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Sever   /sˈɛvər/   Listen
Sever

verb
(past & past part. severed; pres. part. severing)
1.
Set or keep apart.  Synonym: break up.
2.
Cut off from a whole.  Synonyms: discerp, lop.  "The soul discerped from the body"



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"Sever" Quotes from Famous Books



... I am I," and as long as we are what we are, in our flesh, in our blood, in our bones, nothing, while we live, can sever the bond between us. And in death? Ah! how much nearer to the pagan heart of this great mystery is the cry of the son of Jesse over the body of his beloved than all the Ciceronian rhetoric in the world—and how much nearer to what that ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... young maiden! thin, glittering-bright, which I have here in hand? I thy head will sever from thy neck, if thou speakst not ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... medical skill of that day was unable to cope, and these accumulating, in March, 1671, ended her days. The "Stuart Papers" furnish an interesting account of her death. Seeing the hour was at hand which would sever her from all earthly ties, she besought her husband not to leave her whilst life remained. She likewise requested that in case Dr. Blandford or any other of the bishops should come to visit her, he would tell them she had become a member of the Catholic Church; but if they insisted ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... is where I live," she said, pointing to a large and sever structure whose walls had plainly not been whitewashed for many long years. "It's an old disused convent, built by the Good Duke Alfred. Wasn't ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... of life, for ever, By those dread Powers that weave the woof,— Whose art the singer's spell can sever? Whose breast has mail to music proof? Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder The Herald[8] of the Gods has given: He sinks the soul the death-realm under, Or lifts it breathless up to heaven— Half sport, half earnest, rocking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... great happiness in his marriage with her, in spite of the singularity of its conditions; but that now, while Milly could never satisfy his fastidious nature, she herself had grown to be a hinderance, a dissonance in his life. Could she strike a blow which would sever him from her, he would suffer cruelly, no doubt; but it would send him back again to the student's life, the only life that could bring him honor, and in the long run satisfaction. And that life would not ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... had her; but it was upon This short, but strict, condition: Backward he should not looke while he Led her through hell's obscuritie. But ah! it happened as he made His passage through that dreadful shade, Revolve he did his loving eye, For gentle feare, or jelousie, And looking back, that look did sever Him and Euridice forever. ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... Madam; and so, sever the ties which bound you to father and mother, and home," said Minnie, who had entered just in time to hear ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... to give him over to his own course; to afford him no solace, no consolation, no advice; to deprive him of that communication, which, distant as it was, might have saved him from many an error. It costs you nothing to pronounce such words as you have spoken, and to sever ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... and Protestant, religion meant something which had been lacking to latter-day mediaevalism: something for which it was worth while to fight and to die, and—a much harder matter than dying —to sever the bonds of friendship and kinship. That these things should have needed to be done was an evil; that men should have become ready to do them was altogether good. The Reformation brought not peace but a sword; Religion was but one of the motives which made men partisans of either ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... sever the links of kindred, and to abandon the homes of our fathers after years of happy tranquillity, is a sacrifice the magnitude of which is unquestionable. The feelings by which men are influenced under such circumstances have a claim to our respect. Indeed, no class of persons can have ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... magnificent mountains and the valleys and rivers of Mexico. Can you wonder, then, Edward Fulton, that we Mexicans do not wish to lose any part of our country? Texas is ours, it has always been ours, and we will not let the Texans sever it from us!" ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the earth of those deeds of the night-tide tell: She tells of kings' supplanters: I am wise, and the wise I know, And for nought is the sword-edge whetted, save the smiting of the blow: Old friends are last to sever, and twain are strong indeed, When one the King's shame knoweth, and the other ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... beck grows wider, the hands must sever On either margin, our songs all done, We move apart, while she singeth ever Taking the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the captive, "and her words gladden my darkened spirit. Quick then, sever these bonds from my wrists and limbs, that I may stand forth once more a free man. I will then escape to the forest, and await you at the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... MEN,—I have thought matters over. I do not like to sever connections with men who have been so long in my employ. If you return to work this morning, you may go on at the old salaries, and we will consider the matter closed. If, however, you listen to advice calculated to ruin your future, and do not return, please remember ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... was held a happy augury 320 Of generation, whose efficient right Is nothing else but to produce to light. The odd disparent number they did choose, To show the union married loves should use, Since in two equal parts it will not sever, But the midst holds one to rejoin it ever, As common to both parts: men therefore deem That equal number gods do not esteem, Being authors of sweet peace and unity, But pleasing to th' infernal empery, 330 Under whose ensigns Wars and Discords fight, Since an even number ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... regret, and only from a sense of duty, I sever my relations with the Commission, and in doing so wish each of my associates on the Commission long life ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... enjoyment of the conclusions to which they lead you. Let this liberality be reciprocal, and concede the same freedom to others which you demand for yourselves. I have always thought that a difference in religious and political matters need not and ought not to create hostility of feeling, and sever those, who would otherwise be friends. I myself enjoy the friendship of several, who entertain very different opinions from mine upon those subjects; and yet that difference has not, and never shall, on my part, at least, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... waited the stroke, for with Borckman's head thrown back was no time to strive to sever the spinal cord at the neck. Many eyes beheld the impending tragedy. Jerry saw, but did not understand. With all his hostility to niggers he had not divined the attack from the air. Tambi, who chanced to be near ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... were yet, As cause was given me afterwards to learn, Not proof against the injuries of the day; 90 Lodged only at the sanctuary's door, Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared, And with such general insight into evil, And of the bounds which sever it from good, As books and common intercourse with life 95 Must needs have given—to the inexperienced mind, When the world travels in a beaten road, Guide faithful as is needed—I began To meditate with ardour on the rule And management of nations; what it is ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... belief in a soul," I cried, in real anguish, "How can you discard it? How sever the hope that after death, we are again united to part no more? Those who have left us in the spring time of life, the bloom on their young cheeks suddenly paled by the cold touch of death, stand waiting to welcome us ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... the coarsest fare, From bitter thoughts and words refrain; Yield not to dark despair! The blackest night that e'er was born Was followed by a radiant morn; Heed not the world's unfeeling scorn, Nor think life's brittle thread to sever; Hope ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... falter nor be dismayed, "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea,"—though our ranks be thinned to the number of "three hundred men." Freemen! are you ready for the conflict? Come what may, will you sever the chain that binds you to a slaveholding government, and declare your independence? Up, then, with the banner of revolution! Not to shed blood—not to injure the person or estate of any oppressor—not by force ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... moment, her radiant existence, Her presence, her absence, all crowded on me; But time has not ages and earth has not distance To sever, sweet vision, my spirit from thee! Again am I straying where children are playing, Bright is the sunshine and balmy the air, Mountains are heathy, and there do I see thee, Sweet fawn of the valley, young Kate ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... is perhaps too much to say that her complacency was shaken. She was, withal, a person of resolution—of resolution taking the form of unswerving faith in herself, a faith persisting even when she was being carried beyond her depth. She had the kind of pertinacity that sever admits being out of depth, the happy buoyancy that does not require to feel the bottom under one's feet. She floated in swift currents. When life became uncomfortable, she evaded it easily; and she evaded it now, as she gazed at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... bloodily backed and managed against the Lord and His ways, against His people and their practices; after such a covenant, have been overthrown and subdued, "I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." Then I will sever from among you the rebels; I will chase them from their own land, and hinder that they shall not enter into the land of Israel. The Lord give this success concerning Ireland, sever out the rebels there from true subjects; chase them from their own land; and yet keep ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... which never deserts the native of a Free State, however harsh a parent she may have proved; and, above all, whatever his ambition and his passions, taking, from the very misfortunes he had known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate justice of Heaven;—he had refused to sever the last ties that connected him with his lost heritage and his forsaken land—he refused to be naturalised—to make the name he bore legally undisputed—he was contented to be an alien. Neither was Vaudemont fitted exactly ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Lexington first Through clouds of oppression its radiance burst; But at brave Bunker Hill rolled back the last crest, And, a bright constellation, it blazed in the West. Division! No, never! The Union forever! And cursed be the hand that our country would sever!" ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... stationary force, on the Suez Canal awaiting the onset of the Osmanli. Right through the war, the region about the Gulf of Iskanderun was one of prime strategical importance, seeing that Entente forces planted down in those parts automatically threatened, if they did not actually sever, the Ottoman communications between Anatolia and the theatres of war in Palestine and in Mesopotamia. But at dates subsequent to the winter of 1914-15 the enemy had fully realized that this was the case, was in a ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... the couple anticipate the ceremony, however, they must leave the house, and then are recalled by the bride's parents, and readmitted into caste on giving a feast, which is in lieu of the marriage ceremony. If they do not comply with the first summons of the parents, the latter finally sever connection with them. Widow marriage is freely permitted, and the widow is expected to marry her late husband's younger brother, especially if he is a bachelor. If she marries another man with his consent, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... hearts yield homage, I conjure thee. At home I left behind a gentle bride, Beauteous as thou, and rich in blooming grace: Weeping she waiteth her betrothed's return. Oh! if thyself dost ever hope to love, If in thy love thou hopest to be happy, Then ruthless sever not two gentle hearts, Together linked in love's most ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... made the foundation on which their affection rested. When two hearts have thus by mutual gift bestowed themselves the one upon the other and become fused and molten into one, is it possible ever to sever the connection? But the kiss they had exchanged the day before, among the darkling shadows of the forest, was replete with the joy of their new-found safety and the hope that their escape awakened in their bosom, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... this orphan child would doubtless have been one of those poor creatures who come into the world only to leave it; and Ole Kamp evinced a truly filial devotion toward his parents by adoption. Nothing would ever sever the tie that bound him to the Hansen family, to which his marriage with Hulda was about to ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... congregate. It is added that la belle Helene already gives promise of being playful in other ways beside that of expenditure. And that de Vallorbes has been heard to lament openly that he is not a native of some enlightened country in which the divorce court charitably intervenes to sever overhard connubial knots. In short, it is rumoured that de Vallorbes is not a conspicuous example of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the crisis was delayed till the 6th of May, when the recommitment of the Quebec Bill,—a question upon which both orators had already taken occasion to unfold their views of the French Revolution,—furnished Burke with an opportunity, of which he impetuously took advantage, to sever the tie between ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... a special chapter to the subject of punishment. Mutilation is extremely common. Often I met men who had been deprived of their ears—they had lost them, they explained, in battle facing the enemy! It is a common punishment to sever the hamstrings or to break the ankle-bones, especially in the case of prisoners who have attempted to escape. And I remember that when I was in Shanghai, Mr. Tsai, the Mixed Court Magistrate, was reproved by the papers ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... say that? Has a woman never been won by devotion and perseverance? Besides, how can I wish to see you go on with a suit which must sever you from my father, and injure your political prospects;—perhaps fatally injure them? It seems to me now that my father is almost the only man in London who has not ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... Song, sung by those to whom San Francisco held more than pleasure—more than sentimentality. It held for them close-knit ties that nothing less than a worldshaking cataclysm could sever—and the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... scattering o'er the field in thin array, Man tugs with man, and clubs with axes play; With broken shafts they follow and they fly, And yells and groans and shouts invade the sky; Round all the shatter'd groves the ground is strow'd With sever'd limbs and corses bathed in blood. Long raged the strife; and where, on either side, A friend, a father or a brother died, No trace remain'd of what he was before, Mangled with horrid wounds and ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... 1, at seven o'clock in the morning, the First Consul mounted his horse, and, escorted by a detachment of the young men of the city, forming a volunteer guard, passed the bridge of boats, and reached the Faubourg Saint-Sever. On his return from this excursion, we found the populace awaiting him at the head of the bridge, whence they escorted him to the hotel of the prefecture, manifesting ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... stranger might be puzzled to understand how this cutlassing is done. It is no easy feat to sever with one blow a liana thick as a man's arm; the trained cutlasser does it without apparent difficulty: moreover, he cuts horizontally, so as to prevent the severed top presenting a sharp angle and proving afterwards dangerous. He never appears to strike ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... Scroope against the Captain's wife, which by no means died out when the late Julia Smith became the Captain's widow with two sons. Old reminiscences remain very firm with old people,—and Lord Scroope was still much afraid of the fast, loud beauty. His principles told him that he should not sever the mother from the son, and that as it suited him to take the son for his own purposes, he should also, to some extent, accept the mother also. But he dreaded the affair. He dreaded Mrs. Neville; and he dreaded ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... seventh door and asked who was without. And the voice of Finn answered, 'He that hateth thee, and will sever thy head from thy body shouldst ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... miserable peons over whom you claim jurisdiction. Allow me to undeceive you! I am Inez de Garcia, to whom you shall never dictate, for I solemnly declare, that from this day the link which has bound us from childhood is at an end. Mine be the hand to sever it. From this hour we meet only as cousins! Go seek a more ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... Rochdale to lecture, and there began that friendship between two strong men which only death could sever, and possibly even death did not—I really cannot say. But for many years Cobden was to speak at Rochdale—several times a year. Whenever he heard the Voice he went over to Rochdale and told his friends, the millworkers, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... safety with her new companions September, 1659. If the saintly woman herself displayed courage and zeal in undertaking the return voyage, no less heroism was evinced by those who followed her to Canada. It is always a matter of surprise to the worldly-minded, to see young girls courageously sever the ties of kindred and country, and attach themselves to one who possesses nothing but confidence in God, and who promises nothing in the future but humiliations, pain and labor to her followers. Such were the inducements held out by Margaret Bourgeois to those ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... don't know how it was that it did not sever my skull; but I suppose that it was a hasty blow, and the sword must have turned. It might have been worse, by a good deal. I am afraid things are going badly ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... protruding from the face of the hurdle. Then the maker with a special narrow and exceedingly sharp hatchet chops off at one blow each of the projecting ends, with admirable accuracy, never missing his aim or exceeding the exact degree of strength necessary to sever the superfluous bit without injuring the hurdle itself. The hurdle-maker is paid at a price per dozen, and he ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... after remaining for several years under the Hudson's Bay Company, at last in 1674 felt obliged to sever the connection, and went over again to France. Radisson told his nephew in 1684 that the cause was "the refusal, that showed the bad intention of the Hudson's Bay Company to satisfy us." Several influential ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... say, about six months bigger than you," the Doctor laughed. "He Is n't anybody you will be afraid of, Thistledown; but he is a very nice boy. His mother is just recovering from a sever illness, so she has n't been able to come to see him yet, and he feels ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... home. He considered her as a relation, and looked upon Noel as a son. In spite of her fifty years, he had often thought of asking the hand of this charming widow, and was restrained less by the fear of a refusal than its consequence. To propose and to be rejected would sever the existing relations, so pleasurable to him. However, he had by his will, which was deposited with his notary constituted this young advocate his sole legatee; with the single condition of founding an annual prize of two thousand francs ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... brighter days, Perhaps she brings; Deeper and holier songs, Perchance she sings; But thou and I, fair time, We too must sever— Oh dream ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... very lovely. Here was a world created by Eternal Love that people might serve love in it not all unworthily. Here were anguishes to be endured, and time and human frailty and temporal hardship—all for love to mock at; a sea or two for love to sever, a man-made law or so for love to override, a shallow wisdom for love to deny, in exultance that these ills at most were only corporal hindrances. This done, you have earned the right to come—come hand-in-hand—to heaven ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... Abbe to the Comtesse, the light of old-world enthusiasm shining from his deep-set eyes: "I have great hopes for our dear friend. She finds it hard to sever the ties of time and love. We are all weak, but her heart turns towards our mother Church as a child, though suckled among strangers, yearns after many years for the bosom that has borne it. We have spoken, and I, even I, may be the voice in the wilderness leading the lost ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government of ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... his office. After all, then, things were to come to a crisis a little earlier than he had thought. He knew quite well that that report, if he made it honestly, and no other idea was likely to occur to him, would effectually sever his connection with ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... he. "One of the men had a Pawnee arrer in his laig. Reckon hit hurt. I know, fer I carried a Blackfoot arrerhead under my shoulder blade fer sever'l years. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... was beset with terrors. When he was caught in the branches of the oak-tree, he was about to sever his hair with a sword stroke, but suddenly he saw hell yawning beneath him, and he preferred to hang in the tree to throwing himself into the abyss alive. (104) Absalom's crime was, indeed, of a nature to deserve ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... in which you, sir, have an interest, and respecting which you ought, therefore, to be informed. There are those who represent my brother's actions as the result of personal ambition. Such persons have perpetually accused him to the French Government as desiring to sever the connection between the two races, and therefore between this colony and France. At the moment when these charges were most strongly urged, and most nearly believed, my brother sent his two elder sons to Paris, to be educated for their future duties under the ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... embrace of his friend; he felt his tears upon his cheek; but he could neither return the one nor sympathize with the other. The conviction that he was soon to sever that cord, that he was to deprive the man who had preserved his life of the only stay of his existence, and abandon him to despair, struck to his soul. Grasping the hand of his friend, he gazed on his averted and dejected features ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... the vicissitudes of their troubled lives and been numbered with the silent majority in the field of epitaphs, already alluded to, and their descendents were on the eve of the great struggle which was destined to sever them from the mother country, and the hearts of patriotic men began to feel the premonitory throbs of that spirit of independence soon to fire the first shot at Lexington, the Union and Association of Sons of Liberty in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... it may," said John Grey. "Our first object must be to sever her from a man, who is, as you say, himself on the verge of ruin; and who would certainly make her wretched. I am here now, not because I wish her to be my own wife, but because I wish that she should not become the wife of such ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... friend: then, thus it is:— The lady of my life Fidelia is; Of whom I am, I know, belov'd no less Than she of me, my gracious mistress, Sever'd by Fortune and our cruel foe, My lord her brother, Prince Armenio. Now could'st thou, Penulo, thyself behave On trust to bring my lady to the cave, Where whilome (lovers) we were wont to meet, In secret sort each other for to greet. She wots it well, and every corner ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... Greeley, ask me to take my knife and sever my arm from my shoulder and I can do it, but ask me to give up an appetite that has come down upon me for generations, I can't do it." He threw his cane upon the floor to emphasize his utterance. A few days later in the old Saint Charles Hotel, he pierced his ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... this life of ours, Soon its cord must sever! Death comes quick, nor brooks delay, Ruthless, he tears us away, No man spares ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... Mr. Romaine," said I, "I have had so much benefit of your advice and services that I am loth to sever the connection, and would even ask a substitute. I would be obliged for a letter of introduction to one of your own cloth in Edinburgh—an old man for choice, very experienced, very respectable, and very secret. Could you favour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... must be short at best, that I urged you to gild the brief period with the light of your love. I would not have bound you always to me; and when I asked your hand a few minutes since, I knew that death would soon sever the tie and set you free. Let this suffice to palliate my 'unmanly' pleading. I have but one request to make of you now, and, weak as it may seem, I beg of you not to deny me. You are preparing to leave my house; this ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... introduced under the name of Prospero in Dibdin's Bibliomania. Douce died at his residence in Gower Street, London, on the 30th of March 1834, and he left in his will two hundred pounds to Sir Anthony Carlisle 'requesting him either to sever my head or extract the heart from my body, so as to prevent the possibility of the return of vitality.' His valuable collection of printed books, which consisted of sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty volumes, with a quantity of fragments of early English works, including two printed ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... sought her acquaintance; and in spite of all his rugged manners he succeeded in winning her heart, principally through his bold and yet at the same time masterly violin-playing. Close intimacy led in a few weeks to marriage, which, however, was kept a secret, because Angela was unwilling to sever her connection with the theatre, neither did she wish to part with her professional name, that by which she was celebrated, nor to add to it the cacophonous "Krespel." With the most extravagant irony he described to me what a strange life of worry and torture ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... manipulation, and on one occasion when I supplied a bandage to bind a wound on the finger of a workman who had met with a slight accident, as I turned to take up my scissors, the head carpenter, without a trace of humour on his face, stepped forward with a four-foot long adze, and offered to sever ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... above all his countrymen who followed his art. I am thus forced to believe that had so excellent an artist visited Italy in his youth, as reported, there would have remained but the faintest trace of its origin. That men of less ability should be unable to entirely sever themselves from their national style of work, even under circumstances most favourable for such a release, I can readily understand; it is an incapacity which has been exemplified over and over again; but Jacob Stainer was not one of these ordinary men; he had not his superior in the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... curtain, and the underlying muscles to the cords by which it is drawn aside. The constant drawing of these cords, you know, produces in time the facial wrinkles, always perpendicular to the muscles causing them. If you sever a number of these cords, you alter the entire drape of the curtain. It was for Davenport to learn what severances would produce, not the disagreeable effect of the operation known to criminals, but a result altogether pleasing. He was to ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... spiritual allegiance to one common Head. Should a Catholic be so unfortunate as contumaciously to deny a single article of faith, or withdraw from the communion of his legitimate pastors, he ceases to be a member of the Church, and is cut off like a withered branch. The Church had rather sever her right hand than allow any member to corrode her vitals. It was thus she excommunicated Henry VIII. because he persisted in violating the sacred law of marriage, although she foresaw that the lustful monarch would involve a nation in his ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... dieth, Never, never, But sigheth, crieth, In its old endeavor, Where the shifting sand and shingle Meet and mingle, And the lifting land and the surge of the waters sever! ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard

... bulk, on high The huge trunk rose, and heaved into the sky; Around the tree I raised a nuptial bower, And roof'd defensive of the storm and shower; The spacious valve, with art inwrought conjoins; And the fair dome with polished marble shines. I lopp'd the branchy head: aloft in twain Sever'd the bole, and smoothed the shining grain; Then posts, capacious of the frame, I raise, And bore it, regular, from space to space: Athwart the frame, at equal distance lie Thongs of tough hides, that boast a purple dye; Then ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... came out with little trouble, and was borne at full speed to the pile. The second stump gave him more difficulty, and before it would yield he had to sever two or three ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... cried he suddenly with a kind of fury, "I suppose that a sister who loves her brother, pities and does not insult him; that the Marquis de Roselle knows better what can make him happy than the Countess of St. Sever; and that he is free, independent, able to dispose of himself, in spite of all opposition." With these words he turned to leave the room brusquely. I run to him, I stop him, he resists. "My brother!" "I have no sister." He makes a movement ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Royal Servian Government condemns every propaganda that may be directed against Austria-Hungary; that is to say, all efforts designed ultimately to sever territory from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and it regrets sincerely the sad consequences of these ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... ever yet had thrill'd her charmed soul, When eloquent Affection fondly told The day-dreams of delight. "Beloved Maid! Lo! I am with thee! still thy Theodore! Hearts in the holy bands of Love combin'd, Death has no power to sever. Thou art mine! A little while and thou shalt dwell with me In scenes where Sorrow is not. Cheerily Tread thou the path that leads thee to the grave, Rough tho' it be and painful, for the grave Is but the threshold ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... Is nowhere found To flaw, or else to sever: So let our love As endless prove, And pure ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... the father of a white family! Many have only the mulatto family, and seem content. These are generally the home Spaniards, already spoken of, and when their fortunes are secured they recklessly sever all local ties and responsibilities and return to Spain. This is no new thing, as there are many families in Cuba of fair position socially, and often of considerable wealth, whose members are by the ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... tempted to sever my connection with this journalistic autocrat. My column was widely read and two publishinghouses had approached me with the idea of putting out a book, any editorial revision and emendations to be ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... should not be captured, or if captured and not deemed suitable for this purpose, perhaps Beaufort would serve as a depot. As the rebels have probably removed their most valuable property from Augusta, perhaps Branchville would be the most important point at which to strike in order to sever all connection between Virginia and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... a father's hearing. But there are things which should be talked of, though the heart should break." After another pause he continued; "Is there, thinkest thou, sufficient cause in the girl's health to bid her sever herself from these delights of life and customary habits which the Lord has intended for His creatures?" At every separate question he paused, but when she was silent he went on with other questions. "Is there that in her looks, is there ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... the Mid-age from the Past of Man The Present was disparted; and they stood As on some island, sever'd from the plan Of the great world, and the sea's twilight flood Around them, and the monsters of the unknown; Blind fancy mix'd with fact; Faith in the things unseen sustaining ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... told:— For such a childish sport I am too old. But you, whom Nature made for high endeavour, Are you content the fields of air to tread Hanging your poet's life upon a thread That at my pleasure I can slip and sever? ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... which their cruelties are recorded. He used to delight in hearing of them, and he said that it gave him greater pleasure to hack off a child's head than to assist at a banquet. Sometimes he would seat himself on the breast of a little one, and with a knife sever the head from the body at a single blow; sometimes he cut the throat half through very gently, that the child might languish, and he would wash his hands and his beard in its blood. Sometimes he had all the limbs chopped ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... are partings: hands that soon must sever, Yet clasp the firmer; heart, that unto heart, Was ne'er so closely bound before, nor ever So near the other as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... trunk the Woodman did sever; And they floated it down on the course of the river. They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip, And with this tree and others they made a good ship. The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land 35 Such a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... with his well-known and long-tried sagacity, saw at a glance the whole design of the originators of the Texas insurrection. While most people were averse to the belief that a project was seriously on foot to sever a large and free province from the Mexican Republic and annex it to the Union as slave territory, he read the design in legible characters from the beginning. In a speech made in the House of Representatives, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... that thorny jungle of flashing scimitars, and the huge arm of King Richard the Lion-hearted hewed a red road for them all which none could equal; for was he not the strongest man in the two entire armies—this King who could sever an iron bar with a swordstroke? But ever as he plunged with fresh zeal and ringing warcry into the heart of the fray, he became aware of a knight and his squire that as surely as his shadow, kept but a pace behind him; and the blows that were struck ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... when they please. This we assert respecting them as a whole. Are not the blacks, as a race, so indebted to us that we ought to be consulted as to the time and manner of their departure? We say that they are. They do not morally possess the right, we think, to sever ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... report has come down to us; but we have both a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative. [543] It seems that the prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in their challenges, and were consequently tried together. Williams examined or rather crossexamined his own witnesses with a severity which confused them. The crowd which filled the court laughed and clamoured. Lunt in particular became ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... poet, ... I wish you to know that he is a trouble to me and a nuisance. Indeed in the case of the others also who follow the same profession, and were enrolled in the holy clergy of the Church that is with us, I have debarred them from practising such poetry; and I am taking much trouble to sever this theatrical pursuit from ecclesiastical gravity and modesty, a pursuit that is the mother of laxity and is also capable of causing youthful souls to relax and casting them into the mire of fornication, and carrying them to bestial passions." The result of this asceticism ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... such grief, as thus to sever With many a bitter sigh, Dear Land, from Thee; To feel this heart must doat on thee for ever, And feel, that all thy joys are torn ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... barrage lifted, and the 27th and 28th went through the belt of wire, cutting with the attachments on their rifles, any strands that our artillery had failed to sever. A machine gun commenced firing at us, so down our crew went into a shell hole and up went our gun and a few rounds silenced that machine gun; then forward again with the 27th. We struck a trench and worked our way down, for ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... youth, free in early manhood. Theirs was already the spirit of American institutions; the spirit of Christian freedom of a temperate, regulated freedom, of a rational civil obedience. For such a people the sword, the law of violence, did and could do nothing but sever the bonds which bound her colonial wards to their unnatural guardian. They redeemed their pledge, sword in hand; but the sword left them as it found them, unchanged in character, freemen in thought and in deed, instinct with the immortal spirit of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... must say to you Good bye, my sweetheart! Remember that waking or dreaming, I love you truly. Only you, so dear to me—you, so generous, so noble, so good. Bright are the links of love's golden chain which time cannot sever. Constancy, our love shall bless, now and forever. May the sweet guardian spirits who guide your footsteps, keep you safely until we meet again, is the ever-present thought which is inspired by love's whisper in the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... heap of notes, at last, With "love" and "dove," and "sever" "never"— Though hope, though passion may be past, Their perfume is as sweet ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... forest of Pennsylvania, a young Virginian officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war which was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great Western republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished in the New; and, of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... embouchure of this latter lake commences the Chippawa, better known in Europe from the celebrity of its stupendous falls of Niagara, which form an impassable barrier to the seaman, and, for a short space, sever the otherwise uninterrupted chain connecting the remote fortresses we have described with the Atlantic. At a distance of a few miles from the falls, the Chippawa finally empties itself into the Ontario, the most splendid of the gorgeous American lakes, on the bright bosom ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... events of my life," he said, "came together. I was engaged to be married to the Duchess of Lenchester at the same time that I found myself forced to sever my connexion with the Liberal party. You know, of course, that the Duchess has always been a great figure in politics. She has ambitions, and her political creed is almost a part of the religion of her life. She looked ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and sent forth from the Massachusetts Convention.[388] He was a man of blameless life (no relation to John Adams)—a rigid religionist of the old Massachusetts Puritan stamp—a hater of England and of British institutions, able and indefatigable in everything that might tend to sever America from England, in regard to which his writings exerted a powerful influence. He was the Corypheus of the Separatist party in Boston, the Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, and wrote the Massachusetts circulars ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... and Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Andrew we are told that those who executed Andrew "lifted him up on the stauros," but "did not sever his joints, having received this order from the pro-consul, for he wished him to be in distress while hanging, and in the nighttime as he was suspended to be eaten by dogs." There is nothing to show that the stauros used was ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons

... continued Nott, with a tremulous voice, and a hand that slightly shook on Renshaw's shoulder. "We ain't goin' to git up and sing, 'Thou'st larned to love another thou'st broken every vow we've parted from each other and my bozom's lonely now oh is it well to sever such hearts as ourn for ever kin I forget thee never farewell farewell farewell.' Ye never happen'd to hear Jim Baker sing that at the moosic hall on Dupont Street, Mr. Renshaw," continued Mr. Nott, enthusiastically, when ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... loved me never, Did that great oak tree, But I'm neither rich nor clever, And so why should he? But though fate our fortunes sever, To be constant I'll endeavour, Ay, for ever and for ever, To my great oak tree!" Sing hey, Lackaday! Let the tears fall free For the pretty little flower and the great ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... rescind, segregate; set apart, keep apart; insulate,, isolate; throw out of gear; cut adrift; loose; unloose, undo, unbind, unchain, unlock &c. (fix) 43, unpack, unravel; disentangle; set free &c. (liberate) 750. sunder, divide, subdivide, sever, dissever, abscind[obs3]; circumcise; cut; incide|, incise; saw, snip, nib, nip, cleave, rive, rend, slit, split, splinter, chip, crack, snap, break, tear, burst; rend &c. rend asunder, rend in twain; wrench, rupture, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... claimed, in supporting the supremacy of law, to be friends of freedom. As it was not the original purpose of the Loyalists to invoke for their country the curse of arbitrary power, so it was not the original purpose of the Whigs to sever relations with the British crown. Men, however, are but instruments in the hands of Providence. Both parties drifted into measures which neither party originally proposed or even desired; and thus the Loyalist, to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... and when she wondered, explained to her with shivering earnestness that it was undoubtedly the boy's intention to break it against the iron bedstead the first moment he was left alone, and with a shard sever one of his veins. Tatsu grinned like a trapped badger when it was wrested from him, and said that he would find a way in spite of them all. After this not even a medicine bottle was left in the room, and the watch over ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... at which he had left his home, the long absences of his youth, and the death of his father, had all contributed to sever his associations with New Orleans; so that his marriage in Norfolk, as was the case with so many officers of his day, fixed that city as his place of residence when not at sea. It is worthy of remembrance, in connection with his firm determination at a later day ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or Matter. In the first sense it is but a Character of stile, and belongeth to Arts of ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... Vyrubova] that I desired eagerly to see you again. Your good works are to-day in everyone's mouth. All at Court are speaking of you and your beautiful soul-inspiring religion, of which I am anxious to know more details from your own lips. It is too cruel of you to sever yourself from Petrograd when all are longing for your presence. What can I do in order to induce you to come? Ask of me anything, and your wish ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... of this will be manifest from the numerous examples contained in this volume. And thus, without in appearance living otherwise than those who, with no other occupation than that of spending their lives agreeably and innocently, study to sever pleasure from vice, and who, that they may enjoy their leisure without ennui, have recourse to such pursuits as are honorable, I was nevertheless prosecuting my design, and making greater progress in the knowledge of ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes

... the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the like change of Colour that happens to Hares in some Provinces of Muscovy, happens to them also in Livonia, and yet immediately subjoyns, that in Curland the Hares vary not their Colour in Winter, though these two last named Countries be contiguous, (that is) sever'd only by the River of Dugna; For it is scarce conceivable how Cold alone should have, in Countries so near, so strangely differing an operation, though no less strange a thing is confess'd by many, that ascribe the Complexion of Negroes to the Heat of the Sun, when ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... swelling stems of the plantain, from ten to fifteen feet in height, and as large as a man's leg, or larger. The stalks of the plantain are juicy and herbaceous, and of so yielding a texture, that with a sickle you might entirely sever the largest of them at a single stroke. How such a multitude of succulent plants could find nourishment on what seemed to the eye little else than barren rock, ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... hearts in one breast lie, And yet not lodge together? O love! where is thy sympathy, If thus our breasts thou sever? ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... his adversary in silence, with eyes whose hatred seemed to excoriate. But whenever the running noose at the end of the cord came coiling swiftly at his head, with one lightning snap of his long teeth he would sever it as with a knife. By the time Kane had grown tired of this diversion the cord was so full of knots that no noose would any ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... Ah never, ah never! My breast from thy breast Eternities sever; But my soul to thy soul ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... fracture, sever, rend, burst, smash, shatter, shiver, splinter, sunder, rive, crush, batter, demolish, rupture>. (After discriminating these terms for yourself, see the treatment of break, fracture under ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... painful as if she were really losing one of her own dear ones. Estelle clung to her, wishing she could persuade her dear Goody to come home with her, that Aunt Betty might see her and thank her properly. But this was too much to expect. Goody was sure she would sever survive the voyage. Jack also was averse to the idea. He did not want to have two helpless people on his ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... dropped. Nevertheless, the Captain accepted all my geography leading from Kaze to the Nile, and wrote it down in his book—contracting only my distances, which he said he thought were exaggerated, and of course taking care to sever my lake from the Nile by his Mountains of ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... discreditable to Lizzie, that she had never read "Romeo and Juliet." At any rate, they served to dissipate time,—heavy, weary time,—the more heavy and weary as it bore dark foreshadowings of some momentous event. If that event would only come, whatever it was, and sever this Gordian knot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... that it was merely a rough draught, and that he had hitherto kept it within his own control, with a view to more careful consideration. In accordance with the advice of friends, he expressed a determination, and apparently in good faith, to suppress the letter, and thus to sever all connection with the antislavery party. This, however, was now beyond his power. A copy of the letter had been taken; it was published, with high commendations, in the antislavery newspapers; and Mr. Atwood was exhibited in the awkward predicament of directly avowing sentiments ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fortress should be to the garrison as ten to one, and those for escalade as five to one. Outflanking methods were always to be pursued against an adversary holding high ground, and the aim should be to sever the communications of an army having a mountain or a river on its rear. When the enemy selected a position involving victory or death, he was to be held, not attacked, and when it was possible to surround a ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... inconsistent duties sever My mind with cruel shock, As when the current of a river Is split upon ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... said, clambering down and bringing it to Rayner. A few blows on the bench served to sever the link already partly ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... thing a boy has to do, is to learn implicit obedience to rules. The first thing in importance for a man to learn is, to sever himself from maxims, rules, laws. Why? That he may become an Antinomian, or a Latitudinarian? No. He is severed from submission to the maxim because he has got allegiance to the principle. He is free from the rule and the law because he has got ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... railroad bridge over Bear Creek. General Halleck's first step, therefore, was to break these railway connections, and as General A.S. Johnston was falling back southwardly, it became doubly important to sever these connections for the purpose of preventing a conjunction of the forces under Johnston and Beauregard. Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had gone up to Florence, at the foot of Muscle Shoals, immediately after the surrender of Fort Henry, without difficulty. An expedition up the Tennessee, ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... occurred between Strictland and myself, and which at one time threatened to sever forever all friendly ties, was amicably settled before we arrived at St. Bartholomew. Policy undoubtedly pointed out to the Englishman the importance of continuing our friendly relations while my money lasted; and he apologized in a handsome manner for what I considered his rude and uncivil conduct. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... these women; Or women's sake, by whom we men are men; Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves, Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths: It is religion, to be thus forsworn: For charity itself fulfills the law: And who can sever love from charity?— ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... should build a bark of dead men's bones, And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, Stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans To fill it out blood-stained and aghast; Although your rudder be a dragon's tail Long-sever'd, yet still hard with agony, Your cordage large uprootings from the skull Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail To find the Melancholy—whether she Dreameth in any ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... he must avoid industry, as it is a means of obtaining riches, which are fatal to salvation; he must renounce preferments and honors, as things capable of exciting his pride and calling his attention away from his soul; in a word, the sublime morality of Christ, if it were not impracticable, would sever all the ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... tottered to her seat, and longed for the hour which was to sever her from a Christian world. She thought not of herself, nor of what she was to suffer; she thought but of Philip; of his being safe from these merciless creatures—of the happiness of dying first, and of meeting him again ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... his than when it was in the Indies, or lay hid in the mines; his corn is no more his than if it stood growing in Arabia or China; he is no more owner of his lands than he is master of Jerusalem or Grand Cairo; for what difference is there, whether distance of place or baseness of mind sever things from him? whether his own heart or another man's hand detain them from his use? whether he hath them not at all, or hath them to no purpose? whether one is a beggar out of necessity or choice? is pressed to want, or a volunteer ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... was borne to the mouth of our cannon and planted there by a boy but seventeen years of age, who actually endeavor'd to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence-rails. He was kill'd in the effort, and the flag-staff was sever'd by a shot from one ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... her joining a party of which he was a member. At my house he has received increased encouragement. I marked them with a jealous eye, for I could not believe his attentions sanctioned either by you or Mr. Hamilton; but even my vigilance was at fault, for she had consented to sever every tie which bound her to her too indulgent parents, and fly with him to Scotland. This night would have seen the accomplishment of their design. Had one of my children behaved thus, it would have been less a matter of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... impossibly may meet Some specious object by the foe suborned, And fall into deception unaware, Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned. Seek not temptation then, which to avoid Were better, and most likely if from me Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought. Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve First thy obedience; the other who can know, Not seeing thee attempted, who attest? But, if thou think, trial unsought may find Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest, Go; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... peace to win a name. Another still, tempts fortune's wave, And seeking wealth, secures a grave. The last, grasps yet the brittle thread: Though friends are gone and joy is dead— Still dares the dark and fretful tide, And clutches at its power and pride— Till suddenly the waters sever, And like the ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... profit, and, given a few more years of continued prosperity, the summer will yield a goodly additional income. But the teacher who undertakes a camp with the idea that such money is easily made, is mistaken. One successful woman has cleared large sums, so large, indeed, that she has about decided to sever her direct connection with the private school where she has taught for years, and trust to her camp for a living. She has been so fortunate, it is but fair to explain, because her camp is upon a government reserve tract in Canada, and she has had to make no large investment ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... agents tell him that his property was being prostituted to evil ends for gain he would have to sever relations with them, but he selected agents who troubled him with no such embarrassing details. This was a practical attitude, but something told him that in it Conscience would hardly see eye to eye ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... fighting so vigorously for his relief. The heat of the fight had left the bridge leading from the shore to the ships without a guard, and he sent some men in boats to row towards it and with saws and axes to sever the supports beneath it. This was successfully done and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... Finally all agreed to sever our dealings with the Interior Department, which required cows for Indian agencies, and confine our business to the open market and supplying the Army with beef. Our partner the Senator reluctantly yielded to the opinions of Major Hunter and myself, urging our loss of prestige ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... uprightness, and righteous indignation against those who are fortunate beyond their deserts, when they are inflamed in their souls with folly and insolence and need a check. And no one if they wished could pluck away or sever[244] natural affection from friendship, or pity from philanthropy, or sympathy both in joy and grief from genuine goodwill. And if those err who wish to banish love because of erotic madness, neither are they right ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... was ever since you came, with your stockings off, and the loaches. Right early for me to make up my mind; but you know that you made up yours, John; and, of course, I knew it; and that had a great effect on me. Now, after all this age of loving, shall a trifle sever us?" ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... these steps, mounted his horse and hurried away to keep tryst with the fair, noble woman, whose promised hand was the guerdon of ambitious schemes, and years of patient, persistent wooing. To-day he rode slowly to a parting interview, which would sever the last link that Bad so long held their lives in tender association. Whatever of regret mingled with the contemplation of his ruined matrimonial castle, lay hidden so deep in the debris, that no faintest reflection was visible in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... full of peril! The path that runs through the fairest meads, On the sunniest side of the valley, leads Into a region bleak and sterile! Alike in the high-born and the lowly, The will is feeble, and passion strong. We cannot sever right from wrong; Some falsehood mingles with all truth; Nor is it strange the heart of youth Should waver and comprehend but slowly The things that ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... 'we English have a characteristic way of proving the holiness of the marriage tie. The angel of Justice and Pity cannot sever it, only the ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... from a Busycon perversum. The surface is nicely polished and the margins neatly beveled. The marginal zone is less than half an inch wide and contains at the upper edge two perforations, which have been considerably abraded by the cord of suspension. Four long curved slits or perforations almost sever the central design from the rim; the four narrow segments that remain are each ornamented with a single conical pit. The serpent is very neatly engraved and belongs to the chevroned variety. The eye is large and the neck is ornamented ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes

... Death, indeed, cannot sever friendship. "Friends," says Cicero, "though absent, are still present; though in poverty they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead they are alive." ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... sever himself from this obnoxious tradition.[5] It is true that neither the Pythagorean nor the Egypto-Tychonic system required epicycles for explaining retrograde motion, as the Ptolemaic theory did. Furthermore, either system could use the excentric of Hipparchus to explain ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... of anything else. It seems to me that these conditions invite the artist to the study and the appreciation of the common, and to the portrayal in every art of those finer and higher aspects which unite rather than sever humanity, if he would thrive in our new order of things. The talent that is robust enough to front the every-day world and catch the charm of its work-worn, care-worn, brave, kindly face, need not fear the encounter, though ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Edward thus hand in hand, as they stood when the clarions sounded the charge at Towton! and that link what swords forged on a mortal's anvil can rend or sever?" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a beautiful, dark-eyed Creole girl. The whole treasury of her love was lavished upon Sergeant Jasper, who, on one occasion, had the good fortune to save her life. The prospect of their separation almost maddened her. To sever her long, jetty ringlets from her exquisite head—to dress in male attire—to enroll herself in the corps to which he belonged, and follow his fortunes in the wars, unknown to him—was a resolution no sooner conceived than taken. In the camp she attracted no particular attention, except ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... evident. He had baffled his enemies by taking slow poison. Before he reached the presence of the Futai, who had wished to gloat over the possession of his prisoner, the opium had done its work, and Tu Wensiu was no more. It seemed but an inadequate triumph to sever the head from the dead body, and to send it preserved in honey as the proof of victory to Pekin. Four days after Tu Wensiu's death, the imperialists were in complete possession of the town, and a week later they had taken all their measures for the execution of the fell plan upon which ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger



Words linked to "Sever" :   divide, separate, disunite, discerp, break up, part, cut, severing



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