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Abandon   Listen
noun
Abandon  n.  Abandonment; relinquishment. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abandon" Quotes from Famous Books



... Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, 'to desert me in that way! Oh, Mr Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... them with a long, strong, loyal pressure, with that pressure which seems to open hearts and to lay them bare in a burst of sincere, strong, manly affection. Philosophers of old, instead of marrying, and procreating as a consolation for their old age children, who would abandon them, sought for a good, reliable friend, and grew old with him in that communion of thought which can ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... throw the other from him. Around and around the room they staggered and lurched—and around and around them followed the wizened, twisted form of old Jake, like a hovering hawk, darting in at every opportunity for a blow, shrieking, yelling, cursing with infuriated abandon. And then from below, a greater peril still, came the opening and shutting of doors, voices calling—the tenement, at the racket, like a hive of hornets disturbed, was beginning to stir into life. If they caught him there! If they caught the Gray Seal there! It brought a desperate strength ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... service to advance him along his road, but it was a disconcerting experience to find that they could not be relied on to go all distances at all times. In an animal world, and a fiercely competitive animal world at that, something more was needed than the decorative ABANDON of the field lily, and it was just that something more which Comus seemed unable or unwilling to provide on his own account; it was just the lack of that something more which left him sulking with Fate over the numerous breakdowns and stumbling-blocks that held him ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... have to solve, Jesus has solved for you—to be "in the world, and yet not of it." To abandon it, would be a dereliction of duty. It would be servants deserting their work; soldiers flying from the battle-field. Live in it, that while you live, the world, may feel the better for you. Die, that when you die, the world, the Church, may ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... to prevent it. God knows we have striven to keep the peace through months and years of racking anxiety. If war comes it is not we who have sought it. Nobody can lay that reproach upon us. Rather have we striven by all honourable means to avoid it. But we have ideals that we cannot abandon, though they may clash with German ambitions and German methods. There we are fixed, and to give way even by an inch would be to dishonour our country and to show ourselves unworthy of the freedom our forefathers won for us at the point of the sword. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... and economical science is not true; if individuals, with such help as they can derive from the opinion of those who know them, are not better judges than the law and the government, of their own capacities and vocation; the world cannot too soon abandon this principle, and return to the old system of regulations and disabilities. But if the principle is true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... pony tumbled over on the scorched sod dead. As one of the Indians ran to cut him loose, the other trapper took him off his feet by a well-directed shot; he never uttered a groan. The besieged now saw their only salvation was to kill the ponies and so demoralize the Indians that they would have to abandon such tactics, and quicker than I can tell it, they had stretched four more out on the prairie, and made it so hot for the savages that they ran out of range and began to hold a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... leading her little son by the hand, she set forth in quest of him, carrying with her a violin, which, together with the clothes she wore, had been found in the trunk of Monsieur Grambeau, brought on the vessel in which she came, but which depository she had been obliged to abandon, when setting forth ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... still, it brings forth evil. I do not cheat my better soul with sophisms: 215 I but perform my orders; the Emperor Prescribes my conduct to me. Dearest boy, Far better were it, doubtless, if we all Obeyed the heart at all times; but so doing, In this our present sojourn with bad men, 220 We must abandon many an honest object. 'Tis now our call to serve the Emperor, By what means he can best be served—the heart May whisper what ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... prohibit another from brewing, and a third from administering the law, and a fourth from defending the country. If common justice did not prohibit me from such a conduct, common sense would. The advantage to be gained by quitting the heresy would make it shameful to abandon it; and men who had once left the Church would continue in such a state of alienation from a point of honour, and transmit that spirit to their latest posterity. This is just the effect your disqualifying laws have produced. They have fed Dr. Rees, and Dr. Kippis; crowded the congregations ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... guerilla make up his mind to abandon the inglorious position, and to go where duty called him. Strongly recommending his captive to his brother and sister-in-law, he set out for Ciudad Rodrigo, escorted by a sergeant and ten men of his partida. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... soil, is the origin of all life, and therefore of man. With him there is no progress; all creatures have reached their resting place. But man rises or sinks, according to the more ancient or recent soil he dwells upon. Professor Huxley is unwilling to abandon his idea that life may come from dead matter, and is not disposed to accept of Mr. Darwin's explanation of the origin of life by the Creator having, at first, breathed it into one or more forms. While accepting of Mr. Darwin's theory of a common descent ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... orders to the guard either to fight or to retire; but the guard were ignorant that their master desired them to offer no resistance, and one hundred and sixty of the mob were shot down before an order reached the troops to abandon the Palace. The cruelties which followed the victory of the people indicated the fate in store for those whom the invader came to protect. It is doubtful whether the foreign Courts would have made any serious attempt to undo the social changes effected by the Revolution in France; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... corner a band of mandolins and guitars played the long, sweeping, mad melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go tingling to the hearts of many of the diners. Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, with abandon, with deviltry. They swung their heads from side to side in rhythmic movement. High in air curled the smoke from the innumerable cigarettes. The long, black claret bottles were in clusters upon the tables. At an end of the hall ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... to her father's tender mercies, or abandon her to that other lover? and she wept so passionately as she said this that a stronger man than Maurice must have felt ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... induce you, if I could, either to abandon your expedition wholly as soon as you honorably might do so, or to go on with it only to such point as will prove it unfeasible and impracticable. Not wishing you to prove traitorous to a trust, these gentlemen wish you to know that ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... the merchant to restore his property. "I love peace and quietness," said he to him, "and shall be sorry to come to those extremities which will bring the greatest disgrace upon you; consider, that merchants, as we are, ought to abandon all interest to preserve a good reputation. Once again I tell you, I shall be greatly concerned if your obstinacy oblige me to force you to do me justice; for I would rather almost lose what is my right ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... blessing of his life, to be saved partly through his affection from worldly trials and temptations, and bestowing on him a brilliant lot in which boundless good could be effected? Or was she a syren luring him to abandon his ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... over the flavor of "a kind of root, baked, which the Spaniards called mas kurl" (mescal). Many of the cattle had Spanish brands on their hips, it being explained, "Indians had been so troublesome in times past that the Spaniards had to abandon the towns and vineyards, and cross the Cordillera Mountains, leaving their large flocks of cattle in the valley, thus making plenty of ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... allies. A spirit of fierce resistance was excited throughout the invaded provinces. Louvain set the first example. The citizens and students took arms for its defence; and the combined forces of France and Holland were repulsed, and forced by want of supplies to abandon the siege, and rapidly retreat. The prince-cardinal, as Ferdinand was called, took advantage of this reverse to press the retiring French; recovered several towns; and gained all the advantages as well as glory of the campaign. The remains of the French army, reduced ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... length, by the entreaty of the other soldiers, the Fimbrians, being prevailed upon, consented to tarry that summer under him, but if during that time no enemy came to fight them, to be free. Lucullus of necessity was forced to comply with this, or else to abandon the country to the barbarians. He kept them, indeed, with him, but without urging his authority upon them; nor did he lead them out to battle, being contented if they would but stay with him, though he then saw Cappadocia wasted by Tigranes, and Mithridates again ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... departure of Marshal Ney to meet Bonaparte and stop his progress, with the memorable words uttered publicly to the king, that he would bring him to Paris in an iron cage. The king at this time positively announced and protested that he would never abandon his throne nor quit his ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... or two were out in a hunting party with an ox- team. They had collected a wagon-load of game and were on their way home when the storm struck them. After they had gone four miles they were compelled to abandon their wagon; the snow fell in heavy masses "as if thrown from a scoop-shovel"; arriving within two miles of their habitation, they were forced to trust to the instinct of their animals, and reached home hanging ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... enough nor complicated enough to require interpretation," Garlock stated, finally. "It either applies in full and exactly or not at all. My ruling is that the Code applies, strictly, until I declare the state of Ultimate Contingency. Are you ready, Belle, to abandon the project, find an uninhabited Tellurian world, and begin ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... the finest brace of shad in the entire haul of Enoch Smith, now yet quivering, without the loss of one radiant scale, upon the snow-white dresser of this man's imagination! Ought I to call it, an imagination? Ought I to go on with the story, or abandon it as an impracticable thing? ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... specialists, and quacks. "Wherefore none ought to be called a true philosopher who for any delight loves any part of knowledge, as there are many who delight in composing Canzoni, and delight to be studious in them, and who delight to be studious in rhetoric and in music, and flee and abandon the other sciences which are all members of wisdom."[104] "Many love better to be held masters than to be so." With him wisdom is the generalization from many several knowledges of small account by themselves; it results therefore from breadth ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... and just then there was a shout that a bird's nest had been found—-a ring-ousel's nest on the banks. Fly and her brother shared a collection of birds' eggs, and were so excited about robbing the ousels of a single egg, that Gillian hoped that Fergus would not catch the infection and abandon minerals for eggs, which would be ever so much worse—-only a degree better than butterflies, towards which Wilfred ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her shoulders and apparently dismissed the matter. She sat down and, with charming abandon, began to eat. Presently Truedale, amused and interested, ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... he finds in the tones of his native tom-tom may be taken as typical of all his pleasures. I find however, that Peelajee understands the principles of toleration, and, recognising that he caters for my pleasure rather than his own, is quite willing to abandon his favourite yellow marigold and luscious jasmine for the pooteena and the beebeena and the fullax. But perhaps you do not know these flowers by their Indian names. We call them petunia, verbena, and phlox. This is, doubtless, another ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... Leon the hope he had entertained. But, on hearing him, the housekeeper recoiled with a gesture of outraged propriety, and reproachfully exclaimed: "What are you thinking of, monsieur? What! could you suppose that Mademoiselle Marguerite would abandon her place by her dead father's bedside to come to a rendezvous? Ah! you should think better of her ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... granted that Darsie's interest in Ralph's future was equal to, if not greater than, their own; they made no secret of their belief that her influence had the more weight. If Darsie had known a passing temptation to abandon her efforts, it would have been impossible to do so in the face of such ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... that Abe would change his mind and abandon the projected trip to the Beach remained unfulfilled, in spite of the fact that cold weather suddenly descended on the South Side, and the bay became first "scummed" over with ice, and then frozen so solid that all ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... himself. Their flight caused the greatest indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by shame, swore on the Gospel never again to abandon the cause ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... recommendation. For whatever else you receive as your wife's dowry you can, when it pleases you and if you desire to feel yourself under no further obligation, repay in full just as you received it; you can count back the money, restore the slaves, leave the house, abandon the estates. Virginity only, once it has been given, can never be repaid; it is the one portion of the dowry that remains irrevocably with the husband. A widow on the other hand, if divorced, leaves you as she came. She brings you nothing that ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... endeavors, between the Orientals and St. Cyril: in which he much commended the humility and pacific dispositions of the latter. He says "that he was charged with the care and solicitude of all the churches in the world,[1] and that it is unlawful for any one to abandon the faith of the apostolic Roman church, in which St. Peter teaches in his successors what he received from Christ."[2] When Bassus, a nobleman of Rome, had been condemned by the emperor, and excommunicated by a synod of bishops for raising a grievous slander ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... I thought that all was ready, the boat's mast and sail caught my eye as it lay upon the hatchway,—having been flung there by Luis when he cleared out the boat,—and this I determined they should also have, as, while quite resolved to abandon them, I was most anxious that they should be afforded every opportunity to reach the shore alive and well. Then, everything being ready, I once more ran aft to see whereabout the boat ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... her and torture me, Never pray more; abandon all remorse; On horror's head horrors accumulate; Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd; For nothing canst thou to damnation add ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare

... in the public square. The complaints of the merchants and artisans were vain; the Papal Governors and nipoti held their tongues, or took themselves off on the first opportunity. At last the Oddi were forced to abandon Perugia, and the city became a beleaguered fortress under the absolute despotism of the Baglioni, who used even the cathedral as barracks. Plots and surprises were met with cruel vengeance; in the year 1491 after 130 conspirators, who ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... field of battle on the bare ground, asked for water. And some, weltering in pools of blood and excessively weakened, O Bharata, greatly censured themselves and thy sons assembled together for battle. And there were brave Kshatriyas, who having injured one another, did not abandon their weapons or set up any wails, O sire. On the other hand, lying in those places where they lay, roared with joyful hearts, and biting from wrath with their teeth their own lips, looked at one another with faces rendered fierce in consequence of the contraction of their eyebrows. And others endued ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... out between the English, who have colonised most of North America, and the French, who have occupied most of Canada. All of a sudden Phil's father, an officer with the English forces, appears, and requests that Dr Martin should abandon his house, and all his books and papers, and take the boy Phil to him in the English lines. I should say this is a pretty ridiculous idea, but the poor old Doctor did just as he was told, thereby ...
— A Young Hero • G Manville Fenn

... from fatigue or sickness they seldom rise again; but, as a whole party, particularly when every day's provision of water is measured, cannot be stopped for one, they are left alone to die; their eyes following the masters who are obliged to abandon them, and whom they have served so faithfully; the vultures, already hovering over them, ready to pick their bones as soon as they have sent forth their last breath. Their spine, when again found, is often raised upon ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... paper, which I would like much to have, but am not anxious to purchase. Said paper is my account, receipted. Occasionally he is absent, and the welcome news coming to my ear, I mount my fiery hoss and gallop wildly up to the store, enter with something of the sang froid, grace, abandon and recherche nonchalance with which Charles Yates ushers ladies and gentlemen to their seats in the opera-house, and, nervously fingering my butcher knife, fiercely demand goods and chattels of the clerk. This plan always succeeds. This is by way of explanation of this vast and unnecessary ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... though this entailed some neglect of minor operations that required his care. He received, as she had learned with interest, few English letters, so there was nobody to whom he wrote regularly; and yet his disappointment when forced to abandon his visit had obviously been keen. There was, Flora ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... was but to draw the blade across her throat—the work of a second. An instant's pause, however, corrected me. 'No,' thought I, 'the God who has conducted me thus far through the valley of the shadow of death, will not abandon me now. I will fall into their hands, or I will escape hence, but it shall be free from the stain of blood. His will ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... neighborhood, who knew no better than to block the way of the quality. They were little Jew girls,—little Goldnagels, in short,—and while one of them sat and played at jackstones with a flat-looking rubber ball, the other and smaller lay prone upon her stomach, weeping with passionate abandon. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... "did not know" (as he now seems feebly to interpolate); she can well believe that, for if he had known, he would have saved two souls—nay, four. What of his Stephanie, who danced vilely last night, they say—will he not soon, like the public, abandon her now that "her vogue has had its day"? . . . And what of the speaker herself? It takes but half a dozen words ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... came the struggle for partners and the strife to be "first on the floor." Usually the violin furnished the only music and the figures most in favor were the reel and the jig, in which all participated with a zest and abandon unknown to the modern ballroom. "They danced all night till broad daylight and went home with the girls in the morning," some on foot and some on horseback, practically the only means of ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... Graham? Now is our time to act. We must do our own thinking. Burr is not here to direct, and if he were, I would not trouble him with details. Why play a secondary part? You are as wise a man as he is, and you are my husband. You have spent money—spend more! To abandon the enterprise is to throw away your chances, all your past ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... help it, Philip? O the pain! Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against This unseen weapon. God of Israel, Since all the other gods abandon me, Help me. I will release the Holy City. Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple. Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy To be so much as buried, shall be equal Unto the citizens of Antioch. I will become a Jew, and will declare Through all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... a bewildered child, in the beginning too bemused to be able to keep out of the way of the combatants. If she crouched against a wall, battling bodies brushed her away from it. Did she take refuge in a corner she must abandon it else be crushed. Once she stumbled between the two, and before Lanyard could thrust her aside Dupont had fallen back half a dozen feet and worried a pistol ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... name of the Filipinos, you should immediately send a telegraphic message to MacKinley, requesting him not to abandon the islands, after having fought as brothers for a common cause. Pledge him our unconditional adhesion, especially of well-to-do people. To return to Spain, in whatever form, would mean annihilation, perpetual ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... after another, as the years passed by, bore witness to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence, the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St. Cuthbert's ritual—and ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... anxiety greatly increased; for I by this time knew the Irishman well enough to be fully aware that no mule could be more obstinate than he, and that, having once made up his mind that his island existed, he would never abandon his search until he had found it—or something that might pass for it. And I was determined that should our search prove unsuccessful, I would at once bear up for the Marquesas, and let him take his choice from among the whole group. Indeed, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done, to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... meat, and at every repast I read five or six pages." Yet, he attached the most importance to "Locke's Essay," for he acknowledged that it turned his attention to metaphysics, and, he said, "It awakened me from my stupor, and induced me to form a resolution to abandon the grovelling views which I ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... Bridge, and who pretended to be deaf and dumb. It is said that, though clothed in rags, he was a Swiss gentleman of means who, stung by remorse, had vowed not to open his lips for ten years, to go bareheaded and barefooted, and to abandon for twenty years all the advantages of his fortune. His vow was rigidly kept, and at the period of his death he was in the fourteenth ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... such remarkable audacity, conquered by the Spaniards in the north, was recovered almost simultaneously with the conclusion of the Ghent treaty. It was a natural consequence of the great mutiny. The troops having entirely deserted Mondragon, it became necessary for that officer to abandon Zierickzee, the city which had been won with so much valor. In the beginning of November, the capital, and with it the whole island of Schouwen, together with the rest of Zealand, excepting Tholen, was recovered by Count Hohenlo, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... water at the work of rescue. The loss of these rather antiquated vessels was less serious than that of over 1400 trained officers and men. A shock to British traditions came with the new order that ships must abandon injured consorts and make all ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... an insurmountable reluctance to remaining in the hotel. He decided on leaving Venice. To ask for another room would be, as he could plainly see, an offence in the eyes of the manager. To remove to another hotel, would be to openly abandon an establishment in the success of which he had a pecuniary interest. Leaving a note for Arthur Barville, on his arrival in Venice, in which he merely mentioned that he had gone to look at the Italian lakes, and that a line addressed to his ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... the Heav'ns with sable Veil Are cover'd close, and all Mankind repose, Prince, let us go, where Honour us invites; Let us abandon this enchanted Place, Which too averse already hath prov'd Both to my Glory, ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... spring we realized it was only a question of time when we must "fort" ourselves, or abandon the back-country, thereby losing crops and cabins. When young James Boone and Henry Russell were killed by Indians in Powell's Valley in the fall of 1773, all hope of a friendly penetration of the western country died. Ever since ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... heavens in such sort as to indicate what would happen. If the wise men of old times rejected the belief that 'the stars in their courses fought' for or against men, they yet could not very readily abandon the belief that the stars were for signs in the heavens of what was ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... an ardent look of admiration as he continued to stare at her. She was flushed with sleep, and grimy with sweat and smoke and dirt. The grey shirt-sleeves, rolled up above the elbows, showed her scratched forearms, and on one hand, hanging across her knee in the abandon of sleep, with startling incongruity gleamed a diamond ring. The beautiful chestnut hair had escaped from its fastenings, and hung in tumbled masses, and there were ragged tears here and there in the borrowed raiment. Never, thought Stane to himself, had he seen a lady more ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... lacked both dignity and prudence, and he accomplished nothing. When, for instance, Caesar, returning from Spain, petitioned the Senate for permission to become a candidate for the consulship without entering the city—to enter the city would have been to abandon his hopes of a triumph—Cato condescended to use the arts of obstruction in opposing him. He spoke till sunset against the proposition, and it failed by sheer lapse of time. Yet the opposition was fruitless. Caesar ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... was an evasion. However, I had no time to argue the point with her just then, so I waited until my consultations were over, and then went to see Colonel Colquhoun. I thought if he would not forbid he might at all events persuade her to abandon her rash design. I found him at his own place, walking about the garden with his hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth. He was in a facetious mood, the one of his I ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... impression that the game is lost or won, or for other reasons, throw his or their cards on the table face upwards, such cards are exposed, and can be called, each player's by the adversary; but should one player retain his hand, he cannot be forced to abandon it. ...
— The Laws of Euchre - As adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston, March 1, 1888 • H. C. Leeds

... all so,' she began, not without hesitation; 'but you see it's like this. Paramon Semyonitch's ideas will shortly, it may be, find expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...' ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... this as a suggestion, for it seems hard to believe that people who must have been well acquainted with the use of the point at the end of a pole or staff—as in the case of the spear, which was the very earliest form of thrusting weapon—should abandon it when they came to ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... search of all the book-stores and catalogues in Pennsylvania, I found there was no American work extant, treating on this science—and those of foreign production, so at variance with our habits, customs, and mode of economy, that I was compelled to abandon all hope of scientific or systematic aid, and move on under the instructions of those distillers of our neighborhood, who were little better informed than myself, but who cheerfully informed me of their experiments, ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry

... allowed to sit up an extra half-hour so that she could wait on the table (and though I say it, that shouldn't, she could do this beautifully, with dignity and without giggling), and perhaps the dinner was good, or R. H. D. thought it was, and in that event he must abandon his place and storm the kitchen to tell the cook all about it. Perhaps the gardener was taking life easy on the kitchen porch. He, too, came in for praise. R. H. D. had never seen our Japanese iris so beautiful; as for his, they wouldn't grow at all. It wasn't the iris, ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various

... the tip of Gail's nose, and she opened her sleepy eyes to find a white-robed, shivering figure shaking her vigorously with one hand, while in the other was a tiny, flickering candle, which dribbled hot wax prodigally as it was tipped about with reckless abandon by the excited pleader. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... I see pretty clearly how, in one more move, we can checkmate Lee, forcing him to unite Johnston with him in the defense of Richmond, or to abandon the cause. I feel certain, if he leaves Richmond, Virginia leaves the Confederacy. I will study my maps a little more before giving my positive views. I want all possible information of the Roanoke as to navigability, how far up, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... the way," he said, "that you repay years of unstinted generosity? Nay, is this the way you meet your sacred obligations? You promised upon a thousand occasions to pay your share of the interest for ever, and now like a defaulter you abandon your post and destroy half the revenue of our firm by one intempestive and thoughtless act! Had you but possessed a little property which, properly secured, would continue to meet the claims you had incurred, I had not blamed ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... abandon this attitude, and make a serious draft on the reader's attention by facing the question whether, if and when the medieval and Methodist will-to-believe the Salvationist and miraculous side of the gospel narratives fails us, as it plainly ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... disappoint him, but he dared not break an engagement which he looked upon as almost sacred; and walked debating with himself, asking himself if the absence of a maiden at the fountain might be taken as a sign that they were free to abandon the Scriptures for the day, only for the day. And seeing the fountain deserted Joseph cried out in his heart: we are free! But as they turned aside to go their way a maiden came with a pitcher upon her head; but as she had never heard of the rock, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... disgrace of being the father of such a child; "thou art not he thou pretendest to be; this foul lie is uttered that my natural feelings may interpose between thee and the block! Prove thy truth, or I abandon thee to thy fate." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... selection of land. What Doctor Speek presents to us simply confirms what is known to every thoughtful person who has given attention to the subject of land settlement. If we want to bring it about that our settlers should understand our institutions and become good American citizens, we must abandon all ideas of laissez-faire with respect to land selection. Generally the selection is made for the settler by the land agent. Doctor Speek gives attention to the real-estate business, and finds that ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... performing fleas. But when, on this afternoon, M. P. Jr., had come and waved cheques at her, she had felt that her worst hopes were realised, that her finger was really in the pie, and she had agreed to everything, which, however, for the moment, was nothing at all, merely to abandon Cassy that evening; merely also to collaborate later in the evocation of a myth, and meanwhile to keep ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I should abandon bones and take the post on the Planet ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... possess, through the fact of my thought, the right to SUPPOSE God, I must abandon the right to AFFIRM him. In other words, if my hypothesis is irresistible, that, for the present, is all that I can pretend. For to affirm is to determine; now, every determination, to be true, must be reached empirically. In fact, whoever ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... though communicated to above twenty persons, had been religiously kept during the space of near a year and a half. No remorse, no pity, no fear of punishment, no hope of reward, had as yet induced any one conspirator either to abandon the enterprise, or make a discovery of it. The holy fury had extinguished in their breast every other motive; and it was an indiscretion at last, proceeding chiefly from these very bigoted prejudices and partialities, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... carried away the wife of one of the neighboring petty sovereigns, Roderic, King of Connaught and Monarch of Ireland, joined with the injured husband to punish so flagrant an outrage, and with their united forces spoiled Dermot of his territories, and obliged him to abandon the kingdom. The fugitive prince, not unapprised of Henry's designs upon his country, threw himself at his feet, implored his protection, and promised to hold of him, as his feudatory, the sovereignty he should recover by his assistance. Henry was at this time at Guienne. Nothing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... in which man can repay God for his kindness, and show an appreciation thereof is by submitting to him and doing those things which will bring him nearer to God. In order to realize this it is necessary to abandon the bad qualities, which are in principle two, love of pleasure and love of power. The means enabling one to obtain this freedom are to abstain from too much eating, drinking, idling, and so on, for ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... breaking?—this dread fear lest those about you should detect the truth? Have you ever lived with this mask upon your face?—which can only be thrown off at night in the privacy of your own chamber, when you may abandon yourself to your desolation, and pray heaven to take you or give you increased strength to live and bear? It may seem a light thing, this state of heart that I am telling you about; but ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... write to Deacon Snowden for his boxes and resign all connection with Troy. But would he ever get rid of the scandal? Could he ever be sure that, to whatever distance he might flee, it would not follow him? Had he not better abandon his calling, once and for ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... reliance of KING COTTON. Lest the sources of his aggrandisement should be assailed, we can well imagine him as being engaged constantly, in devising new questions of agitation, to divert the public from all attempts to abandon free trade and restore the protective policy. He now finds an ample source of security, in this respect, in agitating the question of slavery extension. This exciting topic, as we have said, serves to keep politicians of the abolition school at the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... ripened, and his powers of thought enlarged. He was no more a boy,—he was a man: he had another life to take care of. He resolved, then, to enter the town they were approaching, and to seek for some situation by which he might maintain both. Sidney was very loath to abandon their present roving life; but he allowed that the warm weather could not always last, and that in winter the fields would be less pleasant. He, therefore, with a sigh, yielded to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... praiseworthy one. The whole country was aglow with patriotic fervor, and in no section did the flame burn with a purer luster than in that where Deborah was nurtured. It was not idle curiosity nor mere love of roving, that incited her, in those straitlaced days, to abandon her home and join in the perilous fray where the standard of freedom was "full high advanced." She had evidently counted the cost of the extraordinary step which she was about to take, but found in the difficulties and dangers which it entailed nothing to obstruct ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... brows—so capricious is Nature in shaping her wilder daughters—and in the deep soft eyes brooded, even when she was happiest, a heart-disquieting quality of wistfulness. She was happy now; and ever and anon she raised her eyes to the slouching back of the man riding ahead with a look of passionate abandon in which there was nothing civilized at all. She was slenderer than the run of brown maidens, and her clumsy print dress could not hide the girlish, perfect contour of her shoulders. In her dusky cheeks there glowed a tinge of deep rose; testimony to the lingering influence of the white blood ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... sure of a warm welcome from his humble parents there. But there were good reasons why he should not make himself a burden on them; and, moreover, he probably feared that at home he would run some risk of being tempted to abandon his cherished profession. Frau Haydn had not yet given up the hope of seeing her boy made a priest, and though we have no definite information that Haydn himself felt a decided aversion to taking orders, it is evident that he was disinclined to hazard ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... that southern dramatic part of her nature coming out, here in her abandon of self-control. "Is it not enough for me to know that it is you and thoughts of you which have caused me to forget him!—Go! I must be alone!"—and like a fawn she fled down one of the paths, and beyond a great yew hedge, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... to the advance of the regulars, who, despite the great inferiority of their numbers, had made the brown men respect their fighting grit and prowess. Within ten minutes after Captain Freeman's order to abandon the chase there was no visible evidence that there were any Moros ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... careening gunwale-to, and sending the spray flying in such drenching showers over the weather bow, that presently the water rose above the bottom boards and splashed like a miniature sea in the lee bilge, compelling Dick to abandon the mainsheet to Stukely while he took a bucket and proceeded to bale. But the wind showed a disposition to freshen, careening the boat so steeply that, despite Stukely's utmost care, the water began to slop in over the lee gunwale, as well as over the bows; and at length they decided to take ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... trouble. Throughout his life he had been accustomed to keep his accounts by double entry in very perfect order. But he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly. It never seemed to occur to him to abandon his elaborate system of accounts, and to content himself with simple entries of receipts and expenses. This would have been utterly opposed to his sense of order, which was now more than ever the ruling principle of his mind. And so he struggled ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... the innkeeper's expence, emptying whole shelves of food, and washing it down with entire hogsheads of liquor. "To the depredation of this visitor will thy viands be exposed," quoth the uncle, "until thou shalt abandon fraud, and false reckonings." The monk returned in a year. The host having turned over a new leaf, and given christian measure to his customers, was now a thriving man. When they again inspected the larder, they saw the same spirit, but woefully reduced in ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... restrained, and held up beads, axes, and toys, making a demonstration of friendliness. As soon as the wind abated, an old chief came aboard the wrecked ship, where he was received in friendly fashion, and, going ashore, pacified his people. The crew of the vessel, compelled to abandon her, carried the greater part of their stores ashore, where they built a small boat from the remains of the wreck. As soon as this craft was ready to sail, as many as could conveniently be taken embarked and sailed away. They were ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... a well-known fact that Judith's maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight, had been forced to abandon their ancestral farm in Connecticut and had started to California on a hazard of new fortunes but had fallen by the wayside, landing in Kentucky where their habits of saving string and paper certainly ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... into your thoughts. It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... of which by this time must have been in flames. I did not stop, however, to contemplate the sad scene, but pushed on as fast as I was able. I could not trust to the Indians not pursuing me, for I know, when intent on an object, that they will run every danger rather than abandon it, and the death of their companion would make them still more eager to kill me than might otherwise have been the case. On, therefore, I sprang. I could still hear them, although I believed they had not seen me cross by the tree, or perhaps even had not discovered ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... legend imparts coloring to the tale and gives him sympathy with it; and in leaving Salem it was from such a past that he desired to be free. He expresses himself, in these matters, through Holgrave, in his democratic new life urging Hepzibah to abandon gentility and be proud of her cent shop as a genuine thing in a practical and real world,—she would begin to live now at sixty, such was his narrowness of youthful view; but the democratic sentiment is Hawthorne's. ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... manes and tails waving, and with the maddest demonstrations of joy at having won out in their determination NOT to be left behind. They rushed to Peggy's side, whinnying their "Hello! How are you?" to Shashai, who answered with quite as much abandon. And then came the transformation: At a word from Peggy they fell into stride beside her and finished the journey to the little depot in as orderly a manner as perfectly trained dogs. When they reached it Peggy stationed them in line, ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who possesses grandeur ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... You should know likewise that I have not yet done you the honour to fear you. However, tell me this: without inquiring into what I intend to do, can you understand that you ought to give me my liberty, and abandon your barbarous rights?" ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... the "Plutonic" origin of such widespread formations was practically to abandon the Neptunian hypothesis. So gradually the Huttonian explanation of the origin of granites and other "igneous" rocks, whether massed or in veins, came to be accepted. Most geologists then came to think of the earth as a molten mass, on which the crust rests ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... and down the deck, brooding over his grievances. He could not afford to abandon his situation on the one hand, and it seemed impossible to acknowledge that he was wholly wrong on the other hand. When he had thoroughly cooled off, he was willing to own that it was necessary for the captain to go on deck, and that if he had comprehended the situation he should have given ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... a strange voice: high-pitched and hoarse—and not quite human, so utter was the animal abandon of it. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... patches, procure from the druggist's a preparation of the husk of the walnut water of eau crayon. This will, by daily application, darken the tint of the hair without actually dyeing it. When the change of color has gone on to any great extent, it is better to abandon the application and put up with the change, which, in nine cases out of ten, will be in accordance with the change of the face. Indeed, there is nothing more beautiful than soft, white hair worn in bands or clustering curls about the face. The walnut ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... assumed superiority it seemed to the unfortunate Earl as if his last friend was about to abandon him. He stretched his hand towards Varney as he uttered the words, "Do not leave me. What ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... difficulties which beset the new plan. But it was possible that these difficulties might not prove insurmountable, whilst, if they pursued any other course, they must abandon all hopes of success. Besides, they did not hesitate to agree with Erik that it would be more glorious, in any case, to make the attempt, than to return to ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... for liberty, though foiled And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, Deserves at least applause for her attempt, And pity for her loss. But that's a ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... free, if we mean to preserve inviolate these inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained,—we must fight. I repeat it, sir, we must ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... realization of the truth of Christianity, and an awakening to the claims of religion, will lead to any outward change or radical alteration in the general conception of a man's life-work. It may or it may not do so. There are indubitably cases in which a man is called upon to abandon his previous career—to forsake prospects, however promising, or to renounce wealth and possessions, however entangling—in order to become (for example) a minister of the Church or a missionary of the Gospel, or ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... rear of his board, he rode in with majestic swiftness, and landed nicely on the beach amid the cheers and shouts of the people. He then repeated the venture and was riding in as successfully, when, in a moment of careless abandon, at the place where the surfs finish as they break on the beach, he was thrust under and suddenly disappeared, while the surf-board flew from under and was thrown violently upon the shore. The people in amazement beheld the event, and wildly exclaimed: "Alas! Milu is dead! Milu is dead!" With ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... He showed absolutely no emotion upon the subject, and his chill unconcern quenched the farmer's ardor. Mr. Chirgwin mourned mightily that he held not a stronger case. Joan had tied his hands, at any rate, for the present. If she would only come round, accept the truth and abandon her present attitude—then he knew that he would fight like a giant for her, and that, with right upon his side, he would surely prevail. His last words upon the ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... feared he had grievously offended; and then running off, rather incoherently, into protestations that his honour as well as his affections were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, at least, he could never abandon. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "till the current drove her on a rock. The men disembarked, and we had to plunge our daggers into the bank to keep from sliding into the river as we went down to their aid, our lives hanging on a thread." Like MacKenzie, Fraser was compelled to abandon canoes. Each with a pack of eighty pounds, the voyageurs set out on foot down that steep gorge where the traveler to-day can see the trail along the side of the precipice like basket work between Lilloet and Thompson River. In Fraser's day was no {332} trail, only here and there bridges of trembling ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... feeling both sick and sorry, and wondering how much longer she could bear this kind of life. It was telling upon her nerves and on her strength in every possible way. And yet she could not abandon her post—unless, indeed, Wyvis himself relieved her. And from him for many weary days there ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... book-hunters' fancies at the beginning and at the end of the eighteenth century, yet it would not be possible to draw a hard and fast line. For the greater part of that time the classics of every description and of every degree of unimportance held their own. Reluctant, therefore, to abandon the chief stimulant of their earlier book-hunting careers, many collectors still took a keen interest in their primi pensieri. But their real passion found a vent in other and less beaten directions. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... abandon the captain proceeded to use the new supply of records. Dripping with perspiration from the heat of his closely-shut room and from his strenuous mental exertion, he finally came to the last one, and word by word and sentence by sentence heard ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... the thermometer almost to disappearing point at twenty-five to thirty below. The sun's brightness looked eternal. The sky was never so blue. Great fleecy clouds rolled and frolicked in well-nigh human abandon. Almost everywhere, when looking upward, the eyes rested against snow-white hills with their black reaching spars of sparse fir trees; while below and stretching away for miles—winding and twisting ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... he continued, "be careful never to abandon this spot, and if you are driven out on one side, return by the opposite one; for it is holy, it is the dwelling-place of Jesus Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin, His Mother. It is here that the Lord, the Most High, has multiplied our numbers, from being very few; ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... chemical experiments, and particularly during the vinous fermentation. I then supposed that water existed ready formed in sugar, though I am now convinced that sugar only contains the elements proper for composing it. It may be readily conceived, that it must have cost me a good deal to abandon my first notions, but by several years reflection, and after a great number of experiments and observations upon vegetable substances, I have fixed my ideas ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... was arranged in a great heap which sloped backward from her head. Her face was chalk white, from a bath in rice powder; her fine lips were curled in the most sinister of smiles; and her eyes glowed with a splendid abandon. She looked wicked; ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... All the debts and claims which were left uncollected by Director Kieft—due for the most part from poor and indigent people who had nothing, and whose property was destroyed by the war, by which they were compelled to abandon their houses, lands, cattle and other means—were now demanded; and when the people declared that they were not able to pay—that they had lost their property by the war, and asked My Lord to please have patience, they were repulsed. A resolution ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... party as we should call in these days a surprise party,—when the subject of abandoning the cause was fully discussed. Col. Bigelow heard all that was to be said on the subject. Some of his men argued that Congress could not clothe or feed them, and they did not feel it to be their duty to abandon their families and homes, to starve in that cold climate. When all had been said by as many as wished to express their minds, Col. Bigelow arose and said:—"Gentlemen, I have heard all the remarks ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey



Words linked to "Abandon" :   throw out, leave, wantonness, fall in, put away, toss away, cave in, quit, renounce, go away, give, collapse, consign, abandonment, passionateness, walk out, move over, ditch, fling, dispose, desolate, wildness, foreswear, forsake, passion, throw overboard, chuck, unconstraint, cast away, toss, relinquish, empty, desert, yield, toss out, strand, dispense with, forfeit, give way, vacate, forgo, expose, discard, unrestraint



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