"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some days had suspected this invasion, and the evening preceding it he called his staff together, and gave to each the necessary instructions. Agreeably to his usual custom, he rose before daylight, and hearing the cannonade, awoke Major Glegg and called for his horse, Alfred, which Sir James Craig had presented to him. He then gallopped eagerly from Fort George to the scene of action, and, with his two aides-de-camp, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... to meet Ovando, according to the custom of her nation, attended by her most distinguished subjects, and her train of damsels waving palm branches, and dancing to the ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... Perris passed a night of such pleasant dreams. For never, indeed, had he been so exquisitely flattered as during the preceding evening when Marianne Jordan kept him after dinner in the ranchhouse while the other hired men, as was their custom, loitered to smoke their after-dinner cigarettes in the moist coolness of the patio. For the building was on the Spanish-Mexican style. The walls were heavy enough to defy the most biting cold of winter and the ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... sea without being captured. Now not only are they safe in their houses, but they go safely to different places, without any harm being done them. If there are piracies, they are very far from this town and in places where the Spaniards do not go. It is a very ancient custom that the natives had among themselves, of capturing, robbing, killing, and imprisoning one another. Now there are few injuries committed, in comparison with what used to be committed before the Spaniards came here. Every day there will be fewer, because we are ever striving to take and punish ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... and the Artist now entered the model of the Victory—a really admirable exhibition. There they saw before them the old battle-ship with its full equipment, as it was in the days of NELSON—when that deathless hero expected every Englishman (not excluding even those passing the Custom House—as the Committee would say) "to do his duty." To make the illusion complete, the great sea-captain was observed dying in the cook-pit in the agonies of wax. And to think that this work was executed by a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... the door of the Scriptorium and lit the gas. So far, his custom; but here his whim and his wont parted. Instead of seating himself at his table, where the bound Post for January-March, 1902, awaited his exploration, he laid himself down on ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fell into a state of deep gloom, for she couldn't let it go, and yet it seemed cruel to tell him so, and between the two horns of the dilemma she made herself quite ill. At last, by his request and according to their custom, she put her objections to it, as it then stood, in writing, complaining that he had treated it simply as a story, whereas it was in reality an allegory. After reading her paper and seeing the justice of her criticism, with characteristic impulsiveness he immediately burned ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... across the room that destroys all pleasantness of tone. The windows, moreover, are either big rectangular holes in the wall, or, which is worse, have ill-proportioned round or segmental heads, while the common custom in 'good' houses is either to fill these openings with one huge sheet of plate-glass, or to divide them across the middle with a thin bar. If we insist on glazing them thus, we may make up our minds that we have ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... have everything. He never saw any signs of apprehension in Mr. Douglas: on the contrary, he was the most fearless man he had ever known. He ordered the drawbridge to be pulled up every night because it was the ancient custom of the old house, and he liked to keep the ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ye hounds of life, that lurk So close, to seize your harried prey! Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work, I hear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... accommodating eye, whom Alick had dubbed Tommy, with that transcendental appropriateness that defies analysis. One day the Devonian was lying for warmth in the upper stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck, when Irish Tommy came past, very neatly attired, as was her custom. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his interesting Excursions in Derbyshire, notices the following rite at the village of Hathersage: "In this church we observed the traces of a custom that once generally prevailed in various parts of the kingdom, but is now almost totally disused; when unmarried women died, they were usually attended to the grave by the companions of their early years, who, in performing the last sad offices of friendship, accompanied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... Germans, and that if any quarrel arose with the Gauls about the empire, his fame would give him an advantage. Munius Lupercus, one of the Roman commanding-officers, was sent among other presents to Veleda, a virgin of the Bructeran tribe who wielded a wide-spread authority.[400] It is an ancient custom in Germany to credit a number of women with prophetic powers, and with the growth of superstition these develop into goddesses. At this moment Veleda's influence was at its height, for she had prophesied the success of the Germans and the destruction ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... According to their usual custom when on the trail, they were off by sunup, the exhaust of the double motors making the wooded shore echo again. They made their third encampment at the mouth of a stream which they took to be that called Good Woman River ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... lord bishop," called he from the other end of the table. "It is our English custom to let our guests be as rude as they like; but perhaps your lordship will hint to these two friars, that if they wish to keep whole skins, they will keep ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... beyond the seas—that Comghall should dissuade him and, instead, retain the stranger with him for a year at Bangor. "And how am I to recognise him?" asked Comghall. The angel answered:—"Whom you shall see going from the church to the guest-house" (for it was Mochuda's custom to visit the church first). [See note 1.] Comghall announced to his household that there was coming to them a distinguished stranger, well-beloved of God, of whose advent an angel had twice foretold him. ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... the oxen up, and away they went doing their steady knot, which nothing could increase. It may be thought strange that with all sail furled in dead calm and while the oxen rested they should have cast anchor at all. But custom is not easily overcome and long survives its use. Rather enquire how many such useless customs we ourselves preserve: the flaps for instance to pull up the tops of hunting-boots though the tops no longer pull up, the bows on our evening ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... what I shall offer," said James. "And we may make it two shillings." Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11-1/2—but he rejected it. "You don't realize that I'm catering for a higher class of custom—" ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... agitation. Therefore he was always anxious to conciliate and even cultivate the advanced element. Of this I will here give one illustration, out of many I could mention, and this in connection with the custom of drinking what was called "the loyal toast," which at one time used to be observed at some Home Rule celebrations. It is a matter on which I have already explained ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... artifice was still requisite to quell the indignant passions which were rising in the bosoms of the nobles. But Gudenow was a consummate master of his art, and through the intrigues of years had the programme of operations all arranged. According to custom, six weeks were devoted to mourning for Feodor. Boris then assembled the nobility and principal citizens of Moscow, in the Kremlin, and, to the unutterable surprise of many of them, declared that he could not consent to assume the weighty cares ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... night," Ashe said slowly. "Only at that time would they find everyone here. Men don't trust a night filled with ghosts, and our agents conform to local custom as usual. All of the post people could be erased with one ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... desk is admirable training for good soldiers of the Church. See the fearful evil that befalls great schemes intrusted to people who cannot deal with money matters; and see, on the other hand, what our merchants and men of business have done for the Church, and do not scorn "the receipt of custom."' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... custom of telling the home party all his doings, the journal-letter of the 27th of November goes through the teaching ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the junction of the St. Amand road, he gave a little auberge his custom, comforting nature with an omelet while a fowl was being put on the spit. But because custom such as Paul Beaufoy's came that way but seldom the fowl was slow to come by, yet slower to cook, and more time went to its eating than would have ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... themselves on the husband's funeral pile. Such a victim is called Sati. It is uncertain when the custom was first introduced, but, evidently it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... since Easter, and it is yet twelve days to Christmas by the belated reckoning of the Greek Church. But if the houses show no sign of the holiday, within there is nothing lacking. The whole colony is gone a-visiting. There are enough of the unorthodox to set the fashion, and the rest follow the custom of the country. The men go from house to house, laugh, shake hands, and kiss one another on both cheeks, with the salutation, "Kol am va antom Salimoon." "Every year and you are safe," the Syrian guide renders it into English; and a non-professional ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... had just that quality of faith. She went singing about her household tasks and her usual smile beamed quite beatific. So said Dr. Christian, who stepped in to see her, as was his custom every few days. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... the streets from his companions. This course he followed till he was fifteen years old, without giving his mind to any useful pursuit, or the least reflection on what would become of him. In this situation, as he was one day playing according to custom in the street, with his vagabond associates, a stranger passing ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Upsala, where the members of the Swedish Riksrad had already assembled. The senators consented to render homage to Christian on condition that he gave a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; and a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish Rigsraad on the 31st of March. But Sture's widow, Dame Christina Gyllenstjerna, still held out stoutly at Stockholm, and the peasantry of central Sweden, stimulated by her patriotism, flew to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the word from calculus, a white stone, the Romans having used small white stones for arithmetical purposes. Probably they taught this custom to the aboriginal English, whose ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... gourd of the liquid; custom has rendered it not unpleasant to the palate, and its singular odour I disregard. And in the cool shade of the interior of the most respectable of the adobe huts we rest awhile until the sun's fiery disc has descended ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... and there were symptoms of an impending storm. The night set in, but Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was missing. He had left the party early in the morning, to hunt by himself, according to his custom. Fears were entertained lest he should lose his way and become bewildered in tempestuous weather. These fears increased on the following morning, when a violent snow-storm came on, which soon covered the earth to the depth of several ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... war last? | | | |It's a fool question, because there is no certain | |answer. But when there is an unanswerable question, | |it is the custom to look up precedents. Here are ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the wife, and the eldest daughter, are to be voted for by the father, the husband, and the eldest brother, then why are not the children to be voted for in complete family relation by the patriarchal head? Why not go back to the tribal custom of the desert, and let the patriarch do all the voting? To be sure, it would change the whole form of our government; but, if it is good for the family, it is just as good ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the big arc-lights flooded the broad, white plaza when Dick crossed it on his way to the Hotel Magellan. The inhabitants of Santa Brigida had finished their evening meal and, as was their custom, were taking the air and listening to the military band. They were of many shades of color and different styles of dress, for dark-skinned peons in plain white cotton, chattering negroes, and grave, blue-clad Chinamen mingled with the citizens who claimed to spring ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... never return. Side by side with these cemeteries rise the Hindu ghats, generally by the river bank. There really is something grand in the ritual of burning the dead. Witnessing this ceremony the spectator is struck with the deep philosophy underlying the fundamental idea of this custom. In the course of an hour nothing remains of the body but a few handfuls of ashes. A professional Brahman, like a priest of death, scatters these ashes to the winds over a river. The ashes of what once lived and felt, loved and hated, rejoiced and wept, are thus given back ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... before him life as it was lived in the capital of the Confederate States of America. It was to him a spectacle, striking in its variety and refreshing in its brilliancy, as he had come, though indirectly, from the Army of Northern Virginia, where it was the custom to serve half-rations of food and double rations of gunpowder. Therefore, being young, sound of heart and amply furnished with hope, he looked about ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the territory, and referring him to the Biloch occupant for his consent. The account of the negotiation is so characteristic of the man and the time, that I have thought it worth preserving. The Moghul envoy introduced himself in conformity with Eastern custom by means of a gift, which, in this instance, consisted of a handsome piece of flowered chintz, with which the rural potentate was so pleased that he ordered its immediate conversion into a suit of clothes. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... gathering truffles in a forest, when he found a lion's den; and, walking into it, he lay down and slept. It was a custom, in his time, to sleep in lions' dens when practicable. The lion was absent, inspecting a zoological garden, and did not return until late; but he did return. He was surprised to find a stranger in his menagerie without ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... my father's house. Contrary to custom, he was not at the factory, but awaiting my return. He rose when I appeared, and stood silently looking at me, while my mother put her hands on my shoulders, and ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... answered. 'I am an American—and it is my custom when traveling in any country to make unceremonious calls like this, in order to see the people as they really are ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... entered public life the political situation in Lower Canada was beginning to be complicated. The French-Canadian members of the Assembly, having taken great pains to acquaint themselves with the law and custom of the British constitution, had awakened to the fact that they were not enjoying the position or the power which the members of the House of Commons in England were enjoying. In the first place, the measures which they passed were being ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... patriarchal, Loved to see the beaker sparkle; And he thought the wine improved, Tasted by the lips he loved— By the kindly lips he loved. Friends, I wish this custom pious Duly were observed by us, To combine love, song, wine, And sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang: "Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Middle Ages still prevail to some extent[921],—a fact which recalls the long survival of feudalism in Japan. The little Isle of Man, almost in sight of the English coast, has retained an old Norse form of government. Here survives the primitive custom of orally proclaiming every new law from the Tynwald Hill before it can take effect,[922] and the other ancient usage of holding the court of justice on the same hill under the open sky. The Faroe Islands and Iceland are museums of Norse antiquities. The stamp of isolation ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... careful, my lord Tristan, another custom can you not learn? Of enemies friends make: for evil ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... custom of "heriot" was practised here; which is not improbable, as instances have occurred in neighbourhood of Bromsgrove and other parts of the county within the past few years. This relic of feudalism, or barbarism, consists ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... during which Max rarely left Kenneth's room. Every morning, though, it grew into a custom that he should go down to the old castle yard, where Tavish, Long Shon, old Donald, and Scoody were always waiting to hear his report of the ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... annual custom of a tribe of gypsies to pitch their tents in a green lane near Plashet, on their way to Fairlop Fair. Once, after the tents were pitched, a child fell ill; the distracted mother applied to the kind ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... so as to see by the light of the fire, as Albert had been accustomed to do, she opened the book, and then began to repeat such verses as she could remember. At length she closed the book, and laying it down upon the seat of the settle, in imitation of Albert's custom, she kneeled down before it, and repeated the prayer. The use of the bible itself, in this service, was of course a mere form:—but there is sometimes a great deal of spiritual good to be derived from a form, when the heart is in ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... was held late in April, under conditions which must have added greatly to popular interest. Following the custom in Virginia, the voter, instead of casting a ballot, merely declared his preference in the presence of the candidates, the election officials, and the assembled multitude. In the intensity of the struggle no voter, halt, lame, or blind, was overlooked; and a barrel of whisky near at hand lent further ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... would be hurt at the factory. Whenever this happened, Aunt Patty paid a weekly call to the injured man until he was well—an old Spencer custom ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... precincts at the commencement of this story. On this occasion the public seemed rather busy than in search of pleasure. It was a matter of importance, indeed, to be present at the last appearance of La Felina. The keys of the boxes, therefore, according to the Italian custom, were sold at the door of the theatre, and at double the usual price. I speak only of the small number of boxes, the proprietors of which were absent from Naples. We may also as well add, that in Naples a box is often property. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... character—men totally ignorant of military duties, mere pothouse politicians, and the base hirelings of party,—those who screech the loudest in favor of party measures, and degrade themselves the most in order to serve party ends?—and by thus devoting the army, like the custom-house and post-office, to political purposes, will it seek to increase that vast patronage of the executive which is already debasing individual morality, and destroying the national character? Should any administration of the government be so ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... brought into communication with one another. These fires expressed a language of their own, which the observers could readily interpret. For a long time they were the only method used for signalling. Indeed in many backward localities and in some of the outlying islands and among savage tribes the custom still prevails. The bushmen of Australia at night time build fires outside their huts or kraals to attract the attention of ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... sending the list of the guests to your Royal Highness, and if there be some who are not to your liking, I pray you cross them off. Following here," he went on, "the custom usual when one invites Royalty to one's home," playing all the moves which a man knows who has wooed and won many times, but, as it seemed to me, with a real feeling ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to bear: That the Station of your Petitioner and his Father has been in the Place of his present Settlement ever since that Square has been built: That your Petitioner has formerly had the Honour of your Worships Custom, and hopes you never had Reason to complain of your Penny-worths; that particularly he sold you your first Lilly's Grammar, and at the same Time a Wits Commonwealth almost as good as new: Moreover, that your first rudimental ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... us, could understand how, on the face of this earth, there could be such affection—not a single drop of bitterness, not a ruffle on the smooth surface. Why, sir! did we not all, to satisfy our self-love, and our country's custom, call it very idolatry; but it was only a little envy which we, as it were, stole to ourselves, as a sweet unction to our sores, and when these were mended we loved her the more—nay, we could do nothing less; for even the devil's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... whether the object of these enclosures is to avoid all disputes of possession, or whether the custom is a lazy one of keeping the cattle from straying, without the trouble of watching them; at any rate such formidable barriers are permanent obstacles, which make these regions impenetrable and ordinary warfare impossible. There lies the whole secret of the Chouan war. Mademoiselle de Verneuil ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... is well known to be a barren desert to the bees during a greater portion of the year. Hence the judicious practice of shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of the season, and the custom of other nations in this particular well ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... us, as they always do on Sundays, because of the distance to go home, with only words inside them. The parson, who always sat next to mother, was afraid that he might have vexed us, and would not have the best piece of meat, according to his custom. But soon we put him at his ease, and showed him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to do, but accepted the best ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Pearson had grumbled a good deal, saying how could the things be so good out of a poky shop like that? But I told her I did not care if the things were not quite as good; for it would be of more consequence to Catherine to have the custom, than it would be to me to have the one lump of sugar I put in my tea of a morning one shade or even two shades whiter. So I had contrived to keep up a kind of connexion with her, although I saw that any attempt at conversation was so distasteful to her, that ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... adduces not a particle of evidence to prove his absolute statement, nor even to countenance the idea; but, as is his custom, he transforms a conjecture into an established fact. On a bare surmise, he builds an argument, and treats the whole, basis and superstructure, as History. To show, more particularly, how he thus makes History, I must follow this matter up a little ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... throstles had learned to repeat some of the cadences of the church music, and in those places the birds still continue to pipe them, though nothing now remains of church or monastery except the name of some field or street or well, which people continue to use out of old habit and custom. ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... on; Count Robert returned to the chateau, and as was his custom at once sought his daughter. Failing to find her, he made inquiry among the servants, and then learned that the lovers had left the domain some hours before. This intelligence made the count somewhat uneasy, and remounting his horse, he set out in quest of the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the project; but she insisted on the first measure being to consult Mr. Calcott. He was the head of the old sound and respectable party—the chairman of everything, both in county and borough—and had the casting vote among the eight trustees of King Edward's School, who, by old custom, nominated each other from the landholders within the town. She strongly deprecated attempting anything without first ascertaining his views; and, as the young men had lashed themselves into great ardour, the three walked off at once to lay the proposal ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horse was browsing upon the tufts of dry yellow grass, that grew thinly over the ground. This horse, with a saddle and bridle lying near, proved the solitary individual to be a traveller. Contrary to the usual custom of the country, the horse had no lazo, or fastening of any kind upon him; but was free to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... one side as she trifled with her toast. "You know, Thor, that it's an old custom for newly married people to go to church together on the first Sunday they're ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... reckoned among pleasures; for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense, when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... the usual custom of woman, Isabel was ready fully an hour before the appointed time. She stood before the fire, buttoning a new glove with the sense of abundant leisure that new gloves demand. The dancing flames picked out flashes of light from the silver spangles of her gown and sent them into the farthest corners ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... of course—sometimes he thought he knew more than any man should be allowed or able to know—but courtesy and custom demanded the question. It was the witchman who answered. Apparently he was spokesman for ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... that her hopes with regard to Beatrice were fixed. Fortune hitherto had seemed to smile favourably upon her. Beatrice had had one season in town, during which she had met Sir John frequently, and he had, contrary to his usual custom, asked her to dance several times when he had met her at balls. Mrs. Miller said to herself that Sir John, not being a very young man, did not set much store upon mere personal beauty; that he probably valued mental qualities in a woman more highly than the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... consider morality, the sphere of the subjective disposition, supreme. He thinks he knows a higher sphere, wherein legality and morality become one: "social morality" (Sittlichkeit). This sphere takes its name from Sitte, that custom ruling in the community which is felt by the individual not as a command from without, but as his own nature. Here the good appears as the spirit of the family and of the people, pervading individuals as its substance. Marriage is neither a merely legal nor a merely sentimental ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of being the handsomest race in the world. The German is a mixture of various anatomical types, including, in some parts, distinct traces of Mongolian blood, which indicate that the raiding Huns meddled, according to their custom, with the German women, and bequeathed to a section of the nation the Turanian cheek-bones, as well as certain moral characteristics. Lastly, the German race has never shown much aptitude for governing and assimilating other peoples. The French, by virtue of their ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... and, owing to my custom of neither paying visits nor going to dinner or evening parties on "the first day of the week," I look forward to a little leisure; though the repeated raps at the door already this morning remind me that it will probably be interrupted often enough to ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... curates of his neighborhood to inform them of his Testament; he told them that he had consigned to the chancery of St. Minnehould a copy of his manuscript in 366 leaves in octavo; but he feared it would be suppressed, according to the bad custom established to prevent the poor from being instructed and knowing ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... often degenerates into the prejudice of custom, and becomes at last rank hypocrisy. When men from custom or fashion, or any worldly motive profess or pretend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any reason for believing, they unship the helm of their morality, and, being no longer honest in their ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the journeymen of letters; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one. Those two fat volumes, with which it is our custom to commemorate the dead—who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses of material, their slipshod style, their tone of tedious panegyric, their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design? They are as familiar as the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... uncivilized races, are accomplished in peace; constitutional changes, economic reorganizations, boundary modifications and a hundred grave matters. Thought is the solvent that will make a road for men through Alpine difficulties that seem now unconquerable, that will dissolve those gigantic rocks of custom and tradition that loom so forbiddingly athwart all our further plans. For three thousand years and more the Book has been becoming more and more the evident salvation of man. If our present civilization collapse, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... phrenological readings. I had seen him earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter. Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a moment's hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through the group and sat down on the edge ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Monk, the official leader of the French Conservatives, but from Bourassa. Laurier and his lieutenants fought desperately, but in vain, to break the strengthening hold of the younger man on the sympathies of the French electors. In Quebec the custom of the joint open air political meeting is still popular, and at such a concourse in St. Hyacinthe, an old Liberal stronghold, Sir Wilfrid's colleagues, Lemieux and Beland, met a notable defeat at the hands of Bourassa—an ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... stuffed bodies. I have addrest them at public dinners, on all topics and for all purposes, and whatever sympathy they may have shown with the divers occasions which brought them together, they come up to this notion of continually stuffed bodies. In primitive times they had a custom which we only under the system of differentiation practise now at this dinner. When men wished to possess themselves of the learning, the wisdom, the philosophy, the courage, the great traits of any person, they immediately ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... uncooked, fresh or salt, but they refused all drink but water. Their sole covering was a miserable seal-skin reaching to the knees. Their weapons were javelins tipped with a fish-bone. They all suffered from bad eyes, which the English attributed to their custom of living in smoke to protect themselves from mosquitos. Lastly, they emitted a most offensive smell, only to be likened to that of foxes, which doubtless arose from their excessively ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Bills who have suddenly learnt to call a coat a blouse. Taking things as they find them. Vaguely understanding. Caring less. Grumbling by custom. Cheerful by nature. Ever anxious to be where they are not. Ever anxious to be somewhere else when they get there. Without thought of sacrifice. Who have left the flag-waving to those at home. Who serve as a matter ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... but Christianity invested marriage with the utmost solemnity, so that it became a holy and indissoluble sacrament,—to which the Catholic Church, in the days of deepest degeneracy has ever clung, leaving to the Protestants the restoration of this old Pagan custom of divorce, as well as the encouragement and laudation of a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... of a king. When he sat down at table he ate more sparingly from that than his appetite inclined him, and when he stood up at prayers he continued longer at them than it was his custom; that they might form a high opinion of his sanctity.—I fear, O Arab! that thou wilt not reach the Caabah; for the road that thou art taking leads to Turkistan, or ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... power of building forts in Canada—and had the power of declaring and carrying on war against the American Indians, or, in case of insult, the Colonial Englishmen of New England, or the Manhattanese Dutch. Justice was to be administered according to the Custom of Paris. All Colonists of, and converts to the Roman Catholic faith, had the same rights in France as Frenchmen born and resident in France had. And for four years the king himself agreed to advance a tenth of the whole stock of the company, without interest, and to bear a corresponding ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... with a shrug of contempt at the fatuity of his countrymen, 'men and women, or rather boys and girls, choose for ourselves, and what's the result nine times out of ten? Well, it's the custom, and it's no use for a man by himself trying to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... she asked. "Women who are caught in the tangle of these laws, as I was, cannot say a word—their lips are dumb. The others won't say a word for fear of spoiling their matrimonial market. The worst thing that can be said of a woman is that she's queer and strong-minded—and defies custom. If you want to be happy, Pearl, be self-centered, virtuous, obey the law, and care ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... from the beginning, by insensible but decisive symptoms. Marshall and Burgess, two Puritanical clergymen, were chosen to preach before them, and entertained them with discourses seven hours in length.[**] It being the custom of the house always to take the sacrament before they enter upon business, they ordered, as a necessary preliminary, that the communion table should be removed from the east end of St. Margaret's into the middle of the area.[***] ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... and members of the National Assembly elections: president elected by the National Assembly for a six-year term; election last held 15 October 1998 (next to be held NA 2004); prime minister and deputy prime minister appointed by the president in consultation with the National Assembly; by custom, the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the legislature is a Shi'a Muslim election results: Emile LAHUD elected president; National Assembly vote - 118 votes in favor, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Where ninety per cent of the cows died at one time, ninety per cent can be saved by the above treatment. It is a custom with some people to use an ordinary bicycle pump for treatment of Milk Fever. This should not be practiced, as there is great danger of infecting the bag and ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... home with them. And soon not only the seafaring adventurers but many a man who was never likely to see the ocean, or adventure beyond his native town, had taken to smoking. That, too, despite his king's disgust at it. For James thought smoking was "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black smoking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." He indeed wrote a little book against it, which he called "A Counterblaste to Tobacco." ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... them more frequently now, through what he called the great moment—so tiresomely extended—of his life. Pleydon came oftener but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for dinner and suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went up to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own thoughts or pages; at others she complained—no other woman alive would stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... which may the souls contain "Of parents, brethren, or of those once join'd "To us by other bonds, certain of men, "To rest secure and safe from savage wounds; "Nor load our bowels at Thyestes' board. "Soon, by ill custom warp'd, does he prepare "To bathe his impious hands in human gore, "Who severs with his knife the lowing throat "Of the young calf, and turns a deafen'd ear "To all its cries: or who the kid can slay, "Moaning ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... polygamy, which was that it enabled a man to get enough to eat. This sounds sinister from a notoriously cannibal tribe; but the explanation is that the Fans are an exceedingly hungry tribe, and require a great deal of providing for. It is their custom to eat about ten times a day when in village, and the men spend most of their time in the palaver- houses at each end of the street, the women bringing them bowls of food of one kind or another all day long. When the men are away in the forest rubber or elephant-hunting, and have to cook their ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... sex has been as bitter and unreasonable as against color, and far more reprehensible, because in too many cases it has been a contest between the inferior, with law on his side, and the superior, with law and custom against her, as the following facts in the Sunday Dispatch, by Anne E. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... while he was eating his scanty dinner, the lieutenant in charge of the prisoners came in, and, as was his custom, began to argue with them as to the probable termination of the war. Frank had always hoped that he would let him alone, for the lieutenant invariably became enraged if the prisoners endeavored to uphold ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... that the ancient superstition of the Beltane fire is still preserved in Scotland, and is lighted on the 1st of May, the origin of which is supposed to be an annual sacrifice to Baal, I am induced to state that a custom, evidently derived from the same source, is, or was a few years since, annually observed in the wild parts of Devonshire. At the village of Holne, situated on one of the Spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... to these intimacies between friends, it was not, as the poets say, the disaster of Laius which first introduced the custom into Thebes, but their lawgivers, wishing to soften and improve the natural violence and ferocity of their passions, used music largely in their education, both in sport and earnest, giving the flute especial honour, and by mixing the youth together ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... four miles in quest of honey, but it is a great advantage to move the hive near the good pasturage, as has been the custom from the earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprising person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyptians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, has tried the experiment of floating several hundred colonies north on the Mississippi, starting from New Orleans and following ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... It was their custom to carry off the women and children. If the children were hindered the march of their mothers, or if they cried and endangered or annoyed their captors, they were torn a hawked, or their brains were dashed ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... is from the ancient Greeks, and is said to have arisen from a custom of exiling wrangling political opponents by writing their names on an oyster shell and sending from the city the one whose name fell uppermost when the shell was tossed. Some modern adaptations ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... from the pastors' union and other sources; but I was advised to try for a training-school and home for orphans at the limit age (fourteen) and also for juvenile court dependents and delinquents. As is my custom, I inquired of the Lord. I received so strong an impression regarding "an ounce of prevention," etc, that I said, "Yea, Lord, it is worth one hundred thousand pounds of cure." In a short time beautiful and practical plans were drawn up and presented to me by one of San ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... California, and was the first place captured by the United States, in July, 1846, after war with Mexico was begun. Mr. Grigsby knew it well, for hither he had marched from the north with Fremont's battalion of Volunteer Riflemen. It was a pleasant old town, of white-washed, tile-roofed clay buildings, a custom-house at the wharf, a large, yellow town hall, and an army post on the bluff overlooking town and bay. The town sloped to the low surf of the wave-flecked bay encircled by cliffs and bluffs. Beyond the town rose higher hills, well timbered ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain, and then take an airing amongst the dolphins: "inter delphinas Arion." But nowadays our tars have quite capsized the custom, and instead of riding ashore on the dolphin, they invite the dolphin aboard. While he is darting and playing around the vessel a sailor goes out to the spritsail yard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... seldom used, and especially in the irregular verbs."—Harrison's Gram., p. 26. "The termination est, annexed to the preter tenses of verbs, is, at best, a very harsh one, when it is contracted, according to our general custom of throwing out the e; as learnedst, for learnedest; and especially, if it be again contracted into one syllable, as it is commonly pronounced, and made learndst. * * * I believe a writer or speaker would have recourse to any periphrasis rather than say keptest, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a, on honor of gentlemand officer, not in custom of behaving offensively. Azo! leave it to my friends. Entirely due to injuries received at ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... was but an under-plot of the Prophet, whose object was indeed far beyond that of becoming the paltry instrument of a rusty intrigue. It was a custom with Dick o' the Grange, for a few years previous to the date of our story, to sleep during the assizes, in the head inn of the town, attended by Jemmy Branigan. This was rendered in some degree necessary, by the condition of his bad leg, and ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... said College, any goods, chattels or personal property whatsoever; and also that by the name aforesaid they shall be able and capable in law, notwithstanding any Statutes or Statute of mortmain, law, usage or custom whatsoever to the contrary, to have, take, purchase and hold to them and their Successors to and for the use of said College, any other Manors, Rectories, Advowsons, Messuages, Lands, tenements, rents and hereditaments of what kind, nature, or quality soever, over and above ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... his gate he saw, near at hand, Squire Jonas, now a gnarled but still sprightly octogenarian, leaning upon a fence post surveying the universe at large, as was the squire's daily custom. He called out a good morning and waved his stick in greeting toward the squire with a gesture which he endeavored to make natural. His aging muscles, staled by thirty-odd years of lack of practice at such ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... our fishing, and we followed the old-fashioned custom as to bait. We discarded the fly, using only the angle-worm. At the foot of the ripples; under the old logs; where the water went whirling under the cavernous banks; in the eddies; among the driftwood; everywhere, we found trout—not large, none weighing over six ounces, and few less than ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... promenade en cacolet. The town of Bayonne is but five miles distant, by a delightful road, and formerly, particularly before the railroad came in, to ridicule old ways, every one went to Bayonne en cacolet. It is no longer so, and the world has lost a unique custom. The contrivance was very simple: the motive power was a donkey or a horse, and the conveyance consisted of a wooden frame or yoke fitting across the animal's back, with a seat projecting from each side. One seat was for the driver, usually a lively Basque peasant-woman; the other was for the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... were a band of wood-cutters who had wintered, as was their custom, in a hut at Kurobe, which was this side of the Harinoki toge, and were just come out from their hibernation. They were now on their way to Ashikura, where they belonged, to report to their headman, obtain supplies and start to return ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... Hampden were old enough to understand that by all the laws of heredity and custom they should be enemies, they had learned to like each other. When they were only a few years old, the little creek winding between the two plantations afforded in its strip of meadow a delightful neutral territory where ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern in the rock, in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder into the fires, as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do when enemies approached them, the mountain hurled up intermittent rocks for three days, and the rocks fell flaming all over the town and all round about it. And just as Camorak's men began to batter the gate they heard a crash on the ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... problem of sex consists of fitting the best possible institutions on to the biological foundation as we find it in the human species. Hence all our reasoning about which institution or custom is preferable must refer directly to the human bodies which compose society. We can use laboratory evidence about the bodies of other animals to help us in understanding the physical structure and functions of the human body; but we must stop trying to apply the sex-ways of birds, ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... a hard-boiled, unconvicted murderer and grass-thief borrows my horse without my permission, and I ride that sort of man down, upset him, sit on him, and choke him, the instincts of my ancestors, the custom of the country, common sense, and my late military training all indicate to me that I should frisk him for deadly weapons. I did that. Well, I found this check when I frisked Loustalot back yonder. And—if a poor bankrupt like myself may be permitted to claim a right, you are ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the parlour of the rectory a lamp flared up and then burned dimly under a red shade. Looking through the low window, she could see the prim set of mahogany and horsehair furniture, with its deep, heavily carved sofa midway of the opposite wall and the twelve chairs which custom demanded arranged stiffly at equal distances ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... we breathe. Little Jewel, I love our old Chinese ways. I love the custom of the lily-planting and the day the lilies bloom. I love to think the gods smell them in heaven, and are gracious to ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... various Christian churches. The manufacture was forbidden, to the satisfaction of Martial, by Domitian, whose edict Nero confirmed; and was restored by the Byzantine empire, which advanced eunuchs, like Eutropius and Narses, to the highest dignities of the realm. The cruel custom to the eternal disgrace of mediaeval Christianity was revived in Rome for providing the choirs in the Sistine Chapel and elsewhere with boys' voices. Isaiah mentions the custom (Ivi. 3-6). Mohammed, who notices in the Koran (xxiv. 31), "such men as attend women and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... my right, a distinguished Dean of the Thistle, gave me a few moments' discomfort by telling me that the old custom of "rounds" of toasts still prevailed at Lady Baird's on formal occasions, and that before the ladies retired every one would be called ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... manner which never made pretence of anything, was thoroughly natural and perfectly well-bred, but which frankly paid more honour to his mother than to herself. She admired Pitt's behaviour to his mother. Even to his mother it had less formality than was the custom of the day; while it gave her every delicate little attention and every possible graceful observance. The young beauty had sense enough to see that this promised more for Pitt's future wife than any amount of civil subserviency to herself. Perhaps there is not a quality which ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... before the present course of government by responsible advisers was fully and decidedly established, which it hardly can be said to have been until after the accession of the House of Hanover, but the custom of asking for such Audiences, and of their being in general granted, was well known, and has for the most part been observed and adhered to. Lord Melbourne remembers that during the part of the French War, when considerable alarm began to prevail respecting ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... all directions. He told me that since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his considering cap on. His papers were in a little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accustomed to that occupation; but we should ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... confused over the calicoes. But I'm certain the shoe was on the other foot; there wasn't a girl in town would go anywhere else to shop when they could enjoy the fun of teasing me; so that if I made a few blunders, I also brought custom. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... term, earlier in Etruria than elsewhere in Italy. Caere is the first of all the Italian towns that is mentioned in Greek records. On the other hand we find that the Etruscans had on the whole less of the ability and the disposition for war than the Romans and Sabellians: the un-Italian custom of employing mercenaries for fighting occurs among the Etruscans at a very early period. The oldest constitution of the communities must in its general outlines have resembled that of Rome. Kings or Lucumones ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... she acknowledged her kin to him and surrendered. He could well afford to be generous. By every law of custom I had merited severe punishment at my father's hands, and that his hands were stayed by Mr. Blight's intercession was but another evidence of his power. When my father reasoned with me kindly, instead of whipping me, I yielded, not to his sophistry but to ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... number, this i-ro-ha of self-murder, is but one of a thousand instances in the Land of Noble Suicides. From the pre-historic days when the custom of Jun-shi, or dying with the master, required the interment of the living retainers with the dead lord, down through all the ages to the Revolution of 1868, when at Sendai and Aidzu scores of men and boys opened their bowels, and mothers slew their infant ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... Then the women took possession of the chamber of death, removed the furniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her upon the couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything—the crucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup—after the custom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing the curtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer with Louis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an old woman and two children and a vinedresser's wife ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... time forming the fundamental nature and ground-structure of the soul. A person may live—many persons do—in the outer region of the self, using the natural instincts with which he is supplied, pursuing the goals of life which appeal to common sense and steering the earthly course by custom and by reason, but it is always possible to have a wider range of experience, to live in deeper currents, and to draw upon a profounder source of insight. This deeper experience—which is the basis of ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... to rule Egypt, just as formerly a royal Egyptian had ruled Kush. In many ways this Ethiopian kingdom showed its Negro peculiarities: first, in its worship of distinctly Sudanese gods; secondly, in the rigid custom of female succession in the kingdom, and thirdly, by the election of kings from the various royal claimants to the throne. "It was the heyday of the Negro. For the greater part of the century ... Egypt itself was subject to the blacks, just as in the new empire the Sudan ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... for luck.—Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, observes, that it is accounted {197} lucky by the vulgar to throw an old shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going about. This custom is very prevalent in Norfolk whenever servants are going in search of new places; and especially when they are going to be married, a shoe is thrown after them as they proceed ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... dry fuel from the Mongols, but was rather brusquely repulsed. And I now found out what was the matter. The people had objected the night before to our camping near the yurts, for it was their hayfield, theirs by the custom which forbids encroaching on the land near a settlement, but the Russians had persisted, and now, in their helpless anger,—they were an aged lama and an old woman,—they refused to sell us wood. They stood aloof looking ruefully at ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... the standard, seeing that the presence of that standard implied the bodily presence of the King. But he also knew, still on Master Marfleet's authority, that the Lady of Harby had flung that standard to the winds in no ignorance nor defiance of courtly custom. He knew that the high-spirited, beautiful girl had been the first in all the country-side to declare for the King, prompt where others were slow, loyal where others faltered, and that she flew the King's flag from her own battlements ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Allah,' what are they but words, empty meaningless words! What peace did Allah give to Omar, who was a strict believer? What peace has Allah given to my father, who sits all day in his tent mourning for his first-born? I swear myself by Allah and by the Prophet, but it is from custom, not from any feeling I attach to the terms. I have read a French translation of a life of Mohammed written by an American. I was not impressed. It did not tend to make me look with any more favour on his doctrine. I have my own religion—I do not lie, I do ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... ascertained that this azote, opposed to life as it was thought to be, was actually an essential property of life; that it accompanied it everywhere, and that without it the whole framework of the animal machine would fall to pieces. It is still known by its old name, which custom had sanctioned; but I imagine no learned man can ever utter it now without a feeling of humility, and without the thought that the future has possibly many contradictions in store for him also. Besides, nitrogen has ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... so. I don't know anything about it; it belongs to a friend of mine, who loaned it to me. I think the action's German, or Czech; the rest of it's a custom job, by some West Coast gunmaker. It's chambered for ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... smoking cigarettes, and find them useful between two ideas,—when I have the first but have not arrived at the second; but I do not regard them as a necessity. It is probable that there is a little diversion produced at the same time, a little excitement and exhilaration. But every custom of this kind becomes tyrannical, and the observations which accompany your letter are very judicious. Among the men of letters and men of science around me there is not one to my knowledge who in order to think and to write has recourse to spirituous liquors; but three-fourths ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... Macleod to his fair neighbor, when Hamish had put the claret and the whiskey on the table, "since your head is well now, would you like to hear the pipes? It is an old custom of the house. My mother would think it strange to have it omitted," he added, in ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... It was the custom of the residents in my neighborhood who owned houses and travelled in the summer to let their houses during their absence, and my business agent and myself agreed that this would be an excellent thing for me to do. If the house were ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... company but his own, and can't abide it. I recollect the time that I could not. Why, miss, when a man hasn't spoken a word perhaps for months, talking is a fatigue, and, when he hasn't heard a word spoken for months, listening is as bad. It's all custom, miss, and Malachi, as I guessed, don't like it, and so he's rily and angered. I will go see him after ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... belief came the custom of yearly offering a sacrifice to the Great Spirit, or whenever any particular blessing was to be acknowledged, or for some wrong perpetrated, to propitiate the righteous anger of their Deity ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... side by side, with their trains of knights and squires, on their way to the council. And having seen Montferrat stop at the tent, they did likewise, and asked the same questions, giving Alric money out of respect for his master's brave deed and good name, according to custom. Many others came after them, great and small, and the great gave the groom money, and the poor men- at-arms asked him to drink with them after supper; so that his flat leathern wallet, which was cracking in its creases from having been long ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... the elder was his almost invariable custom to watch and note the providential dealings of God with the officers of the church, whenever they met for the ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... for one thing she would die happy. And though her strength and breath were fast failing her, she made me understand that she was worried about the Zabels, who had not come according to a sacred custom between them, to celebrate the anniversary of her wedding, and prayed me to see the two old gentlemen before I slept, since nothing but death or dire distress would have kept them from gratifying the one whim of my father's failing mind. I promised, and with perfect peace in her face, she ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... having all the luck, and that was sure to put his mother in the best of spirits. She played on and on, much later than her custom was, till at last the luck turned, and looking at her flat, gold-faced watch, she found, with a shock, that it was ten minutes ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... there a few hours, then embarked in three large canoes that were moored to the bank awaiting us. The chief of the village came to pay his respects to Omar, as the son of a ruling monarch, and presented us with food according to the usual custom. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... murderers were no secret to the people. Bothwell having brought a splendid coat which was too large for him to a tailor, asking him to remake it to his measure, the man recognised it as having belonged to the king. "That's right," said he; "it is the custom for the executioner to inherit from the-condemned". Meanwhile, the Earl of Lennox, supported by the people's murmurs, loudly demanded justice for his son's death, and came forward as the accuser of his murderers. The queen was then obliged, to appease paternal clamour and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... day if he had foreseen the pope's intentions; yet it is not easy to believe that he was ignorant of or non-consenting to the coming event. At the close of the chant Leo prostrated himself at the feet of Charlemagne, and paid him adoration, as had been the custom in the days of the old emperors. He then anointed him with holy oil. And from that day forward Charles, "giving up the title of patrician, bore that ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... for Virgil he was a prig, pure and simple; still, on the whole, sanctimoniousness was not a Greek and Roman vice and it was a Hebrew one. True, they stoned their prophets freely; but these are not the Hebrews to whom Mr. Arnold is referring, they are the ones whom it is the custom to leave out of sight and out of mind as far as possible, so that they should hardly count as Hebrews at all, and none of our characteristics should be ascribed ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... that her hair was white with snowflakes (no, it could not be snow, it was little feathers as soft as down) came in smiling with a pot of bilberry jam under her arm. She had come from the Rossert Mountain, and the jam had been cooked as was her custom on the Holle Stone, that mysterious stone on the slopes of the Rossert, so neatly marked on the Taunus map, but so impossible for ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt |
