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Refuse   Listen
noun
Refuse  n.  Refusal. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Refuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... after the house was quiet for the night, she lay awake, debating with herself whether or not it were wise to go to Overton. Morning found her still undecided. When at half-past eight o'clock she and Elfreda descended the stairs, luggage in hand, she experienced a wild desire to refuse flatly to go. The thought that the taxicab ordered to convey them to the station was probably on its way to the house, brought her a remorseful reflection that she had no right to back out at the last moment, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... with cobble-stones which we were told were brought by ships from the coast of New England, and have a gutter running down the middle. There is an abundance of active, keen-eyed scavengers waddling about, always on the alert to pick up and devour domestic refuse or garbage of any sort which is found in the streets. These are the dark-plumed, funereal-looking buzzard, or vulture, a bird which is protected by law, and depended on to act in the capacity we have described. They are two feet and over in length ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... "I refuse to explain," she returned, and as she said it the front door banged to. "There!" she exclaimed. "He is gone!" She flashed such a look of fiery indignation at her father that he lost ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... to exhale a miasma of corruption. "Enriched by unearned increment"—who wishes such an epitaph? A convention is to be held in a western city in this very year, to announce to the world that the delegates and their constituencies—all honest lovers of mankind—will refuse in future to recognize any private title to land or other natural resources. Holders of such property, by continuing to be such, will place themselves beyond the pale of human society, and will forfeit all claim to sympathy when the day ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... deft, the turn of the plump wrist so sure and purposeful. She never spilled or slopped her food about. Its journey from bowl to little red mouth was calculated and assured. Both children had a horror of anything sticky, and would refuse jam unless it was "well covelled ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... a pleasant spirit which were expected from Turnover Castle. From the very moment that Lord St. George had given the order,—upon the authority chiefly of the unfortunate Mr. Bolt, who on this occasion found it to be impossible to refuse to give an authority which a lord demanded from him,—the demolition of the building had been commenced. Before the first Sunday came any use of the new chapel for divine service was already impossible. On that day Mr. Puddleham preached a stirring sermon about tabernacles in ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... only one thing to be done," went on the old lady, "be quite simple and quiet. Whenever your soul begins to be disturbed and anxious, put yourself in His Hands, and refuse to decide for yourself. It is so ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... I would not be contented with merely kissing Armelline. She neither dared to grant nor to refuse; and as if to relieve herself of any responsibility, made Scholastica submit to all the caresses I lavished on her. The latter seconded my efforts with an ardour that would have pleased me exceedingly if I had been in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... easy, dear. You will have to refuse to listen to other boys, you will have to read only good books and you will have to think pure thoughts. Rose's little book will help you. You can see the baby that I am trying to keep pure and help me do it; you can see those doll shoes and remember how you suffered ...
— The Heart of the Rose • Mabel A. McKee

... dispensation to marry (p. 190) Anne until he was assured of her consent, of which in some of the letters he appears to be doubtful; on the other hand, it is difficult to see how a lady of the Court could refuse an offer of marriage made by her sovereign. Her reluctance was to fill a less honourable position, into which Henry was not so wicked as to think of forcing her. "I trust," he writes in one of his letters, "your ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... you I can't. But I don't understand why you want such a change. Hardly a week goes by without some Yawk boy coming to me and asking to be turned into a Spacer, and I have to refuse him for the same reasons I'm refusing you! That's the usual course of events—the romantic Earther boy wanting to go to space, and ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg

... articles of confederation are given by Risco, in his continuation of Florez. (Espana Sagrada, (Madrid, 1775- 1826,) tom. xxxvi. p. 162.) In one of these articles it is declared, that, if any noble shall deprive a member of the association of his property, and refuse restitution, his house shall be razed to the ground. (Art. 4.) In another, that if any one, by command of the king, shall attempt to collect an unlawful tax, he shall be put to death on the ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... am in your hands; do with me what you will. I dare not refuse longer. See, I have made one effort to turn about; but you threaten, and I give it up. He no longer calls. He knows old Felipe is powerless. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... island has no master; the Danube built it up for no one; the soil, the trees, the grass which grow on it belong to no one.' If it is ownerless, this island, why should not I take possession of it? I ask it of God, I ask it of the Danube. Why should they refuse it? I will raise fruit there. How? and what fruit? I do not know, but necessity will ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... dying by inches is bitter indeed! I believed that you would marry Murray—at least I knew any other woman would—and I felt that to refuse his affection would be a terrible trial, through which you could not pass with impunity. Why you rejected him I have no right to inquire, but I have a right to ask you to let me save your life. I am well aware that you do not love me, but at least you can ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... inquired with some anxiety, partly with the idea that a Nut would be an extravagance which her sister's small household would scarcely be justified in incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse to carry parcels. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... breeding of the helpless is stupid brutality. The facts set forth earlier in this book, and the cries of tortured motherhood which echo through the letters just referred to, are more than ample evidence that there are times when it is woman's highest duty to refuse to bear children. ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... courage the perils of the fight? If, in that hazardous hour, when our homes were menaced with the horrors of war, we did not disdain to call upon the colored population to assist in repelling the invading horde, we should not, when the danger is passed, refuse to permit them to unite with us in celebrating the glorious event, which they helped to make so memorable an epoch in our history. We were not too exalted to mingle with them in the affray; they were not too humble to join ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... bearing baskets on their heads, soliciting work. This type was called "Negroes de ganho." Others bore great tubs on their heads with which they drew water from fountains to supply the inhabitants. At dusk the street was crowded with slaves carrying the refuse of the city to the dumps. Slave labor removed the imported goods from the docks. Few had the help of wagons. The English had tried to introduce carts to help the toiling slaves at the wharves, but the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... and are talking perfect nonsense." Tamara laughed nervously. "I refuse to be the least upset ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... own nature good. 'Now the belief of these, saith he, though it is not in itself any more, than in higher or lower degrees, profitable, [confusions! darkness! confusion!] yet it is absolutely necessary from an external cause': That is, with such abundant clearness, as that nothing can cause men to refuse to admit them, but that which argueth them to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 'conspiracy,' a 'rebellion,' an 'insurrection,' a 'summer madness,' anything but what it was—the American stave aristocracy in arms to subdue the people of the United States with every other aristocracy on earth wishing it success. But the people did not refuse the challenge. In April, 1861, they rushed to the capital, saved their Government from immediate capture or dispersion, and then began to prepare, after their way, for—they hardly knew what—to suppress a riot or wage ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... end of the street, was an open space, where there would be a dust-heap, and piles of broken crockery, and mounds of vegetable refuse, but for such things being thrown anywhere and everywhere in Rome, and favouring no particular sort of locality. We got into a kind of wash-house, belonging to a dwelling-house on this spot; and standing there in an old cart, and on a heap of cartwheels piled against the wall, looked, through ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... strenuous time's pedestrian muse Shouts paeans to the earth-born giant, Whose brows Apollo's wreath refuse, Whose strength to Charis is unpliant. Demos distrusts the debonair, Yet Demos found himself disarming To gracious GRANVILLE; unaware Won by the calm, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... a pleasure, she hates the use of the pen for so-called literary work. Standing on the platform, words and ideas rush upon her more rapidly than she can give them utterance, but with pen in hand the thoughts still come but refuse to be formulated. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... boys, thus called upon, went through the trial fairly, striking the very centre of the shield, as befitted them. And then our Wilfred could not refuse to make the attempt. He rode, but his horse swerved just before meeting the mock warrior; he struck the shield, therefore, on one side, whereupon the figure wheeled round, and, striking him with the wooden sword, hurled him from his horse on to the sward, amidst ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... hands it shall turn to honour and profit. Porkey verbey! I am a man of few words. Do this, and thou shalt go free with thy daughter, and I will protect thee, and give thee moneys, and my fatherly blessing; refuse to do it, and thou shalt go from thy snug cell into a black dungeon full of newts and rats, where thou shalt rot till thy nails are like birds' talons, and thy skin shrivelled up into mummy, and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... consideration and were little respected if they opposed at all the views of the Director, who himself imagined, or certainly wished to make others believe, that he was sovereign, and that it was absolutely in his power to do or refuse to do anything. He little regarded the safety of the people as the supreme law, as clearly appeared in the war, although when the spit was turned in the ashes, it was sought by cunning and numerous certificates and petitions to shift the blame upon others. But that happened ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... be better shops in places like Gafsa if foreign commercial settlers were not discouraged from establishing themselves. French ones, needless to say, refuse ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... you will, but give me a fair hearing. Dearest, the joy or sorrow of two lives lies in your choice to-night. If you will trust me, and go with me, I swear I will make you happy. If you are stubborn to refuse—well, sweetheart, you will but send a man to the devil who is not wholly bad, and who, with you for his guardian angel, might ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... me all about it, dear," returned Aunt Betty. "I am glad she is coming. I hardly thought she'd refuse. Judge Breckenridge is very good to her, and allows her to travel pretty ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... have delighted to portray. She leaned back in her chair, and pressing her hand on her brow, exclaimed, "In vain have I studied to ascertain how, or in what guise he will return. I demand an answer, but the oracles cruelly refuse to reply. O that I had the potent secret by which I could compel an answer, and that the dark veil which hides the future might be torn aside to disclose the view I long to see! Yet of one thing I am certain—the time cannot be far distant; ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... garbage at a financial loss and turns sewage into the sea, the Chinaman uses both for manure. He wastes nothing while the sacred duty of agriculture is uppermost in his mind. And in reality recent bacterial work has shown that faecal matter and house refuse are best destroyed by returning them to clean soil, where natural purification takes place. The question of destroying garbage can, I think, under present conditions in Shanghai, be answered in a decided negative. While to adopt the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... regions. Campbell, though extremely solicitous to obtain permission from the Tibetan guard, (who were waiting for us on the frontier), was nevertheless bound by his own official position to yield at once to their wishes, should they refuse ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... character and action from the classes, or from foreigners, or from literature, or from a new religion, but whatever they take up they assimilate and make it a part of their own mores, which they then transmit by tradition, defend in its integrity, and refuse to discard again. Consequently the writings of the literary class may not represent the faiths, notions, tastes, standards, etc., of the masses at all. The literature of the first Christian centuries shows us scarcely anything of the mores of the time, as they existed in the faith and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... honest in making our promises. Many promises are made when there is no intention of carrying them out. Many people, rather than to say no, will promise and then refuse to perform, thereby making themselves liars. They have not manhood enough to refuse and honestly tell why, so they make a promise and break it. That is the coward's way out. It is the dishonest ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... cud of bitterness in the accusal he made himself of having forced Miss Shirley to give her name; but with that interesting personality at his side, under the same tattered and ill-scented Japanese goat-skin, he could not refuse to be glad, with all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... more right to refuse to perform a duty than to refuse to pay a debt. Moral insolvency is certain to him who neglects and disregards his duty to his fellow-men. Nor can we hire another to perform our duty. The mere accident ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... around of Ellen's at length got to her father's ears. Ellen expected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly would refuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her to limit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all about it. In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness the next, his harder drinking ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... wee humbly request that for the future no Law in this corporation may be of any force to make us pay or contribute to the maintenance of any Minister or officer in the Church that will neglect or refuse to baptize our Children, and to take charge of us as of such members of the Church as are under his or ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... you would refuse them admittance to the Hall this year because you called the meeting in the living room," was Muriel's plausible surmise. "You had had a good deal of trouble with them and they knew they were in the wrong; that you disapproved of them. They ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... for example, the unimportant priory of Hinton lent no fewer than twenty books to another monastery.[1] Then again, it was thought to be only common charity to lend books to poor students, and in 1212 a council at Paris actually forbade monks to refuse to lend books to the poor, and requested them to divide their libraries into two divisions—one for the use of the brothers, the other for lending.[2] Whether this ever became a practice in England is more than doubtful. But ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemy would not accuse me that I went lightly or ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... first instance to take care what sort of person it should be to whom I ascribe the speech in the dialogue. For I do not there represent a divine preaching, but good fellows having a gossip together. Now if any one is so unfair as to refuse to concede me the quality of the person represented, he ought, by the same reasoning, to lay it to my charge, that there one Augustine (I think) disparages the Stoics' principle of the honestum, and ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... to surrender your life and your life's toil? Look, Beth," he said, pointing upward to the picture of Christ upon the wall, "can you refuse Him—can you ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt

... prisoner now, see her at liberty: And night and day implore (O unjust fate!) She neither hears nor pities my estate: Hard laws of Love! But though a partial lot I plainly see in this, yet must I not Refuse to serve: the gods, as well as men, With like reward of old have felt like pain. Now know I how the mind itself doth part (Now making peace, now war, now truce)—what art Poor lovers use to hide their stinging ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... supposed that the agents of European origin, Portuguese for the most part, are only rascals whom their country has rejected, convicts, escaped prisoners, old slave-drivers whom the authorities have been unable to hang—in a word, the refuse of humanity. Such was Negoro, such was Harris, now in the service of one of the greatest contractors of Central Africa, Jose-Antonio Alvez, well known by the traders of the province, about whom Lieutenant Cameron ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... warring facts, and will therefore have to face objections from both sides, from those forward-looking ones who feel that the domestic side of woman's activities is overemphasized, and from those who still hark back, who would fain refuse to believe that the majority of women have to be wage-earners for at least part of their lives. These latter argue that by affording to girls all the advantages of industrial training granted or which may be granted to boys, we are "taking them out of the home." As if they were ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... republic. Is it not true Liberty to live in accord with one's temperament or talent? And as the best laws cannot help this enterprise, so the worst cannot hinder it. You will discover Liberty in Russia as in America, in England as in France,—everywhere, indeed, where men refuse to accept the superstitions and doctrines of the mob. But the Americans are not content to possess the Liberty which satisfies the rest of the world. With characteristic optimism they boast the possession of a rare and curious quality. In Europe we strive ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... impulse was to refuse. But she, for her own part, was very anxious to ascertain what she could about ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... have been, watching me when I tried to walk and supporting me when I became too weak. There was a certain broth they prepared, which was delicious, but there were others which were nauseating and which I had to force myself to eat. I soon learned that it was impolite to refuse any dish that was put in front of me, no matter how repugnant. One day the Chief ordered me to come over to his family triangle and have dinner with him. The meal consisted of some very tender fried fish which were really delicious; then followed ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... to me, as if she wur haaf feart—aye, feart o' him, an' me standin' by. Three hours afore, th' law ud ha' let me mill any mon 'at feart her. 'Tim,' she says, 'surely he wunnot refuse to let us go together to th' little lad's grave—fur th' last time.' She didna speak to him but ti me, an' she spoke still an' strained as if she wui too heart-broke to be wild. Her face was as white as th' dead, but she didna cry, as ony other woman would ha' done. ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... this simple suggestion of Rienzi's. He lifted his eyes to the Senator's face, and saw there that smile which he had already, bold as he was, learned to dread. He felt himself fairly sunk in the pit he had digged for another. There was that in the Senator-Tribune's brow that told him to refuse was to declare open war, and the moment ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... riddles, Monsieur. If you waked to the sense of what it is to love, waked as a sleeping volcano wakes, and I knew the object of this love, it is possible that I might find a way to wring your heart. But I refuse to concern myself with such ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... an alley strewn with tin cans and other refuse leading to the back of the house, and it was down a flight of broken brick steps that Old Meg, the fortune-teller, had her den where through the superstitions of those inhabiting the neighborhood she managed to eke out a miserable existence. The interior of the den was ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... affected stands quietly and firmly in his stall, or perhaps with one of his hind legs extended backward, and resists every attempt to move him backward. If urged to move forward he will either refuse or comply with a jump, with the toe of the disabled leg dragging on the ground and brought forward by a second effort. There is no flexion at the hock and no motion at the stifle, while the circular ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... document is still more conclusive. On June the 16th the citizens of Ghent could read on their walls that: "The attitude of certain factories which refuse to work for the German Army under the pretext of patriotism proves that a movement is afoot to create difficulties for the German Army. If such an attitude is maintained I will hold the communal authorities responsible and the population ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts

... "Get up and cease your grovelling. Did you come to tell me it was not too late to draw back and refuse to be the Countess of ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... lady," she said, looking sternly down into her friend's laughing eyes. "It's my turn to talk. I refuse to budge another step until you have explained, to my perfect satisfaction, the cause of all ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... girl, my son has many enemies Who will not lose the joy of hurting him. This little land is no more than a lair That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, And no man will refuse the rapture of killing When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. So long as anyone perceives he knows A bare place for a weapon on my son His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. Indeed he shall ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... him; wedded dames Bloomed also in less transitory hues;[kv] For both commodities dwell by the Thames, The painting and the painted; Youth, Ceruse,[kw] Against his heart preferred their usual claims, Such as no gentleman can quite refuse: Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers Inquired his income, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... In the Lenten parliament at London, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk pressed Edward once more to fulfil his promise to carry out the confirmation of the charters. The king would not yield to their demand yet dared not refuse it. In his perplexity he had recourse to evasions which further embittered his relations with them. He promised that he would give an answer the next day, but when the morrow came, he secretly withdrew from the city. The angry barons followed him to his retreat and reminded ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... and satisfaction, yet was afraid to believe. What penniless girl, whose hand was her own to bestow, would refuse the wealthy young Forcus? Longing for further assurance, and greatly daring, she risked the question: "You knew Reggie so well, then, yet did not fall in love ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... inquiring what brought this confession from the father of assassins, or why he chose Alexander for his errand, the letter was deemed conclusive, gave great encouragement to Richard's partisans, and caused many of the French to refuse to take up arms ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... later time, Luther, and Calvin, and Knox, and Newman, despite the war of creeds, have attacked the citadel of the scoffers; but still the latter hurl their javelins from the ramparts, battlements and parapets and refuse to be repulsed. If there are myriads of other worlds, thousands, millions of them in point of magnitude greater than ours, what concern say they has the Creator with our little atom of matter? Are other worlds inhabited ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... De Guiche, by retaining his position as a man of proud independence of feeling and deep devotion, became almost a hero in her estimation, and reduced her to the state of a jealous and little-minded woman. She loved him for this so tenderly, that she could not refuse to give him a proof ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... directions not to open it, or let it out of her hands, until she meets with a white man whom she can trust, for well assured am I that the man whom my innocent and wise-hearted Eve can trust—be he old or young—will be a man who cannot and will not refuse the responsibility laid on him. Why I prefer to leave this packet with my daughter, instead of my dear wife, is a matter with which ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... perform its treaty obligation to furnish homes for any number of Indians less than a tribe or band; and if these allotments did not vest a title in these individual Indians they secured to them such rights to the lands as the Government was bound to protect and which it could not refuse to confirm if it became necessary by the issuance ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... would be great fun. "Come along, Vigoureux," he almost shouted, "you can't refuse a ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... impulsively—and the name having slipped out once by accident, it would have been absurd to call him anything else afterward—"it was horrid of you to refuse to take any of ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... I didn't like, and that was the way boys began to gather. Of course we could not refuse to give drinks to any traveller who was old enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three glasses of lemonade and asked for ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... down within the store- room under the hatch in the stern-sheets, only his woolly head projecting, handing up several tins of potted meats and bags of biscuit to the captain; while the latter was placing these as he received them on a clear space of the deck from which he had swept the broken refuse away, checking off the things as Jake ferreted them out from below, his head bobbing down ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... trip to the wagon and came back with the pie. He placed the pie in the middle of the repast and arranged knife and fork on their respective sides of it. Having it properly disposed and everything in readiness he invited her to join him. Janet, because she had had supper, was inclined to refuse. But there is something cordial about a pie's countenance, especially if it be a pie of one's own country, and still more especially if one has been living regularly on frijole beans. She cut her regrets short and accepted. It seemed to her, though, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... without pressing them, without wishing to force them to pay. They have left them an appearance of liberty so excessive that they have not intervened in their disputes or even punished their crimes. They have allowed them to refuse with insolence certain moderate rents payable in grain and lawfully due. They have passed over in silence the contemptuous refusal of the Acadians to take titles from them for the new lands ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... come again to thee, and teach thee of the new faith. I have with me a parchment, closely written, given to me by the holy man I saved from death. May I leave it with thee, Saronia? It may be of use. Thou dost not refuse it? May the Christ of God bless thee! And now good-bye. This is our meeting-place. It is unfrequented. Thou ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... girl he is not likely to refuse the offer, yet he bargains to get her as cheaply as possible (though he knows that a Kaffir girl's chief pride is the knowledge that many heads of cattle were paid for her). Regarding the Ama-Zulu, Fritsch says (141-42) that ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... greeting furthered this illusion. Americans, both men and women, have an extraordinary self-poise, a gift for remaining normal in the most abnormal surroundings. They refuse to allow themselves to be surprised by any upheaval of circumstances. "I should worry," they seem to be saying, and press straight on with the job in hand. There was one small touch which made the ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... last, "though you refuse to jump for me, won't you kindly call some other member of your family and ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey

... rich' (to use Mr. Stead's felicitous term) put their hands into our pockets because they know that, virtually, none of us will refuse to take their hands in our own afterwards, in friendly salutation. If notorious rascality entailed social outlawry the only rascals would be those properly—and proudly—belonging to the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... officers that the capitulation was broken; but got no other answer than advice to give up the baggage to the Indians in order to appease them. To this the English at length agreed; but it only increased the excitement of the mob. They demanded rum; and some of the soldiers, afraid to refuse, gave it to them from their canteens, thus adding fuel to the flame. When, after much difficulty, the column at last got out of the camp and began to move along the road that crossed the rough plain between the entrenchment and the forest, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... listen to me for your own sake, do so at least, whatever ill-feeling you may bear me, because I implore you not to refuse me this favor. It is a matter of life or death to one human being, of joy or misery to another. Do not refuse me.—I ask nothing unreasonable, Philippus. Do as I entreat you and leave us for a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... appear to refuse his friend, at the same time he resolved not in any way to push himself forward. The conversation appeared to be doing Fitz Barry good. Though severely injured by the thrust of a pike in his side, and a blow on his head, ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... would have appeared ungrateful on his part to refuse to follow the general, he returned with him. During the voyage he remained sad and impenetrable, until the English fleet was sighted near Corsica. Then only did he regain his wonted animation. Bonaparte told Admiral Gantheaume that he would fight to the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... said, very crestfallen, "but my impulse was a natural one, you'll admit. You must remember that I have been trained never to refuse aid when aid ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... civil to you is making love. He is one of the most gallant young fellows about town, and I am convinced means no more than a little gallantry. Make love to you indeed! I wish with all my heart he would, and you must be an arrant mad woman to refuse him." ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... a meeting was accordingly held at Troppau on October 20. To this congress Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia sent plenipotentiaries. Great Britain carried her opposition to joint interference so far as to refuse to join in the deliberations, though Sir Charles, now Lord, Stewart was sent to Troppau to watch the proceedings. Metternich, on finding that he could not avoid the meeting of a congress, determined to lead its proceedings, and, before it met, drew ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... the Lily, and it is by no means certain how far the Pirate may be concerned in keeping them so. He is apt to be captious, too, as regards the transit of cargo, and will refuse to do business if it is his whim, or if any particular individual happen to offend him; for he is lord paramount over the river traffic, and well does he know how to turn that to his own advantage. Apparently, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... will be row'd home," says he. "We will not row you," says I. "You must, or stay all night on the water," says he, "just as you please." The others said, "Let us row; what signifies it?" But, my mind being soured with his other conduct, I continu'd to refuse. So he swore he would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... like a hard ticket. I didn't like to give him a bed, but we can't well refuse travelers, if they have money to pay their reckoning. I ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger

... feasts, upon all your marriages and rejoicings, upon yourselves, your children and your households, upon everything that you do, have and are, rests the awful curse of God! Heaven has marked you with the black seal of eternal damnation because you still grovel in sin and refuse to obey the voice and teachings of our holy Prophet. Your duty is to spread with the sword the light of our holy faith throughout the world; but what have you done? what are you doing? Miserable cowards! without ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... bucket, millions of buckets as big as a house, full of delicious rain-water, flung at their heads! And the dusty, disgraceful roads swept bare, with gallons upon gallons of water driving their refuse hither and thither, all of it, as if mightily ashamed of itself, scrambling along in masses; and, of course, in its haste choking up the drains, and becoming a serious hindrance until a veritable water-spout was necessary to ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... with little photographs, and costing just a shilling. The author and his publishers (METHUEN) are devoting the profits to the British Red Cross; so you who buy and read it—and I don't see how anybody can refuse—may extract a claim to virtue from an hour of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various

... "a good one." But this fails to relieve the doctrine from embarrassment; for if the sinner is unwilling, has a bad will, it is claimed that the Spirit goes away and leaves him to die in his helplessness. Does the Omnipotent Spirit go to a man to give him a good will, and then refuse to give it because the poor man has it not already? Do you say he resisted? Well, well; suppose he did? What, is that in the way of an Omnipotent Spirit? Who can ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880

... your orders; forgive me.' Dick devoured the troubled little face with his eyes. There was triumph in them, because he could not conceive that Maisie should refuse sooner or later to love him, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... refuse Frank Raynor now, you ruin the two of us," was Mrs. Vivian's angry indictment. "What can we expect from him any more? How are you ever going to get another such chance to ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... "if it pleases you that I should do so, I will presently swim through the lake, if they refuse me other conveyance to the shore; I will go to the courts successively of England, France, and Spain, and will show you have subscribed these vile instruments from no stronger impulse than the fear of death, and I will do battle against them that ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... habitant road-watcher, a pound-keeper, a village tax- collector, or something less!" she said. "You to refuse the great singer Madelinette Lajeunesse, the wife of the Seigneur of Pontiac, the greatest patriot in the land; to refuse her whom princes are glad to serve—" She stopped and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Hume was a typical child of one aspect of the eighteenth century in his hatred of enthusiasm, and the form in which he most abominates it is religious. Why people's religious opinions should lead to antagonism he could no more understand than why people should refuse to pass one another on a road. Wars of religion thus seemed to him based upon a merely frivolous principle; and in his ideal commonwealth he made the Church a department of the State lest it should get out of hand. He was, moreover, a static philosopher, disturbed by signs of political restlessness; ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... Limits of the Colony", claiming that it would interfere with their Indian trade in the Chesapeake, and that the establishment of the Catholics so near their settlements would "give a generall disheartening of the Planters".[269] But their complaints availed nothing. Not only did Charles refuse to revoke the charter, but he wrote the Governor and Council commanding them to give Lord Baltimore every possible assistance in making his settlement. You must, he said, "suffer his servants and Planters to buy and transport such cattle and comodities to their Colonie, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... I refuse," Brion said, feeling a little foolish and slightly angry, as if the other man had put the words into his mouth. "Anvhar is my planet—why should I leave? My life is here and so is my work. I also might add that I have just won the ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... sort of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the King's residence, and America not so, makes quite another case. The king's negative HERE is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for THERE he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defense as possible, and in America he would never suffer such ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... public drinking-cup, the disfiguring of American scenery with glaring signs and bill-posting, the use of fireworks on the Fourth of July, and many similar matters that were not to our credit or advantage. He printed convincing photographs taken in various "dirty cities" that tolerated refuse and other evidences of untidiness on their streets and literally shamed those communities into cleaning up the plague-spots. Had he been a commonplace editor with his main thought on the subscription list he would have avoided controversy by confining his leading articles to subjects unlikely ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... Sir, this is a noble character. If you think as you speak, surely you cannot refuse to do the lady all the justice now in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... not evade even that question. Of the twenty-three members of the new Council of Labour, twenty represent the Trades Unions of the great industries of the kingdom. Those twenty will unanimously proclaim a general strike, if you should refuse the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I not bend the bow and endure hardships better than anyone among the tribe over which thou rulest? Was not I prince of these Dhahs until the day when thou tookest possession of my right? Thou hast despised me and looked kindly upon another, wherefore have I sworn to refuse to take the pledge of fealty to thee when the time came round, and to stretch him dead at thy feet. Deliver me into the hands of the tribe if thou wilt, but thou art powerless to bring back life to thy favourite!" He stopped and drew himself up defiantly ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various



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



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