"Refrain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charm the reader by their quiet beauty. It cannot be denied that his fondness for simple, homely images sometimes led him into sheer fatuity; and candid admirers must also admit that, despite his study of simplicity, he could not refrain from hunting (as the manner was) after ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... willingly let die; a rough draught of an epic poem, in many ways more barbarous than the other extant chansons de geste, but full of vigour, and notable (like le Roi Gormond, another of the older epics) for its refrain and other lyrical passages, very like the manner of the ballads. The Chanun de Willame, it may be observed, is not very different from Aliscans with regard to Rainouart, the humorous gigantic helper of William of Orange. One would not have been surprised if it had been otherwise, if ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... rushing before the other ladies, his wig and head-dress fell off his head; and, before they could be well replaced, he made so, ridiculous a figure, by clapping them, in his confusion, hind part before, that the King, the Queen, and the whole suite, could scarcely refrain from ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... time with the song, and his portentous voice thundered out the refrain with an energy which shook the little skiff from stem to stern. By the time that "Boney" was safely consigned to his grave in sunny France, they were nearing the flats on which the steamer Huntress lay, quietly awaiting the ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... he was going to sail for the United States. I returned to our house to get the clothes and money indispensable to the humblest of travellers. I left a note for my uncle, so that he might not feel uneasy at my absence; this I promised to explain very soon in a long letter. I begged him to refrain from passing sentence on me until it arrived, and assured him that I should never ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before anybody but Angy Plummer ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... with sorrow that so beautiful a virgin should be married to a donkey. They were afraid to express their feelings to the king, but they could not refrain from smiling, covering their mouths with their garments. At length some one interrupted the general silence ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... that this gathering was very like one of the Agapae of the early Christians—a remark I had not expected to hear in that assembly. Then there was another hymn, "Beautiful Land of Rest," when it did one good to hear the unction with which the second syllable of the refrain was given:— ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... was resolved not to think about her, for thoughts of her, he knew, would lead to fears concerning the future, which would in turn force him to decide upon a course of action. If he determined to commit the sin, his guilt would thereby be increased, and he would not pledge himself to refrain from it. "She couldn't write last night with the Deacon at her elbow all the time," he decided, and began to read again. Darkness had fallen before he remembered that he owed an immediate answer to the letter from Chicago. After a little consideration, ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... the prisoner, private Frank Halloway, at the same time gladly avail themselves of their privilege by strongly recommending him to mercy. The court cannot, in justice to the character of the prisoner, refrain from expressing their unanimous conviction, that notwithstanding the mysterious circumstances which have led to his confinement and trial, he is entirely innocent of the treachery ascribed to him. The court have founded ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... of these Studies I have sought to refrain from the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this endeavor, I trust, I have been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... away with you," I retorted, so enraged by this time I could scarcely refrain from grappling him with my hands. "I go to tell Madame of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... afraid to come to inhabit a country in which labor has not yet been reinstated in its rightful honors. Besides, they very justly look upon the States in which the proportion of the negroes equals or exceeds that of the whites, as exposed to very great dangers; and they refrain from turning their ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... tends to develop an ambition to excel, to become physically strong and robust. With such an ambition, boys realize, intuitively to a certain extent, that to succeed they must refrain from vice. Physical exercise has a fourfold moral value: it substitutes wholesome activity for vice; it serves as an outlet for excess of nervous energy; it develops the will; it develops ambition to be virile. All wholesome recreation is an enemy of impurity. Jane Addams says that recreation is ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... horizon with a fringe of rose. What misery! It will be necessary now to go knock at the door of the hospital, to sleep in wards impregnated with that heavy smell through which returns, like an obstinate refrain, the acrid flower of powder of iodoform! All sadly we take our way to the hospital again. They open to us but alas! one only of us is admitted, Francis;—and I, they send me on to the lyceum. This life is no longer possible, I meditate an escape, the house surgeon on duty comes down into the ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... root in France was the impossibility, induced by long habit, of distinguishing between religion and Catholicism, and of conceiving that the one may exist without the other. The by-laws of the church had become as sacred as the primary duties of piety; and the injunction to refrain from meat on Fridays was indistinguishable by most Catholics, in point of obligation, from the injunction to love ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... and tuneful—for the Muses, if kind, are often lavish of their gifts—so the final refrain of an impassioned love song traveled far that placid morning. Thus, when he reached the iron gates, he found the Roxton policeman standing ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... has not occurred in Mizora in the memory of any living before this, yet it is not without precedent. We are very prudent, but we cannot guard entirely against accident. It has cast a gloom over the whole city, yet we refrain from speaking of it, and strive to forget it because it cannot ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... just now anxiously watching Norman, especially his father, who strove in vain to keep back all manifestation of his earnest desire to see him retain his post. Resolutely did the doctor refrain from asking any questions, when the boys came in, but he could not keep his eyes from studying the face, to see whether it bore marks of mental fatigue, and from following him about the room, to discover whether he found it necessary, as he had done last autumn, to spend the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... her yearning and weary smile, As her song rang sadder and sadder the while, With its weird refrain of a magic isle, Where some might have ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... 1899, that Ladysmith and Kimberley and Mafeking could hold out, without relief, as long as they did? What therefore, between the known uncertainties of the past and the certainly imperfect information of the present, we, who had not the responsibilities of decision, may modestly refrain from positively judging the particular decision, even by the generally sound principles which commonly govern such cases. Warfare is an art, not a science; it knows no unvarying laws, and possesses neither specifics ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... of something final, at least as far as this probation was concerned, greatly depressed Denas. "Never more, never more," was the monotonous refrain that sprang from her soul to her lips. But it is a wise provision of the Merciful One that the past, in a healthy mind, very soon loses its charm, and the things that are ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... by the time you have lost your figure and charm for them they are all ashamed of you. Now, as a believer in woman's rights, do a little talking to the men as to their duties to their wives, or else refrain from urging us women to have children. I am only one of thousands of middle-class respectable women who give their lives to raise a nice family, and then who become bitter from the injustice done us. Don't let this go into the waste-basket, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... sat in silence at the other side of the fire. Shock remained near, the girl, wondering at her marvellous self-control. Verse after verse she sang in a voice low, but clear and sweet. As the refrain occurred again ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... wouldn't mind, began to put in order the front room, which the incidents of the night had somewhat disturbed. Father Damon, holding fast by that little hand to the world of poverty to which he had devoted his life, could not refrain from watching her, as she moved about with the quick, noiseless way that a woman has when she is putting things to rights. This was indeed a novel invasion of his life. He was still too weak to reason about it much. How good ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Emperors of Germany used oftentimes to reside, and make carousal, and when I saw, now, scarcely anything but dark passages, unfurnished galleries, naked halls, and untenanted chambers—I own that I could hardly refrain from uttering a sigh over the mutability of earthly fashions, and the transitoriness of worldly grandeur. With a rock for its base, and walls almost of adamant for its support—situated also upon an eminence which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... I come to a point at which frankness is necessary. In these pages there will be an endeavour to refrain from egotism, and yet how may one who lives a lonesome life on an island and who presumes to write its history evade that duty? My chief desire is to set down in plain language the sobrieties of everyday occurrences—the unpretentious homilies ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... extensive dimensions for the sale of drink and food and gambling. There were others, those who came over the great white trail from the north, who possessed very definite opinions of their own, but were wise enough to refrain from ventilating them within ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... from one to eight, and they were such exciting subjects and so beautifully executed that I cannot refrain from giving a description of them to the reader. Number one represented a beautiful girl reclining on a sofa, her petticoats raised to reveal the lower portion of her body. Her head was thrown back, her breasts were bare, and her thighs were elevated in the air. In front of her was a young ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... out or walk; and do not expect any one to think it is. We frequently meet parties of young folks walking through the mountains, who do great things with their tongues, but not much with their feet. If you will refrain from bragging, you can speak of your short marches ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... religious parodies of love-songs, written for the melodies of the originals, and many seem by their structure to be indirectly derived from the choral dances of farm folk, a notable feature being their burden or refrain, a survival of the common outcry of the dancers ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... start, how impossible it is in the span of a human life to read the great books unless we strictly save the time which so many spend on the little books. Ruskin's words on this subject, almost harsh in their blunt common sense, bring the matter home so well that I cannot refrain from ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... by without speaking, not venturing to interfere between Father and Daughter, but now I could refrain ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... love, which makes us miserable when we feel it, and more miserable still when it is gone!" He strung a number of copper wires at different degrees of tension between two trees, and listened to the wind as it ranged up and down on this improvised AEolian harp. It gradually ran into a regular refrain, which became more and more like words. Ayrault was puzzled, and then amazed. There could be no doubt about it. "You should be happy," it kept repeating—"you should be happy," in soft musical tones. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... educated, refined, the daughter of good blood—no fleeing negress, cursed with the black stain of an alien race, a nameless slave—brought to me a sudden joy in discovery I made no attempt to conceal. "Eloise Beaucaire, Eloise Beaucaire"—the name repeated itself on my lips, as though it were a refrain. I knew instantly what it all meant—that some divine, mysterious hand had led from the very hour of my leaving Fort Armstrong, and would continue to lead until the will of God was done. It was not in the stars of Fate that such villainy should succeed; such sacrifice ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... refrain from sayin' in encouragin', happy axents, "Haint you glad now, Josiah Allen, that you listened to your pardner; haint you glad that you haint a goin' round in a low necked coat and vest, a callin' up the blush of skern and outraged modesty ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... composed after he heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the Highland fling with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... have lent their valuable aid in promoting the undertaking, yet I cannot but hope that the large amount of additional fertile country it has brought to our knowledge will compensate in some degree for the deficiency. I am, however, unable to refrain from again expressing my opinion, that had not so many concurrent circumstances combined to retard the departure of the Expedition until so late in the season, and it had arrived on the coast at the time originally recommended by the Geographical Society, it would, in all probability, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... muster all my stoicism to refrain from whimpering; Mr. Langley gave utterance to a wish, which, if ever fulfilled, will consign the cities of Cronstadt, Stockholm, and Matanzas to the same fate which has rendered Sodom, Gomorrah, and Euphemia so celebrated. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... longer. And, when the prayers rhymed, how exhilarating it was to lay stress on each rhyme and double rhyme, shouting them fervidly. And sometimes, instead of rhyming, they ended with the same phrase, like the refrain of a ballad, or the chorus of a song, and then what a joyful relief, after a long breathless helter-skelter through a strange stanza, to come out on the old familiar ground, and to shout exultantly, "For His mercy endureth ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... explained by jealousy of an older man with a pretty woman. It would be hard if it were to come to this between us. Though I had talked of going to see her in Monte Carlo, the butterfly Contessa was no more to me than a delicate pastel on someone else's wall, or a gay refrain, which charms the ear without haunting the memory. I would not interfere with the Boy; if he chose to encourage Gaeta to flirt with him, he need not fear me; but I had liked to think he valued my comradeship. Now, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... 'Since we have recently declared before His Majesty that, in case His Majesty refused to deliver to us the Confutation of our Confession without restrictions [the aforementioned conditions] we nevertheless could not refrain from writing a reply to it, as far as the articles had been noted down during the reading, and from delivering it to His Imperial Majesty: we therefore ought to prepare ourselves in this matter, in order to make use of it in case of necessity,' In this we, the delegates of the cities, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... refrain from every depth of love.... Why do you turn your backs? Where are you going? Why do you bite your lips and shake your heads? Why are your faces blanched? Why do you weep? Will you or won't you, or what ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... confidence. At length he is assailed with doubts. He has recourse to the auricular sense, to know if she is following him. He can hear nothing. Finally he can endure this uncertainty no longer; and, in defiance of the prohibition he has received, cannot refrain from turning his head to ascertain whether he is baffled, and has spent all his labour in vain. He sees her; but no sooner he sees her, than she becomes evanescent and impalpable; farther and farther she retreats before him; she ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... were a silly jingle and the humor in them could not be considered delicate. Lisle, glancing at Gladwyne, noticed his slight frown, but one of the two young men lounging by the second table watching the game hummed the refrain with an appreciative smile upon his heavy and somewhat ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo signified their approval and demanded the next verse. And Joel sang it. And when the chorus came the maskers lost much of their dignity and waved their arms about and shouted the refrain so loud that doors up and down the hall opened and wondering voices shouted "Shut up!" or "More! M-o-r-e!" for two minutes after. As the last word was reached Joel leaned quickly forward toward an unsuspicious singer, and, snatching the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... myself at the piano and commenced with one of Schumann's songs, and then I sang "Ma Mere etait Bohemienne," of Masse, which had a great success, and at the refrain, "Et moi! j'ai l'ame triste," there was not a dry eye in the little circle. Graf Waldersee, one of the oldest warriors, wept like an infant while I was singing, and coming up to me, after blowing his nose, said, in his delightfully broken English, "You zing like an angle [I hope ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... thoughts, to love again, to refrain from an ignoble strife—alas! that it could not be thus ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... in my dream that he then rent the net and let the pilgrims out. Then he commanded them to lie down, and when they did so, he chastised them with his whip of cords, to teach them to walk in the good way, and refrain from following the advice of evil flatterers. And they thanked him for his kindness, and went softly along the right path, singing for very joy; and after passing through the Enchanted Land, which was full of vapours that made them dull and sleepy, they came to the sweet ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... time well. His whole family had been wiped out, and he had escaped as by a miracle. "In those days, dogs ate dogs and men ate men," was the refrain of his tale, only too literally and absolutely true, for no man dared to venture on the lonely path leading from one village to another, knowing that the likelihood was that murderers lay in wait, and that a ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... played with her whole soul, not the voluntary there before her in printed form, nor any one thing she had ever heard, but taking parts of many things, and mingling them with strains of her own improvising, she filled the house as it had never been filled before, playing a soft, sweet refrain when she thought of Helen, then bursting into louder, fuller tones, when she remembered Bethlehem's child and the song the angels sang, and then as she recalled her own sacrifice since she knelt at the altar a happy bride, the organ notes seemed much like human sobs, now rising to a ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... individual's point of view. But what is demanded in a highly militarized or industrialized nation goes far beyond this very moderate degree. A society which is to allow much freedom to the individual must be strong enough to be not anxious about home defence, moderate enough to refrain from difficult external conquests, and rich enough to value leisure and a civilized existence more than an increase of ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... to the mouth, and Lord Brougham's from the mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory, and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap upon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... smarting with the pain, And tingling still and sore, Made many a promise to refrain From meddling evermore. And 'tis a fact, as I have heard, She ever since has kept ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... worthies then, and spake them so: "Lordlings, you know I yielded to your will, And gave you license with this dame to go, To win her kingdom and that tyrant kill: But now again I let you further know, In following her it may betide yon ill; Refrain therefore, and change this forward thought For death unsent for, danger ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... have had such a crop of villainies to reap this year as never was gathered before in the same time, and it appears plain that no animal will be allowed to win any prize unless the foul crew of betting-men accord their kind approval, and refrain from poisoning the brute. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... conceded that the Grand Canon of Arizona beggars description. I shall therefore endeavor to refrain from doing so. I realize that this is going to be a considerable contract. Nearly everybody, on taking a first look at the Grand Canon, comes right out and admits its wonders are absolutely indescribable—and ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... the table, refusing to notice the trembling, outstretched hand. He could not refrain from looking back at her as he quitted the room. He saw the gentle face, so full of deadly sorrow, with its white quivering lips; and yet he thought to himself, although she looked stricken with anguish, there was no guilt on the clear, ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... variations:— 'four sisters,' 'six lovers,' 'a true lover'), and with a curious half-Latin refrain which ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... in the fourteenth century; a sensation helped out by the costume of the people that we met or passed, in whose dress there was nothing "modern." Almost everybody was gaily dressed, but especially the women, who were so well-looking, or even so handsome, that I could scarcely refrain my tongue from calling my companion's attention to the fact. Some faces I saw that were thoughtful, and in these I noticed great nobility of expression, but none that had a glimmer of unhappiness, and the greater part ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... sylph-like Taglioni floating through the dance, I could not refrain from sighing at the thought that grace and elegance like hers should be doomed to know the withering effect of Time; and that those agile limbs should one day become as stiff and helpless as those of others. An old danseuse is an anomaly. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... to the comparative strength of this instinct in the two sexes? Here we must not be deceived by the effects of nurture, environment, or education. Though finding, as we do, that the little boy enjoys playing with his dolls as his sister does, we refrain from buying dolls for him, and may indeed, underestimating the importance of human fatherhood, declare that dolls are beneath the dignity of a boy though good enough for his sister. He, destined rather for the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... again a misunderstanding between his little friend—as he had been in the habit of calling Elsie—and her father; and as he rode home silently pondering the matter, he determined that he would very soon fulfil his promise of paying a longer visit, for he could not refrain from indulging a faint hope that he might be able to accomplish something ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... oblique-driving rain that came for miles over the plains in a succession of grey, windy sheets. But my wrists and hands were aching, wet, and my thin, plying legs, to my knees. And the "squash-squish!" of my soaked feet in the mud plodded a steady refrain of misery. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... been examined and verified by the proper authority. We now ask you to restore Birotteau, not to honor, but to all the rights of which he was deprived. In doing this you are doing justice. Such exhibitions of character are so rare in this Court that we cannot refrain from testifying to the petitioner how heartily we applaud his conduct, which an august approval has already ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... West-Central classroom, and the rowdy crew of London roughs hulking and hustling on the benches, learning per medium of "the dodger," that one's duty to one's neighbour was not to abuse him foully without cause, to refrain one's hands from pocket-picking, shop-raiding, hustling, and jellying heads with brass-buckled belts or iron knuckle-dusters, and not to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... pathetic, haunting refrain. They sing it in the drawing- rooms of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and somehow the light talk and laughter die away, and a hush, like a chill breath, enters by the closed door and passes through. It is a curious song, like the wailing of a tired wind, and one day it will sweep over ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... my knowledge of their customs, you see," the reader could not refrain from interpolating; then she continued ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... world any more. And this undoubtedly, though he could not express himself so clearly, must be his sentiments; for the tears ran down his cheeks in such a plentiful manner, that I had much ado to refrain from weeping also, when I beheld the poor creature's affection; so that I was forced to comfort him in the best manner I could, which I did, by telling him, if he was content to abide with me, I should be ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... could not refrain from asking Barefoot, if, in case of her marrying, she would not go with her as her maid; she would give her double wages, and at the same time she would then not have to cross the Rhine and work in a factory. Barefoot gave an evasive answer; for she ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of the most daring speculations which has ever been made in astronomy. We cannot refrain from enunciating it; but it must be remembered that it is only a speculation, and to be received with corresponding reserve. The speculation is intended to answer the question, What brought the moon into that position, close to the surface of the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... loud laugh of work-people at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters, The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights, The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, The slow ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... friends did not refrain from talk in the key of indecency. Their complacent revelation of the extent to which the pornographic enters into the German scene, suggested an unclosed Priapean volume whose companion in America is as a sealed book. Kirtley heard that stores filled with obscene objects ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... would palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union among tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean section, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to make use of the world; but when the work to be done requires that those who attend to it should be possessed of spiritual life (of which unbelievers are utterly destitute), the children of God are bound, by their loyalty to their Lord, entirely to refrain from association with the unregenerate. But, alas! the connection with the world is but too marked in these religious societies; for every one who pays a guinea, or, in some societies, half-a-guinea, is considered ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... houses, a staid pretence of having nothing to do, an avoidance of display, which I never saw out of England." "Nurse's Stories" says that "nails and copper are shipwrights' sweethearts, and shipwrights will run away with them whenever they can." In Great Expectations the refrain, "Beat it out, beat it out—old Clem! with a clink for the stout—old Clem!" which Pip and his friends sang, is from a song which the blacksmiths in the dockyard used to sing in procession ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... people, and not use their position for thievery and depredation; that those whom the State honours by appointing to positions of trust shall content themselves with the recompense lawfully given, and refrain from peculation; that peace and security shall rest on the land; and that bloodthirsty swashbucklers shall not go up and down inciting the people to carnage and rapine under the name of patriotism. This is the task I set myself when I came ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... see a plash in the canal, and see a gondola moving from the shore. It is he, and I scarcely can refrain from calling to him. Now the whole thing is clear—it was ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he has employed the same metrical arrangement in by far the largest proportion of his poetical works. So gracefully and so easily, indeed, has he wielded this metre, and with so flexible, so delicate, and so masterly a hand, that we could not refrain from attempting to imitate it in our English version; for we considered that it is impossible to say how much of the peculiar character of a poet's writings depends upon the colouring, or rather the touch—if we may borrow a phrase from the vocabulary of the critic in painting—of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... suave, unconcerned composure to his face; while inwardly, in his dazed, fogged brain where chaos raged, surged an impulse to fling himself upon the other, wreck a mad vengeance upon the man—and then swift upon the heels of this an impulse to refrain, for if Helena was straight why should he harm Thornton—and then the shuttle again—why should he not—hadn't Helena said that she had learned what love was last night—and last night she had been with Thornton. How his ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... knit again. "But this is too much. Am I to refrain from doing my duty till I get your gracious ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... both the words and the air. At other times she sang the songs of others to her own airs. I remember the first time I ever heard of Tennyson was when, one evening in the twilight, she sang his echo song from "The Princess". The air was her own, and in the refrain you heard perfectly the notes of the bugle, and the echoes answering, "Dying, dying, dying." Boy as I was, I was entranced, and she answered my enthusiasm by turning and repeating the poem. I have often thought since how musical her voice was ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... Liturgy and the Articles, a complaint of the servility shown in a recent address to King George, who ought to consider himself rather the servant than the sovereign of his people, and a prediction that France and England, each delivered from despotism by a happy revolution, will now "not merely refrain from engaging in wars with one another, but unite in preventing wars everywhere." As for our own Revolution of 1688, it was a great but not a perfect work. It had left religious toleration incomplete and the Parliamentary franchise ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... ride together, all before breakfast, and she brought to the table such dancing eyes and rosy cheeks that Mr. Lilburn could not refrain from complimenting her upon them, while the rest of the older ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... a fury at him for not understanding her. Other days she wanted him so that she could scarcely refrain from taking a train to New York and looking for him. In her sane moments she knew that the only thing she could do ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... through the tall grasses to the water. In that moment a thousand thoughts passed through her brain. Deep in her soul, where long it had lain dormant, her childish faith awoke, as with simple fervour she repeated this short prayer, "Lord, save me! Lord, help me!" She suddenly recollected the refrain of a song that latterly she had been studying; for an instant she thought of Sarudine, and then she saw the face of her mother who seemed doubly dear to her in this awful moment. Indeed it was this last recollection which drove her faster to the river. Never till then had Lida so keenly ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... delivering his presidential address to the Iron and Steel Institute, the lecturer had ventured to suggest that "time will probably reveal to us effectual means of carrying power to great distances, but I cannot refrain from alluding to one which is, in my opinion, worthy of consideration, namely, the electrical conductor. Suppose water power to be employed to give motion to a dynamo-electrical machine, a very powerful electrical current will be the result, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... the good effect of the Revolution upon the order and government of France. Burke followed in a very different vein, openly proclaiming that dislike and fear of the Revolution which was to be the one ceaseless refrain of all that he spoke or wrote for the rest of his life. He deplored Fox's praise of the army for breaking their lawful allegiance, and then he proceeded with ominous words to the effect that, if any friend of his should concur in any measures which should ...
— Burke • John Morley
... through the storm-clouds, and Bob, who had contented himself with a subdued whistling while he listened, took up the refrain: ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... prevented him from slaying Mbonga. It was as though someone greater than he had commanded him to spare the life of the old man. Tarzan could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing, or no one, with the authority to dictate to him what he should do, or what he should refrain from doing. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of place or of owners. Levi was made the victim of a stratagem so peculiarly Southern, and so thoroughly the outgrowth of an institution which holds the bodies and souls of men as of no more account, for all moral purposes, than the unreasoning brutes, that I cannot refrain from relating it. He was a likely lad, and, to all appearance, fully in the confidence of his master. Prompt and obedient, he seemed to some of us to enjoy high favor at the "great house." One morning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... we shall refrain from dwelling further upon the scene. But as Burl stood out there in the night and witnessed the widow's anguish, and heard the wail of her fatherless child, from that heart whence had ascended to heaven the promise never to be broken there rose a terrible oath ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the gravity of this answer was of a different character; but she could not refrain from carrying the matter further; she could not ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... believe, that as our clearest DUTY is in this world, it is wholesome that our most eager interest (if unselfish) should be in this world and not (with Count Tolstoi) so full of eagerness for immortality, that it is an effort with him to refrain from suicide! I accept with grateful submission whatever of after-life the Supreme Lord gives—or does not give. My desire cannot affect His actions, and in fact I never have been able to work myself into any desire for a future so undefined and unimaginable. This will show ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... can be secured by showing him how human happiness would suffer by its extinction. This argument, if it had any weight at all, would only induce persons either to pretend to be Christians when they were not, or to refrain from assailing Christianity, or to avoid all inquiries which might possibly lead to sceptical conclusions. It is therefore, perhaps, a good argument to address to believers, because it may induce them to suppress doubts and avoid lines of thought or social ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... about so rapidly that the Plunger had had no time to consider or to weigh his motives, and all that seemed real to him now, as he stood alone on the platform of the dark, deserted station, were the words of the man echoing and re-echoing like the refrain of the song. And then there came to him suddenly, and with all the force of a gambler's superstition, the thought that the words were the same as those which his father had used in his letter, "you can make us happy for the ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... suppliant's tears and confession, by his sense of loss, his bitter consciousness of humiliation, but withal man was helpless without God. God was needed for the atonement. Israel never dreamed of putting forward his righteousness as a claim to pardon. 'We are empty of good works' is the constant refrain of the Jewish penitential appeals. The final reliance is on God and on God alone. Yet Judaism took over from its past the anthropomorphic belief that God could be moved by man's prayers, contrition, amendment—especially by man's amendment. Atonement was only ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... exclaimed Adrian, with so devout an earnestness that the bystanders could not refrain from laughing; and even Montreal grimly and half-reluctantly, joined in the merriment. The courtesy of his foe, however, conciliated and touched the more frank and soldierly qualities of his nature, and composing ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... move. But you will say, did not the lions in the den into which Daniel was cast because he would not act against his conscience, obey the wicked king and offend God—as we read in Holy Scripture (Dan. 6:16)—refrain from eating him, even when they were starving with hunger? Yes; but they did not do so of themselves, but by the power of God preventing them: and that is why the delivery of Daniel from their mouths was a miracle. It is clear, because the same lions immediately tore ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... in a bellow from Ned Lowe. "Everybody wake up for Colby Hall!" And then there boomed out this refrain: ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... given away to this man; and yet the man during this very time was spending his hours with a—woman, with a strange American woman, to whom he acknowledged that he had been once engaged. How could she not quarrel with him? How could she refrain from telling him that everything must be over between them? Everybody was against him,—her mother, her brother, and her cousin: and she felt that she had not a word to say in his defence. A horrid woman! ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... of enterprise, but from a deliberate tactical conviction gained by experience in war. In judging the apparent want of enterprise which our own admirals began to display in action at this time, we should probably be careful to refrain from joining in the unmitigated contempt with which modern historians have so freely covered them. In the typical battle of Malaga, for instance, Rooke did nothing but carry out the principles which were the ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... his patient to roam at will among his fellows, unwarned even of the nature of the fell disease that was devouring his life. Nay, worse! What if the physician should have himself clothed with plenary powers and should compel the poor wretch to refrain from making his case known after he had discovered its nature? But this is precisely ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday there is the Carnival, so called from the Latin words carni vale (which mean, as every school-boy knows, "farewell to the flesh"), because during Lent good Catholics should abjure "the world, the flesh, and the devil," and refrain from eating meat. In Ghent the Monday of that week is called Zotten-Maanday, or Fools' Monday, and all over Belgium the next day (Shrove Tuesday in England) is called Mardi Gras—that is, Fat Tuesday—the day on which ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... our energies from that clearly defined duty. At a later time I may take the liberty of calling your attention to reforms which should press close upon the heels of the tariff changes, if not accompany them, of which the chief is the reform of our banking and currency laws; but just now I refrain. For the present, I put these matters on one side and think only of this one thing—of the changes in our fiscal system which may best serve to open once more the free channels of prosperity to a great people whom we ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... delinquent to come forward; but as he knelt down on the cushion, instead of receiving the anticipated salute, he got a sound box on the ears, the dame, actuated probably by some feeling of jealousy, taking advantage of the favourable opportunity afforded her of avenging herself. No one could refrain from laughing at this unexpected turn in affairs, and Nicholas, to do him justice, took it in excellent part, and laughed louder than the rest. Springing to his feet, he snatched the kiss denied him by the spirited dame, and led her to obtain some refreshment at the lower table, of which ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... join the leader. As the lower reed start the refrain, the higher enter in pursuit, and then the two groups sing a melodic chase. But the whole phrase is a mere foil to the pure melody of the former plaint that now returns in lower strings. And all so far is as a herald to ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the Directory began to give more credit to the sincerity of the professions of neutrality made on the part of Venice. It was resolved, therefore, to be content with obtaining money and supplies for the army, and to refrain from violating the neutrality. The Directory had not then in reserve, like Bonaparte, the idea of making the dismemberment of Venice serve as a compensation for such of the Austrian possessions as ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... was moved by the charm of that peak which seemed to be the highest of all. When he expressed a determination to climb to the top, the Indians, horrified at the thought, begged him for his life to refrain. It was, they assured him, Agiochook, the abode of the Great Spirit whom they could see in the clouds about the summit. His voice could be heard in the thunder of the storms from cliff to cliff. The winds were manifestations of His ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... seemed to have a friend. A protector had suddenly arisen to support and defend her,—a man of very alluring person and manners, of a very noble and generous spirit, and of the very highest station. He loved her, and she could not refrain from loving him in return. She committed her cause entirely into his hands, confided to him all her interests, and gave herself up ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... refrain from laughing when I was introduced to the people. A few, who knew me par renommee, were very polite and respectful; others who know nothing about me stared at me as if they were a bit amused. They think that because I am small and young that there can be nothing great and old in me. ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... is her experience sufficient for her to enter on the duties of a matron. But we do not appeal to these arguments. There are others still more forcible. If her own health, life, and good looks are of value to her, if she has any wish for healthy, sound minded children, she will refrain from premature nuptials. ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... cruelties he, Champlain, "would have no heart to assist or favour them in the war". To this Iroquet replied that their enemies treated them in the same manner, but that since this was displeasing to the Frenchmen he would not do anything more to women, but he would not promise to refrain from ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... we can't accept your hospitality," he said. "I'm tired, and want to get to bed. In passing, however, I couldn't refrain from dropping in to compliment you on the remarkable work your men are doing out on the ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... virtues that can confer praise, honour, and happiness upon a woman. Take back thy money, my friend; here it is, and I have had no need to touch it, for the chastity of Camilla yields not to things so base as gifts or promises. Be content, Anselmo, and refrain from making further proof; and as thou hast passed dryshod through the sea of those doubts and suspicions that are and may be entertained of women, seek not to plunge again into the deep ocean of new embarrassments, or with ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... which considers the possession of those anatomical features a fact to be carefully concealed, provided they are not symmetrical. We pass the door-keeper, who, as is the custom of his kind, frowns malignantly at us, and evidently asks himself—"How much longer can I refrain from tearing up the tickets of these impudent pleasure-seekers, and throwing the pieces in their infamously contented countenances?" We gain the hall, and are sent to the inevitable "other aisle," by the usher, (by the way, why ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... I felt quite ambitious to rival her—but in attempting to draw on one of Charles' jackets, I found that it would not meet round my waist. Oh, mortification unspeakable! to find myself larger around the waist than a boy a whole year my senior! I could scarcely refrain from bursting into tears; forgetting that I belonged to the dumpling order, while Charles was as slender and straight as a young birch tree. My pleasure for that day was gone; in vain Ellen displayed her whole stock ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... if he would like to understand her if he only could,—"who ever would have thought that things would turn out as they have when I last patted your dear old head at Bingen, 'Fair Bingen on the Rhine,' eh?" and she murmured to herself the refrain of that ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the equally youthful and delighted Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught up the refrain: ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... are concerns in the lottery, from which all Quakers are advised to refrain. These include the purchase of tickets, and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... dissatisfied with the change. She continued to justify her mother's fear lest she should become an original. She found it difficult to pay proper respect to the numberless elderly cousins of the family, and still more difficult to refrain from accosting first any pleasant gentleman she had known in the country, and now chanced to meet in the streets. Likewise, the Young Lady's Institution, which she had to attend, was in many ways objectionable to her. She had certain maps and tiresome lesson-books to take to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Claus must be dead, He thought, as with sad tears he crept into bed. And, as he lay thinking, the long strings of wire Sang low in the wind like a deep-sounding lyre, And Joe caught the notes of this solemn refrain— "He'll not come again! no, he'll not come again!" And oh! how the depths of his spirit were stirred By thoughts that were born of the music he heard! How cold were the winds, and they sang in their strife, Of storms yet to come in the winters of life. They mocked ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various |
