"Spurn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the wind he heard something else. Was it the tumbling of breakers? He listened, then concluded that it was his imagination. But they came nearer, louder; he sat up on his plank, his nerves tense. The board lurched sidewise, spurn around, and the swell it was riding broke over him with a force that knocked him from his position. Over and over he rolled, until, almost unconscious, he felt his body dragging along the sand. The undertow was pulling at him. He fought furiously, digging his hands into ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... too commence its foe! Of old, those met rewards who could excel, And such were praised who but endeavored well: Though triumphs were to generals only due, Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown, Employ their pains to spurn some others down; And, while self-love each jealous writer rules, Contending wits become the sport of fools: But still the worst with most regret commend, For each ill author is as bad a friend To what ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... cry, Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! Before that day, by some brave hero's hand May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wild lust for revenge and he answered his enemy with irritating coldness: "Yes, I took what you gave. You brought her yourself into my presence, you laid her yourself in my arms. Now you may take her back again. I spurn your daughter for I have not desired her for the honor and keeping of my house, but only for the entertainment of a night. Take her ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... my pretties, till it is your turn to be sent for up thither, when the shining knife is sharpened and the red fire kindled. You will not despise La Meffraye when that day comes. You will grovel and weep, and then will La Meffraye spurn you with her foot, till the noise of your crying be borne out over the forest, and for very gladness the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Commandant, to get out of your power, nothing more," said Vanderdecken. "She would spurn a contemptible withered wretch like yourself, were she as ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is jealousy, a rival there. Be wicked as thou wilt; do all that's base; Proclaim thyself the monster of thy race: Let vice and folly thy black soul divide; Be proud with meanness, and be mean with pride. 10 Deaf to the voice of Faith and Honour, fall From side to side, yet be of none at all: Spurn all those charities, those sacred ties, Which Nature, in her bounty, good as wise, To work our safety, and ensure her plan, Contrived to bind and rivet man to man: Lift against Virtue, Power's oppressive rod; Betray thy ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he would "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not to perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous. Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have, from similar weakness, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... John's eyes. With a quick movement of his hands he seemed to spurn the entire materialism of Sussex. After a pause, ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... thou, as one of them, and I, Paullus Caecilius, are slaves one and all; abject and base and spirit-fallen slaves, lacking the courage even to spurn against our fetters, to ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... dagger'd sound, "despair and die." And hapless Juliet's unextinguish'd flame, Gives to the tomb she mock'd, her beauteous frame; Yet diff'rent far, where Claudio sees return'd To life, and love, the maid too rashly spurn'd; Or Falstaff, in his sympathetic scroll, Forth to the Wives of Windsor pours his soul. Again, forsaking mirth's fantastic rites, The Muse to follow, through her nobler flights, Where Milton paints ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... silent for a minute, and she said, "We are in a strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... mission unfulfilled and Suzuki comes in dragging Goro with her, for that he had been spreading scandalous tales about the treatment which children born like this child receive in America. Butterfly is tempted to kill the wretch, but at the last is content to spurn him ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... much inclined to spurn with impatience the fetters that etiquette and fashion are wont to impose on society, till they rob its followers of all freedom and independence of will; and they soon are obliged to live for a world that in secret they despise and loathe, for a world, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Dora hoarsely. "In an hour, if you will come to my room, I will explain all, and you can then spurn me, and put me outside the pale of your friendship if you will, and as I well deserve. But, for the present, accept my assurance that no love passages ever occurred between me and Sir Adrian, and that I am fully ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... best stimulate the mind in a well-rounded, liberal education. In particular, a good Christian should peruse such literature as will inform him thoroughly concerning the enemies of Christianity. He should not spurn, but rather study infidelity, skepticism and every other hostile movement, so that he may be able the better to appreciate his own position. The Bible is not so much a book for reading, as a book of reference, and therefore a Christian's loyalty to Christ must not be measured by his reading ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... really think yourself wiser than Jesus of Nazareth? Do you seriously suppose yourselves competent to amend his plan for dealing with all the evils besetting states and souls? Have you the effrontery to believe that those who spurn his Golden Rule you can bind to obedience of an act entitled an act to amend an act? Bah! you fatigue the spirit. Go get ye to your scoundrel lockouts, your villain strikes, your blacklisting, your boycotting, your speech-ing, marching and maundering; but if ye do ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... magnanimity on the queen's part to spurn such insulting proposals, the offer of which showed her capable, in the opinion of Verreycken, the man who made them, of sinking into the very depths of dishonour. And she did spurn them. Surely, for the ally, the protrectress, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... would'st view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, and thrones, and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... at Thy feet I fall, where often I have knelt before; Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit, Because old faults have mastered me ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... prior," said Douglas. "I despise the childish boy too much to raise a finger against him. But I will return insult for insult. Here, any of you who love the Douglas, spurn me this quean from the monastery gates; and let her be so scourged that she may bitterly remember to the last day of her life how she gave means to an unrespective boy to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, though a weeping ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... no argument in favor of excluding women from the exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them to be sacred, is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... shrieked. "Yes, and you are a liar, a coward, a villain! You are engaged in a fiendish plot; you are deceiving an innocent lady. Ah, I spurn you, spit upon you." ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... some of you, and turn this strumpet forth! Spurn her into the street; there let her perish, And rot upon a dunghill. Through the city See it proclaim'd, that none, on pain of death, Presume to give her comfort, food, or harbour; Who ministers the smallest ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... reason. First, I am come in my own name, as your friend and comrade, to conjure you solemnly not to spurn this creature from you; for, by my soul, you will not find ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... the whole world through to learn If in it I perchance could love discern, That I might love embrace right lovingly. I sought for love as far as eye could see, My hands extending at each door in turn, Begging them not my prayer for love to spurn— Cold hate alone they laughing gave to me. And ever search'd I after love; yes, ever Search'd after love, but love discover'd never, And so I homeward went with troubled thought; But thou wert there to welcome me again, And, ah, what in thy dear eye floated then That was the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... advice given by the author, to suspect the man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every man, who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... devoted to the cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... cursed be that ancient Counsellor thou wottest of, and cursed be I who wakened That which slept, and warmed That which was a-cold in my breath and in my breast! And cursed be this sin to which he led me! Spurn me, Rei; strike me on the cheek, spit upon me, on Meriamun, the Royal harlot who sells herself to win a crown. Oh, I hate him, hate him, and I will pay him in shame for shame—him, the clown in king's attire. See here,'—and ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... marvellous years, The years of the strong travail, the triumphant time, Days terrible with love, Red-shod with flames thereof, Call to this hour that breaks in pieces crown and crime; The hour with feet to spurn, Hands to crush, fires to burn The state whereto no latter foot of man shall climb. Yea, come what grief, now may By ruinous night or day, One grief there cannot, one the first and last grief, shame. Come force to break thee and bow Down, shame can come not now, Nor, though hands wound thee, ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... unnecessary parade. The world finds him out, and this is why vanity is ever looked on with contempt. So soon as we let men see that we are suppliants for their admiration, we are at their mercy. We have given them the privilege of feeling that they are above us. We have invited them to spurn us. And therefore vanity is but a thing for scorn. But it is very different with pride. No man can look down on him that is proud, for he has asked no man for anything. They are forced to feel respect for pride, because it is thoroughly independent of them. It wraps itself up in ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... plantation. But then I thought how completely I should be in his power, and the prospect was appalling. Even if I should kneel before him, and implore him to spare me, for the sake of my children, I knew he would spurn me with his foot, and my ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... newspaper, and she persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is wholly owned and dominated by men spirits and I spurn ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... lovers' pain; A friend I got by lucky chance, 'Twas something like divine, An honest friend 's a precious gift, And such a gift was mine; And now whatever might betide A happy man was I, In any strait I knew to whom I freely might apply. A strait soon came: my friend I try'd; He heard, and spurn'd my moan; I hied me home, and tuned my pipe ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the soul-inspiring sounds, France shall be saved! her generous sons attach'd To principles, not persons, spurn the idol They worshipp'd once. Yes, Robespierre shall fall As Capet fell! Oh! never let us deem That France shall crouch beneath a tyrant's throne, That the almighty people who have broke On their oppressors' heads the oppressive chain, Will court again their fetters! easier were ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... widow and her orphan child spurn the shelter of your roof, and shun you with disgust and loathing. Your kindred renounce you, for they know no shame but the ties of blood which bind them in name ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... It is too late. Wouldst thou, then, break thy oath? Wouldst thou live here a prisoner, nor behold Thy father, though he die? Wouldst thou thy country Should spurn thee as the traitor whose malignance Blighted her hard-won gains? It is too late! ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... off his mask, and confronting his ruffian leader with an unquailing eye—'dare! Why, thou white-livered hound, I dare spit upon and spurn ye! And forsooth, ye call me a villain—you coward cut-throat, traitor, monster, murderer of weak women and helpless babes! I tell you, Dead Man, your Power is at an end in these Vaults. There are robbers, there may be murderers here—although thank God, I never shed human blood—but ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... religious people among their constituents, and it would not do for them to act singular, or else they would find so short an account at the next ballot-box that they would not be sent back. He would spurn such legislators and keep them for ever in private ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and the despair which make the passion of love, and I have to thank you, Wilhelmina—you alone, you, my wife, for this new birth. You turn away your head, Wilhelmina! You smile derisively! It is true I have not the right to call you my wife. You are free to spurn me from you, to banish me forever into that cold, desert region to which I fled in the madness and blindness of my despair. But think well, princess; if you do this, you cast a shadow over my life. It is my whole future which I lay at your feet, a future for which fate perhaps intends ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... spurn the creature Once its service done? That's no such uncommon feature In the case when Music's son Finds his Lotte's deg. power too spent deg.65 For ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... eyes with blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... it not, nor hate it. Precious or vile, how dare we seize that offering, Scatter it, spurn it, in its way to heaven, Because we know it not? the Sovereign Lord Accepts his tribute, myrrh and frankincense From some, from others penitence and prayer: Why intercept them from his gracious hand? Why dash them down? why smite ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped from them—their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now distent, now contracted—limbs too dainty for the sand which they touch but to spurn—limbs slender, yet with impact crushing as hammers—every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses, let the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... died for the ungodly" (Rom. v. 6). Is that not enough to convince you that He loves you? He would not have died for you if He had not loved you. Is your heart so hard that you can brace yourself up against His love, and spurn and despise it? You can do it; but it will ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... marvel that, in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient yoke of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sorrows hush, And spurn the sex,' he said: But while he spoke, a rising blush His love-lorn ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... They were too sweet to refuse, however come by. Nicky, the young and splendid, whom he loved so dearly in spite of—or could it be because of?—his elusiveness, did not so often warm his heart that he could spurn this. He crossed over to where Nicky sat on the edge of the table and allowed himself one of his rare caresses, slipping his arm about the boy's shoulders. "We'll ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... forcibly written and full of curiosity, Toland remonstrates with the minister for his marked neglect of him; opens the scheme of a political tour, where, like Guthrie, he would be content with his quarterage. He defines his character; for the independent Whig affects to spurn at the office, though he might not shrink at the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... forfend the tooth Of deep remorse, and stings Of joys that I did spurn: Oh, spare the gnawing ruth Of memories' torturings, Yea proudly did I turn From earth to snatch at wings To soar and ne'er ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... forswear, set aside, cast behind one; not yield an inch &c (obstinacy) 606. resist, cross; not grant &c 762; repel, repulse, shut the door in one's face, slam the door in one's face; rebuff; send back, send to the right about, send away with a flea in the ear; deny oneself, not be at home to; discard, spurn, &c (repudiate) 610; rescind &c (revoke) 756; disclaim, protest; dissent &c 489. Adj. refusing &c v.; restive, restiff^; recusant; uncomplying, unconsenting; not willing to hear of, deaf to. refused &c v.; ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible. Adv. no &c 536; on no ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that he would be, most probably, some elderly roue, as did so often fall to the lot of maidens in her station. But upon finding him so very handsome to behold, so very noble of bearing, so lofty and disdainful that as he walked he seemed to spurn the very earth, she fell enamoured of him out of very relief, as well as because he was the most superb specimen of the other sex that it had ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... cried, "you spurn me, then, because I am a mechanic. Well, be it so! though the time will come, Isabel Sawtelle," he added, and nothing could exceed his looks at this moment—"when you will bitterly remember the cooper you now so cruelly ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... succeeds in throwing off a woman who has attempted to marry him, always carries away a maudlin sympathy for her in her defeat and dismay. But no one ever heard of a woman who pitied the poor fellow whose honest passion she had found it expedient to spurn. On the contrary, women take delight in such clownish agonies, and exhibit them proudly, and boast ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... in flames uninjured, Remain unharmed amid ice eternal, Make blocks of stone thy daily food, Spurn the earth before thee with thy foot, Weigh the heavens in a balance, And then ask ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... sacrifice—thus nobody is injured—and thus the pleasure is legitimate; though bigoted churchmen and canting hypocrites may declaim on the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... shakes the house. As Rachael relaxes her hold, the slaves collapse again, but clutch at her skirts, mumbling and wailing. Rachael gazes at them a moment, makes a motion as if to spurn them with her foot, then shrugs her ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... dignity and will say to me: 'O my lord, for God's sake, do not refuse to take the cup from thy servant's hand, for indeed I am thy handmaid.' But I will not speak to her, and she will press me, saying: 'Needs must thou drink it,' and put it to my lips. Then I will shake my fist in her face and spurn her with my foot thus." So saying, he gave a kick with his foot and knocked over the tray of glass, which fell over to the ground, and all that ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... jurisprudence, lay in chains amongst nightly thieves and robbers. (He begged) that they would turn away their minds from resentment for a while to examination and reflection; and rather pardon one at the intercession of so many members of the Claudian family, than through a hatred of one spurn the entreaties of many; that he himself also paid this tribute to the family and the name; nor had he been reconciled to him, whose unfortunate situation he wished to relieve; that by fortitude liberty had been recovered; by clemency the harmony of the several ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... avowal of love. I was spurned without a moment's hesitation; all her modesty risen in arms, she reduced me to a mere nothing. What is it? Am I a fool without brains, or has she no heart? What am I fighting against? What are the obstacles in my way? Why does she spurn me? My head is in such a chaotic state that I can neither think, write, nor reason. I only repeat to myself, over and over again, "What is ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... originally set for his return, and still there was much to be done. He had not borne the separation from his wife without pain, and he looked forward to prolonging it with much more than reluctance; but he felt that to leave now would be to spurn the hand of Providence, the more so because, though Ellen had many times anxiously inquired for the date of his return, she had never failed, whenever she wrote, to assure him of her own content so long as he was successful and happy. He therefore sent her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... when you told me that the man deserved hatred and contempt. I do hate and scorn him with all the hate and strength of my nature. I am glad he is dead. Were he living, and should he ever seek me, I would spurn him as I would spurn a viper. But oh, Uncle Walter, you must let me lean upon you more than ever before, for my heart is very, very sore over the wrong that has been done my poor mother and me. How good you have been to me—and I love you—I will always ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was she, my uncle's daughter; no unwelcome truth was plainer; For a small peculiar birth-mark was apparent on her arm. Had I lost her? Was it possible ever more now to regain her? Would he spurn me, and restrain her with his ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... countryman wandering amid a crowd of courtiers—virtue in danger amid a myriad of vices. They speak our language; we do not know theirs. No! Louis can not love the chains that fetter him. He may feign to caress them. He thinks only of how he can spurn them. Fallen greatness loves not its decadence. No man likes his humiliation. Trust in human nature; that never deceives. Distrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to see the snares which ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... glanced over, Every inmost thought could show! Then thou wouldst at last discover 'Twas not well to spurn it so. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... earth! Shall we then do nothing? What is to become of you, Fiesco? Where am I to seek that determined enemy of tyrants? There was a time when but to see a crown would have been torture to you. Oh, fallen son of the republic! By heaven, if time could so debase my soul I would spurn immortality. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... disgarmented of glory: as one On a mount standing, and against him stands, On the mount adverse, crowned with westering rays, The golden sun, and they two brotherly Gaze each on each; He faring down To the dull vale, his Godhead peels from him Till he can scarcely spurn the pebble— For nothingness of new-found mortality— That mutinies against his gall-ed foot. Littly he sets him to the daily way, With all around the valleys growing grave, And known things changed and strange; but he holds on, Though all ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY—on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! BURNS'S character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants which the cold unfeeling ore can supply; at ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... lord it over mortals and immortals far and wide over the earth, the grain-giver. Therefore, I deeply dread in heart and soul lest, when first he looks upon the sunlight, he disdain my island, for rocky of soil am I, and spurn me with his feet and drive me down in the gulfs of the salt sea. Then should a great sea-wave wash mightily above my head for ever, but he will fare to another land, which so pleases him, to fashion him a temple and groves of trees. But in me would many-footed sea-beasts ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... neck to find In a steep glen, with coats white-dappled still, From a sheep's udders suckled twice a day- These still I keep for you; which Thestilis Implores me oft to let her lead away; And she shall have them, since my gifts you spurn. Come hither, beauteous boy; for you the Nymphs Bring baskets, see, with lilies brimmed; for you, Plucking pale violets and poppy-heads, Now the fair Naiad, of narcissus flower And fragrant fennel, doth one posy twine- With cassia then, and other scented ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... answered; "where thou hast been housed and homed for a thousand and eight hundred years; and now I will leave thee therein till Judgment day: did I not say to thee:—Spare me and Allah shall spare thee; and slay me not lest Allah slay thee? yet thou spurn east my supplication and hadst no intention save to deal un graciously by me, and Allah hath now thrown thee into my hands and I am cunninger than thou." Quoth the Ifrit, "Open for me and I may bring thee weal." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... honour and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris—in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the days are coming when thou shalt burn With passion whitely hot; Rest shall be rest no more; thy feet shall spurn All that thy hand hath got; And One that is stronger shall gird thee, and lead thee swiftly Whither, O heart ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... miserable race: Who first needs buy a husband at great price, To take him then for owner of our lives: For this ill is more keen than common ills. And of essays most perilous is this, Whether one good or evil do we take. For evil-famed to women is divorce, Nor can one spurn a husband. She, so brought Beneath new rule and wont, had surely need To be a prophetess, unless at home She learned the likeliest prospect with her spouse. And if, we having aptly searched out this, A husband house with us not savagely ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... though thy bosom be formed for love, yet wouldest thou spurn it from thee. I know thou lovest him. Nay, chide not; thy brow cannot blast me with its thunders. Go to. I could, by mine art, so humble thee, set thy love so exquisitely on its desire, that thou shouldest lay thy proud womanhood aside—sue and crouch, even if 'twere for blows, like a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... highland to the east, which rises in terrace after terrace to a height, in some places, of six thousand feet. Both are sparsely inhabited, and by tribes of a different race from the Egyptian—tribes whose allegiance to the rulers of Egypt is in the best times nominal, and who for the most part spurn the very idea of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... in its speed? heed it not. One and all[6] Spurn the earth that they spring from, and own not a fall. O the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece, Wherefore envy the lovelocks they perfume ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... me, O Zeus most great, And thou, Eternal Fate: What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel That way I'll follow without fret or cavil. {237} Or if I evil be And spurn thy high decree, Even so I still shall follow, soon ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... full of bitterness, than those in which one of the noblest among Puritan leaders of thought, recorded his conviction. Milton, writing of all bishops: "They shall be thrown down eternally, into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell the trample and spurn of all the other damned ... and shall exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over them ... they shall remain in that plight forever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected and down-trodden ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... excursions lost his ground: No sooner got, than with disdain He threw them on the ground again; And hasted forward to pursue Fresh objects, fairer to his view, In hope to spring some nobler game; But all he took was just the same: Too scornful now to stop his pace, He spurn'd them in his rival's face. Possession kept the beaten road, And gather'd all his brother strew'd; But overcharged, and out of wind, Though strong in limbs, he lagg'd behind. Desire had now the goal in sight; It was a tower of monstrous height; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... spheres of light He flashes and he flames; He turns not to the left nor right, He asks them not their names; One spurn from his demoniac heel,— Away, away they fly, Where darkness might be bottled up And ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Mango Peak whose forest fires were laid By streams of thine, will soothe thy weariness; In memory of a former service paid, Even meaner souls spurn not in time of stress A suppliant friend; a soul so lofty, much ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... If I thought thus of Samiasa's love, All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me. But ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and no man's business else. Well, he is of a temper to come through fire unmelted." She flashed a smile upon the seven that made them tremble. "But he is a mannerless churl, we will not think of him. Which among YOU would spurn my kiss?" She offered her mouth in turn, and seven flames passed over its scarlet. Maudlin laughed a little and beckoned her watching maids. "Well!" she said, taking the path to the castle, "He that had had strength to refuse ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... the friendless, penniless foreign emigrant, if he will give up his present misery, his future uncertainty, his doubtful and difficult struggle for life, at once, for the secure, and as it is called, fortunate dependance of the slave: the indignation with which he would spurn the offer will prove that he possesses one good beyond all others, and that his birthright as a man is more precious to him yet than the mess of pottage for which he is told to exchange it because he ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... management and guardianship of Mistress Christian—a state of subjection, the sense of which Deborah endeavoured to lessen, by assuming as much freedom of conduct as she possibly dared, under the influence, doubtless, of the same feelings of independence, which induced her, at Martindale Hall, to spurn the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... up of genuine portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... anguish as yet untried! For what new tortures am I still reserved? All I have undergone, transports of passion, Longings and fears, the horrors of remorse, The shame of being spurn'd with contumely, Were feeble foretastes of my present torments. They love each other! By what secret charm Have they deceived me? Where, and when, and how Met they? You knew it all. Why was I cozen'd? You never told me of those stolen hours Of amorous converse. ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... stones, They wagg'd their tails in scorn of her flesh, And turn'd up their bills at her bones. The convent mastiff trotting along, Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven, Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell, And howl'd out his fears to heaven. Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy, That he spurn'd the royal feast, And keen'd all night to the grievous owl, And the howling mastiff beast. Loud on that night was the thunder crash, Sad was the voice of the wind, Swift was the glare of the lightning flash, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... never realized how ugly and petty were the streets of Panama till that evening when she walked down for the mail, spurning the very dust on the sidewalks—and there was plenty to spurn. An old mansion of towers and scalloped shingles, broken-shuttered now and unpainted, with a row of brick stores marching up on its once leisurely lawn. The town-hall, a square wooden barn with a sagging upper porch, from which the mayor would presumably have made proclamations, had there ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country. No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation, and no prince ever gave a nobler example of gratitude. As the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... woman stood a moment longer and then turned to go into the house. What she had not seen was that the girl was not only young, but lithe and shapely as a sculptor's model; that her bare feet seemed to spurn the earth as they struck it; that though brown, she was not so brown but that her cheek was darkly red with the blood of another race than that which gave her her name and station in life; and the old woman did not see that Cicely's face was ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their circumstances may advise. They will not be so base ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... roused from my trance at last by the recollection that I was in the house of the earl, and starting up, as if to spurn contamination from me, I hurried out, to ease my heart by relating the whole story in Suffolk street, and to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... modern inconveniences; These, saner, frown upon unmeaning rites And go to church for rational delights. So all are suited, shallow and profound, The prophets prosper and the world goes round. For me—unread in the occult, I'm fain To damn all mysteries alike as vain, Spurn the obscure and base my faith upon The Revelations of ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... child! My light, my joy, my burden and my grief! How would I lead you to the wells of peace, And see you dip your fevered palms and drink! Gladly to purchase this would I lay down The precious remnant of my life, and sleep, Wrapped in the faith you spurn, till the archangel Sounds the last trump. But God's good will be done! ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... the slavish and bestial doctrine," said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,—"I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... was to spurn the last chance of a bottle for many a weary mile, and the prudent traveller would always rest an hour by its ample fireside, or gossip with its fantastic hostess. Now, the hostess of the little inn was Ellen Roach, friend and accomplice of Sixteen-String Jack, once the most famous woman ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... as they would blood thirsty savages upon the plains. They spurn us with their feet as dogs, and then they spit upon us. They mock at our customs, they regard with contempt that which to us is sacred and above price. They are not even deterred by the virtue of our women. Now witness, you ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... oaths of such heartless slanderers as those that stab in the dark! Don't get angry, Charles, he's my father. Nobly done! How respectfully he acts when so abused and insulted! All will yet be right. Ah! I'll tell him how I spurn the accusation! How my soul burns with indignation that his fair name should be assailed! I am so glad he is coming; I know he feels deeply ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... aren't any I remember in the country, some here, who affect to despise what they cannot understand; such enterprising critics and fastidiously hypercritics, men of truly philosophical penetration—of a truly classical taste spurn aside the coarse beverage to be found in Gr. mss. scholiasts ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... was then under the jurisdiction of the War Department) "and the whole Congress, never should compel me to act so dishonorably as to violate the treaty [of Camp Moultrie] made with your people. If such a thing were required of me I would spurn the President's commission and retire to the bosom of my family." General Thompson reported to the authorities at Washington what had taken place, as just related, and stated that, in view of the circumstances, no doubt remained that ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... yellow robe Ask of the Rishi if there be a cure For that which ails thy son.' Whereon I came Trembling to thee, whose brow is like a god's, And wept and drew the face cloth from my babe, Praying thee tell what simples might be good. And thou, great sir, did'st spurn me not, but gaze With gentle eyes and touch with patient hand; Then draw the face cloth back, saying to me, 'Yea, little sister, there is that might heal Thee first, and him, if thou couldst fetch the thing; For they who seek physicians bring to ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... absolute madness," said Cardinal Bourne, at an Educational meeting in Edinburgh, "on the part of any civil authority at the present day to spurn and reject the educational assistance and educational power the Catholic Church was willing and ready to ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... 'Tis small enough Return for help bestowed Say "Thank you!" You would spurn to slight The smallest debt you owed; But is not this a debt?—Ah, more! And honor, if true blue Your loyal heart of rectitude, Impels to ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... new passage in prediction of the Restoration and its revenges is the following: in which the reader will observe also the recognition, as in one spurn of boundless scorn, of the Royalist scurrilities ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... immoral,) and I stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so, without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... every kind and every quality, of property and of dignity:—as long as these endure, so long the duke of Bedford is safe: and we are all safe together—the high from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity; the low from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen! and so be it: and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Yet there was something about that poise quite unearthly and uncanny; the man stood so airily on his high rocky perch that he reminded Le Neve at once of nothing so much as of Giovanni da Bologna's Mercury in the Bargello at Florence; he seemed to spurn the earth as if about to spring from it with a bound; his feet were as if freed from the ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... "I spurn it as I would your dead body if it lay before me, Carl Walraven! Sit down with you? Never, if my life depended on it! The child became an actress because I could keep her no longer—I couldn't keep myself—and because she had the voice and face of an angel—poor little wretch! The manager ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... of days, how large the mind of man; A godlike force enclosed within a span! To climb the skies we spurn our nature's clog, And toil as ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... hope which you converted into grief and desolation, you have stood, like an adverse fate, between me and peace. In all, you have ever been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your teeth, and spurn you from me as I ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... array of domestics, not all your barred doors, can save you from a violent death, or the guilt of murder, if you do not stop this unrighteous prosecution—for your own sake I entreat you stop, ere it be too late. Spurn this grey head if you will into the dust, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... you? [Strikes him again. Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes Like balls before me—I'll unhair thine head— Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine Smarting in ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... paragon? Que diable! one does not spurn five thousand francs like that! I hum or whistle when I am thinking, and just now I am wondering how this business can be arranged. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... "We spurn all self-denial," he said, "we trample it under foot. Being believers, we do whatever we will and nothing more. We ridicule all mortification. No purification precedes ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... poured my all, Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall, Its wages and its bitter bread." Thus whispered ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustic tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, 80 Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... or not, or right or wrong, Thy altar and its rights I spurn; Not sainted martyrs' sacred song, Not God Himself shall make ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... brain devise? (after a pause.) In vain the truth I'd hide from mine own eyes; My heart is his—irrevocably his. To be his wife—oh rapture, heavenly bliss! Yet I must spurn his love. I will not bear All China's cold contempt; man's scoffing sneer. What glory would be mine could I but tame This bragging conqueror. Pronounce his name In high divan, and chase him from our city, Abashed and in despair. But yet, with ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... in a commanding voice. "I have spoken, it is for you to obey; for my word has been given, and I cannot retract. If, as your mother, I feel my heart grow weak with sympathy for your weakness, as your empress, I spurn its cowardly promptings; for my imperial word shall be held sacred, if it cost me my life. Rise, both of you. It ill becomes the Queens of France and Naples to bow their knees like beggars. Obedience is more praiseworthy ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... dearest; Yet, when I call to mind, how many fair ones Make wilful shipwreck of their faiths and oaths. To fill the arms of greatness; And you, with matchless virtue, thus to hold out, Against the stern authority of a father, And spurn at honour, when it comes to court you; I am so tender of your good, that I can hardly Wish myself that right you are pleas'd ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... say! shall the land of Achilles Reluctantly cherish a dastardly slave, Who can crouch at the foot of a despot, whose will is As fickle as wind, and as rude as the wave? Shall the ashes of heroes enshrouded in glory, Be spurn'd in contempt by a barbarous horde, While their sons idly tremble like boys at a story, And shudder to gaze on the point ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... cried Delvile, "rather let us now spurn it for ever! those conflicts must indeed be ended, but not by a separation still more ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... thine. But O condemn me not, without appeal, On bare suspicion. 'Tis not right to adjudge Bad men at random good, or good men bad. I would as lief a man should cast away The thing he counts most precious, his own life, As spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time The truth, for time alone reveals the just; A villain ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the flame of life—the modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the shadowed window—all are poetical materials, and of a higher character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... spurn the thrice blest English speech: Welsh books—there are none, save what quacks Sell the poor ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... suppliant meet, Or from the door untended spurn A dog; an outcast kindly treat; And so thou shalt be ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... by snares and scraps of false evidence—false oaths, too, no doubt—to smuggle me off to the hangman. That was your precious contrivance. Once again I am here; but this once only. What for?—why, to laugh at, and spit at, and spurn you. And if one man amongst you has in him an ounce of man's blood, let him show me the traitors who planned that pitiful project, and be they a dozen, they shall carry the mark of this hand till their carcasses go to the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... return, When love our melting hearts did burn, As we through heavenly themes were borne With heavenward eyes, And Faith this empty globe would spurn, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... never sought with smiles or tears To lure or melt it meward. I have borne - I that have borne to thee this boy—thy scorn, Thy gentleness, thy tender words that bite More deep than shame would, shouldst thou spurn or smite These limbs and lips made thine by contract—made No wife's, no queen's—a servant's—nay, thy shade. The shadow am I, my lord and king, of thee, Who art spirit and substance, body and soul to me. And now,—nay, speak not—now my sire is dead Thou think'st to cast me crownless from thy ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... there's a deathless name! A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, And, like a steadfast planet, mount and burn— And though its crown of flame Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone— By all the fiery stars! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick |
