"Vigil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more than a boy, although four years were sped already since, as a mere lad of fourteen, he had kept vigil throughout the night over his arms in the Cathedral of Zamora, preparatory to receiving the honour of knighthood at the hands of his cousin, Alfonso VII. of Castile. Yet already he was looked upon ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... that they were snowed up. Far up the glen, after it twists out of view, a manse and half a dozen thatched cottages that are there may still show a candle light, and the crumbling gravestones keep cold vigil round the grey old kirk. Heavy shadows fade into the sky to the north. A flake trembles against the window; but it is too cold for much snow to-night. The shutter bars the outer world ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... like one who kept A vigil with suspended breath— So kindly to his breast had crept Some gentlest ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... sort, alone, could ever have drawn him from his love. However, his love was safe, in any case. If they made him editor, they would give him an assistant. He would keep his mornings for himself—four hours a day. In the long vigil last night, he had threshed the whole thing out. On a four-hour schedule he could finish his book in four years and a half more:—an unprecedentedly early age to have completed so monumental a work. And who could say that in thus making ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... guarded the Worth property. But the strikers seemed content to curse and threaten. Breakfast the next morning, in spite of Barbara's efforts at cheerfulness, was a gloomy meal. Worn with their anxious vigil the men ate in silence, save when they forced themselves to respond to their young hostess's attempts at conversation. They knew that another day of idleness would fit the striking laborers for ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... in vigil Cloudless the sun flames and glows In the wind for funeral torches,— And the violet, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... cleft of the city wall. And he said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zeal So long as the red spurt follows the steel. And the Russ is upon us even now? Great is thy prudence — await them, thou. Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong, Surely thy vigil is not for long. The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran? Surely an hour shall bring their van. Wait and watch. When the host is near, Shout aloud that my men ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... that evening as usual, but he felt very tired, and Lucy, going in at nine o'clock, found him dozing in his chair, his collar half choking him and his face deeply suffused. She wakened him and then, sitting down across from him, joined him in the vigil that was to last until they heard the ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his sergeants and retired to his station, he seated himself on a log, and with senses all alert began his vigil. For greater ease he loosened his sword-belt and taking his heavy revolver from his holster laid it on the log beside him. He felt very comfortable, though he hardly gave the fact a thought, so intently did he listen for any sound from the front which might have a menacing significance—a shout, ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... year died Wulfstan, the deacon, on Childermass-day; (42) and afterwards died Gyric, the mass-priest. In the same year took Abbot Athelwold to the bishopric of Winchester; and he was consecrated on the vigil of St. Andrew, which happened on a Sunday. On the second year after he was consecrated, he made many minsters; and drove out the clerks (43) from the bishopric, because they would hold no rule, and set ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... on the floor, half-finished projects of battles, an overturned table, a smoking candle-end, tokens of a studious vigil. There, broken chairs, fragments of glasses, the remains of a carouse. Farther on, an expanse of waste ground, two bloody swords, deep footprints, the impress of a fallen body. Here, a table covered with a torn green cloth and strewn with cards ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... softly, to the parlour, and peeped in. All was dark, except for the glimmer from the stove, and his heart felt lightened. Then, as he was cold with his long vigil outside his bed, he stirred the embers into a blaze and ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... of grace 1654. Monday 23d November, day of St Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology. Vigil of St Chrysogone, martyr and others. From about half-past ten o’clock in the evening ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... very tension of the night-silence that warned him to be on the watch. It was not until long after midnight that he relaxed his straining, uneasy vigil, and stretched himself to unvexed sleep. He could steal an hour or two from the sheep in the early morning, he told himself, as he felt the sweet restfulness of slumber sweeping over him; the helpless creatures would remain on the bedding-ground long after sunrise ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... watched other messengers arrive with dispatches, some of whom rolled themselves in their blankets at once, and went to sleep, although three, who had evidently slept in the day, joined Harry and Dalton in their vigil. ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... At last Hugh's vigil was rewarded by the appearance of a small and wild-looking boy, mounted on a large and wild-looking horse. The boy was about twelve years of age, and had just ridden a half-broken horse a forty-mile journey—for ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... persisted that she was rather glad to see Felix like other young men, and that Wilmet would know better when she was married, and then yawned herself off to bed, there was a sense of great discomfort to accompany the solitary vigil, which not only involved fancies of possible accidents, but was harassed by this assault on faith in the virtue and sincerity of man. Could it really be the part of a wise woman to wink at being deceived as an inferior creature, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one sad experience before his new life began. In the midst of these troubles, while he was still writing his vain letters and receiving the vain sympathy of his friends in the injury he had felt, his mother fell into serious illness, and it was plain that the end of her long vigil was near. With that strange impulse which led Hawthorne, out of his sensitive reserve and almost morbid seclusion, to make an open book of his private life, writing it all at large in his journals, he spent the hours of her last days in describing the scenes and incidents ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... on the third to fifth day; the fever remaining high. During the second week all the symptoms increase and are weakening with marked delirium and coma vigil" (unconscious, delirious, but with the eyes open). When death occurs it usually comes at the end of the second week from exhaustion. Favorable cases terminate at this time by crisis; the prostration is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... long vigil, her head ached dreadfully the next day, and even the doctor noticed her burning cheeks and watery eyes, and feeling her rapid pulse asked if ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... on the rotten floor, and how, in desperation, he had not hesitated to use his teeth on the hand of his assailant, who had finally broken away and disappeared in the darkness. Then he told the rest of his story; of his vigil with Allan, of the loss of the money, of the capture of Travers, and finally of the arrival of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... three captives who were so tragically herded together; thrice a day they drew near to one another to swallow the meal that had been prepared for them, like desert beasts meeting in mute suspended hostility at the drinking pool, and then drew back to resume the vigil of waiting. ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... while daylight strove with night, About the pyre a chosen band of Greeks Had kept their vigil, and around it rais'd Upon the plain one common mound for all; And built in front a wall, with lofty tow'rs To screen both ships and men; and in the tow'rs Made ample portals with well-fitting gates, That through the midst a carriage-way ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Royal Dublin Fusiliers in stemming this rush, and its subsequent efforts, its grim fights on the hills which fringe the borders of the River Tugela, its long and weary marches across the rolling uplands of the Transvaal, and its subsequent monotonous life of constant vigil in fort and blockhouse, and on ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... feeling of chill in the air, Selwyn rose at seven, and dressing himself quickly, left the house for a walk before breakfast. His body was fatigued from the long vigil of the mind which had kept at bay all but a short hour of sleep, but he felt the necessity of exercise, as though in the striding of limbs his torturing thoughts might lessen their ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... two were keeping their lonely vigil, while the rest followed the example of the men who had not yet been awake, and sought in sleep and in simple trustfulness for the rest which was to give them strength for the labours ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... a snake, and he has it. Then he spreads himself out to dispose of the prey—feet tucked well in, head low, tail laid close along, eyes shut fast. That is how a cat of breeding loves to dine. Alas! many a day of intolerable prowling, many a black vigil, had taken the polish off the hundred-and-three. As a matter of fact they behaved abominably; they leaped at the scraps, they clawed at them in the air, they bolted them whole with staring eyes and portentous gulpings, they growled all the while ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep? Buying with love that never sleeps the darling's happy sleep? With her own life she fans and feeds that weak life's trembling rays, And with the sweetness of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to his feet and stood by, hat in hand, his head bent slightly with saturnine deference. She smiled at him. I think she felt kindly towards the tubby little bandit of a fellow. After all, there was something touching and pathetic in his mournful vigil at the door of our radiant Carlos. I could have embraced that figure of grotesque and truculent devotion. Had she not smiled ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... whole, however, there has been little down-heartedness at the restaurants during the past four and a half years Even while the housewife in the red-brick street was wasting her mornings in the patient vigil of the queue, only to find at the end of it that there was no butter, no lard, no tea, no jam, no golden syrup, no prunes, no potatoes, no currants, no olive oil, or whatever it might be she wanted most, the restaurants never shut their doors as the grocers' ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... it was never lucky when Christmas came without a wolf-hunt: but that year it was like to be so; for, as I have said, the snow kept falling at intervals, with days of fog and thaw between, till the night before the vigil. In my youth, the Lithuanians kept Christmas after the fashion of old northern times. It began with great devotion, and ended in greater feasting. The eve was considered particularly sacred: many traditional ceremonies and strange beliefs hung about ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... The vigil began. The nurses were in waiting. The family physician would not leave the house. He was a man of great repute in his profession. Dr. Seftel's name was well known to me, but I had never met him before; a man past middle life, smooth shaven, thin iron-gray hair, grave, usually taciturn, deliberate ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sheltered her. Several times he barely escaped being caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr. Morse down town and studied his face in the lighted streets, longing all the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might spring in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded by a glimpse of Ruth through a second-story window. He saw only her head and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror. It was only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the night passed slowly. Dyke Darrel dared not sleep, and so he kept his lonely vigil beside the dead, seated in the shadows, with revolver ready to use at ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... vigil keep, The West's asleep, the West's asleep— Alas! and well may Erin weep, When Connaught lies in slumber deep. There lake and plain smile fair and free, 'Mid rocks—their guardian chivalry— Sing oh! let man learn liberty From crashing ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the vigil of the previous night and the long hours that had led up to it, we reclined at our ease under the olives, determined to spend the night at Sidi el Muktar, some fifteen or twenty miles away. From there one can hunt the great bustard, and I had hoped to do so until I saw the animals that were to ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... Pain keepeth vigil With Sorrow and Care, And Horror sits watching By dull-eyed Despair,— Where the Spirit accurst Maketh moan in its wo, Thy wishes direct us, And thither ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... king's daughter, came to visit the cloister of Notre-Dame, in the month of December, 1481, he gravely opposed her entrance, reminding the bishop of the statute of the Black Book, dating from the vigil of Saint-Barthelemy, 1334, which interdicts access to the cloister to "any woman whatever, old or young, mistress or maid." Upon which the bishop had been constrained to recite to him the ordinance of Legate Odo, which excepts certain great ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... vigil in Hume's rooms wore on. Unlike the preceding one, the two young men were almost entirely silent; when they did speak, it was in tones so low as to ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... dark. The girls had long since gone to their rooms. Grace's feet made no sound on the soft velvet carpet as she hurried up the stairs. A gleam of yellow light from under her door showed that Emma was indeed keeping vigil ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... almost the entire night taking turns in our tireless vigil. But no more disturbances occurred. My father was deeply moved and I scarcely less so. Accustomed as we had become to the thought that wireless telegraphy would place us more readily in touch with the sidereal universe than with distant points upon our earth, presuming indeed, that, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... he leave the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it went untouched. For one whole week he lay in the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on the grave. There the children found him on the eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall say that a beloved hand and voice did not welcome ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... up earlier than usual one day and went about the house for a survey. The valise and the little carpetbag she carried downstairs and out on to the front steps. Her face was whitened as if by a long night's vigil. When she called Rebecca Mary it was with a voice strained hoarse. The beautiful being Olivicia watched her with intent, unwinking gaze. Could it ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in his ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Apart from the loss of so much precious metal, the life of Senor Martin Decoud, an agreeable, wealthy, and well-informed young gentleman, would have been jeopardized through his falling into the hands of his political enemies. Captain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for the future of the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the vaults, very elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a background of black bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with arabesques like gold lace. And from above hang thousands of gold chains supporting the vigil lamps for the evening prayers. Here and there are people on their knees, little groups in robe and turban, scattered fortuitously upon the red of the carpets, and almost lost in the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... from the ways of those whom we supplanted, our religion is little more than theirs, our tokens of faith but little different from theirs. We still wonder, we still beseech, we still grope, and continually we implore. On the eminences of our lives the solitary still keep vigil. In the air about us there still are Voices as of old, there still are visions wistfully besought. Now, as then, dwarfed, blighted, wandering humanity prays, lifting up its hands to something above its narrow, circumscribing world. Now, as then, the answer is sometimes given to a few for all. ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... had moored their fleet opposite the harbour of La Rochelle, awaiting the expected arrival of the English and their allies, for whose sails they looked anxiously forth. It was on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist's Day, 1372, that the Spaniards espied the English approaching in gallant array, and they discovered that the entrance to the town of La Rochelle was stopped, and that a contest ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... rice and salt. I have drunk the milk of your kine, The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives that ye lived were mine. Is there aught that I did not share, In vigil, or toil, or ease, One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear hearts ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... a silence, while they kept their strange vigil. Then, far down the lower corridor, ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... Irma, must remember how I found you there, gazing with starting eyeballs on the same mysteriously terrifying scene— and how I drew you away with a laugh and a trifling explanation, so that I might return and resume my ghastly vigil alone. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... sunset. They camped two hours before dusk, and MacDonald figured they had made better than twenty miles that day. The same precautions were observed in guarding the camp as the night before, and the long hours of vigil were equally uneventful. The next day added still more to Aldous' peace of mind regarding possible attack from Quade, and on the night of this day, their fourth in the mountains, he spoke his ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... was down with a slight fever. His assistant, Woodhouse, paused for a moment in silent contemplation of the tropical night before commencing his solitary vigil. The night was very still. Now and then voices and laughter came from the native huts, or the cry of some strange animal was heard from the midst of the mystery of the forest. Nocturnal insects appeared in ghostly fashion out ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... into the fields to catch the exquisite breeze before the day should grow hot, and gaze at the green crops and the flowering flax, which then, emulating heaven's own blue, gave the greatest joy to all beholders.... Now the crows are holding vigil, and the ringdoves; and the owl at times utters lament with funeral note. The place is most lovely; the view in the direction of Siena stretches as far as Amiata, and in the west reaches ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... medically reported as going to have delirium tremens had put it off till to-morrow; when the man who every night devoted himself to a midnight smoke on deck two hours in length, and who every night was in bed within ten minutes afterwards, was buttoning himself up in his third coat for his hardy vigil: for then, as we fell off one by one, and, entering our several hutches, came into a peculiar atmosphere of bilge-water and Windsor soap, the voice would shake us to the centre. Woe to us when we sat down on our sofa, watching the swinging candle for ever trying ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the Church are preceded by a vigil, or eve, and, considering the magnitude of the festival of Christmas, it is no wonder that the ceremonial attaching to the eve of the Nativity outvies all others. What sings old ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... of his vigil on the speed-boat—of the almost invisible flash against the ship's mast. "He reached it, Chief," he concluded; "he felt or saw his way down and through the side of that ship. And he fired their ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... out, 'Encore;' Whilst gray Authority, who slumbers there In robes of watchman's fur, gives up his chair; With midnight howl to bay the affrighted moon, To walk with torches through the streets at noon; To force plain Nature from her usual way, Each night a vigil, and a blank each day; To match for speed one feather 'gainst another, To make one leg run races with his brother; 340 'Gainst all the rest to take the northern wind, Bute to ride first, and he to ride behind; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... dead—the very desolation of slumbering respectability. At the sight of the two lighted windows, very conspicuous from afar, I had the mental vision of Mrs. Haldin in her armchair keeping a dreadful, tormenting vigil under the evil spell of an arbitrary rule: a victim of tyranny and revolution, a sight at ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the sadden'd heart: 10 Whether, to rouse the sympathetic glow, Thou pourest lone Monimia's tale of woe; Or haply clothest with funereal vest The bridal loves that wept in Juliet's breast. O'er our chill limbs the thrilling Terrors creep, 15 Th' entrancd Passions their still vigil keep; While the deep sighs, responsive to the song, Sound through the silence of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... discussion. One discussed of course like a hunchback, for there was always, if nothing else, the hunchback face. That remained, and she was watching him; but people watched best, as a general thing, in silence, so that such would be predominantly the manner of their vigil. Yet he didn't want, at the same time, to be tense and solemn; tense and solemn was what he imagined he too much showed for with other people. The thing to be, with the one person who knew, was easy and natural—to make the reference ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... church was filled to its utmost. Henry Maxwell, coming into the pulpit from that all-night vigil, felt the pressure of a great curiosity on the part of the people. They had heard of the Raymond movement, as all the churches had, and the recent action of Dr. Bruce had added to the general interest in the pledge. With this curiosity was something ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... for his information and gave him some snuff, which he took gratefully, being bored by his long vigil. Then I asked him how many people the great witch-doctor had with him. He said he did not know, but he had seen a number of tall men come to the mouth of the donga to fetch food that had been placed there. Again I inquired if he had seen any women, whereon he replied none, Zikali being, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... kept vigil in the church of Surrentum, Basil and Decius relieving her an hour before dawn. At the funeral service, which began soon after sunrise, the greater part of the townsfolk attended. All were eager to see whether the daughter of Maximus ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... divide the night into two parts, Jimsy watching till midnight and then awakening Roy who would take up the vigil till dawn. This arrangement having been made they secured a light lantern from an adjacent hardware store and, entering the deserted livery stable, prepared to carry out their plans. With the canvas ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... with them until the next morning. A bath and clean clothes soon made me quite presentable, and I really enjoyed the kindness we met with, in spite of a "tearing" headache, and a distended feeling about the eyes as though I never meant to close them again—the consequence of my vigil, I presume. O those dear, kind people! I shall not soon forget them. Mr. Cain told mother he believed he would keep me; at all events, he would make an exchange, and give her his only son in my place. I told him I was willing, as mother thought much more of her sons than ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Mazeppa said, through the lips of his self-appointed spokesman, Byron, of the impossibility of escaping the patient search and long vigil of the man seeking revenge for wrong? He might have cited another motive, less fierce but quite as powerful—curiosity! Job Thornberry may give up his search for the name of the destroyer of his daughter, and allow her to break her heart ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... love's sake, have counted every thing as nothing worth. For they wept and mourned, day and night, that they might gain everlasting comfort: they humbled themselves willingly, that there they might be exalted: they afflicted the flesh with hunger and thirst and vigil, that there they might come to the pleasures and joys of Paradise. By their purity of heart they became a tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, as it is written, 'I will dwell in them and walk in them.' They ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... of the cemetery were locked, but the wall was not very high. To scale it but added zest to his adventure. He would be a knight unfit for his vigil if he were to let himself ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Kent had gone, Lydia stood long at the living-room window which gave on the front gate. The pine, its boughs powdered with snow, kept its lonely vigil ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the fort they could see Tom Tripe, with his huge dog silhouetted on the bastion beside him, standing like Napoleon on the seashore keeping vigil. From that height he could oversee the blocked-up mouth of Dick's mine, and in the bright moonlight it would have been difficult for any one to approach either mine or fort without detection; for there was only one road, and Dick's track making a detour ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... clean white sheet. Into the fire she thrust pine-knots. They glared in vague red, and shadowy brilliance, waving and quivering and throwing up thin swirling columns of black smoke. Then standing beside the fireplace with the white, still corpse between her and the door, she took up her awful vigil. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... walking and walking past her windows (she lived in a fourth-storey flat on the Nevski Prospect). At length I returned to my own lodging, but only to rest a short hour before again setting off to the Nevski Prospect and resuming my vigil before her windows. For a month and a half I kept this up—dangling in her train. Sometimes I would hire cabs, and discharge them in view of her abode; until at length I had entirely ruined myself, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... much of God, 'twill save thy soul from sin; Without his presence let no act begin; Look up, keep vigil, fear not; thou shalt win. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... place at the accustomed hour, grave, attentive and professional as was his wont; but after his consulting hours were over, he went back to Cecil Street, leaving word with Soames where he was to be found, if wanted, prepared for another night's vigil. ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... recited on the occasion of taking a new name and is a dramatic poem in three parts. The first gives briefly the institution of the rite of changing one's name in consequence of a new achievement; the second shows how the man was enabled to accomplish this act. It begins with his lonely vigil and fast when he cried to the powers for help; the scene then shifts to the circle of the lesser powers, who, in council, deliberate on his petition which makes its way to them and finally wins their consent; then the winds summon the messengers and these, ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... street, and his eye lighted on the muscular figure of Cartwright, the plainclothes man, shivering in the partial shelter of an alley across the way. The policeman signaled them that all was well, and resumed his vigil. At that minute the door ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... to dawn when the harsh, stringy drums rolled from the forest and the smoky camp awoke; and I, keeping my vigil, there in the shadow where she lay, listening and bending above her, was aware of a bandaged hand touching me—a feverish arm about my neck, drawing my head lower, closer, till, in the darkness, my face lay on hers, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... state of mind I came down for breakfast. My host, I found, was staying in bed after his night's vigil, and my hostess was daintier and more inaccessible than ever. After breakfast I reflected for a little over a pipe and then I asked her for a bit of lunch to put in my pocket and told her I was going for a long walk. She got the lunch and gave it to me without ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... exhausted by stress of feeling and the long vigil, but the iron, icy hand that had clasped her .heart so long did not for a moment relax its hold. She went to the window and looked out. Stars were paling, the mysterious East had trembled; soon ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whose life was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a fferent sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape of his selfish old Mentor: and those who have any interest in his character must have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well as very impetuous, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Beowulf to speak. "To-night Grendel cometh again, expecting no one to fight him for many a time hath he levied his toll and escaped without harm. Here alone with myself will I keep vigil, and alone will I fight the foul fiend. To-morrow morning the sun will glorify my victory or I shall be a corpse in the dark and noisome ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... He might have been a figure such as used to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, so still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of his weather-tanned flesh after the vigil. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... in a most wretched condition; to escape sprained ankles it is necessary to walk with a great deal of caution, and the idea of bicycling through them is simply absurd. Nevertheless the populace turns out in high glee, and their expectations run riot as I relieve the kahvay-jee of his faithful vigil and bring forth my wheel. They want me to bin in their stuffy little bazaar, crowded with people and donkeys; mere alley-ways with scarcely a twenty yard stretch from one angle to another; the surface is a disorganized ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... wrapped it up in an old carpet, and then with force of fists and feet rammed it down into the box, without torches, without a ministering priest, without a single person to attend and bear a consecrated candle." Of such sort was the vigil kept by this solemn statue, so dignified in grief and sweet in death, at the ignoble obsequies of him who, occupying the loftiest throne of Christendom, incarnated the least erected spirit of his age. The ivory-smooth white corpse of Christ in marble, set over against that festering corpse ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... slowly and reluctantly became convinced that the "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervis was not informed of the sounds he never heard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent noises after he went to bed on the night of his vigil, he heard nothing. "Several instances occurred where very loud noises were heard by one or two persons, when those equally near and in the same direction were not sensible of the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... is necessary to say that during those long weary hours of Leslie's lonely vigil at the wheel, the wind, that at the first outfly had come away from about due north, had gradually veered round until, by sunrise, it was a point south of east, in which quarter it seemed disposed to stick. Furthermore, with the coming of dawn it had evinced ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... done it in his way, and she was answered. For a minute, as she laid aside the paper, darkness submerged her, and she felt herself dropping down into the bottomless anguish of her dreadful vigil in the Palazzo Vanderlyn. But she was weary of anguish: her healthy body and nerves instinctively rejected it. The wave was spent, and she felt herself irresistibly struggling back to light and life and youth. He didn't want her! Well, she would try not ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the vanished Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:[3.B.] He fell, and falling nations mourned around; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appeared, as records tell.[du][116] Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps: Is that a Temple where a God may dwell? Why ev'n the Worm at last disdains ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... long vigil on the previous night I speedily fell asleep, but even in my slumbers I heard the occasional serenades of bears and wolves, who seemed to be the principal inhabitants of that wild region. I awoke more than once, and was ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... out from the room. His face is furrowed with the fatigue of his long vigil. But as he speaks the tone of his voice is as that of one who has fought ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... isto, Qui regum splendor, lumen et orbis erat. Rex vigil et sapiens, comes virtutis, amatur, Egregius forma, strenuus atque potens. Qui peperit pacem regno, qui bella peregit Plurima, qui victor semper ab hoste redit, Qui natas binis conjunxit regibus ambas, Regibus et cunctis ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... phrase or idea apply to her! The picture in "Twelfth Night" of the wan girl dying of love, "who pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy," would never surely occur to us, when thinking on the enamoured and impassioned Juliet, in whose bosom love keeps a fiery vigil, kindling tenderness into enthusiasm, enthusiasm into passion, passion into heroism! No, the whole sentiment of the play is of a far different cast. It is flushed with the genial spirit of the south; it tastes of youth, and of the essence of youth; of life, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... vagan abhi adravah tvam by "when thou rannest for the prizes." Grassman had translated similarly, "When thou, O Sindhu, rannest to the prize of the battle," while Ludwig wrote, "When thou, O Sindhu, wast flowing on to greater powers." Vaga, connected with vegeo, vigeo, vigil, wacker (see Curtius, Grundzuege, No. 159), is one of the many difficult words in the Veda the general meaning of which may be guessed, but in many places cannot yet be determined with certainty. Vaga occurs ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... and dispatched, she was left to a vigil in melancholy contrast to that of the previous evening. Then she had been enclosed in the narrow limits of her maternal interests; now the barriers of self were broken down, and her personal preoccupations swept away on the current of a wider sympathy. As ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... John Nepomuk's day was observed only by those who perform their devotions in secret; this year we had vigil and feast kept at top form, pilgrimages from all parts of the country, processions through the streets headed by high dignitaries of the Church, and outward and visible signs of a sincere regard for a ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... settled down to his vigil, had been alone. From over the brow of the hill, however, had come a few minutes ago a man, dressed in loose shooting clothes, and with a gun under his arm. He came to a standstill by the side of the boy, and stood there watching him for several ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... degree that is sometimes preached in Christian churches as belonging to a sulphurous sphere beyond the grave. Yet he did not move a muscle. It was long after midnight when his vigil was rewarded by a slight sound at the door. From that instant his eyes were on the watch, under dark of closed lashes; but his even breathing was that of the seventh stage of sleep ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... time that the knight who should accomplish that sacred quest was already born, and of a suitable age to enter upon it. Sir Gawain delivered his message, and the king was anxiously revolving in his mind how best to achieve the enterprise, when, at the vigil of Pentecost, all the fellowship of the Round Table being met together at Camelot, as they sat at meat, suddenly there was heard a clap of thunder, and then a bright light burst forth, and every knight, as he looked on his fellow, saw him, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... grazing. There I would sit or lie on the thatch for hours. And I would cry: 'Come to me, my mother! I cannot live without you! Come soon-come soon, before I die of a broken heart!' That was my cry every night, until worn out with my vigil I would go back to my room. And she never came, and at last I knew that she was dead and that we were separated for ever—that there is ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... brawl. Friar John of Tillmouth were the man: A blithesome brother at the can, A welcome guest in hall and bower, He knows each castle, town, and tower, In which the wine and ale is good, 'Twixt Newcastle and Holyrood. But that good man, as ill befalls, Hath seldom left our castle walls, Since, on the vigil of Saint Bede, In evil hour, he crossed the Tweed, To teach Dame Alison her creed. Old Bughtrig found him with his wife; And John, an enemy to strife, Sans frock and hood, fled for his life. The jealous churl ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... to the June sunlight. Three weeks I had watched, if I had not assisted at, the rocking of their cradle, followed day by day the patient brooding, and carefully noted the manners and customs of the owners thereof. At last my long vigil was rewarded. It was near the end of a lovely June day, when June days were nearly over, that there appeared a gentle excitement in the kingbird family. The faithful sitter arose, with a peculiar cry that brought her mate at once to her side, and both looked eagerly together into the nest that held ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... again he fell. He found himself at midnight standing at the corner above Anne's home, staring at the darkened unresponsive windows. Three nights passed before he resumed the hateful vigil. This time there were lights. And from that time on, he went almost nightly to the neighbourhood of Washington Square, regardless of weather or inconvenience. He saw her come and go, night after night, and he saw people enter the house to which he held a key,—always he ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... afraid of ghosts, Sergeant," replied Dam—though his heart sank within him at the thought of the long lonely vigil in the dark, when he would be so utterly at the mercy of the Snake—the Snake over whom he had just won a signal victory, and who would be all the more vindictive and terrible in consequence. Could he keep sane through the lonely darkness of those dreadful hours? Perhaps—if ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Kenyon himself was at the railway station when the "Limited" arrived from New York, bringing a much-alarmed mother and sister, who relieved, if they did not entirely replace, certain other nurses at the patient's bedside. Upon their arrival, after three days and nights of vigil, Miss Wallen disappeared. She betook herself to Miss Bonner's refuge far down town, and just what Mrs. Forrest could have heard from the Cranstons, from her son's commanding officer, and from the fluent lips of Mrs. Wells, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the canvas is too large for the eye to encompass. But this is no more the case when our recollections have been strained long enough through the hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much thought, the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless has been sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights and the darkest shadows. When we see a mountain country near at hand, the spurs and haunches crowd up in eager rivalry, and the whole range seems to have shrugged its shoulders ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carefully, jealously, hour by hour and day by day. A peon servant was paid to keep up the vigil when Blake slept, as sleep ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... reasons—and because Mahan was too busy and too grumpy to bother with him—Bruce elected to stay where he was, for a while, and share the Missourian's vigil. So, when the rest of the party moved along to the next sentry-go, the dog remained. The Missourian was only too glad to have him do so. It is tedious and stupid to pace a desolate beat, alone, at dead of night, after a day ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... of him at last for the time, and returned to my vigil. It was melancholy work, since no skill that I had could tell me whether my patient would live or die. Nowadays the young men might know, or say that they did, but it must be remembered that, as a doctor, I am ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... all the morning, they exchanged a scanty dozen sentences. An occasional questioning glance, an inarticulate grunt of comprehension: after their long night vigil, this was all for which either of them felt inclined. In the meantime, Reed's face was losing somewhat of its look of strain; Whittenden's clear eyes were growing gentler, yet infinitely more full of courage. To both of them, the future was less of a blank wall than ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... of the eve, called the vigil, Panurge searched so long of one side and another that he found a hot or salt bitch, which, when he had tied her with his girdle, he led to his chamber and fed her very well all that day and night. In the morning thereafter he killed her, and took that ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... listened. His nerves were dulled by his night of trouble, and he waited in limp wretchedness upon his sofa. There he still sat when the doctors came down to him—a bedraggled, miserable figure with his face grimy and his hair unkempt from his long vigil. He rose as they entered, bracing ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with his fellow-townsmen and townswomen to disperse in her interest, and had imposed silence upon his customers indoors, Lanfear began his vigil beside his patient in as great quiet as he could anywhere have had. Once during the evening the public physician of the district looked in, but he agreed with Lanfear that nothing was to be done which he was not doing in his greater experience of the case. From ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... he had gone she sat there until it was well into the evening, until the stars began to blink and nod and wrap themselves in the great cloak of the night, as they kept a silent vigil over the subdued silence which had settled down upon ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... the gossips say, "Alone from dusk till midnight stay Within the church-porch drear and dark, Upon the vigil of Saint Mark, And, lovely maiden! you shall see What youth your husband is ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... trooped down to the beach, where Tarver was keeping his unpleasant vigil. He had been taking a look round the immediate scene of the murder, he said, during my absence, thinking that he might find something in the way of a clue. But he had found nothing: there were no signs of any struggle anywhere ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... full and prudent answer: "I myself have many sorrows, For your son I cannot trouble, 170 For my lot's indeed a hard one, And an evil day awaits me, Wandering lonely in the night-time, In the frost for ever shining, In the winter keeping vigil, But in time of ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... was long, and the following morning, at about four o'clock, shortly after Pascal had fallen asleep, after a happy vigil filled with hopes and dreams, he was wakened by a dreadful attack. He felt as if an enormous weight, as if the whole house, had fallen down upon his chest, so that the thorax, flattened down, touched the back. He could not breathe; the pain reached the shoulders, then the ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... to draw further fire from his desperate opponent, the senior constable reloaded wearily and settled down to what promised to be a long, danger-fraught vigil. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... passed in this strange vigil. Harney still lay on the bed, motionless and with fixed eyes, as though following his vision to its bitter end. At last he stirred and changed his attitude slightly, and Charity's heart began to tremble. But he only flung out his arms and sank back into his former position. With ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... whole day to fill in before we could get any news of Dawson's vigil in the Malplaquet, and I have never known a day as drearily long. Cary and I were both restless as peas on a hot girdle, and could not settle down to talk or to read or to write. Cary sought vainly to persuade me to read and pass judgment upon his Navy Book. In spite of my interest in ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... this best of brothers paced that eligible promenade, the platform of the Haymarket station. People, especially women, glanced at him with approval as the erect, military young figure passed and repassed on his vigil, marching as though on parade. He was twenty-five, bronzed of skin, well-featured, trimly mustached, modest and yet gallant of mien, attired in an overcoat drawn in at the waist and a hat becomingly cocked a little towards his left ear—in a word, a credit to that ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... came faintly the long mellow blast of a horn. It was no hunter's call, and he sprang to his feet. Again the winding came and his tense muscles relaxed—nor was it a warning that "revenues" were coming- -and he sank back to his lonely useless vigil again. The sun dipped, the sky darkened, the black wings of the night rushed upward and downward and from all around the horizon, but only when they were locked above him did he slip like a creature of the gloom down ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... attempt to communicate with the detective (or detectives) who shared our vigil; we took up a position close under the lighted study window ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... business of the universe. Still, for a time the warmth within me kept out the frost; for Grace Carrington's hand had rested in mine, and I understood how the thought of service sustains the Northwest troopers in their lonely vigil. They served the nation, but I was ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... separated; and, while two of them wended their way back to the tug at Laughing Fish, the others prepared for the long vigil of the night. ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... from their long vigil and arduous labors, the group were glad to find the Kaiser disposed to snatch a few moments of rest. The maps were folded, the dispatch boxes closed, and all prepared to find positions where ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Vigil of the feast of Pentecost, and the knights are all at Arthur's court. Sir Launcelot is suddenly desired to go on a mission by a fair damsel who takes him to a ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... night she knew, Some whisper heard, from heaven descended, And peacefully as falls the dew Her long and lonely vigil ended. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... family, must not approach women, must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time he becomes religiously free, and another man is then elected to take his place. The prosperity of the settlement ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... auntie, but it's jist provokin'!" returned Fergus, and therewith recounted the tale of his night's watch, omitting mention only of his feelings throughout the vigil. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... meaning of this warning, Britomart decided not to open it, but to take up her vigil fully armed beside the altar. As the clock struck midnight, the mysterious door flew open, and through its portals came a strange procession of beasts and queer mortals, leading the doleful Amoret, who had a dagger thrust into her ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... fitful gusts swept among the tombs, chilling the prisoners to the very bone. It is probable that the guards would, for their own comfort, have kept a slack look-out, had not their own lives depended a good deal on their fidelity. As it was, the vigil was not so strict as it might have been; and they found it impossible to see the whole of that long narrow space of ground in so dark a night. About midnight the sentry fancied he saw three figures flitting across the yard. Putting his musket through the ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... was sealed with Walter Skirving's great seal ring which he wore on his watch-chain, lying on the table before him as he kept his never-ending vigil. There was a miniature and a parcel of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the evidence of the long vigil of the night. All about its base were little nests, where the tired dogs had bedded down and kept their weary watch. Their incessant barking had served to keep the cougar treed, but it cost them a temporary loss of voice. Poor devils, they had ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... tills the ground with honourable toil: By youth revered, their sons around them grow And flourish; monarch of his past'ral tribe, A patriarch's throne is each devoted heart! And when he slumbers on the tented plain Beneath the vigil stars, a living wall Is round him, in the might of love's defence: For he is worthy—sacrifice and song By him are ruled; and oft at shut of flowers, When queenly virgins in the sunset go To carry water from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... the postern leading from the prior's house towards the mill. I have not passed thereby since St Mark's vigil, and then it came." Here he looked round, stealing a whisper across the bench—"I heard it: there was a moaning and a singing by turns; but the wind was loud, so that I could scarcely hear, though when I spake of it to old Geoffrey the gardener, he said the prior had laid ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... chair or bench, was drawn forward, following which all was silence. Although I could see nothing the situation in the hall was clear. Confident escape was impossible in any other direction the determined girl had taken up her position opposite the door, prepared for a long vigil. All feeling of anger, even of irritation, had by this time left me. The slight falter, the womanly softness of her voice, had robbed me of all resentment, and I was conscious merely of admiration for ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... 24th of March the Cathedral of Christ's Church beheld the four kings devoutly keeping the vigil preparatory to knighthood. They had been induced to accept that honour from Richard's hand. They had apologized at first, saying they were all knighted at the age of seven. But the ceremony, as performed ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the last rays of a summer sun were falling upon the mountains. In stirring words he recalled their persecutions and trials, told them that their long pilgrimage, the weary march by day and lonely vigil by night, were now ended, and their Canaan the great valley which stretched out ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... neglected much, there was one part she must not utterly neglect. She came away with the dispersing funeral; but the dead man's mat was left behind upon the grave, and I learned that by set of sun she must return to sleep there. This vigil is imperative. From sundown till the rising of the morning star the Paumotuan must hold his watch above the ashes of his kindred. Many friends, if the dead have been a man of mark, will keep the watchers company; ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson |
