"Abstemious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... important business of the day. Cargill did not act up to this definition, and was, therefore, in the eyes of his new acquaintance, so far ignorant and uncivilized. What then? He was still a sensible, intelligent man, however abstemious and bookish. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... both in England and the northern states of Europe, which appears to be the greatest impediment to general improvement? Drinking is here the principal relaxation of the men, including smoking, but the women are very abstemious, though they have no public amusements as a substitute. I ought to except one theatre, which appears more than is necessary; for when I was there it was not half full, and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... yet Achilles have a friend, whose care Is bent to please him, this request forbear; Till yonder sun descend, ah, let me pay To grief and anguish one abstemious day." ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... or change. The first tutor into whose hands I was resigned appears to have been one of the best of the tribe: Dr. Waldegrave was a learned and pious man, of a mild disposition, strict morals, and abstemious life, who seldom mingled in the politics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the university; his learning was of the last, rather than the present age; his temper was indolent; his faculties, which were not of the first rate, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... unaccustomed to it, yet he could not resist drinking once again to the health of the ladies. The pedant and the tyrant drank like old topers, who can absorb any amount of liquor—be it wine, or something stronger—without becoming actually intoxicated. Matamore was very abstemious, both in eating and drinking, and could have lived like the impoverished Spanish hidalgo, who dines on three olives and sups on an air upon his mandoline. There was a reason for his extreme frugality; he feared that if he ate and drank like other people he might lose his phenomenal ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... attend me. I was not allowed a maid for the common decencies of my sex. I was sent to gaol, and was in hopes there, at least, this usage would have ended. But was told it was reported I was frequently drunk; that I attempted to make my escape; that I never attended the chapel. A more abstemious woman, my lords, I believe does ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... a bad one, though different from the preceding. The patient was between forty and fifty years of age, and had been unable to go underground for several years. He was a staid, sober man, and an abstemious liver, but it was evident that his life on earth was drawing to a close. He had been employed chiefly in driving levels, and had worked a great deal in very bad air, where the candles could not ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... "William, thou abstemious youth," he addressed the clerk, "I am tempted to empty one of these cold bottles down your scandalized neck and pack you off with another ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... water. Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree. But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... caused to be served up; and not only did he call upon the Herr Administrator to join him in his encomiums, but he also asked him pointedly what he thought of various ways of dressing dishes. The Herr Administrator replied somewhat dryly that he was a temperate and abstemious man, accustomed from his youth up to the greatest frugality. At noon, for dinner, he was satisfied with a spoonful or two of soup and a little piece of beef, but the latter must be cooked hard, since so cooked a smaller quantity sufficed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... to his meals he was most abstemious, and at the same time irregular. His brother describes an arrangement by which he was able to take, at all events, his midday meal, and at the same time to carry on his official work, especially in the matter of receiving visitors. He had a deep drawer in his table, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... when he was unwell, which, with his healthy, abstemious, open-air life, was not often; and by degrees the people for miles round found out that he made decoctions of herbs—camomile and dandelion, foxglove, rue, and agrimony, which had virtues of their own. He it was who cured Dan Rugg of that affection which ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... and requires his Attendants to be so.] And as he is abstemious in his eating, so in the use of women. If he useth them 'tis unknown and with great secrecy. He hath not had the Company of his Queen this twenty years, to wit, since he went from Candy, where he left ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... attention to the decencies of his station. To the train of knights and noblemen, who had been accustomed to wait on him, succeeded a few companions selected from the most virtuous and learned of his clergy. His diet was abstemious; his charities were abundant; his time was divided into certain portions allotted to prayer and study and the episcopal functions. These he found it difficult to unite with those of the chancellor; and, therefore, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Scholer, the Pearch is not only valiant to defend himself, but he is (as you said) a bold biting fish, yet he will not bite at all seasons of the yeer; he is very abstemious in Winter; and hath been observed by some, not usually to bite till the Mulberry tree buds, that is to say, till extreme Frosts be past for that Spring; for when the Mulberry tree blossomes, many Gardners observe their forward ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... troublous cogitations to bethink him of some new instrument wherewith he might bedazzle the eyes and ensnare the understanding of the holy man. On a sudden it came unto the fiend that by no corporeal allurement would he be able to achieve his miserable end, for that by reason of an abstemious life and a frugal diet the Friar Gonsol had weaned his body from those frailties and lusts to which human flesh is by nature of the old Adam within it disposed, and by long-continued vigils and by earnest ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... curiosity, dear boy,' he said persuasively, and slipped the brick into his bag; 'merely a memento of the past—ah, happy past, bright past! You will not take a touch of spirits? no? I find you very abstemious. Well,' he added, 'if you have really no curiosity to ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... gave me a look of unfeigned surprise; he imagined that I was jesting. "Masters of prisons," he rejoined, "who keep shop, have a natural horror of an abstemious captive." ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... to lead clean and sober lives. This was certainly true of the early Romans. They were a manly breed, abstemious in food and drink, iron-willed, vigorous, and strong. Deep down in the Roman's heart was the proud conviction that Rome should rule over all her neighbors. For this he freely shed his blood; for this he bore hardship, however severe, without complaint. Before everything else, he was a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... bread; not but that, should nature require anything more agreeable, many things might be easily supplied by the ground, and plants in great abundance, and of incomparable sweetness. Add to this strength and health, as the consequence of this abstemious way of living. Now, compare with this those who sweat and belch, being crammed with eating, like fatted oxen; then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most attain it least; and that the pleasure of eating lies not in satiety, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... animal spirits into middle life. I was only seventeen; they were from twenty to thirty years my seniors, yet I do not think that we mutually bored each other the least. They did not need the stimulus of alcohol to aid this flow of spirits, for, like most Frenchmen of that class, they were very abstemious, although the "Patron" always produced for us "un bon vieux vin de derriere les fagots," or "un joli petit vin qui fait rire." It was sheer "joie de-vivre" stimulated by the good food and that spontaneous gaiete ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... do not feel like smoking myself." Cedric spoke rather sulkily and with none of his accustomed amiability. "Shall I give you some whiskey and soda?" But Malcolm refused this refreshment—no man was more abstemious ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... are about 500 manuscripts of his in the "Annuale di Loreto." As a composer of comic operas Zingarelli became popular all over Europe, but he was nevertheless a serious, even a devout composer. He was extremely abstemious, rose early, worked hard all day, and, after a piece of bread and a glass of wine for supper, retired early to rest. He was never married, but found his satisfaction in the successes of his musical children, among whom were Bellini, Mercadante, Ricci, ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... barrier, the soul with which you listen must be sharpened by intense enthusiasm, purified from all earthlier desires. Not without reason have the so-styled magicians, in all lands and times, insisted on chastity and abstemious reverie as the communicants of inspiration. When thus prepared, science can be brought to aid it; the sight itself may be rendered more subtle, the nerves more acute, the spirit more alive and outward, and the element itself—the air, the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he had a very large influence in shaping the life of India by his personal influence and by the weight of his religious character. Everywhere he was greatly beloved. He earned considerable sums as a reporter and author in aid of his mission, and he lived in a most abstemious manner in order to devote as much money as possible to his work.[5] In this devoted service he continued until his death, which ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... holding the lands it could watch, or that its citizen armies could turn out quickly to defend. Each was always at war or in league with most of the others; but material civilization had not receded so far as among the mountaineers. The latter raided them perpetually, so they had to be tough and abstemious and watchful; and then again they raided the mountaineers to get their own back, (with reasonable interest); and lastly, lest like Hotspur they should find such quiet life a plague, and want work, it was always their prerogative, and generally ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... still a deeper significance in the slight lurch that the manager gave as he halted, glowering, before Simon Varr. His flushed face and blurred utterance contributed their testimony to a fact that was ominous in itself; he had been drinking, drinking heavily, though he was notably abstemious by habit. Varr got hastily to his feet, so ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... elderly husband, and who found him as tender and thoughtful a friend as he had always been to the wife of his youth. For twenty-one years he passed from honor to honor in the Colony, living in much state, though personally always abstemious and restrained, and growing continually in the mildness and toleration, from which his contemporaries more and more diverged. Clear-sighted, and far in advance of his time, his moderation hindered any chafing ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... this is going to be really a spree," sighed Esther contentedly. "I have been abstemious for so long. You, too—I notice you confine yourself ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... at Rome. This room connected the two main parts of the house and was, with its precious contents, a constant joy to Rubens and his friends. The master of this palace, for such it certainly was, lived a frugal and abstemious life, a most remarkable thing in an age of great extravagance in eating and drinking. Here is the record of one of his days in summer: At four o'clock he arose, and for a short time gave himself up to religious exercises. After ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... Colonel became seriously anxious about my return home. As I did not think he was the proper person to give me hints, I resolutely remained where I was, encouraged in my behavior by the few words I gained from Agnes, and by the looks of entreaty she gave me. I had always considered Mr. Maryon to be an abstemious man, but he drank a good deal of brandy and soda during the long game of seven hundred up, and when he succeeded in beating the Colonel by forty-three, he was in roaring spirits, and insisted upon my staying to dinner. Need I say ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a Spaniard will live for a week on bread and water duly to prepare himself for a meal at another's expense, accuse them of gluttony; but I have always found the Andalusians abstemious eaters, nor have I wondered at this, since Spanish food is abominable. But drunkards they often are. I should think as many people in proportion get drunk in Seville as in London, though it is only fair to add that their heads are not strong, and very ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... in height, blue-eyed and golden-haired, he was the beau ideal cavalry leader—alert, active, ready, and responsive, with an eye to all details, a love for the picturesque in bearing and equipment, of great endurance, abstemious, healthy, and strong, and as much at home in the saddle and with the sabre as in his own little house in Monroe or by his blazing camp-fire. He married, in February, 1864, Elizabeth Bacon, a daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon, of Monroe. For ten ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... previous to his accession to the imperial throne, calculated to do him honour, as he was guilty of the meanest flattery and servility to ingratiate himself with men in power. Yet, as a general, he was indefatigable in his duties, and of unquestionable valour; abstemious in his diet, and plain in his dress. On attaining to the imperial dignity he appears to have laid aside every vice except avarice. His elevation neither induced him to assume arrogant and lofty airs, nor to neglect those friends who had shown themselves deserving ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... inured to every kind of danger and difficulty, and not one of them was personally braver than the general who led them, or more skilful in riding a horse, or fording a river, or climbing a mountain. No one of them could be more abstemious. Luxury is not one of the peculiarities of successful ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... capacity and some control over same; 3. A strong will such as can move body and mind; 4. Assiduous cultivation of the intellectual side; 5. Control over emotions; 6. A fearless mind; 7. Great determination; 8. and abstemious living ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... great domestic ruled the emperor and the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of Lesbos and the principality of AEtolia were restored to their ancient allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public robbers, Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the free and voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth [22] may sustain the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulated by rapine. He does not indeed specify the value of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... a Hermit of pure disposition, abstemious and virtuous, had made his cell in one of the environs of Baghdad, and passed his morning and evening hours in the worship of the All-wise King, and by these means had shaken his skirt clear from the dust of worldly affairs. He had bowed his ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... that they indulged a similar selfish hope, so I had no scruples about using their hospitality to their disadvantage if I could. The subject, however, was not mentioned at table, and we were all singularly abstemious in the matter of champagne—so much so that as we rose from a rather long session at the board we disclosed our sense of the ludicrousness of the situation by laughing outright. Nevertheless, neither party would accept defeat, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... a month ago; and I never saw him again. He wandered off down into the neighborhood of Erie, where he had many acquaintances, took less care of himself, went more scantily clad, was more abstemious in diet, and more and more disregarded the conditions of human existence. Finally, his mind became as wandering as ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... independence, and of, in his son's opinion, "a natural faculty" equal to that of Burns; and Margaret Aitken was "a woman of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just, and the wise." Frugal, abstemious, prudent, though not niggardly, James Carlyle was prosperous according to the times, the conditions of his trade, and the standard of Ecclesfechan. He was able, therefore, to give such of his sons (he had a family of ten children in all, five sons and five daughters) as showed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... abstemious in his mode of living, regular in his habits, and using much exercise, enjoyed good health to extreme old age; and such was his activity, that he could outwalk persons more than half a century younger. At that period of advanced life, when ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From his cradle averse to flesh-meats and strong drink; abstemious even beyond the genius of the place, and almost in spite of the remonstrances of his great-aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water was his habitual drink, and his food little beyond the mast and beech-nuts of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... wants of his neighbor. When it was in his power he attended the ceremony of the salut at the parish church; and on festivals particularly solemnized by any community of the towns in which he resided, he usually assisted at the divine service in their churches. He was very abstemious in his diet; and considered systematic sensuality as the ultimate degradation of human nature. He never was heard to express so much disgust, as at conversations where, for a great length of time, the pleasures of the table, or the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... was soon prepared. The islanders are somewhat abstemious at this repast; reserving the more powerful efforts of their appetite to a later period of the day. For my own part, with the assistance of my valet, who, as I have before stated, always officiated as spoon on these occasions, I ate sparingly from one of Tinor's trenchers, of poee-poee; which was ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... furrow, his air was so staid and quiet, his figure so destitute of the roundness and elasticity of youth, that his appearance always impressed the beholder with the involuntary idea of a man considerably more advanced in life. Abstemious to habitual penance, and regular to mechanical exactness in his frequent and severe devotions, he was as little inwardly addicted to the pleasures and pursuits of youth, as he was externally possessed of its freshness and ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been the pork," Terence said, as seriously as O'Grady himself; "and it is unfortunate that you are such an abstemious man, or, as you say, its effects ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... describe, Cosimo in the course of his long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the master of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature short; abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was everywhere. When he died, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... was not strange, perhaps, that he was called "lazy" and "shiftless;" no one knew the long climbs and tireless vigils he had undergone in remote solitudes in quest of his favorites, or, knowing, forgave him for it. Abstemious, frugal, and patient as he was, even the crusts of his father's table were given him grudgingly. He often went hungry rather than ask the bread he had failed to earn. How his great frame was nurtured in those days he never knew; perhaps the giant mountains recognized some kin in ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... cotton manufacture, and had thus attained the chief object of his ambition—the object which had engaged his talent for order and persevering application. For his easy leisure caused him much ennui. He was abstemious, and had none of those temptations to sensual excess which fill up a man's time first with indulgence and then with the process of getting well from its effects. He had not, indeed, exhausted the sources of knowledge, but here again his notions of human pleasure were ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... times its value for everything he purchased. His castle was filled with needy parasites and panderers to his pleasures, amongst whom he lavished rewards with an unsparing hand. But the ordinary round of sensual gratification ceased at last to afford him delight: he was observed to be more abstemious in the pleasures of the table, and to neglect the beauteous dancing-girls who used formerly to occupy so much of his attention. He was sometimes gloomy and reserved; and there was an unnatural wildness in his eye which gave indications of incipient madness. Still, his discourse ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... table, where had been placed a supply of whiskey, their favorite liquor—did Colonel D'Egville and his more civilized guests quaff their claret; more gratified than annoyed by the savoury atmosphere wreathing around them, while, taking advantage of the early departure of the abstemious Tecumseh, they discussed the merits of that Chief, and the policy of employing the Indians as allies, as will be seen ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... and often a distressing symptom of pregnancy. The acid producing the heartburn is frequently much increased by an overloaded stomach. An abstemious diet ought to be strictly observed. Great attention should be paid to the quality of the food. Greens, pastry, hot buttered toast, melted butter, and everything that is rich and gross, ought to be carefully avoided. Either a teaspoonful of heavy calcined magnesia, or half a teaspoonful of carbonate ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... sumptuously regaled; a good appetite will furnish out the rest, if the maitre d' hotel, with a number of unnecessary footmen, do not satiate me with their important attentions. Five or six sous would then procure me a more agreeable meal than as many livres would have done since; I was abstemious, therefore, for want of a temptation to be otherwise: though I do not know but I am wrong to call this abstinence, for with my pears, new cheese, bread and some glasses of Montferrat wine, which you might have ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... can answer for the last four years, at any rate. All the Portuguese officers were abstemious men; and I think that Bull felt that it would not do for him, commanding a battalion, to be less sober than ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... stated times, and cannot be persuaded to partake of anything in the intervals. If it be not their hour for eating, they will refuse the choicest viands, and will sit at your table fasting, despite every temptation you can offer them. They are also very abstemious in their diet, and gluttony is the very rarest of vices. I do not believe there is another nation in Europe that eats so sparingly. In the morning they take a cup of coffee, generally without milk, sopping in it some light brioche. Later in the day they take a slight lunch of soup ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... time, his lordship spoke of his conversation as I could have wished. Dr. Johnson had said, 'I have done greater feats with my knife than this;' though he had eaten a very hearty dinner. My lord, who affects or believes he follows an abstemious system, seemed struck with Dr. Johnson's manner of living. I had a particular satisfaction in being under the roof of Monboddo, my lord being my father's old friend, and having been always very good to me. We were cordial together. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... frontiers. The immigrants, at any rate many of them, belong to those races and classes which at home are by no means averse to drinking, and indeed to drunkenness in its most disgusting forms; what induces these people, when they get here, to become so persistently abstemious?' ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Frederick was abstemious. A glass of wine at dinner was his wildest excess. Three cigars a day he permitted himself, and these he smoked either on the broad veranda or in the smoking room. What else was a smoking room for? Cigarettes he detested. Yet his brother was ever rolling thin, brown-paper cigarettes ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... made for his refreshment was simple, but the meal of the Saracen was abstemious. A handful of dates and a morsel of coarse barley-bread sufficed to relieve the hunger of the latter, whose education had habituated them to the fare of the desert, although, since their Syrian conquests, the Arabian simplicity ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... places left vacant by liquor-drinking men." But who filled these places before? Did they remain vacant, or were there then disappointed applicants, as now? If my memory serves, there has been no time in the period that it covers when the supply of workers—abstemious male workers—was not in excess of the demand. That it has always been so is sufficiently attested by ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... abstemious man, ate very little and drank nothing but water, not from principle, but because he did not like wine or spirits. Once, in rather dark days early in the war, a temperance committee came to him and said that the reason we did not win was because our army drank so much whisky as to ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... reduced to its simplest elements. Abstemious to a degree impossible in a more northern climate, the Italian worker in town or village demands little beyond macaroni, polenta, or chestnuts, with oil or soup, and wine as the occasional luxury; and thus a woman who works fourteen or even fifteen hours a day for a lire and a ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the negative than the positive kind. He is mild, peaceable, and forbearing, unless his anger be roused by violent provocation, when he is implacable in his resentments. He is temperate and sober, being equally abstemious in meat and drink. The diet of the natives is mostly vegetable; water is their only beverage; and though they will kill a fowl or a goat for a stranger, whom perhaps they never saw before, nor ever expect to see again, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... all his wealth there were but two things which the Roman noble could buy, political power and luxury; and in these directions his whole resources were expended. The elections, once pure, became matters of annual bargain between himself and his supporters. The once hardy, abstemious mode of living degenerated ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... sleep. As he rose he felt a queer feeling in his head, a giddiness, a sense of obstruction in his brain. He went into the dining-room, and poured himself out a small quantity of whiskey, measuring it with the accuracy of abstemious habit. The dose had become necessary since his nerves had been unhinged by worry and the shock of Peggy's death. This time he drank ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... a most abstemious man; but I know what he never can resist, and that is cold raspberry tart and cream. There are plenty of raspberries ripe in the plantation—I will gather some, and I'll make the ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... abstemious in her living, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, that her mind had a noble prospect: her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance, than can be found below. This made her not ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... 1564, eleven years after the birth of Henry of Navarre, at the age of fifty-five. For several years he was so abstemious that he had eaten but one ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... eldest daughter of the ruler of Kasi to do as she liked. But he bestowed with due rites the two other daughters, Ambika and Ambalika on his younger brother Vichitravirya. And though Vichitravirya was virtuous and abstemious, yet, proud of youth and beauty, he soon became lustful after his marriage. And both Ambika and Ambalika were of tall stature, and of the complexion of molten gold. And their heads were covered with black curly hair, and their finger-nails were high and red; their hips were fat and round, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... require anything more agreeable, many things might be easily supplied by the ground, and plants in great abundance, and of incomparable sweetness. Add to this, strength and health, as the consequence of this abstemious way of living. Now compare with this, those who sweat and belch, being crammed with eating, like fatted oxen: then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most, attain it least: and that the pleasure of eating lies ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... or who have just returned, princes and members of the Roman nobility, and distinguished foreigners. At ten o'clock he takes a cup of broth brought by Centra. At two in the afternoon, or a little earlier, he dines, and he is most abstemious, although he has an excellent digestion. His private physician, Doctor Giuseppe Lapponi, has been heard to say that he himself eats more at one meal than the Holy Father eats in a week. Every day, unless indisposed, some one is received in private audience. These audiences ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... company on the long journey. When she would be ordered on a longer journey by a mightier Authority, medical science forbore to specify; but in the higher interests of American music it was urgently pressed upon her that she be abstemious in diet, niggardly of work, careful about fatigue and excitement, and in general comport herself in such manner as to deprive the lease of life remaining to her of most of its savor and worth. She had told Ban that the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... well as the friends of the family, and especially the confidants of the Borgias: the Spaniards, Juan Lopez, Caranza, and Marades; and among the Romans, the Orsini, Porcari, Cesarini, and Barberini. The cardinal himself was an exceedingly abstemious man, but magnificent in everything which concerned the pomp and ceremonial of his position. The chief requirement of a cardinal of that day was to own a princely residence and to ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... was saved from worse things by getting to know Gladstone." At Oxford we are told the effect of his example was so strong that men who followed him there ten years later declare "that undergraduates drank less in the forties because Gladstone had been so courageously abstemious ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... itself nearly came to an untimely conclusion. Captain Lightfoot screwed his failing courage to the sticking point by several glasses of wine, with the result that, being a very abstemious man, he became tipsy. But "restoratives were administered," and he went through his part with credit. Byron, who was the star of the company, repeatedly brought down the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Honour true Brahmans for my sake, And constant offerings duly make, With fire-oblations and with flowers, To all the host of heavenly powers. Look to the coming time, and yearn For the glad hour of my return. And still thy duteous course pursue, Abstemious, humble, kind, and true. The highest bliss shalt thou obtain When I from exile come again, If, best of those who keep the right, The king my sire still see ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... had by this time finished her cordial—it was not the first she had taken that day; and, though a woman of strong brain, and cautious at least, if not abstemious, in her potations, it may nevertheless be supposed that her patience was not improved by the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... whose labor is active, require more air than sedentary or idle persons, because the waste of the system is greater. On the same principle, the gormandizer needs more of this element than the person of abstemious habits. So does the growing lad require more air than an adult of the same weight, for the reason that he consumes more food than a person of mature years. Habit also exerts a controlling influence. A man who works in the open air suffers more when placed in a small, unventilated room, than one ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... the Madrid play-house as half-drunk and dancing lewdly, was the most abstemious and chastest of men, and neither smoked nor drank wine. His fame went on increasing, as did the number of his followers. He effected prodigies with the means at his command. His friends in France supplied him with two cannon, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... replied Martin gravely. 'I have no hesitation in telling you what I have already told the inspector. Mr. Manderson was, considering his position in life, a remarkably abstemious man. In my four years of service with him I never knew anything of an alcoholic nature pass his lips, except a glass or two of wine at dinner, very rarely a little at luncheon, and from time to time a whisky and soda before going to bed. He never seemed ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... l'Anglaise, made by one of our English servants; was helped twice, and observed, that he hoped he should not shock us by eating so much: "But," added he, "the truth is, that for several months I have been following a most abstemious regime, living almost entirely on vegetables; and now that I see a good dinner, I cannot resist temptation, though to-morrow I shall suffer for my gormandize, as I always do when I indulge in luxuries." He drank three glasses of champagne, saying, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... to it such words as we heard that evening in Oxford. At any rate, the member would be howled down. So strong is the modern distaste for oratory. The day for oratory, as for toping, is past beyond redemption. 'Debating' is the best that can be done and appreciated by so abstemious a generation as ours. You will find a very decent level of 'debating' in the Oxford Union, in the Balham Ethical Society, in the Pimlico Parliament, and elsewhere. But not, I regret to say, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... presided, was requested to give a song, which he declined. Lord Kelly, with all the despotism of a chairman, insisted that if he would not sing, he must tell a story or drink a pint bumper of wine. Mr. Balfour, being an abstemious man, would not submit to the latter alternative, but consented to tell a story. "One day," said he, "a thief, prowling about, passed a church, the door of which was invitingly open. Thinking that he ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... up early, hasn't he?" commented the second engineer, and smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man, with a good digestion and a placid, reasonable view of life even ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... very good, I followed his example, and found it far more palatable than I had expected, and I doubt not very nutritious. I remembered having heard that it was dangerous, after a long fast, to eat much, and I therefore took but little. Oliver also was equally abstemious. Macco, however, laughed at my warning, and very soon finished off the contents of ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... riser, and generally sat down to breakfast with a book on entomology in his hand. He ate and read, and read and ate—regarding no one, and speaking to no one. He was delicate and abstemious, and on gross feeders he often exercised the severity of his wit. Two meals a day were all he ventured on—he always avoided supper—the story of his having supped on raw pork-chops that he might dream his picture of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... wreath adorn thy early bier, That scarce allowed thy modest youth to claim Its living portion of thy certain fame! Oh! Mrs. Bennet! Mrs. Norris too! While memory survives we'll dream of you. And Mr. Woodhouse, whose abstemious lip Must thin, but not too thin, his gruel sip. Miss Bates, our idol, though the village bore; And Mrs. Elton, ardent to explore. While the clear style flows on without pretence, With unstained purity, and unmatched ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... become drunk on "toddy" (a beverage made from the flower of the toddy-palm), they are by habit abstemious and simple livers; rice and vegetable curries, bananas, jack-fruit, papaya, and other fruits, form their staple food, and, forbidden by their religion to take life, fish is practically the only variant to their vegetable diet, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... eggs and cucumber, boiled fish and mustard, fried beef, bits of hog's liver, and a variety of other similar dainties, at which we picked away without much consideration, but which might have been bits of dogs, cats, or rats, for aught I knew to the contrary. The people of Loo-Choo must be very abstemious if we judge from the size of their drinking cups—no larger than thimbles! The liquor they drank, called sakee, is ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... old he assumed the dress of philosophers, something plain and coarse, became a hard student, and lived a most laborious, abstemious life, even so far as to injure his health. He abandoned poetry and rhetoric for philosophy, and attached himself to the sect of the Stoics. But he did not neglect the study of law, which was a useful preparation for the high place which he was designed to fill. We ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... and generous in the aid which he administered to men of genius and talent, who often found a comfortable asylum under his roof. In his domestic economy he was frugal without being parsimonious. His hospitable board was ever ready for the reception of his friends; and, though he was himself abstemious in his diet, he seems to have been a lover of good wines, of which he received always the choicest varieties out of the Grand Duke's cellar. This peculiar taste, together with his attachment to a country ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... things revealed by the diary—which from this time on was kept with less regularity than before—is that Isaac not only maintained his abstemious habits after his return, but increased their rigor. For a robust man, working hard for many hours out of every twenty-four, and deprived of all the pleasant relaxations, literary, conversational and musical, to which he had been accustoming himself ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... good age. "The Russians," he would say, when he was mixing his olla podrida of a Russian salad, "understand best how to eat and drink; and I am going to see how long, by following their customs, I can live." He kept an excellent table; but he became abstemious as he grew older, and lived chiefly on his salad and his good claret. En-joying perfect health, it was not until about the year 1828, when he was seventy-eight years of age, that he entered upon the serious consideration of a plan for the final disposal of his immense estate. Upon one ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the business is, you've got to be one of two ages to appreciate Scott. When you're eighteen you can read Ivanhoe, and you want to wait until you are ninety to read some of the rest. It takes a pretty well-regulated, abstemious critic to live ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... brought up in the country in a hardy manner, I am so much predisposed to the sthenic state, that I may consider the state of my excitement, as generally, indeed almost always, above the point of health: and unless I live in the most temperate, and even abstemious manner, the excitement is extremely liable to overstep the bounds of predisposition, and fall into sthenic disease. I have had several attacks of this kind of disease; and indeed, I never remember to have laboured under any disease of ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... and luminous as his mother's, who was the most beautiful woman some people have ever seen. He was tall, and with as little superfluous flesh and as much sturdy vigor as a young athlete; for his mode of life was always athletic, simple, and abstemious. He leaned his head a little to one side, often, in a position indicating alert rest, such as we find in many Greek statues,—so different from the straight, dogged pose of a Roman emperor. He was very apt to make an assent with an upward movement of the head, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the letter that portion of it which seemed relevant, and destroyed the original. He had never heard it said of Breede; but he knew there are times when, under continued mental strain, the most abstemious ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... and lugubrious in demeanour. The other, his antithesis, was a short, rosy-cheeked, apoplectic-looking subject, with a laugh like a suffocating wheeze, and a paunch like an alderman; his quick, restless eye, and full nether lip denoting more of the bon vivant than the abstemious disciple of Aesculapius. A moment's glance satisfied me, that if I had only these to deal with, I was safe, for I saw that they were of that stamp of country practitioner, half-physician, half-apothecary, who rarely come in contact with the higher orders of their art, and then only ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... and was in no way fastidious as to the nature of his provender, so that it was fit to support life. I have often felt ashamed of my civilised and refined friends as well as of myself, when I have watched the abstemious habits of those inhabitants of the backwoods. However varied, or however delicate, or highly flavoured the food placed before them, I have seen them over and over again sit down and help themselves to the nearest ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... had been the abode of Damian for nearly a month, when, strange as it may seem, his health, which had suffered much from his wounds, began gradually to improve, either benefited by the abstemious diet to which he was reduced, or that certainty, however melancholy, is an evil better endured by many constitutions than the feverish contrast betwixt passion and duty. But the term of his imprisonment seemed drawing speedily to a close; his jailer, a sullen Saxon of the lowest ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... himself the repasts and refreshings of two Meals a day: but no lover of Danties, or the Inventions of Cookery: solid meats better fitting his strength of Constitution; but from drink very much abstemious, which questionlesse was the cause of that uninterrupted Health he enjoyed till this his First and Last sicknesse: of which Felicity as he himself was partly the cause of by his exactnesse in eating and drinking, so did he the more dread the sudden infliction of any Disease, or ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... beverages is not such a cardinal article of faith at the European as at the Asiatic Sweet Waters, that element enters into the diversions at the former place, to the frequent scandal of the decorous and abstemious Turks. The fiery wines of Sicily and the Greek islands are freely indulged in, and tipsy cavaliers, caracoling on the hacks of Pera and Galata, are not infrequent accessories, aggravating the danger and discomfort to the stranger of the return in carriage or on horseback. The roughness of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... since Cromwell had broken up the Northern Councils, and filled them again with his own men of no birth, the old man had come away from the Borders, disdaining to serve at the orders of knaves that had been butchers' sons and worse. He owned much land and was very wealthy, and, having been very abstemious, because he came of an old time when knighthood had still some of the sacredness and austerity of a religion, he was a man very sound in limb and peaceable of disposition. In his day he had been esteemed the most graceful whiffler in the world: now he used only the heavy sword, because ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the "demon rising from the Thames with an Act of Parliament in his hands." Mr Alderman Cobden is, withal, a very ostentatious declaimer about "great first principles;" but into the nature and the definition of those principles he is the most abstemious of all men from entering. The subtlety of a principle escapes the grasp of his intellect; he can deal with it only as a material substance clear to sight and to touch, like a common calico. Hence he talks about principles and cotton prints as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... shall not be taken away from her." When, a year later, young John Adams came courting the brilliant Abigail, the parish, which assumed a right to be heard on the question of the destiny of the minister's daughter, grimly objected. He was upright, singularly abstemious, studious; but he was poor, he was the son of a small farmer, and she was of the gentry. He was hot-headed and somewhat tactless, and offended his critics. Worst of all, he was a lawyer, and the prejudice of colonial society reckoned a lawyer hardly honest. He won this most important ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Papal Court, but, unfortunately, religion was neglected. Though in his personal life Leo X. could not be described as a deeply religious man, yet he was mindful of his vows of celibacy, attentive to the recitation of the divine, office, abstemious, and observant of the fasts of the Church. As a secular ruler he would have stood incomparably higher than any of the contemporary sovereigns of Europe, but he was out of place considerably as the head of a great religious organisation. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... being good? You are the first woman of your station who has treated me as a human being; I do not say as an equal. You have given me back some of my self-respect. It throws my world upside down. It's a heady wine for an abstemious man. Don't you realize that you are a ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... and as the result of all the influences which were brought to {149} bear on his Majesty, there grew, gradually as the outline on a stone, the conviction on his heart that there were sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers, and men endowed with miraculous powers, among all nations. If some true knowledge were thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be confined to one religion, or to a creed like Islam, which was comparatively new, and scarcely a thousand years old; why should one sect ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... "cowboy." A reckless and dashing rider, yet mindful of his horse's needs; good-humored by nature, but quick in quarrel; independent of circumstance, yet shy and sensitive of opinion; abstemious by education and general habit, yet intemperate in amusement; self-centred, yet possessed of a childish vanity,—taken altogether, a characteristic product of the Western plains, which ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... detested, hated, feared—no man was ever better loved. That he was a sternly honest, sincere man, singularly pure in motive and abstemious in habit, even his bitterest enemies do not dispute. If Savonarola was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the sake of marrying he would have taken a wife long ago. There has been nothing to hinder him. Certainly not many 'pfaffen' would have been so scrupulous. He himself has remained single, and is a man, several of my friends who know him assure me, singularly abstemious; often he goes a whole day or more without food, and his usual meals are of the simplest kind. It is true that when he mixes with his fellow-men his heart expands and he does not refuse the wine cup or the generous food placed before him. His ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... total abstinence. 4. It may be said in favour of temperance or even of extreme abstinence, that some of those men who have done most work in their day—John Howard, Wesley, and Cobbett, for example—have been either very moderate, or decidedly abstemious. But on the other hand, such men as Samuel Johnson, who was a free liver and glutton, and Thackeray, who drank to excess, have also got through ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... Thence faintings, swounings of despair, And sense of Heav'ns desertion. I was his nursling once and choice delight, His destin'd from the womb, Promisd by Heavenly message twice descending. Under his special eie Abstemious I grew up and thriv'd amain; He led me on to mightiest deeds Above the nerve of mortal arm Against the uncircumcis'd, our enemies. 640 But now hath cast me off as never known, And to those cruel enemies, Whom I by his appointment had provok't, Left me all helpless with th' irreparable loss ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... might be made of abstemious lawyers; but their temperance is almost invariably mentioned by biographers as matter for regret and apology, and is even made an occasion for reproach in cases where it has not been palliated by habits of munificent hospitality. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... inexhaustible store of anecdote. Crean is perfectly happy, ready to do anything and go anywhere, the harder the work, the better. Evans and Crean are great friends. Lashly is his old self in every respect, hard working to the limit, quiet, abstemious and determined. You see altogether I have a good set of people with me, and it will go hard if we ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... of Diogenes has never excited any general zeal of imitation, there are many who resemble him in his taste of wine; many who are frugal, though not abstemious; whose appetites, though too powerful for reason, are kept under restraint by avarice; and to whom all delicacies lose their flavour, when they cannot be obtained but at their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the age and the race in which his lot was cast. "From the earliest period of his life," says Mr. Johnston, the late Indian agent at Piqua, "Tecumseh was distinguished for virtue, for a strict adherence to truth, honor, and integrity. He was sober[A] and abstemious, never indulging in the use of liquor nor eating to excess." Another respectable individual,[B] who resided for near twenty years as a prisoner among the Shawanoes, and part of that time in the family of Tecumseh, writes to us, "I ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake |
