"Wean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instructive; because to judge well and candidly, we must wean our selves from a slavish Bigotry to the Ancients. For, tho' Homer and Virgil, Pindar and Horace be laid before us as Examples of exquisite Writing in the Heroic and Lyric Kind, yet, either thro' the Distance of Time, or Diversity of Customs, we can no more expect ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... down,[35] I know; What pang is permanent with man? From the highest, As from the vilest thing of every day, He learns to wean himself: for the strong hours Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost In him. The bloom is vanish'd from my life; For O! he stood beside me, like my youth, Transform'd for me the real to a dream, Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... last the wind made Glaud a roofless barn; When last the burn bore down my mither's yarn; When Brawny, elf-shot, never mair came hame; When Tibby kirn'd, and there nae butter came; When Bessy Freetock's chuffy-cheeked wean To a fairy turn'd, and cou'dna stand its lane; When Wattie wander'd ae night thro' the shaw And tint himsell amaist amang the snaw; When Mungo's mare stood still and swat wi' fright, When he brought east ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... like the suggestion, and remained. What was said and what was done on that walk never could be clearly recollected by Shadrach; but in some way or other Joanna contrived to wean him away from her gentler and younger rival. From that week onwards, Jolliffe was seen more and more in the wake of Joanna Phippard and less in the company of Emily; and it was soon rumoured about the quay that old Jolliffe's son, who ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... soldiers, by the devastating system of the infernal columns, now desired nothing more than to live on good terms with the republic. The war now depended only on a few chiefs, upon Charette, Stofflet, etc. Hoche saw that it was necessary to wean the masses from these men by concessions, and then to crush them. He skilfully separated the royalist cause from the cause of religion, and employed the priests against the generals, by showing great indulgence to the catholic ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... were more needy than ever. The death of their patron, Marbeuf, had been followed by the final rejection of their long-urged suit, and this fact, combined with the political opinions of the elder Lucien, was beginning to wean them from the official clique. There were the same factions as before—the official party and the patriots. Since the death of Charles de Buonaparte, the former had been represented at Versailles by Buttafuoco, Choiseul's unworthy instrument in acquiring the island, and now, as then, an uninfluential ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... score, himsel' did sain, The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane; While the young ane closer clespit her wean, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... noted that Parker's effort was powerfully aided by the conscientious utterances of some of his foremost opponents. Nothing during the American struggle against the slave system did more to wean religious and God-fearing men and women from the old interpretation of Scripture than the use of it to justify slavery. Typical among examples of this use were the arguments of Hopkins, Bishop of Vermont, a man ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... came to him like a dull brightness wherefrom desolate thunder might roll at an instant. Indeed, she began to obsess him so that not even the ministrations of his aunt nor the obeisances of that pleasant girl, the name of whose boots was Fairybell, could give him any comfort or wean him from a contemplation which sprawled gloomily between him and his duties to the traffic. If he had not discovered the lowliness of her quality his course might have been simple and straightforward: the issue, in such an event, would have narrowed to every man's poser—whether he should marry ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... talk of your return, even in February, doubtingly, I have determined, the moment the weather changes, to wean my child.—It is too soon for her to begin to divide sorrow!—And as one has well said, "despair is a freeman," we will go and seek ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... by her Husband's side, Ruth does what Simon cannot do; 50 For she, with scanty cause for pride, [12] Is stouter of the two. And, though you with your utmost skill From labour could not wean them, 'Tis little, very little—all 55 That they can do ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Frederick could not wean himself from was that sweet, fair, frail, pathetic body. Yet he was ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... return to Barnham. His friends no sooner found out the villainy of his inclinations, but they took all methods imaginable to wean him from his vices. They corrected him severely; they offered him any encouragements on his showing the least visible sign of amendment, they put him to seven several trades upon liking. But all this was to no purpose, nothing could persuade him to forsake ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... his arm around her shoulder. His face twitched. Emma said in a low voice: "I help Miss Maria wean 'im, en he bit me on de knuckles wid 'is fust toofs. Nevuh had no trouble wid 'im, 'cept to dust 'is britches wunst in a w'ile. Ah, Lawd! I sho did love dat chile! Use to rake chips for de wash-pot fire, en sit roun' en wait for ole Emma Campbell to fix ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... for lumber the stipulation that it be cut on the wane of the moon. The rural confidence in the influence of the moon upon the life of a farm still persists vigorously: thus as Pliny (H.N. XVIII, 75) counselled that one wean a colt only when the moon is on the wane, so it will be found that the moon is consulted before a colt is weaned on most American farms today: for that may be safely done, says the rural oracle, only ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... form of a note payable in a year! His enthusiasm for his art seems at this period to have been gradually waning, although he still strove to command success; but it needed a decisive stroke to wean him entirely from his first love, and Fate did ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the child's young lips, and wean The boyish ear from words and tales unclean; As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind; He tells of worthy precedents, displays The examples of the past to after days, Consoles affliction, and ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... not abuse liquor, but the moment you obligate yourself not to touch it, it kinder sets you a hankering after it, and if you taste it after that, it upsets you, as it did last night. It ain't easy to wean a calf that takes to suckin' the second time, that's a fact. Your pretence set folks agin you. They didn't half like the interruption for one thing, and then the way you acted made them disrespect you. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Hoping to wean her from worrying about Johnny, dad had bought the Bear Cat. Mary V had owned it for ten days now, and its mileage stood at 1400 and was just about ready to slide another "1" into sight. The Bear Cat had proven itself a useful ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... along beside the pinto, looked at her queerly. "If Pat does not, I strongly suspect that I shall," he told her weightily, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I have been endeavoring, Miss Stevenson, to wean your thoughts away from so unhappy a subject. Why permit yourself to be worried? The thing will happen, or it will not happen. If it does happen, you will be powerless to prevent. If it does not, you will have been anxious over ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... was at this time about eleven months old, but was still at the breast, as I could never prevail on his lovely mother to wean him, and at the very time of which I am speaking, our little settlement was invaded one night by a tribe of those large baboons called ourang-outangs, pongos, or wild men of the woods, who did great mischief to our fruits, yams, and carrots. From that time we kept a great number of guns loaded, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... to whom he gave names symbolic of the impending fate[1] of Israel, i. 1-9. The faithless Gomer abandons Hosea for a paramour, but he is moved by his love for her to buy her out of the degradation into which she has fallen, and takes earnest measures to wean her to a better mind. All this Hosea learns to interpret as symbolic of the divine love for Israel, which refuses to be defeated, but will seek to recover the people, though it be through the stern discipline of exile (iii.). ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... old man saw that on the green Leaves of his opening ... a blight had lighted 230 He said: 'My friend, one grief alone can wean ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that such peace and comfort were in store for her, and her tyrant looked as gloomy as Erebus at losing her slave, but we did not care for that; we brought her home in triumph, and a fortnight's notice was given to the foster-mother in which to wean Mademoiselle d'Aubepine and bring her to Nid ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... without tempters to wean him from his home and his ordinary pursuits. In 1836, the year after his triumphal reception at Bordeaux, some of his friends urged him to go to Paris—the centre of light and leading—in order to "make ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... changing, "there were some reason in what you say. It were wisdom, then, to sport like insects in sunbeams—to sink at night into dreamless sleep. But such is not man's destiny. What infinite concernments hang on the present moment! How imperative and urgent is our duty to wean these poor heathen from their wild ways and false creed, that they may be rescued from the intolerable perdition that awaits all who are ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Daddy Jack, raising both hands and grinning excitedly, "wut tale dis? I bin yerry da tale wun I is bin wean't fum me mammy." ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... I was nearing the land where once more I should see old Dannebrog, the flag that fell from heaven with victory to the hard-pressed Danes. Literally out of the sky it fell in their sight, the historic fact being apparently that the Christian bishops had put up a job with the Pope to wean the newly converted Danes away from their heathen pirate flag and found their opportunity in one of the crusades the Danes undertook on their own hook into what is now Prussia. The Pope had sent a silken banner with the device of a white ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... she would be very happy yet; "but, Katy darling," she continued, "you have a duty to perform as well as Wilford. Your heart is very sore now because of the deception, but you must not let that soreness appear in your manner. You must be to Wilford just what you always were, unless you wish to wean him from you. He, too, has had a terrible shock; his pride and self-love have been wounded, and men like him do not like being humbled as he has been. You must soothe him, Katy, and smooth his ruffled feathers, proving to him that you can and do forgive the past. And, Katy, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and the table creaked beneath one of those luxurious Yorkshire teas which might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... beneath his shaggy eyelashes, but he suppressed his thoughts. He could not help remarking, however, "With the Intendant at Beaumanoir! I could have wished Le Gardeur in better company! No good can come of his intimacy with Bigot; Amelie, you must wean him from it. He should have been in the city to receive you and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Low Church parson: "An earnest Christian woman, sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that true woman's heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon higher things. A good Churchwoman, sir, a good Churchwoman, in the ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... reproached me for what he terms my insensibility to his perfections, and says I ought to rejoice that he is so easily rendered happy—only imagine this! Rose, you must give me your daughter, to be to me as my own. Her beauty and sweetness will at once wean my husband's love from this boy; and, moreover, children brought up together—do you not see?—that boy will become attached to one of the 'plebeian blood,' and wedding her hereafter, scald to the core the proud heart of his mother, as she has ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... By repentance is meant, in Scripture, change of life, alteration of habits, renewal of heart. This is the aim and meaning of all sorrow. The consequences of sin are meant to wean from sin. The penalty annexed to it is in the first instance, corrective, not penal. Fire burns the child, to teach it one of the truths of this universe—the property of fire to burn. The first time it cuts its hand with a sharp knife, it has gained ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... more useful way. Indeed, to the wise heads of those days, the pursuit of natural science seemed so much waste of good time which might otherwise be devoted to logic or rhetoric or some other branch of study more in vogue at that time. To assist in this attempt to wean Tycho from his scientific tastes, his uncle chose as a tutor to accompany him an intelligent and upright young man named Vedel, who was four years senior to his pupil, and accordingly, in 1562, we find the pair taking up their abode ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... should be so; for I have the spectres of no hard feelings nor bitter thoughts, nor painful recollections to haunt me, requiring excitement and bustle to drive them off; and old age demands time for solemn thought and serious meditation, to enable it to wean itself from the past, and look cheerfully ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... a truthful lad all his days," his mother proudly testified; "while as to drink—not a drop of spirits has passed his lips sin' I gev' him a wee drop for the spasms when he wes a wean!" ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... our shepherd from the hill, Passed is the sunny sadness of his song, That song which sang of sight and yet was brave To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong To wean from tears and from the troughs to save; And who shall teach us now ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... our tale: the Donna Inez sent Her son to Cadiz only to embark; To stay there had not answered her intent, But why?—we leave the reader in the dark— 'T was for a voyage the young man was meant, As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark, To wean him from the wickedness of earth, And send him like a Dove of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... passed on, many little losses of money and valued articles disturbing and troubling the mind of Mrs. Campbell, until it became necessary to wean her babe. This duty was assigned to Jane, who took the infant to sleep with her. On the first night, it cried for several hours—in fact, did not permit Jane to get more than a few minutes sleep at a time all night. Her patience was tried severely. Sometimes ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... settlement, within twenty miles of the mouth of the river. The Sauteux, of all other tribes, are the most tenacious of their own superstitions; and it would require all the zeal and patience and perseverance of the primitive teachers of Christianity to wean them from them. But when convinced of his errors, the Sauteux convert is the more steadfast in his faith; and his steadfastness and sincerity prove an ample reward to his spiritual father for his pains and ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... disgrace, shame, loss, madness, yet [414]"an angry man will prefer vengeance, a lascivious his whore, a thief his booty, a glutton his belly, before his welfare." Tell an epicure, a covetous man, an ambitious man of his irregular course, wean him from it a little, pol me occidistis amici, he cries anon, you have undone him, and as [415]a "dog to his vomit," he returns to it again; no persuasion will take place, no counsel, say what ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that which shall be reasonable. No person shall be obliged beyond his ability. A mother shall not be compelled to what is unreasonable on account of her child, nor a father on account of his child. And the heir of the father shall be obliged to do in like manner. But if they choose to wean the child before the end of two years, by common consent and on mutual consideration, it shall be no crime in them. And if ye have a mind to provide a nurse for your children, it shall be no crime in you, in case ye fully pay what ye offer her, according ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... again for me," I said, "and I'll discover whether you have any ability." For the way to wean any one from a desire is ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... experience had been that the answer came swift and sufficient; but this generation had tried a new method, and fear of 'Nahash the Ammonite' had driven them to look for a man to help them. The experience of God's responses to prayer does not always wean even those who receive them from casting about for visible helpers. Still less does the experience of our predecessors keep us from it. Strange that after a hundred plain instances of His aid, the hundred and first distress should find us almost as slow to turn to Him, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... suppose he is thinking it is time to wean himself," observed Paddy Brady, who had been the ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... to wean's frae oor waes, He comes when the bairnies are getting aff their claes; To cover them sae cosy, an' bring bonnie dreams, So Auld Daddy Darkness is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... call Hannibal-the-Fighter. They say he never spares an enemy, and that he eats the flesh of those he kills. May the gods grant that my masters shall wean him to-night from the love of such hideous, barbaric fare!"—and yet, with all her horror, Marcia almost smiled to note how the girl looked upon this brute with more of woman's feeling for man than she bestowed upon any of his better favoured ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the guid cause," said she. "Aften I spaed to them the way that it would end. Twa shillin' Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin' for't! They took it frae a wean[8] belanged to Brouchton." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grew so pale and emaciated from want of rest and continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... REBELLION.—About five years ago it was predicted, through Mrs. Buchanan, that Catholicism in New York would undergo a change, as many spirits were actively at work to liberalize the minds of Catholics, especially at the time of Easter, and to wean them from their attitude of abject submission. There were no indications of such a tendency at that time, and the movement of the Catholic masses in sympathy with Dr. McGlynn, who tells the Pope that he shall not meddle with the politics ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... had wished for, perhaps startled Faith to a fresh sense of what she had to do in the premises. She resolved to be as grave and cool as it was possible to be, in Dr. Harrison's presence. She would keep him at such a distance as should wean him from any thoughts of her. Faith tried faithfully to do what she had purposed. But it was very difficult to keep at a distance a person who did not pretend to be near, or only pretended it in a line where he could not be repulsed. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of soldier-ants crossing the road in solid phalanx or climbing the trees, the winged jewels of the air flitting silently here and there, the picturesque natives and their deferential salaams—all these only serve to wean one's thoughts from the oppressive heat for a moment. At times one fairly gasps for breath and looks involuntarily about in forlorn search of some place of escape, if only for a moment, from the stifling atmosphere. A feeling of utter ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... in the night, and they Have stolen my bonny wean away; Have put in his place a changeling, A ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... it has left them somewhat inexperienced in the Conventions of Society, I find a little trying. It does not harmonise with the retired, peaceful existence to which I am accustomed (and at my time of life, I think, entitled), in which it is my humble endeavour to wean myself from this earth which is so full of Emptiness and to prepare myself for that other and better Home into which we must all resign ourselves to enter. And happy, indeed, my dear Rupert, such of us as will be found worthy; for come to it we all must, and the longer we live, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Americans because to-day our country supports more literary grocers and panders than the rest of the world put together. It isn't the writers' fault altogether. You can't turn a nation from pap in a day any more than you can wean a baby on lobster ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... if this marriage were destined to wean Ali forever from his former turbulent habits and wild adventures. But the family into which he had married afforded violent contrasts and equal elements of good and mischief. If Emineh, his wife, was a model of virtue, his father-in-law, Capelan, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... soul delight. Oh that my youth had thus employ'd my pen! 113 Or that I now could write as well as then! But 'tis of grace, if sickness, age, and pain, Are felt as throes, when we are born again; Timely they come to wean us from this earth, As pangs that wait ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... knight with us in the cottage." All was silent without, only a suppressed laugh was audible, and the fisherman said as he returned: "You must pardon it in her, my honored guest, and perhaps many a naughty trick besides; but she means no harm by it. It is our foster-child, Undine, and she will not wean herself from this childishness, although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But, as I said, at heart she is ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... to wean her from her anodynes, and failed altogether in doing her any good, although many remedies were resorted to, and various modes of treatment adopted. Finally, in sheer despair, I put her to bed, and began your treatment of rest, with ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... state, that it should wean Well-tutored counselors to do their part Full profit and prosperity to glean With dignity, although with contrite heart And wisdom that Tradition wisdom ranks, That church and state might stand ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... feckless, ugsome, sickly wean he was, puir laddie—a knight cam by, an' behoved to take him to the King. Nay, but if you've been at Parish—if that's what ye mean with your Lutetia—ye'll have seen him ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen, A clever, sturdy fellow: He's sin gat Eppie Sim wi' wean, That liv'd in Achmacalla: He gat hemp-seed,[38] I mind it weel, And he made unco light o't; But monie a day was by himsel', He was sae sairly ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... late, to the end that Poppsy and Pee-Wee may thrive. And already I see sex-differences asserting themselves. Pee-Wee is a bit of a stoic, while his sister shows a tendency to prove a bit of a squealer. But Poppsy is much the daintier feeder of the two. I'll probably have to wean them both, however, before many more weeks slip by. As soon as we get settled in our new shack and I can be sure of a one-cow supply of milk I'll begin a bottle-feed once in every twenty-four hours. Dinky-Dunk says I ought to take ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... you wean a calf at the time of the full moon, it will make less fuss. You mustn't wean it when the sign is in the belly, or it will never grow fat. Pursue the same course with a pig, or it will squeal. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... We are taught that it is the general tendency of the diversions of the stage, by holding out false morals and prospects, to weaken the sinews of morality; by disqualifying for domestic enjoyments, to wean from a love of home; by accustoming to light thoughts and violent excitement of the passions, to unfit for the pleasures of religion. We are taught that diversions of this nature particularly fascinate, and that, if they fascinate, they suggest repetitions. ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... set with whom she associated, yet she concluded it was better to make the best of the matter, and not, by a course of coldness, drive him utterly to destruction; so she agreed with her husband when he said he thought he had better go and see him, and, if possible, wean him ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... settlements, and so forth, in which he interested himself, not seldom differing from Stephen, the chief of the staff in the office. He composed an argumentative despatch on the commercial relations between Canada and the mother country, endeavouring to wean the Canadian assembly from its economic delusions. It was in effect little better than if written in water. He made the mistake of sending out despatches in favour of resuming on a limited scale the transportation of convicts to Australia, a practice effectually condemned by the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... of a mighty and generous nation fighting one another for mere material wealth. Inevitably, the lower and baser elements of the population came to the surface and seemed to rule; the ordinary citizen, on whom the welfare of the State depends, allowed his private business interest to wean him from the conduct of public affairs, which thereby fell into the hands of professional politicians, who handled them for their personal gain instead of for the common weal. We forgot that pregnant saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and suffered ourselves to be persuaded ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... heart.... "She wishes it? Very well: so be it, and so much the worse for her, little fool!..." He would have granted anything rather than drive his daughter to extremes. In truth he might have used diplomacy, and pretended to give his consent to gain time, gently to wean Jacqueline from Olivier. But doing so meant giving himself more trouble than he could or would be bothered with. Besides, he was weak: and the mere fact that he had angrily said "No!" to Jacqueline, now inclined him to say "Yes." After all, what does one know of life? Perhaps the child was ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... girl: can we From yells and rompings wean her? For the demeanour of a Miss Is oft ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... obligation we were under of making the concerns of eternity the governing principles of our lives. Every man, he observed, at last wishes for retreat: he sees his expectations frustrated in the world, and begins to wean himself from it, and to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... people would pronounce myself the party who had violated the holy ties of hospitality, which are equally binding on guest as on host. Indolence, which sometimes comes in aid of good impulses as well as bad, favoured these relenting thoughts; the society of M. did still more to wean me from further efforts of satire: and, finally, my Latin poem remained a torso. But upon the whole my guardian had a narrow escape of descending to posterity in a disadvantageous light, had he rolled down to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... Setiwall, garden valerian. {147e} Skellum, a worthless fellow. German, schelm. {149a} Skelpit, beat the ground with strong pulsation; rode quickly; pounded along. {150d} Skirl, sound shrill. {147d} Slaps, breaks in walls or hedges; also narrow passes. {149b} Smoored, smothered. {151j} Spean, wean. {32} Spear-hawk, sparrow-hawk. From the root spar, to quiver or flutter, comes the name of "sparrow" and a part of the name "sparrow-hawk." {94e} Summerhall, Stubbs, in the "Anatomy of Abuses," speaking of the maypole, tells how villagers, when they have ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Rachel began giving her directions out of 'Hints for the Management of Infants,' just in the old voice, and Tibbie swept round indignantly, 'His Lordship, Lord Keith of Gowanbrae, suld hae the best tendance she could gie him. She did na lippen to thae English buiks, as though she couldna rear a wean without bulk learning.' Poor Rachel nearly cried, and was not half comforted by my promising to study the book ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her no peace. She sat long after the departure of Emilia; and to beguile recollection, she selected a favorite author, endeavouring to revive those sensations his page had once excited. She opened to a passage, the tender sorrow of which was applicable to her own situation, and her tears flowed wean. Her grief was soon suspended by apprehension. Hitherto a deadly silence had reigned through the castle, interrupted only by the wind, whose low sound crept at intervals through the galleries. She now thought she heard a footstep near her door, but presently all was still, for she believed ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... anti-worldly religion finds itself in fact in this dilemma: if it remains merely spiritual, developing no material organs, it cannot affect the world; while if it develops organs with which to operate on the world, these organs become a part of the world from which it is trying to wean the individual spirit, so that the moment it is armed for conflict such a religion has two enemies on its hands. It is stifled by its necessary armour, and adds treason in its members to hostility in its foes. The passions and arts ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... as, deem as, look upon as, account as, set down as; surmise &c 514. get it into one's head, take it into one's head; come round to an opinion; swallow &c (credulity) 486. cause to be believed &c v.; satisfy, persuade, have the ear of, gain the confidence of, assure; convince, convict^, convert; wean, bring round; bring over, win over; indoctrinate &c (teach) 537; cram down the throat; produce conviction, carry conviction; bring home to, drive home to. go down, find credence, pass current; be received &c v., be current &c adj.; possess, take hold of, take possession of the mind. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and patient courage had done all, poor Abe was sometimes almost overwhelmed by hardships,—almost, but not altogether. He had a firm faith in God, and used to say, "My Father knows haa mich I can carry to a grain, and He wean't lay a straw too mony upon me, bless Him." In the midst of all the little Bishop maintained a happy heart and a cheerful countenance; he made as little of his poverty as some people do of their luxuries, and an ordinary observer might have supposed he never had a sorrow, or felt ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... reign of Louis XV., who commissioned him to paint a series of pictures. Carle Vernet, the father of Horace Vernet, was also an artist. When quite young, he fell violently in love with the daughter of an opulent furnisher. The marriage was impossible, and his friends, to wean him from his love, sent him to Italy, where he studied the art of painting, and took a high prize—but he could not forget the woman he had loved. In his grief he resolved to give himself up to a monastic life, and his letters from Italy apprised his friends of that fact. His father ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... throngs made his pulses beat faster. He felt that he had within him the power to achieve something worth while in the world. Certainly, he would not fail for lack of striving. But no triumph elsewhere could ever wean him from his love for the Blue Ridge—for his home country. Yes, it was as he had said there in the store: He would come back. He would come back to the cabin in the "cove" under the shadows of Stone Mountain—back to the old mother, back to Plutina. A warmth ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... in America are over," Golding declares. "It was no easy matter to wean the people of the fallacious idea that a proletariat could manage the ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... condition, if at all, have we the right to take the black men's land; and that is, that we provide them with an equal and a just Government, and allow no maltreatment of them, either as individuals or tribes, but, on the contrary, do our best to elevate them, and wean them from savage customs. Otherwise, the practice is ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... for them both. As she came along she had observed a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with an infant, hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him? ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bellman, the living person's dirge, the mortification by degrees! To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit—this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may "upon horror's head horrors accumulate", but they cannot do this. They mistake ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... often read a sentence falling from a wise man with astonishment so profound, as that particular one in a letter of Coleridge's to Mr Gillman, which speaks of the effort to wean one's-self from opium as a trivial task. There are, we believe, several such passages. But we refer to that one in particular which assumes that a single "week" will suffice for the whole process of so mighty a revolution. Is indeed leviathan so tamed? In that case the quarantine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... excesses, Mr. Jolter, finding his admonitions neglected and his influence utterly destroyed, attempted to wean his pupil from his extravagant courses, by engaging his attention in some more laudable pursuit. With this view he introduced him into a club of politicians, who received him with great demonstrations of regard, accommodated themselves more than he could have ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... what a wee boy could put into a whistle: it was awfully childish for a man and a gentleman to take up just a wean for ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... that deed forgotten, a royal wooer had earn'd thee? Deed that braver none ventureth ever again? Yet what sorrow to lose thy lord, what murmur of anguish! Jove, how rain'd those tears brush'd from a passionate eye! 30 Who is this could wean thee, a God so mighty, to falter? May not a lover live from the beloved afar? Then for a spouse so goodly, before each spirit of heaven, Me thou vowd'st, with slain oxen, a vast hecatomb, Home if again ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... Naturally of a sedate, though cheerful temper, [29] she had little taste for the frivolous amusements which make up so much of a court life; and, if she encouraged the presence of minstrels and musicians in her palace, it was to wean her young nobility from the coarser and less intellectual pleasures to which ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... Him, that upon which we are leaning will be snatched away, even though we fall at first into the depths of despairing sorrow. What He makes us suffer now is not to be considered, in view of His purpose to wean us from this world and prepare us for the next. Christ, as we learn from our text, is as inflexible as fate, and does not hesitate to secure the needful faith by remaining away, even though the message of the sisters was an entreaty in itself. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the most striking feature of Spanish economic policy was its wastefulness. After the conquest of the New World, it was to the interest of the Spaniards to gradually wean the native Indians from barbarism by teaching them the arts and sciences of Europe, to encourage such industries as were favoured by the soil, and to furnish the growing colonies with those articles which they ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... minor propensity. Love had doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond with an anguish, that exiled all smile from her lips, and trenched sad lines on her brow of beauty. But each day seemed to change the nature of her suffering, and every succeeding hour ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... King, * A lion, a star in the skies of reign: At his rising the spear and the throne rejoiced, * The gazelle, the ostrich, The men of main:[FN465] Mount him not on the paps, for right soon he'll show * That to throne on the war steed's loins he's fain: And wean him from sucking of milk, for soon * A sweeter drink, the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... relief. Out of the whole catalogue of labors, from which man, to gain an honest livelihood has selected, there is not one profession which presents so many formidable obstacles as that under consideration; yet, it was with difficulty that the mountaineers could wean themselves from their calling even when forced ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Under the skies of Augustine, Gray and low flew the heron wailing Under the skies of Augustine.— Naught was spoken. We watched the simple Gulls wing past. Your hat's white wimple Shadowed your eyes. And your lips, a-dimple, Smiled and seemed from your soul to wean An inner beauty, an added sheen, As over the bay our boat went sailing ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... adding one to the number of the blessed; you will have reason for joy rather than sorrow. Since, had I escaped the snares by which I was entangled, I might have wanted those exercises which I look upon now as so many mercies dispensed to wean me betimes from a world that presented itself to me with prospects too alluring; and in that case (too easily satisfied with the worldly felicity) I might not have attained to that blessedness, in which now, on ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the practice at the class, will have to be forgotten. This, however, cannot be felt by the million, to whom any musical instruction will be a gift of unspeakable value, in a social and moral point of view. The Committee of the Council well observe, that "amusements which wean the people from vicious indulgences are in themselves a great advantage; they contribute indirectly to the increase of domestic comfort, and promote the contentment of the artisan. The songs of any people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... in his demure and obedient ward. "God knows," he said, "whatever my faults may have been, neglect of you has not been among them. I am not immaculate. Even the just man falleth. If I have endeavoured to wean you from this foolish love affair of yours, it has been entirely because I saw that it was against ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which, too, all his commercial interests were identified. This brought him at once under the ban of Mary's father, and his visits were interdicted. Ensign Roberts took advantage of the absence of his rival to press his suit, which Squire Lawson favoured as being likely, he thought, to wean Mary from her forbidden attachment to one who was now her country's foe. But he little knew the depth and the strength of a woman's affection. The more her royalist lover was aspersed and maligned, the more warmly glowed her love, the more firm was her resolve ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... not bear pain as I ought. It is designed, no doubt, to wean me from the world, in which I am no longer ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... letters from Beechhurst were fewer and farther between; letters from Brook she had none, nor any mention of Harry Musgrave in her mother's. Her grandfather desired to wean her from early associations, and a mixture of pride and right feeling kept the Carnegies from whatever could be misconstrued into a wish to thwart him. No one came to see her from the Forest after that rash escapade of Harry Musgrave's. Her eighteenth birthday passed, and she was still kept at ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... knew that Laura had discovered the secret that Mr. Hawkins, the elder children, Col. Sellers and herself had kept so long and so faithfully; and she cried and said that now that troubles had begun they would never end; her daughter's love would wean itself away from her and her heart would break. Her grief so wrought upon Laura that the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her compassion for her mother's distress. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... between them, or the reception would have proved more mutual. Between you and me, I fear, were I to return to England, I might find myself a sad party in such an interview. It is a sad reflection; but perhaps Providence may wisely ordain such things, in order as men grow older, to wean them from the objects of their worldly affections, that they may resign more readily to the decree of fate. That good man, Dr. ARBUTHNOT, did not seem to dread the approach of death on his own account, so much as from the grievous ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... staunch the young year's floods by dyke and dam, Who enter like a lion, that great beast, And make your egress like a woolly lamb; Who come, as Mars full-armed for battle's shocks, From lethargy of Winter's sloth to wean us, Then melt (about the vernal equinox), As he did in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... Jove Who sways the world below and heaven above, Has sent me down with this severe command: What means thy lingering in the Libyan land? If glory cannot move a mind so mean, Nor future praise from flitting pleasure wean, Regard the fortunes of thy rising heir: The promised crown let young Ascanius wear, To whom the Ausonian sceptre, and the state Of Rome's imperial name, is owed by ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... every device they sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars black or gray who met him at every turn, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean: For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean; And I gladden desert places, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... into its depolarized equivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or later all his local and temporary ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... cows will bawl, that the way the slaves was then. They didn't know nothin' 'bout they kinfolks. Mos' chillen didn't know who they pappy was and some they mammy 'cause they taken 'way from the mammy when she wean them, and sell or trade the chillen to someone else, so they wouldn't git 'tached to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... calamity must have befallen you. Do not turn from me; I do not ask you to reveal it: I only entreat you to listen to me and to become familiar with the voice of consolation and kindness. If pity, and admiration, and gentle affection can wean you from despair let me attempt the task. I cannot see your look of deep grief without endeavouring to restore you to happier feelings. Unbend your brow; relax the stern melancholy of your regard; permit a friend, a sincere, affectionate ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... between us The mountains or the sea, No time shall ever wean us, No distance set us free; But around the yearly board, When the flaming pledge is poured, It shall claim every name On ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Certainly nothing strikes one more in reading Scandinavian poetry, than the strange mixture of Pagan and Christian sentiments which it presents. For though the missionaries of the Church did all they could to wean away the minds of men from their old superstitions; yet, wiser than their modern followers, they saw that some things might remain untouched, and that even the great outlines of the Christian faith might be adapted to the habits of the people whom they studied to convert. Thus, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... fiend like the fiend of drink? It can steal away every good resolution, drown the voice of conscience, and make a man cheat himself into the belief that the indulgence of to-day is a warrant and guarantee for the abstinence of to-morrow. Frank was satisfied; he felt sure that it would be wiser to wean himself gradually from his drinking habits; he would use the strictest moderation with his present little stock, and then he should more readily forsake it altogether when this was gone. And so he ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... birdie, weet your whistle! Sing a sang to please the wean; Let it be o' Lady Summer Walking wi' her gallant train! Sing him how her gaucy mantle, Forest-green, trails ower the lea, Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't Wi' the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... too soon. The time to wean them is when they cut their teeth. This generally causes pain and suffering. At this time the child instinctively carries everything he gets hold of to his mouth to chew it. To help forward this process he is given as a ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
