"Divest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each State is inseparably connected with the welfare of all, and that in promoting the latter we shall effectually advance the former. In full persuasion of this truth, it shall be our invariable aim to divest ourselves of local prejudices and attachments, and to view the great assemblage of communities and interests committed to our charge with an equal eye. We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundation of our national policy should be laid in private ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... or more, on account of the effects of an intensely severe winter, which closed almost every avenue to Mount Vernon, and suspended even neighborly intercourse, he found it extremely difficult to divest himself of the habits of the camp. "Strange as it may seem," he wrote to General Knox on the twentieth of February, "it is nevertheless true, that it was not till lately I could get the better of my usual custom of ruminating, as soon as I waked in the morning, on the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... connection with certain charges against a former governor, Sir James Craig. The Regent was pleased to say that the acts of a former governor could not be a subject of enquiry, whether legal or illegal, as it would involve the principle that a governor might divest himself of all responsibility on points of political government; the charge referred by the Regent to the Privy Council, was only such as related to the Rules of Practice, established by the Judges, in ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... which it lasted, I was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted, with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... glanced nervously round. Then, apparently satisfied that slumber reigned supreme, he stepped cautiously to his deserted couch. My eyes followed him as the eyes of the fascinated dove follow the serpent. I saw him divest himself of his semi-toilet, and then solemnly wind up his watch, after which he slipped beneath the clothes, and all ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... shoeless, hatless 'sea-pups' of the sands, and now, when the time had come to civilise me, my mother had found that it was too late. I was bohemian to the core. My childish intercourse with Winifred had been one of absolute equality, and I could not now divest myself of this relation. These were my thoughts as I listened to my ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... divine truths which they unfold. That the impressions," adds the writer, "thus imbibed in his boyhood, had, notwithstanding the irregularities of his after life, sunk deep into his mind, will appear, I think, to every impartial reader of his works in general; and I never have been able to divest myself of the persuasion that, in the strange aberrations which so unfortunately marked his subsequent career, he must have found it difficult to violate the better ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... did. I felt how hard it was. I feel it much more now I know you are going to divest yourself of any profit during your life." He had been looking at Valentine anxiously and intently. The large eyes, too bright for health; the sharp, finely-cut features and pallid forehead. Suddenly turning, he caught sight of himself in the glass, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... with glee, The hind and savage roe in quest of; Each thought of me that comes o'er thee I pray thou wilt thyself divest of. ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and, as far as in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings toward those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... as quickly as even He had thought. Men could not or would not understand; they were looking for a kingdom which should mean plenty to eat and drink, and universal dominion for the sons of Abraham. Even His most immediate followers were unable to divest themselves of this notion, and it is plain enough that they went on hoping even to the end that Jesus would head a revolt and establish a kingdom in which they themselves would hold positions of dignity and importance: ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... their theories are alike influenced by circumstances. Those of the first, we (the South) are, at times, too apt to regard as sublimated and refined, while we hold the practices of the latter such as divest human nature of everything congenial. Nevertheless we can assure our readers that there does not exist a class of men who so much pride themselves on their chivalry as some of our opulent slave-dealers. Did we want proof to sustain what we have said we could not do ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... heard it named in the sense with which it had possessed her—joined with numerous other sentiments; for genuine love, however rated as the chief passion of the human heart, is but a poor dependent, a retainer upon other passions; admiration, gratitude, respect, esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted sensation of these, and it is not more than the impression of a twelve- month, by courtesy, or ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... product of an intelligent will, not of blind law. Not a long chain of cause and effect hovers before Homer's soul, thus his work would be prose; but he sees self-cause at once, and so cannot help being poetical, as well as religious. The culture of to-day tends too much to divest us of the mythical spirit—which is not altogether a gain. Homer, if rightly studied, will help restore that lost gift of the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... of shewing it as to things in this life, take death and futurity as objects on which to display it.' JOHNSON. 'That is mighty foolish affectation. Fear is one of the passions of human nature, of which it is impossible to divest it. You remember that the Emperour Charles V, when he read upon the tomb-stone of a Spanish nobleman, "Here lies one who never knew fear," wittily said, "Then he never snuffed a candle with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... itself impotent. The two works which I published in 1821 and 1822, entitled, the first, 'On Conspiracies and Political Justice,' and the second, 'On Capital Punishment for Political Offences,' were not, on my part, acts of opposition; I endeavoured to divest them of this character. To mark distinctly their meaning and object, it will suffice for me to repeat their respective epigraphs. On the title-page of the first I inscribed this passage from the prophet Isaiah: ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... mood to split hairs, nor pennies. All I ask is a chance to put my foot upon the first round of the ladder and if I do not get to the top, I shall not hold you responsible," David replied, dropping the "thees" of his Quaker life, in his determination to divest himself of all its customs as rapidly ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... calling profanely on the Lord, Whose mercy such men always cry for in their trouble, if they never ask it for their sins. He was so confused and blinded by drink and fright, that he did not see the second ghost divest himself of his encumbrances, or know that it was John Gardener, till that rosy-cheeked worthy, his clenched hands still flaming with brimstone, danced round him, and shouted scornfully, and with that vehemence of aspiration, in which he was apt to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... German which is an outlandish form of Yiddish and scarce understanded of the people, so that to be intelligible he had to divest himself of sundry inflections, and to throw gender to the winds and to say "wet" for "wird" and mix hybrid Hebrew and ill-pronounced English with his vocabulary. There was some cheering as Pinchas tossed his dishevelled locks and addressed the gathering, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... as perfect as though just taken out of a bandbox. He sat down at a little table, and read a little journal unobtrusively. It was his cue to divest his late ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... superficial view of these wretched men. Heaviness and sickness of heart are always with them; they will at times make an effort to feel at ease, but all their hilarity is fictitious and assumed—they have the common feelings of our nature, and of which they can never divest themselves. Those who possess an unusual buoyancy of spirits, and gloss over their feelings with their companions, I have ever observed on the whole, to feel the most internal agony. I have seen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... divestment; taking off &c. v.. nudity; bareness &c. adj.; undress; dishabille &c. 225; the altogether; nudation[obs3], denudation; decortication, depilation, excoriation, desquamation; molting; exfoliation; trichosis[Med]. V. divest; uncover &c. (cover &c. 223); denude, bare, strip; disfurnish[obs3]; undress, disrobe &c. (dress, enrobe &c. 225); uncoif[obs3]; dismantle; put off, take off, cast off; doff; peel, pare, decorticate, excoriate, skin, scalp, flay; expose, lay open; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fruits, of births and rebirths, this running on from beginningless time has somewhere its end. This end was not to be attained at some distant time or in some distant kingdom, but was to be sought within us. Karma leads us to this endless cycle, and if we could divest ourselves of all such emotions, ideas or desires as lead us to action we should find within us the actionless self which neither suffers nor enjoys, neither works nor undergoes rebirth. When the Indians, wearied by the endless ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... had noticed in her as the outward sign of suspicion on her side—suspicion that I had a motive of my own in interrogating her. For the rest, my doubts of Nugent remained unmoved. Try as I might, I could not divest my mind of the idea that he was playing me false, and that in one way or another he had contrived, not only to communicate with Lucilla, but to persuade her to keep me in ignorance ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... novel to some, that if the inventor apply genius, time, toil, and capital, to produce anything he may consider valuable, he has the same right to the exclusive use and enjoyment of it as the man who may apply time, and toil, and capital, without genius. That the application of genius does not divest him of any right enjoyed ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... that he should become a relative of mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear you yet are tainted with the curiosity of our first parents, who were beguiled by the poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent, and who, for one APPLE, DAMNED all mankind. I wish to divest myself, as far as possible, of that untutored custom. I have long since learned that the perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambition to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... were—or was—emphatic, and—what was rare in the Middle Ages—every member of the feudal hierarchy sustained its decision. Nothing more could be done in the regular way. Saint Peter was obliged to divest himself of authority, and place himself and his dignity in the hands of the Virgin. Accordingly he asked for an audience, and stated the case to Our Lady. With the utmost grace, she ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... was naturally the Gresleys' favorite child. However thoroughly they might divest themselves of parental partiality, they could not but observe that she was as ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Laura thought. But she said nothing of this—she only repeated her question: aware that she was exasperating to her sister but also aware that she could not be anything else. Mrs. Berrington, whose maid, having outlived surprises, had gone to rest, began to divest herself of some of her ornaments, and it was not till after a moment, during which she stood before the glass, that she made that answer about doing as she had always done. To this Laura rejoined that ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... this money; so, at his request, Candido was summoned from the well, and ordered to take off his hat. This being removed disclosed the covering of a cotton handkerchief, of which he was also obliged to divest himself. Candido was much too well bred to show any signs of contumacy; but the expression of his countenance varied, under the observation of the phrenologist, from wonder to annoyance, and from that to the extreme of sullen, silent wrath. The reason was obvious,—he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... which seemed to rebuke her tardiness. "Miss Smith will purse up her lips, and utter some cutting sarcasm of course, but I don't care," and Winnie, kicking off her boots, pitched them—well, I don't think she herself knew where. The jacket being next unfastened, she proceeded to divest herself of her hat, and pulled with such violence that the elastic snapped and struck her face severely. Winnie's temper (so Dick declared) resembled nothing so much as a pop-gun, going off, as it were, with a great bang on the least provocation. Flinging the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... capital enemy of the king and kingdom.) The penalty was to be the peculiarly appropriate one of reduction to perpetual servitude. The disobedient and disloyal subject who made the great refusal would ipso facto divest himself of the ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... which Treatise any Person might in a short time attain to the Practice of it, either for the Defence of Life upon a just Occasion, or Preservation of Honour, in any accidental Scuffle or Quarrel. That is, if I may have Permission, without being challeng'd, to divest the Title of its Pomp, this solid Art would soon put one in a Capacity of killing one's Man, and standing a fair Chance of bequeathing one's Cloaths and Neck to the Hangman. It is observable, that Mr. Bysshe, ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... off his coat and vest, and was about to divest himself of his other garments, when I instructed him to leave them on, and told him how nice the dress would be to keep his ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... States which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest. But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own States. Beat them at elections, as you have overwhelmingly done, and, nothing ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Henry VIII. cap. 20. The preexisting unrealities with respect to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared prima facie to press upon the Chapters. The history of this statute is curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed. It was ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... different from ours. Mr. Wordsworth is a scholar, and, no doubt, when reading the works of others, a critic. There are passages in his poems which display imagination, and which afford hope for the future: but, if he can divest himself of all partiality, and will critically question every line that he has written, he will find many which, he must allow, call loudly for ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... attractions, and probably also her chief feminine functions."[23] It has been reserved for our age and country, by its methods of female education, to demonstrate that it is possible in some cases to divest a woman of her chief feminine functions; in others, to produce grave and even fatal disease of the brain and nervous system; in others, to engender torturing derangements and imperfections of the reproductive apparatus that imbitter a lifetime. Such, we know, is not the object ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... that good upon their fellows. Kant was disposed to regard the traditional forms of Christian doctrine, not as the old rationalism had done, as impositions of a priesthood or inherently absurd. He sought to divest them indeed of that which was speculatively untrue, though he saw in them only symbols of the great moral truths which lie at the heart of religion. The historical spirit of the next fifty years was to teach men a very different way of ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... the question whether I was to talk to him officially, the difficulty being that he could not divest himself of his official position, and that it would be awkward to speak with me in a purely private capacity. I said I had come officially, so far as the approval of the King and the Cabinet was concerned, ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... mind which makes us argue from the nature of effects to the nature of the agency. The first impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent effect to some human agency, but other circumstances would subsequently incline the savage reluctantly to divest the agent of one or more of the limitations of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human attributes. Nearly all the supernormal phenomena believed in by primitive man—so far as we can judge of him from contemporary savagery—would suggest the agency of an invisible ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... happiness, she assured me, although she could not promise me at once that ardour of affection which my present enthusiasm seemed to require, that if a grateful and submissive wife could satisfy my wishes, I should be possessed of her entire devotion. But although thus reassured, I could scarcely divest myself of apprehension, and on the morning of our nuptials, which took place in the Royal Chapel, in presence of the whole court, her countenance wore a look of such deadly, such fixed despair, that the joy even of that happy moment when I was ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... testimony, my heart rejoiced, and was exceeding glad, for it removed many dark doubts from my own mind also. From that time, my desire to read the New Testament, that I might discover the best means of acting according to the doctrines of Jesus, was greatly increased. I endeavoured to divest myself of all selfish bias, and loved more and more to inquire into religious subjects. I saw, and continue to see, many of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church, which I could not believe, and which I found opposed to the truths of the Gospel; and I wished much to find some of her best ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... were admirably qualified. Their warm, affectionate manner of dealing with their fellow-men, their ability to present the truth to their minds freed from the strangeness of which foreigners could not divest it, and the eminent success of those employed by the brethren of Griqua Town, were greatly in their favor. Two natives had likewise been employed recently by the Kuruman Mission, and these had been highly efficient and successful. If the Directors would allow him to employ more of these, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... such beings as have reached perfect knowledge may retain a body for the purpose of discharging certain offices.—In the /S/ri-bhashya, where the Sutra follows immediately on Sutra 30, the adhikara/n/a determines, in close connexion with 30, that, although those who know Brahman as a rule divest themselves of the gross body—there remaining only a subtle body which enables them to move—and no longer experience pleasure and pain, yet certain beings, although having reached the cognition of Brahman, remain invested with a gross body, and hence liable to ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... "go, and divest yourselves of your accoutrements, and take food, and refresh yourselves after your fatigues; and before you go forth hence you shall have an answer." And they went to eat. And Arthur considered ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Rishi Kavya, then, afflicted by what Devayani said, cried in anger, 'Certainly, the Asuras seek to injure me, for they slay my disciple that stayeth with me. These followers of Rudra desire to divest me of my character as a Brahmana by making me participate in their crime. Truly, this crime hath a terrible end. The crime of slaying a Brahmana would even burn Indra himself.' Having said this, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... their garments with equal skill, so that they cannot be said to expose themselves unclothed. The same is true of most of the other tribes, with the exception of the men of Kenyah and Klemantan communities that inhabit the central highlands; these, when hauling their boats through the rapids, will divest themselves of all clothing, or will sit naked round a fire while their waist-cloths are being ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... was at first revealed in a confused and indefinite feeling of some external, supernatural, and bewildering influence which man can not successfully resist; but yet so in harmony with the sinner's inclination, that he can not divest himself of all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering in comprehensiveness or depth of meaning to the word sin, as it is used in the Bible..... The noun amartia which is appropriated to express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not occur in the Homeric poems..... ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... extenuate and excuse the faults of Frontenac, but every year his letters grew sharper. In 1681 he wrote: "Again I urge you to banish from your mind the difficulties which you have yourself devised against the execution of my orders; to act with mildness and moderation towards all the colonists, and divest yourself entirely of the personal animosities which have thus far been almost your sole motive of action. In conclusion, I exhort you once more to profit well by the directions which this letter contains; since, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... pleasure, and of something more—of pride—had come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high above "the other girls," ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... from their intention in the least degree to intrench upon his just power, by asserting the spiritual power, which Christ hath seated in his church officers, distinct from the magistratical power: but as for them of the independent judgment, and their adherents, they divest the magistrate of ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... oriel of the West, Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines, Like a fair lady at her casement, shines The evening star, the star of love and rest! And then anon she doth herself divest Of all her radiant garments, and reclines Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines, With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed. O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus! My morning and my evening star of love! My best and gentlest lady! even thus, As that fair ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... said Lady Maude, as she burst into the maiden's room ere Doll had found time to divest herself of hood and wimple, "thou art serving us a pretty trick. Thou would'st meet thy whilom lover all unbeknown to us, eh? Pick up thy things and ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... feel an irresistible torpor coming over me. The air is vitiated. I cannot breathe. My chest is bursting. I try to resist, but it is impossible to do so. The temperature rises to such a degree that I am compelled to divest myself of part of my clothing. Then I lie me down in a corner. My heavy eyelids close, and I sink into a prostration that eventually forces me into ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... characteristics of the character In the second version of "Evelyn Innes" there is more of Mr. Russell than of Mr. Yeats in Ulick Dean, at least in his appearance and sayings, though Mr. Moore could not divest his composer of the personality of Mr. Yeats. There is less of Ireland in "Sister Theresa" (1901) than in "Evelyn Innes," but "The Untilled Field," short stories written after the removal of Mr. Moore to Dublin ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... must appear absolutely unarmed. In order that men should be brought under the influence of this power, it is necessary that they should divest themselves not only of all ordinary weapons, but also of the defensive armour of common-sense. That is the reason why the exercise of the power is so difficult. But, once accomplished, the effect is unquestionable and ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Consul paced the hall; the councillors of State watched him, vaguely recognizing in the outbursts of the anger of the master the powerful instinct of government, which discerned the permanent hostility of the revolutionaries without being able to divest itself of their principles or of their modes of action. "Do people take us for children?" he cried. "Do they expect to draw us aside with these declamations against the emigrants, the Chouans, and the priests? Because there are still a few partial attempts in Vendee, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... and the were-wolf together, and call them by one name vlkoslak. These rage chiefly in the depths of winter: they hold their annual gatherings, and at them divest themselves of their wolf-skins, which they hang on the trees around them. If any one succeeds in obtaining the skin and burning it, the vlkoslak ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... spattered out with a brushful of blood; the scene was changed from sunny life to wan death. Here were the staring eyes of a dead man, and his mouth twisted awry in its last agony. He could not away with the shock, nor divest himself of a share in it. If he, by mischance, had taken up with Manuela, he had ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Cambridge seems rather uneasy altogether, but the Queen, though equally anxious about it, owns she cannot contemplate the possibility of any real attempt to divest the Crown of its prerogative in this instance. The Army will not, she feels sure, stand it for a moment, and the Queen feels sure, that if properly defined and explained, the House of Commons will not acquiesce in any ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... minutes he was quite likely to try to climb up the rigging. Consequently he was never left alone, and the decks were constantly echoing with a fond mother's voice begging him not to "do that," or to "come right here, Tim." One of Tim's chief diversions was to divest himself of all but his two nearest articles of wear and sit in the scuppers with the water turned on. A crowd of passengers was usually grouped around him and watched his manoeuvers with intense interest. He was probably photographed a hundred times and envied by ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... fault but mine." Dixie was trying to divest her brave voice of a certain quavering. "Folks say I've got a long head on me—you amongst 'em—but if any God-forsaken female on this round globe ever made a bigger fool of herself than I did that whack I'd like to shake ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... thickly hung with articles of clothing, mostly new, and all good. Soldiers who had put on their marching suit would fall out of the ranks, the knapsack would quickly disgorge a new coat and pants, the wearers would as quickly divest themselves of the soiled garments and replace them with the new ones, the others being left on the ground. Whenever a halt was ordered this shifting process ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... know that much," declared Grace. "Weasie, you should have told us to leave our shoes on land and come into the sands barefoot. I suppose that's why all the picture dancers are barefoot on the sands; it's so hard on slippers. There's a barrel. Let's anchor that and divest ourselves. Did you ever see dry land so far away? This sand is as bad as water to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... honor my Sunday suit,—the gray broadcloth coat, and the black velvet smallclothes, that have covered my unworthy legs but once? Dame Crombie shall have them ready in a moment," continued Hugh, beginning to divest the ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... transaction which is commonly called in history the rape of the Sabines. The deed itself, as it actually occurred, may perhaps have been one of great rudeness, violence, and cruelty. If so, the historians who described it contrived to soften the character of it, and to divest it in a great measure of the repulsive features which might have been supposed to characterize such a transaction, for, according to the narrative which they give us, the whole proceeding was conducted in such a manner as to evince not only great ingenuity and sagacity on ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise. What are parties? Do men really great ever enter into them? Are they not ball-courts, where ragged adventurers strip and strive, and where dissolute youths abuse one another, and challenge and game and wager? If you and I cannot quite divest ourselves of infirmities and passions, let us think, however, that there is enough in us to be divided into two portions, and let us keep the upper undisturbed and pure. A part of Olympus itself lies in dreariness and in clouds, variable and stormy; but it is not the highest: there ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... surprised when, just as he had come out of the tiring-room, glad to divest himself of his encumbering and gaudy equipments, a man touched him on the arm and humbly said, "Sir, I have a humble entreaty to make of you. If you would convey my petition to the Queen ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... disappointment, and where hopes only come and go to spread time with grief, he could only see her and her child as they suffered. The spectacle had no charm; and those who carried them into captivity for the satisfaction of paltry debts could not be made to divest themselves of the self in nature. Cries and sobs were nothing,—such were poor stock for "niggers" to have; pains and anxieties were at a discount, chivalry proclaimed its rule, and nothing was thought well of that lessened the market value of body and soul. Among great, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Agathe's godmother. "I stand in the place of your poor mother, and I divest myself, for you, of a thing which I hold most precious,—here," she went on, holding towards Philippe a tooth, fastened upon a piece of black velvet embroidered in gold, to which she had sewn a pair of green strings. Having shown it to him, she replaced it in a little bag. "It is a relic ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... security, it is necessary that each individual should surrender a part of his natural right, and be contented with such a share of liberty as he is willing to allow to others; or, to use Hobbes's own language, "every man must divest himself of the right he has to all things by nature; the right of all men to all things, being in effect no better than if no man had a right to anything." In consequence of this transference of ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... road again, the bruised youth resolved to follow a cattle-track "across lots," for the greater space in which to exercise with his Indian club as he walked. Like any other novice in the practice, he could not divest his mind of the impression, that the frightful thumps he continually received, in twirling the merciless thing around and behind his devoted head, were due to some kind of crowding influence from the boundaries on either side the way, and it was to gain relief from such ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and went off to his cart for some arrangements; and my young gentleman proceeded to divest himself of the better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his mother's lap, and thence on to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... form the subject of your visit, I believe. Know, at once, that the first I will sign, on certain conditions, bitter and humiliating as I feel it to be obliged to do this; but, that I will ever consent to yield the guardianship of my sister wholly to Evelyn Erle and her husband, or divest myself of my house and furniture, or my wild lands in Georgia, to you, here first named to me, in consideration of expenses already incurred and to be incurred for Mabel's education, and my own safe-keeping, during a ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... quality in all other scientific language it is necessary to give it, so far as possible, the same simplicity of signification which attaches to mathematical symbols. This is not easy, because we are obliged to use words of ordinary language, and it is impossible to divest them of whatever they may connote ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... condescend to argue off his throne—a piece of policy to which, in my opinion, he owed his victory (for he won); whereas the pupil insisted that he should meet him on equal ground, face to face, in the lower end of the room. It was evident that the latter could not divest himself of his boyish terror so long as the other sat, as it were, in the plentitude of his former authority, contracting his brows with habitual sternness, thundering out his arguments, with a most menacing and stentorian voice, while he thumped his desk with his shut fist, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... does it really exist, this tragic and comical, evasive and unavoidable figure which we make no claim to portray, but at most to divest of some of its shadows? It were rash to affirm it too loudly; but meanwhile, in the realms where we suppose it to reign, everything happens as though it did exist. Do away with it and you are obliged to people the world and burden your life with a host of hypothetical and imaginary beings: gods, ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... affirmed that these bees, which are peculiar to the New World, are destitute of all offensive weapons. Their sting is indeed comparatively feeble, and they use it seldom; but a person, not fully convinced of the harmlessness of these angelitos, can scarcely divest himself of a sensation of fear. I must confess, that, whilst engaged in my astronomical observations, I was often on the point of letting my instruments fall, when I felt my hands and face covered with these hairy bees. Our guides assured us that they ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... house quickly. No one was stirring. Sergeant Tom was still asleep. This she saw, as she hurriedly passed in and laid the cap and cloak where she had found them. Then, once again, she touched the brow of the sleeper with her lips, and went to her room to divest herself of Val's clothes. The thing had been done without anyone knowing of her absence. But she was frightened as she looked into the mirror. She was haggard, and her eyes were bloodshot. Eight hours or nearly in the saddle, at ten miles an hour, had told on her severely; as well it might. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vizier, that resignation is praiseworthy, and impatience blamable; for a poet has justly said, 'Be calm under adversity; for calmness can alone extricate from danger.' To affliction joy often succeeds, and after trouble we generally enjoy repose; but, alas! human nature cannot divest itself of feeling; and Koout al Koolloob was so dear to me, and so delighted my soul, that I dread I shall never find another mistress her equal in beauty and accomplishments." The vizier consoled his master, and at ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... [chanted] cotemporary/ies [contemporary/ies] descendent [descendant] devest [divest] monkies [monkeys] mystries [mysteries] pedler [pedlar] surprize [surprise] wo [woe] wonderous [wondrous] then "hear him, hear him," loudly rings, [final comma is unclear] assuage their wrath or heal ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... passing a certain one of the city gates, to divest myself of an historic interest in the great loads of hay waiting admission on the outside. For an instant they masked again the Venetian troops that, in the war of the League of Cambray, entered the city in the hay-carts, shot down the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be free from misery. And it is clear that there must be grief where anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil. Epicurus is of opinion, that grief arises ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the good man felt quite martial. This new change in his situation, and the inspiring presence of his military friends, made him determine to get rid of that odious disguise which Rita had furnished him. He proceeded, therefore, to divest ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... of a more curious oriental hospitality. Refreshments were offered to us as to friends, and we lunched fairily upon little dishes of rose leaves, delicately preserved, with all their fragrance, in a "lucent sirup." It seemed that this was a common conserve in the East; but we could hardly divest ourselves of the notion of sacrilege, as we thus fed upon the very most luxurious sweetness and perfume of the soul of summer. Pleasant talk accompanied the dainty repast,—Padre Giacomo recounting for us some of his adventures with the people ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... faculty of personally prescribing certain correctional punishments, which although of little moment, when applied with discretion, greatly contributed to fortify their ascendency, and consequently, that of the sovereign; but, in order to exclude and divest them of all intervention in the civil administration, a direct attempt has also been made to lower the esteem in which they are held, by awakening the distrust of the Indian, and, as much as possible, removing him to a greater distance from them. In proof of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... predilections, jealousies, prejudices, hatreds, to reach an impartial verdict? Would not every criminal be a monster, provided not a female? Can the sex, ordinarily so quick to pronounce pre-judgments, divest itself of them sufficiently to enter the jury-box with unbiased minds? Perhaps it were best to trust the answer to events. Women may learn to be jurymen, but in so doing they have a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and uncivilized races makes it clear beyond question that the customary beliefs of tribes or nations are almost invariably false. It is difficult to divest ourselves completely of the customary beliefs of our own age and nation, but it is not very difficult to achieve a certain degree of doubt in regard to them. The Inquisitor who burnt men at the stake was acting with true humanity ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... parting with Stanhope, chanced to meet father Gilbert, as he was hurrying from the spot where he had just held his singular interview with Madame de la Tour. She avoided him, with that instinctive dread of which she could never divest herself on seeing him; and he passed on, without appearing to notice her, but with a rapidity too unusual to escape her observation. She found Annette's quiet cottage in the utmost confusion, occasioned by the sudden illness of Madame de la Tour, who had then scarcely ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... bustling about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite divest my mind of a fancy that ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... impossible to divest matter of this property, there are two conditions which neutralize its effect. The first of these is position. Let us take two balls, one solid and the other hollow, but of the same mass, or density. If ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... reviewing the pension legislation presented to me many bills have been approved upon the theory that every doubt should be resolved in favor of the proposed beneficiary. I have not, however, been able to entirely divest myself of the idea that the public money appropriated for pensions is the soldiers' fund, which should be devoted to the indemnification of those who in the defense of the Union and in the nation's service have worthily suffered, and who in the day of their dependence resulting ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... scheme, it would lay him under the necessity of making a voyage to Europe, and remaining for a certain period, separate from his family. He must undergo the perils and discomforts of the ocean; he must divest himself of all domestic pleasures; he must deprive his wife of her companion, and his children of a father and instructor, and all for what? For the ambiguous advantages which overgrown wealth and flagitious tyranny have to bestow? For ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... not always been honest enough thus to express their real feelings; but this we know concerning them, that when they have renounced their birthright of hope, they have not been able to divest themselves of fear. From the nature of the human mind this might be presumed, and in fact it is so. They may deaden the heart and stupify the conscience, but they cannot destroy the imaginative faculty. There is a remarkable ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... understood Wilkie perfectly. The fear of being considered a coward by a nobleman like the Marquis de Valorsay was more than sufficient, not only to divest him of all his scruples, but even to induce him to commit any act of folly, or actually a crime. For if he had looked upon M. de Coralth as an oracle, he considered the marquis to be ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... answered by both of them, Marcy went up to his room, whither his trunk had already been carried. His first task was to remove some of the North Carolina dust that had settled on his hands and face, and his next to divest himself of his uniform and put on a suit of citizen's clothes. During his long ride that gray coat had brought him in pretty close contact with some people he hoped ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... cannot," said Edith, coldly and wearily. "I am going directly upstairs to divest myself of this mocking finery ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... flatters the self-love of M. Bonaparte to be seized by history, if perchance, and truly one would imagine so, he cherishes any illusion as to his value as a political miscreant, let him divest ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... purpose of your journey, it is unnecessary to recommend silence. I know not whether such doubts are natural to all who have secret measures to pursue, or whether nature has given me an unusual share of anxious suspicion; but I cannot divest myself of the idea, that I am closely watched by some one whom I cannot discover. Although I concealed my purpose of coming hither from all mankind but you, whom I do not for an instant suspect of blabbing, yet it was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... simply nothing to do but to disregard their presence. Calmly I began to take off my clothes, as if the ladies were not there. At first my preparations seemed to make no impression whatever, but finally, when I was about to divest myself of the last of my few garments, they ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... still divest My orchard of the Insect Pest, That you are such is manifest, Prepare to die.— And yet, how sweetly does your crest ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... it in the later work of the more notable of its members as well as in that of their unenrolled associates and the admirers of the Pre-Raphaelite method. What the movement owed to Ruskin is now frankly conceded, in the lesson the brotherhood took to heart from his counsellings,—to divest art of conventionality, and to work with scrupulous fidelity and sincerity of purpose. Nor was contemporary art alone the gainer by the movement; it also had its influence on poetry, though this has been obscured—so ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... yourselves to be led away by a feeling of false sympathy, or to be improperly actuated by the idea that the deed was done in legitimate defence of the prisoner's sister, if the evidence do not prove that such was the case. I do implore you to divest yourselves of any such preconceived notions. Did the evidence merely go to show that Mr. Ussher was killed by the brother whilst eloping with the sister, it would doubtless be fair that the circumstance should be taken into your ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope |
