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Witness   Listen
verb
Witness  v. i.  To bear testimony; to give evidence; to testify. "The men of Belial witnessed against him." "The witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this event (martyrdom) that martyrdom now signifies not only to witness, but to witness to death."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Witness" Quotes from Famous Books



... the council of Daimios was again held, and Minister Pruyn, in his letter to Mr. Seward, bears witness of the proceeding: "It is understood the great council of Daimios is again in session; that the question of the foreign policy of the government is again under consideration, and that the opposite parties are pretty ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga

... Wall Street and the Broadway, were laughing heartily: a watch was dragging off to jail two citizens who had fallen upon each other with the venom of political antithesis; the one, a Nationalist, having called Heaven to witness that Hamilton was a demi-god, begotten to save the wretched country, the other vociferating that Hamilton was the devil who would trick the country into a monarchy, create a vast standing army, which would ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation: "Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a score of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... be plainly traced. For this was Dominus Gillian, whose name had been first a byword and then a terror, and even now was a power to conjure with; Dom Gillian, renegade and hero, gallows-bird and world-builder, but ever and in all things a man, as all other men will bear witness. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... but most of all, desire, insatiable, unwavering, an intense desire. This passion of the race, its never satisfied hunger, its incredible intensity and persistency of striving and longing, is at once the tragedy and glory, the witness to the helplessness, the revelation of the capacity of the race. The mainspring of human activity, the creative impulse from which in devious ways all the thousand-hued motives of our lives arise, is revealed in the ancient cry, "My soul thirsteth ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... choked the gasping utterance. There fell a silence so tense, so poignant with pain, that the girl upon the threshold trembled as one physically afraid. Yet she could not turn and flee. She felt as if it were laid upon her to stand and witness this awful struggle of a soul in torment. But that it should be Scott—the wise, the confident, the unafraid—passing alone through this place of desolation, sent the blood to her heart in a great wave of consternation. If Scott failed—if the sword of Greatheart were ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... all, what is a vow? It is a deliberate promise made to God by which we bind ourselves to do something good that is more pleasing to Him than its omission would be. It differs from a promissory oath in this, that an oath makes God a witness of a promise made to a third party, while in a vow there is no third party, the promise being made directly to God. In a violated oath, we break faith with man; in a broken vow, we are faithless to God. The ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... curiosity to the spot where he had met with his first success, as well as his first failure—the front of the post office. Here he became witness to an unexpectedly lively scene; in other words, a fight, in which Teddy O'Brien and his confederate, Mike, were the contestants. To explain the cause of the quarrel, it must be stated that it related to a division ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... prepared for everything, even for wounds and death; only with this little reservation secreted in his heart, that the wounds should not be too painful, and that the death should not be an inevitable and real death, as in such case he could not witness the happiness of Nell when liberated. Afterwards he began to ponder upon the most heroic manner of saving her, but his thoughts became confused. For a while it seemed to him that whole clouds of sand were burying him; afterwards that all the camels were ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... besides the will," he said, without troubling to explain what excellent reasons he had for such a belief. "I understood from your uncle that there might be some of an almost international importance. In case any dispute should subsequently arise about them, I wish to have more than one reliable witness to their being found. Can you send a man over to the lodge at Glenkliquart, and ask General Tenby to come back with him. I am told that he is ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... good, for it is not our wisdom that censures others. As for his goodness, I never saw a fault in him. I do not mean to say that he had no faults, or that there were no better men, but only to give the witness of my knowledge concerning him. I claim in no wise to have been his intimate; such a thing was not possible in my case for quite apparent reasons; and I doubt if Longfellow was capable of intimacy in the sense we mostly attach to the word. Something ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Company, which, as they were loaded with dressed beef, were coupled on fast east-bound trains. The Marquis, talking to newspaper correspondents, was glowing in his accounts of the blooming of his desert rose. He announced that it already had six hundred inhabitants. Another, calmer witness estimated fifty. The truth was probably a hundred, including the fly-by-nights. Unquestionably, they made noise enough for ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... counterfeited rage; he strives But to divert the danger from our lives: For I can witness, sir, and you might see, How in your person he considered me. He still declined the combat where you were; And you well know it was not out ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... bad business for Lord Marque. The day after his arrival he was a witness of the suffragette riots when the Mayor, the Governor, and every symmetrical city, county, and State official was captured and led blushing to the marriage license bureau. He had seen the terrible panic in Long Acre, where thousands of handsome young men were ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we cannot linger here long. The glory of San Juan is its cloisters. It may challenge the world to show anything so fine in the latest bloom and last development of Gothic art. One of the galleries is in ruins,—a sad witness of the brutality of armies. But the three others are enough to show how much of beauty was possible in that final age of pure Gothic building. The arches bear a double garland of leaves, of flowers, and of fruits, and among them ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... and not many yards away, the man she was trying to escape. He was lying at full length along the ground, one arm for a pillow, his face against the pine-needles. In this prostrate figure every line bore witness to a ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... good, is wise, is strong, Witness all the creature throng, Is confessed by every tongue; All things back from whence they sprung, go back—a verb. As the thankful rivers pay What they borrowed ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... honest and upright. Continue to be so. Fear God, and do your duty to man, and you will grow up all your father and I wish to see you. Now, fare thee well," he added, pressing Roger's hand. "If this proposed expedition to sea be carried out, you will witness strange sights and things of which you little dream at present, and you will come back, I hope, well able to amuse us two old men in our solitude with ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... few colours, the good and evil that flow in the veins of the world are only perceptible to him when he has bottled a few samples, chosen among those around him. All good and bad then he has in his flask, and on these he can expend his whole power of liking or repulsion; witness the fact that to millions of excellent people the condemnation of Dreyfus, or the sinking of the "Lusitania," remains the crime of the century. They cannot see that the path of social life is paved with crime, and that they walk over it in perfect unconsciousness, profiting by injustices that they ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... birth, which is regarded as being the consummation to Israel of the mercy promised to the fathers. Could such a hymn have been written when sad experience showed how the nation would reject their Messiah, and ruin themselves thereby? Surely the anticipations which glow in it bear witness to the time when they were cherished, as prior to the sad tragedy which history unfolded. Little does Mary as yet know that 'a sword shall pierce through' her 'own soul also,' and that not only will 'all generations' call her 'blessed,' but that one of her names will be 'Our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... de next evenin', long 'bout dark, de sherrif he rode up to de house wid a writ fur master Robert fur habin' made 'salt an' batt'ry on one collud man, called Caleb Preston, an' he pulled out a suspeny dat make massa Robert witness agin heseff! ha! ha! You see Cale wus smart; he know'd master Robert b'longed to de Baptist meeting, an' wouldn't lie fur all de niggers in Jones county; so he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and valiant youths into the solemn mysteries and chivalric honors of knighthood. On that day the Prince of Wales was first dubbed a knight, and made Duke of Aquitaine; and so great was the pressure of the crowd, in their eagerness to witness the ceremonial in the abbey, where the prince hastened to confer his newly-received dignity on his companions, that three knights were killed, and several fainted from heat and exhaustion. Strong war-horses were compelled to drive back and divide the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... 'I told you, and ye believed not; the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness ...
— Trading • Susan Warner

... last, "if you don't like your will you had better alter it. There are enough of us here to witness a will, and, if anything happens to you, it will override the ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... reached my prime, Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall. The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day Is kinder than the calm that lets it last, Unhappy witness of its own decay. May no man ever look on me and say, "She lives, but all ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... before her with downcast eyes and suffused cheeks: even the spur of contempt failed to arouse his energies. Then the maiden called to her friend, who was picking jasmine flowers so as not to witness the scene, and angrily asked why that strange man was allowed to stand and stare at her? The friend, in hot wrath, threatened to call the slave, and throw Vajramukut into the pond unless he instantly went ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... De Ormond. "I'd rather he did hear. He knows all about it, anyhow. In fact, he's quite a material witness because he was present when you—when it happened. I thought you might want to talk things over before—well, before any action is taken, as I believe ...
— Options • O. Henry

... courts I leave my vow, And thy rich grace record; Witness, ye saints, who hear me now, ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... an orator depends upon two things, the witness of contemporaries to the impression produced upon them, and the written or printed—we may, perhaps, be soon able to say the phonographed—record of his speeches. Few are the famous speakers who would be famous if they were tried by this latter ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... that they were not too late to save, but surely they could avenge! And such retribution as that unconquered army would deal out to the hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that I might not be alive to witness it. ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... unwilling witness to the father's brutality, felt every nerve in his body tingle with a longing first to break the head of that brutal Dutchman, and then to go and take little Tillie in his arms and kiss her. To work off his feelings, he sprang up from the settee, put on his hat, and flung ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... the entire road lined with full-grown trees, transplanted for the purpose. The unfortunate people were compelled to obey, and thousands — including women, children, and aged persons — died by the way. Ibn Batuta, who was an eye-witness of the scenes of horror to which this gave rise, has left us ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likely to attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again, to show that they do not mind it. It is no less interesting to the by-standers, who like to witness this sort of onslaught—like a charge of cavalry, the shock, and the resistance. Mr. Irving has, in fact, without leave asked or a licence granted, converted the Caledonian Chapel into a Westminster Forum or Debating Society, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... justly so. Job, who was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, a father to the poor, and the cause which he knew not he searched it out: when the ear heard him, it blessed him; when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him; who withheld not the poor from his desire, nor caused the eye of the widow to fail; the stranger did not lodge in the street, but he opened his door unto the traveller: all this was true as far as the external act, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... Tonbridge came downstairs—with red eyes. She described the scene of which she had just been a witness in Weston's room. Delia, she said, choking again at the thought of it, had been "wonderful." Then she looked enquiringly ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... again into an impotent rage, painful to a son to witness; but just then the little grandchild of old Silas, who had held the squire's horse during his visit to the sick ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... from first to last, the relative ages, situations, and all circumstances of the parties considered, as strange a one as ever took place between two mortal creatures, but at or within a second or two of the hermit's last question, to turn the strange into the marvellous, came an unseen witness, to whom every word that passed carried ten times the force it did ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... received witness.—The Father bore witness to His Son on three separate occasions. On the first, at His baptism, He said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; on the second, when the three apostles were with Him on the holy mount, and He received ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... he closed the door behind him "I think that I have a right to inquire what the meaning may be of the scene of which I was an involuntary witness this morning?" ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the well, but powerless to resist four stout fellows who cast him headlong amongst the dead and dying to mingle his groans and blood with theirs. Oh, that God should permit to men such deeds, and grant that men should witness them! When the last body had been disposed of, Ortez led the way to the banquet hall, inviting all his rabble to join the feast. The banquet hall, used as it was to scenes of turbulence, never perhaps had looked upon such a throng ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... the bone remained immovable; Friskarina, who was at a little distance, grew very much alarmed, and running up to her, thumped her on the back; but all in vain, her struggles became absolutely frightful to witness; she kicked, she groaned—she started to her feet, and ran, in an agony, like a mad thing, twice round the grass, shrieking with pain; at length, sinking down, completely exhausted, she stretched out her ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... to be given a treat. They were to witness the entrance of the hundred and fifty thousand—the power and might of Germany was to be exhibited to them. So while the flames leaped high from the burning city, reddening the sky for miles, while old men prayed, while women wept, while ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... first is God himself. "I," saith he, "will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... linen hat on the back of her gold-brown curls, instead of being set in orthodox fashion upon her head. Her white shoes and socks, fresh with the morning, were a little reddened with walking through the "Tenby" garden, which, as Pauline had borne witness, contained no grass whatever. ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... breach has often been of great use to me. Its wide base made it possible for me, without being present at the work, to judge which of the two neighbouring Osmiae had pierced the partition; it told me the direction of a nocturnal migration which I had been unable to witness. ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... for the Bishop in what relation he and his party were to stand to these murderous and marauding Ajawa—whether they should quietly witness their onslaughts or drive them from the country and rescue the captive Manganja. Livingstone's advice to them was to be patient, and to avoid taking part in the quarrels of the natives. He then left them at Magomero, and returned to his companions on the Shire. For a time the Bishop's party followed ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... in a most malicious way, when he thought that he was not heeded. The other men may fear to bear witness. But my Geraldine ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... reception of scriptural truth, is it not by an inference more erudite than reasonable, that some great men have presumed to limit to a verbal medium the communications of Him who is everywhere His own witness, and who still gives to His own holy oracles all their peculiar significance and authority? Some seem to think the Almighty has never given to men any notion of Himself, except by words. "Many ideas," says the celebrated Edmund Burke, "have never been at all ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... somehow; even at Dettingen, where he fought so bravely, his figure is absurd—calling out in his broken English, and lunging with his rapier, like a fencing-master. In contemporary caricatures, George's son, "the Hero of Culloden," is also made an object of considerable fun, as witness the following picture of him defeated by the French ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Mormons sustained themselves through the heavy winter of 1846-1847. It was the severest of their trials. This winter was the turning-point of the Mormon fortunes. Those who lived through it were spared to witness the gradual return of better times; and they now liken it to the passing of a dreary night, since which they have watched the coming ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... a witness. I am not known to this city. But I have here a man whom many of you know, I'm sure, for he has stood out in plain view of a street where many pass, and has worked there for thirty years. It ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... Witness the characteristic sentence: "On the whole they [i.e. the studies of earlier society] suggest that the differences which, after ages of change, separate the civilised man from savage or barbarian, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... the very best friends that strangers had. The Banian slaves openly declare that they will go only to Lomame, and no further. Whatever the Ujijian slavers may pretend, they all hate to have me as a witness of their cold-blooded atrocities. The Banian slaves would like to go with Tagamoio, and share in his rapine and get slaves. I tried to go down Lualaba, then up it, and west, but with bloodhounds it ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... my witness, I have told you the truth. I know how wild a sound it has, and that is partly why I did not tell you earlier. But your disdain I cannot suffer. That you should deem me a liar in professing ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... one of the ceorls came riding in to say that the Bishop, with his retinue, was approaching the village, and Father Cuthbert went out to meet him. The impatient anxiety of poor Elfric became painful to witness. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... not a fault Senates, their disregard of outside proposals Seneca Sermons, the reading of Sermons, Swift's, on Mutual Subjection on the Testimony of Conscience on the Trinity on Brotherly Love on the Difficulty of Knowing One's Self on False Witness on the Wisdom of this World on Doing Good on the Martyrdom of King Charles I on the Poor Man's Contentment on the Wretched Condition of Ireland on Sleeping in Church Servants, Irish, fraud of Service, mutual Sharp, Dr. John, Archbishop of York Shaster, the Sheridan, Dr. T. Shrewsbury, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer, and, behold! the pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forests with their beauty were left without a witness upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our crew—-"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corynibi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the masthead, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... I shall ne'er make Guildhall-Speech more: but he shall hang for't, if there be e'er a Witness to be had between this and Salamanca ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... hearth-rug—and meets some feline friend to whom she extends a claw, playful or otherwise; or possibly meets some merry puppy which induces her to move rapidly up the nearest tree with an agility which you never would believe the mother of a family could boast if you had not been an eye-witness to the interesting scene. Such an encounter will not induce her to want to stay up a tree. It only makes the safety of the hearth-rug more inviting. Now, if she always remained on the hearth-rug, how could we tell, should the hearth-rug be invaded in the absence of her natural ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... look at these people as they come down. I have been said to be able to spot a witness with my eyes shut. Let's see what I can ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... Johnson not to neglect making an appointment, as he has invited two or three professional friends to witness the ceremony, and cannot disappoint ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... aside. I heard him say, whispering, She must, she shall, still be yours.—We'll see, who'll conquer, parents or child, uncles or niece. I doubt not to be witness to all this being got over, and many a good-humoured jest made of this ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... as an idle threat. The Austrian Minister Korb was a witness of the executions, which he describes thus: "Five rebel heads had been sent into the dust by blows from an ax wielded by the noblest hand in Russia." Thus Peter did not hesitate to be his own executioner. It was like him to do his own ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... assuming in manners, so that the girls complained that "she put upon them," or, with her burly masculine existence, quite reduced them to satellites, yet inspired an enthusiastic attachment. I hear from one witness, as early as 1829, that "all the girls raved about Margaret Fuller," and the same powerful magnetism wrought, as she went on, from year to year, on all ingenuous natures. The loveliest and the highest ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... another tree, but wound closely around the oak, as though it knew its work and that the light of that tree only was needed to pass the travelers through in safety. It touched their hearts to thus witness that the life of the noble oak must be sacrificed, and they offered, with one accord, a silent prayer that its life might be extended in a higher form. Having passed through, they tarried at the end ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams

... assumes, and declares that the knowledge of God is universal, Rom. 1:19-21, 28, 33; 2:15. It asserts that God has wrought this great truth in the very warp and woof of every man's being, so that nowhere is He without this witness. The preacher may, therefore, safely follow the example of the Scripture in assuming that there is a God. Indeed he must unhesitatingly and explicitly assert it as the Scripture does, believing that "His eternal power and divinity" are ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... gone in the first freshness of the morning! This year, I seem fated to witness the childhood of many summer days. The carriage that bears him away is lost to sight—dwindled away to nothing among the park-trees. Five minutes ago, my arms were clinging with a tightness of a clasp that a bear ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... political faith, filled with ideas of human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness Scherer, Remusat, Tocqueville,—the last of whom was so imbued and penetrated with the idea that all his language vibrated with it; and, most striking example of all, that great minister too early removed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... one of them, Mr. Jameson, a large dealer in potatoes, writes thus, "They were such a mixed lot, as I have never before or since seen. They were of all colours and shapes, some very ugly and some very handsome." Another witness says "some were round, some kidney, pink-eyed kidney, piebald, and mottled red and purple, of all shapes and sizes." Some of these varieties have been found valuable, and have been extensively propagated. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... hat. "Well, time's money to both of us. English is an easy thing to pick up—as witness Midway. I dare say he'll be able to express himself fluently enough inside of ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... away from her captivity, and swim over the Thames; that the Duke of York will burn his capitulating hand; and little Mr. Sturges Bourne give forty years' purchase for Moulsham Hall, while the French are encamped upon it. I hope we shall witness all this, if the French do come; but in the meantime I am so enchanted with the ordinary English behaviour of these invaluable persons, that I earnestly pray no opportunity may be given them for Roman ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... many other important offices, was bailli of Valois, and afterwards of Senlis, squire to the Dauphin, and governor of Fismes. In 1380 his patron, Charles V., died, and in the same year the English burnt down his house at Vertus. In his childhood he had been an eye-witness of the English invasion of 1358; he had been present at the siege of Reims and seen the march on Chartres; he had witnessed the signing of the treaty of Bretigny; he was now himself a victim of the English fury. His violent hatred of the English found vent in numerous ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... Ladislao. As in so many cases the good father was unable to make the name he gave stick, the saint has been ignored, but Point Buchon, just above Point Harford and Mount Buchon, otherwise known as Bald Knob, bear witness to the staying qualities of the tumor on the chief's neck. Passing up the narrow canon of San Luis creek, they camped at or near the site of the mission and city of San Luis Obispo. From here, instead of proceeding ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera

... forced to call him again to assist at the death of the prince of Persia. He found him breathe short, and with difficulty, which gave him reason to fear he had but few minutes to live. Coming near him, the prince said, "It is all over, and I am glad you are witness of my last words. I quit life with a great deal of satisfaction; I need not tell you the reason, for you know it already. All my concern is, that I cannot die in the arms of my dear mother, who has always loved me tenderly, and for whom I had a reciprocal affection. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... the Navigator group, one of my fellow-passengers, who had been for some time in Tutuila, described the preparation of awa poetically, the root "being masticated by the pearly teeth of dusky flower-clad maidens;" but I was an accidental witness of a nocturnal "awa drinking" on Hawaii, and saw nothing but very plain prose. I feel as if I must approach the subject mysteriously. I had no time to tell you of the circumstance when it occurred, when also I was completely ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled. from "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman the American poet; "Truth, witness of the past, councillor of the present, guide of the future," from "Don Quixote," by Cervantes, ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... aspersions, blow upon, bespatter, blacken, vilify, vilipend[obs3]; avile|; give a dog a bad name, brand, malign; muckrake; backbite, libel, lampoon, traduce, slander, defame, calumniate, bear false witness against; speak ill of behind one's back. fling dirt &c. (disrespect) 929; anathematize &c. 932; dip the pen in gall, view in a bad light. impugn[disparage the motives of]; assail, attack &c. 716; oppose &c. 708; denounce, accuse &c. 938. Adj. detracting &c.v.; defamatory, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... calmed her nerves, for she had become as gentle as a lamb. It was in a wheedling voice, and with tearful eyes, that she called upon these "good gentlemen" to witness the shameful injustice with which she was treated—she, an honest woman. Was she not the mainstay of her family (since her son Polyte was in custody, charged with pocket-picking), hence what would become of her daughter-in-law, and of her grandson Toto, who had no one to look after ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... immediate overpowering testimony, that puts to silence all doubts and objections, that needs no other work or mark to evidence the sincerity and reality of it. That light of the Spirit shall be seen in its own light, and needs not that any witness of it. The Spirit of God sometimes may speak to a soul,—"Son, be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee." This may break into the soul as a beam darted from heaven, without reference to any work of the Spirit upon the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... W———, as with his handkerchief to his lips he staunched the flow of blood. "If I let a thing like this pass his native friends would imagine all sorts of things and probably murder any unfortunate merchant captain that may touch here in the future. But, as Heaven is my witness, I do so on that ground only—deserter as he admits himself to be. Hurry up that ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... mute witness to as keen and high-handed a performance as I ever witnessed. One by one every item of the Constant-Scrappe's silver service, valued at ninety thousand dollars, was removed from the sideboard and taken along the hall and placed in the tonneau of the automobile. Next the safe in which lay not only ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs

... dismounted. Their loss is not known; the English confess they could obtain no account of it, but suppose it to have been very great. This seems more than probable; for, besides those actually employed in the defence, large numbers of people crowded into the forts to witness the contest. So great was this curiosity, that, when the action commenced, the parapets were covered with the multitude gazing at the manoeuvres of the ships. To avoid so unnecessary and indiscriminate a slaughter, Lord Exmouth (showing a humanity that does him great credit) motioned with ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... About 10 in the morning [listen to a faithful Witness], there appeared Hussars on the heights to northward:—'Vanguard of his Prussian Majesty!' said Erfurt with alarm, and our French guests with alarm. And scarcely were the words uttered, when said Vanguard, and gradually the whole Prussian Army [only some 9,000, though we all ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... English judge has said—"Truth will come out, even in the witness box," and, as we may add in this case, even in an autobiography. There is one statement in Wagner's My Life which sounds true to my ears at least—a statement which, in my opinion, has some importance, and to which Wagner himself ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... evidences of this, we come at once to the most majestic and indisputable witness of this fact, the actual existence of the Central Park in New York,—the most striking evidence of the sovereignty of the people yet afforded in the history of free institutions,—the best answer yet given to the doubts and fears which have frowned on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... out in order to witness the operation. The priest asked for a bowl, a napkin and a glass of water, then he told the teacher to hold the patient's head over on one side, and, as soon as the liquid should have entered the ear, to turn his head over ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... the robber preferred. The third act should see the robber's apprehension and arrest. I milled around the question of his identification as Illinois and Indiana went past the Pullman window; and then the one sure and unfailing witness for that purpose volunteered—the express messenger himself. There was no reason why this young man shouldn't be a native of Bowling Green, and come home from St. Louis at the end of certain runs. He ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas

... encouraging her zeal for study to the utmost, and affording her every facility for it in his power. His love and admiration for her were unbounded; he frankly and willingly acknowledged her superiority to himself, and many of our friends can bear witness to the honest pride and gratification which he always testified in the fame ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... only witness," he began, "I guess I must tell the story. One of our planters, Sears, took a dislike to Terry on the way down from Zamboanga: no reason for it—he was grouchy and sore, had been drinking too hard ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... second night on the way back, insufficient meals, and inconveniently crowded cars. The fact that you have stood all this and were not deterred by it attests the strength of your national feeling, which impelled you to bear witness to it here. That you did it here greatly honors me, and I recognize in it your appreciation of my part in the work of establishing the conditions which we are enjoying in Germany today, after years of disunion. These conditions may be imperfect, but "the best ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... so lushious in praising, but, when he listed, it was as bitter in railing, witness this his Satyrical Character of ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from the dinner—to Briggs, whom he plagued and laughed at—and to his father especially, whose attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here, as he grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to have ended. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a while. During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child. She disliked ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Strickland's estate, was so careful to depart early in the mornings, and return only late at night, that the little alarm, if it was that, died away. Martin's plans were uncertain, and Cherry might be needed as a witness in the Will Case, if Anne's claims were proved unjustified, so that neither Peter nor Cherry could find a logical argument with which to combat Alix's protests against ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... not the only instance of unfairness in the conduct of the prosecution. The Treasury put a youth called Atkins in the box, thus declaring him to be at least a credible witness; but Atkins was proved by Sir Edward Clarke to have perjured himself in the court in the most barefaced way. In fact the Treasury witnesses against Wilde were all blackmailers and people of the lowest character, with two exceptions. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... a general description of the exterior of the establishment, let us now enter the works and witness the entire operations of manufacturing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... The next witness was Colonel George C. Gibbs, who commanded the troops of the post at Andersonville. He testified that Wirz was the commandant of the prison, and had sole authority under Winder over all the prisoners; ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... campaign is over, I'm going up to the capital for one last fling at making a United States Senator. I've only a dozen little white chips in the great game, five in the upper house and seven in the lower house. But we may deadlock it, and if we do,—you'll see thirty years drop off my head and witness the rejuvenation of Old ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the arrival. 'Here comes the ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Mrs. Petherick at the time. I can never be sufficiently grateful to them for their care of and kindness to me. Only last year I went to Melbourne to meet them both again. It was the occasion of the presentation to the Federal Government of the Petherick Library, and I went over to sign and to witness the splendid deed ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... nearly all night, as Tom could bear witness, for he did not sleep well, nor did his father. And when he came down to breakfast in the morning Mr. Swift plainly showed the effects of the bad news. His face was haggard and drawn and his eyes smarted and ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... Sullivan cried, intolerable pain in his voice. "You win! You have a heart harder than the millstone, more set than ice! I call you to witness I have struggled hard, I ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... and grown out of all proportion. Believe me, child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It has been your lot to witness many disasters, but had these things occurred with other girls as the central figure, would you have attributed this hideous curse to their lives? Would you? Never. But you readily attribute it to your own. I am an old man my dear; older to-day, perhaps, ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... you ought to see them Missourians climb trees, an' gen'rally break for cover! It costs me $50; an' the jedge gives me his word that, only it's the Fo'th of Jooly, he'd have handed me two weeks in the calaboose. I clinks down the fifty pesos some grateful, an' goes bulgin' forth to witness the cer'monies. She's a jo-darter, that Sedalia cel'bration is! As Pete yere recommends, they pulls off the surrender of Cornwallis on the Fair grounds. Also, it's plumb easy. All you needs is mebby a couple of hundred folks on hosses, an' after ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... his feet, and in a voice broken with emotion, called such shades of his ancestors "as are on night duty" to witness. "Hencefifth," he said, "I intend to ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... came out piecemeal, through Swinny's confession and the witness of her fellow-servants. The wretched woman's movements had been wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being an affectionate motherly woman, made ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... house was particularly well-conducted; it was mentioned at the inquest on him that the police had never once had any complaint in reference to it, and that Noah, who had to deal with a rather rough class of customers, was peculiarly adept in keeping order—one witness, indeed, said that having had opportunities of watching him, he had formed the opinion that Noah, before going into the public-house business, had held some position of authority and was accustomed ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... community. In the caffes, which correspond not only to the coffee-houses, but to the taverns of London, you will see modest women, at all hours of the day, often alone, sitting in the midst of the men. In the Palais Royal, at no hour of the night do you witness scenes ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... this may seem to the British public, yet for the honour of our country such accusations should not remain unrefuted. A witness of the disorders that took place in Portugal declared to the present writer that if only Grand Lodge of England would have published a notice in the Continental press disassociating itself from the Grand Orient in general and from Portuguese Freemasonry in particular, the power of the revolutionaries ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... watch. "Perhaps you're right. I've got to go to work. Remember, seven-fifteen sharp. We need you as a witness. Just your business suit, you understand. No ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... mother of the boy sitting, with drawn face, in dread of the hours. He felt the racking nerve-tension of a life in which the father went forth each day leaving his family in fear that he would not return. Then, under the spell of the unvarnished recital, he seemed to witness the crisis when the man, who had dared repudiate the lawless law of individual reprisal, paid ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... pleasant to him who endured it. For men are happy, not because of hilarity, or lasciviousness, or laughter, or jesting, the companion of levity, but often even through sorrow endured with firmness and constancy. Lucretia, having been ravished by force by the king's son, called her fellow-citizens to witness, and slew herself. This grief of hers, Brutus being the leader and mover of the Roman people, was the cause of liberty to the whole state. And out of regard for the memory of that woman, her husband and her father were made consuls(35) the first year of the republic. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... brother had already walked thither; and my brother's spirits, as he stood beside the high iron gateway, in front of the gray tower which was the theme, or chief outline, of the old country-seat, were pleasant to witness, and illustrated my own pent-up feelings. He shouted and danced before the iron bars of the gate like a humanized note of music, uncertain where it belonged, and glad of it. Our very first knowledge of Montauto was rich and varied, with the relief from pretentiousness which all ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... Mount Hor with Moses, without aid, and there is no hint that he suffered from any ailment likely to end his life suddenly. Moses took care that he and Eleazar should be alone with Aaron so that there should be no witness as to what occurred, and Moses ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... wife Bridget 20 pounds annuity, and other property, for her life; then to his sons Henry and Walter, and two daughters Margaret and Elizabeth; also 12d. to the same; and 5s. to Nicholas Cressey, gent, supervisor, witness Clynton Ayscoughe; proved at Horncastle, 2nd May, 1613. To this family belonged Anne Askew the martyr, who was the younger daughter of Sir William Ayscough, Bart., of Stallingborough. Their property eventually came to the late Ascoghe Boucherett, of ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... speaking of the manner in which the lawyers would have had to behave themselves in the law courts if philosophy had been allowed to prevail: "No man could have grieved aloud. No patron would have wept. No one would have sorrowed. There would have been no calling of the Republic to witness; not a man would have dared to stamp his foot, lest it should have been told to the Stoics."[274] "You should keep the books of the philosophers for your Tusculan ease," he had said in the preceding chapter; and he speaks, in the same page, of ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... spoken to your agent, sir," said the old tenant, following his thoughtless young landlord; "but he said that verbal promises, without a witness present, were nothing but air; and I have nothing to rely on but your justice. I assure you, sir, I have not been an idle tenant: my land will show ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... called "Liberty-Tree." It was a noble elm, and stood at the corner of the present Washington and Essex streets. On the 31st of August, 1775, the British cut it down, with no apparent motive but the indulgence of petty spite. An eye-witness of the event says: "After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing, and foaming, with malice diabolical, they cut down a tree, because it bore the name of liberty." A tory soldier was killed by its fall. A poet ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... or six years ago, I knew a little of Alan Walcott. I had made his acquaintance in a fortuitous way, and he once did me a good turn by coming forward as a witness in the police court." ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... is coming when men of this mental character and rank, of this curiosity, this energy and this good fortune in investigation, will be employed in opening mysteries of a spiritual nature. They will silence with masterful witness the over-confident denials of naturalism. They will be in danger of the widespread recognition which thirty years ago accompanied every utterance of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer. They will contribute, in spite of adulation, to the advance of ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... book, gives an account of proceedings in court brought by the wife of Martin Harris to protect her husband's property from Smith, on the plea that Smith was deceiving him in alleging the existence of golden plates; and she relates how one witness testified that Joe told him that "the box which he had contained nothing but sand, "that a second witness swore that Joe told him, "it was nothing but a box of lead, "and that a third witness declared that Joe had told him "there was nothing at all in the box. "When ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... self—accusations. Confidences and confessions are too often a means of evasion of justice—a laying of the case for the plaintiff before a judge without allowing the defendant to be present or to call a witness. Rachel, by dint of long experience, which did slowly for her the work of imagination, had ceased to wonder at the faithfully chronicled harsh words and deeds of generous souls. She knew or guessed at the unchronicled treachery or deceit which had brought about ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... out in the hall invoking his gods to witness that this girl who had presumed to change his lines, was an idiot incapable of articulate speech, brought her out of her daze. But even then she couldn't get anything quite right. There seemed to be no golden mean between the bellow of a fireman ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... to see the wild, haggard men stagger in, and to witness their despair when they received nothing to eat but such lily-roots and ground-nuts as we could find and boil. There was but little ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by the residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotland by the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the discontent and poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of that country by the court. But in this land, where every reason for interesting ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... that it had brought the blush of shame to Saxon's cheeks. On the stoop of the house on the other side, Saxon had noted Mercedes, in the height of the beating up, looking on with a queer smile. She had seemed very eager to witness, her nostrils dilated and swelling like the beat of pulses as she watched. It had struck Saxon at the time that the old woman was quite unalarmed ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... kerosene lamp on a table, over which were spread a lot of cards with their faces up. Some one had evidently been playing solitaire, and as evidently, on the witness of another sense, been accompanying the game by the smoking of bad tobacco. The room reeked with it to a degree that made Noel feel it an outrage to Christine. But what was he to do? There was but one thing. He said good-by and went away, carrying the memory ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... the famous earl of Strafford that the viceregal court first owed its brilliancy. When he came to Dublin as lord deputy he found the Castle falling to ruins. He had it restored, and lived there in the manner described by a traveled eye-witness, who says that a most splendid court was kept there, and that he had seen nothing like it in Christendom except that of the viceroy of Naples. In one point of grandeur the lord deputy went beyond the Neapolitan, for he could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... she spoke, seizing upon that stranger's presence as a means of relief, even if the relief was only to last for a minute. Such relief might be felt, she imagined, by a witness in a court when the judge rises for his half-hour at luncheon-time. For the close of an interview with Durrance left her continually with the sense that she had just stepped down from a witness-box where she had been subjected to a cross-examination so deft that she could not quite ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... no small courage on my part—the gyrations are duly accomplished in the presence of this unexpected witness. Then I retrace my steps and walk westward of Serignan. I take the least-frequented paths, I cut across country so as, if possible, to avoid a second meeting. It would be the last straw if I were seen opening my paper bags and letting loose my insects! When half-way, to make my experiment ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... be the witness of your betrothal. Now look down; do you see that precipice, and the deep river shining in ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... time, even Mr. Wilson himself is produced as crown-witness in support of the view that America would have entered the war against us whatever might have happened. In the discussions about the Peace Treaty, which the President held in the White House on the 19th August, 1919, much stress is laid upon a ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... to the bronze cross or the silver one, and it was the silver one which came. Roy, who had been the most observant witness, testified before the Honor Court that the frantic struggling of the rescued scout must have incurred danger to the rescuer and that only his dexterity and skill had ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... Bluecher was expected. Loud Huzzas in the street at length announced him, the crowd gathered round the door, and in walked Lady Caroline Lamb[31] in a foreign uniform! This I had from no less authentic and accurate a source than Dr. Holland, who was an eye-witness. She had been at the party in female attire, and seeing Lady Cork's anxiety to see the great man, returned home and equipped herself to take ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... them. And he went and gazed upwards at the house in Grosvenor Place, and at the windows which he supposed to be those of the beloved object; and he moaned and he sighed in a way piteous and surprising to witness, which Policeman X did, who informed Sir Francis Clavering's people, as they took the refreshment of beer on the coach-box at the neighbouring public-house, after bringing home their lady from the French play, that there ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and quarterings of Horsey. It is pity that this fashion is not revived; they are handsome and far more wholesome than marble paving in our could climate, and much cheaper. They have been disused ever since King Edward the Sixth's time. [Aubrey would have rejoiced to witness the success which has attended the revived use of ornamental paving tiles within the last few years. Messrs. Copeland and Garrett, and Mr. Minton, of Stoke- upon-Trent, as well as the Messrs. Chamberlain of Worcester, are engaged in making large numbers of these ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... truth of this famous story was questioned, and that he was accused of having borrowed it from something of Hogg's. He disclaimed this, no doubt truly. He protested that it was a faithfully recorded incident: but though the events were then fresh, he did not produce a single witness to prove that any Malay had been near Grasmere at the time. And so elsewhere. As I have remarked about Borrow, there are some people who have a knack of recounting truth so that it looks as if it never ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... cross-examining questions which he regarded as outside the case. There was no suggestion that his judicial decisions were influenced by the good looks of ladies who were parties to the cases heard by him, but there were rumours that on occasions the relations between the judge and a pretty witness begun in court had ripened into something at which moral men ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... round-topped window midway on the back side, and the two-storied vestibule on the front, and, more than all, the old pulpit still remaining within, with the sounding-board suspended above it, bore witness. Here assembled every spring, at the March meeting, the voters of the town, to elect their selectmen and other town officers for the ensuing year, to vote what moneys should be raised for the repair of roads, bridges, maintaining the poor, etc., ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... confinement under which I now labour. The first quarterly payment to commence and be payable at the end of three months immediately following the day of my deliverance. And I do also promise to give her, as a testimony of my honour in the rest, a diamond ring, which I have showed her. Witness my hand this nineteenth day of June, in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... humorous angles of the whole affair. He will cut the line at the base of a large rock, some two hundred yards from here, far enough away that he will not be seriously injured by the force of the explosion. Thus he will witness the explosion and realize what he has done. In order to be sure that he knows, as soon as he cuts the wire, my men will capture him. I, personally, will tell him of it. I wish to see his face when he realizes what he ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... Anna Russell, inhabitants of the above said township enter into marriage Covenant lawfully to dwell together in the fear of God the remaining part of our lives, in order to perform all ye duties necessary betwixt husband and wife as witness ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... disagreed with her brothers nor been witness to such a scene in her life, was terrified to see them engage with a degree of violence which threatened them with essential hurt. She endeavoured to appease their fury, and ventured, after she had stood still for some time between two chairs, to try if, by catching hold of one of their hands, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... up, I had pushed myself down. I was taken ill, and my illness seemed an annoyance to you at the moment when all life had just begun to smile at you— and sometimes it seemed to me as if, in your heart, there was a secret desire to get rid of your creditor and the witness of your rise. Your love began to change into that of a grown-up sister, and for lack of better I accustomed myself to the new part of little brother. Your tenderness for me remained, and even increased, but it was mingled with a suggestion of pity that ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... gave you my promise that night I had every intention of keeping it. I swear it, as Heaven is my witness." ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... childhood," the young man returned; "it died hard, and it wasn't pleasant for me to witness, but, thank God, the woman in her saved her soul from utter annihilation. Somehow, I have always wanted you and ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... approval. The professional patriot does not perform to empty seats, and the few hundred hired assassins of the public peace and private liberty would be out of a job but for the hundred thousand passive and more or less amused spectators who scramble for the best places to witness and make merry ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... their eyes went together to the tally on the wall, and pointing to it Joseph said it bore witness to the earnestness with which he had pursued his studies for the last six months, and Azariah was forced to admit there was little to complain of in the past, but he had noticed that once a boy came late for his ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... the dignity of a most flourishing colony, and the majesty of a consul elect, were both insufficient to deter him from his parricidal treason, then, (I call you, and the Roman people, and all the gods who preside over this city, to witness,) against my will, and in spite of my resistance and remonstrance, three ambassadors of consular rank were sent to that robber, to that leader of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... cat-calls and phrases of witty advice. The sticks clattered together furiously; once a man with a bloody face staggered past us; he seemed to have been whacked directly on the ear by some uneducated person. It was as fine a shindy as one could hope to witness, and ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... and he was about to startle the guests by his reply, when Zicci, touching his arm significantly, whispered in English, "I know why you have sought me. Be silent, and witness what ensues." ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... various officers who were eye-witnesses. One stated in reply to my question as to the length of the animal, 'Well, sir, I should not like to exaggerate, but I should say it was forty-five feet long from snout to tail!' Another witness declared it to be at least twenty feet; but by rigid cross-examination I came to the conclusion that it ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... sat down, so depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death could have come upon him at that time, he would have been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this state of feeling; but when he recollected that, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... much valuable information respecting the nature of the waters of the Dead Sea, refuted many false notions, corrected mistakes upon the most carefully constructed maps, identified several sites of the ancient Peraea, and established the existence of numberless ruins, which bore witness to the prosperity of all this region under the sway of the Roman Empire. Upon the 25th of June, 1806, Seetzen left Jerusalem, and returned to St. Jean d'Acre ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... spectacle to witness in some of the gymnastic institutes venerable and dignified gentlemen going through comical motions and assuming ridiculous postures with great activity and zeal, keeping time to the music of a band in ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... ducking-stool being used in England occurred at Leominster. In 1809, says Mr. Townsend, a woman, Jenny Pipes, alias Jane Corran, was paraded through the town on the ducking-stool, and actually ducked in the water near Kenwater Bridge, by order of the magistrates. An eye witness gave his testimony to the desert of the punishment inflicted on this occasion, in the fact that the first words of the culprit on being unfastened from the chair were oaths and curses on the magistrates. In 1817, a woman named Sarah Leeke was wheeled round ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... of the Chinese it must be admitted that they showed themselves more civilised than the Greeks. The Persian invasion was provoked by the murder of ambassadors by the Athenians. Of such an act there is no recorded instance among the warring states of China. It was reserved for our own day to witness in Peking that exhibition of Tartar ferocity. The following two typical incidents from the voluminous chronicles of those times ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... of the law, and have had opportunities of observing their proceedings in cases of, let us say, Domestic Jurisprudence. I am quite sure I am correct in informing you that the proof which will be required by Mr. Armadale's representatives will be the evidence of a witness present at the marriage who can speak to the identity of the bride and bridegroom from his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... drove down to Deacon Mason's and told 'Zekiel when to be on hand, and after leaving the team in the Pettengill barn, saw Alice and informed her of the Squire's proposed visit. He told her that he would come down that morning to act as a witness, if his ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... he left the residence of his son in Wales, and accompanied by both his children he reached Lumley Castle much exhausted; here he took a solemn and final leave of Marian, unwilling that she should so soon witness again the death of another parent, and dismissing the earl's. equipage and attendants a short day's ride from B——, they proceeded ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... and the king expected to see him begin to shovel. But Hercules, after he had called the son of Augeas to witness the agreement, tore the foundations away from one side of the stables; directed to it by means of a canal the streams of Alpheus and Peneus that flowed near by; and let the waters carry away the filth through another opening. So he accomplished the menial work without ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... dangerous appeal to the generous sympathies of freemen. Enjoying, as we do, the blessings of a free Government, there is no man who has an American heart that would not rejoice to see these blessings extended to all other nations. We can not witness the struggle between the oppressed and his oppressor anywhere without the deepest sympathy for the former and the most anxious desire for his triumph. Nevertheless, is it prudent or is it wise to involve ourselves in these foreign wars? ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... mentally blessed that big bill which had brought the Matson family to witness the World's Series games and so had enabled him to meet Joe's charming sister. Perhaps that vivacious young lady read what was passing in his mind, for her eyes suddenly dropped as ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... Day at the school, and a larger number was out this year to witness the examinations and inspect work than for several previous years. Wednesday night the alumni held their regular ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various



Words linked to "Witness" :   percipient, motion-picture fan, pick up, starer, catch, theatergoer, attestant, see, viewer, verbalizer, false witness, expert witness, watch, person, verbaliser, testifier, experience, hear, looker, jurisprudence, deposer, rubbernecker, witnesser, shahadah, witness box, learn, watcher, onlooker, find out, discover, law, find, get wind, get word, spy, Jehovah's Witness, cheerer, someone, attestor, observer, signatory, adverse witness, theatregoer, utterer, character witness, eyewitness, bearing false witness, speaker, hostile witness, testimony



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