"Coffin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Island. I am constantly encouraging the children to come to me for assistance, which they are very ready to do; and I find that after boys have had either a small or a full dose of Alger (we do not admit 'Optic'), they are very ready to be promoted to something more substantial— Knox, Butterworth, Coffin, Sparks, or Abbott. I find more satisfaction in directing the minds of boys than girls, for though I may and generally do succeed in interesting them in the very best of fiction, it is much more difficult to draw them into other channels, unless it is poetry. I should ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... she said, happily. "I wa'n't havin' no time at all. I couldn't live my proper life. I al'ays knew I should come to that, so I'd raked an' scraped, an' put into the bank, till I thought I'd got enough to buy me a mite o' flour while I lived, an' a pine coffin arter I died; an' then I jest set up my Ebenezer I'd be as free's a bird. Freer, I guess I be, for they have to scratch pretty hard, come cold weather, an' I bake me a 'tater, an' then go clippin' out over the crust, lookin' ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... entered: he sought out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and the grief of others attracted him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with the priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a sort of aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad voices which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... with empty pockets. One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! how—if the name by chance were hidden—I would wonder in what play he figured, and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within, to announce yourself as an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... here there is no larger vessel. If you want one, for argument sake, you'll have to imagine the post to be it. The coffin is bow ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the coffin up the churchyard path, as she timed it. She wondered who the bearers might be, and whether they carried it shoulder high? The path was steep; and Charles Verity, though spare and lean, broad of chest and notably tall. Bone tells. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... he perceived that he was looking into the earth; and then with a sickly chill of fear he saw that the long and glimmering thing was indeed the body of a man, wrapped in grave-clothes from head to foot. And he could now distinguish—for it grew more distinct—the sides of a coffin about it, and some worms that moved to and fro in their dark burrows; but the corpse seemed to shine with a faint light of its own—and then he could see the wasted feet, and the thin legs and arms of the body within; the hands were folded over the breast; and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would shake him back into life. As she supported him his teeth began to rattle, not as the teeth of the living chatter from fear, but as the teeth of a dead man might rattle when he is jolted in his coffin. For a minute she felt the madness of her panic pass from her pulses to her brain, and her terror of him turned her as cold as the sleet-covered iron railing against which she leaned. A cowardly impulse tempted her to desert him and run for ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... of a cardinal's hat. He was lodged in a fine residence, but carefully watched. Accused of having suggested a concord between Rome and England, he was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo, and there died. He was brought in his coffin before an ecclesiastical tribunal, adjudged guilty of heresy, and his body, with a heap of heretical books, was cast into the flames. Franklin, by demonstrating the identity of lightning and electricity, deprived Jupiter ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... to be very angry, but allowed the four men to go on board. Meanwhile, the crew had made a coffin and laid the body in it: there was nothing more to do but to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... is one of the most ancient in France. About one hundred years since, in digging a vault, a body was discovered enveloped in a long robe; some very old coins were found in the coffin, and the habit in which the body was wrapped was of itself of the most ancient fashion. According to the French antiquaries, this was the body of one of the ancient dukes of Nevers. There are many other antiquities in the town, but I do not find that I have noted them, except that they ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... as to secretly give orders," replied Mrs. Yu, "to get things ready; but for that thing (the coffin), there's no good timber to be found, so that it will have to be looked after ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and poetic merits, some persons in France have been astonished that the obsequies of Beranger should have been so magnificently celebrated, while, but a few months before, the coffin of another poet, M. Alfred de Musset, had been followed by a mere handful of mourners; yet M. de Musset was capable of tones and flights which in inspiration and ardor surpassed the habitual range of Beranger. Without attempting here to institute a comparison, there is one thing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... smirk of satisfaction which might be read between the lines. Though his calling was not a lively one, it did not depress his spirits, as in the bosom of his family he was the most cheery of men, and to him the "tap, tap" of coffin-making was as sweet and exhilarating as the tapping of a woodpecker.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... once with the pestilence. Friends and relatives, when they met one another in the streets, would hurry onward without a grasp of the hand or scarcely a word of greeting, lest they should catch or communicate the contagion; and often a coffin was borne ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... should have done, of course, was to remain at home and relieve his poor stricken wife of all the painful details that necessarily followed the seeing about the little coffin, the grave, and the funeral. But Harry Lang had trained people well for his own purposes. No one ever expected assistance of any kind from him; so, instead of missing him, most people felt his absence as only a great relief. Mrs. Lang and ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... with ropes, in order to await their king's pleasure. In 654, when Ts'u had one of the small orthodox states (in the Ho Nan nucleus) at its mercy, the baron presented himself with his hands tied behind, a piece of jade in his mouth, followed by his suite in mourning, carrying his coffin. It is evident that at this date Ts'u was still "barbarous," for the king had to ask what it all meant. It was explained to him that, when the Chou founder conquered China, and mutilated the last Shang dynasty emperor, that emperor's elder brother ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... she went on, turning the pages, "who took her coffin out with her to Jamaica, packed with lovely shawls and bonnets, because you couldn't get coffins in Jamaica, and she had a horror of dying there (as she did), and being devoured by the white ants. And there's Sabine, the loveliest ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... ten people in the church or in the churchyard during the whole time of the funeral. To think that a man with half a million of money could die and be got rid of with so little parade! What money could do—in a moderate way—was done. The coffin was as heavy as lead could make it. The cloth of the best. The plate upon it was of silver, or looked like it. There was no room for an equipage of hearses and black coaches, the house was so unfortunately near to the churchyard. It was all done in a decent, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... time for. Byron, now. It was very good of you not to mention him before, Mrs. Vervain. Bat I knew he had to come. He called it a coffin ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... his body to Virginia without embalming, and that he be laid in an open coffin within a tomb which he previously had had constructed and which, as I later learned, was well ventilated. The instructions impressed upon me that I must personally see that this was carried out just as he directed, even in ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... man up by the roots, and the root-soil of his faith crumbled and fell with the moulds upon her coffin. He went from her graveside back to the house and closed the door. Mrs. Wesley had urged him to return with the family to Epworth, and John, who had ridden from Oxford to preach the funeral sermon, shook him by the hand and added his persuasions. But the broken husband thanked him shortly, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... inscribed papyrus which they found with mummies, namely, "Kitb-al-Mayyit," "Book of the dead man," or "Kitb al-Mayyitun," "Book of the dead" (plur.). These men knew nothing of the contents of such a roll, and all they meant to say was that it was "a dead man's book," and that it was found in his coffin with him. ...
— The Book of the Dead • E. A. Wallis Budge
... sporangia, is a substance not easily altered by air and water, and hence tends to preserve these bodies, just as the bituminized cerecloth preserves an Egyptian mummy; while, on the other hand, the merely woody stem and leaves tend to rot, as fast as the wood of the mummy's coffin has rotted. Thus the mixed heap of spores, leaves, and stems in the coal-forest would be persistently searched by the long-continued action of air and rain; the leaves and stems would gradually be reduced to little but their carbon, or, in other words, to the condition of mineral charcoal in ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... day when her mother was buried she received the red shoes and wore them for the first time. They were certainly not suited for mourning; but she had no others, and therefore thrust her little bare feet into them and walked behind the plain deal coffin. ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... cups, etc., are filled with vegetable food and are placed by his side, the chopsticks being put on the wrong, i.e. the left, side of the zen. At the end of forty-eight hours the corpse is arranged for the coffin by being washed with warm water, and the priest, while saying certain prayers, shaves the head. In all cases, rich or poor, the dress is of the usual make, but of pure white ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... it!" sobbed Lydia. "I can't. Seems sometimes if I couldn't have little Patience again I'd die! That's the way she looked in her coffin, you remember? 'F-fresh from the hand of God—not one who h-had lived and s-suffered death.' O my little, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... there is no doubt that his close attention to the arduous duties of Governor hastened his death. Thousands of Georgians repaired to the State Capitol to honor his memory, but he who attracted most attention was the gray and grief-stricken companion who stood by the coffin of the man he had honored for fifty years. Mr. Stephens, in his diary, recalls the fact that his first meeting with Mr. Toombs was in court, when the latter generously offered to lend him money and look after his practice so that Stephens could take a trip ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... request I next collected the other papers—that is to say, the bundle of letters, the unfinished book and the volumes of the Diary—and enclosed them all in one wrapper, sealed with my own seal. "Promise," he said, "that you will put this into my coffin with your own hand; and that you will see that no ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... "Yes, Ira. Annabell Coffin, she who was a Cuttle, was visiting his folks in Boston, and she learned that Sarah Bostwick's daughter was working behind the counter in some store there. She has to work for her ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... singing—it was the singing of a psalm. He stepped through the gateway. A crowd of peasants stood with bared heads: before the door stood a carriage, some peasants were just raising a coffin into it. In the doorway stood the old preacher, and spoke with ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... musician and his barbiton together, in the same coffin. That famous Steiner—primeval Titan of the great Tyrolese race—often hast thou sought to scale the heavens, and therefore must thou, like the meaner children of men, descend to the dismal Hades! Harder fate for thee than thy mortal master. For THY ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... them from decay.... The burial-place of the poor was in pits dug in the ground under their own houses. After the bodies of the rich and powerful were kept and bewailed for three days, they were placed in a chest or coffin of incorruptible wood, adorned with rich jewels, and with small sheets of gold in the mouth and over the eyes. The coffin was all in one piece, and the lid was so adjusted that no air could enter. Because of these precautions the bodies have been found after many years, still uncorrupted. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... in an' tell folk they wasn't nailin' up your coffin right," he cried angrily. "Will you kep that instrument o' foolishness o' ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... third day after the coming of King Don Alfonso, they would have interred the body of the Cid; but when the king heard what Dona Ximena had said, that while it was so fair and comely it should not be laid in a coffin, he held that what she said was good. And he sent for the ivory chair which had been carried to the Cortes of Toledo, and gave order that it should be placed on the right of the altar of St. Peter; and he laid a cloth of gold upon it, and upon that placed a cushion covered with a right noble tartari, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... him off at each end," objected Tom, looking at Old Dibs like he was measuring him for a coffin, "and you know yourself six foot six is the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... the eighteenth century, Bruhier, in his "Dissertations sur l'Incertitude de la Mort et l'Abus des Enterrements," records seventy-two cases of mistaken pronouncement of death, fifty-three of revival in the coffin before burial, and fifty-four of burial alive. A locally famous and thoroughly attested case in this country is that of the Rev. William Tennent, pastor in Freehold, New Jersey, in the eighteenth century, who lay apparently dead for three days, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... sunbeams shot through their cloudy prison, making the snow a mere white veil to their splendour, the little carriage of Mr. Somers came slowly down the road, and in it Mr. Somers himself. A half dozen of the neighbouring farmers followed. Then the little coffin of Johnny Fax, borne by Reuben Taylor and Sam Stoutenburgh and Phil Davids and Joe Deacon, each cap and left arm bound with crape; followed by Johnny's two little classmates—Charles Twelfth and Robbie Waters. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... resolution passed (1771) to "allow Benjamin Cook the sum of 8 shillings for a coffin, and liquor at the funeral of James Howland." They might not believe in prayers for the dead in those days, but there was evidently no reason why the living ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... that farm, f'r I never was one to know any species o' fellow-feelin' with pigs 'n' milkin'. 'N' last night!—well, you know I never liked Mr. Weskin anyhow. But I d'n' know who I can get now. There's Mrs. Healy's husband, o' course; but when a woman looks happier in her coffin 'n she ever looked out of it it's more'n a hint to them's stays behind to fight shy o' her husband. They say he used to throw dishes at her, 'n' I never could stand that—I'm too careful o' my china to risk any such ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... earth and appear to their relatives, whose sorrow or joy affected them even after death, as is related in the Danish ballad of Aager and Else, where a dead lover bids his sweetheart smile, so that his coffin may be filled with roses instead of the clotted blood ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... says, a favored time, and we were humbled and instructed together. We went to Highflatts to tea; when I got to the place where the remains of my dear friend were laid, I stood silently by the coffin in tears, saying in spirit, If it be thy mantle I am designed to wear, may I receive it with humility, reverence and fear! This feeling awfully impressed my mind, because my dear friend had said more than once to me, If I have any place ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... a preposition meaning "upon"; and finally a verb meaning "to mount upon," or "to go to." [Ch] is a character that may usually be translated "to enter" as in [Ch][Ch] "to enter a door"; yet in the locution [Ch][Ch] "enter wood," the verb becomes causative, and the meaning is "to put into a coffin." It would puzzle grammarians to determine the precise grammatical function of any of the words in the following sentence, with the exception of [Ch] (an interrogative, by the way, which here happens ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... had been obliged to fulfil all the duties of his office—that is, to get money coined in his name and bearing his arms, to take the fisherman's ring from the finger of the dead pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse embalmed, to lower the coffin after nine days' obsequies into the provisional niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his successor comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb; lastly, as he had been obliged to wall up ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Seth's at no harm, mother, thee mayst be sure. But where's father?" said Adam quickly, as he entered the house and glanced into the room on the left hand, which was used as a workshop. "Hasn't he done the coffin for Tholer? There's the stuff standing just as I left it ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... is possible, could I be buried in the sea? Just placed in a coffin and dropped into the peaceful ocean, peace that I have not known for four years. Please have ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Jenny was placed in the coffin. It was not a pauper's coffin; it was a black-walnut casket—plain, but rich—selected by Mrs. Porter, the physician's lady, who could not permit the form of one so beautiful to be enclosed in a less appropriate ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... Behind came a crowd of rustics who had been attracted by the event. The melancholy procession marched along the front of the line, returned to the centre, and halted beside the coffins, where the two condemned men were blindfolded, and each placed kneeling on his coffin; a few minutes pause was now given, while ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Antecessor Ancestor. Benedictionem Benediction Benison. Cadentia (Low Lat. noun) Cadence Chance. Captivum Captive Caitiff. Conceptionem Conception Conceit. Consuetudinem Consuetude {Custom. {Costume. Cophinum Coffin Coffer. Corpus (a body) Corpse Corps. Debitum (something owed) Debit Debt. Defectum (something wanting) Defect Defeat. Dilat[-a]re Dilate Delay. Exemplum Example Sample. Fabr[)i]ca (a workshop) Fabric Forge. Factionem Faction Fashion. Factum Fact Feat. Fidelitatem ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... he would make The sea his home, though it was always roused By such wild storms as never leave Cape Horn; Happy to hear the tempest grunt and squeal Like pigs heard dying in a slaughterhouse. A true-born mariner, and this his hope— His coffin would be what his cradle was, A boat to drown in and be sunk at sea; To drown at sea and lie a dainty corpse Salted and iced in Neptune's larder deep. This man despised small coasters, fishing-smacks; He scorned those sailors who at night ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... I'm rich! it's a lie, sir—I'm poor, miserably poor. I want but three carriages. My children may want a dozen—I say but three; put that down. A very plain coffin; pine, stained will do, and no ornaments, hark ye. A cheap grave. I would be buried on one of my farms, but then the coach-drivers would charge so much to carry me out! Now, what will you ask ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the voice, 'whativer are ye kicking up such a shindy out there for? Whativer d'ye want wid an old woman, and niver a livin' sowl in the house 'cept meself and Kathleen in her coffin?' ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... of his books, that whoso should wear the seal ring of our lord Solomon, men and Jinn and birds and beasts and all created things would be bound to obey him. Moreover, he had discovered that our lord Solomon had been buried in a coffin which was miraculously transported beyond the Seven Seas to the place of burial;"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... understanding of the Gospel, we might concern ourselves with its relations to society, the detailed implications for the moral and economic problems of our social and industrial order. Dean Brown, in The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit, and Dr. Coffin in In a Day of Social Rebuilding, have so enriched this Foundation. Moreover, this is, at the moment, an almost universally popular treatment of the preacher's opportunity and obligation. One reason, therefore, for not choosing this approach to our task is that the preacher's ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... most devoted attendants at our funerals were Monsieur and Madame Moidrey and their beautiful daughter Annette, a girl of sixteen years. In rain and shine they came, always with flowers most beautiful to place upon coffin and grave. ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... submarines, the War (he had given it nine years now)—from nine till eleven, and then flinging himself out of his chair to turn the settee into a bed for the Kiddy. Whatever he was saying or doing, in the middle of a calculation, he would break off at eleven and drag sheets and blankets out of a coffin-like box under the settee and make up the Kiddy's little bed for her, because Kiddies must on no account be allowed to sit up late at night. I remember Viola and Norah coming in to help and Jevons shooing them away. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... down and watching over his tribe. The tattooed head of the dead man was usually reverently preserved—stored away in some secret recess and brought out by the priest to be gazed upon on high occasions. The body, placed in a canoe-shaped coffin, was left for a time to dry on a stage or moulder in a hollow tree. After an appointed period the bones were scraped clean and laid away in a cavern or cleft known only to a sacred few. They might be thrown down some ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the elder now lying before us in the coffin was displayed not only in his meekness, but in his gentleness ...
— 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
... Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed out her sacrifices and their results one day to the constant ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... always scheming what to do for his family when he got back: but this is the end of it!" That dead soldier was merely a private. Not one of his own particular comrades was present, but only the necessary fatigue party. No flag was flung over his coffin, no bugle sounded "the last post." No tear was shed. It was only a commonplace "casualty," one among thousands. But it was a tragedy all the same. These tragedies in humble life seldom find a trumpeter; but they are none the less terrible on that account; and if half the truth were known and realised ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... better world. La Tulita slipped out of the back door and went to her home without meeting the procession. But before she shut herself in her room she awakened Ana, and giving her a purse of gold, bade her buy a little coffin draped with white and garlanded ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... them. An instant after the peasant had hidden himself, one of the oxen said to another "We are going to have a hard and heavy task to do this week." "How is that? the harvest is got in and we have drawn home all the winter fuel." "That is so," was the reply, "but we shall have to drag a coffin to the churchyard, for our poor master will most certainly die this week." The peasant shrieked, and fell back, senseless, was taken home, and the ox's ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... past century, with its nervous striving after truth, its fear of being duped, and its fretting dread that evolution and progress might prove antagonistic terms. And at that simple grave in Stockholm more than one bareheaded spectator must have heard the gravel rattle on the coffin-lid with a feeling that not only a great individual, but a whole human period—great in spite of all its weaknesses—was being ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... whose occupant had rejected religion and its ministrations in life and in death, stood three hundred girls, pupils of those "professional schools," holding bouquets in their hands, and throwing flowers on the coffin of their mistress. The schools are of a piece with the teachers. Ten hours are spent in them, but all religious instruction is strictly forbidden, under the pretext that they are free schools, "open to children of all persuasions, without religious distinction." ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... enable many a lady to judge for herself, and not, after inquiry on inquiry, disregard all warnings, go out on the first appearance of a strip of blue sky, and come home wet through, with what she calls "only a chill," but which really means a nail driven into her coffin—a probable shortening, though it may be a very small one, of her mortal life; because the food of the next twenty-four hours, which should have gone to keep the vital heat at its normal standard, will have to be wasted in raising ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... to-day. Everybody felt as if the awful shadow that descended upon the lonely house across the river had passed close to him and her, and left a chill in the heart. When the uncovered waggon bearing the deal coffin wrapped in a sheet, and having at the head an upright cross of flowers and leaves that shook and swayed with the jolting of this rustic hearse, moved towards the church, nearly the whole of the population followed. Only the day before another woman ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... blood, either. It had been lapped dry. That stirred the village. Not even enough to bury him—and he had been a good Christian! But the priest ordered that the slight remains of Stan be buried, Christian-like. The empty coffin was brought to the church and all the rites were carried out as if the body of Stan were there rather than in the stomachs of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... him because he was thus leaving for America. In that letter he again made no mention that it was I who drowned him in the depths of sorrow. It was a very beautiful letter. We treasured it as a keepsake, and when mother was dying the poor dear asked me to have it placed in her coffin. I endeavored to make good to her the son she lost. After father passed away, mother blessed me many times for the good care she enjoyed, but it did not bring peace ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... the coffin loud and long I strike—the murmur sent Through the gray chambers to my song, Shall be ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Miss Scott, a very charming, lively girl of seventeen, pointed out to us 'The Wizard's Grave,' and then the black stone in the form of a coffin, to which the allusion is made in the poem, 'A Scottish monarch sleeps below,'—said to be the tomb of Alexander II. 'But I will tell you a secret,' she half whispered; 'only don't you tell Johnnie Bower. There is no Scottish monarch there at all, nor anybody else, for papa had the stone taken ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... camp-fires glimmering from the women's retreat in the hills? By dint of threat and show of arms and promises, Captain Charles Clerke, who was now in command, induced the islanders to deliver the remnants of Cook's body. In an impressive silence, on Sunday the 21st of February 1779, the coffin containing the great commander's bones ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... mien that to be hated needs but to be rented, and more full-grown men stare into shoe-stores and shirt-emporiums without buying anything than in any other part of the world. Near the lower end of this quaint avenue rises the Post-Office, sending aloft a wooden steeple which is the coffin of a dead clock, and looking, altogether, like some good, old-fashioned country church, which, having come to town many years ago to see its city cousins, and been discouraged by their brown-stone airs, retired, much demoralized, into a shady by-way, and there fell from grace into a kind of dissipated ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... counter-buff as would have spoilt his retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and slaughtered above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I found myself in a coffin—(an open one, by good luck)—placed before the altar of the church of Saint Edmund's. I sneezed repeatedly—groaned—awakened and would have arisen, when the Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the charge that he abused his official position to improve his income. The worst accusation against him was that of conniving in trade with the French and Indians under pretence of exchanging prisoners. Six prominent men of the colony—Borland, Vetch, Lawson, Rous, Phillips, and Coffin, only three of whom were of New England origin—were brought to trial before the Assembly for trading at Port Royal; and it was said that Dudley, though he had no direct share in the business, found means to make profit from it. All the accused were convicted and fined. The more strenuous of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... who imagine that England is falling into decay. Our Cousin John is apt to complain. He has been accustomed to enlarge upon his debts, his church-rates and poor-rates, his taxes on air, light, motion, "everything, from the ribbons of the bride to the brass nails of the coffin," upon the wages of his servants both on the land and the water, upon his Irish famine and exodus, and his vast expenses at home and abroad. And when we consider how small is his homestead, a few islands in a high latitude inferior to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... written in my history of his Life, and making it a point of honour to discover his tomb, he chanced to behold an eagle pecking with its beak and scratching with its talons at a small rising ground. Here he dug, imagining that the spot had been pointed out by a miracle. There was found the coffin of a man of great stature, and lying beside it a brazen lance-head and a sword. These relics were brought to Athens by Kimon, on board of his trireme, and the delighted Athenians received them with splendid processions and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... of hail which forced them to bend down their heads, the women had obstinately refused to go below again. No one, however hopeless, but wishes, if shipwreck be inevitable, to meet it in the open air. When so near death, a ceiling above one's head seems like the first outline of a coffin. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... one instance to show how the system worked. At Mirfield a young Moravian couple lost a child by death. As the season was winter, and the snow lay two feet deep, they could not possibly convey the coffin to Fulneck; and therefore they had the funeral conducted by the Vicar at Mirfield. For this sin they were both expelled from the Moravian Church. At heart, in fact, these early Brethren had no desire for Moravian Church extension whatever. They never ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... soldiers guarded the remains of the greatest warrior of his age; a whole heralds' college clustered about the lofty funeral banner on which all the arms of the Churchills were quartered. Marlborough's friends and admirers, his old brothers-in-arms, the companions of his victories, followed his coffin, and listened while Garter King-at-Arms, bending over the open grave, said: "Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory life unto His mercy the most high, most mighty, and most noble prince, John Churchill, Duke and Earl ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was borne into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to lie in his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all his friends were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the coffin ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... expect high wages. Even the lowly washers of soiled clothes will find the life-blood of the victims 'coined into drachms' for their reward. It is highly probable that many of the patients may die under the expurgatory process, and hence sextons and coffin-makers may calculate upon good times. With death come mourning and lamentation, and 'weeds of wo.' Dealers in crape will doubtless secure a handsome patronage. Lawyers may hope to profit by the demise of those who possess property. Indeed, almost every class in community must, to a greater or less ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike there is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, the one whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast in her coffin, she sees these stains vividly, and the one whose face she cannot recognise sees them too. And this is certain, for the shadow of the face is sometimes ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... ancient village church, with its square grey tower surmounted by moss-grown turrets, with its venerable Saxon stone cross in the churchyard—where the turf graves rise humbly by twos and threes, and where the old coffin-shaped stone stands midway at the entrance gates, still used, as in former times, by the bearers of a rustic funeral. Appearing thus amid the noblest scenery, as the simple altar of the prayers of a simple race, this is a church which speaks of religion in no formal or sectarian ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... incidentally, upon my not overstocked wardrobe, I am willing to pass over. But the claims of justice are everywhere paramount. Miss Hugonin, and Miss Hugonin alone, is responsible for my present emulation of Mohammed's coffin, and upon that responsibility I ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... scholastic advantages which the schools and colleges of Europe could have furnished, they could not have fitted him for the work he was destined to do so well as the apparently untoward elements we have above adverted to; for Natty Bumppo was the fruit of his woodland experience, and Long Tom Coffin of his sea-faring life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of our Friend; he rushed out of his Inn upon us, with the Constables and a rabble of rude fellows whom he had gathered together: and, having his drawn sword in his hand, struck one of the foremost of the bearers, with it; commanding them "To set down the coffin!" But the Friend, who was so stricken, whose name was THOMAS DELL (being more concerned for the safety of the dead body than his own, lest it should fall from his shoulder, and any indecency thereupon follow) held the ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... solitary hoof planted upon a slice of green sward, the ragged suggestion of forest land in the distance, and a ladder of enormous length, which appeared to possess something of that spirit of independence which distinguished Mahomet's coffin. In other words, it was self-supporting. After a careful scrutiny, I rose to my feet, took a pace or two backwards, and put my head on ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... execution in the vaults of St. Michan's church, where, enclosed in oaken coffins, marked in the usual manner with the names and ages of the deceased, they still repose. Many a pious visit has since been paid to those dim chambers—many a heart, filled with love and pity, has throbbed above those coffin lids—many a tear has dropped upon them. But it is not a feeling of grief alone that is inspired by the memory of those martyrs to freedom; hope, courage, constancy, are the lessons taught by their lives, and the patriotic spirit that ruled their career ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... certain satisfaction. Strangely enough, my thoughts began to busy themselves with the old modes of torture that used to be legal, and that, after all, were not so unjust when practiced upon persons professedly vile. For instance, the iron coffin of Lissa—that ingeniously contrived box in which the criminal was bound fast hand and foot, and then was forced to watch the huge lid descending slowly, slowly, slowly, half an inch at a time, till ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... to get them, and shouldn't at all, if Tom Swatridge and two other men hadn't come in and said they'd be answerable if everything wasn't all square. He and they were ordering all about the funeral, and I've got two women to stay with the missus till she's put all comfortable into her coffin. Alack! Alack! That I should have to talk about her coffin!" Nancy's feelings overcame her. On recovering, she, without loss of time, began to busy herself with household duties—lighted the fire, put the kettle on to boil, and made up old Tom's bed with some fresh sheets ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... dignity changed at once into a friendly sympathy. "I have here some things that may interest you," he said; "here is Coleridge's inkstand; there is Tom Moore's waste-paper basket; and there," he added, in a reverent tone, "is a piece of Dante's coffin." The last relic was enclosed in a solid glass, and he proceeded to tell the story of how he had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... did accordingly, with a visage of professional length and most grievous solemnity, distribute among the pall-bearers little cards, assigning their respective situations in attendance upon the coffin. As this precedence is supposed to be regulated by propinquity to the defunct, the undertaker, however skilful a master of these lugubrious ceremonies, did not escape giving some offence. To be related to Mrs. Bertram was to be of kin to the lands of Singleside, and was a propinquity of which ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the orderly. He'll change the sheets When I'm lugged out, oh, couldn't I do that? Here in this coffin of a bed, I've thought I'd like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever,— And ask no nights off when the bustle's over, For I'd enjoy the dirt; who's prejudiced Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,— Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn? Dear dust,—in rooms, on roads, ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... town, which extends over a considerable area. The houses are rectangular, with adobe walls, mostly whitewashed, and with steep, pitched roofs. We met a funeral procession in the road, with the usual band in front. The coffin open, so as to show the child, was carried on the shoulders of several men. The mother, in contortions of real or simulated grief, was supported by two women, and the mourners brought up the rear, wailing now and then. Among the mourners was a woman who suffered ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... Valley waited, with horror in its eyes and the bitterness of death in its heart. As the minutes dragged women began to sob hysterically, in nervous terror. Men looked at the yawning grave, the waiting coffin, the low-dropping sun ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... a treasure to an undertaker. He would have been celebrated as a mute; he looked as if he had been born in a shroud, and rocked in a coffin. The gravity with which he could answer a ridiculous or impertinent question completely disarmed and turned the shafts of malice back upon his opponent. If Tom was himself an object of ridicule to many, he had a way of quietly ridiculing others that bade ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... softly; and long after he had left her she still sat silent, thinking, thinking, with the baby asleep in her arms, listening to the rain as it dripped, dripped heavily, like clods falling on a coffin lid. She was not a good woman—far from it. Her very motive in hiring the infant at so much a day was entirely inexcusable; it was simply to gain money upon false pretences—by exciting more pity than would otherwise have been bestowed on her had ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... trade may follow the flag, but in the Noah's ark industry it follows a belief in Noah and is known to every flag that has ever waved, paying allegiance to no particular banner. Before these fatiguing divines drive even a tack into Noah's coffin, let them provide us with a personage of equal interest and influence. If they are not permitted to move further in their scheme of destruction until they do this, Noah is safe. They can only try to kill; ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... preceded the Corps, who sung an Ode of Horace, with each a small candle in their Hand. The Butchers and other Mob broke in like a Deluge, so that only about eight or ten Gentlemen could gain Admission, and those forced to cut the Way with their drawn Swords. The Coffin in this Disorder was let down into Chaucer's Grave, with as much confusion, and as little Ceremony, as was possible; every one glad to save themselves from the Gentlemen's Swords, or the Clubs of the Mob. When the Funeral was over, Mr. Charles sent a Challenge to Lord ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... this event, Queen Eleanor died (S216). The King showed the devoted love he bore her in the beautiful crosses of carved stone that he raised to her memory, three of which still stand.[1] These were erected at the places where her coffin was set down, in its transit from Grantham, in Lincolnshire, where she died, to the little village of Charing (now Charing Cross, the geographical center of London). This was the last station before her body ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Chalusse, and went away. But she was too late, for in passing through the hall she encountered the undertakers, who carried on their shoulders a long metallic case enclosed in two oaken ones. And she had scarcely reached her own room before a smell of resin told her that the men were closing the coffin which contained all that was mortal of M. de ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... my practice to good account." (Mozley, Corr. ii. 405.) Father Lockhart, too, refers to Newman's playing at Littlemore "exquisite sonatas of Beethoven." (Paternoster Review, Sept. 1890.) Father Coffin, afterwards Bishop of Southwark, assisted ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... the caitiff a toss that sent him reeling against the wall, and dashed up-stairs for the papers. All was darkness, and I nigh broke my neck over a coffin-shaped rough box made for one of the trappers, who had died in the fort. Why was the thing lying there, anyway? The man should have been put into it and buried at once without any drinking bout and dead wake, I reflected ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... beggars' rags, with beggars' bowls, sunning themselves side by side on the cliffs, telling old stories and cackling shrill-voiced like children. And Tromp would maunder over and over of how Johannes Maartens and the cunies robbed the kings on Tabong Mountain, each embalmed in his golden coffin with an embalmed maid on either side; and of how these ancient proud ones crumbled to dust within the hour while the cunies cursed and sweated at junking ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... mumbling some words in a low voice, two or three dirty choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the dead, with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed only by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad. The beadle and the sacristan, very much displeased at being disturbed for so wretched a funeral, had not deigned to put on their liveries, but, yawning with impatience, waited for the end of the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... breaking up began outside, Mrs. Bates arose and stepped to the foot of the casket. She steadied herself by it and said: "Some time back, I promised Pa that if he went before I did, at this time in his funeral ceremony I would set his black tin box on the foot of his coffin and unlock before all of you, and in the order in which they lay, beginning with Adam, Jr., hand each of you boys the deed Pa had made you for the land you live on. You all know WHAT happened. None of you know just HOW. It wouldn't bring the deeds BACK if you did. They're gone. But I want ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... disciples, Byron and Hugo, to keep his personality out of the record: and it is a not wholly agreeable personality. Old experience may perhaps attain to this, and leave to ghouls and large or small coffin-worms the business of investigating and possibly fattening on the thing. But even the oldest experience dealing with his novels (which were practically all early) may find itself considerably tabuste, as Rabelais has it, that is to say, "bothered" with faults which are mitigated in the Genie ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the end of the gangway opened, and the big Jutlander came out with a tiny coffin under his arm. He was singing a hymn in an indistinct voice, as he stood there waiting. In the side passage, behind the partition-wall, a boy's voice was mocking him. The Jutlander's face was red and swollen with crying, and the debauch of the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... others, in a sort of sad elation, told of the crowds present, the number of clergy—Mr. Ryder, too, came home from his holiday on purpose—the sobbing people, and the wreaths of camellias and of holly, that loving hands had made, and laid upon the coffin. And then the last hymn had been so sweet and beautiful, they all seemed refreshed and comforted except Edgar, who, coming fresh back to the desolation of the house, was in another ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dark, wintry morning; and, without so much as changing her travelling dress, she sent for four labourers, took them with her to the church, and saying her family burying-place was never intended for a peasant's daughter, made them take out Menie's coffin, and leave it at her parents' door. They said that the old pair never got over that sight; and the mother, in her bitterness of heart, declared that Providence had many a way to punish pride, and the woman who had disturbed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... new dignity and value for all time. On April 21, accompanied by a guard of honor, and in a train decked with somber trappings, the journey was begun. At Baltimore through which, four years before, it was a question whether the President-elect could pass with safety to his life, the coffin was taken with reverent care to the great dome of the Exchange, where, surrounded with evergreens and lilies, it lay for several hours, the people passing by in mournful throngs. The same demonstration was repeated, gaining continually in intensity of feeling and solemn splendor of display, in ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... boyhood no woman's lips had ever pressed his, and the last kiss he had bestowed was upon his mother's brow, as she lay in her coffin. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... came he got up at sunrise, and going down into the crypt of a neighbouring chapel, stretched himself out quite still and stiff in an old stone coffin. But the liar, who was quite as clever as his partner, very soon bethought him of the crypt, and set out for the chapel, confident that he would shortly discover the hiding-place of his friend. He had just entered the crypt, and his eyes were not yet accustomed ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... jammed away into receptacles too small for them, and hastily plastered out of sight. The poor are carried off on trestles and huddled into their nameless graves, without following or blessing. Children are buried with some regard to the old Oriental customs. The coffin is of some gay and cheerful color, pink or blue, and is carried open to the grave by four of the dead child's young companions, a fifth walking behind with the ribboned coffin-lid. I have often seen these ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... prayers for the dead; and the Imam went back with her. Then four neighbours took up the bier[FN300] and bore it on their shoulders and fared forth with the Imam and others who were wont to give assistance at such obsequies. After the funeral prayers were ended four other men carried off the coffin; and Morgiana walked before it bare of head, striking her breast and weeping and wailing with exceeding loud lament, whilst Ali Baba and the neighbours came behind. In such order they entered the cemetery and buried ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... awaits such asterisms as the "Northern Cross'' in Cygnus; the "Crow'' (Corvus), which stands on the back of the great "Sea Serpent,'' Hydra, and pecks at his scales; "Job's Coffin'' (Delphinus); the "Great Square of Pegasus''; the "Twins'' (Gemini); the beautiful "Sickle'' in Leo; and the exquisite group of the Hyades in Taurus. In the case of the Hyades, two controlling movements are manifest: one, affecting five of the stars which ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... General Jackson's Youthful Indiscretions, between the Age of Twenty-three and Sixty," which contained an account of Jackson's fights, brawls, affrays, and duels, numbered from one to fourteen. Broadsides, bordered with wood-cuts of coffins, and known as "coffin hand-bills," narrated the summary and unjust execution as deserters of a number of militiamen in the Florida campaign whose legal term of service had expired. Another handbill gave the account of General Jackson's marriage to Mrs. Robards before she had ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... other rummaging, Burglariously broke his coffin's lid: Let not a monument give you, or me, hopes, Since not a pinch of dust remains ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... got a note with the one word "Beware!" written upon it; at the second, another note with the word "Blood" written underneath a skull and crossbones; and at the third you received a note with the word "Deth," and underneath was the drawing of a coffin. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... we discussed it afterward. We had a long discussion. And then he read us the 'Legend of Pornic,' and we had a discussion about that. Mrs. Bowen says it was real gold they found in the coffin; but I think it was the girl's 'gold hair.' I don't know which Mr. Morion thought. Which do you? Don't you think the 'Legend of ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... the old knight Im Hoff, had ever, so long as I could remember, demeaned himself as a penitent, spending his nights, and not sleeping much, in a coffin, and giving the lion's share of his great revenues to pious works to open unto himself the gates of Heaven; but what a change was wrought in him by the Emperor's coming! This straight-backed and stiff necked man, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the construction of the mess-room this shadow was always thrown when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars. They were in fact rather proud ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... good little dwarfs. They made a fine glass coffin, and put Snowdrop into it and were carrying her away to bury her when they met a prince, who fell in love with the little dead maiden, and begged the dwarfs to give ...
— Children's Hour with Red Riding Hood and Other Stories • Watty Piper
... was tottering across to the undertakers to have her coffin tried on, when my frantic whistling and the bray of the bugle-horn pierced the deafness of a century. With a loud creaking of hinges she turned her head, summed up the situation at a glance and, casting off half-a-dozen decades "like raiment laid apart," sprang for the side-walk with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... but sleep was denied. The owl hooted at her window; the bat flapped his leathern wings; the taper burned red and heavily, and its rays were tinged as though with blood; the fire flung out its tiny coffin; the wind sobbed aloud at every cranny, and wailed piteously ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... with wonderful dexterity, ceaselessly putting fuses in firecrackers. No one seemed to notice or care if a visitor might carelessly let a light fall from a cigar or drop a match. Many of us decided that perhaps the proverb: "If you want to make a Chinese happy, just buy him a coffin," is not so far off, because death to many of them looks much more attractive than life. We were told that if a Chinese falls off his sampan, his neighbor does not try to save him. That would be a "Bad Joss" as they say and would incur ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... behind his endless cobble-stone walls. I couldn't tell, of course, what he was thinking about. But I myself was thinking of the past, the irrecoverable past, the irredeemable past, the singing years of my womanly youth that seemed to be sealed in a lowered coffin on which the sheltering earth would soon be heaped, on which the first clods were already dropping with hollow sounds. We each seemed afraid to look the other full in the eyes. So we armored ourselves, as poor mortals must do, in the helmets of pretended diffidence and ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... main street where men passed to and fro. They thought the man was resting, but later, when they touched him, they found him stiff and cold, frozen to death in the midst of the busy street. To undouble him, that he might fit into a coffin, they had been forced to lug him to a fire and thaw him out a bit. Dickensen ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... against the palings and threw him so that the horse of the Bruco coming on behind could not avoid going over him. They said it was terrible to see that livid weal across his mouth as he lay in his coffin." ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... would all be growling together, at other times they would all three be mute; Lancelot crouching in the twilight with his head in his hands; and Beethoven moping in the corner, and the closed piano looming in the background like a coffin of dead music. ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... came back upon her in hideous distinctness every now and then—came back suddenly and awfully, like the swift revelation of a desolate plague-stricken scene under a lightning flash. He was gone. He was lying in his coffin, in the dear old Tudor hall where they had sat so cosily. Those dismal reiterated strokes of the funeral-bell meant that his burial was at hand. They were moving the coffin already, perhaps. His ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... won in vain; And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with thee had opened out—but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... there was hope for ten days. In the tenth night (22d-23d August), the shivered pieces of bone disunited themselves; cut an artery,—which, after many trials, could not be tied. August 24th, at two in the morning, he died.—Great sorrow. August 26th, there was soldier's funeral; poor Kleist's coffin borne by twelve Russian grenadiers; very many Russian Officers attending, who had come from the Camp for that end; one Russian Staff-Officer of them unbuckling his own sword to lay on the bier, as there was want of one. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... book as inspired by the gods, who caused their scribe, Thoth, to write it down. Every chapter is supposed to exist for the sake of persons who have died. Sometimes chapters had to be recited before the body was put down out of sight. Often a chapter, or more than one, was inscribed on the coffin, or sarcophagus, or mummy wrappings, this being thought a sure protection against foes ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... For on the fourth day as I sat In the black coffin-shadow of a boat, The burning decks a-wash with lime-white sun, I saw the graybeard lookout swell his throat And utter forth a glad and bronze hurrah, "Land Ho!" he cried— We lined the windward side To cheer the washing palm tops ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... to confess the hypothesis of a Creative Will, although it does not admit that man has in any way perceived it. But is this hypothesis, which is essential to science, to be left in the position of Mahomet's coffin? Is it not to be investigated? For if atheism is irrational, agnosticism is not scientific—"it is precisely a refusal to apply the scientific method itself beyond a certain point, and that a point at which there is no reason in ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... intricacies in radio are so great, and the changes occur so quickly that no one can afford to make a will wherein a radio provision figures. Once we thought of having a radio loud speaker installed in our coffin to keep us company and make it less lonesome. After reading this story we quickly changed our mind. The possibilities ...
— Solander's Radio Tomb • Ellis Parker Butler |
