"Vow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friend, my dear, my beloved friend! I give credit to all you say, and feel unspeakably happy; even your failings lie on the road to rare perfections, and I vow to heaven that I hope those failings will ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... conscience said, and though his reason protested against his state of mind as a phase of the religious insanity which we have all inherited in some measure from Puritan times, it could not help him. He went along involuntarily framing a vow that if Providence would mercifully permit him to repair the wrong he had done, he would not stop at any sacrifice to get that unhappy boy back to his home, but would gladly take any open shame or obloquy upon himself ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... to keep the note of exultation from his voice. He did not believe she was hiding. She might be staring into a crystal in some secret cave—she might be planning new mischief of any kind. But afraid she was surely not. And just as surely he could vow she was ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... affection's snare Was once my mind, my temper, and my life; While I that sight, desire, and vow forbare, Which to avoid, quench, lose, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... and drew back into the darkness, out of the dim, starlit path, and standing there with her head high, her arms outspread, she made her solemn vow of self-renunciation. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... vow to my brudder—he is in purgatore. An' I mus' do it," he rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. "You can show ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and in the common stream of orthodox opinion, to except, half unconsciously, the exercises of the religious life from the sphere of Christ's example, and we need to be reminded that Scripture presents His vow, 'I will put my trust in Him,' as the crowning proof of His brotherhood, and that the prints of His kneeling limbs have left their impressions where we kneel before the throne. True, the relation of the Son to the Father involves more than communion-namely, unity. But if we follow the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... or it was denner-time, The lift (firmament) was in a low; The reek rase up, as it had been Frae Sodom-flames, I vow. We ran like mad; but corn and byre War blazin'—wae's the fell!— As gin the deil had broucht the fire, To mak' anither hell. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... anxious shadow O'er-clouded that young brow, As with look and voice unfaltering She breathed her solemn vow: No regretful glances cast she On the pomps that she had spurned, Nor the dream of love and pleasure From which ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... Spencer, 'I took the first foreign appointment that offered. And my poor father, who had spent his utmost on me, and had been disappointed in all his sons, was most of all disappointed in me. I held myself bound to abide by my rash vow; loathed tame English life without her, and I left him to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at first," continued Nora; "but I am not now. I would rather you pushed me into that pool, I would rather sink and die, than take an awful vow like that. I won't take it. I'll do my very best to save you, but I won't ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... Her recovery was so rapid that she was able again to take up her residence in the castle, October 22d, to the great joy of every one, as Duke Ercole wrote to Rome. Alfonso even went to Loretto in fulfilment of a vow he had made for the recovery of his wife. The solicitude which was displayed for Lucretia on this occasion shows that she had begun to make ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... management of public affairs could write in the highest perfection. This minister a few days since died. The event has greatly affected the sultan; and since he can never behold his writing without admiration, he has made a solemn vow, not to give the place to any one who cannot write equally well. Many have presented specimens of their skill; but to this day, no one in the empire has been judged worthy to supply the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... can agree in our Resentments, For I have vow'd he shall not live a day; He has an Art to pry into our Secrets: To all besides our Love is either hid, Or else they dare not see—But this Prince Has a most ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... sword, I pray you remember me, in the Lord God's name." It is Hagen that has swept his mantle round him, and goes into the upper room to Sivard. "Here you sit, Sivard, my foster-brother; will you lend me your good sword for your honour? for I have vowed a vow for the sake of my love."—"And if I lend you my good sword Adelbring, you will never come in battle where it will fail you. My good sword Adelbring you may have, indeed, but keep you well from the tears of blood that are under the hilt, keep you from the tears ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... make my vow," quoth Little John, "thou art the very best swordsman that ever mine eyes beheld. Truly, I had thought to carve ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... with pitying eyes. "I see," he said, slowly; "I see, my son. You have a burden on your heart. Well, I will stay with you and try to lift it. But first I shall make my own vow." ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... him that his head was turned, that he should remember that he, Roland, was his senior in command, and therefore bound by nothing that had been promised in his name by his junior, and that he had registered a vow in Heaven that nothing would persuade him to make peace unless complete liberty of conscience were granted to all. The young Cevenol, who was unaccustomed to such language, laid his hand on the hilt of his sword, Roland, stepping ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heavens will show How I salvation there may gain, By bearing in this life the Purgatorial pain. [To POLONIA. Tell me, O holy woman! thou Who in these wilds a home hast found, A dweller in this mountain ground Obedient to some sacred vow, Which is the road to Patrick's cave, Where penitential man his soul ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... confine: And leaves him a half figure, in such way As what we before images divine, Of silver, oftener made of wax, survey; Which supplicants from far and near enshrine, In thanks for mercy shown, and to bestow A pious quittance for accepted vow. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... this blade on me at Clermont, and bade me perform the duties of a true knight of Christ in this divine Crusade, I made a secret vow that on this day I would not fight as a prince and leader, but would assume the arms and armor of a common soldier. I shall station my men and see to all things as a general should; then, in this ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... of thee! barter for life This farewell pledge, which with impassioned vow I had sworn that I would ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... pound, and punctured the shells, which were made of flour and dough, and as a matter of fact, I very nearly threw mine away for it seemed to me that a chick had formed already, but upon hearing an old experienced guest vow, "There must be something good here," I broke open the shell with my hand and discovered a fine fat fig-pecker, imbedded in a ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... ever happen to be in Alsace all I'd have to do would be to show it to any French people and they'd help me. He said it was a kind of—a kind of a vow all the French people had—that the Germans didn't know anything about. And 'specially families that had men in the Franco-Prussian War. He told me how he escaped, too, and got to America, and about how he hit the German soldier that came to arrest ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... be married; perhaps to earn twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a year, which would enable me to have a room of my own in some quiet house, and to earn enough to collect rare books that could be had without much cost. I can honestly say with George Herbert: "I protest and I vow I even study thrift, and yet I am scarce able, with much ado, to make one half year's allowance shake hands with the other. And yet if a book of four or five shillings come in my way, I buy it, though I fast for it; ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... her worry, / as he her weeping saw. Then told she him the story. / To her straight made he vow, That Lady Kriemhild's husband / must for the thing atone, Else henceforth should never / a joyous ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... imprecation and a vow to "do for" "eyes, liver, and lights" of the "clodhopper," he rushed at him blindly. With a mocking laugh, the man assailed thrust forth a leg, and Lonegon, stumbling across it, measured his ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... was talking, but I knew not what he said. I was shaking with the horror and grief of the situation, and in that moment I renewed my vow to have blood for blood and life for life, if law and justice were to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... did the people hate the tyranny they had abolished that it is said they all, the nobles as well as the commons, bound themselves by most solemn oaths never again to tolerate a king. We shall hereafter see how well this vow was kept for nearly ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... throats, or of otherwise sending us out of the world; but that he was afraid he should be compelled to do so, except we would consent to come on board his vessel, where he would make us take the vow of secrecy, and re-land us in Greece. He told us that he was in earnest, and would give us till the last moment to consider on the subject before he quitted the vessel. By this we concluded that he intended ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... he should conquer her, saying to her father, "None shall approach me, except he master me in the field and the stead of war." Kehrdash was one of her suitors, and when the news reached him of the vow she had taken, he thought scorn to fight with a girl, fearing reproach; and one of his friends said to him, "Thou art accomplished in beauty and manly qualities; so if thou contend with her, even though she be stronger than thou, thou must needs overcome her, for when she sees thy beauty ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... golden cross which your Majesty hung round her neck on the day she took the vow, no jewelry was put on the princess. The duchess even drew the little sapphire ring from her royal highness' finger, to keep it as a remembrance ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... than in my youthful ignorance I had ever dreamed. All things are lawful in His sight. Nothing is common or unclean—if we have once rightly apprehended Him, and He dwells in us. And yet—yet, a vow once made is binding. We may not do evil to gain however ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... governed your own young life has moulded into everything amiable; you will marry Isabel Vernor.' This was pretty 'steep,' as we used to say at school. I was frightened; I drew away my hand and asked to be trusted without any such terrible vow. My reluctance startled my father into a suspicion that the vulgar theory of independence had already been whispering to me. He sat up in his bed and looked at me with eyes which seemed to foresee a lifetime of odious ingratitude. ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... follow in His footsteps, so that we too, as we kneel before God each morning, each night, and think of our duty to those around us, may be able to say, in these words of His, which are at once a prayer and a consecrating vow—"For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... lost an eye, a leg, an arm, and been so badly marred and begrimmed besides, that you never could love this poor, maimed soldier. Yet, I love you too well to make your life wretched by requiring you to keep your marriage-vow with me, from which I hereby release you. Find among English peers one physically more perfect, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Crofton had laid a wageror vowed a vowthat he would not go back to England until he had waltzed with me. I saw him once or twice in the fall, and in town he came often to the house, and after that I met him everywhere. And he very often asked me to waltz. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... of Antium, there to place the gift Vow'd to the goddess for our mother's health, We will the senate know, we fairly like: As also of their grant to Lepidus, For his repairing the AEmilian place, And restoration of those monuments: Their grace too in confining of Silanus To the other isle Cithera, at the suit Of ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... him profusely, and edges away with an inward vow to avoid his and the Auctioneer's eyes, as he would those of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... informed, under the most solemn vows of secrecy, of Pen's condition of mind, the curate said, with no small tremor, "that he hoped it was no unworthy object—no unlawful attachment, which Pen had formed"—for if so, the poor fellow felt it would be his duty to break his vow and inform Pen's mother, and then there would be a quarrel, he felt, with sickening apprehension, and he would never again have a chance of seeing what he most liked ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Meves, therefore, actuated by these ideas, proceeded to France, and, as those who now bear his name assert, succeeded in procuring an interview with Marie-Antoinette in her dungeon in the Conciergerie, where he made the illustrious sufferer a vow of secrecy respecting her son, which he kept to the latest hour of his existence. And, lest there should be any doubt about this interview, it is added that many loyalists, both before and after, penetrated into the gloom of her prison-cell, and all ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... deeply impressed with the conviction that the young Quaker was a peril to the state. Finding that there was to be a meeting in Wheeler Street, at which William was expected, he sent soldiers and had him arrested. They conveyed him to the Tower, where he was examined. "I vow, Mr. Penn," said Sir John, "I am sorry for you; you are an ingenious gentleman, all the world must allow you, and do allow you, that; and you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple people?" That was ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... Bavaria. While in winter quarters at Neuburg, he vowed a pilgrimage to Loretto if the Virgin would show him a way of escape from his tormenting doubts; and made the saving discovery of the "foundations of a wonderful science." At the end of four years this vow was fulfilled. On his return to Paris (1625), he was besought by his learned friends to give to the world his epoch-making ideas. Though, to escape the distractions of society, he kept his residence secret, as he had ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... derived from "devoting oneself" or making vows. But a vow is an act of the virtue of religion. Consequently devotion also is an act of the virtue ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... musing, The Art World still in his hand, Warburton could hear his friend's voice ring out that audacious vow. He could remember, too, the odd little pang with which he heard it, a half spasm of altogether absurd jealousy. Of course the feeling did not last. There was no recurrence of it when he heard that Franks had again seen Miss Elvan before she left Ashtead; nor when ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... absenteeism were alike violations of canon law. Three of the bishoprics he held he never visited at all; York, which he had obtained fifteen years before, he did not visit till the year of his death, and then through no wish of his own. He was equally negligent of the vow of chastity; he cohabited with the daughter of "one Lark," a relative of the Lark who is mentioned in the correspondence of the time as "omnipotent" with the Cardinal, and as resident in his household.[321] By her (p. 118) he left two ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... said Lady Mabel. "In my longing after a varied experience of the conditions of life, I might sacrifice half a year to the trial of one, but I prefer ignorance on this point to the burden of a life-enduring vow." ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... passengers may purchase what they stand in need of. There are also public women, who expose themselves to travellers. Some of these are called women of the idol, the origin of which institution is this: When a woman has laid herself under a vow, that she may have children, if she happens to produce a handsome daughter, she carries her child to the bod[12], so the idol is called. When this girl has attained the proper age, she takes an apartment in the temple, and waits the arrival of strangers, to whom she prostitutes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... during his absence. On learning this, however, he experienced a sudden indisposition; and declared that so great an effect had the idea of his having eaten part of his slaughtered favourite upon him, that he would never again taste animal food; a vow to which he has ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... cloudless. Thereupon the Jesuits were accused. The cross upon the mission-house had frightened the bird of thunder[6] away from Ihonatiria. Such were the charges which the sorcerers brought against the Jesuits; and the superstitious Hurons believed that they were true. However, a timely vow was made to St. Joseph, the chosen protector of the Hurons, and in answer to their ardent prayers the rain fell in welcome torrents—so Brebeuf writes—and calamity was averted for ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Mr. Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... marriage make known to the priest? A. Persons arranging for their marriage should make known to the priest whether both are Christians and Catholics; whether either has been solemnly engaged to another person; whether they have ever made any vow to God with regard to chastity or the like; whether they are related and in what degree; whether either was ever married to any member of the other's family and whether either was ever godparent in baptism ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... boys would not halt or rest until they rejoined their old comrades. Then they crowded around with many a story of their prison life, and vow of revenge—never to be accomplished. All asked for arms, and to be placed at once in the ranks. Very few, however, had been already exchanged, and all the others were placed, much against their will, in "Parole camp" at ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... for the moment permitted to pass, and the exercises of the session reached the high-water mark of entertainment. At some time during the evening, by way of "exemplifying the work," Doctor John had for the second time taken the solemn vow henceforth and forever to abstain from the use of all fluids of alcoholic, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... am told, And by my mind outworn and altered brow, My earthly powers impaired and weakened now, "Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!" Who strives with Nature's laws is over-bold, And Time to his commandments bids us bow. Like fire that waves have quenched, I calmly vow In life's long dream no more my sense to fold. And while I think, our swift existence flies, And none can live again earth's brief career, Then in my deepest heart the voice replies Of one who now has left this mortal sphere, But walked alone through earthly destinies, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... youth took a solemn pledge when he arrived at the age when his relation to the City became consciously one of loyal service. This vow may be translated as follows: "We will never bring disgrace to this our City by any act of dishonesty or cowardice nor ever desert our comrades. We will fight for the ideals and sacred things of the City both alone and with many. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... kept his vow never to read another poem of his own to a girl, was to proceed that very night to make another for the express purpose, as he lay awake ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... adhered to it, he was, at the close of his probation, subjected to an examination in presence of the abbot and the monks, and then, appealing to the saints, whose relics were in the cloister, he laid upon the altar of the chapel the irrevocable vow, written or at least subscribed by his own hand, and therewith cut off from himself forever all return ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... still preserves these pretty weaknesses of her youth. She vowed a chapel to her patron saint if her firstborn was a man-child, and paid it. She has hung a vestal lamp in the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, in pursuance of a vow she keeps rigidly secret. She is a firm believer in relics also, and keeps a choice assortment on hand in the Tuileries for sudden emergencies. When old Baciocchi lay near his death, worn out by a horrible nervous disorder which would not let him sleep, the empress told the doctors, with great ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the tragedies of marriage, Chesterton remarks that 'the broad-minded are extremely bitter because a Christian, who wishes to have several wives when his own promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow at the same altar at which he made it.' What most people who wish for a divorce want is that they shall have, not several wives, but one, who shall prove that Christian marriage is not a horrible farce, that the words of the priest were not a miserable blasphemy. Chesterton ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... bitterness—until this last loud insult, Not only unredressed, but sanctioned; then, 370 And thus, I cast all further feelings from me— The feelings which they crushed for me, long, long[dx] Before, even in their oath of false allegiance! Even in that very hour and vow, they abjured Their friend and made a Sovereign, as boys make Playthings, to do their pleasure—and be broken![dy] I from that hour have seen but Senators In dark suspicious conflict with the Doge, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... answered. Ah wuz comin cross de fiel about 12 er'clock. Ah tole him ah couldn' preach. Den ah heard a voice above mah haid. Ah stopped and wondahed and pondered wid mahself knowin' de condition uv mahself. Ah said, "Lord yo knows ah caint preach." Den ah made a vow and ah stuck to hit but ah heard nother voice say, "Go and preach" again. And ah heerd ah nother voice say "Yo go in de mawnin and pray befo sunrise." Ah goes thar and gits on mah knees and tried ter pray an ah heard dogs a barkin and chains ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... perceive that he had taken a solemn vow. Although he possessed a remarkable mind, and the power of acquiring knowledge rapidly, he had, so far, worked indifferently, and then only by fits and starts, whenever examination time drew near. But from that day forward he did not ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... other. No man in our day (at least no man of genius) has led so uniformly and entirely the life of a scholar from boyhood to the present hour, devoting himself to learning with the enthusiasm of an early love, with the severity and constancy of a religious vow—and well would it have been for him if he had confined himself to this, and not undertaken to pull down or to patch up the State! However irregular in his opinions, Mr. Southey is constant, unremitting, mechanical in his studies, and the performance of his duties. There is nothing Pindaric ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... retreated to Burgos with the crown jewels. The wretched Spaniards, however, were incapable of improving their victory; and General Castanos instead of following up the retreating enemy, went to Seville to fulfil a vow he had made of dedicating his unexpected victory to St. Ferdinand, on whose tomb he deposited the crown of laurel presented to him by his grateful countrymen. Of the Bonaparte caricatures of this year, no less than nineteen ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... full of intelligence; of her figure—which was gentille toute a fait—but for that dear, chaste, ravishing model of a foot! so modestly pose upon the cushion. Heaven!—and Panpan unconsciously heaved a long sigh, and brought with it from the very bottom of his heart a vow to become its possessor. There was no necessity for anything very rash or very desperate in the case, as it happened, for the evident admiration of Panpan had inspired Louise with an impromptu interest ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... and queen who had no son, and they were always making vows to obtain one; and they promised that if they had a son, or even a daughter, they would maintain two fountains for seven years: one running wine, the other oil. After this vow the queen gave birth to ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... arms, bad I that strength again, This boasting Paynim had not lived now, Yet in this breast doth courage still remain; For age or years these members shall not bow; And if I be in this encounter slain, Scotfree Argantes shall not scape, I vow; Give me mine arms, this battle shall with praise Augment mine honor, got in ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... cannot eat rice pudding now, Jam roll, boiled beef, and such; From Stilton cheese this heart I vow Turns coldly ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... deprecatingly, and almost quailing beneath the fiery passion of that feeble woman, "I have sinned against thee and thine. But remember all my excuses!—early love—fatal obstacles—rash vow—irresistible temptation! Perhaps," he added, in a more haughty tone, "perhaps, yet, I may have the power to atone my error, and wring, with mailed hand, from the successor of St Peter, who hath power to loose as ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... drought forms the subject matter of another lyric (less an hymn than a poem), which serves to illustrate the position of the priests at the end of this Vedic collection. The frogs are jocosely compared to priests that have fulfilled their vow of silence; and their quacking is likened to the noise of students learning the Veda. Parjanya is the god that, in distinction from Indra as the first cause, actually pours ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... resolved to offer sacrifice in the fields of Enna; to explore their fragrant recesses, and experience whether the Divinity would not manifest herself to me in her favourite domain. It was this vow, which tempted me from my native valleys. Its execution, therefore, being my principal aim, I deserted my solitary bank and proceeded on my journey. Maestricht abounds in Gothic churches, but contains no temple to Ceres. I was not sorry to quit it, after spending an hour ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... prey! of which may the great God that ruleth over the sea, as well as the dry land, disappoint their ravening jaws! We shrink and are half appalled at their clamour, while we are on the point of uttering a hasty vow never again to locate ourselves at the sea-side, though it were prescribed by fifty physicians; or, at all events, not so very near that dun mass of troubled waters, blending on the horizon in strange confusion with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... intense nature impressions reproduce, this one augmented. Again into the consideration intruded the absolute finality, the irrevocability of her choice. More distinctly than when she had listened to the original, memory recalled the vow of the marriage ceremony she had taken: "For better or for worse, in sickness or in health, until death do us part." No, there was no escape, no possible avenue that remained unguarded. The knowledge overwhelmed her, suffocated her. Vague possibilities, recently born, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... ancestral estate, through some mismanagement, passed out of the hands of the family. Warren would often go—for the family remained in the neighborhood—and gaze through the bars upon what had once been his home. He registered a mental vow to regain that estate. That became the ambition of his life; the one great purpose to which he devoted all his energies. Many years passed; Hastings went to other climes; but there was ever with him the determination to get ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... sons of nobles, ii. 2. Honour and glory wait on thee each morn, iv. 60. Hope not of our favours to make thy prey, viii. 208. Houris and high-born Dames who feel no fear of men, v. 148. How bitter to friends is a parting, iv. 222. How comes it that I fulfilled my vow the while that vow brake you? iv. 241. How dear is our day and how lucky our lot, i. 293. How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother, i. 103. How good is Almond green I view, viii. 270. How is this? Why should the blamer abuse thee in his pride, iii. 232. How joyously sweet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the waters of Aigues-Caudes, in Bearn, perhaps with a design to rid herself of her burden there. I begged the King my husband to excuse my accompanying him, as, since the affront that I had received at Pau, I had made a vow never to set foot in Bearn until the Catholic religion was reestablished there. He pressed me much to go with him, and grew angry at my persisting to refuse his request. He told me that his little girl (for so he affected ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... fate, to lose you now, And tear this bleeding heart asunder! Will you forget your tender vow? I can't believe it—no, by ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... found himself constrained to declare that their purse was too light for her liberality. Not having anything else to do, and her uselessness vexing her, she took to doctoring the poor and concocting medicines. Hers, however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore, that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not interfere with her reading and brewing of juleps, and was in no way a tyrant, as of being ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... career at the university and entered the novitiate of the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt (July 1505). The motives which induced him to take this unexpected step are not clear. Some say he was led to do so by the sudden death of a student friend, others that it was in fulfilment of a vow which he had made during a frightful thunderstorm that overtook him on a journey from his father's house to Erfurt, while he himself tells us that he became a monk because he had lost confidence in himself.[1] Of his life as a student ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... loud, harsh voice, "who with his eyes in his head supposed that it was a bear? It is one who has sinned and is under a vow. Dogs like you know naught of these things, but the followers ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... made a vow. We were to work together if we could, but, no matter what took place, we were to meet at the end of five years, pool our profits and make a ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... conscience was not wholly disregarded, though it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years, he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard- hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knees and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Rights, after having, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... women, and a friendless crowd Of tender years, infirm and desolate Age, Which hates itself and its superfluous days, With each blest order to religion vow'd, Whom works of love through lives of want engage, To thee for help their hands and voices raise; While our poor panic-stricken land displays The thousand wounds which now so mar her frame, That e'en from ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... was that Chance or Fate or the Devil sent me a means whereby I might put this desperate and most unworthy resolution into practice; for scarce had I uttered this vow when a key turned softly in the lock, the door opened and closed stealthily, and though I could not see (it being pitch-dark) I knew that someone stood within a yard of me, and all with scarce a sound and never a word. And when this silence had endured ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... three may be the best is no proper question. All are better than either, and all of right belong to that people and to their successors forever. True to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... note Mrs. Washburn alludes to one of Mrs. Prentiss' most striking traits—the eager promptitude with which she would execute little commissions for her friends. It was as if she had taken a vow that there should not be ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... into play as if to shoot, then, apparently changing their minds or the opportunity not being good for a death shot, they withdraw again to the far ends of the ring. Advancing once more each one throws the drawn bow and arrow upward, then toward the ground, calling heaven and earth to witness his vow to kill the other. Presently one gets a favorable opportunity, his bowstring twangs, and his opponent falls to the ground. The victor utters a cry of triumph, dances up to the body of his fallen foe, and cuts off the head with his bolo. He beckons and cries out to ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... weeks, not good-by forever. He must never see her again. There could be no two ways about that decision. He mustn't palter, or trifle, or shilly-shally about that iron certainty. But how without Heaven's unceasing aid would he have strength to keep such a vow? ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... indiscernible. What touches them in the Shakesperean poetry, and most rightly touches them and us all, are topics eternally old, yet of eternal freshness, the perennial truisms of the grave and the bride-chamber, of shifting fortune, of the surprises of destiny, and the emptiness of the answered vow. This is the region in which the poet wins his widest if not his hardest triumphs, the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... expressed the passions of his heart. To the Church, at once his mother and his mistress, he had wholly given his first love. He had gone so far, indeed, in a rapture of devotion one Easter day, during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, as to impose upon himself a vow of livelong chastity. This he did—let it be added—without either the sanction or knowledge of his spiritual advisers. The vow, therefore, remained unwitnessed and unratified, but he held it inviolable nevertheless. And it lay but lightly upon him, joyfully almost—rather as a ridding ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... last I saw my son again, I found him grown up, and in his first words he told me boldly that he had espoused his mother's cause, and that he withdrew altogether from his vow of vengeance against Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. I left him in a fury, and almost immediately afterwards came the unexpected news of my accession to the baronetcy of Beaumerville. I made up my mind then to turn ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... (vs. 25, 26) is not petition but vow, and, to our ears, promise. The contrast of the world and believers appears for the last time. What made the world a 'world' was its not knowing God; what made believers isolated in, and having an errand to, the world, was that they 'knew' (not merely 'believed,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... spewing, some were praying. I remember one Englishman there. What mountains of gold did he promise to our Lady of Walsingham if he ever got safe ashore again! One made a vow to deposit a relic of the Cross in this place; another to put a relic of it in that;—some promised to turn monks; one vowed a pilgrimage, barefooted and bareheaded, in a coat of mail, and begging his bread all ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... multitude of crosses." Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis, as Gregory seconds him; sovereignty is a tempest of the soul: Sylla like they have brave titles, but terrible fits: splendorem titulo, cruciatum animo: which made [1789]Demosthenes vow, si vel ad tribunal, vel ad interitum duceretur: if to be a judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be condemned. Rich men are in the same predicament; what their pains are, stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and worthy one Who, turning from the world, as thou, Before life's pathway had begun To leave its spring-time flower and sun, Had sealed her early vow; Giving to God her beauty and her youth, Her pure affections ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the word of the leader! Alas, for the soldier's vow! When the captain's men rode down the glen, They carried ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... for it, for there's Dobbs, I vow," exclaimed Percy to himself, in dismay; "he'll guess I've given Dave warning," and he tried to strike a careless attitude, picking off his glasses to hold them up and gaze long and earnestly through ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... Pixie. But her eyes met Stephen's with an anxiety which was not in keeping with her tone, and, in truth, after four days' absence the face on the pillow appeared to the onlooker, woefully drawn and white, Stephen registered a vow that Pat's temperature should not rise again through ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... sin is voluntary. Now omission sometimes is not voluntary but necessary, as when a woman is violated after taking a vow of virginity, or when one lose that which one is under an obligation to restore, or when a priest is bound to say Mass, and is prevented from doing so. Therefore omission ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... monasteries there are on the sides of Lebanon! Between Tripoli and Beirut there are about a hundred. The men who live in them are called monks, who make a vow never to marry, and spend their lives eating and drinking the fruits of other men's labors. They own almost all the valuable land in this range of mountains for fifty miles, and the fellaheen live as "tenants at will" on their estates. When a man is lazy or ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... des vow he gwine atter Mr. Man, en go he would, en go he did. He aint never see Mr. Man, Mr. Lion aint, en he dunner w'at he look lak, but he go on todes de new groun'. Sho' 'nuff, dar wuz Mr. Man, out dar maulin' rails fer ter make 'im a fence. He ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... fair. Girt with celestial might, Winging their airy flight, Spirits are thronging. Follows their forms of light Infinite longing! Flutter their vestures bright O'er field and grove! Where in their leafy bower Lovers the livelong hour Vow deathless love. Soft bloometh bud and bower! Bloometh the grove! Grapes from the spreading vine Crown the full measure; Fountains of foaming wine Gush from the pressure. Still where the currents wind, Gems ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... did not feel much attracted by the proffer of friendship, and she certainly did not intend to tell Jane Humphreys all her secrets, nor to vow enmity to the other colleagues, but she gravely answered that she trusted they would be friends and help to maintain one another's faith. She was relieved that Miss Bridgeman here came in to take her first turn of rest till she was to be ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... considered if he had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Peter, sipping his whisky and water, "to return to our lambs, I bow to your patrician prejudices in favour of forks. But your patriotic prejudices are on a different level. There, I am on the same ground as you, and I vow I see nothing inherently superior in the British combination of beef and beetroot, to the German ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... under vows and brought their earnings to Jahveh.[1917] Farnell[1918] interprets a fragment of Pindar as proof of sacral harlotry at Corinth. At a temple of the Epizephyrian Locri it was practiced in fulfillment of a vow made by the people, under some ancient insult, to consecrate their daughters if the goddess would help them.[1919] Farnell also[1920] directs attention to a case in Sicily where the connection is with the Carthaginian Eryx. In the Cistellaria of Plautus the usage is referred to as Tuscan.[1921] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... particular time to the glory of Athens as the literary centre of the world? The truth was that, having prospered in his trade, Kimon pined for social recognition; it grieved him that one of his daughters had wed a tinker, and he had registered a vow with Pallas that his other daughter should be given into the arms ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... plurality in every species in the world, but a plurality of worlds; so that the abhorrers of solitude are not solitary, for God, and Nature, and Reason concur against it. Now a man may counterfeit the plague in a vow, and mistake a disease for religion, by such a retiring and recluding of himself from all men as to do good to no man, to converse with no man. God hath two testaments, two wills; but this is a schedule, and not of his, a codicil, and not of his, not in the body of his testaments, but interlined ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... one of them by decree from Caesar were rejected by the majority (end of May 698). Thus the corporation did public penance. In secret the individual lords, one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience— none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late of his perfidy, and in respect of the most recent period of his life clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... will say a few words to each of these classes of people. First, let me speak to those who refuse to be bound by any vow or promise, because they do not care to lead a godly life. They imagine that if they are not confirmed they are free to do as they like. But it is not so. They are bound by the vows and promises of their Baptism, and they cannot throw them aside. To such persons I say, you are God's children, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... it or leave it—spill it untasted or quaff a bellyful. Of a hospitable temper, she whose page I am; but a great lady, over self-sure to be dudgeoned by wry faces in the refectory. As for the little sister (if she did have finger in the concoction)—no fear of offence there! I dare vow, who know somewhat the fashion of her, she will but trill a pretty titter or so at ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remember the keeping of his vow? ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... in Japan been the custom for every Samurai to be named differ-ently In babyhood, boyhood, manhood, or promotion, change of life, or residence, In commemoration of certain events, or on account of a vow, or ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... told throughout the Green Island of Erin of the fate of the children of Lir and of the vow that Bove Derg had vowed, from north, south, east, and west did the Dedannans flock to the lake, until a mighty host dwelt ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the mean time, "by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah," but Jerubbaal came up with them near Karkar, and discomfited the host. He took vengeance upon the two peoples who had refused to give him bread, and having thus fulfilled his vow, he began to question his prisoners, the two chiefs: "What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor?" "As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the children of a king." "And he said, They were my ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... from beneath a projecting elbow of rock; 'you look down on it. It's a delicious fall. I declare one can get into it;' and, by the aid of a tree, she lowered herself down on a flat stone, whence she could see the cascade better than above. 'This is stunning. I vow one can get right into the bed of the stream right across. Don't be slow, Cilly; this is the prime fun ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... country subject to him, in the same way that Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Erik at Upsala." When the messengers returned to the king, they advised him to punish her for her haughty words, but Harald said she had spoken well, and he made the solemn vow not to cut or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of Norway, which he did, and became sole king of Norway. The decisive battle was a naval one in the Hafrsfjord, near the present city of Stavanger. After this battle, which occurred in 872, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... with her spear, and the god with his mace, Shall strike the quick rock; and the gods shall deliver The sentence as Justice shall order; and thou Shalt see thy loved city established forever, With Jove for a judge, and the Styx for a vow." ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... all these years. There is quite another reason.[363] When I left my father's house to go to Haran, I offered up a prayer at Beth-el, and I promised to give unto God the tenth of all I owned. So far as my material possessions are concerned, I kept my vow, but I could not give the tithe of my sons, because according to the law I had to withdraw from the reckoning the four sons, Reuben, Joseph, Dan, and Gad, that are the first-born children of their mothers. When I returned, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... girlish levity she goes Unto the altar where they wait her now, But with a thoughtful, prayerful heart that knows The solemn purport of a marriage vow. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... detestation of his race. The dancing girls are of two orders of infamy—those who serve in the temples, and are hence called Devo Dasi, slaves of the gods, and the Nautch girls, who dance in a secular sort for hire. Frequently a mother will make a vow to dedicate her unborn babe, if it have the obedience to be a girl, to the service of some particular god, in this way, and by the daughters born to themselves, are the ranks of the Devo Dasi recruited. The sons of these miserable creatures are taught to play upon musical instruments ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... such evening lessons throughout our cities and villages. Should I ever return, I shall propose to some of the like-minded an association for such a purpose, and try the experiment of one of these schools of Christian brothers, with the vow of disinterestedness, but without the robe and the subdued priestly manner, which even in these men, some of whom seemed to me truly good, I ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and found myself in a bunk in vow fo'c's'le," he said, regarding Hardy steadily. "However I got there is probably best known to yourself. I hold ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... I vow! Yet there's folks about here, and some at Albany, that call it feudal for a man to have to carry a pair of fowls to the landlord's office, and the landlord ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... door and window crowded, and here is the Faery Prince on a white charger, his Indians behind him and gold and parrots and his sailors! Processions and processions—alcalde and alcayde and don and friar and priest, and let us stop at the church and kneel before high altar, and vow again in seven years to free the Sepulchre! He hath walked and ridden, waked and slept, in a great, high vision! Most men have visions but ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... whose Curiosities of Heraldry and English Surnames are no doubt well known to many of our readers, is preparing for publication a Translation, from a MS. in the British Museum, of The Chronicle of Battel Abbey from the vow of its Foundation by William the Conqueror, to the Year 1176, originally compiled in Latin, by a Monk ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... bread had gone rather dry and the biscuits a little stale, but she enjoyed them, sitting on the hillside, especially when she remembered all she had escaped from at St. Chad's. She felt that, once back in dear old Ireland, her difficulties would be nearly at an end, and she registered a solemn vow never to cross the Channel again, except under the strictest compulsion. The last fragment of biscuit having vanished, she got up and shook down the crumbs for the birds; then, turning towards the hills, she struck ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... heart in his mouth, and the whole crew in an extremity of fear. Columbus, who generally relied upon his seamanship, here invoked external aid, and began to offer bargains to the Almighty. He ordered that lots should be cast, and that he upon whom the lot fell should make a vow to go on pilgrimage to Santa Maria de Guadaloupe carrying a white candle of five pounds weight. Same dried peas were brought, one for every member of the crew, and on one of them a cross was marked with a knife; ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... The Duchess's eyes were sparkling like some lustrous jet. The deep flush of the jacqueminot burned in her cheeks as she smilingly regarded Natalie, the heroine of the jest. Was all this scintillation a mask, he wondered, or had the coming of the King—the remembrance of her vow—driven the recollection of that momentary surrender in Paris from her heart? He sighed. The girl next him ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... truth is best, Ruth. You must hear it," he went on rapidly. "I asked God to forgive me for the wrong I had done you and her. I said I would tear that love out of my soul if it killed me, and be true to my marriage vow. I went there to tell her this and ask her to put the ocean between us. I found that she loved me even as I loved her, and she promised. As I started to leave the house, never to enter it again, I saw the card of the lawyer on her table, and the truth flashed over me that she had made this ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... 'e was beat. 'Is 'orse 'ad tripped and fell. "By George," said Brown, "I'll go alone, and follow it to well, The place that it belongs to." And as 'e made the vow, There broke from right in front of 'im the queerest ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... left hand. The connecting link between these two details is not so apparent to us as it might be to the Chinese. After her husband's death the widow decided that she would never marry again, and in order to seal irrevocably her vow, she seized a meat-chopper and lopped off half her finger on the spot. The finger-top was placed in her husband's coffin, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... princes were able to establish. It is impossible to learn how many pilgrims from the West made their permanent homes in the new Latin principalities. Certainly the greater part of those who visited Palestine returned home after fulfilling their vow to kneel at the Holy Sepulcher. Still the princes could rely upon a certain number of soldiers who would be willing to stay and fight the Mohammedans. The Turks, moreover, were so busy fighting one another that they showed less energy than might ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... is making her promises aloud, all the Scouts remember their own promises, and vow anew ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... the voice of thee, my buried friend? 4 Was it the whispered vow of faithful love? Do I in Knoyle's green shades thy steps attend, And hear the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... replied, "I see it is only fear of the genius that makes you act like this. For myself, I dread him so little that I mean to break his talisman in pieces! Awful though you think him, he shall feel the weight of my arm, and I herewith take a solemn vow to stamp out the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... fortunes, which they have it in their power to bequeath, and over whose dwellings of mortality vigilant relations hover like the carrion-fowl above the dying battle-steed. I remember a good story to this effect, in which a lady and gentleman took a grateful vow to pic-nic annually, on the anniversary of his death, at the tomb of a relation who had greatly enriched them. They did so, actually, once; succeeding years saw them no more at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... has never told the Major; and since he insists upon keeping up a burdensome geniality, she has been compelled to break her vow of not speaking to Kurrell. This speech, which must of necessity preserve the semblance of politeness and interest, serves admirably to keep alight the flame of jealousy and dull hatred in Boulte's bosom, as ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... honesty intensely, but he had no strength of will nor belief in his right to organize an intelligent and honest life about him. He was absolutely unable to give orders, to forbid things, and to insist. It seemed as though he had taken a vow never to raise his voice and never to make use of the imperative. It was difficult for him to say. "Fetch" or "Bring"; when he wanted his meals he would cough hesitatingly and say to the cook, "How about tea?. . ." or "How about dinner? . . ." To dismiss the superintendent ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... covenant with the Lord? The district which he represented was one of the poorest in the whole country, and the L3,000,000 offered by the enemy did not include any provision for those who, like his burghers, could do nothing to help themselves. He would again suggest that the delegates should make a vow unto the Lord. For himself, he could not vote for the acceptance ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... as 'twas within my breast, * Let mine eyes sleep again, then fly fro' me. Deem ye the nights have had the might to change * Love's vow? Who changeth may ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... is the last of the Representative Men who are the subjects of this book of Essays. Emerson says he had read the fifty-five volumes of Goethe, but no other German writers, at least in the original. It must have been in fulfilment of some pious vow that he did this. After all that Carlyle had written about Goethe, he could hardly help studying him. But this Essay looks to me as if he had found the reading of Goethe hard work. It flows rather languidly, toys with side ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... This is a description given to us in Germany—'a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet.' I think they are beginning to find their mistake out already. And there are half a million of young men of Britain who have already registered their vow to their King that they will cross the seas and hurl that insult against British courage against its perpetrators on the battlefields of France and of Germany. And we want half a million more. And ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... nobility, under pain of losing their titles, and Manzoni preferred to lose his. He constantly refused honors offered him by the Government, and he sent back the ribbon of a knightly order with the answer that he had made a vow never to wear any decoration. When Victor Emanuel in turn wished to do him a like honor, he held himself bound by his excuse to the Austrians, but accepted the honorary presidency of the Lombard Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts. In 1860 ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... the Peer receive me, I know not what you would have done; but, I can guess. But never mind! I told him, that I had made a vow, if I took the Genereux by myself, it was my intention to strike my flag. To which he made ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... stout, amiable youth, who would stand in the middle of a strawberry patch with his hands in his pockets and let us feed him luxuriously. B., a delightful scapegrace, who came once a week to confess his sins, beat his breast in despair, vow awful vows of repentance, and then cheerfully depart to break every one of them in the next twenty-four hours. S., the gentle-hearted giant; J., the dandy; sober, sensible B.; and E., the young knight ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... drink a toast!" said Ruth, not heeding the accident, but thrilling with excitement. "Andy, 'tis no wrong we are doing. The General's voice can be heard distinctly, and I vow there are a dozen heads at every window opening on the porch. The crack is fine down ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... had been learning some of his own plays. One of the best of his plays was performed in the presence of Madame de Maintenon, who liked it so well that she beseeched him to write a play which should contain no offensive sentiments. Racine was in agony, for he feared to injure his reputation. His vow prevented his return to his old employment, yet he feared to refuse the request. He compromised the matter by dramatising the touching bible history of Esther. At court the play had a wonderful success, and the poet ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... should always observe the vow of Brahmacharya' means that one should abstain from sexual congress except with one's wedded wives ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... substance), His deathless affection to that Beauty of the world, her Majesty's divine Daughter the Princess Amelia (a very paragon of young women, to judge by her picture and one's own imagination); and likewise the firm resolution he, Friedrich Crown-Prince, has formed, and the vow he hereby makes, Either to wed that celestial creature when permitted, or else never any of the Daughters of Eve in this world. Congresses of Soissons, Smoking Parliaments, Preliminaries of the Pardo and Treaties of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... tongue acclaims thee: yet wast thou Hailed of old Rome as Romans hail thee now, Goddess and woman. Since the sands first ran That told when first man's life and death began, The shadows round thy blind ambiguous brow Have mocked the votive plea, the pleading vow That sought thee sorrowing, fain ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... there," she rejoined mournfully. "All the rest died long ago. My lover was true to his vow; and instead of deploring their fate, lived with me and three other women in mirth and revelry till yesterday, when the three women died, and he fell sick. He did not, however, give in, but continued carousing until ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... marriage-vow scarcely cold on my lips! Without tie! and a husband waiting below to take me to his home on the hillside—a hillside so bare and bleak that the sight of it had sent a shudder to my heart as the wedding ring touched my finger. The irony of the situation was more than I could ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... and tender the hour, So full of deep meaning the vow You have uttered. And sorely you need Divine power To guide you and guard you in sunshine and shower, For trouble will come and love's delicate flower Be crushed, you can ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... Mr. Carvel, when he saw her; "here is the young lady that hath my old affections. You are right welcome, Mr. Swain. Scipio, another chair! 'Tis not over the wall any more, Miss Patty, with our flowered India silk. But I vow I love you best with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... set, and the bridal to be: The wife took a dwam and lay doun to dee; She maned and she graned out o' dolour and pain, Till he vow'd he never wad see ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... then they both will wither; If one its vesture of emerald shows, The other mantles with green its boughs. Our lives in joy and in grief thus blended, I cannot think of the union ended. But I'm alone. O, thou noble Var Who wanderest over the earth afar, To record on gold every vow that's spoken, Forego thy pastime, the vows are broken. The tablet filled with but falsest lies, The faithful gold 'gainst the insult cries. Of Balder's Nanna I've oft been dreaming, But truth in mortals is only seeming. In faithfulness ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... all that ask, denied to none, No human passion lurks within the voice That heralds forth the god; no whispered vow, No evil prayer prevails; none favour gain: Of things unchangeable the song divine; Yet loves the just. When men have left their homes To seek another, it hath turned their steps Aright, as with the Tyrians; (10) and raised The hearts ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his plasters; which were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow, in secret, that he would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the good-will and fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that line, and drink himself ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... lines is to explain to whomsoever may be interested that my death is voluntary—my own act. I shall die at twelve o'clock on the night of the 15th of July—a significant anniversary to me, for it was on that day, and at that hour, that my friend in time and eternity, Charles Breede, performed his vow to me by the same act which his fidelity to our pledge now entails upon me. He took his life in his little house in the Copeton woods. There was the customary verdict of 'temporary insanity.' Had I testified at that inquest—had I told all I knew, they would ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... his palms Bob Acres' valour oozed,[312] So Juan's virtue ebbed, I know not how; And first he wondered why he had refused; And then, if matters could be made up now; And next his savage virtue he accused, Just as a friar may accuse his vow, Or as a dame repents her of her oath, Which mostly ends in some ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron |
