"Propitiatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... divinity, Mars, was a war god, and seems to have been originally an agricultural deity. To him propitiatory offerings were presented, as the guardian of fields and flocks; but as the shepherds who founded the city of Rome were of a warlike disposition, it is easily understood how Mars became ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Illanun chiefs in martial array. The members of the council who had left their bench approached the white people with gentle smiles and deferential movements of the hands. Their bearing was faintly propitiatory; only the man in the big turban remained fanatically aloof, keeping his ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make an offering of rice, flowers, turmeric and incense, after which the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the water, apparently as a propitiatory offering for the success of the marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be assumed that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among some of the other Maratha castes, the bridegroom must be wrapped in a blanket on his journey to the bride's village. If a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... whose imaginations were filled with the thoughts of Heaven's anger; while the good-humoured face of the light-hearted Father Phil produced a corresponding brightness on the looks of his hearers, who turned up their whole faces in trustfulness to the mercy of that Heaven whose propitiatory offering their pastor was making for them in cheerful tones, which associated well with thoughts of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... names for the weasel could be collected from the European languages and dialects. It is probable that these complimentary names were propitiatory, the weasel being an animal regarded with ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... it's partly my fault, you know"—he could not quell a sudden shamefaced laugh,—"if you'd kindly allow me to explain. I shall have to be quite brutally frank; but Mrs. Percifer said"—Here he lugged in a propitiatory compliment, which sounded no more like Mrs. Percifer than it fitted me; but mistaking my smile of irony for one of encouragement, he babbled on. I wish I could do justice to his "charmin'" accent and his perfectly unstudied manner of speech, a mixture of British and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Hinduism, or, to confine our comparisons to the Latin world, as the jurists drew from the traditional customs of primitive tribes the abstract principles of a legal system that governs the most cultivated societies. This religion was no longer like that of ancient Rome, a mere collection of propitiatory and expiatory rites performed by the citizen for the good of the state; it now pretended to offer to all men a world-conception which gave rise to a rule of conduct and placed the end of existence in the future life. It was more ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... calamity a very disagreeable certainty of approaching evil began to take possession of all those who stood around, many crying aloud that every omen of good was wanting, and declaring that unless something of a markedly propitiatory nature was quickly accomplished, the agriculture of the entire Empire would cease to flourish, and the various departments of the commerce in silk would undoubtedly be thrown into a state of most inextricable confusion. Indeed, in spite of all things designed to have ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.' Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... noticed by Captain Cook at the Sandwich Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert his anger; and not to express, as the same mutilation does in the Friendly Islands, grief for ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... After the expiatory and propitiatory ceremony the Reverend Father Douillard ascended the pulpit. The sermon had at first been entrusted to the Reverend Father Agaric, but, in spite of his merits, he was thought unequal to the occasion in zeal and doctrine, and the eloquent Capuchin friar, who for six months had ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... them to be personal amulets.[409] Those present at the ceremony of consecrating the foundations must have detached them from the cords by which they were suspended, and thrown them, upon the utterance of some propitiatory formula by the priests, into the sand about to be covered with the first large slabs ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... too willing to do, you can easily put a stop to that by a few caustic remarks that you don't want savages in your house; and a pointed use of that delightful story in one of the White Cross papers,[25] of the Zulu chief to whom the Government sent a propitiatory present of wagons and wheelbarrows, thinking that it would be sure to please him. But he gazed on them with fine scorn, exclaiming: "What's the use of those things for carrying our burdens when we have plenty of women!" Or you can use that equally good story, told by ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... said a moment ago that they 'wouldn't mind'! Then how could they be angry with you, dear?" asked Miss Phipps, smiling, and Pixie bent her head with a quick propitiatory bow. ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... rather late in the day for him to seek an excuse to call at the Hermitage; yet on the afternoon following Dr. Bewick's departure he sought for one—one having reference to Estelle. He took with him a propitiatory little volume containing translations of well-known poems by one Amiel. Estelle was regarded as being immensely interested in French; she daily translated themes back and forth from her own language into that of Moliere. These singularly ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... the unconscious girl and the almost equally helpless veteran. Then one mounted the box with the driver and another ran for a physician, who was directed to go to Mrs. Bodine's residence. The negro carefully moored Houghton's boat, feeling that there might be something propitiatory to the dreaded ghost in this act. He then hastened to his humble cabin, and filled the cars of his family and neighbors with lamentations over the lost boat and lost man, and also with self-gratulations that he was ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and West, and, indeed, of all the varied forms in which superstition has presented herself, and in one or in all you meet with evidences of a universal flood, of man's fall, of the serpent having been the instrument in it, of propitiatory sacrifices, of the expectation of a great deliverer. The long lives of men in the early ages of the world are mentioned by Berosus, Manetho, Hiromus and Helanicus, as also by Hesoid and many other ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... oftenest associated with the notion of something purely external, forensic, even magical. It is connected, even down to our own time, with reliance upon the blood of Christ, almost as if this were externally applied. It has postulated a propitiatory sacrifice, a vicarious atonement, a completed transaction, something which was laid up for all and waiting to be availed of by some. Now every external, forensic, magical notion of salvation, as something purchased for us, imputed to us, conferred upon us, would have been utterly impossible ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... elliptical rings with inscriptions, and two more from which the hieroglyphics have been erased. This tells a tale, for in the age commemorated, it was a mark of disgrace to have the name obliterated. Another stela contains the jackal, or genius of the departed, with propitiatory offerings from his friends. The curious will learn with interest, that another of these monuments dates back to the time of Joseph. It has twice engraved upon it the name Osortosen—perhaps the Pharaoh 'who gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potiphorah, priest of On,' and raised the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... marches them off en masse in her memoirs. As is the custom in France, the first overture was made to her father, and usually by letter. Her music teacher was her first devotee. He was followed by her dancing master, who, as a propitiatory preparation had a wen cut out of his cheek; then came a wealthy butcher; then a man of rank; then a dissolute physician, from marrying whom she narrowly escaped; then a jeweler, and many others. The merits of these gentlemen—particularly those of the energetic butcher—-were warmly commended by ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... knew very well where she stood. The Committee was propitiatory. She was not in danger, save as it might develop. They were, in a measure, putting ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he lays down for early and uncertain events. Even when original documents of great value were extant, he refrains from citing them if they do not satisfy his taste. During the second Punic war a hymn to Juno had been written by Livius Andronicus for a propitiatory festival. It was one of the most celebrated documents of early Latin; but he refuses to insert it, on the ground that to the taste of his own day it seemed rude and harsh. Yet as a historian, and not a collector of materials for history, he may ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... and the priests of the temple at Jerusalem was not de facto recognised. Internally, it is mainly characterised by its ideal of Levitical holiness, the way in which it everywhere surrounds life with purificatory and propitiatory ceremonies, and its prevailing reference of sacrifice to sin. Noteworthy also is the manner in which everything is regarded from the point of view of Jerusalem, a feature which comes much more boldly into prominence here than in Deuteronomy; the nation and the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... needlessly to mention his name or that of his dwelling is considered sin of a rank hardly inferior to blasphemy. I am persuaded that this singular tenderness toward a being whom their theology represents as an abominable monster, the origin of all evil and the foe to souls, is a survival of an ancient propitiatory adoration. Doubtless this wicked deity was once so feared that his conciliation was one of the serious concerns of life. He is probably as greatly feared now as at any former time, but is apparently less hated, and is ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the expression of their faces, and in that short length of time he had decided thankfully that he was really, just as he had hoped, going to like his new neighbor as much as all the rest of it. He gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind Vincent. Sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently Mrs. Crittenden was. He observed that as usual Vincent had cut in ahead of everybody else, had mentioned their ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... social evolution, they precede human evolution: they are traceable among the higher animals. The dog afraid of being beaten comes crawling up to his master clearly manifesting the desire to show submission. Nor is it solely to human beings that dogs use such propitiatory actions. They do the like one to another. All have occasionally seen how, on the approach of some formidable Newfoundland or mastiff, a small spaniel, in the extremity of its terror, throws itself on its back with legs ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Johnson now delivered, was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice, as I shall shew at large in my future work, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis see ante, iii. 174, and for Johnson on the propitiatory sacrifice, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to come out of the mouth of any Christian save only a Jesuites. Does not the Scripture language cut thy throat, O prophane, which teaches us that Christ offereth up to his father his sufferings as a propitiatory sacrifice; and consequently to appaise, not ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... straddling and swinging about among the boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see. Then, their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide, and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno. Their eyes, too, are so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those brilliant ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens |
