"Disown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forward, displaying a huge, rounded face, very kindly about the eyes, and set atop of the oddest body in the world: for under a trunk extraordinary broad and strong, straddled & pair of legs that a baby would have disown'd—so thin and stunted were they, and (to make it the queerer) ended in feet the most prodigious you ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... they sat at table in silence, scarcely touching Car'line's supper, but in the parlour afterward Judith turned at bay. "Even Aunt Lucy—of all people in the world! Aunt Lucy, if you do not smile this instant, I hope all the Greenwood shepherdesses will step from out the roses and disown you! And Unity, if you don't play, sing, look cheerful, my heart will break! Who calls it loss this afternoon? He left a thought of him that will guide men on! Who doubts that to-morrow morning we shall ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... pale. desconocer not know, be ignorant of, ignore. desconsuelo m. trouble, affliction. descorts adj. discourteous, ill-bred, impudent. descortesa f. discourtesy. descreer disbelieve, deny, discredit, disown. descubrir discover, reveal, expose, uncover, make known. descuidado, -a care-free. desde prep. from. desdn m. disdain, scorn, contempt. desdeo m. disdain, scorn. desdeoso, -a scornful, contemptuous. desdicha f. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... remember well what I now say: you must fight your own battles amongst your schoolfellows as well as you can. If I ever hear that you are quarrelsome I shall detest you, but if I find that you are a coward I will disown and disinherit you." This was the language of one of the best of fathers to his son, a child of five years and a half old, and it speaks volumes as to the character of the man and the parent. This school, which was situated in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... arranged, but not sooner, in November he presented himself at Kenilworth. (Rot. Pat, 7 H. IV, Part i.) What means were taken to torture his unhappy cousin into compliance with his iron will can only be conjectured. She did at last consent to disown her marriage, unless the facts alleged in the petition of Kent's sisters are fictions. On January 19th, 1406, "all the goods that belonged to the said Constance, in the custody of the Treasurer of our Household, and were lately seised in our hands for certain causes," were ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... Accordingly, she put on mourning, and assumed an equipage conforming to her supposed change of fortune. Lord Allen's affairs being much deranged, he became now as anxious to prove the marriage with the wealthy heiress, as he had formerly been to disown the unportioned damsel; and succeeded, after such opposition as the lady judged necessary to give colour to the farce. Before the deceit was discovered, Lady Allen, by her good sense and talents, had obtained such ascendance over her husband, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... oh, Cousin Agnes! if you had been by to hear the foul slanders which Sir Fulk has been telling the Prince—oh, Agnes! you would disown him for ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he cried, not in Persian, but in Greek. "I am Glaucon of Athens; as Glaucon I must live, as Glaucon die. No man—not though he desire it—can disown the land that bore him. And if I dreamed I was a Persian, I wake to find myself a Greek. Therefore forget me forever. I ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Bianca, is nothing to you. It is certain that Don Pedro loves you, (answer'd the Princess) and I have Vanity enough to believe, that, none besides your self could have disputed his Heart with me: But the Secret is discover'd, and Don Pedro has not disown'd it. What, (interrupted Agnes, more surpriz'd than ever) is it then from himself you have learned his Weakness?' The Princess then shew'd her the Verses, and there was never any Despair ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... had emptied another glass. "What?" he screamed. "You deny the universal kinship of man? You disown your starving brothers? Proud tyrant, remember the Bastille!" He burst into tears and began to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Charles, for a shuffler long I've known thee, But come—for once I'll not disown thee, And since with patriot zeal thou burnest, With thee I'll live—or hang ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... series of quatrains, ninety-eight in number, that would embarrass any reader in his teens; though a boy that could generate such a poem as that, might well be believed the father of other giants whom he chose to disown. It is a masterpiece in its kind, almost unexceptionable in all its parts. The subject is supposed to have been suggested by the fate of Sir Baldwin Fulford, a zealous Lancastrian, beheaded at Bristol in 1461, the first year of the reign of Edward IV., ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and with habitual malice to proceed against us," with more to the like effect. Upon such an occasion the interference of government became necessary. The government did indeed interfere, and by a vote of council ordered, that whoever owned, or refused to disown, the declaration on oath, should be put to death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken. The execution of this massacre in the welvet counties which were principally concerned, was committed to the ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... or use the same light, with me; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own! I'll strip you of your commission; I'll lodge a five-and-threepence in the hands of trustees, and you shall live on the interest! I'll disown you, I'll disinherit you! I'll never call you ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... you will find her," the doctor said vindictively. "If one of my daughters had done such a thing, I would disown her. Babe, it is growing chilly. I wish ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... in each other's way; go forward, you can tow me after you if it comes to that. So far from envying you, I will dedicate my life to yours. The thing that you have just done for me, when you risked the loss of your benefactress, your love it may be, rather than forsake or disown me, that little thing, so great as it was—ah, well, Lucien, that in itself would bind me to you forever if we were not brothers already. Have no remorse, no concern over seeming to take the larger ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... under very intense and agonizing apprehensions concerning his son; for Nature had asserted her rights, in spite of the patriotic stoicism which laboured to disown her. But no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful, and probably in friendly hands, than the paternal anxiety which had been excited by the dubiety of his fate, gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and resentment, at what he termed Wilfred's ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... whose gifts are great and high, Thy gen'rous sons, thy senate, and thy sky, Thy genius and thy grace shall Mem'ry well Above all cities, to thy glory, tell. And shall I coldly from thy arms remove, Blush for my birth-place, and disown my love? As tho' thy son, in Scythian climes forlorn, Beneath the Bear with all its snows was born. No, thy Ausonius, Bordeaux! hails thee yet; Nor, as his cradle, can thy claims forget. Dear to the gods thou ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... hear of that All-Father who hears the cry of the most wretched of his children, their masters would have them believe that he is but the white man's God! Oh, Vingo, how could you have had the heart to believe that God would disown his children?" ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... governments. It is observed by barbarians; a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity, to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... air for which I would disown Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's melodies, - A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs, And keeps its secret charm for ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... insult? Do you think, if he knew how I am speaking to you—speaking roughly, perhaps, because I am rough—he would not turn upon me, his friend, who am fighting for his life, and quarrel with me, and disown me, because my roughness comes near you and may offend you? You do not know him. How should you? But because you do not know him and cannot guess how he loves you, do not throw his life away without seeing ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... when will the exile return? Oh! when will the exile return? When our hearts heave no sigh, When our tears shall be dry, When Erin no longer shall mourn; When his name we disown, When his mem'ry is gone— Oh! then ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes every man a gentleman. Not that I would be understood to insinuate that the nephew endeavored to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep him at any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the utmost familiarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and old Dick, and frequently beginning an ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... appearance, even at five-and-forty, which induced Miss Hunter of the Grove to run away with him, though Colonel Hunter had promised to disown her if she ever married so far beneath her. She did not, it is true, live long to endure her father's displeasure, but died in giving birth to her first child. Even this sad result had failed to melt the Colonel's heart. Contrary to all precedents of fiction, he would ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... to me, however, that there was something ambiguous and wistful in the State man's attitude, and I thought I understood. When a country sends a spy to do some dirty job, they disown him officially if he is caught. Except for that U-2 fiasco some years ago, when the U.S. broke all the unwritten rules and made jackasses of us before the world. Now, obviously, if I killed all the poppies in the world, that would be a fait accompli. Washington could deny knowing anything about ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges
... God's sake, no, Miss Mary! He has never seen him from his birth: he does not know him. He will disown him. He will ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... go straight to the Governor," explained Grindley junior, "and tell him that I consider myself engaged for life to Miss Appleyard. I know what will happen—I know the sort of idea he has got into his head. He will disown me, and I ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... gallant, ragged, indomitable band. A martinet colonel would stand aghast—for save a regimental button here and there, he would find it hard to recognise the gaunt, hairy, sun-scorched squad for British soldiers. But let who might incline to disown these few war-worn men in their dirty flannel rags and fragmentary nankeen breeches, their foes know them for what they are, and make way for the white sahibs with no dressing indeed in their ranks, but each man ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... youth who could tell you in the most remarkable string of brilliant language what was your duty towards your country, or what were the evils of anger, or for what reasons it is right for a father to disown his son. Meanwhile parents would look in at the school from time to time and listen to the boys declaiming, and it is easy to see with the mind's eye the father listening, like the proud American parent at a "graduation" day, to his gifted offspring ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... in the contemplation of objects whose beauty they can never appreciate save by counting the cost; let them disgrace the names their honest fathers bore, by striving to establish their descent from houses stained with crime and denied with blood; let them disown their fathers and spit in their mothers' faces,—but let them not call themselves free, nor give themselves the airs of men. They toss their foolish heads in scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can afford ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... you had affection, fortune, youth, because everything smiled on you, your country had done you no injustice; you loved it as we love anything that makes us happy. But the day in which you see yourself poor and hungry, persecuted, betrayed, and sold by your own countrymen, on that day you will disown yourself, your country, and ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... do, Edward, you are no son of mine," said the Honorable Peter Montague, wrathfully, to the young gentleman who stood before him with bowed head. "If you connect yourself in any manner with the family of Richard Medway, I will disown you; I will never speak to you; I will never permit you to come into ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... the style more grace, As Chian, plus Falernian, has more race." Come, tell me truly: is this rule applied To verse-making by you, and nought beside, Or would you practise it, when called to plead For poor Petillius, at his direst need? Forsooth, you choose that moment, to disown Your old forefathers, Latin to the bone, And while great Pedius and Corvinus strain Against you in pure Latin lungs and brain, Like double-tongued Canusian, try to speak A piebald speech, half ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... answered Alice, with more spirit than she had hitherto displayed; "and would you but question your own heart, you would acknowledge—I speak with reverence—that your tongue utters what your better judgment would disown. My uncle Everard is neither a miser nor a hypocrite—neither so fond of the goods of this world that he would not supply our distresses amply, nor so wedded to fanatical opinions as to exclude charity for other ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... "I would disown you! I would disinherit you!" shrieked the excited woman, shrinking away from his arm as if there were contagion in the touch. "Remember, sir," she continued threateningly, "that Mulberry Hill is still mine, and it shall never ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a complete Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost manner, I wonder they should disown you." ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... your chamber at the Chateau de Valricour. No, sir," he continued, more vehemently as Isidore attempted to speak, "I will not hear another word from lips already so basely, so vilely forsworn. Go! From this moment I disown you as my son. For the sake of others I will spare you any public degradation, and any punishment beyond the necessity of seeking your fortune henceforward as you best may, with no sympathy or aid from me beyond a small allowance which I shall cause to be remitted to ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... custom to lounge an hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many caffes, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay. Tonelli was gray, he did not disown it; but he always maintained that his heart was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great difference in persons as to age, which told in his favor. So he loved to sit there, and look at the ladies; and he ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... the Jesuits. They and many of their supposed allies among the nobility were arrested and thrown into prison; their schools were closed, and various fruitless attempts were made to induce the younger members to disown the Society. Finally in September 1759 a decree of banishment was issued against the Jesuits. Most of them were arrested and despatched to the Papal States, while others of them, less fortunate, were confined as prisoners in the jails of Portugal. Father Malagrida, one of the ablest and ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... must show, That that worthy member who spoke last must give The freedom to him, humbly most, to conceive, That his sentiment on this affair isn't right; That he mightily wonders which way he came by't: That, for his part, God knows, he does such things disown; And so, having convinced him, he most humbly sits down. For these, and more reasons, which perhaps you may hear, Pounds hundred this night, and one hundred this year, And so on we are forced, though we sweat out our blood, To make these walls pay for poor Hoppy's good; To supply with ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same or like conditions, on their side. Now, sir," says he, "these men may, when they please, or when occasion presents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave them to perish, and take other women, and marry them while these are living;" and here he added, with some warmth, "How, sir, is God honoured in this unlawful liberty? And how shall a blessing succeed your endeavours in this place, however good in themselves, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... himself? She gave a hasty glance. It was; he chose to disown her; to meet her without even a hand held out! Rallying her fortitude, she made answer, 'Thank you; ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my country, I feel pride in having received my being in a land where every thing attests the sublimity and magnificence of nature. Look around you, my nephew, and ask yourself what there in the wild grandeur of these scenes to disown? But ha!" as he cast his eyes upon the water; "I fear Gerald will lose his prize after all—that cunning Yankee is giving him the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... together as one united body in one chamber. Emboldened by their success, they even proceeded to a step which probably not one among them had originally contemplated; and, as if one of their principal objects had been to disown the authority of the king by which they had been called together, they repudiated the title of States-general, and invented for themselves a new name, that of "The National Assembly," which, as it had never been heard of before, seemed to mark that they owed their existence to the nation, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... grace, An emblem, viewed with kindred eye Of tricky, restless infancy? Ah! many a lightly sportive child, Who hath like thee our wits beguiled, To dull and sober manhood grown, With strange recoil our hearts disown. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... father! my father!" sobbed Wildney at length. "What will he say? He will disown me, I know; he is so stern always with me when he thinks I bring disgrace ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... coming when Love must be gone, Tho' he never abandoned me yet. Acknowledge our friendship, our passion disown, Our follies (ah ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Defyance of our Religion, Laws, and whatever is held Sacred by Christians, and Protestants. If he had a hand in the Conduct of the Allies, the Remarks, and other such Factious Papers, as is reported, and he never once thought fit to disown, being more Proud of the Honour done him in it, than asham'd of the Falshood and Scandal of those Libels, it is no strange Matter that a Man of such a Conscience should do or write any Thing; Cursing and Swearing being not so bad as the Robberies that ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... looked a little surprised; his female patients rarely contradicted him. Was it for them to disown things he was so a ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... "Not to disown her husband. To let him at least be her friend—her penitent, humble friend. We are man and wife. If I were to say so publicly, she would admit it. In this respect at least I have been generous: will she not be generous too? What harm could it do her if we lived under the same roof, and I took ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the daughter of an ancient sovereign house, who was to become the wife of Napoleon and the mother of his sons. Josephine knew that the brothers and sisters of the emperor were constantly importuning him to disown his childless wife, and to secure his throne and dynasty, as well as their own, by choosing another consort giving an heir to his crown. She knew that Talleyrand was representing this to him daily as a political necessity, without which his empire and his greatness would be endangered. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the baron burst out, with a sudden revulsion of feeling. "To think that my Dorothy should serve me thus! and as she has chosen, so shall it be. She prefers Manners to me, then she shall have him. I disown her, she is none of mine. She ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... restore these young people to habits of propriety, even more strict than those which were imposed upon them by the authority of their Mahometan brethren.” Bah! thus you might chant, if you chose; but loving the truth, you will not so disown sweet Bethlehem; you will not disown or dissemble your right good hearty delight when you find, as though in a desert, this gushing spring of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... exception of Reuben May's begging letters, it is the finest cadging document we ever saw. Booth was evidently ashamed to sign it himself, so it bears the name of Railton. But the pious showman cannot disown the responsibility for it. He will not allow the officers of the Army to marry without his sanction; he forbids them to accept any private present; he keeps a sharp eye on every detail of the organisation. Surely, then, he will not have the face to say that he knew nothing ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... others of the cave people whose story is told in the tale which follows the author cannot disown. He has shown them as they were. Hungry and cold, they slew the fierce beasts which were scarcely more savage than they, and were fed and clothed by their flesh and fur. In the caves of the earth the cave men and their families were safely sheltered. Theirs were the ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... Here are a thousand impulses and instincts drawing us, with infinite further possibilities suggesting themselves to reflection; the more developed our natures the more frequently do our desires conflict. Why is any one better than another? How can we decide between them? Or shall we perhaps disown them all for ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... a fury, "you WILL leave it, sir, and this very day too! I disown you from this time. I'll have no atheist for my son! Change your views or leave the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... to the undeniable fact that Damian had sought refuge in the strong castle of Garde Doloureuse, which was now defending itself against the royal arms, animated the numerous enemies of the house of De Lacy, and drove its vassals and friends almost to despair, as men reduced either to disown their feudal allegiance, or renounce that still more sacred fealty which they owed to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... face was as white as Fanny's and her voice rang out like a silver bell, "Seth Curtis, you will apologize, ask forgiveness of Fanny Foster, who is my friend and an old schoolmate, or before God and these people I will disown you as my husband and the father of my children. Fanny Foster never had an apple or a goody in her lunch in the old school days that she didn't share it with somebody. She has never had a dollar or a joy that she hasn't divided. No one ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... publication or in what form did the executors of Thomas Lord Lyttelton disown the Letters ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... aside the cloud that all abroad doth flow, Dulling the eyes of mortal men, and darkening dewily The world about. And look to it no more afeard to be Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother's word disown. There where thou seest the great walls cleft, and stone torn off from stone, And seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled,— There Neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their hold With mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base. 611 ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... understood the spiritual import of these words of Jesus to 'deny himself.' Deny means, according to Webster, 'to contradict; to declare not to be true; to disclaim connection with; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown.' Jesus meant deny the mortal thought, the false self; refuse to acknowledge it as having any authority; and it is only as the Christ follower proves this to be the true mode of denying self, that he can speak with authority as to the scientific method of dealing with all ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... reminds us of the skeletons which the Egyptians used to hang up in the banquet-rooms, to inculcate a thought of mortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it were not for the beauty of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... can the graceless boy be thinking of, to fool away his money, and leave his bills to be settled by me. If this keeps on, I shall be ruined! It's too bad, when I am slaving here, for Eben to waste my substance on riotous living. I've a great mind to disown him. Let him go his own way, and fetch up in ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... consideration accorded to the superior class, whilst their connexions and purely native relations link them to the other side. In this perplexing mental condition, we find them on the one hand striving in vain to disown their affinity to the inferior races, and on the other hand, jealous of their true-born European acquaintances. A morosity of disposition is the natural outcome. Their character generally is evasive and vacillating. They are captious, fond of litigation, and constantly seeking ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... not know the exact answer to any of these questions. They are points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, or entirely disown him? If not, why ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... then, now these consequences. After thirty years, I disown the child that bears my name; and I say, that, if he is innocent, he suffers for his mother's sins. Fate would have it that your son should covet his neighbor's wife, and, having taken her, it is but justice that he should die the death of ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... in the English Church, I did disown the word "Protestant," and that, even at an earlier date than my accuser names; but just let us see whether this fact is anything at all to the purpose of his accusation. Last January 7th I spoke to this effect: "How can you prove that Father Newman ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... but then many other things tend to make me believe that such is not the case. At all events, one thing is clear—I have no family, no kindred; or if I have relations, they are ashamed of the tie that binds me to them, and voluntarily disown it." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... position. You possess wealth. You are a personage... Suppose it were necessary to deprive you of these things. Suppose, as I have the authority to do, I should send you out of this office to earn your own living. Suppose, in short, I should find it necessary to do as other fathers have done— to disown you... What then? What could you do? What would your individuality be worth?... Think it over, my son. In the meantime we will postpone this matter ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... who thus disown The wealth they see not as they walk, Nor mingle in their household talk What all to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... as you may wish to see, though not Shetland born, as far as we know, married to young Bertha Eswick, daughter to our good cousin Dame Eswick, at present governess, manager, or housekeeper of Lunnasting Castle. Thus, you understand, Rolf Morton is our cousin by marriage; and who would disown him because he is at present but an humble pilot! A finer fellow or a truer seaman does not step, though I say ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... this may be, it is certain that Balliol, rankling with a sense of injustice caused by the ignominy which Edward had heaped upon him, and rendered desperate by the complaints of his own subjects, decided, by the advice of the Great Council, to disown his allegiance to the King of England, and to enter upon an alliance with France. It is noteworthy that the policy of the French alliance, as an anti-English movement, which became the watchword of the patriotic party in Scotland, was inaugurated by John Balliol. The Scots ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... round town, not quite unknown, I have a word to speak within thy ear. Hast thou no dread to hear in trumpet tone 'John Jones has got a contract!'—dost not fear Thy children, yet unborn, may then disown The parent, with whose name they thus may hear Transactions worse than usury's heaviest loan Of twenty odd per cent. and more a year? Oh, John! I pray thee that within thy heart The lesson that 'Police Court' teaches thee, That other Jones' rob hen-roosts, and take part In many a rousing fight and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... show, As clear as shunshine, that 'tis really so; Not by the musty, fusty, worn out rules Of Locke and Bacon—addle headed fools! Or old Mallebranche—blind pilot into knowledge; But by the laws of wit, and Eton college. All axioms but the wranglers I'll disown, And stick to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... can't engross his mind; 360 Vice, bold substantial Vice, puts in her claim, And stamps him perfect in the books of Shame. Observe his follies well, and you would swear Folly had been his first, his only care; Observe his vices, you'll that oath disown, And swear that he was born for vice alone. Is the soft nature of some hapless maid, Fond, easy, full of faith, to be betray'd? Must she, to virtue lost, be lost to fame, And he who wrought her guilt declare ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... be placed upon the same level with a comparative stranger," replied Jaspar, thoughtfully, after a long pause. He had not intended the lawyer should hear his previous remarks, and had reflected whether he should disown them, or pursue the subject as ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... have been present and to have seen the marvel, advised Hippocrates first not to bring into his house a wife to bear him children, and secondly, if he happened to have one already, to dismiss her, and if he chanced to have a son, to disown him. When Chilon had thus recommended, Hippocrates, they say, was not willing to be persuaded, and so there was born to him afterwards this Peisistratos; who, when the Athenians of the shore 65 were at ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... poetry of the Scotch poet has inspired and inspirited the poet of Schleswig-Holstein, is not to be denied. But to imitate Burns, and to imitate him successfully, is no mean achievement, and Groth would be the last man to disown his master. The poem "Min Jehann" might have been written by Burns. I shall give a free metrical translation of it, but should advise the reader to try to spell out the original; for much of its charm lies in its native form, and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... that you may never become an outcast, as I am. I hope your people will never disown you. But let us talk of ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... resemblance to them.' And when one of his bitterest opponents charged him with 'stabbing the Church to her very vitals,' 'Do I, or you,' he retorted, 'do this! Let anyone who has read her Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, judge.... You desire that I should disown the Church. But I choose to stay in the Church, were it only to reprove those who betray her with a kiss.'[380] He stayed within it to the last, and on his deathbed, in 1791, he implored his followers even ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... life, Mary, not to mention mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... restrained, by the decency of their character, from that open rapine and violence so often practised by the nobles. These motives had induced Edward, as well as many of his predecessors, to intrust the chief departments of government in the hands of ecclesiastics; at the hazard of seeing them disown his authority as soon as it was turned ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... different from those of Queen Anne, when, Dean Swift having in a political pamphlet passed some sarcasms on the Scottish nation, as a poor and fierce people, the Scythians of Britain,—the Scottish peers, headed by the Duke of Argyll, went in a body to the ministers, and compelled them to disown the sentiments which had been expressed by their partisan, and offer a reward of three hundred pounds for the author of the libel, well known to be the best advocate and most intimate friend of the existing administration. They demanded also that the printer and publisher should ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... beaten him, and the sun blistered him, and the snow frozen him, and you will find him smiling at you just as he is now, just as confidently, proudly, joyously, devotedly. Because those who are your slaves, those who love YOU, cannot come to any harm; only if you disown them, only if you drive ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... touch the sands about its feet. Yea, I have painted pictures for the blind, And sung my sweetest songs to ears of stone. What matter if the dust of ages drift Five fathoms deep above my grave unknown, For I have sung and loved the songs I sung. Who sings for fame the Muses may disown; Who sings for gold will sing an idle song; But he who sings because sweet music springs Unbidden from his heart and warbles long, May haply touch another heart unknown. There is sweeter poetry in ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Josiah Pott! Threatening to disown the minister should he fail to toe your chalk-line! Where, may I ask, can one find a more high-handed tyranny of spurned authority than that? It's too ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leapt forward and fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of Katharine Hilbery. It was marvellous how much they found to feed upon, considering the destructive nature of Denham's criticism in her presence. The charm, which he had tried to disown, when under the effect of it, the beauty, the character, the aloofness, which he had been determined not to feel, now possessed him wholly; and when, as happened by the nature of things, he had exhausted his memory, he went on with his imagination. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... arms. Nor Perseus would he own from heaven deriv'd; Conceiv'd by Danae, from a golden shower: Yet soon,—so mighty is the force of truth,— Acrisius grieves he e'er so rashly brav'd The god; his grandson driving from his court, Disown'd. Now one in heaven is glorious plac'd; The other, laden with the well-known spoil Of the fierce snaky monster, cleaves the air, On sounding pinions. High the victor sails O'er Lybia's desarts, and the gory drops Fall from the gorgon's head; the Ground receives The blood, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... gave her hand to him, and called herself his wife. Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow. She owes him everything; the house you are all living in among the rest. She ought to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and, when she is so little noble as to disown him, then say that gratitude and justice have no longer a ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... stream not only dries up the thoughts which would expand toward heaven, but also withers all that is noble in human sentiment. To-day, people are not content to deny God, because they are not pure enough to comprehend Him; they disown even the weakness of the heart, provided they have an exalted and dignified character. They believe no longer in love. All the women that your fashionable writers tell us about are vulgar and sometimes unchaste creatures, to whom formerly a gentleman would have blushed to give one glance or ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... of Canada could possibly have been among them. And the Intendant, Francois Bigot, the most corrupt and ambitious man in North America, will say that they obtained no rifles, no muskets, no powder, no lead from him or his agents. Oh, no, these fine French gentlemen will disown the attack upon us, as they would have disavowed it, just the same, if we had been killed. I want to warn you, Robert, and you, Tayoga, that when you reach Quebec you'll breathe an air that's not that of the woods, nor yet of Albany ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... moment. "I do not disown you for a brother," she said, "in refusing your majesty ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... say, to promote what you call my pride, than either to suppress it, or to regret that I have it. It is this my acknowledged pride, proceeded I, that induces me to tell you, Sir, that I think it beneath me to disown what have been my motives for declining, for some days past, any conversation with you, or visit from Mr. Mennell, that might lead to points out of my power to determine upon, until I heard from my uncle Harlowe; whom, I confess, I have caused ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... began again, five minutes later. "I don't understand Turgenev. That Bazarov of his is a fictitious figure, it does not exist anywhere. The fellows themselves were the first to disown him as unlike anyone. That Bazarov is a sort of indistinct mixture of Nozdryov and Byron, c'est le mot. Look at them attentively: they caper about and squeal with joy like puppies in the sun. They are happy, they are victorious! What is there of Byron in them!... and with that, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their chief:" He sent off another aide de camp to range the troops in the order of battle. Then, alighting from the carriage and mounting a horse, he advanced alone, and thus harangued his troops: "How! Is there treason here? Is it possible that you disown me? Am I not your comrade? Have I not been wounded twenty times among you? . . . Have I not shared your fatigues and privations? And am I not ready to do so again?" Here Marmont was interrupted by a general shout of "Vive le ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... disown it), said the Hind, 70 The certain mansion were not yet assign'd; The doubtful residence no proof can bring Against the plain existence of the thing. Because philosophers may disagree If sight by emission or reception be, Shall it be thence inferr'd, I do not see? But you require ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... but his hair was straight. His face was so black it shined. Looked like it was greased. My father said he was freeborn and I've seen stripes on his back look like the veins on back of my hand where they whipped him tryin' to make him disown his freedom. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... entertainment to poets, or as a terror of children, than a settled principle, by which men pretended to govern any of their actions. The last celebrated words of Socrates, a little before his death, do not seem to reckon or build much upon any such opinion; and Caesar made no scruple to disown it, and ridicule it ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... a Gentiana Verna demeans itself to you at Brantwood—I'll disown it and be dreadfully ashamed for it! The other little things if they'll condescend to come shall be thanked and honored with my best. Only please now ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... and fearless eyes sparkled with fire. "I am an old man; vain wishes are useless. You are a coward, Monsieur; one of the coarser breed; and I say to you if my son had not challenged you or had accepted an apology, I would disown him indeed. As you will not fight him, and as apologies are out of the question . . . Here, Monsieur; there is equal ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... say, my friend, thou sage mysterious, What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strain Which bade our heedless mirth be serious, And woke ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... sentiments which we have thought fit to address to you. They flow from our own hearts, and we verily believe that among the millions we represent there is not a virtuous citizen whose heart will disown them. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... infinite dangers, yet she could hardly wish that anything should be altered. Should Lord Rufford disown her, which she knew to be quite possible, there would be a general collapse and the world would crash over her head. But she had known, when she took this business in hand, that as success would open Elysium to her, so would failure involve her in absolute ruin. She was determined ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... just upon the finishing of a poem,[2] when I would have been glad of a little respite before the undertaking of a second task. The person, that passed betwixt us, knows this to be true; and Mr Lee himself, I am sure, will not disown it; So that I did not "seduce him to join with me," as the malicious authors of the Reflections are pleased to call it; but Mr Lee's loyalty is above so ridiculous a slander. I know very well, that the town did ignorantly ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... to disown the flag. The Boers had so far possessed themselves only of Duncan's sangar; but Carleton shrank from doing what he knew would be construed into the blackest treachery by his opponents, which he knew, moreover, could but prolong the resistance ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... expect assistance from you, I must expect something like rebuke from others. If Lentulus has no vessel there, put them on board anyone you please. My pet Tulliola claims your present and duns me as your security. I am resolved, however, to disown the obligation rather than ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Should Love disown or disesteem you For loving one man more or less? You could not tame your light white sea-mew, Nor ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... were satisfied; it was little enough. He begged at cottages on his own account, sometimes; sitting up in the attitude of mendicancy till something was thrown to him. Occasionally, too, he stole fowls or raided a butcher's shop. Then Trotter and the Signor would disown him vociferously to the bereaved one, and hasten on to come up with him before he had eaten it all. He preferred being beaten to going hungry, so they never caught him till he had fed full. But what troubled ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the St. Petersburg Cabinet would renounce the principle of "The Balkans for the Balkan nations," proclaimed to the Duma two months before by M. Sazonoff, in short, that the Russian people would disown the ancient ties of blood that united it with the Slav communities of the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... succumb than disown this one thing; and verily, where there is succumbing and leaf-falling, lo, there doth ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... "I should disown my manhood if I shirked now. The horror of prospective years of imprisonment has been more to me than death—I welcomed that as the alternative. But now, the manhood that is left in me demands that if I am willing to live as a man, I must take my punishment like a man. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... English and Continental politics will be found only in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette, The Statesman and the Capitalist, the Country Gentleman and the Divine, will be amongst our readers, because our writers are amongst them. We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—the Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker has his journal: why should ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray |
