"Promise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have your promise, my child; and what you promise you keep. But my friend is a stranger to you—you are young and at your age life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... payment of the tribute in products of the land. They took oath according to another custom—each chief taking a candle in his hand and Don Luis one in his, and saying that so would he, who failed to keep his promise, or who broke his promise in whole or in part, be consumed even as that candle was consumed. Then they extinguished the candles, saying that just as that candle expired and was consumed, just so would he who broke his promise be slain ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... tore a leaf from a tiny note-book that hung at her waist. "Take this note. Tell no one. Give it into the Prophet's own hands—" She drew out a pencil and wrote a few enigmatical words. "Give it into his own hands; and I can promise you that your reward will be greater than you think." With a rapid movement, she roiled up the paper and ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... it out: Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What, Rome? My ancestors did from the streets of Rome The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. 'Speak, strike, redress!' Am I entreated 55 To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise, If the redress will follow, thou receivest Thy full petition ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... spite of the promise of the man who had written the book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the Bay of Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set down the author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind to quarrel with him for leading us into this cruel ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and moral beauty, but from that age they had rapidly trodden the pathway to the tomb. None of her children had resembled their father but Eugenio, who was a well-made youth of wiry constitution, and gave every promise of attaining the ordinary age allotted to man. Celestino was destined soon to rejoin the children gone before. How can I describe the thrill I felt when I saw that child's face as he entered the room? Never had I seen in picture or in dream a countenance so lovely. But what can I say of those soul-speaking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Lysander to Sardis, and gave him a supply of money, with promise of more. Nay, he was so zealous to show his attachment to Lysander that he declared, if his father would not furnish him with funds, that he would expend all his own property, and if other resources failed, that he would break up the gold and silver ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... lasted long enough, while the matter was complicated at home by her sister Eleanor's undisguised sympathy with her cousin Bobus, for whom she would have sent messages if her mother had not, with some difficulty exacted a promise never to allude to him ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or dislocation of evolution. If it did, or if it stood as an unique or unclassifiable phenomenon (as some of its votaries contend), this would seem to be a misfortune—as it would obviously rob us of at any rate one promise of progress in the future. And the promise of something better than Paganism and better than Christianity is very precious. It is surely time ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... in the office also, and when they got home she cried a lot and called him her poor little fatherless boy, and said she hoped he would be good and try to learn. And then he cried as well, and promised her that he would do his best. He reflected with pride that he was keeping his promise about being a good boy and trying to learn: in fact, he knew a great deal about the trade already—he could paint back doors as well as anybody! and railings as well. Owen had taught him lots of things and had promised to do some patterns of graining ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Aelian, in his Various and Natural Histories, relate the same fact as to the dogs drinking of the Nile. "To treat a thing, as the dogs do the Nile," was a common proverb with the ancients, signifying to do it superficially; corresponding with our homely saying, "To give it a lick and a promise." Macrobius, in the Saturnalia, B. i. c. 2, mentions a story, that after the defeat at Mutina, when enquiry was made as to what had become of Antony, one of his servants made answer: "He has done what the dogs do in Egypt, he ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... she, when she had done laughing. "I wouldn't, I promise you. Sophy, don't you know a curate you could marry? You had better, if you ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... the others. If you know when you are well off, you will take every precaution to keep those boys from finding out how treacherous you have been. You must not expect any signs of friendship from me. I shall stick to my promise, and see that no serious injury is done you; but, if you will insist in showing your courage by fighting us, you must make up your mind to be roughly handled. You say that Frank didn't read to me what he wrote in ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... carving, colouring, or arrangement the architect can devise. There is no ornament like the swallow's nest; the home of a messenger between man and the blue heavens, between us and the sunlight, and all the promise of the sky. The joy of life, the highest and tenderest feelings, thoughts that soar on the swallow's wings, come to the round nest under the roof. Not only to-day, not only the hopes of future years, but all the past ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... Boyle, looking after her with loving eyes; "it's a heavy care she has, and the minister, poor man, he can't see it. Well, well, she has the promise." ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... themselves across the parched bottom lands as the sun slid down behind the trees of Eden's swamp lot; the heat waves of a blistering hot day still dancing their devil's dance down the road like wriggling circumflexes to accent a false promise of coolness off there in the distance; the ominous emptiness of the landscape; the brooding quiet, cut through only by the frogs and the dry flies tuning up for their evening concert; the bandannaed negress wrangling at the weeds ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... acknowledgement and promise of better behaviour, with a Reference to the Commission for publick affairs if he keep not his ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... the house, Gilbert and the Captain were obliged to promise to dine at Heatherly next day, very much to the secret distaste of the former, who must thus lose an evening with Marian, but who was ashamed to reveal his hopeless condition by a persistent refusal. Captain Sedgewick ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... "by and by" did not come. Mrs. Lyman seemed to have forgotten her promise; and about eight o'clock had to leave the candles a few minutes to give Dorcas some advice about the fitting of a dress. Dorcas was to take her mother's place; but just as she started for the kitchen, ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... deceived me," was her mother's frequent remark. "I cannot remember a single instance of untruth, even in play," and perhaps this truthfulness of spirit enabled her the more readily to trust the word of another. "She promised me," Sarah would say, and on the promise she would ever rest, in all the sweet dependence of a child. Surely this may speak a word to those professing to be the followers of Him who keepeth his promise for ever—the covenant-keeping God. How lightly are promises often made! how carelessly ...
— Jesus Says So • Unknown
... we sent the pledge and the rest of our Iauars to land, with promise that he would do the best he might to get our men leaue to come aborde: about euening of the same day wee had newes from our men by foure of our saylers that as then they were better vsed, saying they thought they should come aborde when two shippes were gone that ment to saile ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success" (Joshua i. 8.) Five hundred years later the inspired author of the first Psalm repeats the promise in unmistakable terms. The Spirit there says of him whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who in His law doth meditate day and night, that "he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... truth, in his own person, of what he had just observed respecting French expertness at pillage: for, though he told Captain Berry that he would give him, in return, a pair of French pistols, to protect him on his journey home, this mean French officer never performed his promise. To such a pitch, indeed, did these miscreants carry their cruelty and theft, that they purloined the English surgeon's instruments, while he was performing operations on the wounded; and nearly rendered mortal the wound of Captain Thompson, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... strange that he is not by my side. If it were not for him, I should die, but he says that as soon as the slaves are free that he will come back and be the same husband he was before." The officers standing around me smiled as they heard of his promise to retire, but said she, "Oh, yes, he will do as he promised." When the war was over and the slaves were free, and he had scolded General Grant all he wished, he did do as he promised, and did retire. He sold his ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... said Falconer, seizing one of her hands. "You remember my promise. I swear I shall keep it though I hang for it! Don't make a disturbance and compel me to use force, I beg. You see, the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... should promise you more than Edgar,' broke out Angela, petulantly. 'He is my brother too, and he isn't cross; and I love him, and will ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... realization of the religious, social, or ethical ideal; conceiving Israel, as did Reform Judaism, to be its own Messiah, not fated, however, to remain a minutely scattered leaven among nations who condemned or destroyed it, but destined according to the prophetic promise to re-establish itself upon Zion;[2] convinced that a true assimilating of the fruits of emancipation in contradistinction to an imitating of Gentile culture could only be effected by an emancipation from within, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... There was a rush, but it was met by a silent thickening of the line at the point assailed. Men scuffled with men, swearing and grunting, panting hard. Here and there weapons flashed dully, though as yet no shot was fired. Time and again Franklin raised his voice. "Men, listen to me!" he cried. "We promise you a ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... word to be my bride, Now prove thou to thy promise steady; On earth so wide or sea's salt tide I'll ne'er deceive ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which they promise is reached only after weary wandering through the desert. Prince Louis did not possess the self-denial requisite for it. So he continued his life devoted to purely external things and meanwhile was as much bored as Jonah in the whale. He undertook long journeys and ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... them belonged to old Suffolk. Thompson, and Flint, and Short, and Stimson, four capital fellows in their way, came from the main; the last, it was said, from as far east as Kennebunk. No matter; they were all reasonably young, hale, active fellows, with a promise of excellent service about every man of them. Livingston and Floyd were coloured persons, who bore the names of the two respectable families in which they or their progenitors had formerly been slaves. Weeks ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... briskly. "That's the only thing that keeps me from your side. The duties of the class president are many and irksome. At the present moment I've a duty on hand that I don't in the least relish, and I want your august assistance. Will you promise to help before ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... time upon the mast our brown sail flapped; Our keel plowed bitter salt, and everywhere The ominous sky in sullen mystery wrapped, What side we looked on, either here or there, The welcome sight of land long sadly sought; And that Atlantis, hid within the sea, The land with all our hope and promise fraught, We saw not yet, nor ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... as 'incomplete metamorphosis.' In other words, the young, when they emerge from the egg, are very little different from the parent form. The youngest locust in the illustration (fig. 2) is obviously a locust, though he lacks wings; but there is no promise of the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... as if I was one of the family. I gladly recommend your Institution to all persons who are afflicted with any kind of chronic disease, for from my own experience I know the professional staff will do all which they promise to do. Please accept my thanks for the speedy benefits and perfect cure of my diseases, and I think your Institution is worthy of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... herself; never having been free, she could not understand the use of freedom unless she was to be a wife. She had understood my little address as a proposal, and of course she was disappointed; but, as an action for breach of promise cannot be pressed in the Soudan, poor Barrake, although free, had not the happy rights of a free-born Englishwoman, who can heal her broken heart with a pecuniary plaster, and console herself with damages for the loss of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... for that promise," said Mark, greatly relieved to find at least one friend among the natives in his ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bayswater together, talking from time to time, Ulick trying not to say anything which would disturb her resolution, though he had heard Owen say that once she had made a promise she never ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... eyes, and other tears dropped when she remembered the other more precious comfort that the stranger had brought into the widow's house, but she knew that the days of miracles and cures past hope were gone, and that the Christian woman's promise was 'that her children should come again,' but not till the resurrection ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... libertine with epithets which were decidedly uncomplimentary. Still, he doubted the story of my mother's crime—he could not believe her to be guilty of such baseness; but he assured me that he should satisfy himself of her innocence or guilt, then left me, after having made me promise not to expose him in reference to his affair with the ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... submit to the Senate a reciprocity treaty with Cuba. On May 20 last the United States kept its promise to the island by formally vacating Cuban soil and turning Cuba over to those whom her own people had chosen as the first officials of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... great work of this noble and original writer, is rendered more valuable by the well-written and critical Memoir of Young, which Dr. Doran has prefixed to it.—The National Miscellany, May 1853. The first Number of a New Magazine just issued by Mr. Parker (Oxford), with every promise of realising the objects for which it has been projected, namely, "to aid the elevation of the reader's mind, to raise some glow of generous desire, some high and noble thoughts, some kindly feeling, and a warm veneration for all things that are good and true."—Cyclopaedia ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... reproached with anything more than a trifling weakness. You and I, sir, differ too much in our principles ever to be agreeable to each other. Forget that I exist; this you will easily do. I have never done to men either good or evil of a nature to be long remembered. I promise you, sir, to forget your person and to remember nothing relative to you but ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... began Piotr Gavrilovitch; those were painful days... and I would rather not recall them.... But I have made you a promise; I shall have to tell you the ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... still. He had decided to wake up—to wake up to the old, hard, cruel life—to poverty, dulness, lameness. There was no other thing to be done. He must wake up and keep his promise to Beale. But it was hard—hard—hard. The beautiful house, the beautiful garden, the games, the boat-building, the soft clothes, the kind people, the uplifting sense that he was Somebody ... yet he must go. Yes, ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... last, however, her anger began a little to abate, and she commenced framing excuses for the cardinal. He had so much to occupy him, he must have been detained, and, most potent of all, he had not yet seen her. She would not have been so easily consoled if he had broken the promise of a second visit. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and with England because she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... divorced. That is a vast advantage—an immense source of power. I am growing more certain of you; you are not merely cleverly eccentric as I thought. You have a great deal that no one can teach you. You have finished that—I wish to take it downstairs to show the men. It will not be jeered at, I promise you." ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... the healthiest infant to run after errands that ever was, and Pa said he could stay, but we must remember that there musn't be no monkey business going on. I told him there shouldn't be no monkey business, but I didn't promise nothing about cats. Well, sir, you'd a dide. The committee was in the library by the back stairs, and me and my chum got the cat boxes all together, at the top of the stairs, and we took them all out and put them in a ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... were diverted with the expedient, and, by paying the debt, discharged their attendance, having obliged sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him graced with a retinue of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... and undisciplined minds. Yet even these are, in their way, indications of the pervading disposition,—the unhealthy exhalations to be expected from hitherto stagnant regions, stirred up by the active and regenerating thought of the time. There is promise even in them, and they serve to distinguish the more that purer and higher spirit of honesty and reality, which clarifies the intellect, and invigorates the faculties that apprehend and grasp the noble and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... letter—the last she knew it would be. It was written, not with the frank simplicity of their girlish confidence, but with the formal dignity of one who the next day would become a bride. It spoke of no regret, no remorse for her violated troth; it mentioned her former promise in a cold, business-like manner, without inferring any changed love, but merely stating her friends' opinion on the "evil of long engagements, and that she would be much better married at once to Mr. Gwynne, than waiting some ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... reasons. Now, for the first time, the beginner is able to see the effect of the weeks of thought and labor which have been given to the production. She can watch from the front the fulfillment of what she has only seen as intention and promise during the other rehearsals. But I am afraid that beginners now are not so keen as they used to be. The first wicked thing I did in a theater sprang from excess of keenness. I borrowed a knife from a carpenter and made a slit in the canvas to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... wish," he said, and went quietly away. And his going brought a sudden desolation. She longed to call him back, to promise what he asked, to yield without further struggle. But uncertainty held her. Motionless she stood staring through the darkness at the dim outline of the door that had closed behind him, her breast heaving tumultuously, until tears blinded her and with a gasping ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened—never, and then I handed him that little piece ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... The pecuniary results promise to be highly satisfactory; it is already evident that increased rents will be accompanied by increased prosperity, and it is thought in the neighbourhood that in the next ten years, the property will, from the judicious expenditure of 30,000 pounds, be worth ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... whether of fault, of natural law, or of supernal will, the flush that seemed to promise the dawn of an eternal day, shrinks and fades, though, with him, like the lagging skirt of the sunset in the northern west, it does not vanish, but travels on, a withered pilgrim, all the night, at the long last to rise the aureole of the eternal Aurora. And now new paths entice him—or old ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... language more animated; the descriptions more lively and figurative. Homer seems to kindle with his subject, and to press all the phenomena of nature into his service for the purpose of illustration and adornment. Jupiter prepares to keep his promise of avenging Achilles, by drawing Agamemnon into a deceitful expectation of taking the city. The forces are arranged for battle, which gives ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... neighbours; let us live in peace! There is a saying, you know, that even a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and, 'Don't buy property, but buy neighbours.' I repeat my husband is a kind man and good; if all goes well we promise to do everything in our power for you; we will mend the roads, we will build a school for your ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... consisted of his grateful acknowledgments, and of the promise that Jack should be promoted to the office of assistant gardener as soon as that post was vacant (which would be in the course of a few weeks). But, best of all, the promise included also this, namely, that the widow and her ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... reason and temper dissuaded him from exposing his royal person to the faith of unknown and lawless Barbarians. His prudence, or his pride, was content with extorting from the French princes an oath of homage and fidelity, and a solemn promise, that they ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... you) agrees and promises and breaks his promise immediately afterwards. Maybe he was only gaining time for his good friend Octavius Caesar, but time gained by such foul means is time lost through all eternity. Did Mark think of these things years afterwards in Egypt when he ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... gave her a fierce hug; she straightened herself up, and dashed the water from her eyes. "Well, then," she said, "I'll see. But promise ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... Ever since he had let her hand go, she had stood with bent head looking at it. He had taken it, he had let it go; there seemed to be a promise of heaven—was ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... time that this explanation was going on in Italian the Governor seemed more than ever, and more anxiously, disposed to overwhelm me with assurances of goodwill, and proffers of his best services. All this kindness, or promise of kindness, I naturally received with courtesy—a courtesy that greatly perturbed Dthemetri, for he evidently feared that my civility would undo all the good that his insults ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... measure of her love was not to be taken, so huge was it and all for him. If he had sinned, and how men sin there is little hid from the working girl, it was not from evil heart. If he had not been good he would be good. He would promise her. ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... Under ecclesiastical law, marriage was held as a sacrament, was performed at the church door, the wife being required to give up her name, her person, her property, her own sacred individuality, and to promise obedience to her husband in all things. Certain hours of the day were even set aside as canonical after which no marriage could be celebrated.[199] Wherever it became the basis of legislation, the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... queen gave particular orders that, if possible, the messenger was to bring the peasant boy, Gabriel Viaud, back to the palace with him; for she thought the lad's work on the page where he had written his little prayer showed such promise that she wished to see him, and to have him continue his training in the beautiful ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... by his Majesty King George II., and his representative here is in a flame of fury. Virginia is bad enough, and poor Maryland not much better, but Pennsylvania is worst of all. We pray them to send us troops from home to fight the French; and we promise to maintain the troops when they come. We not only don't keep our promise, and make scarce any provision for our defenders, but our people insist upon the most exorbitant prices for their cattle and stores, and actually cheat the soldiers who are come to fight ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I hope she will come; she looked sweet. And every one's coming to our Tuesday dinner, Jim, except Ivy; notes from them all. Ivy says Lady Violet is so ill that she can't promise, but Phyllis is coming with the new husband. She wrote such a cunning note! And—I'll see Ivy this afternoon, and I think I'll tell her that I'm going to leave her place open; if she can't come, why we'll just have to have ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... vigor. He owed her everything. He had told her so. He had vowed his life to her. It was to be hers to dispose of, even at her caprice. It was what he had meant in uttering his parting words to her. But, now, that he had the power in some degree, he was doing nothing to fulfil his promise. He had even lost the desire to make ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... quibus, &c. they did as much mischief to mortal men as fire and water, those merciless elements when they rage. [322]Which is yet more to be lamented, they persuade them this hellish course of life is holy, they promise heaven to such as venture their lives bello sacro, and that by these bloody wars, as Persians, Greeks, and Romans of old, as modern Turks do now their commons, to encourage them to fight, ut cadant infeliciter. "If they die in the field, they go directly ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... console himself on this subject by the number and position of the guards, yet still was dissatisfied with himself for not having taken yet more exact precautions, and for keeping an extorted promise of silence, which might consign so many of his party to the danger of assassination. These thoughts, connected with his military duties, awakened another train of reflections. He bethought himself, that all he ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... idea of Ray marrying me because I wasn't in the profession. Wouldn't hear of it. Well, you remember at Oxford I could always sing a song pretty well; so Ray got hold of old Riesbitter and made him promise to come and hear me rehearse and get me bookings if he liked my work. She stands high with him. She coached me for weeks, the darling. And now, as you heard him say, he's booked me in the small time ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... At first nothing good awaits him at home. His wife, Penelope, is surrounded by numerous suitors. Each one she promises to marry, when she has finished weaving a certain piece of work. She avoids keeping her promise by undoing every night what she has woven by day. Odysseus is obliged to vanquish the suitors before he can be reunited to his wife in peace. The goddess Athene changes him into a beggar so that ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... fire being seen on the north shore of the harbour, a party of our people went thither, accompanied by Nanbaree and Abaroo. They found there Baneelon, and several other natives, and much civility passed, which was cemented by a mutual promise to meet in the afternoon at the same place. Both sides were punctual to their engagement, and no objection being made to our landing, a party of us went ashore to them unarmed. Several little presents, which had been purposely brought, were distributed among ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... said, softly; "and mind, I won't 'ave him disturbed. It's the first real sleep he's 'ad for nearly a week. If you promise not to wake 'im you may ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... you must, you must; and according to my promise I intend to ride part of the way with you," he answered. "I wish however that you could do without your baggage, and we would see how fast we could get over the ground; but as you have to take that, we must be content with a steady pace, and I'll make play on my ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... must remain there till I give you a signal to come out; but, remember, that you are not to tell the captain or any one else that I had a hand in helping you. Just say that you slipped on board in a shore boat, and hid yourself of your own accord. You will promise ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... fulfilled her promise is testified by those packets of letters, dim with the dust and blight of a vanished century, but in which her reward is likewise attested. "I do not believe," she affirms proudly, "that there is a man at either of the Universities who writes so often to his mother as you do, and let me ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... general of the latter's promise to have Hal sent to Brussels, and received the commander's renewed assurances that he would not forget. Then he set out for the place where ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... was tempted to tell her of the gossip she had heard, but it suddenly seemed small and not worth while. She had already told her that Aunt Susan had her promise to come in time for dinner; it occurred to her to tell her of Nathan's attitude toward them for their unfriendly neglect, but that too seemed unnecessary and trivial since they were going. On that point Elizabeth did not intend to give in an inch: she was going, even ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... which he stated that McLeod's execution would produce "a war of retaliation and vengeance." The President at once requested the Governor of New York to order a discontinuance of the prosecution. This was declined, but with a promise to grant a pardon in case of conviction.[Footnote: Lothrop, "Life of William H. Seward," 35.] The State courts refused to discharge the prisoner. He was tried on ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... is all right," responded Emma laconically. "I don't mind telling you if you will promise on your honor as a junior not to tell ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... hair marvellously exact. The day after, Lady Jungle and several friends came to see the picture, and one gave Mr. Porcupine a commission for a portrait of her darling Wilhelmina. A rush of orders followed, and the great Sir Hyde Jungle did what the artist never believed, he kept his promise, and, by his wonderful talk, ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... top of the swing is reached (Plate XI.), should convince even the veriest beginner how much less comfortable is the position of the arms in this instance than when the right thing has been done, and how laden with promise is the general attitude of the player in the latter position as compared with his cramped state in the former. I think I ought to state, partly in justice to myself, and partly to persuade my readers that the best way in this case, as in all others, is the most natural, that I found ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... never imagine linking herself with any man, no matter how exalted spiritually, who was not a man physically. It was a delight to her and a joy to look upon the strong males of her kind, with bodies comely in the sight of God and muscles swelling with the promise of deeds and work. Man, to her, was preeminently a fighter. She believed in natural selection and in sexual selection, and was certain that if man had thereby become possessed of faculties and functions, they were for him to use and could but tend to his good. And ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... from her jurisdiction, among whom Hooker, Ludlow, and Haynes were the most notable. The General Court created a commission to govern Connecticut for a year, and made Ludlow its chief. He came to the new land of promise with the Dorchester men, and settled in ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... unproductive consumption, as above, is X, who, knowing the two desires of A and B, presents himself as a middle-man (i.e., he gives a market for both men, as is found in every center of trade, as well as in a country store), furnishing A the tools, materials, etc., and giving him the promise of lumber if he will create the carpet, and promising B the carpet if he will likewise produce the additional lumber. To be more matter of fact, X buys the carpet of A, and sells it to B for the lumber. Thus two new articles have been ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... something larger than parental hope, —the great trust of a nation regenerated through war. The military revival of the Empire—the real birthday of New Japan—began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, Japan ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... word is "overcome." It speaks much of the opposition to be encountered, and tells of greater opposition yet to come, the greatest ever known. And it pleads, with every possible promise, and every warning of danger, that the true believer set himself against the evil tide, at every risk, and every possible personal loss, and so that he "overcome" in the ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... called out as he came. "They have not kept their promise, Stefan, that is all," Ellerey answered, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said she would give directions about it herself. She then asked some questions concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation for some time, told Florence she had come to take her to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... be no grand festivities—no one had heart for them; the wedding was to be quiet, attended only by a few friends; and Lord Earle succeeded in obtaining a promise from Lionel which completely set his heart at rest. It was that he would never seek another home—that he and Lillian would consent to live at Earlescourt. Her father could not endure the thought ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to take sudden fright at this promise and glanced at Doctor Monteverde. But she was disappointed in her hope of being censured for her fickleness and unfaithfulness, for ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... promise never to say 'grave,' 'hearse,' or anything in the undertaking line, I will agree never to say 'cross!'" ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... produce a single diamond"—bit of peltry, or ware of any kind, you son of Amalek! "Not proper to say: I have got money for your bills of exchange, and I bring you nothing back; and I will repay your money when you shall no longer be here [in Germany at all]. Not proper to promise at 35 louis, and then say 30. To say 30, and then next morning 25. You should at least have produced goods (IL FALLAIT EN DONNER) at the price current; very easy to do when one was on the spot. All your procedures have been faults ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... hand as a solemnity," replied the judge. "God bless you, my dear, and enable you to keep your promise. God guide you in the true way, and spare your days, and preserve to you your honest heart." At that, he kissed the young man upon the forehead in a gracious, distant, antiquated way; and instantly launched, with a marked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long as the delegates receive an assurance that the Government will take this matter into consideration, in the interests of their subjects, whom they are bound to protect, that such an assurance ought to suffice. There should be no written undertaking, but only a promise that the matter shall receive attention. It is not advisable after the subject has been brought before the Government to press the matter further. The feelings of the burghers, moreover, in other ways than this, will be brought before ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... north to reconquer France. The news spread rapidly, and the King now on the throne sent Marshal Ney, a former General under Napoleon, to capture him. Ney promised his King to bring the fallen leader bound into his presence, and, determined to make his promise good, set forth ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Joukahainen, "O thou aged Vainamoinen, Loose me from this place of terror, And release me from my torment. All my stacks at home I'll give thee, And my fields I likewise promise, 430 All to save my life I offer, If you ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... breaking off my connection with the partner previously referred to, and of starting a business in Paris. I entered into negotiations with a gentleman highly recommended to me with a view to partnership, and received from my father the promise of cash to assist me in my new undertaking. Once fairly clear of the losing branch of my business I hoped very speedily to make up my previous losses, and the spring of 1861 was fixed upon for the opening of my Paris establishment. But my hopes ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... shalt assail Those shameless suitors, who have now controuled Three years thy family, thy matchless wife With language amorous and with spousal gifts Urging importunate; but she, with tears Watching thy wish'd return, hope gives to all By messages of promise sent to each, 460 Framing far other purposes the while. Then answer thus Ulysses wise return'd. Ah, Agamemnon's miserable fate Had surely met me in my own abode, But for thy gracious warning, pow'r ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Ferry, hoping that such a confirmation of my story would secure my immediate release. But by that time I was in the custody of the sheriff, by some military legal process; and while that officer was kind and civil, he refused to do anything, except promise me an early hearing before the court-martial, which was to reassemble the next day. Finally, I was hustled through a gaping, pot-valiant crowd, into the prison, where the mob had violently taken possession; and it was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... negro, in the same low voice; "good-by, boss; don't you fo'git you promise tek me thoo to de Yankee' when you come back. I 'feered you ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... garment or two that will startle them in another way. Please don't worry about me. I shall call my clients together and have it out with them. If Von Blitz is working in the dark, I'll compel him to show his hand. And, Miss Pelham," he concluded very slowly, "I'll promise to use a club, if necessary, to drive the Persian ladies away. So please rest ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... knowledge of God and the diffusion of the true religion over the whole world.[346] The end of Jewish national life was approaching, but rabbis in Palestine and philosophers at Alexandria, unconscious of the imminent doom, thought that the promise of the prophet was soon to be fulfilled, and all peoples would go up to worship the one God at the temple upon Mount Zion, which should be the religious centre of the world. In Philo's day a universal Judaism seemed possible, a Judaism true to the Torah as well as to the Unity ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... as dews for the christening Of dawns that the nights benumb: The spring's voice answers me listening For speech of a child to come, While promise of music is glistening On lips that ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... being that he deserved it. When word was brought me by lumbermen of the nest of the Black Vulture in the Limberlost, I hastened to tell my husband the wonderful story of the big black bird, the downy white baby, the pale blue egg, and to beg back a rashly made promise not to work in the Limberlost. Being a natural history enthusiast himself, he agreed that I must go; but he qualified the assent with the proviso that no one less careful of me than he, might accompany ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... letter from the Pole. She did everything a woman could do to distract his thoughts. She made the home life enchanting. She entertained. She introduced the movement of the world into the great house. In vain. Her husband's ennui was terrible to behold. "I release you from your promise," she said ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... something rather than its presence which appals and depresses us," Reggie Forsyth observed, "an absence of happiness perhaps, or of a promise ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... others do to you, that do ye also to them." [Matt. 7:12] If every one kept this rule before his eyes in his trade, business, and dealings with his neighbor, he would readily find how he ought to buy and sell, take and give, lend and give for nothing, promise and keep his promise, and the like. And when we consider the world in its doings, how greed controls all business, we would not only find enough to do, if we would make an honorable living before ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... should be very sure of herself before she gives her promise. She must respect the man, and have faith and confidence in him, and not permit herself to be carried away by considerations of wealth and position. If there is anything about him she dislikes, she may be sure dislike will become aversion after marriage, unless she has a genuine affection ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... with all the solemnity and sacredness that I would have bestowed upon a dying man's last request. Promptly at half-past three I repaired to the robbers' den, commonly known as Radams Horticultural and Vegetable Emporium, and secured the high-priced offerings, according to promise. I asked if the bouquets were ready, and the polite but piratical gentleman in charge pointed proudly to two objects on the counter reposing in a couple of vases, and said ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... kept the promise of better ways which thou didst make when thou didst marry my sister?" he asked; and Thorbiorn sat silent. "This wrong must be amended," said Guest, and sent an honourable man to bring Howard to him. Howard at first refused to face Thorbiorn ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... Collection of many of the Libels in the Newspapers, like the former Volume, under the same title, by Smedley. Advertised in the Craftsman, Nov. 9, 1728, with this remarkable promise, that 'any thing which any body should send as Mr Pope's or Dr Swift's should be ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... resolved to trust him, and I have never been a believer in half-confidences. I told him the errand which had brought me there. I told him of the countess's early death, and I told him of my meeting with her daughter and of the promise I had made to her. I set before him the fact that, if the venture succeeded and he gave me his aid in it, he would find wealthy friends and protectors. I told him that I was not myself a rich man, but ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray |
