"Avow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on for some time in silence. Such indeed was the precarious state of the country then that, although the stranger, from the opening words of their conversation, suspected his companion to be no other than Willy Reilly himself, yet he hesitated to avow the suspicions he entertained of his identity, although he felt anxious to repose the fullest confidence in him; and Reilly, on the other hand, though perfectly aware of the true character of his companion, was influenced in their conversation by a similar feeling. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sum of all is—yes, my doubt is great, My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. I have read much, thought much, experienced much, Yet would die rather than avow my fear The Naples' liquefaction may be false, When set to happen by the palace-clock According to the clouds or dinner-time. I hear you recommend, I might at least Eliminate, decrassify my faith Since I adopt it; keeping what I must And leaving what ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... is not yet time. Continue the war; in the mean time I will gradually strengthen my forces; only then shall I be able to take a useful part in the contest. I lack powder, muskets, and money; my artillerists are all young and inexperienced soldiers. It is painful to me to avow the whole wretchedness of my position to an Austrian officer; but I must do so to prove to your master what it is that keeps me back at this juncture. You will easily convince yourself that I am ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... into the field, you will certainly get among them a certain number of men who will do things that the nation itself will be ashamed of. I am not depending on them. It is enough for me to have the story which the Germans themselves avow, admit, defend, proclaim. The burning and massacring, the shooting down of harmless people—why? Because, according to the Germans, they fired on German soldiers. What business had German soldiers there at all? Belgium was acting in pursuance of a most sacred ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... adulterer! O, God, prolong my breath for this confession!— I wronged this woman who did fondly love me, I did neglect her in my cowardice, I shunned the public scorn.— O, but a little while!—I stood not with her; I was a coward; and did deny my child. Delay! Delay! Now I avow my crime, I do confess it, [Kneels] And here I beg you friends, as I have begged My God, forgive me. Oh, I must be brief— If any think that while I walked these streets In seeming honor I lacked my punishment, Look here.— [Tearing ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... assertion of any one theory of reconciliation. It was as certainly held by Chalmers and Dr. Pye Smith, as by Dr. Kurtz and the author of this treatise; nay, it has been recognized by not a few of their opponents also. Granville Penn, for instance, does not scruple to avow his belief, in his elaborate "Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies," that both sun and moon were created on the first day of creation, though they did not become "optically visible" until the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... she said, "Our Lady, Queen of Heaven! Bear witness, saints and martyrs all, ye blessed ones, who are, more than ourselves, the guardians of our mental purity! that I know no passion which I dare not avow, and that if Nicephorus's life depended on my entreaty to God and men, all his injurious acts towards me disregarded and despised, it should be as long as Heaven gave to those servants whom it snatched from the earth without ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... congregation of a dozen humble folk. But this the Empress would not allow. The reason she gave was her desire that my conversion should be proclaimed throughout the city, that other Pagans, of whom there were thousands, might follow my example. Yet I think she had another which she did not avow. It was that I might be made known in public as a man of importance whom it pleased ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... at present—one of them an old statesman with a massive silver head, and eyes that have looked into people's thoughts so long that you have an uncanny feeling that they can see right through your soul and read motives you dare not avow even to yourself. I was terribly in awe of him at first, but when I got acquainted with him I found him charming. He is not above talking delightful nonsense even to a girl. I sat by him at dinner, and he talked to me—not nonsense, either, this time. He told ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... before him and before the country, Mr. Calhoun had not the candor to avow, in later years, a complete change of opinion. He could only go so far as to say, when opposing the purchase of the Madison Papers in 1837, that, "at his entrance upon public life, he had inclined to that interpretation of the Constitution which favored a ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... done. If you proceed, you must bring the delinquent before a court of permanent judges. But even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided; and the very principles which no book would have ventured to avow are blazoned forth in the pleadings, and what was obscurely hinted at in a single composition is then repeated in a multitude of other publications. The language in which a thought is embodied is the mere carcass of the thought, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Peirara, Azavedo, Montefiores, &c. &c.—are of Jewish origin. Their numbers, therefore, will never be accurately known until the restoration, when thousands who, from convenience and pride, and some from apprehension, conceal their religion, will be most eager to avow it when their nation takes rank among ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... roll with impetuosity through caves and cataracts; where, deprived of the amusements and novelties which would recreate his imagination, the farmer allows his mind to be oppressed with strange fancies, and though he may never avow the feeling, from the fear of not meeting with sympathy, he broods over it and is a slave to the wild phantasmagoria of his brain. The principal cause of this is, the monotony ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... hastily and imprudently, and that his letter (say what he will) was a complete resignation, and that the Duke had a right so to consider it; that in the Duke's conduct there appeared a want of courtesy and an anxiety to get rid of him which it would have been more fair to avow and defend than to deny; that on both sides there was a mixture of obstinacy and angry feeling, and a disposition to treat the question rather as a personal matter than one in which the public interests were deeply concerned. But the charge which is made on one side that Huskisson wanted to embarrass ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I could not have found one more to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... are called Gokalastha Gosain or Maharaja. They are considered to be incarnations of the god, and divine honours are paid to them. They always marry, and avow that union with the god is best obtained by indulgence in all bodily enjoyments. This doctrine has led to great licentiousness in some groups of the sect, especially on the part of the priests or Maharajas. Women were taught to believe that the service of and contact with the priest were the most ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... and resolutely proceeding on our determination to avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted, we frankly say, that to the note-book of Mr. Snodgrass are we indebted for the particulars recorded in this and the succeeding chapter—particulars which, now that we have disburdened ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... I fear, be able to return to London for a week or two; but, in the mean time, I trust your Lordship will not deny me the satisfaction of knowing whether you avow the insult contained in the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... possession of the circumstances. Those of you who have a natural wish to seek a little repose will consider yourselves as discharged from duty and permitted to do so. Your Maire having confided to me his authority—not without your consent—(this I avow I added with some difficulty, for who cared for their assent? but a Republican Government offers a premium to every insincerity), I wait with confidence to ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... being all-just and all-powerful; but, to achieve this object, we must cease to attempt to play a great part in small intrigues, or to dictate in cases where we have not positive interests which we can avow, or convictions sufficiently distinct to enable us to speak plainly. We must interfere only where we can put forward an unimpeachable plea of right or duty; and when we announce a resolution, our neighbours must understand that it is the decree ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... chief outlines of her character. The natural tone of her mind was serious, positive, somewhat dry at bottom, but frank, deliberate, and bold. Unlike Madame de Maintenon, she had political ideas which she dared not only avow, but put into execution. Before all else she decided upon the complete restoration of the King's authority. With reference to a claim advanced by the grandees against the captain of the guards, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... violence—the anarchist I spurn; Who scatters firebrands little knows where they may fall and burn. In my degree I have been bold to guard the nation's right, And keep alive within these realms the lamp of Gospel light: But in my gloomy dungeon laid, didst thou not visit me, And solemnly avow that I from wicked plots was free? How canst thou, then, unto my charge such grievous actions lay, And all thou hast so solemn ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Madelene! How could he face her, after all that had happened. He bitterly regretted his weakness in permitting the girl to avow her love for him, in engaging himself ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... in Beirut these Saracen porters are extortionate, especially towards us Christians. He was deceived by your appearance. He thought that you were knights, not simple pilgrims as you avow yourselves, who happen to be dressed and armed like knights beneath your gambesons; and," she added, fixing her eyes upon the line of white hair on Godwin's head where the sword had struck him in the fray on Death Creek quay, "show the wounds of ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... infuriated by yesterday's adventure. I believed your heart noble enough to enable a friendship of twenty years to overcome an affront of a quarter of an hour. Come, do you really think you have anything to say against me? Say it then; if I am in fault I will avow the error." ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Republicans were alike hostile to his reign. That he might conciliate the surrounding dynasties, and save himself from such a coalition of crowned heads as crushed Napoleon I., he felt constrained to avow political principles and adopt measures which exasperated the Republicans, and yet did not reconcile the Legitimists to what they deemed his usurpation. Notwithstanding the most rigid censorship of the press France has ever known, the Government was assailed ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... same, and it was not my good father's fault that I did not loathe the very name of preaching or prayer. But I had a mother who knew how to deal with me, whereas this poor child's mother, I am sure, believes in her secret heart that he is none of hers, though she has enough sense not to dare to avow it. Alas! I cannot give the boy the woman's tending by which you have already wrought so much," and Mrs. Woodford remembered to have heard that his wife had died at Rotterdam, "but I can treat him like a human being, I hope indeed as a son; and, at any rate, there will ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... main by uncharitableness, yet contains here and there gleams of a deeper insight than we find in all the volumes of Moore—an insight, which, in spite of his irritated egotism, is the mark of a man with the instincts of a poet, with some cosmopolitan sympathies, and a courage on occasion to avow them at any risk. "Lord Byron," he says truly, "has been too much admired by the English because he was sulky and wilful, and reflected in his own person their love of dictation and excitement. They owe his memory a greater regard, and would do it much greater honour if they admired him ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... the elders were all worse managed. Besides, Mervyn's position, as it was treated, made him discontented and uncomfortable; and this attachment, which he was too—too—I can find no word for it but contemptible—to avow, must have preyed on his temper and spirits all the time he was trying to shake it off. He was brought up to selfishness, and nothing but what he underwent last year could have shaken ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little knob of the brain; and that there, like a vainglorious bantam-cock on a dunghill, it now claps its wings and crows all sorts of triumph—and now, silent and scratching, it thinks of nought but wheat and barley. The first step to knowledge is to confess to a late ignorance. We avow, then, our late benighted condition. We were of the number of sciolists who lodged the soul in the head of man: we are now convinced that the true dwelling place of the soul is in the head's antipodes. Let ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... coaches to elude pursuit, and then drove round the skirts of the town to seek for an obscure lodging, where I wished to remain concealed, till I could avail myself of my uncle's protection. I had resolved to assume my own name immediately, and openly to avow my determination, without any formal vindication, the moment I had found a home, in which I could rest free from the daily alarm of expecting ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... purgation of the Religion appertains, so that, not only are they appointed for civil policy, but also for maintenance of the true Religion, and for suppressing of idolatry and superstition whatsoever.... And, therefore, we confess and avow that such as resist the supreme power (doing that thing which appertains to his charge) do resist God's ordinance, and therefore ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... it come to this, O ye lords and gentlemen! representatives of the Irish party, with prospective adhesions after the Easter holidays from the vast majority of Irish Protestant proprietors,—do you avow yourselves to be in the position of landowners, who stand in no relation of aristocracy or leadership, government or guidance, succour or solace to millions of the people, who famish on the territorial possessions from which you derive your titles, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... oath, which was drawn up in a form accepting the entire terms of the Act, not merely promising adhesion to its provisions. Presented to them in this form, both More and Fisher refused to take the oath. Both were prepared to swear to maintain the succession as laid down; neither would avow a belief that the marriage with Katharine was void ab initio. More laid down definitely the doctrine that it was in the power of the State to determine the succession, and the duty of the citizen ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... practice. It is the business of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of Government. It is the business of the politician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them with effect. Therefore, every honourable connection will avow it as their first purpose to pursue every just method to put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority of the State. As this power is ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... play; Smooth lies the lawn, swift glide the hours away. No mean dependence here on summer skies, This spot rough winter's roughest blast defies. Yet here the government is curs'd with change, Knaves openly on either party range, Assault their monarch, and avow the deed, While honour fails, and tricks alone succeed; For bold decemvirs here usurp the sway; } Now all some single demagogue obey, } False lights prefer, and hate the intruding day. } Oh, shun the tempting shore, the dangerous coast, Youth, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... would be the issuing of rations, and that would mean the ultimate degradation and extinction of the natives. When the question is stated in its baldest terms, is the writer perverse and barbarous and uncivilised if he avow his belief that a race of hardy, peaceful, independent, self-supporting illiterates is of more value and worthy of more respect than a race of literate paupers? Be it remembered also that many of these "illiterates" can read the Bible in their own tongue and can make written communication ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... not his name. 250 I doubt not, he is some Moresco chieftain Who hides himself among the Alpuxarras. A week has scarcely pass'd since first I saw him; He has new-roof'd the desolate old cottage Where Zagri lived—who dared avow the prophet 255 And died like one of the faithful! There he lives, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... violent passions, and lost to all sense of shame. Her husband was in her way, and to be freed from him she instituted proceedings for a divorce, on grounds which a woman of any modesty or delicacy of feeling would die rather than avow. Her scandalous suit was successful, and was no sooner decided than preparations on a scale of the greatest magnificence were made for her marriage with ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... conclude without noticing my obligations to the Gentleman whose name is prefixed to these volumes; and I think it at the same time incumbent on me to avow, that, in having assisted the author, he must not be considered as sanctioning the literary imperfections of the work. When the subject was first mentioned to him, he did me the justice of supposing, that I was not likely to have written any thing, the general tendency ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... one in my desire to see the Greek of the New Testament judiciously revised, I freely avow that recent events have convinced me, and I suppose they have convinced the public also, that we have not among us the men to conduct such an undertaking. Better a thousand times in my judgement to leave things as they are, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... was in love; and, horribile dictu! in love with two women at once. It was Oriental, Mormonic, New Century, what you will; but there it was. I am ashamed to avow that if, at that moment, both women had appeared before me and said "Marry us," I should have—well, reflected seriously on the proposal. I had passed through curious enough experiences, Heaven knows, already; but none so baffling as this. The two women came alternately and knocked at my heart, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... behind them—(should speak rather more easily, I think—but I dare not run the risk: and I know, after all, you will be just and kind where you can.) I have read your letter again and again. I will tell you—no, not you, but any imaginary other person, who should hear what I am going to avow; I would tell that person most sincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in that avowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment I never dreamed of winning your love. I can hardly write ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... But his teeth chattered in his head at the thought of approaching night. Meanwhile he could not in conscience permit me to venture forth into the path of this horror, which might, for all we knew, be lurking in the jungle shadows even through the daylight hours. Also, though he did not avow this motive, I believe he found my company very reassuring. It is immensely easier to face a ghost in the sustaining presence of ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Mazarin did not scruple to avow that the great Armand's sceptre had been a tyrant's sceptre and of bronze. By such an admission he crept into the good graces of Louis XIII., who, himself almost moribund, had shown how pleased he was to see his chief minister go ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... myself away from that quiet country neighborhood, being bound to it by a thousand links of love for its sweeping and soft landscapes. At this farm I was unknown to the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful and green soil. And, must I avow it; there was something besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to know what passed in the solitary souls of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... more of the (164) marvellous than the account above delivered respecting the first Roman king; and amidst all the solemnity with which it is related, we may perceive that the historian was not the dupe of credulity. There is more implied than the author thought proper to avow, in the sentence, Fuisse credo, etc. In whatever light this anecdote be viewed, it is involved in perplexity. That Romulus affected a despotic power, is not only highly probable, from his aspiring ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... pages of my unconventional book, I avow my knowledge of what, so far from humiliating, stimulates me—to wit, that nine-tenths of those who will look beyond the title-page will be women. This is well, and as I would have it to be, for without feminine agency no house, however well appointed, can ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... in the truth, when it is borne down and questioned, yea, and condemned by men. He abode steadfast and immoveable in the midst of all the storms that blew in his face; and as he came to bear witness to the truth, so did he faithfully and zealously avow truth, even to the death; and in death got the victory of the arch liar and deceiver. Now the believer should eye this, for the strengthening of his faith and hope of victory also, through him; and therefore would ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... this language is mere nonsense and coquetry. There is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by the good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel absolute indifference. You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or will avow." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the house and shut himself up in his own room. His despair was indeed great; he fancied he had been laughed at by a coquette, while he thought he had been the suitor of an innocent girl. Why did she not tell me the truth yesterday, when I asked her? said he. Why did she not avow her love of young Brignoli? She dared not confide it to me; because she makes a mystery of it to her own mother. Why did she encourage me? Why did she speak of hope? What unworthy plan, what improper calculation influenced her? What part did ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... annoying to me to have my lack of attention found fault with, as delightful to have it missed by you; especially as in the particular point on which you accuse me I happen to be innocent, while in shewing that you miss a letter from me, you avow an affection for me, of which, indeed, I was fully aware, but which, nevertheless, is very soothing and gratifying to my feelings. The fact is that I have never let anyone go, so long, that is, as I thought him likely to reach you, without giving him a letter. Why, was there ever such an untiring ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to take shelter under the generous interposition of his wife, and abandoned her, in return for her kindness, to the resentment of the Queen. He had already raised his head with the dignity of a man of honour to avow his marriage, and proclaim himself the protector of his Countess, when Varney, born, as it appeared, to be his master's evil genius, rushed into the presence with every mark of disorder ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... mutability of species; and I think the reader, so far from agreeing with M. Isidore Geoffroy that Buffon began his work with a belief in the fixity of species, will find, that from the very first chapter onward, he leant strongly to mutability, even if he did not openly avow his belief ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... you deserve to be one of the happiest—His Ways of Providence are past finding out; to you—they seem indeed to have been truly afflictive: but we cannot possibly say that they are really so; we cannot doubt His Wisdom nor ought we to distrust His Goodness, let us avow, then, where we have not the Power of fathoming—viz. the dispensations of God; in His good time He will show us, perhaps, that every painful Event which has happened was abundantly for the best—I ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... ami, is it that you take me for a duchess? I come from the ouvriers, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do my shops in a hat. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... intruders.[369] The buccaneer Yallahs, we have seen, was employed by the Governor of Campeache to seize the logwood-cutters; and although he surprised twelve or more vessels, the Governor of Jamaica, not daring openly to avow the business, could enter no complaint. On 3rd November 1672, however, he was compelled to issue a proclamation ordering all vessels sailing from Port Royal for the purpose of cutting dye-wood to go in fleets of at least four as security against ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... of this subject, considering it probable that these letters will, at some future time, come before the public, it is but just that I should more fully avow my motives in this controversy. You will have perceived, all along, the ground on which I stood. I have endeavoured to personate an honest inquirer after truth; but one who was filled with doubts concerning ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... time for restoring the beer brewery, reducing the taxes, recovering lost privileges, and many other good things. Beneath the whole scheme lay a deep design to effect the secession of the city and with it of the opulent and important province of Utrecht from the Union. Kanter had been heard openly to avow that after all the Netherlands had flourished under the benign sway of the House of Burgundy, and that the time would soon come for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... offspring, and the offspring of the unfortunate convict. They would establish distinctions which may serve hereafter to divide the colonists into castes; and although none among them dares publicly avow that future generations should be punished for the crimes of their progenitors, yet such are their private sentiments; and they would have the present race branded with disqualifications, not more for the sake of pampering their own vanity, than with a view to reflect disgrace on the offspring ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... sighed gently. And Paphnutius gazed at him with horror, not conceiving it possible that a man should so calmly avow such a sin. He expected to see the earth open, and Nicias swallowed up in flames. But the earth remained solid, and the Alexandrian silent, his forehead resting on his hand, and he smiling sadly at the memories of his past youth. The monk rose, and ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... the custom of the Jews is to bury." It certainly is remarkable that the two men who thus met in honoring the body of Jesus had both been his secret disciples, hidden friends, who until now had not had courage to avow their friendship and discipleship. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... alcalde and his assistant, they were under the same conviction as Don Juan—both believing that a crime had been committed— though they did not care to avow their belief, for reasons known to themselves. The absence of any striking evidence that might lead to the discovery of the delinquents, but more especially the difficulty of finding some interested individual able to pay the expenses of justice (the principal object of criminal ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... French," he wrote to Frontenac, "but neither he nor any other of the upper Iroquois fear them in the least. They annihilate our allies, whom by adoption of prisoners they convert into Iroquois; and they do not hesitate to avow that after enriching themselves by our plunder, and strengthening themselves by those who might have aided us, they will pounce all at once upon Canada, and overwhelm it in a single campaign." He adds that within the past two years they have reinforced themselves by more ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... members of the legislature to defeat the plans of the secretary of the treasury, it is contrary to all truth.... That I have utterly, in my private conversations, disapproved of the system of the secretary of the treasury I acknowledge and avow; and this was not merely a speculative difference. His system flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic by creating an influence of his department ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth" (Schoolcraft, IV., 86). Among the Dariens, says Heriot (325), "it is considered no mark of forwardness" in a woman "openly to avow her inclination," and in Paraguay, too, women were allowed to propose (Moore, 261). Indian girls of the Hudson ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... imagines that he divides, the perception of matter into two things, perception and matter, holding the former to be a state of his own mind, and the latter to be no such state; he does, in that analysis, and without saying one other word, avow himself to be a thoroughgoing representationist. For his analysis declares that, in perception, the mind has an immediate or proximate, and a mediate or remote object. Its perception of matter is the proximate object—the object of its consciousness; matter itself, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow— You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream: Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... down the apology to his credit.—Not that he would beg a truce with the gentlemen criticks and reviewers. Any compromise with them would betray a want of self-confidence and moral courage, which he would by no means, be willing to avow."—Kirkham's Gram., (Adv. of 1829,) ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... with their own subjects or with other people, no other civilized nation stands condemned before the world with a series of crimes so peculiarly national. It becomes a painful duty of the Negro to reproduce a record which shows that a large portion of the American people avow anarchy, condone murder and defy the contempt of civilization. These pages are written in no spirit of vindictiveness, for all who give the subject consideration must concede that far too serious is the condition of that civilized government in which the spirit of unrestrained outlawry ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... Channing, amidst her delight at what she calls the happiest hour of her absence, in her acquaintance with you and your family, expresses much uneasiness respecting your untempered devotion to study. I am the more disturbed by her fears, because your letters avow a self-devotion to your work, and I know there is no gentle dulness in your temperament to counteract the mischief. I fear Nature has not inlaid fat earth enough into your texture to keep the ethereal blade from whetting it through. I write to implore you to be careful ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... never in my life cast a vote or done an act in legislation that I did not at the time believe to be right, and that I am not now willing to avow and to defend and debate with any champion, of sufficient importance, who desires to attack it at any time and in ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... has lost its attraction for him. The skeptic may freely question immortality,—nay, Emerson himself sometimes feels uncertainty. The personal God, and man's personal immortality, which the idealist is wont to affirm as definite certainties, Emerson will not explicitly avow or define. Universal good, beauty, order,—these he sees, feels, is sure of. What form belongs to them, let each imagine as best he can. So free, so generous, so simply true is he that not only men of an idealist way of thinking, but all strong and high souls own impulse from him,—the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... The Soveraigne Declared By The Major Part. Thirdly, because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a Soveraigne; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the Congregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will (and therefore tacitely covenanted) to stand to what the major part should ordayne: ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... true," exclaimed Alexander. "I have myself thought so for a long time, but I dare not avow it, because I was afraid your majesty would ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... send Savary at to-morrow's blink And make all lucid to the Emperor. For us, I wholly can avow as mine The ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the calm, clear voice, Jesus said, "I AM." The Father that sent Him was with Him; He had not left Him in that awful moment alone, and it was a great pleasure to the Saviour to be able publicly to avow the relationship, which was shedding its radiance through His soul. Then, with evident allusion to the sublime vision of Daniel, he added, "Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... following was received from the Twenty-first Precinct: "The mob avow their determination of burning this station. Our connection by telegram may be interrupted ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... about the year 1568, he had placed himself at the head of the Stratford community. Afterwards he continued for some years to descend from this altitude; and the question is, at what point this gradual degradation may be supposed to have settled. Now we shall avow it as our opinion, that the composition of society in Stratford was such that, even had the Shakspeare family maintained their superiority, the main body of their daily associates must still have been ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... appearance of this charming French Tom. He was a careless little rogue and not in any respect like an English Cat. His cavalier manner as well as his way of shaking his ear stamped him as a gay bachelor without a care. I avow that I was weary of the solemnity of English Cats, and of their purely practical propriety. Their respectability, especially, seemed ridiculous to me. The excessive naturalness of this badly groomed Cat surprised ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... my challenge to the Grecian camp. If there be one amongst the best of Greece, Who holds his honour higher than his ease, Who knows his valour, and knows not his fear; Who loves his mistress more than in confession, And dares avow her beauty and her worth, In other arms than hers,—to him this challenge. I have a lady of more truth and beauty, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; And will to-morrow, with the trumpet's call, Mid-way between their tents and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life was so cheap, she might have asked for the death ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... stand ready to avow or disavow promptly and explicitly any precise or definite opinion which I may be charged with having declared of any gentleman. More than this cannot fitly be expected from me; and especially, it cannot ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... enterers into the field of competition with a practical eye and a financial side-look. Of all these great divisions there are varieties naturally arising from personal character; but of the collector pure and simple of the older school, that type, we avow, most warmly and potently attracts us which limited itself to the small and unpretentious book-closet, with just those things which the master loved for their own sakes or for the sakes of the donors—where the commercial element was wanting, and where the library was ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... both fore and after noon, to a crowded audience, among whom was Sir George Douglas, who after the sermon publicly said, "I know that the governor and cardinal shall hear that I have been at this preaching, (for they were now come to Edinburgh) say unto them, that I will avow it, and will not only maintain the doctrine which I have heard, but also the person of the teacher to the uttermost of my power;" which open and candid declaration was very grateful to the whole congregation. During the time of this sermon, Mr. Wishart perceived two grey friars standing ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... forth to them that "Thorgils has said he will be the leader in this raid against Helgi Hardbienson, together with my sons, for revenge of Bolli, and Thorgils has bargained in return for this undertaking to get me for wife. Now I avow, with you to witness, that I promise this to Thorgils, that of men in this land I shall marry none but him, and I do not purpose to go and marry in any other land." Thorgils thought that this was binding enough, and did not see through it. And now they broke up their talk. This counsel ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... now going. He concealed his intention till it was betrayed by the departure of one Spanish nobleman after another. The queen became nervous and agitated, and at last he was forced to avow part of the truth. He told her that his father wanted to see him, but that his absence would not be extended beyond a fortnight or three weeks; she should go with him to Dover, and, if she desired, she could wait there for his return.[484] Her consent was obtained by the mild deceit, and it was ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... ampler breadth expand The splendors of the four-in-hand; On faultless ties and glossy tiles The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; (The style's the man, so books avow; The style's the woman, anyhow;) From flounces frothed with creamy lace Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, Or stares the wiry pet of Skye;— O woman, in your hours of ease So shy with us, ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... would stop; that they would be prevailed on, by treaty and remonstrance, to give up what they had taken, or to put limits to themselves. We suffered them to establish one settlement after another, to pass boundary after boundary, and add fort to fort, till, at last, they grew strong enough to avow their designs, and defy ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... to Bishop Newton,[671] that he considered bishoprics of two sorts, either as bishoprics of business or bishoprics of ease, is another instance of the low views which statesmen took, and were not ashamed to avow, of their responsibilities as dispensers ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... suppression of evidence; they give every side of the question. They write like men who feel, as Bollandus their founder did, that under no circumstances is it right to tell a lie. They never hesitate to avow their own convictions and predilections. They draw their own conclusions, and put their own gloss upon facts and documents; but yet they give the documents as they found them, and they enable the impartial student—working not in trammels as they ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... same time they did not make her like him the less. On the contrary, and Betty felt it was on the contrary, she could not help admiring his bravery, and she was almost ready to worship his strength. Somebody brave enough to avow truth that is unwelcome, and strong enough to do what goes against the grain with himself; such a person is not to be met with every day, and usually excites the profound respect of his fellows, even when they do not like him. But Betty liked ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... meteors shine, And lost Peruvia open every mine; 80 For him the robe of eastern pomp display, The gems that ripen in the torrid ray; Collected may their guilty lustre stream Full on the eye that courts the partial beam: But Love, oh Love! should haply this late hour, 85 One softer mind avow thy genuine power; Breathe at thy altar nature's simple strain, And strew the heart's pure incense on thy fane; Give to that bosom scorning fortune's toys, Thy sweet enchantments, and thy virtuous joys; 90 Bid pleasure bloom thro' many ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... children, and that he had great confidence that the council would be brought to give at least some encouragement to the enterprise. In 1850 Mr. Dow was named among the candidates for the mayoralty; and when his views in this regard were assailed by his opponents, he did not hesitate to boldly avow his opinions, and to declare that he wished no support for any office which demanded of him any modification of these convictions. The workmen fail, but the work succeeds. The name of Jesse E. Dow merits conspicuous record in this history for this ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... male, Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials, Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd, The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms, The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing, Yes here ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... admirers cannot think of the connection without pain. But let us be just. While no one can refrain from deploring that Goethe, so eminently needing a pure domestic life, should not have found a wife whom he could avow, no one who knows the circumstances can refrain from confessing that there is also a bright ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... Spain. Flattered by the attentions paid her, she thought those attentions, or, I may say, rather those servile adorations, would continue for ever, and that in time she might arrive at the highest point of power. The Archbishop of Aix and her brother divined her thoughts, for she did not dare to avow them, and showed her in the clearest way that those thoughts were calculated to lead her astray. They explained to her that the only interest Madame de Maintenon had in favouring her was on account of Spain. Madame des Ursins—once back in that country, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... certainly the first declaration of the sort I ever heard, and with the simplicity of an unpractised young woman, I here avow that the attachment is reciprocal," said the smiling Eve. "If there is an indiscretion in this hasty acknowledgement, it must be ascribed to surprise, and to the suddenness with which I have learned my power, for your parvenues ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... ripe, and I slipped away. I got you out of the way also, and I frankly avow that I never expected to have the pleasure of seeing you again. I also hoped that Lord Chetwynde would not come back from India. But he came, and there is where I broke down. That is all I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... I cannot myself attempt to get through, may be a bottle thrown into the lagoon might be carried out during the last few minutes of the ebb. And might not this bottle by chance—an ultra-providential chance, I must avow—be picked up by a ship passing near Back Cup? Perhaps even it might be borne away by a friendly current and cast upon one of the Bermudan beaches. What if that ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... determination therein better than yourself. For at your going hence, she did peremptorily charge you not to accept any such title and office; and therefore her straight commandment now is that you shall not accept the same, for she will never assent thereto, nor avow you ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ourselves to tolerate the inconsistency with which some men will inveigh against some absolute sovereign, and straight-way enact the pettiest airs of absolutism in their little empire at home. We have no private intimacy with "the autocrat of all the Russias," and may, with all humility, avow that we do not desire to have any; but this we believe, that out of the thousands who call him a tyrant, it would be no difficult matter to pick scores who are as bad, if not worse. Let us remember that it is not a great empire which constitutes ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... secretary, and in constant communication with him, it was her affectation to imagine herself a political character, and she did not scruple to avow the hearty contempt she felt for the usual occupation of women's lives. Atlee's knowledge, therefore, actually amazed her: his hardihood, which never forsook him, enabled him to give her the most positive assurances on anything he spoke; and as he had already fathomed ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the thing. Shakesperian clowns are believed to be red rags to some experienced playwrights and accomplished wits of our own days: the porter in Macbeth, the gravediggers in Hamlet, the fool in Lear, even the humours in Love's Labour Lost and The Merchant of Venice have offended. I avow myself an impenitent Shakesperian in this respect also. The constant or almost constant presence of that humour which ranges from the sarcastic quintessence of Iago, and the genial quintessence of Falstaff, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... avow we're shy of marriage. Is not that too hard again? When a maiden wants a carriage, And a mansion in Park Lane, Diamonds, furs, and opera-boxes: Although ardently one loves, All the balance I've at Cox's Wouldn't keep ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... of terror alone had made the married pair speak, and avow their crime in the presence of Madame Raquin. Neither one nor the other was cruel; they would have avoided such a revelation out of feelings of humanity, had not their own security already made it imperative on ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... for your sins, but it shall be for contempt of that blood which shall condemn you. O God! full of mercy and goodness, and of fatherly care and providence, and never a greater providence found I in my lifetime, than I found this last time in my journey, I thank my God for it; and here I avow, if this blood of mine should go for it, it was acceptable service to God we did that day; I know there were many that sent up their prayers to God for the maintenance of his liberty, I am sure the Lord heard you; for I say to you, the room was never that I came to, ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... General Government over this extensive continent of a monarchical nature, under certain restrictions and limitations. Those who openly avowed this sentiment were, it is true, but few; yet it is equally true that there was a considerable number, who did not openly avow it, who were, by myself and many others of the Convention, considered as being in reality favorers ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... temper, in this respect, is too generally the indication of an uncharitable and perhaps a profligate heart, levelling characters, in order to cover some inward pride, or secret enormities, which they are ashamed to avow, and will not ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... filled with anxiety, pleasing doubts, apprehensions, shame, and hope, all relieved, however, by the secret consciousness of perfect innocence, and motives that angels might avow, Maud stood, in the very spot where Mike had left her, turning the box in her hands, when accidentally she touched the spring, and the lid flew open. To glance at the contents was an act so natural and involuntary ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... an equal right to avow his sentiments? Do his enemies claim a privilege to abuse whatever is valuable to Englishmen, either in church or state? and must the liberty of unlicensed printing be denied to the friends ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... fight. With the view of not running counter to destiny, I quietly prepared myself for the impending conflict. The scene of my dramatic triumphs was turned into a gymnasium for this purpose, though I did not openly avow the fact to the boys. By persistently standing on my head, raising heavy weights, and going hand over hand up a ladder, I developed my muscle until my little body was as tough as a hickory knot and as supple as tripe. ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... farewell! To sweet consolings, that can grief expel, And every joy soft sympathy bestows! For alter'd looks, where truth no longer glows, Thou hast prepar'd my heart;—and it was well To bid thy pen th' unlook'd for story tell, Falsehood avow'd, that shame, nor sorrow knows.— O! when we meet,—(to meet we're destin'd, try To avoid it as thou may'st) on either brow, Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye, Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how We once were ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... as the hand belongs to the body, my indignation held me bravely up. But now that I was alone, I conceived a sickness at myself and my designs that I could scarce endure; I longed to throw myself at his feet, avow my intended treachery, and warn him from that pestilential swamp, to which I was decoying him to die; but my vow to my dead father, my duty to my innocent youth, prevailed upon these scruples; and though my face was pale and must have reflected the horror that oppressed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and severe. He had since considered them; but he could not prevail upon himself to retract them; because, if any gentleman, after reading the evidence on the table, and attending to the debate, could avow himself an abetter of this shameful traffic in human flesh, it could only be either from some hardness of heart, or some difficulty of understanding, which he really knew not how ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... reasoned the lawyer with himself. "His true motive in this matter is a motive which he is afraid to avow. My question evidently offered him a chance of misleading me, and he has accepted it on the spot. That's enough for me. If I was Mr. Armadale's lawyer, the mystery might be worth investigating. As things are, it's no interest of mine to hunt Mr. Bashwood from one lie to another till I run him ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... upon their Saviour's name, But, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave. 145 Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal: These in a gulf of anguish and of flame Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, 150 Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honour, and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason's earthly ray? 155 Many are called, but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley |
