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Avow   Listen
verb
Avow  v. t. & v. i.  To bind, or to devote, by a vow. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Avow" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Let me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, I decided to spare your emotions that ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Old English; and it pleases the galleries because it has ribaldry. . . A prologue generally precedes the piece, to inform us that it was composed by Shakspere or old Ben, or somebody else who took them for his model. A face of iron could not have the assurance to avow dislike; the theater has its partisans who understand the force of combinations trained up to vociferation, clapping of hands and clattering of sticks; and though a man might have strength sufficient to overcome a lion in single combat, he may run the risk of being devoured ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... complained of as too harsh and severe. He had since considered them, but he could not prevail upon himself to retract them; because, if any gentleman, after reading the evidence on the table, and attending to the debate, could avow himself an abettor of this shameful traffic in human flesh, it could only be either from some hardness of heart, or some difficulty of understanding, which he really knew ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... clear, for, after all, this affair will be neither general nor public; therefore, it is a conspiracy. You will not avow that you ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... that perfect knowledge of the world which usually has its firmest basis upon indifference to criticism, 'senorita, I have come to avow a mistake and ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... availed himself in the least of the favorable circumstances in his case. But the intrepidity and resolution with which he heard the accusation, refusing even to pay any fine, as that would have been to avow himself in some degree culpable; and especially the firmness with which he addressed the judges when called upon to state the punishment which he thought he deserved, enraged them against him. For, with confidence in his integrity, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... and copies of it were carried to all the Courts in the world. All the Princes admired it greatly, but there was one Prince, named Guerrier, who loved it above everything; he used to stand before the picture and avow his passion, just as if it heard what he said, and at last he told ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg

... It need scarcely be told that his wife, fortified by the fervid brewer, defeated him utterly. What was more, she induced him to be an accomplice in deception. For though the lieutenant protested that he washed his hands of it, and that it was a fraud and a snare, he certainly did not avow the condition of his wife's parents to Mr. Andrew, but alluded to them in passing as 'the country people.' He supposed 'the country people' must be asked, he said. The brewer offered to go down to them. But the lieutenant drew an unpleasant picture of the country people, and his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of which, too late, some men obtain a glimpse, though they dare not avow it. Such men comprehend the necessity of considering substances not merely in their mathematical properties but also in their entirety, in their occult relations and affinities. The greatest man among you ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... suppose such a declaration would excite in the assembly, and what hope do you think you would have of the consulship which is ready for you? And can you follow these principles, which, when by yourself, or in conversation with your dearest friends, you do not dare to profess and avow openly? But you have those maxims constantly in your mouth which the Peripatetics and Stoics profess. In the courts of justice and in the senate you speak of duty, equity, dignity, good faith, uprightness, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... have taken into most respectful consideration the action of the Conference and the sentiment pervading the churches of which the resolutions of the Conference are the expression. We do not forget, but thankfully avow the debt of gratitude which has rested on the college, throughout its history, to the churches of New England, and to the pious teachings and generous patronage of those included within their embrace. We are fully aware of the obligations of science and literature, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... violent and arbitrary position, the said Warren Hastings did avow it to be a public principle of his government, that no right, however manifest, and no innocence, however unimpeached, could entitle the weak to our protection against others, or save them from our own active endeavors for their oppression, and even extirpation, should ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Feuerbach. At Oxford,' he added, 'these pernicious doctrines are demoralizing the university. Blanco White and John Sterling were but the pioneers of a large party of university men, who are preparing to avow their disbelief in Christianity.' The Doctor was right. Francis Newman, brother of the Puseyite Newman, who seceded to the Romish Church, and belongs now to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri,—Froude, brother of the deceased Puseyite Froude,—Foxton, an ordained priest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... are also marks of a Sectary; If any commend, and recommend to others, or spread and divulge the erroneous books of Sectaries, If any allow, avow, or use Conventicles or private meetings forbidden by the Acts of the Generall Assembly 1641. and 1647. last past, If any be unwilling, and decline to reckon Sectaries among the enemies of the Covenant, from whom danger is to be apprehended, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... by equivocation, which barely escapes from direct untruth. It is possible that a public man of his position at the present day might find himself driven to a similar method of escape from a similar indiscretion.[27] But experience has taught men not to write lampoons which they dare not avow, and a more effective law of copyright protects them against ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... unviolated vow. For proof hereof, if Dagon be thy god, Go to his Temple, invocate his aid With solemnest devotion, spread before him How highly it concerns his glory now To frustrate and dissolve these Magic spells, Which I to be the power of Israel's God 1150 Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test, Offering to combat thee his Champion bold, With th' utmost of his Godhead seconded: Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow Soon feel, whose God is ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... let him so continue to think, until I could turn the tables, and pay him back in his own coin. And the quickest way in which to convince him that I was altogether his man, was to denounce the girl in his presence, and frankly avow myself on his side. Difficult as this task would prove—at least until I could make some explanation to her—it was the sensible course to pursue. I hardened myself to it, my eyes on the outlines of the man's face, as he shuffled ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... may be asked, have I entered into this explanation respecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of the Poem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that the sole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; and that it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which many critics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosen from distant times ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... is known those look avow, The mantling cheek, the knitting brow: I could not hope it did he live, But now, O! now, ye must forgive! Most recreant they who dare offend One who has lost her only friend! De Stafford's widow here appears— For him, my Eustace, flow these tears! Ye may not blame ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... an ardent and impatient lover. The princess was always dressed with more or less studied elegance at the hour when d'Arthez presented himself. This mutual fidelity, the care they each took of their appearance, in fact, all about them expressed sentiments that neither dared avow, for the princess discerned very plainly that the great child with whom she had to do shrank from the combat as much as she desired it. Nevertheless d'Arthez put into his mute declarations a respectful awe which was infinitely pleasing to her. Both ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... there was no man who stood so near the throne in favour, and that there was no union so exalted that he might not have made his suit as rather that of a superior than an equal. The Queen both loved and honoured him, and condescended to avow as much with gracious frankness. She knew no other man, she deigned to say, who was so worthy of honour and affection, and that he had not married must be because there was no woman who could meet him on ground that was equal. If there were no scandals about him—and there were none—'twas ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the twofold life he led In chainless thought and fettered will Some glimpses reach us,—somewhat still Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,— Of the soul's quest whose stern avow For years had ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... on these enterprises feel perfectly safe. They know that their victims dare not prosecute them, as by purchasing a ticket a man becomes a party to the transaction, and violates the laws of the State of New York. No one cares to avow himself a party to any such transaction, and consequently the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Odysseus of Ithaca it was that I saw before me, Lady, and that face is mine. I avow myself to be Odysseus, Laertes' ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... the fate that I now see awaits myself. I will therefore explain, that it was by his assistance I procured the disguise, and passed your pickets; but to my dying moments, and with my dying breath, I will avow, that my intentions were as pure as the innocent being ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... increasing admiration. The few passages that remained obscure to me, after due efforts of thought, (as the chapter on original apperception,) and the apparent contradictions which occur, I soon found were hints and insinuations referring to ideas, which KANT either did not think it prudent to avow, or which he considered as consistently left behind in a pure analysis, not of human nature in toto, but of the speculative intellect alone. Here therefore he was constrained to commence at the point of reflection, or natural consciousness: ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... not Jal, Black One, the thing is strange, for as Jal is so you are. But perchance it does not please you, having put on the flesh, to avow yourself before me. At the least be it as you will. If you are not Jal, then I am safe from your vengeance, and if you are Jal I pray you forget the sins of my ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... narrowly investigated before they could be helped. But unfortunates of the sort whom a gift of money would convert from unfortunate into fortunate people, there were none. Mortifying as it is to me to avow this, I began to get disenchanted, because I did not find among these people any thing of the sort which I had expected. I had expected to find peculiar people here; but, after making the round of all the apartments, I was convinced that the inhabitants of these houses were not peculiar people ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... our times avow, The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of shade; And comes Despair, whom not her calm may cow, And coldly on that adamantine brow Scrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade. But Faith (who from the scrawl indignant turns) With blood warm oozing from her wounded trust, Inscribes even on her ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... I am afraid a very censorious temper, in this respect, is too generally the indication of an uncharitable and perhaps a profligate heart, levelling characters, in order to cover some inward pride, or secret enormities, which they are ashamed to avow, and will ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... as late as the sixteenth century and the other—not from the same point of view—in the plains and woods of Northern Europe or in the deserts of Arabia or in some still more vaguely indicated region of the East. But I must avow my conviction that our civilization—and I specially remember that we are Englishmen—is not only in origin but in essence, Greco-Roman, modified no doubt by influences unknown to that in its earlier stages, but still Greco-Roman grown ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... acknowledge that our forefathers introduced, nay, compelled the adoption of slavery in those mighty colonies. We humbly confess it before Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel and so unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now venture to implore your aid to wipe away our common crime and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... be found; and I was laughed to scorn for a clown and a pedant, devoid of all taste and refinement, little versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of what had passed in the best companies of court and town. So that I can only avow in general to your Highness that we do abound in learning and wit, but to fix upon particulars is a task too slippery for my slender abilities. If I should venture, in a windy day, to affirm to your Highness that there is a large cloud near the horizon in the form of a bear, ...
— English Satires • Various

... justifiable, and intended for the second, and probably then sanctioned by one still living apostle,—even so, I foresaw the still greater difficulty of Baptismal Regeneration behind. For any one to avow that Regeneration took place in Baptism, seemed to me little short of a confession that he had never himself experienced what Regeneration is. If I could then have been convinced that the apostles taught ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... himself. At first, he declared he should do this; but he was so earnestly entreated to attempt nothing so rash, that he yielded the point, with a supercilious air which perhaps concealed more satisfaction than he chose to avow to himself. He insisted on retiring immediately, however, and was shown to his chamber at once by Erlingsen himself, who found, on his return, that the company were the better for the pastor's absence, though unable to recover the mirth which he had put to flight. Erica had ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... Chatham, refer to documents in which Adams took a prominent part in preparing: "When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that, in all my reading—and I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master statesmen of the world—for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush, appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, and the old ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... charmed," he said, pulling the bell-rope. Poor fool! he attributed the shade of disappointment on Zuleika's face to the coldness of his tone. He would dispel that shade. He would avow himself. He would leave her no longer in this false position. So soon as he had told them about the meal, he ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... disordered. Men hate slavery and love liberty with stronger hate and love to-day than ever before. The government is not weakened, it is made stronger. How naturally and easily were the ranks closed! Another steps forward, in the hour that the one fell, to take his place and his mantle; and I avow my belief that he will be found a man true to every instinct of liberty; true to the whole trust that is reposed in him; vigilant of the Constitution; careful of the laws; wise for liberty, in that he himself, through his life, has ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... walked on for some time in silence. Such indeed was the precarious state of the country then that, although the stranger, from the opening words of their conversation, suspected his companion to be no other than Willy Reilly himself, yet he hesitated to avow the suspicions he entertained of his identity, although he felt anxious to repose the fullest confidence in him; and Reilly, on the other hand, though perfectly aware of the true character of his companion, was influenced in their conversation by ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... believe this language is mere nonsense and coquetry. There is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by the good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel absolute indifference. You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or will avow." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... different light to that in which they are looked at by the ignorant rabble. At any rate, as the matter is in his hands, it is useless for you to excite yourself. As far as personal danger goes, I am willing to share it with you, to take half the fault of this unfortunate accident, and to avow that as we were engaged together in the act that led to it we are equally ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... of you, Monsieur Grousset, to avow that you had no authority to discuss the preliminaries of peace voted by the Assembly. What right had you then to substitute yourselves for it? He did not, however, thus remain midway in his diplomatic career, for after the election of the Commune he thought it his duty to address ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,—whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... play without noticing that Shakespeare has shown in it a hatred of murder just as emphatically as he has revealed his love of gentleness and pity in the creation of Arthur. In spite of the loyalty which the English nobles avow in the second scene of the fourth act, which is a quality that always commends itself to Shakespeare, Pembroke is merely their mouthpiece in requesting the King to "enfranchise Arthur." As soon as John tells them that Arthur is dead they throw off their allegiance and insult the monarch to his ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... account of his system; and the particulars of his life, which would show how he acted it, are but imperfectly preserved. He was the first theorist to avow and maintain that Pleasure, and the absence of Pain, are the proper, the direct, the immediate, the sole end of living; not of course mere present pleasures and present relief from pain, but present and future taken in one great total. He would surrender present pleasure, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life was so cheap, she might have asked for ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... position of a person making an accusation; that is to say, by asking him whether he denies that the law is drawn up in that manner, or whether he denies that he himself has contravened it, or disputed it. If he denies either of these points, then one must avow that one will say no more; if he denies neither of them, and yet continues to urge his arguments in opposition to one, then one must say that it is impossible for any one ever to expect to see a more ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... words many a time when the winds was a-howling and the seas a-raging, and it looked as if I was bound for Davy Jones' Locker before day; but I never knew that was a fair-weather prayer. But I'll say it as you ask; and I'll avow, Padre, that, for talking and praying straight to the point, you beat any preacher or parson I ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... old-fashioned. Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... evil omen. Swayed by fiery gusts of passion, of remorse, of sullenness and jealousy, he rode on, a prey to sinister resolution. To confront Diane with his knowledge of those days by the river, this resolution alternated as frequently with another—to put his fate to the test and passionately avow his utter trust in one immeasurably above the rank and file of women. He had racked Themar with insistent questions, he had quarreled again and again with the Baron since that night by the pool, until now he had at his finger-ends, the ways and days of Philip Poynter since the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... and to make her still more powerful north of the Alps was not to be thought of even by the Liverpools and Castlereaghs. The Czar, too, had in his thoughts a closer connection with France than it suited him then to avow, and for purposes of his own; and therefore he could not desire the sensible diminution of the power of a country the resources of which he expected to employ. Nicholas inherited his brother's ideas ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... father to son, and raise an eternal barrier of separation between their offspring, and the offspring of the unfortunate convict. They would establish distinctions which may serve hereafter to divide the colonists into castes; and although none among them dares publicly avow that future generations should be punished for the crimes of their progenitors, yet such are their private sentiments; and they would have the present race branded with disqualifications, not more for the sake of pampering their own ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... people, in other respects perfectly estimable (which makes the complaint against them the more grievous) who maintain that the laws of nature are the only laws of binding force among the units which compose society. They do not assert their doctrine in so many words, but practically they avow it, and they are not slow to express their contempt for the "ridiculous etiquette" which is declared by their opponents to be essential to the well being of society. These people are probably a law to themselves in such ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... agreement on their part to defend transportation abuses and exert their influence against progressive railroad legislation. The vilest means were often resorted to by these sheets to obtain their end. Public men who had the courage to avow their opposition to existing railroad abuses or to favor a more perfect system of State control of railways were misrepresented, ridiculed, traduced and denounced as demagogues and socialists by hypocritical editors, who prostituted ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... is it that you take me for a duchess? I come from the ouvriers, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do my shops in a ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... much to trouble, with a tear or with a simple movement of her eyelids, the happiness of those about her, that I shall never know if she, as I, surprised that wretched kiss. But I know what she has the power to suffer. I shall not ask you anything you cannot avow to me, but I would know if you had any secret design in following Palomides under the window where you must have seen us. Answer me without fear; you know beforehand I will ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck

... with emotion, "I must have done so; your behaviour to me this evening has proved it. Could you think, Jacobi, that I, a wife, the mother of many children, could permit the sentiment which you have been so thoughtless as to avow this evening? Could you imagine that it would not occasion me great uneasiness and pain? Indeed, it is so, Jacobi; I fear that you have gone sadly wrong; and if I myself, through any want of circumspection in ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... And bear my challenge to the Grecian camp. If there be one amongst the best of Greece, Who holds his honour higher than his ease, Who knows his valour, and knows not his fear; Who loves his mistress more than in confession, And dares avow her beauty and her worth, In other arms than hers,—to him this challenge. I have a lady of more truth and beauty, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; And will to-morrow, with the trumpet's call, Mid-way between their tents and these our walls, Maintain what I have said. If any come, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... was Madelene! How could he face her, after all that had happened. He bitterly regretted his weakness in permitting the girl to avow her love for him, in engaging ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... Vaninka or into the arms of her father. He felt that his first recognition ought to be devoted to respect and gratitude, and threw himself into the general's arms. Had he acted otherwise, it would have been an avowal of his love, and he had no right to avow this love till he knew ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Pezuela, offering to exchange for these Chilian prisoners a larger number of Spaniards captured by himself and others. This proposal was bluntly refused by the Viceroy, who took occasion, in his letter, to avow his surprise that a British nobleman should come to fight for a rebel community "unacknowledged by all the powers of the globe." Lord Cochrane replied that "a British nobleman was a free man, and therefore had a right ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd, The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd: The hundred-handed giant at a birth, And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth; My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame; Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name. In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged, Tremendous war against the gods I waged: Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try, With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky; To me the conquest of the seas befell, In his ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... said no more. I make no reservations when I avow I was never so disgusted in my life. But as I looked upon him, haggard and worn, with retribution so neat at hand, I had no words ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... other, hurling the bladeless hilt to the ground. "And may the Devil get the rogue that forged this weapon! And now, fair Knight,—for I see that your spurs are golden,—I will avow my destination to be London, and I presume I am at ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... announce, state, declare, affirm, aver, asseverate, allege, assert, avouch, avow, maintain, claim, depose, predicate, swear, suggest, insinuate, testify>. (With this group compare the Speak ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... vocabularies seem wedded to all that is ignoble and shallow. So fundamental is this moral tone in philosophy that people are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true. They may avow, in reflective moments, that they may be in error, seeing that thinkers of no less repute have maintained opposite opinions, but they are commonly absolutely sure that if their own views could be generally accepted, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... I avow to your Highness that with these eyes I have beheld the person of William Wooton, B.D., who has written a good sizeable volume against a friend of your Governor (from whom, alas! he must therefore look for little favour) ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... as of old?' he exclaimed. 'Can you look earnestly and truthfully into your soul, and yet avow that you are the pure-hearted girl who roamed hand in hand with me only a year ago, in our native isle, content to have no ambition except that of living a humble life with me? And now, with your simple tastes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... would be the issuing of rations, and that would mean the ultimate degradation and extinction of the natives. When the question is stated in its baldest terms, is the writer perverse and barbarous and uncivilised if he avow his belief that a race of hardy, peaceful, independent, self-supporting illiterates is of more value and worthy of more respect than a race of literate paupers? Be it remembered also that many of these "illiterates" can read the Bible in their own tongue and can make ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... my lad. I've often grumbled; but I avow it—I am past service, gouty as I am; but you were ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... peculiar education, education only in the noblest ideas of the race, that she should be a sort of reversion, in our complicated life, to the type of woman in the old societies (we like to believe there was such a type as the poets love, the Nausicaas), who were single-minded, as frank to avow affection as opinion? ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... holy mother, I believe she herself would speak thus, and avow herself among my enemies, if she were not my wife!" cried the king, in whose heart rage began already to seethe ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... not appear marvellous, that the learned advocates of Rowley should not have regarded the ground on which they stood as somewhat unstable, when they found Chatterton readily avow that he wrote the first part of the "Battle of Hastings," and discovered the second, as composed three hundred years before, by Thomas Rowley? This was indeed an unparalleled coincidence. A boy writes the commencement of a ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... of Saint-Chron, Guy of Chappes and Clerembaud his nephew, William of Aunoi, Peter Coiseau, Guy of Pesmes and Edmund his brother, Guy of Conflans, Richard of Dampierre, Odo his brother, and many more who had promised privily to be of their party, but who dared not for shame openly so to avow themselves; in such sort that the book testifies that more than half the host ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... worked the surface of these copper pieces in the lathe? Have I not forged these pieces of copper myself, so as to obtain a greater strength? Are not these springs tempered to a rare perfection? Could anybody have used finer oils than mine? You must yourself agree that it is impossible, and you avow, in short, that the devil is ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... I avow this fault, and in my justification have but to add, that the person who, for two years, could be in constant intercourse with a people, to the increase of his fortune, the improvement of his health, and the enlargement of all that is good in his mind, yet ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... necessity, incurable and inevitable, and formally and distinctly recognized as a settled part of our social system? State necessity, that imperial tyrant, seeks no disguise. In the language of Sheridan, "What he does, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification than the great motives which placed the iron ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... interred nine days after his first coming. According to the statement of his groom, the defunct had been chalorously coupled with the said Moorish woman during seven whole days shut up in my house, without coming out from her, the which I heard him horribly avow upon his deathbed. Certain persons at the present time have accused this she-devil of holding the said gentleman in her clutches by her long hair, the which was furnished with certain warm properties by means of which are communicated ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... He continues sullen and morose. His papers are very bad. He is perpetually up for punishment. I am informed that he and a man named Eastwood, nicknamed "Jacky Jacky", glory in being the leaders of the Ring, and that they openly avow themselves weary of life. Can it be that the unmerited flogging which the poor creature got at Port Arthur has aided, with other sufferings, to bring him to this horrible state of mind? It is quite possible. Oh, James North, remember your own crime, and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... severe hardships and privations, to suffer the want of all things, to peril health and even life itself, to endure the most intense fatigue and loss of rest, if by so doing they may relieve another's pain or soothe the burdened and aching heart; and with the utmost ingenuousness, they will avow that they have done nothing worthy of mention; that it is the poor soldier who has been the sufferer, and has made the only sacrifices worthy of ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... for opinions not its own, but for itself, and under its own banner. The court, by its multiplied faults, its imprudent machinations, and, lastly, by the flight of the monarch, had given it a sort of authority to avow its object; and the Lameths, by forsaking it, had left ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... came from no question of commercial policy. 'For three years,' he went on, 'I have been closely connected with Mr. Gladstone in the introduction of measures relating to the financial policy of the country, and I feel it my duty openly to avow that it seems almost impossible that two public men, acting together so long, should have had so little divergence in their opinions upon such questions.' If anybody found fault with Mr. Gladstone for not resigning earlier, the prime minister was himself responsible: ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... be convinced?" he laughed: but his laugh jarred upon her in her excited state. "Well, that is not at all uncommon; but few people avow it ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... French," he wrote to Frontenac, "but neither he nor any other of the upper Iroquois fear them in the least. They annihilate our allies, whom by adoption of prisoners they convert into Iroquois; and they do not hesitate to avow that after enriching themselves by our plunder, and strengthening themselves by those who might have aided us, they will pounce all at once upon Canada, and overwhelm it in a single campaign." He adds that within the past two years they have reinforced themselves ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... hand, but which is not nearly finished, and possibly never may be. Nevertheless he is desirous of announcing it in his magazine, and therefore I wish to prepare you for the shock. I can say nothing more than I have already said on the subject of vigilence, if not of secrecy. I never will avow myself, and nothing can hurt and offend me so much as any of my friends doing it for me; this is not faron de parler, but my real and unalterable feeling; I could not ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... Free-Traders did not offensively proclaim their intention to cheat the Protectionists; now, Mr. Fernando Wood and Mr. Vallandigham, and other leaders of the extreme left of the Democratic party, with insulting candor, avow that to cheat the country is the purpose which that party has in view. Mr. Vallandigham, who made the Chicago Platform, explicitly declares that that Platform and General McClellan's letter of acceptance do not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth" (Schoolcraft, IV., 86). Among the Dariens, says Heriot (325), "it is considered no mark of forwardness" in a woman "openly to avow her inclination," and in Paraguay, too, women were allowed to propose (Moore, 261). Indian girls of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... become an enthusiastic student; in fact, she was having class instruction under Mrs. Minturn, and did not hesitate to avow her full ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... be gainsaid, Major Duncan, and I am always ready to avow it. I'm thinking, Lundie, you are melancholar this ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me, unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow his relationship ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... himself out as James's bastard brother (a son of Darnley begotten in England) was professing to bear letters from James to the Pope. He was arrested on the Continent, and James could not be brought either to avow or disclaim ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... in certain passages, and give us clearly the chief outlines of her character. The natural tone of her mind was serious, positive, somewhat dry at bottom, but frank, deliberate, and bold. Unlike Madame de Maintenon, she had political ideas which she dared not only avow, but put into execution. Before all else she decided upon the complete restoration of the King's authority. With reference to a claim advanced by the grandees against the captain of the guards, she was anxious to break up effectually that cabal of the grandees who profited by the weakness ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out and avow whatever coincidences of this kind ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... there are some who appear to find it unreasonable and absurd that men should regard phenomena in a light not furnished by or deducible from the very phenomena themselves, although the men so regarding them avow that the light in which they do view them comes from quite another source. It is as if a man, A, coming into B's room and finding there a butterfly, should insist that B had no right to believe that the butterfly had not flown in at the open ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... such. Nothing—not love, tenfold more ardent and irrational than that he felt for his siren wife—could have wrought upon him to introduce to the world, as Mrs. Aylett of Ridgeley, one who had been before married, and was ashamed, for any cause whatever, to avow this. The blemish left by the acrid breath of common scandal upon a woman's fame was to him ineffaceable by any process yet discovered by pitying man or angels. The maligned one may not have erred from the straitest ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... there was no danger of such champions going further; but the next day, when we came into the House, the first thing we heard was that Martin had shot Wilkes: so he had; but Wilkes has six lives still good. It seems Wilkes had writ, to avow the paper, to Martin, on which the latter challenged him. They went into Hyde-park about noon; Humphrey Coates, the wine-merchant, waiting in a postchaise to convey Wilkes away if triumphant. They fired at the distance of fourteen yards: both missed. then ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... emperor and had defeated the wild Caledonians. The excuse given was that Constantius was in bad health and needed his son; but not until the young man was actually in Britain would his anxious father avow that he feared for ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... for granted that the King had a right to promise a revision of the Liturgy, Canons and regiment of the Church, and that the Bishops ought to have met him and his friends as diplomatists on even ground. The Bishops could not with discretion openly avow all they meant; and it would be bigotry to deny that the spirit of compromise had no indwelling in their feelings or intents. But nevertheless it is true that they thought more in the spirit of the English Constitution ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... person, and that he should afterwards invite the principal persons to dine with him, directing me to make a proper selection for him to invite. This has placed me in great awkwardness, for I dare not avow this permission for fear of offending all my neighbours, and it is difficult to make a selection where all are perfectly unfit. However, I have endeavoured to get rid of it, by recommending it to be confined to those only who have ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... of the stories that Paston could tell, when so minded; and he stamped his foot that such a—such a—(he found no word)—should be telling his sister any story at all. "But he's as good as I am," Truesdale was forced to avow, as he passed through the hallway and ascended to his room. "And better than lots of others. What can ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... you love him I have no more to say; if you love me, avow it, as I will then avow my love, my intentions, in the face of day. Reflect before you speak. It is a solemn moment—a moment which holds alike my destiny ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... that the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of race, is needed for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles in our national administration, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... people who go or you wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,—whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow, as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... however, it was the true one, viz. that I had not read the Fathers cautiously enough; that in such nice points, as those which determine the angle of divergence between the two Churches, I had made considerable miscalculations. But how came this about? why, the fact was, unpleasant as it was to avow, that I had leaned too much upon the assertions of Ussher, Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow, and had been deceived by them. Valeat quantum,—it was all that could be said. This then was a chief reason of that wording of the Retractation, which ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... face, is an honorable man, who will treat you fairly, and with whom you can come to terms and be reconciled: but an enemy who conceals himself is a base, cowardly scoundrel, who has not courage enough to avow his own judgment; it is not his opinion that he cares about, but only the secret pleasures of wreaking his anger without being found out or punished. This will also have been Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from which Riemer drew his observations. And, indeed, ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... supreme power was sincere in the motives which he alleged. But there were other motives which caused him to reject the sole government. These motives he did not yet avow. The fact is that he had arrived at the end of his thoughts, and that himself did not know what form was best suited to revolutionary institutions. More a man of ideas than of action, Robespierre had the sentiment of the Revolution rather ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... I have already won for the name I have chosen some 'golden opinions' to gild its obscurity. One year more may confirm my destiny and ripen hope into success: then—then, I may perhaps throw off a disguise that, while it befriended, has not degraded me, and avow myself to her! Yet how much better to dignify the name I have assumed than to owe respect only to that which I have not been deemed worthy to inherit! Well, well, these are bitter thoughts; let me turn to others. How beautiful Flora looked last ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... years since this dreadful demoralisation has become so apparent and so shamelessly avowed. In another work the American author above quoted observes,—"We see the effects of this baneful influence in the openness and audacity with which men avow improper motives and improper acts, trusting to find support in a popular feeling, for while vicious influences are perhaps more admitted in other countries than in America, in none are they so openly avowed." Surely there is sufficient of American authority to satisfy any ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... I avow my adherence to the Union, with my friends, with my party, with my State; or without either, as they may determine; in every event of peace or war, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. —Speech in the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... unconnected with the story. Men asked him questions as though he were likely to know; and he would answer them, asserting that he knew nothing, but still leaving an impression behind that he did know more than he chose to avow. Many inquiries were made daily at this time in Scotland Yard as to the captain. These, no doubt, chiefly came from the creditors and their allies. But Harry Annesley became known among those who asked ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... in large accessions to the Churches of New Hampshire, the power of the gospel was manifested in Amherst, and these men with many others were persuaded to act upon their religious convictions and avow their faith in Christ. Mr. Melendy united with the Congregational Church in 1832, and Mr. David and several of his workmen followed the example in 1835; the character of all these men for integrity and steady habits had been good, but from this date a higher standard ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... you prove right and I prove wrong, A million years from now, In language plain and frank and strong My error I'll avow ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... nature—and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?—the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... stronger language." The rumour of this soon spread, and on the evening of the 15th a conversation concerning it took place in the house of lords, in which Earl Temple declared, that he was not ashamed to avow the advice which he had given to his majesty, and would publish what he was empowered to communicate, when he should be properly called upon to do so. It was evident, therefore, to ministers and to all men, that the rumour was substantially ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... with, strike in with, close in with; echo, enter into one's views, agree in opinion; vote, give one's voice for; recognize; subscribe to, conform to, defer to; say yes to, say ditto, amen to, say aye to. acknowledge, own, admit, allow, avow, confess; concede &c. (yield) 762; come round to; abide by; permit &c. 760. arrive at an understanding, come to an understanding, come to terms, come to an agreement. confirm, affirm; ratify, appprove, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... employed in obeying that command. Indulging this idea, she hoped that his glory would burst upon them with such unquestionable splendour, that every tongue would applaud, while she took her hero by the hand, and asked her father to rescind the injunction which forbade her to avow her unchangeable affection. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... to Sir William Stanhope's to the Aylesbury races, where the Grenvilles and Peggy Banks design to appear and avow their triumph. Gray has been here a few days, and is transported with your story of Madame Bentley's diving, and her white man, and in short with all your stories. Room for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... she, "borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favors by all possible means. I offered unto you presence and audience, whensoever it pleased you to admonish me, and yet I cannot be quit of you. I avow to God I shall be anes [once] revenged." And with these words scarcely could Marnock, her secret chamber-boy, get napkins to hold her eyes dry for the tears; and the owling, besides womanly weeping, stayed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... not your admirable ease of manner, nor your facility of telling pretty nothings, nor your—in a word, that particular something which makes you the most recherche man of the Faubourg Saint Germain; and even I avow to you that, were I still young, and a coquette, AND THAT I TOOK IT INTO MY HEAD TO HAVE A LOVER, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fourth class, of much less use than these, but of much greater name. Men of the first rank in learning, and to whom the whole tribe of scholars bow with reverence. A man must be as indifferent as I am to common censure or approbation, to avow a thorough contempt for the whole business of these learned lives; for all the researches into antiquity, for all the systems of chronology and history, that we owe to the immense labors of a Scaliger, a Bochart, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... keeping up this army. The expenses of the Interior mean the expenses of the police and spies, which infest every town in the Papal dominions, and the grant for Special Purposes, whatever else it may mean, which is not clear, means certainly some job, which the Government does not like to avow. The only parts, therefore, of the expenditure which can be fairly said to be for the benefit of the nation, are the expenses of the Currency, Census and Public Works, amounting altogether to 785198 scudi, or not a twelfth of the net income raised by taxation. Commercially speaking, whatever may ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... be much worse. GILL: Worse, father? Yes, perhaps you're right, Upon the whole—perhaps, it might. MYSELF: But hark now, miss! Attend to this! Poetic flights I do not fly; When I begin, like poor Lobkyn, I merely rhyme and versify. Since my shortcomings I avow, The story now, you must allow, Trips lightly and in happy vein? GILL: O, yes, father, though it is rather Like some parts of your "Beltane." MYSELF: How, child! Dare you accuse your sire Of plagiary—that sin most ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... immorality, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill." The Missouri Argus says: "Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their opinions. It would be instant death to them." Finally, the New Orleans True American says: "We can assure those, one and all, who have embarked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing Slavery at the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... country neighborhood, being bound to it by a thousand links of love for its sweeping and soft landscapes. At this farm I was unknown to the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful and green soil. And, must I avow it; there was something besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to know what passed in the solitary souls of those wandering ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... hope the Father will send thee, as the companion of life's toils and joys, is not to thy thought pure? Is not manliness to thy thought purity, not lawlessness? Can his lips speak falsely? Can he do, in secret, what he could not avow to the mother that bore him? O say, dost thou not look for a heart free, open as thine own, all whose thoughts may be avowed, incapable of wronging the innocent, or still further degrading the fallen—a man, in short, in whom ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... blacker, it had seemed necessary for Colonel Tiffton openly to avow his sentiments, and not "sneak between two fires, for fear of being burned," as Harney wolfishly told him one day, taunting him with being a "villainous Yankee," and hinting darkly of the punishment preparing ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... forward Zephyrinus himself and induced him to avow publicly the following opinions: "I know that there is one God, Jesus Christ; and that excepting Him I do not know another begotten and capable of suffering." When he said, "The Father did not die but the Son," he would in this way continue to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... well-established few. On the same ground distillers to-day are very generally opposed to the removal of the internal revenue tax on spirits. But popular clamor carried all before it, and it would have been unsafe for any one to openly avow himself in favor of the excise. At a meeting held in Pittsburg, on the seventh of September, 1791, resolutions were adopted denouncing the tax as "operating on a domestic manufacture—a manufacture not equal through the States. It is insulting to the ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... of all your kind offices, and only lament my inability to reward them in a suitable manner." "In that case I shall not attempt to deny my share in the business." "You have then sufficient honor to avow your enmity towards me?" "By no means enmity, madam. I merely admit my desire to contribute to the amusement of the king, and surely, when I see all around anxious to promote the gratification of their sovereign, I need not be withheld ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... the Americans wish for anything more than is set forth in the address of the last Congress to the King and people of Great Britain—if independence is their aim—by removing their real grievances, their artificial ones (if any they should avow) will soon appear, and with them will their cause be deserted by every friend to limited monarchy, and by every well-wisher to the interests of America. I have endeavored, in this uncultivated home-spun essay, to avoid prolixity as much as possibly I could. I have aimed at no flowers of speech, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... given you credit for more penetration, Norman," she replied. "I to mean such nonsense—I to avow a preference for any man! Can you have been so foolish as to think so? It was only a ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... pulling himself together, and he loathed himself. During this crisis he had somewhat neglected the Abbe Gevresin, to whom he dared not avow his foulness, but since certain indications warned him of new attacks, he took fright, and went ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... those who would arise and seek to cleanse and renew the body by God-given remedies. But again there would be men who would arise and deny that there was a body, would condemn the very name of the Church, and avow that what the Lord wanted was not a body, but a number of individuals each seeking light and salvation in his own fashion. That would be a fearful evil—an evil which would rend the body into a thousand schisms, ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... pleasant. Her two avowals to Edward Rochester—one before he had declared his love for her, and the other on her return to him—are certainly somewhat frank. Jane Eyre in truth does all but propose marriage twice to Edward Rochester; and she is the first to avow her love, even when she believed he was about to marry another woman. It is indeed wrung from her; it is human nature; it is a splendid encounter of passion; and if it be bold in the little woman, it is redeemed by her noble defiance of his tainted suit, and ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... speech before him and before the country, Mr. Calhoun had not the candor to avow, in later years, a complete change of opinion. He could only go so far as to say, when opposing the purchase of the Madison Papers in 1837, that, "at his entrance upon public life, he had inclined ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... seen notes taken by a member of congress, of communications made by Mr. Girard, when admitted to an audience, which avow these sentiments. The secret journals ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... hundred a year from the Fellowship, and never had a farthing from the old destroyer of country-seats afterwards. He never owed a sixpence; nay, he paid a debt of thirty pounds, which Courtenay, who had no iron in his character, had incurred at Winchester, and had not the courage to avow. The next step was to choose a profession. The bar would have been Sydney's choice; but the church was the choice of his father. It is the cheapest channel by which a man may pass into genteel poverty; 'wit and independence do not make bishops,' as Lord Cockburn ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... is, it must be admitted, a dangerous habit. I freely avow that, in my humble contributions to Alpine literature, I have myself made some very poor and very unseasonable witticisms. I confess my error, and only wish that I had no worse errors to confess. Still I think that the poor little jokes in which ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... at the moment was the description, in the Epistle on Taste, of Canons, the splendid seat of the Duke of Chandos. Chandos, being still alive, resented the attack, and Pope had not the courage to avow his meaning, which might in that case have been justifiable. He declared to Burlington (to whom the epistle was addressed), and to Chandos, that he had not intended Canons, and tried to make peace by saying in another epistle that ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... form of government which he distrusted and disliked. He was out of sympathy with the spirit that prevailed, and was not the true representative of the cause, like Madison, who said of him, "If his theory of government deviated from the republican standard, he had the candour to avow it, and the greater merit of co-operating faithfully in maturing and supporting a system which was not his choice." The development of the constitution, so far as it continued on his lines, was the work of Marshall, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they,—especially they,—hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so with men who are conscious of no higher ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... whether or not I would sacrifice them to you? Since we are not absolutely destined for one another, it would not be prudent to let that happiness with which I must be satisfied, wither for ever."—Lord Nelville made no answer, because it was necessary, in expressing his sentiments, to avow also the purpose they inspired, and of this his own heart was still in ignorance. He was silent therefore, and sighing, followed Corinne to the ball, whither he ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... Republicans were alike hostile to his reign. That he might conciliate the surrounding dynasties, and save himself from such a coalition of crowned heads as crushed Napoleon I., he felt constrained to avow political principles and adopt measures which exasperated the Republicans, and yet did not reconcile the Legitimists to what they deemed his usurpation. Notwithstanding the most rigid censorship of the press France has ever known, the Government was assailed in various ways, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... market when we meet, We'll dare make no avow, But, 'Dame, how does my gay goss-hawk?' 'Madame, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... inquired into. They had sometimes attacked Yorkist parties, sometimes resisted Scottish raids, or even made a foray in return, and they were well used to arms. These all had full equipments, and some more coin in their pouches than they cared to avow. Three or four of them brought an ox, calf or sheep, or a rough pony loaded with provisions, and driven by a herd boy or a son eager to see life and 'the wars.' Simon Bunce, well armed, was of this party. Hob Hogward, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... against religion drawn from the irreligious character of many men of science. The Author's subject has led him in the present work to confine his illustrations on this head to the question of natural religion: but the translator will avow that a main motive with him to undertake the labor of this translation has been the wish to prove, in the instance of the distinguished Author himself, that men of incontestable eminence as metaphysical philosophers may hold and profess boldly their faith in doctrines, which many who ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... away from that quiet country neighborhood, to which I was attached by a thousand links of love for its wide and peaceful landscape. I was happy in this sequestered farm, far removed from everything, but in touch with the earth, the good, beautiful, green earth. And—must I avow it?—there was, besides, a little curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet and to know what transpires in the solitary souls of those wandering ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Savary at to-morrow's blink And make all lucid to the Emperor. For us, I wholly can avow as mine The cordial spirit of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... under this stimulating influence that La Rochefoucauld made the well-known pen-portrait of himself. "I will lack neither boldness to speak as freely as I can of my good qualities," he writes, "nor sincerity to avow frankly that I have faults." After describing his person, temper, abilities, passions, and tastes, he adds with curious candor: "I am but little given to pity, and do not wish to be so at all. Nevertheless there is nothing I would not do for an afflicted person; and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin, overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed themselves to be off the Baleares, we landed, on the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... afterwards he seemed to awake all at once to the claims of Christ as the Saviour of the world, and under this impulse he openly appeared in a native newspaper as the assailant of Hinduism and the advocate of Christianity, which led to the hope that he was to avow himself, by baptism, a follower of the Lord. But he became alarmed at what he had done; he could not bear the reproaches of his friends, and he fell back into the ranks of his people. Though he had ceased to be my teacher I had opportunities of seeing him, and I tried to speak ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... your goodness too well to doubt that you will do justice to me, as well as to others; and if it should so happen that by the misrepresentations of my enemies (who have long sought my ruin privately, and now avow it publicly), if by their artifices your lordship should be induced to think me guilty, I would submit to your sentence in silence, and ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... question of the Church, the more intelligent laymen of the Irish National party openly avow their wish to alienate the property of the Church, on the ground that its existence forms a barrier to the union of Irish Protestants with the Catholic majority in the formation of a truly National Irish party. It is asserted, and apparently not without reason, that if the ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton

... Italy, Mrs. Cliff began to chafe and worry under her restrictions. She had obtained from Europe all she wanted at present, and there was so much, in Plainton she was missing. Oh, if she could only go there and avow her financial condition! She lay awake at night, thinking of the opportunities that were slipping from her. From the letters that Willy Croup wrote her, she knew that people were coming to the front in Plainton who ought to be on the back seats, and that she, who could occupy, if she chose, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, and masterly versification of this poem, it is a matter of curiosity to observe the diffidence with which its authour brought it forward into publick notice, while he is so cautious as not to avow it to be his own production; and with what humility he offers to allow the printer to 'alter any stroke of satire which he might dislike[355].' That any such alteration was made, we do not know. If we did, we could ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... to the idea of spilling human blood, on almost any occasion whatever; but they have lately seen a penitential thief suffer death for pilfering a few pounds from scattering individuals. You boldly avow a resolution to bear a principal part in the robbery of every inhabitant of this country, in the present and future ages, of every thing dear and interesting to them. Are there no laws in the Book of God and nature that ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... a damning lie!" screamed the cripple, foaming with passion. "I have borne no false witness! Besides, did not she avow her deeds of darkness? did she not confess her complicity with the spirits of hell, and her harlotries ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... and people talked politics, who had till then only felt silently on these subjects. In loquacious families Bradlaugh caused dissension and division, more real perhaps than apparent, for not all Bradlaugh's supporters had the courage to avow themselves such. It was not easy, at any rate it was not easy in the Five Towns, for a timid man in reply to the question, "Are you in favour of a professed Freethinker sitting in the House of Commons?" to ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... from a polluted source—I return to the world to seek you, to warm and to expostulate; I come to urge you to brave the infamy you have deserved; to court disgrace as the punishment you merit: briefly to avow ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... various denominations which compose the great Christian family, and acquainted with the principal arguments by which they support their peculiar views. While entertaining decided opinions of his own, which he did not hesitate to avow on all proper occasions, he was tolerant of the sentiments of all who differed from him. He deemed it one of the most sacred rights of every American citizen, and of every human being, to worship God according to the dictates of his own ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... my stating, in terms that could not be misunderstood, that I was a traveller, and did not wish to meddle with anything that required secrecy, in a foreign government; that I certainly had my own political notions, and if pushed, should not hesitate to avow them anywhere; that the proper place for a writer to declare his sentiments, was in his books, unless under circumstances which authorized him to act; that I did not conceive foreigners were justifiable in ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Avow" :   avower, avowal, assert, aver, swear, tell, admit, protest, assure, acknowledge, swan, declare, avouch



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