"Refrain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who has seen an outward-bound clipper ship getting under way, and heard the "shanty-songs" sung by the sailors as they toiled at capstan and halliards, will probably remember that rhymeless but melodious refrain— ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the masculine liberty, equality and fraternity of the public-house, where men meet together but never do anything. For Chesterton has not yet asked us to do anything, he only requests Parliament to refrain. He supports no political programme. He is opposed to Party Government, which is government by the Government. He is in favour of Home Rule, it may be inferred; and of making things nasty for the Jews, it may be supposed. But he does not poach on the leader-writers' preserves, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... prediction had been verified. Aleck Webster was true blue, the Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp could be depended on to hold their rebel neighbors in check, and Marcy Gray could hardly refrain from dancing with delight at the thought ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... He could not refrain from making some movement, with the intention of frightening it away; and was immediately gratified by hearing the slight rustling pass off to one side, as though his ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... to amputate the limb, which was most severely used. During this cruel operation, Moreau scarce shewed a change of countenance, and did not cease to smoke his segar. The amputation performed, Mr Wylie examined the right leg, and found it in such a state, that he could not refrain from expressing his terror. "I understand you," said Moreau, "you must cut off this one too.—Well, do it quickly.—However, I would rather have died." He wanted to write to his wife; and he wrote to her, with a ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... that the patriarchs were men of extravagant love for their wives; and they consider it obscene that Moses should make mention of such things with such attention to detail. But, in the impurity of their hearts, they can not refrain from ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... turned toward the lurid south. The air was very still. From away down the river sounded the bells of Lambeth Church, their volleying clang softened by distance to a monotonous refrain, drearily at one with the sadness of the falling night. Warburton heard them, yet heard them not; all external sounds blended with that within him, which was the furious beating of his heart. He ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... I said breifly. But I could not refrain from making a grimase at her back, and she ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... Devonshire, emigrates to Westphalia—"Poor Lamb (these were his last words), if he wants any knowledge, he may apply to me,"—in ordinary cases, I thanked him, I have an "Encyclopaedia" at hand, but on such an occasion as going over to a German university, I could not refrain from sending him the following propositions, to be by him defended or oppugned (or both) ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Colle of Borgo a San Sepolcro, both of whom assisted him in the execution of many things in the Hall of Constantine and in the other works of which we have spoken. Wherefore I do not think it right to refrain from mentioning that these two, who were very dexterous in painting, and followed the manner of Giulio closely in carrying into execution the works that he designed for them, painted in colours after his design, near the old Mint in the Banchi, the ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... to my financial dealings with the Club I might be much more explicit, but I feel that it is not a matter of great public interest, and I therefore refrain from doing so, believing that what I have already said will serve to show how I stand and how I ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... my story, as its evident moral, that I ought to refrain from addressing the public of the United States, to which I am entirely unknown as an author, notwithstanding the fact of my having maintained pleasant and friendly relations with its Government as the ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... (continued Mr. Webster) compel me, with whatever reluctance, to refrain from the indulgence of the personal feelings which arise in my heart, upon the death of one with whom I have cultivated a sincere, affectionate, and unbroken friendship, from the day when I commenced ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... evening; but instead of his royal master, whom he was on the point of saluting with the greatest respect, he perceived the long, calm features of Aramis. So extreme was his surprise that he could hardly refrain from uttering a loud exclamation. "Aramis!" ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... change, of course, zany," she answered, rudely. Having dragged him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not refrain from chopping. But then he was of those who must be ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... thought it better that he should occasionally do the people some slight wrong than that Themistokles should obtain unlimited power. At last, when Themistokles even proposed some useful measure, he opposed it and threw it out. On this occasion he could not refrain from saying, as he left the public assembly, that the Athenians could not be saved unless they threw both himself and Themistokles into the barathrum.[19] Another time he brought forward a bill, which was vehemently debated upon, but was at length carried. But just before the votes of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... not comprehensible to you," said Katy, moving her chair so that her clothes covered the charmed stone, underneath which lay the secret treasures of the peddler, unable to refrain from speaking of what she would have been very unwilling to reveal; "but a rough outside often holds a smooth inside." Caesar stared around the building, unable to fathom the hidden meaning of his companion, when ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... the accused without a hearing. No constituted power, whether that of king or judge, has yet convicted me of any culpable action. Apart from the courtesy which should be observed between officers of the same rank, you, out of simple justice, should refrain front such ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... that reason hath refrained the great jangling of imagination, and hath put her to be underlout[63] to God, and maketh her to bear some fruit in helping of her knowing, that right so the affection refrain the lust and the thirst of the sensuality, and make her to be underlout to God, and so to bear some fruit in helping of her feeling. But what fruit may she bear, ought but that she learn to live temperately in easy things, and patiently in uneasy things? These are they, the children of ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... Consequently both men and women swim like fishes, even from childhood, and have no need of bridges to pass over rivers. They bathe themselves at all hours, for cleanliness and recreation; and even the women after childbirth do not refrain from the bath, and children just born are bathed in the rivers and springs of cold water. When leaving the bath, they anoint the head with ajonjoli [i.e., oil of sesame] mixed with civet—of which, as we shall later show, there is great abundance in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... een sae bonnie blue betray How she repays my passion; But prudence is her o'erword aye, [refrain] She talks of rank ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... at the spot agreed on, we found that our companions had not returned. We therefore set to work to collect fuel for a fire, and to cut up one of the animals. So parched had we become, that we could scarcely refrain from drinking their blood. I had always found, however, that blood rather increased than diminished thirst. We were both by this time well versed in wood-craft, and quickly divided the animal in the ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... negroes lazy, but he had also a low opinion of their honesty. Alexandria was full of low shopkeepers who would buy stolen goods from either blacks or whites, and Washington declared that not more than two or three of his slaves would refrain from filching anything upon which they ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... bullet-headed boy, who, in spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo king. It was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as Madou was crowned, they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to develop the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a conservatory, and at the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with the warming-pan, and Pierrette, who had never slept in anything but the coarsest linen sheets, was amazed at the fineness and softness of the cotton ones. When she was fairly in bed and tucked up, Adele, going downstairs with Sylvie, could not refrain from saying, "All she has isn't ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... apt to receive with them the eggs of the flukes, and the spores of the amoebae that produce chronic tropical dysentery. As they are probably never grown under such conditions as to preclude the possibility of this danger, it would be the part of wisdom to absolutely refrain from their use. ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... given credit on the nation's books. In speaking of the patriots who bore the standard of their country's glory, Judge Goddard, who held the office of commissioner of pensions for nineteen colored soldiers, says, "I cannot refrain from mentioning one aged black man, Primus Babcock, who proudly presented to me an honorable discharge from service during the war, dated at the close of it, wholly in the hand-writing of GEORGE WASHINGTON. Nor can I forget the expression of his feelings, when ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... and not which subdue him. The man who receives a flagrant insult, and answers quietly; the man who bears a hopeless daily trial, and remains silent; the man who with strong passions remains chaste, or with a quick sense of injustice can refrain himself and remain calm—these are strong men; and John waxed strong, because, from the earliest dawn of thought, he was taught the necessity of refusing things which in themselves might have been permissible, but for him ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... true we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for questioning its existence; it is rather the reverse." "May we not therefore rightly refrain from assigning to the 'ultimate cause' any attributes whatever, on the ground that such attributes, derived as they must be from our own natures, are not elevations but degradations?" The way however to arrive at the object aimed at (i.e. to ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... which I deduced from these primary but as with a view to this it would have been necessary now to treat of many questions in dispute among the earned, with whom I do not wish to be embroiled, I believe that it will be better for me to refrain from this exposition, and only mention in general what these truths are, that the more judicious may be able to determine whether a more special account of them would conduce to the public advantage. I have ever remained firm in my original resolution to suppose no ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... the monarch lacks no royal grace, Nor ever swerves from justice; true, his people, Yea such as in life's humblest walks are found, Refrain from evil courses; still to me, A lonely hermit reared in solitude, This throng appears bewildering, and methinks I look upon a burning house, whose inmates Are running to and fro ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... then repairs to some convenient spot with his paint, beads, and other paraphernalia and proceeds to adorn himself for the dance, which usually begins about an hour after dark, but is not fairly under way until nearly midnight. The refrain, y[^u]['][n]w[)e]h[)i], is probably sung while mixing the paint, and the other portion is recited while applying the pigment, or vice versa. Although these formula are still in use, the painting is now obsolete, beyond an ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... and find out for themselves, just as in childhood repeated warnings and threats of the nursery-maids and maiden aunts are the very things which set the spirit of enterprise off on the voyage of discovery, a fact which the head nurse and the mother have found out long ago, and so have learnt to refrain from these attractive advertisements of danger. So it is with teachers. We learn by experience that a trumpet blast of warning wakes the echoes at first and rouses all that is to be roused, but also that if it is often repeated it dulls the ear and calls ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... closely with the later civilization of Central Italy. When some modern scholars call the men of the Terremare by the name 'Italici', they express a hope rather than a proven fact. It may be safer, for the moment, to avoid that name and to refrain from theories as to the exact relation between prehistoric and historic. But we shall see below that the existence of a relation between the ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... able to refrain from running. The pack horses, however, hadn't left their tracks. And now the brave Mulvaney had gained the shore and was standing motionless, gazing out over the troubled waters. No man ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Gabriel fought, And with fierce Ensigns pierc'd the deep array Of Moloc, furious King, who him defy'd, And at his chariot wheels to drag him bound Threatened, nor from the Holy one of Heavn Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous; but anon Down cloven to the waste, with shatter'd arms And uncouth pain ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... lawn, and the leaves looking so fresh and green in the morning sun; such twitterings and chirpings came from the lilac trees, where the little brown sparrows twittered and plumed themselves. The bird music used to chime in in a sort of refrain to my morning prayers—a diminutive chorus of praise—the choral before the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... great and small, give ear to what I say— Refrain from work on Saturdays as strictly as you may; So shall the saint your patron be and prosper all you do— And when examinations come ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... show that it has sent up a flower stalk. You can see the stub. In this way in a small patch you can easily keep track of them. If some plants do not throw out fruit stems, mark them so you can tell them, and if they pass the season without trying to fruit, you must refrain from setting out any of the runners that appear, or there is liability of trouble. Let such plants alone for another year's trial. Then if they do no better, dig them up and destroy them. Once in a while they prove to be all right, ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... while gulping and gasping. Boche, with two large tears trickling down his face, wasn't even bothering to squeeze the coal-dealer's knee any longer. All these drunk revelers were as soft-hearted as lambs. Wasn't the wine almost coming out of their eyes? When the refrain began again, they all let themselves go, blubbering into ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... musically against the rocks below, and the moonlight glistening on a million reflectors. The great stretch of water in front, and the great city behind me sang low in concord, while the stars looked down smiling at the refrain. "Be calm, little mortal, be calm," they said; "calm, tiny mortal, calm," repeated endlessly, until the mood took hold of me, and in ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... than glad. Lo now! the woman that stoops and kisses the face of the lad, And puts a rake in his hand and laughs in his laughing face. Whose is the voice that laughs in the old familiar place? Whose should it be but my love's, if my love were yet on the earth? Could she refrain from the fields where my joy and her joy had birth, When I was there and her child, on the grass that knew her feet 'Mid the flowers that led her on when ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... quivering nostrils, delighted as she felt at now being able to satisfy her curiosity regarding the depths of Paris life. Young Hyacinthe had resigned himself to the task of bringing her, and, correctly buttoned up in his long frock-coat, he was indulgent enough to refrain from any marked expression of boredom. At a neighbouring table they had found a shadowy Spaniard of their acquaintance, a so-called Bourse jobber, Bergaz, who had been introduced to the Princess by Janzen, and usually attended her entertainments. They virtually knew nothing about ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... intimation is given in the latter. Occasionally, it is difficult,. not to say impossible, to discover the metaphorical idea in the allusive lines, and then we can only deal with them as a sort of refrain. ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... so little faith to-day, that I hardly doubt that there is chiming in the ears of many in this audience the refrain:—"This is all sentiment and doesn't help us to deal with hard facts." We ought, however, to hesitate, I think, before consigning this view to the babies' limbs. It may be after all that the Sermon on the Mount was not pure eccentricity, nor Christ a Don Quixote. Of the two counsels, 'Get ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... sighs like tides burst forth till I forget To eat my bread. That which I greatly feared Hath come upon me. Not in heedless pride Nor wrapped in arrogance of full content I dwelt amid the tide of prosperous days, And yet this trouble came." With mien unmoved The Temanite reprovingly replied: "Who can refrain longer from words, even though To speak be grief? Thou hast the instructor been Of many, and their model how to act. When trial came upon them, if their knees Bow'd down, thou saidst, "be strong," and they obey'd. But now it toucheth thee and thou dost shrink, And murmuring, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... fate would befall my hapless followers! No, of course, the idea was madness, the act an impossibility; yet when a few minutes later I saw the tall induna, Logwane—Mapela's friend—led forth and mercilessly done to death, I could not refrain from leaning ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... last of all. Although he tried hard not to show it, he, too, could scarcely refrain from enthusiastic comment. The sight of an opal-globed chandelier over the dining-room table was the ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Who could refrain from speaking in terms of admiration of this great man's strategic skill courage and ability when one looks to the length of time during which he displayed those qualities; and realizes to oneself the pitched battles, the skirmishes ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... To refrain from spending money and time foolishly or in unprofitable ways; to take an interest in the care of our highways, in the paying of our taxes, and the education of our children; to plant shade trees, repair our yard fences, and in general, ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... aback, cannot refrain from her glance at FULLARTON automatically gazing at CLARE while he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Notions respecting Teeth.—Among the lower orders and negroes, and also among young children of respectable parents (who have probably derived the notion from contact with the others as nurses or servants), it is here very commonly held that when a tooth is drawn, if you refrain from thrusting the tongue in the cavity, the second tooth will be golden. Does this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... blackbird; the music that opens sleepy eyes at daybreak is not a chorus of robins and song-sparrows, but the ringing notes of the chewink, the clear-cut song of the Western meadow-lark, or the labored utterance of the black-headed grosbeak; it is not by the melancholy refrain of the whippoorwill or the heavenly hymns of thrushes that the approach of night is heralded, but by the cheery trill of the house wren or the dismal wail ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... the captives to be taken home through some of the principal cities of the union, was to exhibit to them the extent of the population, wealth, and means of defence of the United States; in the hope, that such impressions would be made on their minds, as would induce them to refrain from creating disturbances in future upon the frontiers. They were accordingly directed to be carried as far north as Boston, and thence through Albany, Buffalo and Detroit, to their ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... the county in his hands, and who had tried in vain to save from incumbrance the property which Lord Markland had weighed down almost beyond redemption. Mr. Longstaffe, indeed, when he heard of the fatal accident to his client, had been unable to refrain from a quick burst of self-congratulation over a long minority, before he composed his countenance to the distress and pity which were becoming such an occasion. When the funeral was over, indeed, he permitted himself to say piously that, though such an end was very shocking, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... growth; There is no blood-letting to make men weak. Physicians in their Cataposia Or little Elinctoria, Masticatorum, and Cataplasmata: Their gargarisms, clysters, and pitch'd-cloths, Their perfumes, syrups, and their triacles, Refrain to poison the sick patients, And dare not minister, till I be out. Then none will bathe, and so are fewer drown'd. All lust is perilsome, therefore less us'd! In brief, the year without me cannot stand. Summer, I am thy staff and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... that Elaine had stayed away from Hampton. It was putting him to too severe a test—to be with her, to be subject to her alluring loveliness, and, yet, to be unmoved. It is hard to see the luscious fruit within one's reach and to refrain from even touching it. It grew harder ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... rid of the chimney, it needed no reflection to show; and that Mr. Scribe, for all his pretended disinterestedness, was not opposed to pocketing five hundred dollars by the operation, seemed equally evident. That my wife had, in secret, laid heads together with Mr. Scribe, I at present refrain from affirming. But when I consider her enmity against my chimney, and the steadiness with which at the last she is wont to carry out her schemes, if by hook or crook she can, especially after having been ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... Lord HAIG, Marshal FOCH, Sir JAMES BARRIE and Mr. ROOSEVELT, to name no more. Naturally Adventures in Interviewing (LANE) is full of side-lights on the recent war. How could it be otherwise when so many celebrated brains are laid bare? One quotation I cannot refrain from giving. Speaking of Lord BEAVERBROOK he says, "He had come to London a decade ago, to live 'the life of a gentleman,' but was drawn irresistibly into politics." I challenge our literature to produce ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... detested. I had an irresistible impulse to call this maiden 'Adelaide.' As even at that early age I was a great enthusiast for everything really German, I can only account for the obviously un-German name of my heroine by my infatuation for Beethoven's Adelaide, whose tender refrain seemed to me the symbol of all loving appeals. The course of my drama was now characterised by the strange delays which took place in the accomplishment of this last murder of vengeance, the chief obstacle ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Seeing all this, and noting what he saw and reverenced, Frank could not but love Kate Meldrum with all the warmth and passion of his heart. So loving her, and dying for the want of some response to the wealth of affection he had so long treasured up in his breast, he could not refrain from seeking from her a ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... ondt."[155] Thus the "seikona" is exactly the same kind of creature as the witches in the Macbeth story. Consider, for instance, the disgusting practice in which Shakespeare represents them as engaging, as they go round the cauldron, chanting the refrain, "Double, double toil and trouble," etc. W.J. Rolfe refers to the witches in Macbeth as follows: "Macbeth and his fellow captain Banquo have performed prodigies of valour in the battle, and are on their way home from the field when they are ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... say, but for once words failed him, and when he went out with the will in his pocket his face had grown a trifle grey. Yet though he suffered grievously in that moment, he was conscious of something in his brain that throbbed in time to the refrain, "Alice Deringham, mistress ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... as earnest sad matter as men can devise, were fallen yet even at the first into wanton idle tales. And of truth, cousin, as you know very well, I myself am by nature even half a gigglot and more. I wish I could as easily mend my fault as I well know it, but scant can I refrain it, as old a fool as I am. Howbeit, I will not be so partial to my fault as to ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... sing—with folded eyes, It is, beneath Venetian skies, To hear the gondoliers' refrain, Or troubadours of ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... Parker. "It's too lonesome for me," "I'm afraid," "I hate it all," "I'd go crazy here," "The desert would make anyone bad," "The country is awful." And the musing voice of the old cattleman, "I wonder if she'll like the country!" They reiterated themselves over and over; and always as refrain his own confident reply, "Like the ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... The Spanish fleet never appeared, however, and life on the island soon subsided into its customary channels.[344] Sir Thomas Lynch, meanwhile, was all the more careful to observe the peace with Spain and yet refrain from alienating the more troublesome elements of the population. It had been decided in England that Morgan, too, like Modyford, was to be sacrificed, formally at least, to the remonstrances of the Spanish Government; yet Lynch, because Morgan himself was ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... left the marshland, and were coming, lowing, along the high path which bordered the dyke. And all the time an undernote of terror, the thunder of the sea rushing in upon the land, came like a deep monotonous refrain to the roaring ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... congratulations, a sort of sunburst of gladness, after a long night of gloom and anxiety; then two or three days of calming down, by degrees —a receding of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that bore the spirit of a truce-days given to solitude, rest, self-communion, and the reasoning of herself into a realization of the fact that she was actually done with bolts and bars, prison, horrors and impending, death; then came a day whose hours ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... he went up again to the old castle, sat down at the fire, and began his old refrain: "If I could only shudder!" As midnight approached, a noise and din broke out, at first gentle, but gradually increasing; then all was quiet for a minute, and at length, with a loud scream, half of a man dropped down the chimney and fell before him. "Hi, up ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Such is the refrain of the nineteenth century pessimist. But, as before, the sprouting of new thought and belief is visible to the attentive eye all over the surface of the sordid field of a decaying civilization. The time has come when the spirit of Columbus' symbol shall ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... burned on his breast. Afterward it was something to look at beyond the locked door; perhaps to try on behind drawn shades, late of a night. And how little Gordon Dane would have made of such a matter! Floated in Bean's mind the refrain of a clothing advertisement. "The more advanced dressers will seek this fashion." "Something dignified yet different!" Gordon Dane ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... conversation, even, there's a conspiracy of silence and bluff. It's only in rare moments, when a few men get together in the smoking-room, that the truth comes out. But when it does come out it's always the same refrain, 'cui bono, cui bono?' I don't take much account of myself; but, if there is one thing of which I am proud, it is that I have never let myself be duped. From the earliest days I can remember I realized what the nature of this world really is. ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... come, Philip has come," cried the children, as if some great good had again come into the household; and the refrain even sang itself over in Ruth's heart as she went the weary hospital rounds. Mr. Bolton felt more courage than he had had in months, at the sight of his manly face and the sound of his ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... easily, but he was indolent and always wrote under pressure, with the printer's devil waiting for his "copy." He was a thorough man of the world, yet full of the freshness of fancy and the tenderness of heart of a little child. All children were a delight to him, and he never could refrain from giving them extravagant tips. The ever-present grief that could not be forgotten by fame or success made him very tender to all suffering, especially the suffering of the weak and the helpless. Yet, like many a sensitive man, he concealed this kindness of heart under an affectation of ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... notes, while his other hand was upon her shoulder, his adoring eyes upon her silly face. He, Smith, was rocking in the blue plush chair for which the fool with the calloused hands had done extra work that he might give it to the woman upon her birthday. Each time that she screeched the refrain, "Love, I will love you always," she lifted her chin to sing it to the man beaming down upon her, while upstairs her trunk was packed ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... his father always kept the ultimate castings to himself, and never displayed his private cash-book under any circumstances. By ingenuity and perseverance Edwin might have triumphed over Darius's mania for secrecy; but he did not care to do so; perhaps pride even more than honour caused him to refrain. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... no matter how lonely I was to be I would always send him back to his mother and not ever forget that her claim was first. Tears were in my eyes as I turned my face into the pillow, but suddenly the refrain of the song I had once heard in the night, "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide," sung itself in my heart until I again fell ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion— it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... tribulations, and in complete sacrifice of self. The numerous moral troubles which she had gone through must have affected her state of health. Besides, I had been so unfortunate: fate seemed to have so roughly treated all my affections, that I could not refrain from thinking that I should never again see her for whom I abandoned my much-loved country. The day for sailing came; yet it was not without a heartfelt grief that I tore myself away from my friends, and bade adieu to ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... night and day, that I cannot express to man the affliction that lay upon my spirit, but the Lord helped me at that time to express it to Himself. I opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that precious Scripture to me. "Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy" (Jeremiah 31.16). This was a sweet cordial to me when I was ready to faint; many and many a time have ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... Lukerya opium. I promised to get her another bottle like it, and could not refrain from again wondering aloud at ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... thrice daily at his expense by some Dominicans. After the defenders were armed they sent for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The German knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were approved, although the latter was superior to that of Quinones. The judges had provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it was to see that all had fair play in the field, and had a pile of lances of various sizes placed where each ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher's last letter, in which he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Scotland my mother is singing them to-night," he said, "and I catch the glow and the sweetness of the heather when the kirk rings with their high refrain ilka Sabbath day. But we feel that the hymns, even if they be inferior, will add richness and variety to the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men's tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, 'I want to suffer for all men,' and may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may become—which God forbid—yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ever did they not make haste and fly away, now they had all bathed or sipped? The truth was, they liked to be seen in their best feathers, and none of them could make up their minds to be the first to go home; so they strutted to and fro in the sunshine. Bevis, in much excitement, could hardly refrain from ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... me to refrain; Those prayers are needless in this monarch's reign. Behold! how he protects your friends oppress'd, Receives the banish'd, succours the distress'd: Behold, for you may read an honest open breast. He stands in day-light, and disdains to hide An act, to which by honour he is tied, 880 A generous, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of the scene, I could not refrain from wishing that here, at least, Nature might be permitted to reign unmolested, but the solitary watch-fires of the recent settlers gave proof that though his tenure was yet but frail, man! rapacious and indefatigable ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... I thought. The next time your good lady happens to be in a similar situation, I think I would refrain from ghost stories. I should not like to commit myself to a decided opinion, but I should be inclined to say that the tales you have been telling me were rather horrible. Is that the light of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world, refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his own idol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even the unbeliever who is blind and cannot ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... springs of conduct in the mass of ordinarily decent people? It seems to me that the only accurate method is to avoid theories and consider people in the flesh. Do our Christian friends—did we ourselves in Christian days—refrain from lying, dishonesty, injustice, cruelty, and injury, solely or mainly because God forbids them or will punish them? I have not met the man, except in the imaginative pages of religious controversy, who confessed that he would stoop freely to these things if there were no Christian prohibition. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... see where we are. First of all, we are ourselves—which is the refrain of all my chants. We are ourselves. We are living individuals. And as living individuals we are the one, pure clue to our own cosmos. To which cosmos living individuals have always been the clue, since time began, and will always be the ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... foolishness to hope for the revival of any bygone social virtue. The husbandman of the future will be, I daresay, a well-paid mechanic, of the engine-driver species; as he goes about his work he will sing the last refrain of the music-hall, and his oft-recurring holidays will be spent in the nearest great town. For him, I fancy, there will be little attraction in ever such melodious talk about "common objects of the country." ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Saviour, but that sordid pelf, O'er which he starved and gloated. I have seen him On the exchange, or in the market-place When money was in plenteous circulation, Gaze after it with such Satanic looks Of eagerness, that I have wonder'd oft How he from theft and murder could refrain. 'Twas cowardice alone withheld his hands, For they would grasp and grapple at the air, When his grey eye had fixed on heaps of gold, While his clench'd teeth, and grinning, yearning face, Were dreadful to behold. The merchants oft Would mark his eye, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... desk a book. It fell open at a page. As he picked it up he noted that it was a copy of the anonymous old spring rhapsody, the Pervigilium Veneris, with its ceaselessly reiterated refrain, "To-morrow he shall love who never loved before." As he fell asleep it was running through his head like a popular tune: Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the great channels through which the ceaseless interchange of the elements goes on; they unite the heart of the continents and the solitary places of the mountains with the universal sea which washes all shores and beats its melancholy refrain at either pole. Into their currents the hills and uplands pour their streams; to them the little rivulets come laughing and singing down from their sources in the forest depths. A drop falling from a passing shower into the lake of Delolo may be carried eastward, through the Zambesi, to the Indian ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... cloth used in women's skirts are shown in Plate XXXVII. In them can be found several apparently different designs to some of which names were assigned, but as there was no agreement among my informers I refrain from giving them here. The pattern marked X in (c) was generally identified as "alligator," yet the weavers were ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... status and a vicarious life. Even more strikingly than the everyday habit of the priest, the vestments, properly so called, are ornate, grotesque, inconvenient, and, at least ostensibly, comfortless to the point of distress. The priest is at the same time expected to refrain from useful effort and, when before the public eye, to present an impassively disconsolate countenance, very much after the manner of a well-trained domestic servant. The shaven face of the priest is a ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... majesty's government refuse to allow this amendment to be discussed on its merits and to be decided by the free exercise of the judgment of members of the House of Commons, but that the government require their supporters to refrain from such free exercise of their judgment on the alleged ground that the adoption of the proposal would endanger the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Neoptolemus that Myrtilus had acceded to his proposal to join him in a plan for removing Pyrrhus out of the way, Neoptolemus was so much overjoyed at the prospect of recovering the throne to his own family again, that he could not refrain from revealing the plan to certain members of the family, and, among others, to his sister Cadmia. At the time when he thus discovered the design to Cadmia, he supposed that nobody was within hearing. The conversation took place in an apartment where he had been supping with Cadmia, and it happened ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... year the properly audited balance-sheet referring to amounts received and spent in London, and similar balance-sheets, similarly audited, in each other capital, we have always refrained, and always shall refrain, from any such massing of totals, or glorying in any of them, as could help our enemies to check the flow ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... humbled, Citoyenne Victoire, sooner than you expect," exclaimed Manon, who was now so provoked by her cousin's contempt that she could not refrain from boasting of her political knowledge. "I can tell you that your fine friends will in a few days not be able to protect you. The Abbe Tracassier is in love with a dear friend of mine, and I know all the secrets ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... recovered from his bad quarter of an hour, drove off humming the refrain of a song Quita had sung to him a few evenings back. After all, so long as she liked him, and valued his friendship, she was welcome to hate the supposed unknown, whose identity she must ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to think they would not condemn the refinement of docks and crops among our horses as an absurd custom, not less ridiculous in their eyes, than the little feet of their ladies are in ours. If they could not refrain from bursting into fits of laughter on examining the grease and powder with which our hair was disfigured; and if they sometimes lamented that so much oil and flour had unnecessarily been wasted, we might, perhaps, in the vanity of self-importance, affect to pity their taste; but setting ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... enough, but after they have been cheated once or twice they will end by refusing the call even when the quarry is really in sight. And so it is with hope. Let a man rouse false expectations often enough, and in the end, even when hope is at the door, he may cry the good news in vain. Rather ought he to refrain from speaking positively himself when he cannot know precisely; his agents may step in and do it in his place; but he should reserve his own appeal for the supreme crises of supreme danger, and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale." "It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to quarrel in her house." "Yes, but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain was an act of heroic forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?" Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and with a most distant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... like if one were stabbed by this colossus? The prospect of a swelling as big as a man's fist and as painful as the touch of a red-hot iron passes through our mind at the moment when we are bringing down the net. And we refrain, we beat a retreat, we are greatly relieved not to have ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Paradoxical as it may appear, Drayton was partly enabled to approach Theocritus so nearly by knowing him so imperfectly. Had he been acquainted with him otherwise than through Virgil, he would probably have been unable to refrain from direct imitation; but as matters stand, instead of a poet striving to write as Theocritus wrote in Greek, we have one actually writing as Theocritus would have written in English. But the most remarkable point of contact between Drayton and Theocritus ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... mention the various well-known works of authority and illustration, as they are referred to in the text. But I cannot refrain from bearing my grateful testimony to the value of the "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society" and the "New-England Historical and Genealogical Register." The "Historical Collections" and the "Proceedings" of the Essex ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... enduring interest, all whom they are likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual readers of The Tribune especially were ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... fairy-tales, for poverty itself had sung them into his heart, and they spoke to him with Father Lasse's quivering voice. "A rich child often lies in a poor mother's lap," his father used to say, when he prophesied concerning his son's future, and the saying sank deep into the boy's mind, like the refrain of a song. But he had learned this much, that there were no elephants here, on whose necks a plucky youngster could ride astraddle, in order to ride down the tiger which was on the point of tearing the King of the Himalayas to pieces so that he would of course ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo |
