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Refuse   Listen
verb
Refuse  v. i.  To deny compliance; not to comply. "Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse." "If ye refuse... ye shall be devoured with the sword."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Refuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Irishmen in exchange for beef and mutton, and bread, and bacon, and potatoes. The Irish provisions were not exported—they were eaten in Ireland. They are exported now—for Irish artisans, without work, must live on the refuse of the soil, and Irish peasants must eat lumpers or starve. Part of the exports go to buy rags and farming tools, which once went for clothes and all other goods to Irish operatives, and the rest goes to raise money to pay absentee rents ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... was bound to the Leeward Islands, and that he had been asked to take as passengers the wife and family of the commander-in-chief, Sir Richard Hughes, who had already gone out. In a small vessel, for such the "Boreas" was, the request, which he could not well refuse, gave Nelson cause of reasonable discontent, entailing crowding and a large outlay of money. "I shall be pretty well filled with lumber," he wrote; and later, on the voyage out, "I shall not be sorry to part with them, although ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... not seem that anything more is needed than the consent of the maiden, who, when she acquiesces in the arrangement, is called a "muffin"—for the mammas were "muffins" themselves in their day, and cannot refuse their daughters the same privilege. The gentleman is privileged to take the young lady about in his sleigh, to ride with her, to walk with her, to dance with her a whole evening without any remark, to escort her to parties, and be her attendant on all occasions. When the spring ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... understand that you refuse to tell me where she is?" demanded he, turning up the cuff of ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... to all this. He could make hard sacrifices for himself, and, in fact, did reduce his own comforts to those of a poor bachelor, but he could not find in his heart to refuse everything to his family; so that although they made no pretension now to anything like an aristocratic position, my uncle still found himself to be living rather beyond his means, and the expense of establishing his ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... capital is now a daily scene of lawless riot. Mobs patrolling the streets at noon-day, some knocking all down that will not roar for Wilkes and liberty; courts of justice afraid to give judgment against him; coal-heavers and porters pulling down the houses of coal-merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers destroying saw-mills; sailors unrigging all the outward-bound ships, and suffering none to sail till merchants agree to raise their pay; watermen destroying private boats, and threatening bridges; soldiers firing among the mobs and killing men, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... my fault," said Harry, cheerfully. "I certainly wasn't going to refuse. And it isn't as if I'd asked Mr. Wharton ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... can't refuse," said Susan with marvellous decision; "it would be out of the question for us to avoid him; it would be too marked for us to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... occasion, proceed to wash her face, comb her hair, and attire her person with new apparel, and otherwise demonstrating the release from her vow and restraint. Still she has not her entire freedom. If she will still refuse to marry a relative of the deceased and will marry another, she then has to purchase her freedom by giving a certain amount of goods and whatever else she might have manufactured during her widowhood ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... like accepting the substitute on these terms. When the captain heard this, he was infuriated, and ordered the first man of each mess to be called by name, at the same time saying to them, "I'll see who will dare refuse the pumpkin or anything else I may order to be served out." Then, after swearing at them in a shocking way, he ended by saying, "I'll make you eat grass, or anything else you can catch, before I have done with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... know why. I do not like to refuse the invitation; it would only increase Captain Monk's animosity and widen still further the breach between us. As patron he holds so much in his power. Besides that, my presence at the table does act, I believe, as a mild restraint on some of them, keeping the drinking and the language somewhat within ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... of high compliment, Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, said, "that to refuse anything that could be asked by the gentleman from Massachusetts gave him pain, great pain. He said it was with unaffected sincerity he declared, that the member from Massachusetts (with whom he was associated in the committee) had not only fulfilled ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... to discriminate between relations and mere friends of the house; to wag his tail at God Save the Queen; to count up to five in chips of fire-wood, and to seven in mutton bones; to howl for all deaths in the family above the degree of second cousin; to post letters, and refuse them when they have been insufficiently stamped; and last, and most intolerable, to show a tender solicitude when tabby is out of sorts." The dog, indeed, for the most part, has become as sentimental and conventional ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... country side knew how good-natured he was, how ready to help a friend, very often to his own detriment and that of his family; he was consequently very popular at fair and market. Everybody brought his troubles to him, especially money troubles; and although Ebben Owens might at first refuse assistance, he would generally end by opening his heart and his pockets, and lending the sum required, sometimes on good security, sometimes on bad, sometimes on none at all but his creditors' word of honour, whose value, alas! was apt ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... knew that Grayson would be angry if he let the boss's daughter into that back room alone with an outlaw and a robber, and the boss himself would probably be inclined to have Eddie drawn and quartered; but it was hard to refuse Miss Barbara anything. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... succeed, as I have every reason to hope I may, your father will have no cause to refuse me on account of my birth and fortune. More I may not tell you; but you will confide in my honour, dearest Violet: I know you will!" He took her hand, which ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... to occur, when, on the 14th, two of our men desired to speak with the captain, and then gave him the astounding intelligence that the ships' companies of the whole fleet had bound themselves to make certain important demands, and which, if not granted, that they would refuse to put to sea. The two men—they were quartermasters—moreover, stated that they had themselves been chosen delegates to represent the ship's company of the San Fiorenzo, by the rest of the fleet, but that they could assure him that all the men would prove true and ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... sir," said Gouache, desisting from his work and turning towards Ugo, "Madame is quite right. I not only do not quarrel, but I refuse to be quarrelled with. You have my most solemn assurance that whatever has previously passed here, whatever I have heard said by you, by Donna Tullia, by Valdarno, by any of your friends, I regard as an inviolable ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... ever again to find admission into the ranks which he had deserted. That was truly a terrible sacrament by which they admitted the apostate into their communion. They demanded of him that he should himself take the most prominent part in murdering his old friends. To refuse was as much as his life was worth. But what is life worth when it is only one long agony of remorse and shame? These, however, are feelings of which it is idle to talk when we are considering the conduct of such a man as Barere. He undertook ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... my dear; he is crying," said Mr. Morton, more authoritatively than usual. "Come here, my man!" and the worthy uncle took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips; Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... given forth an eruption of dogs. The Indian warrior makes a companion of his dog, and he can show no greater hospitality to a guest than to kill his favourite friend and serve his visitor with dog soup. To refuse this diet is ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... only with regard to other human beings, but with regard to all living entities whether human or non-human. As to how the "souls" of plants, birds, and animals, or of planets or stars, differ in their nature from human souls we can only vaguely conjecture. But to refuse some degree of consciousness, some measure of the complex vision, to any living thing, is to be false to that primordial act of faith into which the original revelation of the complex vision compels ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... Its presence was no matter of concern. It lay there held safe from decay by the power of the drug which had robbed it of life. Later, with leisure, and when the desire prompted, Steve would dispose of it as he might dispose of any other refuse that displeased ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... credentials: it is sufficient to state that they were never submitted to Federal inspection; nor had I ever, at any time, in my possession, a single document which could vitiate my claim to the rights of a neutral and civilian. Even Mr. Seward did not pretend to refuse liberty of unexpressed sympathy with either side to an utter foreigner. While I was a free agent in the Northern States, I was careful to indulge ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... fear and disdain for these two younger men; but surely they would not refuse aid to Ben. Yet perhaps it was best to proceed with some caution. These were her lover's enemies; if for no other reason than their rage at her own abduction they might be difficult to control. Her father, in all probability, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... the principal mutineers, putting the fellow who wrote the paper in irons. By this time all the people were on deck, and we had got their paper from those we had in custody; the purport of it being to refuse accepting the intended distribution of plunder, and not to move from this place, till they had what they termed justice done them. Not knowing how far this mutiny might have been concerted with the people of the other ships, we agreed to discharge those in confinement, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... are also mentioned. The archbishop-elect has had some difficulties in securing possession of his see, and the Audiencia has decided against him. The religious orders refuse to obey the royal decree as to changes and appointments of missionaries. The see of Camarines has long been vacant; Tavora suggests that this diocese be abolished, annexing its territory to those of Cebu and Manila. The religious orders are in peaceable condition. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... feast of St. John. She begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the captivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement. The Voices made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now as they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan would naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it to grow and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told she was to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of the garrison it was but natural, when the discovery had been made of the unaccountable unfastening of the gate of the fort, suspicion of no ordinary kind should attach to the sentinel posted there; and that he should steadily refuse all credence to a story wearing so much appearance of improbability. Proud, and inflexible, and bigoted to first impressions, his mind was closed against those palliating circumstances, which, adduced by Halloway in his defence, had so mainly contributed to stamp the conviction of his moral ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... composer. An instinct pulses here, an instinct barbarous and unbridled, if you will, but indubitably exuberant and vivid. These works have a necessity. These harmonies have color. This music is patently speech. But the later compositions of Schoenberg withhold themselves, refuse our contact. They baffle with their apparently wilful ugliness, and bewilder with their geometric cruelty and coldness. One gets no intimation that in fashioning them the composer has liberated ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... blindly may refuse her, Close their eyes and call it night; Learned scoffers may abuse her, But they cannot ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... why in the North, having passionately protested against physical force movements, no-rent manifestos, and contempt for Imperial Parliament, they should have come themselves at last to organize a physical force movement, should threaten to pay no taxes, and should refuse obedience to an Act of Parliament. We will understand also why it was their opponents came themselves to address to Ulster all the arguments and denunciations Ulster had addressed to them. I do not point ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... placed in pairs on opposite sides of the branches, and these turn round on being pressed against, one pair brings the other exactly into the position in which it must pierce the intruder. They cut like knives. Horses dread this bush extremely; indeed, most of them refuse ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... Southerner! An officer who wanted to be more than a colonel, and couldn't be a brigadier, would have a "legion"—a hybrid unit between a regiment and a brigade. Sometimes there was a regiment whose roll-call was more than two thousand men, so popular was its colonel. Companies would often refuse to designate themselves by letter, but by the thrilling titles they had given themselves. How Morgan and Hunt had laughed over "The Yellow Jackets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes," "The Chickasha ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... imitative art one must stand there and see the painter's howling potentates dragged into hell in all the vividness of his bright hard colouring; see his feudal courtiers, on their palfreys, hold their noses at what they are so fast coming to; see his great Christ, in judgment, refuse forgiveness with a gesture commanding enough, really inhuman enough, to make virtue merciless for ever. The charge that Michael Angelo borrowed his cursing Saviour from this great figure of Orcagna is more valid than most accusations of plagiarism; ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... race of Valois have been liberal to excess; this is not precisely the case with the Bourbons, who are rather reproached with avarice! Henri IV. was said to be avaricious. He gave to his mistresses, because he could refuse them nothing; but he played with the eagerness of a man whose whole fortune depends on the game. Louis XIV. gave through ostentation. It is most astonishing," added he, "to reflect on what might have happened. The King might actually have been assassinated ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... had strongly urged him to refuse the invitation. The Cholulans were, they said, a treacherous people and not to be trusted. They were bigoted beyond the people of other cities, Cholula being the holy city of Anahuac. It was here the god Quetzalcoatl had remained for twenty years on his way down to the coast, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... get up there tonight!" he said. "There aren't any jets here, and these idiots refuse to bring one in from Hesperidum or Cynia for me to use. I'll have to ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... creature that the foreknowledge that some would come to a bad end neither could nor should prevent God from continuing the production; as it would not be to the praise of Nature if, knowing of herself that the flowers of a tree in a certain part must perish, she should refuse to produce flowers on that tree, and should abandon the production of fruit-bearing trees as vain and useless. I say, then, that God, who encircles and understands all, in His encircling and His understanding sees nothing so gentle, so noble, as He sees ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... typical case, and one that occurs almost daily. So it is in all lines of work the blind man or woman attempts. A blind piano tuner asks for work from house to house, just as a sighted tuner has to do, but, whereas we sometimes employ the latter, we refuse the former, saying, we could not trust our instrument to the hands of a blind man, and maybe we offer him a small piece of silver to lessen the hurt we have unwittingly inflicted. Perhaps a man with defective eyesight asks to clean house or help in the garden, or ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... refuse; and as she received the little cardboard box the old maid, glancing in, counted ten of her opals there, just half of the entire collection. Gabe had increased his "take" that morning, and added three to his plunder. His apparent success ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... promised to do. Jane was excessively embarrassed. As Harry proceeded, she became more and more agitated. Her manner was so confused, that it was some time before Hazlehurst could understand that she wished to refuse him. Had she not actually wept, and looked frightened and distressed, he might have given a very different interpretation to her embarrassment. At length, in answer to a decided question of his, she confessed her attachment to another ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... question the decisions of courts, nor can it interfere with the legal actions of the President, except that the Senate may refuse to confirm his appointments ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman

... sacredness of motherhood. In the black and narrow hall behind her we waded through a mess of young life, and essayed an even narrower and fouler stairway. Up we went, three flights, each landing two feet by three in area, and heaped with filth and refuse. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... have been made and accepted as practical, no court will force a manufacturer to turn out a machine guaranteed to fly. So purchasers can well remember that if their machines refuse to fly they have no redress against the maker, for he can always say, 'The industry is still in its experimental stage.' In contracting for an engine no builder will guarantee that the particular engine will successfully operate the aeroplane. In fact he could ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... with them? Why should he let her go? Who knew what treatment she would receive away from her own people? If he should rescue her and bring her back to her father, would he not thus win great favor in the eyes of Powhatan, who would not refuse her to him as his squaw? If she would not come willingly, he would carry her off against ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and then in the end refuse ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... soon as they can speak, so that by the time they are ten years old they know exactly what to do and avoid under all possible circumstances. Before they went away tea and sweetmeats were again handed round, and, as it is neither etiquette to refuse them or to leave anything behind that you have once taken, several of the small ladies slipped the residue into their capacious sleeves. On departing the same formal courtesies were used as ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... what do I expect? To walk, a rabbit, into the lion's den and make my own terms to Leo? I am happy to accept yours, M. de Mayenne, especially since, do I refuse, you will none the less ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... not be kind to refuse, since it troubles you so, and so I restore it. But if you would give me part of it and keep ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... point, altho we conceive a great improvement might be effected in this department of learning. My only wish is to select from all the forms of spelling, the most simple and consistent. Constant changes are taking place in the method of making words, and we would not refuse to cast in our mite to make the standard more correct and easy. We would prune off by degrees all unnecessary appendages, as unsounded or italic letters, and write out words so as to be capable of a distinct pronunciation. But this change must be gradually effected. From the spelling adopted two ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... I shall bend the tyrant; if not, yet I shall conquer by rendering, a shepherd to a sheep, a priest to a layman, that duty which he owed to me. You also, as far as in me lies, I shall edify not a little by such an example. For what if I should chance to be killed? I refuse not to die,[447] in order that from me you may have an example of life. It behoves a bishop, as the prince of bishops says, not to be lord over the clergy, but to become an example to the flock[448]—no other example[449] truly ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... miscreants! But, my friend, there is still another class of Democrats with whom I should exceedingly regret to see you associated. I mean those who, without any love for Rebels or their cause, are yet so fearful of being called Republicans that they refuse to support the Government. Can you justify yourself in standing upon such a platform? Is this a time in which to permit your old party animosities to render you indifferent to the honor and welfare of the nation? Are you simply in the position of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... I began slowly, "that anyone else in my place would be more severe than I, then I would gladly give up my position at once and refuse to speak the verdict. But I dare not conceal from you that the mildest sentence that God, our king, and our laws demand is, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... I want it. You can make them happy, and they'll be so proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man now. ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... have you fret so," spoke his wife at last. She took down her bonnet and shawl. "I'll go and ask the master myself. I don't believe he'll refuse a woman, and you such a faithful hand. Bonny is so good he won't be any trouble to you, and I'll take ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... reasons for his gloomy opinions. The hands, whom presently I piped on deck, were as ill- assorted and ill-conditioned a lot as boatswain ever was called upon to overhaul. Many were raw hands, who did not know one end of a mast from the other. Others, who knew better, appeared to be the refuse of crews which had rejected their worst men. And the few old salts of the right kind were evidently demoralised and dissatisfied, both at their enforced association with their present messmates and with the abrupt ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... matter of volcanoes, forbidding as is its aspect, does not refuse nutriment to the woods. The refractory lava of Etna, it is true, remains long barren, and that of the great eruption of 1669 is still almost ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... "and God has work for all these men to do, though many of them refuse to do it. But I feel sure that that won't be your case, Jeff. He finds work just suited to our capacities—at the time we need it, too, if we are only willing. Why, in my own very case, has He not sent you to me to be nursed, just as I ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne

... form of fetishism establishing itself in one's native land is repugnant to the feelings even of those who have been rendered callous to such things by seats in the Bengal Legislative Council. [I refuse to believe that the Zoological Society has lent its apiary to this movement. It must have been a spelling-bee ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... the other thought of it with a thrill of tender gratitude towards the young pitiful creature who had evoked it. After all, why, because he was alone in the world and must remain so, should he feel bound to refuse this one gift of the gods, the delicate passing gift of a girl's—a child's friendship? As for her, the man's very real, though wholly morbid, modesty scouted the notion of love on her side. He was a likely person for a beauty on the threshold of life and success to fall in love with; but she ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... whose innate worth the wise man's praise And the fool's censure equally betrays, Accept the humble blessing of my Muse, Nor your assistance to her aim refuse, She asks not flattery, but let her claim A kind perusal, and a ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... least," she said, "be better acquainted with the law than Doctor Elmer, and there is no favor he will refuse me." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... mother of children who never have been born; it is enough for me to be the mother of those that I have and to love them with all my heart. I am a woman of the civilized world, monsieur—we all are—and we are no longer, and we refuse to be, mere females ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... the new Servyce, because it is but lyke a Christmasse game, but we wyll have our olde Servyce of Mattens, masse, evensong and procession in Latten as it was before. And so we the Cornyshe men, whereof certen of us understa'de no Englysh, utterly refuse this newe Englysh.... We wyll have holy bread and holy water made every Sundaye; Palmes and ashes at the times accustomed; Images to be set up again in every church, and all other aunceint olde Ceremonyes ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... but it will go hard with me if I do not return in less than a year to lead Hulda to the church at Moel, where our friend, Pastor Andersen, will not refuse to make ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... to; it wouldn't hardly be fair to refuse a friend after helpin' an enemy. I'll stand ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... disturbed by passions, jealousies, loves, hates and the troubles of transcendental good intentions, which, though ethically valuable, I have no doubt cause often more unhappiness than the plots of the most evil tendency. For those who refuse to believe in chance he, I mean Mr. Powell, must have been obviously predestined to add his native ingenuousness to the sum of all the others carried by the honest ship Ferndale. He was too ingenuous. Everybody on board was, exception being made of Mr. Smith who, however, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... look at yourself, you—bum!" he snapped. "Do you look, now, like the sort of man who'd refuse to earn an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... wife and six young children. The desperate daily fight with the hunger-wolf at the door, spite of the little lifts we try to give them. Now the wife is dead, and he comes to ask for money to buy a coffin and a place to lay her away. He has tried in vain elsewhere, so comes to us, and we cannot refuse. A few hours after, the pitiful little procession passes by. The pine coffin in an old cart, the husband and children, the minister and a few friends, following on foot. Such calls are frequent. Does the money ever ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various

... earthen vases, the many bird-cages, the air of domestic quiet and comfort, marked it as the home of some vestal or widow, some lone woman whose heart was centred in the ordinary and simplest pleasures of a home. I saw also she was one having the most limited income, and I thought, "She will not refuse to let me a room for a few months, as I shall be as quiet as herself, and sympathize about the flowers and birds." Now the Villa Pamfili is all laid waste. The French encamp on Monte Mario; what they have done there is not known ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... decision," Dewitt hastily completed Luck's sentence. "From all weather reports, this storm is going to be a long one. I doubt very much if you could get to work for several days. I wish you would think it over from all sides before you accept or refuse the proposition, Mr. Lindsay. Lay the matter before your boys; tell them frankly just how things stand. I'll guarantee they will insist upon your accepting the position. I know, and you know, that ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... reflected that it made little difference whether the object of his passion was in his hand or in his chest, while it was all the same deep in his heart. Then his words seemed to imply that he wanted to take his farewell of it; and to refuse his request might only fan the evil love, and turn him from the good motion in his mind. She said: "Yes, sir," and stood ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... colonel would be only too happy to do so: but the nature of his business was such as would not admit of an hour's delay; indeed, it was quite out of the question, and he must hasten on. But, his friend repeating the invitation in a manner too earnest to be mistaken, he felt it would be uncourteous to refuse; and consented to stop and dine with him; on condition, however, that he should be allowed to proceed on his journey that same evening. At his friend's hospitable mansion he met with a gay and brilliant throng of ladies and gentlemen, who, though strangers ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... answered the official, "if you continue to refuse the office, I really know of no one else fit ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... the traffic had died to a distant rumble. Probably in any case Ernestine would have yielded to Milly's desires. Her heart was too deeply involved with Milly and Virginia—"her family"—for her to allow them to take themselves out of her life, as she saw that this time Milly would do should she refuse to share in the new move. And as it happened the choice came when a crisis in her own business was on the way. The two young men who owned all but a few shares of the Twentieth Century Laundry stock had been ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... pity, indeed," said her mother; "and I should be sorry to refuse your godmother's kind offer for many reasons. And though I sha'n't see all the beautiful things at Paradise Court, I shall have pleasure, too, while you are there, because I shall know ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... his fingers sometimes itched with the longing to feel the cue in his hand again), all the thousand extravagances of such a young man's day. But up to the present it was this alone which made poverty intolerable,—the having to refuse when ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... with its proposal that I should return to Ireland to teach music in a convent school forces me to break silence, and it makes me regret that I gave Father O'Grady permission to write to you; he asked me so often, and his kindness is so winning, that I could not refuse him anything. He said you would certainly have begun to see that you had done me a wrong, and I often answered that I saw no reason why I should trouble to soothe your conscience. I do not wish to return to Ireland; I am, as Father O'Grady told you, earning my own living, my work interests me, ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... reason why I should refuse," replied the countess, carelessly. "Neither am I able to divine wherefore you make your request in a tone of such unusual solemnity. One would suppose that the little abbe has come to invite his mother to a confession of her sins, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... "You'll not refuse a poor man's hospitality, guv'nor?" he said politely. "I can give you a clean glass, and if you'll try a drop of rum, there's fresh water from the stream to mix it with—good as you'll find in England. Or, maybe, ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... come in,' said Hazel. They went out, but Abel waylaid them, and took Edward off to show him a queen bee in a box from Italy. Edward loathed bees in or out of boxes, but he was too kind-hearted to refuse. Abel was so unperceptive that ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... of the succession of the varieties of trees corresponding to the evidences found in the peat bogs, the oak following the fir, which in turn gave way to the beech. These refuse heaps are usually in ridgelike mounds, sometimes hundreds of yards in length. The weight of the millions of shells and other refuse undoubtedly pressed the shells down into the soft earth and still the mound enlarged, the habitation being changed or raised higher, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... do not wish to be the cause of my death I hereby ask you to see me, if only for the very shortest space of time. If you refuse I know I shall do something rash. To-night and tomorrow night at half-past ten I will be standing at the south end of Westminster Bridge. The river will be near me if you ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... as possible. Now and then under such conditions there is a marked tendency to enter the same box each time. Indiscriminable conditions are likely to render the animals fearful of the experiment; instead of going from A to A willingly, they fight against making the trip. They refuse to pass from A to B; and when in B, they fight against being driven toward the entrances ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... general opposition which the execution of the laws relating to the clergy has found in this department... nine-tenths, at least, of the Catholics refusing to recognize the sworn priests. The teachers, influenced by their old cures or vicars, are willing to take the civic oath, but they refuse to recognize their legitimate pastors and attend their services. We are, therefore, obliged to remove them, and to look out for others to replace them. The citizens of a large number of the communes, persisting in trusting these, will lend no assistance whatever to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he ever knew. He is sure she isn't prudish enough to refuse him a kiss, and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that which is vastly ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... is to refuse," said he with gentle raillery. "A man is a fool who does not understand and sheer off when a woman asks ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... duly signed, Mrs Gaff went to the rails and shook it as she might have shaken in the face of her enemies the flag under which she meant to conquer or to die. On receiving it back she returned and presented it to the elderly teller with a look that said plainly—"There! refuse to cash that at your peril;" but she ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... seeks his symbols sometimes in natural phenomena, oftener in the creation of mighty abstractions; and the moral of all must be set forth in the burden of 'The Daughter of Lebanon,' that 'God may give by seeming to refuse.' Prose-poems, as they have been called, they are deeply philosophical, presenting under the guise of phantasy the profoundest laws of the working of the human spirit in its most terrible disciplines, and asserting for the darkest phenomena of human life some ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... King.) I am before you as a serving lad, and you are a King in Ireland. Because you are a King and I your hired servant you will not refuse me ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... for his gold than for your souls. Since you refuse him your labor on his own terms, he purposes by aid of the high fence and bayonets to forbid every one of you union men from ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... trail, leading to New Strike, he saw that it had been well traveled. On both sides of the narrow road were evidences that many teams had passed that way recently, for the refuse of camp stuff, broken boxes and barrels, and things that the miners had thrown away as useless, ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... stomach, he thinks that he must have inadvertently sat down where one of the warriors had sat before him. If somebody endures the pangs of toothache, he makes sure that he must have eaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the slayers. All the refuse of the meals of these gallant men must be most carefully put away lest a pig should devour it; for if it did do so, the animal would certainly die, which would be a serious loss to the owner. Hence when the warriors have satisfied their hunger, any food that remains over is burnt or buried. The ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... to observe that the gentleman, Phrenologist, as he professes to be, has so little reverence in his crown. He could not read the foregoing suggestion without scoffing at it. Biblical truth is not powerless, though the scornful may refuse its ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... though the world take her part, Saying "She was the woman to choose; He had eyes, was a man in his heart,"— We twain the decision refuse: We ... weak as I am, as thou art, ... Cling on to ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... Random, is as good a character as Squire Western himself; and Mr. Morgan, the Welsh apothecary, is as pleasant as Dr. Caius. What man who has made his inestimable acquaintance—what novel-reader who loves Don Quixote and Major Dalgetty—will refuse his most cordial acknowledgements to the admirable Lieutenant Lismahago? The novel of Humphry Clinker is, I do think, the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pen-and-ink drawing; his great musical gift—a gift which none of his family seemed to have inherited; his fine tenor voice; his unflinching courage and independence of character (qualities which made him refuse, in a Protestant country, to make open abjuration of the creed in which the Rossettis had been reared, though he detested the Pope and all his works, and was, if not an actual freethinker, thoroughly latitudinarian)—Gabriel’s ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... refuse, for I am almost frozen to death. I was telling you that the person who saved these young girls was a hero; and certainly his courage was beyond anything one could have imagined. When I left here with the men of the farm, we descended ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... hotel knew something as to the reasons of his stay in Beorminster. Mr Mosk, being as obstinate as a mule, was not likely to tell Cargrim anything he desired to learn. Bell, detesting the chaplain, as she took no pains to conceal, would probably refuse to hold a conversation with him; but Mrs Mosk, being weak-minded and ill, might be led by dexterous questioning to tell all she knew. And what she did know might, in Cargrim's opinion, throw more light on Jentham's connection with ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... consequently appertaining exclusively to the nation itself, no foreign power or person can levy men within its territory without its consent; and he who does, may be rightfully and severely punished; that if the United States have a right to refuse the permission to arm vessels and raise men within their ports and territories, they are bound by the laws of neutrality to exercise that right, and to prohibit such armaments and enlistments. To these principles of the law of nations ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... laboured, by her architectural designs, to obliterate every trace of those simple scenes which might have been regarded with reasonable veneration in all ages of the church. Dr. Clarke, in a fit of spleen with which we cannot altogether refuse to sympathize, remarks, that had the Sea of Tiberias been capable of annihilation by her means, it would have been dried up, paved, covered with churches and altars, or converted into monasteries and markets of indulgences, until every feature of the original had disappeared; ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... refuse to vote appropriations until the "Capitol crumbled into dust" unless the legislation demanded was passed. President Hayes' veto alone prevented the legislation. It is not here proposed to give a history ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... (a really good man, both upright and manly, but blunt in behavior, rude in speech, and unconventional). Alceste wants Celimene to forsake society and live with him in seclusion; this she refuses to do, and he replies, as you cannot find, "tout en moi, comme moi tout en vous, allez, je vous refuse." He then proposes to her cousin Eliante (3 syl.), but Eliante tells him she is already engaged to his friend Philinte (2 syl), and so the play ends.—Moliere, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... part thereof. Consider thys also, howe greate a porcion of tyme is geuen now and then to the foelyshe busines of our friendes. If we can not do as they all wolde haue vs, verelye wee oughte chiefely to regarde our chyldren. What payne refuse we to leaue vnto oure chyldren a ryche patrimonye and well stablished: and to get that for them whiche is better then all this, shulde it yrke vs to take laboure? namelye when naturall loue and the profite of them whyche be mooste deareste vnto vs, maketh sweete al the grief and payne. If that ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus

... our own houses, barns, and outbuildings. He is not a wild insect but a domestic one and is practically never found more than a few hundred yards away from some house or barnyard. His favorite place for breeding is in piles of stable manure, especially horse manure; but neglected garbage cans, refuse heaps, piles of dirt and sweepings, decaying matter of all sorts, which are allowed to remain for more than ten days or two weeks at a time, will give him the breeding grounds that ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... Almeria, laughing; "but I really think there is a polite necessity, if you will allow me the expression. Would it not be rude for all of us to refuse, when Lady Stock has made this music party, as she says, entirely on my account—on our account, I mean? for you see she mentions your fondness for music; and if she had not written so remarkably civilly to you, I assure you I would neither go ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... for "the likes of you." Think it over, and meanwhile please know there has been placed with the firm in Dublin money enough to bring you here with comfort. You must not refuse it. Take it as a loan, for I know you will not take ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... stimuli. Dillon, a political writer, earnestly pleads for an extension and deepening of the sympathies of children, and says that patriotic sentiment must be engrafted upon the sensitive soul of the child. No one could refuse to admit this. The question, however, is of ways and means. In our view it is mainly through play, or better, art, that the soul of the child is thus made sensitive. A dramatic social life must be the main condition upon which we depend for thus extending and deepening the ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... invade his mind. He complained of headache. His spirits alternated between depression and hysterical gayety. A dread lest the Inquisition should refuse the imprimatur to his poem haunted him. He grew restless, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... Conservative quite; There's beggars in Scripture 'mongst Gentiles and Jews: It's nonsense, trying to set things right, For if people will give, why, who'll refuse? That stopping old custom wakes my spleen: The poor and the rich both in giving agree: Your tight-fisted shopman's the Radical mean: There's nothing in common 'twixt ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of some married couples who mistake implacable hatred for indifference; for why should Corvinus, who lives in a round of intrigue, and seldom doth, and never willingly would, dally with his wife, endeavour to prevent her from the satisfaction of an intrigue in her turn? Why doth Camilla refuse a more agreeable invitation abroad, only to expose her husband at his own table at home? In short, to mention no more instances, whence can all the quarrels, and jealousies, and jars proceed in people ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... of the colony were, that he should identify himself with no party, but make himself a mediator and moderator between the influential of all parties; that he should have no ministers who did not enjoy the confidence of the Assembly, or, in the last resort, of the people; and that he should not refuse his consent to any measure proposed by his Ministry, unless it were of an extreme party character, such as the Assembly or the people would be sure to disapprove.[4] Happily these principles were not, in Lord Elgin's case, of ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... love and reverence a man who is morally and intellectually lower than herself, and who has driveled down into a mere assenting puppet. On the other hand, the pig-headed husband is very troublesome. He requires the greatest care; for whatever his wife says he will refuse to do; nay, although it may be the very essence of wisdom, he will refuse it because he knows the behest proceeds from his wife. He is like a jibbing horse, which you have to turn one way because you want him to start forward on the other; or he more closely resembles ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... That employment does not deserve the name of industry which requires the stimulus of novelty to keep it going. Those who will only work so long as they are amused will do no more good in the world, either to themselves or others, than those who refuse to work at all. If I had required you to pass the six weeks of my absence in bed or in counting your fingers, you would, I suppose, have thought it a sad waste of time; and yet I appeal to you whether (with the exception of an hour or two of needlework) ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... Philippe, blocking the way. "I refuse to accept with a light heart a responsibility that is not in accordance with my present opinions; and that is why an explanation ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... criticised his work; he learned from the glib loquacity of Lawson and from the example of Clutton. But Fanny Price hated him to take suggestions from anyone but herself, and when he asked her help after someone else had been talking to him she would refuse with brutal rudeness. The other fellows, Lawson, Clutton, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... better and breaks a spear or a bow in his presence—the transference is irrevocable. This curious custom prevails on the Zambesi, and also among the Wanyamwesi; if the old master wishes to recover his slave the new one may refuse to part with him except when he gets his full price: a case of this kind happened ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... rising and falling like birds ... she would tell him not to stand at the door in case it should fly open and he should fall out and be killed ... she would tell him, when the train reached the terminus in Belfast, to take tight hold of her hand and not to budge from her side ... she would refuse to cross the Lagan in the steam ferry-boat and insist on going round by tram-car across the Queen's Bridge ... she would tell him not to wander about in Forster Green's when he edged away from her to look at the coffee-mills ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... with Meyrick in the park after his return from a week in town, whither he had gone to see some old Berlin friends, had been a shock to him. A man may play the intelligent recluse, may refuse to fit his life to his neighbours' notions as much as you please, and still find death, especially death for which he has some responsibility, as disturbing a fact ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... think our sentiments are lofty enough to lead us to refuse a heart which wants soliciting; and we wish to conquer our lovers by the ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... comparison to the defending fleet. Pride and rage swept through Mekinese commanders, as they saw the Kandarians deliberately break up their formation to get their ships down to the level of the enemy. It was unthinkable for a Mekinese ship to refuse single combat! And when two and three could combine against a ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... charge of the ball-room at No. 177—I shall flatly refuse to call it a yard—said that he didn't believe in any other rule than order, and nearly took my breath away, for just then I had a vision of the club in the doorway; but it was only a vision. The club was not there. As he said it, he mounted the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... still, whilst I have almost daily fresh entreaties to receive Orphans. Since I began writings on this subject in my journal, thirty more Orphans have been applied for, from two years old and upwards. I cannot refuse to help, as long as I see a door open, and opened by God, as ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand and water. All these elements are ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... kind, and supplies the cattle with tolerable food during three or four months that it is young and tender, and for most of the year in marshy places; at other times they are partly fed with maize straw, the refuse of the sugar mills, and the leaves and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... air. Katrine walked fast with springing steps down the side-walk, and the two men plunged along beside her. Such a side-walk it was: in the summer a mere mass of mud and melted snow and accumulated rubbish—for in Dawson the inhabitants will not take the trouble to convey their refuse to any definite spot, but simply throw it out from their cabins a few yards from their own door, with a vague notion that they may have moved elsewhere before it rots badly,—now frozen solid but horribly uneven, and worn into deep holes. On ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... really the worshippers of the devil can only be true, if at all, in a modified sense, though it is true that they pay him so much deference as to refuse to speak of him disrespectfully, (perhaps for fear of his vengeance;) and, instead of pronouncing his name, they call him the 'lord of the evening,' or 'prince of darkness;' also, Sheik Maazen, or Exalted Chief. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... "Paternitates ac Magnificentias" of the Grand Council of France to answer them in Latin, French being "like Hebrew" to them; but the Magnificents of the Grand Council, conforming to a tradition which has remained unbroken down to our day, refuse to employ for the negotiation any language but their own.[397] Was it not still, as in the time of Brunetto Latini, the modern tongue most prized in Europe? In England even, men were found who agreed to this, while rendering to Latin the tribute due to it; and the author of one of the numerous ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... door. Concepcion would have me ride in the first, that she may have her eyes on me at each instant. She suspects nothing, no; it is merely the base and suspicious nature which reveals itself at every occasion. I refuse, I prodigate expressions of my humility, of my determination to take the second place, leaving the first to her; briefly, I take the second volante, Manuela springing to my side. After some discontent, appeased by dear Don Miguel, who is veritably an angel, and wants but death to transport him among ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards



Words linked to "Refuse" :   disobey, waste product, hold on, turn away, repudiate, disdain, refuse collector, contract out, elude, refusal, dishonour, reject, abnegate, react, decline, accept, turn down, keep back, bounce, allow, food waste, dishonor, resist, keep, waste, pooh-pooh, waste material, respond, beggar, refuse heap, regret, deny, freeze off, pass up, scorn, garbage, lend oneself, spurn, scraps, admit, withhold, escape, defy, waste matter



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