Why should she listen? Why had reason been given to us if we were not to use it--weigh good and evil in the balance and decide for ourselves where lay the nobler gain? Were we to be led hither and thither like blind children? What was right--what wrong, but what our own God-given judgment told us? Was it wrong of the woman to perform this act of self-renunciation, yielding up all things to love? No, it was great--heroic of her. It would be her cross of victory, her crown. If the gift were noble, so also it could not be ignoble to accept it.英文原著 · 《All Roads Lead to Calvary》
"What!" yelled Prince Alexis, with flashing eyes, every trace of humility and renunciation vanishing like smoke,--"what! Borka? The infamous wretch who has ruined me, killed his mother, and brought disgrace upon our name? Do you know that he has married a wench of no family and without a farthing,--who would be honored, if I should allow her to feed my hogs? Live for HIM? live for HIM? Ah-R-R-R!"英文原著 · 《Beauty and The Beast》
There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of all things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soon followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as it were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I could never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes, and when otherwise her own. It was meant for a buffet, and (as it were) the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, but was generally more wise than to appear to have observed the circumstance.英文原著 · 《Catriona》
O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep-- Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?英文原著 · 《Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton-Part 2》
And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlement purged, bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospital and the Bishop-Home excellently arranged; the sisters, the poctor, and the missionaries, all indefatigable in their noble tasks. It was a different place when Damien came there and made this great renunciation, and slept that first night under a tree amidst his rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; and looking forward (with what courage, with what pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of dressing sores and stumps.英文原著 · 《Father Damien》
"Nae, your Honor; and he might have seen the same thing ony week-day of the past eight and a half years. But the bit terrier is no' my ain dog." Suddenly, the memory of the stormy night, the sick old man and the pathos of his renunciation of the only beating heart in the world that loved him--"Bobby isna ma ain dog!" swept over the remorseful landlord. He was filled with a fierce championship of the wee Highlander, whose loyalty to that dead master had brought him to this strait.英文原著 · 《Greyfriars Bobby》