, or by your ignorance; but as the prophet said to the young king, Take the bow and shoot. God's strong hand will hold yours, and the arrow ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... good manners and morals, that every one in praising another should be careful not to do so immoderately, lest he should fascinate even against his will. Hieronymus Fracastorius, in his treatise "On Sympathy and Antipathy," thus states the fact and the philosophy,—and who shall dare gainsay the conclusions of one so learned in science, medicine, and astrology as this distinguished man?—"We read," he says, "that there were certain families in Crete who fascinated by praising, and this is doubtless quite possible. For as there exists in the nature of some persons a poison ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... things more readily than the Leveretts. Or rather she seemed to take the lead in arrangements for herself and her charge. She was after all a sort of nurse and waiting-maid, though she had a fine dignity about it that even Elizabeth could not gainsay. She was to be one of the family, there could be no objection to that in the simple New England living. Though it was true, times were changing greatly since the days of war and privation, and perhaps the mingling of people from ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... with his intention to get rid of the talk he had acted against her command. Well, and what had he accomplished? More than ever the whole village would say to-morrow that the ghost of Wildenstein was wandering about again. Furthermore he did not know how to gainsay it. If it only had ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri

... logical exposition had not convinced him, but he did not gainsay as they entered the hall and Istra rang for the landlady. His knees grew sick and old and quavery as he heard the landlady's voice loud below-stairs: "Now wot do they want? It's eleven o'clock. Aren't they ever done a-ringing ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... contemptuously, "that I am to be called a foreigner; and as to being landless, if I chose to take my stand on the old tower of Albricorte, and call myself Lord of the whole hill-side, I should like to see who would gainsay me. For name, I suspect you will find that many a man has trembled at the sound of Beranger d'Albricorte, to whom Ashton would be but that of an English clown. Moreover, in this camp I would have you to know that the question is, not who has the ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never to be gainsay'ed, let her say or ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hearts, Philip interrupted, and reads through all we are thinking even before the thoughts come into our minds. It is as Philip says, Judas muttered: our hearts are open to him always. But James, who had not spoken till now, put forward the opinion, and no one seemed inclined to gainsay it, that if Jesus knew men's thoughts before they came into men's minds he must be warned of them by the angels. He goes into the solitude of the mountains to converse with the angels, James said—for what else? Moses went into the clefts of Mount Sinai, Joseph added, and he asked Peter to tell ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... to it, were both dead, and a generation of men had almost passed away since the events which it announced had, according to its authority, taken place, and probably no one connected with the government of France at that time could have survived to gainsay, the story, were it untrue.[Footnote: Verrazzano died in 1527; Louise, the mother of Francis I in September, 1582, and Francis himself in March, 1547.] Ramusio does not state when or how he obtained what he published. In the preface to the volume in which it is printed, dated three years before, ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... that I would my madness bravely bear, and try To conquer by mine own heart's purity. My third mind, when these two availed me naught To quell love was to die— [Motion of protest among the Women.] —the best, best thought— —Gainsay me not—of all that man can say! I would not have mine honour hidden away; Why should I have my shame before men's eyes Kept living? And I knew, in deadly wise, Shame was the deed and shame the suffering; And I a woman, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... became, she and Gracie Dennis, more and more deeply interested in Mart. In her wardrobe first. "Wherever she lives she should have respectable clothing; thus much is easily settled." So the matron decreed, and Gracie did not gainsay it. She became absorbed in preparing it. Such fascinating work! So many things were needed, and her skin was so delicate, and her eyes so blue, and Gracie's choice of shades and textures fitted her so precisely. Then, when dressed, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... relations with them. Mrs. Tarrant, I may mention, had a further motive: she was consumed with the desire to behold Mrs. Luna. This circumstance may operate as a proof that the aridity of her life was great, and if it should have that effect I shall not be able to gainsay it. She had seen all the people who went to lectures, but there were hours when she desired, for a change, to see some who didn't go; and Mrs. Luna, from Verena's description of her, summed up the characteristics ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... replied the banker, "is, don't do it. Debt is slavery, and there is an ugly kink in human nature that disposes it to be content with slavery. No, sir; gift-making and gift-taking are twins of a bad blood." The speaker turned to Dr. Sevier for approval; but, though the Doctor could not gainsay the fraction of a point, he was silent. A lady near the hostess stirred softly both under and above the board. In her private chamber she would have yawned. Yet ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... "Well, well—I cannot gainsay you; but only let me know that I have got some one to love, and I will give up my wandering life and come and settle ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... side muscles quivered, his teeth chattered, his spittle dried up and he became blind about what to do. Upon this the Ifrit looked at him and cried, "There is no god but the God, and Sulayman is the prophet of God;" presently adding, "O Apostle of Allah, slay me not; never again will I gainsay thee in word nor sin against thee in deed."[FN66] Quoth the Fisherman, "O Marid,[FN67] diddest thou say, Sulayman the Apostle of Allah; and Sulayman is dead some thou sand and eight hundred years ago,[FN68] and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... nobles, and chiefs of Erin, Enda has proved himself a battle champion, and who amongst you now will dare gainsay his right to claim my ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... could rig you out a heliotrope quite sufficient with the aid of any common wooden clock.... Now I am going to take a liberty (but not till after duly consulting Mr. Greig with whose approbation I act, and you are not to gainsay our proceedings) and that is to communicate your results in the form of "an extract of a letter" to myself—to the Royal Society. You may be very sure that I would not do this if I thought that the experiments were not intrinsically quite deserving ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... discouragements carrying cheer and hope; a city missionary going to the degraded, the ignorant, and by his own efforts helping his fellow-men to a better life, to a knowledge of God—these are noble lives. You can see I am sure the difference, and you will not gainsay me when I assure you that the doctor and the missionary, though they may not be satisfied with themselves, or with their manner of working, are happy men, happy because they live outside of themselves. The coal miner who is not content with his wages is miserable, because he himself and his needs ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... us known, Why he should mean me ill, or seek to harm. Was I to have never parted from thy side? As good have grown there still a lifeless rib. Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head, Command me absolutely not to go, Going into such danger, as thou saidst? Too facile then, thou didst not much gainsay; Nay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss. Hadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent, Neither had I transgressed, nor thou with me. To whom, then first incensed, Adam replied. Is this the love, is this the recompence ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... again and have honor among the Kings, my fellows." So he spake, for it was so he thought day and night; and Agamemnon, King of Men, bore with him, and carried the voices of all the Achaeans. For since the death of Achilles there was no man stout enough to gainsay him, ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett

... little crown of carved gold, Which just appears to tell you are a king; If that were large and had a cowl of silk, Studded with gems, which none would dare gainsay, Then ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley

... tolerably plausible, and Jack was unable to gainsay it, though it was disagreeable to him to think of even a nominal connection between Ida ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... love to be led through the public. I did see the new bust of Mrs. Siddons, and a very mistressly performance it is indeed. Mrs. Damer was surprised at my saying I should expect you after you had not talked of returning near so soon. another week; she said. "I do not mention this, as if to gainsay your intention; on the contrary, I hope and beg you will stay as long as either of you thinks she finds the least benefit from it: and after that, too, as long as you both like to stay. I reproached myself ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... said: "When the son of King Sigmund is brought forth to the light of day And the world a man hath gotten, thy will shall I nought gainsay. And I thank thee for thy goodness, and I know the love of thine heart; And I see thy goodly kingdom, thy country set apart, With the day of peace begirdled from the change and the battle's wrack: 'Tis enough, and more than enough since none prayeth ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... Mr. Willet. I'm not one to gainsay you. I think we can be ready by daylight. Meanwhile you four rest, and I'll have food served to you. You've warned us and we can count upon you now to ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... by whom the nation's laws were made, And they who filled its judgment-seats, obeyed Thy mandate, rigid as the will of fate. Fierce men at thy right hand, With gesture of command, Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay; And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not, Shrank from thy presence, and, in blank dismay, Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought; While meaner cowards, mingling with thy train, Proved, from the book of God, thy right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... sharply. 'There are workers and idlers in all families—men born to honour or to dishonour—races apart—like the drones and the working bees. Look at my other nephew, for example—a man who has seven thousand a year, and not a creature to gainsay him if he chose to dissipate his days and nights on worldly pleasures. He is your true type of worker—a fine Greek scholar—a naturalist, a traveller, a thorough sportsman, where sport means courage, adventure, intelligence, endurance. Fortune made him a rich man, but he has made himself a man ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... have said, a free woman, and who can gainsay you? But I have known you, Edith, since we played as boy and girl on the heather-hills together. I will save you from this man's cunning and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... way gainsay him. He was disturbed in mind as if by the thought that the other might somehow trace on his countenance the idea that had lately flitted before his imagination. With both elbows on the table and his head bent forward, so that he annoyed Frederick ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my surviving contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, these delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which I cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thank them for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the king more than all the others together; it was the joy of seeing himself set above all those he hated, and above his principal foes; it might well seem to him that he would never in his life meet any to gainsay him in his kingdom, or in the neighborhood near him." He replied the same day to Sire de Craon, "Sir Count, my good friend, I have received your letters, and the good news you have brought to my knowledge, for which I thank you as much as I am able. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... M'Aulay," answered the old man, "it's no for my father's son to gainsay what your father's son thinks fit to say, an' so the Laird may no doubt win his wager. A' that I ken against it is, that the teil a candlestick, or ony thing like it, is in the house, except the auld airn ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... Justice: his Majesty is come, with Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon, and Peers and retinue, to hold Royal Session and have Edicts registered. What a change, since Louis XIV. entered here, in boots; and, whip in hand, ordered his registering to be done,—with an Olympian look which none durst gainsay; and did, without stratagem, in such unceremonious fashion, hunt as well as register! (Dulaure, vi. 306.) For Louis XVI., on this day, the Registering will be enough; if indeed he and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... ear. Ferdinand had no scruple. He sincerely prayed the Pope to sanction such a measure, and, swiftly as couriers could bring it, came the desired bull. Isabella could not blame the zeal of priests and monks; for she, too, was a zealot. She could not gainsay the urgency of the nuncio. She could not quench in her husband's bosom the thirst of gold. But she had brought half the kingdom as her dower; and therefore some deference was due to her conscience and judgment, and both in conscience and judgment she desired gentler measures. During ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... the flea, "I hearken to thine injunction and submit myself to yield thee obedience, nor have I power to gainsay thee, till life be fulfilled, in this fair intent." "Purity of intent suffices to sincere affection," replied the mouse. So love befell and was contracted between them and after this, the flea used (by night) to go to the merchant's bed and not exceed moderation ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... Judge Harrison's hands," said Mr. Linden after a moment's silence: "I should be very sorry to gainsay his wishes in any respect. And some of the boys deserve any honours ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... difference in his manner towards him. So strong was the hold which habit and association held over both father and son, that the one considered he had as good a right as ever to dictate, and the other that he had as little right as ever to gainsay. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... 'best'—aiei de neoteroi aphradeousin, 'Young men are always being foolish'. Of course, if there is a Basileus, a holy King, he by his special power may perhaps know best of all, though he too must take care not to gainsay the Old Men. ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... of his presence renewed the sinister misgivings with which March had parted from him the night before, but Fulkerson's cheerfulness seemed to gainsay them; afterward March did not know whether to attribute this mood to the slipperiness that he was aware of at times in Fulkerson, or to a cynical amusement he might have felt at leaving him alone to the old man, who mounted to his room shortly after ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... blind?" gasped Cynthia, with a great vehemence of woe, which seemed to gainsay the fact of her years. It seemed as if such an outburst of emotion could come only from a child all unacquainted with grief ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... that silence should again intervene, for I could not gainsay him. He closed his eyes as if asleep, and I paddled on in ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... left him to answer the attack. Taking no notice of the denial which Conway gave to his charge concerning Bute's holding paramount influence in the cabinet, which denial he could not with justice gainsay, he confined his remarks to Grenville's arguments and grave charge. Since, he said, that member had gone into the justice, policy, and expediency of the Stamp Act, he would follow him through the whole field, and combat all his arguments. He bitterly complained ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... competent to examine into the evidence, to doubt the reality of Lord Rosse's discoveries. It happens, however, that they have been recently placed beyond all doubt by testimony which it is impossible to gainsay. A witness never influenced by imagination has now come forward, and the infallible photographic plate has justified Lord Rosse. Among the remarkable discoveries which Dr. Isaac Roberts has recently made in the application ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... along the strand had accosted Hermione, that he himself had chased the villain off, but had tripped whilst trying to follow. If the tale was not of perfect workmanship at all points, there was no one with interest to gainsay it. A few ran up the hill slope, but the sailor was nowhere in sight. Hermione was still speechless. They made a litter of oars and sail-cloth and carried her to her mother. Democrates oiled Cleopis's palm ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... fast? see how the kindly flowers Perfume the air, and all to make thee stay: The climbing wood-bine, clipping all these bowers, Clips thee likewise for fear thou pass away; Fortune our friend, our foe will not gainsay. Stay but awhile, Ph[oe]be no tell-tale is; She her Endymion, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... shall take their proper place. If florins were introduced now, there must be a column for the odd shilling. "He was glad that some hon. If the hon. gentleman make gentleman had derived benefit this assertion of himself, it from the issue of florins. His is not for us to gainsay it. only experience of their It only proves that he is one convenience was, that when he of that class of {171} men who ought to have received are described in the old song, half-a-crown, he had generally of which one couplet runs received a florin, and when he thus: ought to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... of the seven deadly sins— pray God save us all therefrom!—yet is heresy, as the Church teacheth, an eighth deadlier than all the seven. And if holy Church hath the words of God, and is alonely guided of His Spirit, then must it be an awful and deadly sin to gainsay her bidding. There be that take in hand to question the same: whom holy Church condemneth. I Cicely cannot presume to speak thereof, not being a priest, unto whom alone it appertaineth to conceive such matter. 'Tis true, there be that say lay folk can as well conceive, and have ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... all fell away from him at once, and went about their business hither and thither through the hall. But the old crone took him by the hand, and led him up to the dais, and set him next to the midmost high-seat. Then she made as if she would do off his war-gear, and he would not gainsay her, though he deemed that foes might be anear; for in sooth he trusted in the old carle that he would not bewray him, and moreover he deemed it would be unmanly not to take the risks of the guesting, according to the custom of ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... no more convincing way To read so wise an author, than was thine. When burning Synagogues changed night to day, And red swords underscored each word and line. That was a light to read by! Who'd gainsay Authority so clearly stamped divine? On this side, death and torture, flame and slaughter, On that, a ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... "Would you gainsay me, you lying lawyer," bellowed the King again. "I tell you they must be wrong, since otherwise the sum is short by L1100 of that which I was promised. Where are the L1100? You must ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... chorus—foolish enough; but if I go out of the door to the hills again, refreshed for them and lifted up to them, with the strength of the ages in my limbs, great voices all around me, flocking my solitary walk—who shall gainsay me? ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... some sort of composure; but she declared she could stay no longer in a house where her son had been ill-used and deceived, and she had been insulted. The alderman thought the insult had been the other way, but he was too glad to be rid of her on any terms to gainsay her, and at his own charge, undertook to procure horse and escort to convey her safely to Salisbury the next morning. He advised Stephen to keep out of her sight for the rest of the day, giving leave of absence, so that the youth, as one treading on air, set forth to carry to his brother, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... error. We cannot, therefore, consent to test the truth of natural science by the Word of Revelation. But this does not make it the less important to point out on scientific grounds scientific errors, when those errors tend to limit God's glory in creation, or to gainsay the revealed relations of that creation to Himself. To both these classes of error, though, we doubt not, quite unintentionally on his part, we think that Mr. Darwin's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... country, but to add, from the proceeds of Irish taxes, between L600,000 and L700,000 a-year to British revenue. That exposition, he said, had now run the gauntlet of three Chancellors of the Exchequer and a Prime Minister, and he thought they might take it for granted that no man in the House could gainsay it. Turning to the threat of resignation made by the Russell Cabinet, Lord George said, it was only consistent with the independence of that House and the country, that when the Government rejected a measure which ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... do well, but so did the others. The Y. W. C. A. made little claim about its work in France, since the United States Government would not, until nearly at the close of the war, allow women to be sent over in the uniforms of any of the war-work organizations. But no one can gainsay for a single moment the efficient service rendered by the Y. W. C. A. in its hostess-house work in the American camps; that work alone would have entitled it to the support of the American people. That of the Y. M. C. A. was on so large a scale that naturally its inefficiency ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... mysteries, we are driven therefore to appeal to yet another mystery, that is to say, a special sense denied to mankind. Charles Darwin, whose weighty authority no one will gainsay, arrives at the same conclusion. To ask if the animal be not impressed by the terrestrial currents, to enquire if it be not influenced by the close proximity of a magnetic needle: what is this but ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... King's peace by an invasion of Spanish territory, if Guiana were Spanish. He maintained that it was as much English as it was Spanish, if not more; and they neither dared, in the existing state of national opinion, nor perhaps cared, to gainsay the doctrine. His alleged schemes for the maritime spoliation of Spaniards may well have been to his mind lawful. All English seamen, and the nation at large, believed that the articles of peace between the two kingdoms did not extend beyond the Equator. In the latest treaty with Spain, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... giving a big ball on the 13th, and she is insistent that Rose should be present. It will be the child's first ball, and I cannot gainsay her. But, Patty, I should like you both to go. You are seventeen, are ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... for me, I know not. In after days I told this to Alfred the king when he wondered at my sword, and he said that he thought an earthquake opened and washing rain closed the mound, but that it happened strangely for me. I cannot gainsay his wise words, and I ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... I could not gainsay her, for every mile of ocean crossed makes my heart beat faster. I seem to be living just now in a sort of pause between my different lives. There is the heaven of my childhood in the vague background; ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... making; by which the town's markets and chartered fairs were to be accessible, from all directions, for generations yet unborn. In our present iron ways, we might well suppose that we have attained the highest evolutionary stage in expeditious traffic; but who, indeed, shall venture to gainsay, that as a sequel to our wireless telegraphy, we may one day eschew the mundane altogether, and become ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... room that was to have been her mother's, experienced various chaotic sensations of mingled pleasure and pain. For the first time in her life of full womanhood she was alone,— independent,—free to come or go as she listed, with no one to gainsay her wishes, or place a check on her caprices. She had deliberately thrown off her aunt's protection; and with that action, had given up the wealth and luxury with which she had been lavishly surrounded ever since her father's death. For reasons of her own, which she considered ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... is wisdom in your dreams, Mopo," she said at length. "You were ever a strange man, to whom the gates of distance are no bar. Now it is borne in upon my heart that Umslopogaas still lives, and now I shall die happy. Yes, gainsay me not; I shall die, I know it. I read it in the king's eyes. But what is it? It is nothing, if only the prince ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... a lady gives a farewell sign to one she favours for the moment, shall not the prisoner take it as his own?" (I knew he was recalling Alixe's farewell gesture to me at the manor.) "Who shall gainsay our peacock? Shall the guinea cock? The golden crumb was thrown to the guinea cock, but that's no matter. The peacock clatters of the crumb." At that he spoke an instant in Duvarney's ear. I saw the lad's face flush, and he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... while he might the inevitable rout; Then sought his death, and found. Some fated Power Mightier than man's that hour dragged back his hosts Against their will and his; as when the moon, Shrouded herself, drags back the great sea-tides That needs must follow her receding wheels Though wind and wave gainsay them, breakers wan Thundering indignant down nocturnal shores, And city-brimming floods against their will Down drawn to river-mouths. In after days Who scaped made oath that in the midmost fight The green earth sickened with a brazen glare While darkness held the skies. ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... was certain, therefore, that we could not regain our arms without immediately using them in very active fighting; and no matter how well we fought, under these conditions we must certainly be defeated in the end. All of which was so just and so reasonable that Young could not in anywise gainsay its propriety; but he was in a very ill humor at being restrained from the pleasure of having it out with them, as he grumblingly declared; and as we passed out into the court-yard he relieved his mind by swearing ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... lightly and easily he made him ready to be gone. He pledged oath and faith to all that Vortigern required, and after he had so done Vortigern took him with a strong hand from the monastery, none daring to gainsay his deed. When Vortigern was assured of his fealty, he caused Constant to put off the monk's serge, and clothe him in furs and rich raiment. He carried him to London, and sat him in his father's chair, though not with the voice and welcome of the people. The archbishop who ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... am far from all persecution—I can set down the truth fearlessly. I can dip the pen in my own blood if I choose, and none shall gainsay me! For the green silence of a vast South American forest encompasses me—the grand and stately silence of a virginal nature, almost unbroken by the ruthless step of man's civilization—a haven of perfect calm, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... position had been that unless the house was rebuilt—by him—at great expense, it was pretty sure to come tumbling down, as these here old houses mostly did, it was difficult for the gentleman of independent means to gainsay him, especially as the latter's wife became a convert to Mr. Bartlett on the spot. It was his responsible and practical manner that did it. She directed her husband—a feeble sample of the manhood of Brixton—not to set up his judgment against ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... levy of the Empire for at least a twelvemonth, he moved on into Syria. In this narrow land his chief business, as we have seen, was with the coast towns. He must have all the ports in his hand before going up into Asia. The lesser dared not gainsay the victorious phalanx; but the queen of them all, Tyre, mistress of the eastern trade, shut the gates of her island citadel and set the western intruder the hardest military task of his life. But the capture of the chief base of the hostile fleets which ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... his habit to hesitate, and at daybreak he had sent for his mother's messengers that they might inform her of his resolve. No one dared to gainsay him, and he expected it least of all from her whom he designed to raise so high. But she felt utterly estranged from him, and would gladly have told him to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was a fine woman, and the quarters were comfortable. I do not gainsay it. But marriage, d'ye see, is a citadel that it is plaguy easy to find one's way into, but once in old Tilly himself could not bring one out again with credit, I have known such a device on the Danube, where at the first onfall the Mamelukes have abandoned ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 'tis so easy to thus gainsay the love that burns me? But shame were it that I, beggared in fortune, my friends few, should wed her in my dire need, dragging thereby peaceful Mortain to mine aid and the bloody arbitrament of battle. Moreover, hast forgot the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... mystery, roots and all, before sunset, and the night come, when no man can work. Beside such a man, God stands in more and more visible presence as he toils, and teaches him that which no preacher can teach—no earthly authority gainsay. By such a man, the preacher ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... should be allowed to murder strangers and to outrage Your Grace's loyal subjects in the name of Your Lordship's justice. Sir Maximilian du Guelph has demanded the combat against this Count Calli. Sir Maximilian is a spurred and belted knight, and under the laws of chivalry even Your Grace may not gainsay him." ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... smith, abruptly. "I'm sorry to gainsay you, lad, but there are reasons why I had rather you stayed down ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the 'guru' feeds not on air—although, of course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope must be cast, and—well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and—no! not butter—five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and significations—well, that again was only reasonable. ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... preached Christ "out of contention," were to be blamed, because, although they did not gainsay the truth of faith, but preached it, yet they did gainsay the truth, by the fact that they thought they would "raise affliction" to the Apostle who was preaching the truth of faith. Hence the Apostle rejoiced not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... nothing but what I have told you. What I have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens

... you have nowise offended; but wherein you have offended your husband I know not, save that he hath commanded me slay you by the way, without having any pity upon you, threatening me, an I did it not, to have me hanged by the neck. You know well how much I am beholden to him and how I may not gainsay him in aught that he may impose upon me; God knoweth it irketh me for you, but I can no otherwise.' Whereupon quoth the lady, weeping, 'Alack, for God's sake, consent not to become the murderer of one who hath never wronged thee, to serve another! God who knoweth all knoweth that I never did ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... shield of the formidable Templar. It was, indeed, a splendid moment! What matter that no Templar was allowed by the rules of his Order to take part in so secular and frivolous an affair as a tournament? It is the privilege of great masters to make things so, and it is a churlish thing to gainsay it. Was it not Wendell Holmes who described the prosaic man, who enters a drawing-room with a couple of facts, like ill-conditioned bull-dogs at his heels, ready to let them loose on any play of fancy? The great writer can ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... dreadful nervous idea, and thus by interweaving they were overlapped and lost. But I am not disposed to submit to that wrong. I affirm steadily that the foundations of Political Economy are rotten and crazy. I defy, and taking up my stand as a scholar of Aristotle, I defy all men to gainsay the following exposures of folly, one or any of them. And when I show the darkness all round the very base of the hill, all readers may judge how great is that darkness.' Or, 2. Shall I introduce them as a chapter ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... with wanton tyranny, which it was certainly not the place of a reefer on his first cruise to do; if Mr Reid and the rest of the officers were content with the position of affairs it was not for me to gainsay them. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... health. Mirth recreates our spirites and voydeth pensiuenesse, Mirth increaseth amitie, not hindring our wealth, Mirth is to be vsed both of more and lesse, Being mixed with vertue in decent comlynesse. As we trust no good nature can gainsay the same: Which mirth we intende to vse, auoidyng all blame. The wyse Poets long time heretofore, Vnder merrie Comedies secretes did declare, Wherein was contained very vertuous lore, With mysteries and forewarnings very rare. Suche ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall

... him into his own seat at the board, and gave him to drink; and Stephen withal served him with all care, so that he was in an hospitable house, save that the goodman cast somewhat grudging glances on him, but whereas he might not gainsay all the rest of his household, ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... Murray has sent you, or will send (for I do not know whether they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last summer. By the mass! they're sublime—'Ganion Coheriza'—gainsay who dares! Pray, let me hear from you, and of you, and, at least, let me know that you have received these three letters. Direct, right here, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various

... Sir Thomas, is proditorious, and I will not gainsay its honest testimony: yet would I rather endeavour to profit by the reprehension than seek to show that it was uncalled for. If I know myself I am never prone to undervalue either the advantages or acquirements which I do not possess. That knowledge is said to be ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... in the opinions, prejudices, or fears of any class, however powerful. The path of the elector to the ballot box must be free from the ambush of fear and the enticements of fraud; the count so true and open that none shall gainsay it. Such a law should be absolutely nonpartisan and impartial. It should give the advantage to honesty and the control to majorities. Surely there is nothing sectional about this creed, and if it shall happen that the penalties of laws intended to enforce these rights fall here and not there ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... shown that all theories which would declare any man to be incapable of improvement, are to be condemned absolutely. The possibilities of reform exist in every case, and the probabilities are never to be denied. None can gainsay this statement nor can it be termed extravagant, for with the imperfect machinery now in use results are being attained which justify every syllable of it. Yet in the face of these results, the "exterminators" still proclaim their policy. They ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... as to violating what he believed to be duty, there is not the slightest evidence that such was his character, but abundance to the contrary. He is found under circumstances that make him amenable to the law; let him be tried,—I do not gainsay that; but let him have the common sentiments of humanity extended toward him, even if ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... you for the last time,' cried he, 'let me in peaceably. If you will come with me, I will take you, and your child also, to a pleasant place. I will make a gentleman of him and a lady of you. But if you gainsay me another moment, I'll batter in the door, dash the brains of your brat out against the wall and carry you off ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... which they spoke, as they lay head to the wind, and for a better view of which she had climbed to this position. It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere; if people chose to drown themselves, he was not the man to gainsay them; but now, as his walk drew him toward her, it was the most natural thing in the world to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... Snowflake, bound upward from the line, He smothers her with canvas along the crumbling brine. He crowds her till she buries and shudders from his hand, For in the angry sunset the watch has sighted land; And he will brook no gainsay who goes to meet his bride. But their will is the wind's will who traffic on the tide. Make home, my bonny schooner! The sun goes down to light The gusty crimson wind-halls against ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman

... pound, and Turkey eight; and thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I can not gainsay them; and truth ever was and will be commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... in the metropolis; and a picture gallery is in progress. Altogether, the improvement is equally honourable to the genius of the architect, and the taste of the illustrious proprietor of the mansion; for no foreigner can gainsay that Apsley House has the befitting splendour of a ducal, nay even of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various

... here a stag-hound bitch, and she has a litter of whelps. Let us kill some of the cubs, and rub the blood on the face and hands of Rhiannon, and lay the bones before her, and assert that she herself hath devoured her son, and she alone will not be able to gainsay us six." And according to this counsel it was settled. And towards morning Rhiannon awoke, and she said, "Women, where is my son?" "Lady," said they, "ask us not concerning thy son, we have nought but the blows and the bruises we got by struggling with thee, and of a truth we never ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... passes art thou bringing us!—Out of the loud-piping whirlwind, audibly to him that has ears, the Highest God is again announcing in these days: "Idleness shall not be." God has said it, man cannot gainsay. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles used it—as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic, scoffer as he was, listened ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... Vanheimert, aghast at the quiet statement, which it never occurred to him to gainsay. Stingaree pared a pipeful of tobacco and rubbed it fine before troubling ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... entirely upon Higgleby, her resentment seemed less directed toward the offending male than toward the Chicago lady who was his lawful wife. There was no question as to the circumstances to which she so definitely and aggressively testified. No one could gainsay the deplorable fact that she had, as she supposed, been linked in lawful wedlock to Mr. Tutt's isosceles client. But there was that in her manner which suggested that she felt that being the last she should be first, that finding ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... a quiet dignity which he could not gainsay. "And that is the very reason that I will not marry you. I love you too well—so well that I can never allow you to become the father ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... as a theologian. The scholars slight his Homeric disquisitions. Consistency was a virtue which he probably too often scouted, but his high purpose, his spotlessness of spirit, and strong control of men no one can gainsay. In the slang of the street of that time he was the "G.O.M.," the Grand Old Man as well to those who fought him as to those who loved him. An impressive incident of the session occurred in the address of the "Mover of the Queen's Speech." The orator in brilliant ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... let her in and mix her a refreshing drink, and of meeting Esther the next day at dinner and telling her what a good house they had. Business, Madame Beattie called it, splendid business, and Esther hated her for that, too. It sounded like shoes or hosiery. But Ether didn't dare gainsay her, for fear she would put out a palmist's sign, or a notice of seances at twenty-five cents a head. Esther knew she could get no help from grandmother. When she sought it, with tears in her eyes, begging grandmother to turn the unprincipled old witch out for good, grandmother only pulled the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... been seen mending the meshes of the broken net, making ready for another day or night of toil, while I would have preferred to sit with the five thousand upon the green grass, to be fed. But I never could gainsay or resist the few, simply spoken words, that revealed the cherished purpose of his soul, adorned, as they were, with eloquence of his unobtrusive and devoted piety. Of the difficulties and hardships endured by that faithful little band before a flourishing ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... the most opposed to us, but what their judicious friends already think and would be forced to admit,—this is the height of my ambition." Such was his proclamation, such has been his practice. No one has ever been bold enough to gainsay it. An equity so great, so unvarying, has almost staggered his brethren of the craft. "It is grand, it is royal," says M. Scherer,—who has himself approached near enough to the same summit to appreciate its height,—"only in him it cannot be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... we both know, when she will, she will; I defy any man to gainsay her. She arrived two weeks ago by way of New Orleans, with a Monsieur and Madame Dubois, newly married, I believe, who were coming over to ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... the Usefulness of Ancient Medals, says, "A series of an Emperor's Coins is his life digested into Annals." Who shall, therefore, gainsay the the utility of A Numismatic Manual, or Guide to the Study of Coins. The author, Mr. John Y. Akerman, does not intend his volume exclusively for the use of the experienced medallist, so that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... uninstructed. The passages given from the poet need not be relevant to the text of the critic; they might be quite irrelevant and serve the imaginable end still better. For instance, some passages might be given in the teeth of the critic, and made to gainsay what he had been saying. This would probably send the reader, if he was very much perplexed, to the poet himself, which was the imaginable end. He might be disappointed one way or he might be disappointed the other way, but in the mean while he would have passed his time, and he would have instructed ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... viewing her rumpled, gown with rueful eyes. "As thou sayest, there is the pool yonder! So come, get thee to bed and—sleep! Come, let me cover thee with thy cloak and gainsay me not; sleep ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... her plans for the future? They died with her. None living could gainsay the existing will, and the well-known intentions of Sir Nicholas and his widow, that Drogo should hold all till Hubert returned—in trust ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... two hundred and fifty, five hundred, a thousand, fifteen hundred, yes, two thousand and ninety-nine miles away—messages that were written down automatically as they came, being permanent records that none might gainsay and that ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... in a long and swelling black mass behind. His countenance, evidently from long experience, was so controlled that no trace of natural expression could be discerned upon it beyond an appearance of caution and diplomacy; but whatever its specific character, it bore without gainsay ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... of princely race: The nuns might not gainsay: And sadly passed the timid band, To execute the high ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... aid he would make something of himself which would be worthy of her. At last he had the incentive to enable him to take his place in the world. He pictured their future life at Grenoble until her heart was strained with yearning for it to begin. Here would be duty,—let him who would gainsay it, duty and love combined with a wondrous happiness. He at a man's labour, she at a woman's; labour not for themselves alone, but for others. A paradise such as never was heard of—a God-fearing paradise, and the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... fairly tried. Her friends consented; and no sooner had Appius heard the matter than he gave judgment that the maiden should be delivered up to the claimant, who should be bound to produce her in case her alleged father appeared to gainsay the claim. Now this judgment was directly against one of the laws of the twelve tables, which Appius himself had framed; for therein it was provided that any person being at freedom should continue free till it was proved ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... was like him? Fleet as an arrow, Strong as a bison, Lithe as a panther, Soft as the south-wind, Who was like Wawah? There is one other Stronger and fleeter, Bearing no wampum, Wearing no war-paint, Ruler of councils, Chief of the war-path,— Who can gainsay him, Who can defy him? His is the lightning, His is the whirlwind. Let us be humble, We are but ashes,— 'T is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... argue, the worse you are off. It is not the place for metaphysics, it is the place for affirmation. Woman is the counterpart of man; she has the same divine image, having the same natural and inalienable rights as man. To state the proposition is enough; it contains the argument, and nobody can gainsay it, in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... ridiculous squeamishness in the use of certain honest words, Landor remarked: "You Americans are very proper people; you have difficulties, but not diseases. Legs are unknown,—you have limbs; and under no consideration do you go to bed,—you retire." Much of this I could not gainsay, for only a few days previously I had been severely frowned upon for making inquiries about a broken leg. "My dear," said Landor to a young American girl who had been speaking of the city of New Orleens,—such being the ordinary Southern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... lines of an ugly body with each other, and by enhancing the given purity and expressiveness of his material, the artist can create a beauty of form overlying the repellence of the subject, and if he can make us feel the tragedy or pathos of age and disease, no one can gainsay his work. In his "Aged Helmet-Maker's Wife," Rodin has perhaps accomplished this. [Footnote: See Rodin's own defense of this statue in ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... was he minded to lie. Even so soon as his men had struck sail said King Magnus unto them: 'Now shall my men take their places by the bulwarks and fall to their oars, and the others shall undo their weapons and arm themselves, and if Harald and his men gainsay us and will not make way, then will we fight them.' When King Harald saw that King Magnus was minded to give battle spake he to his men and said: 'Cut the hawsers and let us put off; wroth is now kinsman Magnus.' So said so done; and the ships of Harald were hove out ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... one except The Panther, something in the nature of a revolt would have been probable; but no one dared gainsay that fearful leader, who, like Philip, chief of the Wampanoags, had mortally smitten the warrior that dared to suggest an opposite policy to that ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... in the neighborhood of Quebec, at Sillery, it is said. Whether they found all things couleur-de- rose, as the clever Mrs. Brooke had described them,—whether they enjoyed as much Arcadian bliss as the Letters of Emily Montague had promised—it would be very ungallant for us to gainsay, seeing that Mrs. Brooke is not present to vindicate herself. As to the literary merit of the novel, this much we will venture to assert, that setting aside the charm of association, we doubt that Emily Montague ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... insolence of a common citizen like John of Olden-Barneveld be digested? It was certain that behind those shaggy, overhanging brows there was a powerful brain stored with legal and historic lore, which supplied eloquence to an ever-ready tongue and pen. Yet these facts, difficult to gainsay, did not make the demands so frequently urged by the States-General upon the English Government for the enforcement of Dutch rights and the redress of English wrongs the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... peace. I've lived a long time with no man to gainsay me. I'll take what comes now and thank the Lord it's no worse. We'll leave the cabin to the women, after I see that they have no fright about it, and we'll sleep in the fodder. There ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... single rule in Science, and demonstrates its Principle according to rule, is master of the situation. Nobody can gainsay this. The ego- tistical theorist or shallow moralist may presume to [15] make innovations upon simple proof; but his mistake is visited upon himself and his students, whose minds are, must be, disturbed by this discord, which extends along the whole line of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... Mr. Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp, the Micawbers and the Squeerses, can never die. . . . They are more real than we are ourselves, and will outlive and outlast us, as they have outlived their creator. This is the one proof of genius which no critic, not the most carping or dissatisfied, can gainsay." ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... risks, to keep above the female line, makes a sharp dip below it, till it reaches its lowest point at twenty-five, the age when the excesses of youth have had time to tell most on the system.[1] Here, at least, is evidence that none can gainsay. The more you ponder that mysterious sharp dip in the man's line of life at the very age which Nature intended should be the prime and flower of life, the more deeply you will feel that some deep and hidden danger lies concealed there, the more earnestly you will come to the conclusion that ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... to-day; and I know not how to gainsay you," returned Sibyll, as the dogs, reluctantly beaten off, retired each from each, snarling and reluctant, while a small black cur, that had hitherto sat unobserved at the door of a small hostelrie, now coolly approached and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... priests, prophets, and apostles used it—as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic, scoffer as he was, listened in spite ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... go out to the man who helps to make their dreams come true. If I've learned anything of good women in life, Simon, it is that. And, no saying, I may be wrong in that, too, Simon, but so far I've met no man who knows more of it than I to gainsay me. You marry Mary Snow, Simon, and she will bear you children who will bring new light to a ...
— The Trawler • James Brendan Connolly

... of October, 1512, the degree was conferred. It was no empty title to Luther. It gave him liberties and rights which his enemies could not gainsay, and it laid on him obligations and duties which he never forgot. The obedience to the canons and the hierarchy which it exacted he afterward found inimical to Christ and the Gospel, and, as in duty bound, ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... been unobservant, Miss Drayton," continued the Captain, "of the—what shall I say?—the moral transfiguration of your character. It has been an argument as to the spiritual reality of religion that I could not gainsay. I have always observed its outward forms. I was duly baptized and confirmed, and have regularly taken the sacrament. But I feel the need of something more—something which I am sure my mother had, for if there ever was a saint on earth she ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... radical changes of environment known to man. Every condition of city life, mental as well as physical, is at the polar extreme from those which prevail in the country. To deny that great modifications in human structure and functions may be effected by a change from one to the other is to gainsay all the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... detrimental possession; in a word, that the subject is not only unprofitable (a grave offence), but also uninteresting, and therefore contemptible. This is a true estimate of general opinion, although there are those who will, for their own sakes, gainsay it. ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn

... the world gainsay, The word of God can never fail; The Lamb shall take my sins away, 'Tis certain, though impossible; The thing impossible shall be, All things are possible ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... gold do not tempt me; I will not gainsay fortune, who has better things in store ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... what passes art thou bringing us!—Out of the loud-piping whirlwind, audibly to him that has ears, the Highest God is again announcing in these days: "Idleness shall not be." God has said it, man cannot gainsay. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... Henry. You can't gainsay it. Some people like the old-fashioned cooking the best. But the public, the majority demand something different. Even if they eat the same sort of food they ate when younger, they demand it be served differently. Let me call your attention ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... We could not gainsay this, and as not one of us wanted to kill the animal or let her go, Jones had his way. So he went up the tree, passed the first branch and then another. The lioness changed her position, growled, spat, clawed the twigs, tried to keep the tree trunk between her and Jones, and at length got ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... "I won't gainsay that, Colonel," answered Melville, adroitly. "I confess I am not very hungry, and I will further confess that I have something ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... should put this question unto thee, how this word Antoninus is written, wouldst thou not presently fix thine intention upon it, and utter out in order every letter of it? And if any shall begin to gainsay thee, and quarrel with thee about it; wilt thou quarrel with him again, or rather go on meekly as thou hast begun, until thou hast numbered out every letter? Here then likewise remember, that every duty that belongs unto a man doth consist of some certain letters or numbers ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... brought up that way. He cannot help it. He never had anyone to gainsay him. Do not be hard on him. And if he ever sues for pardon, be merciful ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... seen it, if so he might speed. When they of the Round Table heard Sir Gawain say so, they arose, the most part of them, and vowed the same. When King Arthur heard this, he was greatly displeased, for he knew well that they might not gainsay their vows. "Alas!" said he to Sir Gawain, "you have nigh slain me with the vow and promise that ye have made, for ye have bereft me of the fairest fellowship that ever were seen together in any realm of the world; for when they shall depart hence, I am sure that all shall never ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced ex cathedra his doctrines, and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... so fast? see how the kindly flowers Perfume the air, and all to make thee stay: The climbing wood-bine, clipping all these bowers, Clips thee likewise for fear thou pass away; Fortune our friend, our foe will not gainsay. Stay but awhile, Ph[oe]be no tell-tale is; She her Endymion, I'll ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... Ferris, "and I have made enemies of all the officials here. But Alice is mine. I hold her in the hollow of my hand. My wife! That she cannot gainsay." ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... neighbours that died four year since, or more. Divers times he says he has seen him, and talked with him, and took with him the curate, the schoolmaster, and other neighbours, who all affirm that they see him. These things be so common here that none in authority will gainsay it, but rather believe and confirm it, that everybody believes it. If I had known how to examine with authority, I would have done it."[1] Here is a little glimpse at the practical troubles of a well-intentioned bishop of the sixteenth century that ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... I should be ashamed to gainsay what you have said; if I did, it would neither be a noble ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... laughed; "It hath had none other a long while," said he; "and at least there is no other son of Adam here to gainsay." ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... what, who was she, to undertake to gainsay these prelates, these doctors? How dared she speak before so many able men—men who had studied? Was there not presumption and damnable pride in an ignorant girl's opposing herself to the learned—a poor, simple girl, to men in authority? Undoubtedly fears ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... enjoying the golden sunset while the old man smoked. Marsh explained that he had excused himself from his guests to go whither his inclination led him, and drew his seat close to Mildred, rejoicing in the fact that no one could gainsay him this privilege. In reality, he had been drawn to The Grande Dame largely by a lurking fear of Emerson. He was not entirely sure of the girl, and would not feel secure until the shores of Kalvik ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... whispered Mary Strathsay in my ear, hastening to get the glittering apparel aside, lest my mother should gainsay us. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... fine woman, and the quarters were comfortable. I do not gainsay it. But marriage, d'ye see, is a citadel that it is plaguy easy to find one's way into, but once in old Tilly himself could not bring one out again with credit, I have known such a device on the Danube, where at the first onfall the Mamelukes have abandoned ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... be quiet, Jack!" said Hardin. "Why will you be so presumptuous as to gainsay a prophet's assertions! Go on, Aunt Patty; he will not ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... injustice For you or any. How far I have proceeded, Or how far further shall, is warranted By a commission from the consistory, Yea, the whole consistory of Rome. You charge me That I have blown this coal. I do deny it. The King is present: if it be known to him That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound, And worthily, my falsehood! yea, as much As you have done my truth. If he know That I am free of your report, he knows I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him It lies to cure me; and the cure is, to Remove ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]

... in Science, and demonstrates its Principle according to rule, is master of the situation. Nobody can gainsay this. The ego- tistical theorist or shallow moralist may presume to [15] make innovations upon simple proof; but his mistake is visited upon himself and his students, whose minds are, must be, disturbed by this discord, which extends along the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... days was the Rev. John Smith, a tall, strongly-built man, who loomed large in the pulpit as a champion of old-fashioned orthodoxy. His manner of delivery was soporific, his voice thick and monotonous, but none could gainsay the learning and intellectual power of ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... Florence,—which her aunt could hardly believe,—"and I didn't know what to say; and then he went on quietly to speak of her in the most beautiful way, and assured me there were other and graver reasons which led to her decision, some of which, at least, he could not gainsay, and Mr. Stuyvesant's wealth and social position had very little to do with the fact of her finally marrying him, as she did, and not until several years after the engagement ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... me, O auspicious King, that quoth the lady, " 'O Wardan, which of the two courses wouldst thou take; either obey me in what I shall say and be the means of thine own safety and competency to the end of thy days, or gainsay me and so cause thine own destruction?'[FN434] Answered I, 'I choose rather to hearken unto thee: say what thou wilt.' Quoth she, 'Then slay me, as thou hast slain this bear, and take thy need of this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... pure, at least heartfelt and strong—"why should you care for a man who thus mocks you? Here am I, who love you, truly—madly—more than my own life! 'Tis not too late to withdraw the answer you have given me. Gainsay it, and there need be no change—no going to Texas. Your father's home may still be his, and yours. Say you'll be my wife, and everything shall be restored to him—all will yet ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... there is wisdom in your dreams, Mopo," she said at length. "You were ever a strange man, to whom the gates of distance are no bar. Now it is borne in upon my heart that Umslopogaas still lives, and now I shall die happy. Yes, gainsay me not; I shall die, I know it. I read it in the king's eyes. But what is it? It is nothing, if only the ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... salvation; her on whom, taken as a whole, the devil's jaws are never to inflict a deadly bite; her against whom whoever rebels, however much he preach Christ with his mouth, has no more hold on Christ than the publican or the heathen. Such a loud pronouncement he dared not gainsay; he would not seem rebellious against a Church of which the Scriptures make such frequent mention: so he cunningly kept the name, while by his definition he utterly abolished the thing, He has depicted the Church with such properties as altogether hide her away, and leave her open ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say, My tears gainsay; for every word I speak, Ye see I drink the water of my eyes. Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign, Is prisoner to the foe, his state usurp'd, His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... sensitive, and if not conceited was intolerably conscious, who had met with incredible kindness, and had suffered no more than was good for him, though he might not have merited his pain any more than his joy, I do not know that I should gainsay him, for I am not at all sure that I was not just that kind of youth when I paid my first visit to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... bad, that last psa'm, I won't gainsay. As for that long-legged boy o' mine, I keep silence, yea, even from hard words, considerin' what's to come. But 'tis given to flutes to make a noticeable sound, whether ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... issuing shares?" said the mistress. "Do you think people would have paid their money with your brain as sole guarantee? You! Get along; I am the only one to make bargains like that, and you are the only one with whom I make them. Go, Marechal, give him his money; I won't gainsay it. But you are a trickster, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... expect to be with my surviving contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, these delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which I cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thank them for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... and causeth health. Mirth recreates our spirites and voydeth pensiuenesse, Mirth increaseth amitie, not hindring our wealth, Mirth is to be vsed both of more and lesse, Being mixed with vertue in decent comlynesse. As we trust no good nature can gainsay the same: Which mirth we intende to vse, auoidyng all blame. The wyse Poets long time heretofore, Vnder merrie Comedies secretes did declare, Wherein was contained very vertuous lore, With mysteries and forewarnings very rare. Suche to write neither Plautus nor Terence ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall

... of their mystery. No difficulty is too great for the author to meet, and none seems able to upset his theory. In truth, the book is one of the most profound ever published in Boston, and whatever opinion may be given regarding its principles, none can gainsay its vigor of understanding and reach of learning. The pertinent question, Who reads an American book? will change somewhat its meaning, if American literature takes the abstruse direction indicated by Mr. Stallo's ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen

... princely race; The nuns might not gainsay; And sadly passed the timid band, To execute the high command They ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... us, what will become of us, from whom the fruits of our own soil, and the commodities of our own labor, which, with the sweat of our brows, even up to the knees in mire and dirt, we have labored for, shall be taken by warrant of supreme authority, which the poor subject dare not gainsay?" Mr. George Moore said, "We know the power of her majesty cannot be restrained by any act. Why, wherefore, should we thus talk s Admit we should make this statute with a non obstante; yet the queen may ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... powers and favours to which she so boldly laid claim. And he stood watching her in the doorway, praying in his heart to all gods and demons, principalities and powers, from Athene down to his daughter's guardian spirit, to move a determination which he was too weak to gainsay, and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... something must be done with the boy at once; that if he was permitted to continue on the place, he might take a notion to burn the house down. Poor Bertha could not gainsay her father's conclusion, and, sad as it was, she was compelled to leave the culprit to whatever decision Mr. Grant might reach. For the present he was ordered to his room, to which he submissively went, attended by Bertha, though he was fully resolved not to be "taken ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... wicked; but I had found out all about her long ago; and I was amazed at her audacity. What she said was true—we were married; or rather, we went through the ceremony, at St. Clement Danes, in London, in the year '50. I could not gainsay that; but I well knew what she thought was known but to herself and another. She had a husband living then. We lived together little more than three months. We were not a year parted when I found out all about him; and I never ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... and lost. But I am not disposed to submit to that wrong. I affirm steadily that the foundations of Political Economy are rotten and crazy. I defy, and taking up my stand as a scholar of Aristotle, I defy all men to gainsay the following exposures of folly, one or any of them. And when I show the darkness all round the very base of the hill, all readers may judge how great is that darkness.' Or, 2. Shall I introduce them as ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... replied the trapper. "Yis, the woods be my home; and ef livin' in 'em gives man a right, few would gainsay my claim. Yis, it's thirty years agone sence I hefted the fust trout from this pool, and br'iled him on the bank there,—and a toothsome supper he made for me, too. Lord-a-massy, boy," exclaimed the old man, half turning ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... support a candidate of any party whatsoever whose nomination issues from dishonest primaries. It is notorious that the caucuses preliminary to this man's nomination were packed. Can you gainsay it, Mr. Shelby? ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... liefer have sat there and seen all the plays to the end, for they seemed to him exceeding fair, and like to ravish the soul from the body; howbeit, being shamefaced, he knew not how to gainsay the brother, who took him by the hand, and led him through the press to the west front of the minster, where on the north side was a little door in a nook. So they went up a stair therein a good way till they came into a gallery over the western door; and looking forth thence Ralph ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... thou camest to man's estate, I dared not acquaint thee with the truth of the matter, lest it should stir up a war of revenge between you. Moreover, thy grandfather had enjoined me to secrecy, and I could not gainsay the commandment of thy mother's father, Herdoub, King of the Greeks. This, then, is why I forbore to tell thee that thy father was King Omar ben Ennuman; but, when thou camest to the throne, I told thee [what thou knowest]; and the rest I could not reveal to thee till this moment. So now, O King ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... Cynthia, with a great vehemence of woe, which seemed to gainsay the fact of her years. It seemed as if such an outburst of emotion could come only from a child all unacquainted with grief and ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... any one spoken to me as Mother Anastasia had just spoken. Never before had I felt as I felt in leaving the house where she had spoken to me. I did not admit all that she had said; and yet not even to myself could I gainsay her statements. I was not convinced that I had been wrong, but I could not help feeling that she was right. I was angry, I was mortified, I was grieved. The world seemed cold and dark, and the coldest and darkest ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... is pathetic, Chopin is pathos itself; if the one is broad and comprehensive, the other is high and deep; the one appealing to the soul through a noble intellect, the other reaching it through every nerve and fibre of our basic being. Rubens is a great artist, but does that gainsay Raphael? Are not Beethoven and Chopin twin stars of undying glory in the musical firmament, and can we not offer true homage to both, as they blaze so high above us? Shall the royal purple so daze our eyes, that we cannot see the depths of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... people who liked a joke rather better than anything else; in his old age, his infidelity was something that would hardly have been changed, if possible, by a popular vote. Even his wife, to whom it had once been a heavy cross, borne with secret prayer and tears, had long ceased to gainsay it in any wise. Her family had opposed her yoking with an unbeliever when she married him, but she had some such hopes of converting him as women cherish who give themselves to men confirmed in drunkenness. She learned, as other women do, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... introduced now, there must be a column for the odd shilling. "He was glad that some hon. If the hon. gentleman make gentleman had derived benefit this assertion of himself, it from the issue of florins. His is not for us to gainsay it. only experience of their It only proves that he is one convenience was, that when he of that class of {171} men who ought to have received are described in the old song, half-a-crown, he had generally of which one couplet runs received a florin, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... on Nell," replied Lash. "Gimme a girl with flesh an' color, an' blue eyes a-laughin'. Miss Castaneda is some peach, I'll not gainsay. But her face seemed too white. An' when she flashed those eyes on me, I thought I was shot! When she stood up there at first, thankin' us, I felt as if a—a princess was round somewhere. Now, Nell is kiddish an' ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... "Because," continued the owner of the "sorril colt," "if Steve Willis wants to lay in sorril colts at two hunderd a piece, I ain't goin' to gainsay him, but you tell him that two-forty-nine ninety-nine won't buy the one in my barn." ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... of truth. Go home and fear not: but, when thou art king, the sacrifice must be made, and Orna mine. Alas! how can I dare to lift my eyes to her! But so ordain the dread kings of the night!—Who shall gainsay their word?" ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... Solbiart was my father named; thence the winds on the cold ways drove me. Urd's decree may no one gainsay, however lightly uttered. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... and those too smelling strongly of truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite—what a name of hungry omen for the imperial devourer!—plausibly insinuates man to be "a cooking animal." Who can gainsay it? and wherewithal, but with domesticated monkeys, does he share this happy attribute? It is true, the butcher-bird spits his prey on a thorn, the slow epicurean boa glazes his mashed antelope, the king of vultures quietly waits for a gamey taste and the rapid roasting of the tropics: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... with an accent of hoarse, masculine command, such as she could not gainsay. "It is too late!—I will not be saved! Look in my eyes, Sophie Valeyon, and tell me the name of what ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... call me an old Pirate. Let them. I was never in trouble with the Admiralty Court. I can pass Execution Dock without turning pale. And no one can gainsay me when I aver that I have faithfully served his Majesty King George, and was always a true ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... the admiring sons of Greece With shouts the warlike Diomede extoll'd, 60 When thus equestrian Nestor next began. Tydides, thou art eminently brave In fight, and all the princes of thy years Excell'st in council. None of all the Greeks Shall find occasion just to blame thy speech 65 Or to gainsay; yet thou hast fallen short. What wonder? Thou art young; and were myself Thy father, thou should'st be my latest born. Yet when thy speech is to the Kings of Greece, It is well-framed and prudent. Now attend! 70 Myself will speak, who have ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... down and kissed the child, The courtiers turned away, "The heritage is thine," he said, "Let none thy right gainsay. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... opium has been three guineas a pound, and Turkey eight. And thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must—do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. {12} These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true: I cannot gainsay them, and truth ever was, and will be, commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by men ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... came around the table and angrily twitched the rope off Mr. Gammon's neck. That much concession to the convenances he demanded with a vigor that his doleful constituent did not gainsay. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... women all fell away from him at once, and went about their business hither and thither through the hall. But the old crone took him by the hand, and led him up to the dais, and set him next to the midmost high-seat. Then she made as if she would do off his war-gear, and he would not gainsay her, though he deemed that foes might be anear; for in sooth he trusted in the old carle that he would not bewray him, and moreover he deemed it would be unmanly not to take the risks of the guesting, according to the custom ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... And we should be content with the assurance, that we have in it a sure and intuitive guide to a reverent knowledge of the beauty and grandeur of his works,—nay, of his own adorable reality. And who shall gainsay it, should we add, that this mysterious Power is essentially immanent in that "breath of life," by which man becomes "a ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telemachus ordered that the bow should be given him, and that he should have leave to try, since they had failed; "for," he said, "the bow is mine, to give or to withhold:" and none durst gainsay the prince. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... meantime, our Covenanters of the West assembled at their trysting-place, to the number of more than six thousand armed men, ready and girded for battle; and this appearance was an assurance that no power was then in all the Lowlands able to gainsay such a force; and next day, when it was discovered that the alarm had no real cause, it was determined that the prelatic priests should be openly discarded from their parishes. Our vengeance, however, was not meted upon them by the measure of our sufferings, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... in a hurry, and Osberne led him into his own seat at the board, and gave him to drink; and Stephen withal served him with all care, so that he was in an hospitable house, save that the goodman cast somewhat grudging glances on him, but whereas he might not gainsay all the rest of his household, there ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... and there is an ugly kink in human nature that disposes it to be content with slavery. No, sir; gift-making and gift-taking are twins of a bad blood." The speaker turned to Dr. Sevier for approval; but, though the Doctor could not gainsay the fraction of a point, he was silent. A lady near the hostess stirred softly both under and above the board. In her private chamber she would have yawned. Yet the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... with a Steward of Lord Walsingham at Merton in Norfolk, George Crabbe's own parish; I mean the living George, who spoke of your Nephew as a very gentlemanly young man indeed. I think he will not gainsay what I write ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... shoulders, unable apparently to gainsay this unanswerable argument. After all, he too was a Hungarian, and proud of that fact, and like all Hungarians at heart, he had an unexplainable contempt for the Jews. But all the same, he was not going to give in to ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... that the condition of the African race in the United States, would be bettered or improved in any respect, by immediate emancipation? I have clearly shown in the following pages that it would not. Facts prove the contrary. Yes, stubborn undeniable facts, that none but a knave or a fool will gainsay. We know that improvidence, idleness, vagrancy, and crime, are the fruits of emancipation; not only in the United States, but also in the West Indies. We have already stated on good English authority, (Lord Brougham), that the West India free negroes, are ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... mind of a young girl, the grand aim, centre, end, even, of all life. And he was asking her to forget all these!—Preposterous—love him though she did! No. They were engaged. That she allowed. And was not that enough for one day?—Ivan could not gainsay her.—Well, then, let him come at once to her father. And perhaps on the morrow—the wonderful morrow—the court journal would make formal announcement of their betrothal, and she would be that most interesting (?) of feminine creatures, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... attitude formerly taken by even the greatest composers. The life of Chaminade affords still another case of this opposition. When Rubinstein heard a few of her early compositions, upon which he was asked to pass an opinion, he could not gainsay their excellence, but insisted on adding that he thought women ought not to compose. The time has gone by when men need fear that they will have to do the sewing if their wives devote themselves to higher pursuits. The cases of Clara Schumann, Alice Mary Smith (Mrs. Meadows-White), ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... that Hobbes, who denied the resurrection in the warmest manner, never could sleep in the neighbourhood of a room in which there had been a corpse. Petrea, who had not the least resemblance in the world to Hobbes, was not inclined to gainsay anything within the range of probability. Her temperament naturally inclined her to superstition; and like most people who sit still a great deal, she felt always at the commencement of a journey a degree of disquiet as to how it would go on. But on this day, under the leaden heaven, and ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... for ballot-brokers made To pay the drudges of their gainful trade; Our cities taught what conquered cities feel By aediles chosen that they might safely steal; And gold, however got, a title fair To such respect as only gold can bear. I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay What all our journals tell me every day? Poured our young martyrs their high-hearted blood That we might trample to congenial mud 170 The soil with such a legacy sublimed? Methinks an angry scorn is here well-timed: Where find retreat? How keep reproach ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the great art of pleasing? What is there in her person that can inspire such passion? What right of sway over all hearts has her beauty given her? She has some comeliness, some of the brilliancy of youth; we are all agreed upon that, and I do not gainsay it. But must we yield to her because we are her seniors by a few years? Must we, therefore, consider ourselves quite commonplace? Are we made so as to excite derision? Have we no charms, no power of pleasing, no complexion, no ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... offered in the evangel, and doth communicate with the holy sacraments (as in the reformed kirks of this realm they were presently administrate) according to the Confession of Faith, to be the true and holy kirk of Christ Jesus within this realm. And decerns and declares all and sundry, who either gainsay the Word of the evangel received and approved as the heads of the Confession of Faith, professed in Parliament in the year of God 1560, specified also in the first Parliament of King James VI., and ratified in this present ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... have not given the reader our opinion, or our interpretation of the Scriptures, but we have given the pure, simple Bible truths as taught by Christ and the apostles. It is not our doctrine, but the doctrine of him that sent us. What we have taught is in perfect accord with the Bible, and who can gainsay it? ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... enjoin upon him,' Throckmorton had said, 'how goodly a thing is the lieutenancy of stone lighters that in this letter is proffered him. You will tell him that, if a barge of stone go astray, it is yet a fair way to London, and stone fetches good money from townsmen building in Calais. If he will gainsay this you will pick a quarrel with him, as by saying he gives you the lie. In short,' Throckmorton had finished, earnestly and with a sinuous grace of gesture in his long and narrow ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... Cuthbert. I cannot gainsay you. But by what instinct, or what secret sign, Meeting me here, do you straightway divine That northward of ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... The passages given from the poet need not be relevant to the text of the critic; they might be quite irrelevant and serve the imaginable end still better. For instance, some passages might be given in the teeth of the critic, and made to gainsay what he had been saying. This would probably send the reader, if he was very much perplexed, to the poet himself, which was the imaginable end. He might be disappointed one way or he might be disappointed the other way, but in the mean while he would have passed ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... Joyce," announced Sim Squires, "an' I sought ter kill Parish Thornton, too, when he fust come hyar, but I done both them deeds because I didn't dast gainsay ther man thet bade me do 'em. His bull-dozin' terrified me ... his power over me made me a craven, an' his dollars in my pocket paid me fer them dasterdly jobs. Thet man ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... Mr Lathrope—whom the question of eating, or rather what to get to eat, seemed more materially to affect than anyone else—"and I ain't a-going to gainsay but what it's fust- rate green-stuff of the sort, and right down prime filling stuff too; but, mister, we ain't all ben brought up to live on sauerkraut, like them German immigrants as I've seed ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... depend on the will of another? Several of the German princes had thrown off their allegiance to the Holy See: why, then, should not the English King? The law could legalize the King's inclination, and who dare gainsay its enactments? Let the law declare Henry the head of the Church, and he could, as such, give himself the dispensations for which he sought. The law which could frame articles of faith and sanction ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... hiatus in my reasoning. I have assumed that the cleavage in these neighbouring or intercalated beds was (as in more distant parts) distinct from stratification. If you choose to say that here the cleavage was or might be parallel to true bedding, I cannot gainsay it, but can only appeal to apparent similarity to the great areas of uniformity of strike and high angle—all certainly unlike, as far as my experience goes, to true stratification. I have long known how easily I overlook flaws in my own reasoning, and this is a flagrant case. I have ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... from the look of things in general, I guess you're goin' to maroon me, eh? Well, this here island looks a durn sight purtier than the spot that you took me off of; I won't gainsay that. And are all these here things in the boat mine? What's this here—a tent? You don't say! Well now, that's downright handsome of you, Squire, and no mistake. And here's fishin'-lines, and—" He went on to enumerate the various articles, until ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... people would lightly esteem them if there were but a few of them. Nor did he call them together to ask their counsel, but ruled according to his own pleasure, making peace and war, and binding treaties or unbinding, with none to gainsay him. ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... to herself as she went to close the gate. This had not entered into her scheme of work for the day, and her cooking was still undone. But she did not gainsay her mistress, as she otherwise would have made no scruple of doing; for she knew that nothing was more helpful to the latter in a crisis than hard, manual work. Besides, Sarah herself had a sneaking weakness for what she called "dra'in'-room days". For the drawing-room was the ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... win my wife again and have honor among the Kings, my fellows." So he spake, for it was so he thought day and night; and Agamemnon, King of Men, bore with him, and carried the voices of all the Achaeans. For since the death of Achilles there was no man stout enough to gainsay him, or ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett

... thy conceit, Didst chide him softly then and say: "Beforetime thou hast shown deceit, And mocked my quest with idle play, Thou canst not now my wish gainsay." ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... "I cannot gainsay it, Master Oswald, though I did not think of it before; and it is certainly a proof that the time I spent in learning was not thrown away; for, as you say, had I not been able to read that missal, doubtless it would have gone hard with ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... Public Assembly (6) he made speeches, defending himself against the charge of impiety, and asserting that he had been the victim of injustice, with other like topics, which in the present temper of the assembly no one ventured to gainsay. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... who have any connection with letters to expatiate on the infinite blessings of literature, and the miraculous achievements of the press: to extol, as a gift above price, the taste for study and the love of reading. Far be it from me to gainsay the inestimable value of good books, or to discourage any man from reading the best; but I often think that we forget that other side to this glorious view of literature—the misuse of books, the debilitating waste of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... sees into our hearts, Philip interrupted, and reads through all we are thinking even before the thoughts come into our minds. It is as Philip says, Judas muttered: our hearts are open to him always. But James, who had not spoken till now, put forward the opinion, and no one seemed inclined to gainsay it, that if Jesus knew men's thoughts before they came into men's minds he must be warned of them by the angels. He goes into the solitude of the mountains to converse with the angels, James said—for what else? Moses went into the clefts ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... were more thought of, leastways by us that were women and had suffered for our children, and so learned to prize the woman that had suffered for us. 'Well, then,' I said, 'if you say so, mother, I suppose I didn't ought to gainsay you, on the Lord His day.' For you see my mother was one that chose her time for speaking—eh! but she was wise. 'Mother,' says I, 'to oblige you, so be it'; and with that I fell to crying sore on my mother's neck, and she wasn't long behind ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... the poor old father weep and implore her pity; she was firm, and he dared not gainsay her. So he placed his daughter in a sledge, not even daring to give her a horse-cloth to keep herself warm with, and drove her out on to the bare, open fields, where he kissed her and left her, driving home as fast as he could, that he might ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... thrilling story he had commenced. He could not sit still to relate it. Nor did he speak as if his words were for Lorand alone, but as if he wished the dumb trees to hear it too, and the wondering moon, and the shivering stars and the shooting meteors that they might gainsay if possible the earthy worm who ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... nation's laws were made, And they who filled its judgment-seats, obeyed Thy mandate, rigid as the will of fate. Fierce men at thy right hand, With gesture of command, Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay; And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not, Shrank from thy presence, and, in blank dismay, Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought; While meaner cowards, mingling with thy train, Proved, from the book of God, thy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... the King and that there was he minded to lie. Even so soon as his men had struck sail said King Magnus unto them: 'Now shall my men take their places by the bulwarks and fall to their oars, and the others shall undo their weapons and arm themselves, and if Harald and his men gainsay us and will not make way, then will we fight them.' When King Harald saw that King Magnus was minded to give battle spake he to his men and said: 'Cut the hawsers and let us put off; wroth is now kinsman Magnus.' So said so done; ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... with a quiet dignity which he could not gainsay. "And that is the very reason that I will not marry you. I love you too well—so well that I can never allow you to become the ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... tell whence they are. They speak a strange sort of English, as it were, like the Northumbrian priest we have. Red-headed, big men they are, and good-tempered so far, seeing that none dare gainsay them. But they are most ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... fruit-trees, hedgerows, and pleasant dwellings, blown-away with gunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous Place of Sculls.—Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall these Powder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay her: but all that gore and carnage will be shrouded-in, absorbed into manure; and next year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of thy own,—how dost thou, from ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... beautiful by virtue of its coincidence with the truth, as there is beauty in those lines securer and stronger far than the melody of their cadence, because they tell of a loyalty of man's being which, being once made sensible of it, he cannot gainsay. Whence we all come, whither we must all make our journey, there is home indeed. But necessity, not remembered delights, draws us thither. That which we must obey is our father if we will; but let us not delude ourselves into the expectation ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... a misconception or an error. We cannot, therefore, consent to test the truth of natural science by the Word of Revelation. But this does not make it the less important to point out on scientific grounds scientific errors, when those errors tend to limit God's glory in creation, or to gainsay the revealed relations of that creation to Himself. To both these classes of error, though, we doubt not, quite unintentionally on his part, we think that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... the mistress of you to gainsay you the gifts of the Wonder-coffer, ye were undone. Yea, verily, said Atra; then would be but the fruits of the earth and the wild creatures for our avail, and these, we have not learned how to turn them into dinner and supper. And they all laughed thereat; but Birdalone said: See ye then how I ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... is proditorious, and I will not gainsay its honest testimony: yet would I rather endeavour to profit by the reprehension than seek to show that it was uncalled for. If I know myself I am never prone to undervalue either the advantages or acquirements which I do not possess. That knowledge ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... none can gainsay it. Let us go on, Sir Boss. I will take note and learn, and do the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... father heard By turns the speakers, and in doubt Thus interposed a gentle word,— "Friend should to friend his mind speak out, Is he not worthy? tell us."—"Nay, All worthiness is in Satyavan, And no one can my praise gainsay: Of solar race—more god than man! Great Soorasen, his ancestor, And Dyoumatsen his father blind Are known to fame: I can aver No kings have been ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... gentleman made a low bow, and said it was not for him to gainsay his Royal Highness; upon which the Duke was good enough to say (in a jocose manner) that Mr. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... for the future? They died with her. None living could gainsay the existing will, and the well-known intentions of Sir Nicholas and his widow, that Drogo should hold all till Hubert returned—in trust ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... happens that an exceedingly interesting signature or note accompanies an item worth only so much per lb., and your connoisseur in the autograph surrenders all but his portion to its destiny. Who can gainsay him? He shrugs his shoulders; he is no bookworm; ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... French, privateersman's mate; and how-d'ye-do to Christopher, the coasting skipper. I've seen the very boat for me: I've enough to buy her, too; and to furnish a good house, and keep a shot in the locker for bad luck. So far, there's nothing to gainsay. So far it's hopeful enough; but still there's Admiral Guinea, you know—and the plain truth is that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were massive too. Sometimes, when the balance held by Mr. Forster has seemed for a moment to turn a little heavily against the infirmities of temperament of a grand old friend, we have felt something of a shock; but we have not once been able to gainsay the justice of the scales. This feeling, too, has only fluttered out of the detail, here or there, and has vanished before the whole. We fully agree with Mr. Forster that "judgment has been passed"—as it ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... blasts from the south, Drave us, sea-swept, by shallows blind, to straits with wayless mouth: But to thy shores we few have swum, and so betake us here. What men among men are ye then? what country's soil may bear Such savage ways? ye grudge us then the welcome of your sand, 540 And fall to arms, and gainsay us a tide-washed strip of strand. But if men-folk and wars of men ye wholly set at nought, Yet deem the Gods bear memory still of good and evil wrought AEneas was the king of us; no juster was there ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... being an untrue, unblessed world; its high dignitaries many of them phantasms and players'-masks; its worthships and worships unworshipful: from Dan to Beersheba, a mad world, my masters. And surely we may say, and none will now gainsay, this his idea of the world at that epoch was nearer to the fact than at most other epochs it has been. Truly, in all times and places, the young ardent soul that enters on this world with heroic purpose, with veracious insight, and the yet unclouded "inspiration of the Almighty" which has given ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... quit so readily. That young politician, brimming with mysterious glances, offered to lend his convoy as far as to the high-road; and Otto, in fear of some residuary jealousy, and for the girl's sake, had not the courage to gainsay him; but he regarded his companion with uneasy glances, and devoutly wished the business at an end. For some time Fritz walked by the mare in silence; and they had already traversed more than half the proposed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... canst climb a waterfall well, I gainsay it not; but beware ere thou settest up thyself against my strength. Say now, what game ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... excellent books among tars who can not read. And the very mode and manner in which such charities are made, bespeak, more than words, the low estimation in which sailors are held. It is useless to gainsay it; they are deemed almost the refuse and offscourings of the earth; and the romantic view of them is principally ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... and I know not how to gainsay you," returned Sibyll, as the dogs, reluctantly beaten off, retired each from each, snarling and reluctant, while a small black cur, that had hitherto sat unobserved at the door of a small hostelrie, now coolly approached and dragged off the bone of contention. "But what sayst thou now? See! ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the Bara Rani, [5] was still young and had no pretensions to saintliness. Rather, her talk and jest and laugh inclined to be forward. The young maids with whom she surrounded herself were also impudent to a degree. But there was none to gainsay her—for was not this the custom of the house? It seemed to me that my good fortune in having a stainless husband was a special eyesore to her. He, however, felt more the sorrow of her lot than the ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... humane study—of the criminal, has shown that all theories which would declare any man to be incapable of improvement, are to be condemned absolutely. The possibilities of reform exist in every case, and the probabilities are never to be denied. None can gainsay this statement nor can it be termed extravagant, for with the imperfect machinery now in use results are being attained which justify every syllable of it. Yet in the face of these results, the "exterminators" still proclaim their policy. They bid us be deaf to the voice of prejudice and ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll









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