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Idol   /ˈaɪdəl/   Listen
Idol

noun
1.
A material effigy that is worshipped.  Synonyms: god, graven image.  "Money was his god"
2.
Someone who is adored blindly and excessively.  Synonym: matinee idol.
3.
An ideal instance; a perfect embodiment of a concept.  Synonyms: beau ideal, paragon, perfection.



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"Idol" Quotes from Famous Books



... administer sly digs to his grandeur whenever she could. In the praise services among the "inmates" which were almost sure to follow a call of the great man at the Fair Harbor it was disconcerting and provoking to the worshipers to have Esther refer to the idol as "that Eg." Mrs. Brackett took her to ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... and the strongest advocates of reform despaired of success. Innovations are expedient only when they remove evil, and when men are prepared to receive them. Command a Turk to shave his beard—by which he swears—the idol of his life. As well bid him cut off his right arm or pluck out an eye—he would obey one as soon as the other. The impolicy of changing the customs and dress of a half-civilized, warlike nation, has been made obvious in many instances—none more impressive ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... knowledge of life was strictly limited to her experience of life; she knew no drama of passion except that which the Gospels relate: this story in the Family Reader was the first representation of life she had met with, and its humanity thrilled her like the first idol set up for worship. The actress told Norris that she loved him. They were on a balcony, the sky was blue, the moon was shining, the warm scent of the mignonette came up from the garden below, the man was in evening dress with diamond shirt studs, the actress's arm was ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... his voice and gesticulates; he makes great movements in the night at the vision of his idol, to whom his leanness and his long elastic arms give him some resemblance. "He's for war; he's for Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing else. Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear off ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... in his sonorous rolling voice, that must have done as much to make him a popular idol in his State as his more distinguished gifts for public life. Betty decided that the more senatorial he was the better she liked him. She knew that he was a favourite with men, and had a vague idea that men, when in the exclusive society of their own sex, always told witty anecdotes, but ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... though he himself was in his prime, has his gridiron idol. The man, usually some years his elder, whose exploits as a boy he has followed. Joe Beacham's paragon was and is Frank Hinkey and the depth of esteem in which the former Cornell star held Hinkey is well exemplified in the following incident, which occurred ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... in love, and his love was as pervading and absorbing as the fragrance of a flower, or the light of a star. The woman he had chosen for his idol—the shrine at which his pure devotions of heart and soul were offered—was a gay and beautiful Creole from New Orleans, who, with her mother, and a young gentleman who appeared in the capacity of friend, spent the summer months in the North. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... twice in England,) when walking in Kensington Gardens with the Princess of Wales, whose admiration oscillated between this great countryman of her own, and Sir Isaac Newton, the corresponding idol of her adopted country, took occasion, from the beautiful scene about them, to explain in a lively way, and at the same time to illustrate and verify this favorite thesis: Turning to a gentleman in attendance upon her Royal ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... was not one to forgive quickly so gross an injury as this. He did not think, moreover, that Averil herself would continue to offer homage before so obvious a piece of clay as her idol had proved himself to be. Derrick was beginning to apply to Carlyon the most odious ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... sensation. The lot of a popular idol is in many ways an enviable one, but it has the drawback of uncertainty. Here today and gone tomorrow. Until this moment Raymond Parsloe Devine's stock had stood at something considerably over par in Wood Hills intellectual circles, but now there was a rapid slump. Hitherto he had been greatly admired ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... favorite, whose crimes he ignored, King Charles IV. had abandoned power into the hands of the Prince de la Paix. At his side, and in a condition of suspicion which resembled captivity, the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, had become the idol of the people, as a consequence of the scorn and aversion inspired by the favorite. The young prince, weak and cunning, submissive in his turn to his old tutor, the Canon Escoiquiz, was carrying on underhand intrigues with a few ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... in her seat. Whereupon it appeared that just before she left Paris she had been taken by a friend to see the reigning idol of the Comedie-Francaise, the young and astonishing actress, Sarah Bernhardt, as Dona Sol. And there began straightway an excited duet between her and the Dean; a comparison of old and new, a rivalry of heroines, ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rejectest the worship of idols, that thou sayst thus? Fearest thou not that the idols will be wroth with thee?' He replied, 'The idols are stones; their anger cannot prejudice me nor their favour profit me. So do thou set in my presence thine idol which thou adorest and bid all thy folk bring each his image: and when they are all present, do ye pray them to be wroth with me and I will pray my Lord to be wroth with them, and ye shall descry the difference between the anger ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... will shortly explain why he painted the famous picture, "The Fallen Idol." If only some of our minor artists would be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... Hezekiah the cultus of the kingdom at Jerusalem had so much to distinguish it above that at Bethel or at Dan; against Jeroboam's golden calves must be set the brazen serpent of Moses, and the ark of Jehovah itself—which in ancient times was an idol (1Samuel iv.-vi.) and did not become idealised into an ark of the covenant, ie., of the law, until probably it had actually disappeared. As for the prophetic reaction against the popular cultus, the instance of Hosea shows that ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... of those high wicker chairs that insulate their occupants from the world, he saw his tutor leaning back, head a little to one side, and tips of fingers pressed together. He looked like an idol sitting there inert, and yet—yesterday he had gone up ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... has told you was a present from our dear departed Swami. If people only knew about it, there might be a certain amount of scandal about a young woman's receiving a supposedly valuable gift from a swindler who was also a social idol. Don't go off your head, Dick. You've got to listen to me. As a matter of fact, she lied to you when she told you he gave them to her. She bought them; and she had not the money to pay for them. I suppose it was at his suggestion that she borrowed the sum from me. That would have ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... street, turned, made their way down the rock-faced bluff to the water front; but still they were alone. All St. Louis was at the farther end of the wharf, waiting for a last look at the idol of the town. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... was a loquacious little man with a confident air born of an intense admiration of himself. He was the idol of a number of servant-girls' hearts, and altogether a decidedly ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... to the grave, to the bridal, They have followed her sisters from the door; Now they are old, and she is their idol:— It all comes back on her heart once more. In the autumn dusk the hearth gleams brightly, The wheel is set by the shadowy wall,— A hand at the latch,—'tis lifted lightly, And in ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... her daughter brought her back to the father; she saw him sinking by degrees, day after day, down to the social mire, and even dismissed some day from his appointment. The idea of her idol's fall, with a vague vision of the disasters prophesied by Crevel, was such a terror to the poor woman, that she became rapt in the contemplation ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... man has, by the hand of the Lord in providence, been stripped of all his treasures. These treasures, whether they were in themselves the noblest or the meanest,—for when a man made in the likeness of God abandons himself to the worship of an idol, it matters little whether the idol be made of fine gold or of dull clay,—these treasures possessed and filled his heart. Round them his understanding and affections had closely clasped, so that his whole nature had taken the mould of the object which it grasped. In this attitude ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... PAUL has always been the greatest of German writers, however they might protest their preference for some other idol. CARLYLE knows and names GOETHE as the intellectual culmination of the past age—and yet shows in every sentence the influence of The Only One, with very barren traces indeed of The Old Heathen; reminding us of those devotees who profess a faith in GOD, but manifest it in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... he was one of the Polynesian gods. Fornander says: "When the sailors carried off, not only the railing of the temple, but also the idols of the gods within it, even the large-hearted patience of Kaoo gave up, and he meekly requested that the central idol at least, might be restored. Captain King failed to perceive that the concession of the priests was that of a devotee to his saint. The priests would not sell their religious emblems and belongings ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... had taken the place of the delicious abandon of her former bearing. In spite of my strong determination to allow myself to love with the utmost candor, it was impossible for me to return to that happy age when the frowning brows of the beautiful idol to whom we paid court inspired us with the resolve to drown ourselves. I could not isolate myself from my past experiences. My heart was rejuvenated, but my head remained old. I was, therefore, not in the least discouraged ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... long this same semblance would have been kept up on this occasion? for Hortensius Martius, obviously a slave to Dea Flavia's beauty, was ready to do battle for the glorification of his idol, whilst Escanes, smarting under the clumsy insult, had much ado to keep his ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... with a statue of Durga; before the idol an altar. In the background a landscape with ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus

... location. part, role, character, dramatis personae[Lat]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer[obs3]; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter *[obs3]; masker[obs3]. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo[obs3], buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello[obs3]; pulcinello[obs3], pulcinella[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... them up a "pair of bars," put in proper position the ladder, and suspended swings, that they might practice gymnastics every day. Every mother who had a boy in that club expected almost any day that her idol might be brought home stretched on a shutter or bundled up in a wheelbarrow. No limb though was broken, and there were some wonderful developments of "muscle" (so the club thought). One day the new honorary member made ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... harm than good. They therefore place offerings at their graves, for the sake of propitiating them, sometimes offering up a human sacrifice for the same purpose—some unfortunate slave who is of little value to them. In our village we saw a large idol in a house built expressly for the purpose. It was a hideous, ill-constructed monster, and it seemed scarcely possible, ignorant as the people were, that they could really worship such an object, ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... or usually the next) attain to Buddhahood. The name does not include those Buddhas who have not yet attained to pari-nirvana. The symbol of the state is an elephant fording a river. Popularly, its abbreviated form P'u-sa is used in China for any idol or image; here the name has ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... scarlet with confusion, and sobered with a tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank, free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to take looks and words at their real value. Dickens was her idol; and for his sake she could have forgiven ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... was getting on for tea-time, being now late in the afternoon; but when I got there, instead of finding Ching Wang, who was always punctuality itself in the matter of meal-times, busy with the coppers, there he was flat on his stomach on the floor of his caboose, with a hideous little brass image or idol, which might have been Buddha for all that I know to the contrary, set up in the corner—the Chinese cook being so actively engaged in salaaming in front of this image, by touching the deck with his forehead and burning bits of gilt paper before it, as incense I suppose, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... one of the idols particularly venerated by the numerous tribes and sects of Hindostan, obtains a shrine within the precincts of the temple; so that all castes may unite in celebrating the great festival with one accord. The installation of the mighty idol upon his car, and his journey to a country residence, about a mile and a half distant only, though it occupies three days, is performed with numberless extraordinary ceremonies by his devotees. The car is a sort of platform, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... brighter. One thing was sure—I could not run away. That would be cowardice, as well as an affront to hospitality. And did the worthy man snoring in a near-by room once know that I thought of leaving because his idol was coming, he would doubtless hasten my departure by turning loose upon me the pack of fox-hounds I had heard clamoring for their ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... to London, the brilliant reputation which had preceded, and the even augmented personal advantages which accompanied him, immediately rendered him the idol of beauty and fashion. The ladies of the palace vied for his homage—the nobles of the land hastened to cultivate his society. Like Julius Caesar, he was carried away by the stream, and plunged into the vortex of courtly dissipation with the ardour which marks an energetic character ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... at that tyme when it became of Pagan Christian seimes to me much viser then our reformers under Knox when we past from Papisme to Protestantisme. They did not demolish the Heathen Idol temples, as we furiously did Christian, but converted them to Christian temples, amongs others witness the stately temple dedicat to the goddess Fortune, much respected by the Romans, at present a church. Yea the Italians boasts that they have cheated, robbed the Devil in converting that hous ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... coal-black aborigines; varna in Sanskrit means "caste" and "colour". Their aesthetic instinct finds expression in a passionate love of poetry, and a tangible object in the tribal chiefs. Loyalty is a religion which is almost proof against its idol's selfishness and incompetence. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... 'dilettar le femine e la plese.' I have written merely from impulse and from passion, and not for their sweet voices. I know what their applause is worth; few writers have had more. They made of me a kind of popular idol without my ever wishing, and kicked me down from the pedestal upon which their caprice had raised me. But the idol did not break in the fall, and now they would raise it again, but they shall not." As soon as they saw that Byron was ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... respect to higher things; while he who is raised up by the Lord is in light. He who is not in the light of heaven but in thick darkness, since he sees nothing of God, denies God and acknowledges as god either nature or some man, or some idol, and even aspires to be himself worshipped as a god. From this it follows that he who loves self above all things ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg

... anything; in three years and a half as a married man he had learned that one does not always say everything that comes into one's mind. But he meditated on the abysses that lie between the masculine and feminine intellects. That it should be possible for anyone to wish to see a movie idol leaping into second-story windows, or being pulled from beneath flying express trains, on this day of destiny, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... Bel had been partly ruined by the fire-worshipping Persians, and Alexander greatly pleased the Babylonians by decreeing that they might restore it with his aid; but the Jews at Babylon would not work at an idol temple, which they believed to be also the tower of Babel, and on their entreaty Alexander permitted them to have ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the honest man's wooing. Did he suffer disappointment as Miss Dexter's contemptuous eye and her irritated tone showed him—ah! how plainly—she was forever out of his reach? Was an idol broken, a dream dissolved, a blossom nipped, or hope murdered, just as much, in the case of this comfortable placid unimaginative elderly farmer as in the case of younger, warmer, more impetuous, more idealistic men? If so, Farmer Wise was as self-contained ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... 'Leader of Religion,' says that he 'constantly claimed the position accorded to the Hebrew prophets, and claimed it on the same grounds as they.' And even Dr Hume Brown, when narrating Knox's refusal in the Galleys to kiss the 'Idol' presented to him, adds: 'It is in such passages as these that we see how completely Knox identified his action with that of the Hebrew prophets' (vol. i. 84), the passage founded upon being one in which Knox points out that 'the same obedience that God required of his people Israel,' even ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... few years after the Scotsmen had departed, regard the beauty of St. Nicholas or its Tower. They came also desiring to besiege the town, though with only spiritual weapons. The Church to them was but a 'steeple-house,' and the Tower akin to an idol. Thus slowly do men learn that 'the ways unto God are as the number of the souls of the children of men,' and that wherever a man truly seeketh God in whatsoever fashion, so he do but seek honestly and with his whole heart, God will consent to be ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... compass. Its dimensions are given as 365 feet long by 300 feet wide at the base, whilst the summit-platform was raised more than 150 feet above the level of the streets and square. Here was set the great image of the Aztec war-god, the idol of the abominable Huitzilopochtli which Cortes and his men, after their frightful hand-to-hand struggle with the Aztecs on this giddy platform, tumbled down the face of the pyramid into the streets below, among the astonished Indians. The grandeur, architecturally, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... have found a way to his heart,—had she not introduc'd the very evening of their arrival at the Lodge, her counter-part in every thing but person:—there Miss Whitmore outshone her whole sex.—This fair neighbour was the belov'd friend of Lady Mary Sutton, and soon became the idol of Mr. Powis's affections, which render'd his situation still more distressing.—His mother's disinterested tenderness for Lady Mary;—her own charming qualifications;—his father's irrevocable menace, commanded him one way:—Miss Whitmore's ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... Once more she was a Moslem slave, sold by the man whom last night she had thought——She bowed to kismet and strangled her feelings as she had so many times before. And so after a shake of the hand, Mr. Middleton left her, left her to learn as the idol of Mr. Crayburn's life, with every whim gratified, that the first American she had known was but one ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... the excitement of the chase. He has done many a brilliant service to the cause of justice, he has discovered the guilt, or the innocence, of many in cases where the official department was as blind as Justice is proverbially supposed to be. Joseph Muller has become the idol of all who are engaged in this weary business of hunting down wrong and punishing crime. He is without a peer in his profession. But he has also become the idol of some of the criminals. For if he discovers (as sometimes ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner

... they have, and I'll tell you what they are. They have got lovely names; once I heard mother say that the whole four of them were called after heathen idols. Isn't it awful and exciting to be called after a heathen idol? Oh, Phil! they have such ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... to whose genius and courage the discovery of the New World is due. Miss Brown, in her "Icelandic Discoverers," justly says it should be altogether foreign to American institutions and ideas of liberty and honor to countenance longer the worship of a false idol. The author first proceeds to set forth the evidence upon which the claims of the Norsemen rest. The author charges that the heads of the Roman Catholic church were early cognizant of this discovery ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... this astounding statement, "By war alone can we acquire those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life." These words, coming from the lips of a nation's idol, have fallen like a bomb shell in the camp of the pacifists. Not that Mr. Roosevelt's opinion was of overwhelming weight, but that he was voicing the opinion of some of the most influential thinkers of the modern world. Not long before ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... Hapgood, isn't it? How very nice! Staying to lunch, of course? Do let's come into the drawing-room.' Very nice and affable. I always rather liked her. And we went along, I being rather captured and doing the polite in my well-known matinee idol manner, you understand; and I heard old Sabre saying, 'Well, let me out of the damned thing, can't you? Help me out of the damn thing'; and presently hobbled in and joined us, and soon after that lunch, exquisitely cooked and served ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... Bonsa much more than fetish, Little Bonsa alive, or so," he added doubtfully, "these silly niggers say. She wife of Big Bonsa, you see, to-morrow p'raps. But their story this, that she get dead sick of Big Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach she nothing but heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only idol. That the yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for her there by the edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come back. Not at all surprised, but as she love you once, you stop ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... something within him which reminds him of One to whom he of right belongs; however far he may have got away from Him, or may have tried to satisfy his conscience—that "eye of the soul"—by seeking to please some idol-god which he has made ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... seems to indicate that, of the seven churches, some belong to the Dutch Calvinists and Portuguese Roman Catholics, while others are Mahometan places of worship for the Malays, and idol temples, or pagodas, frequented ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... all her cares, inspired by a sentiment which seemed to enter into the flesh of her son and give it life, had their reward. Beauvouloir—that blessed man whose teachings had proved so precious to the child, and whose anxious glance at that frail idol had so often made the duchess tremble—declared that Etienne was now in a condition to live long years, provided no violent emotion came to convulse his delicate body. ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... commanded the position. Here a stand was made until Buell came up, and shortly afterwards the Confederates fell back; but they had captured the Yankee camp entire, and many a boy in blue lost the nice warm woollen pulse-warmers crocheted for him by his soul's idol. It is said that over thirty-five hundred needle-books and three thousand men were captured by the Confederates, also thirty flags and immense quantities of stores; but the Confederate commander, General A. S. Johnston, was killed. The following morning the tide had turned, and ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... he had sent his father. I knew not that this child was already begotten, and that his name was Man. It has taken Man ages to assert himself, nor has he yet, as it would seem, done more than enthrone a new idol in the place of the old. But for the old, behold the last traces of its authority in these fetters, of which the first smith will rid me. Expect no thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: nor shall I regain the immortality of which I feel myself ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... inquiring, "What is your name?" the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, "What is the chief end of man?" and answering nobly, if obscurely, "To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." I do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked opens to us Scots a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is asked of all of us, from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Kuda. There, on the steep bank of the Irtysh their prince Demian, who had taken refuge in a fort with two thousand warriors ready to fight, rejected all Icrmak's propositions. According to the report of the annalist: "This little town possessed within its walls a golden idol which was supposed to have been brought from ancient Russia at the epoch when she embraced Christianity. The Ostiaks kept it in a vase filled with water which they drank to revive their courage. The Cossack leaders, having driven away the besieged forces ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... presented under the guise of religious mythology. In the homes was equal corruption; in the forum bribery and intrigue ran rife; justice was subverted, and innocence was condemned to prison, torture, and death. Luxury destroyed character, and wealth became an idol and a curse."[31] Arguments of this kind were ready enough to hand whenever Christian teachers were disposed to use them, and their descriptions found a real corroboration in society as it actually appeared on every hand. None ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... in Webster's orations. One great thought underlay all his public life, the thought of the Union; of American nationality. What in Hamilton had been a principle of political philosophy had become in Webster a passionate conviction. The Union was his idol, and he was intolerant of any faction which threatened it from any quarter, whether the Nullifiers of South Carolina or the Abolitionists of the North. It is this thought which gives grandeur and elevation to all his utterances, and especially to ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... in all its honours, to the public stage in Dorset Gardens, and received with applause corresponding to the expectation excited by its favour at Whitehall. While the court and city were thus worshipping the idol which Rochester had set up, it could hardly be expected of poor Settle, that he should be first to discern his own want of desert. On the contrary, he grew presumptuous on success; and when he printed his performance, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... war Logan returned to Illinois, intending to re-enter the practice of the law; but he loved public life and politics, was the idol of the people of his section of the State, and was soon elected Congressman-at-large on the Republican ticket. When I entered the House in 1865, I found General Logan there, ranking as one of the leaders of the more radical Republicans. He was a ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better than common children so fur ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... of corn is ended, and in the spring. The one to return thanks to the good spirit for the fruits of the earth; the other, to beg the same blessings for the succeeding year. And to encourage the young men to labour stoutly in planting their maiz and pulse, they set up a sort of idol in the field, which is dressed up exactly like an Indian, having all the Indians habit, besides abundance of Wampum and their money, made of shells, that hangs about his neck. The image none of the young men dare approach; for the old ones will not suffer them to come near him, but ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... obscure, and may perhaps allude to the efforts of the Jesuits at Nangasaki, to convert the Japanese to a new idol worship, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... a temple," cried Brace, in tones of suppressed excitement, "and I suppose this is the idol the old people ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... became successively governor of Buda and of Egypt, capitan-pasha and serasker in Candia. His exploits in the latter capacity had endeared him to the troops, while his noble figure and frank bearing made him equally the idol of the citizens, but his unbounded popularity led Kiuprili to foresee a future rival in this favourite hero, and the fate of Delhi-Hussein was sealed. In an interview with the vizir, he was graciously received, and invested with a robe of honour; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... what was troubling him. A little tin god has a pleasant time of it, no doubt, until the coming of the eighteen carat gold idol. Captain Jed had been boss of Denboro—self-appointed to that eminent position, but holding it nevertheless—and to be pushed from his perch by a city rival was disagreeable. If I knew him he would not be dethroned without a fight. There were likely to be some interesting ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... imagine that their religion forbids them to touch." "Men who can scarcely count beyond twenty, and know not the letters of the alphabet, would rather die than eat food which had been prepared by men of lower caste, unless it had been sanctified by being offered to an idol; and would kill their daughters rather than endure the disgrace of having unmarried girls at home beyond twelve or thirteen years of age."[60] In the last case the rule of obligation and duty is set by the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... consequence. The Two Eagles, by Bayard and Bieville (these partnerships are frequent among the dramatists of Paris), was brought out at the Theatre Montansier. Hippolyte Vidoux, clerk in a cap store and lieutenant in the National Guards, is a charming fellow, and the idol of the women in the whole quarter. He sings, jokes, and dances the polka in every style. He is introduced into the salons of his superior officer, Count Chamaral, but meets with no sort of success among the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... wife, and idol; a proud mincing peat, and as perverse as he is officious. She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier, as her husband doth on her, and only wants the face to ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... much for dwelling on a theory, right or wrong, till it fills the mind. Yet I cannot say that all this was without prayer. I did wait upon God, and thought my answers were from Him; but I see now that I went to the Lord with an idol in my heart, and that He answered me according to it ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... off-planet within twenty-four hours. Not that Santa Claus didn't want me to stay longer, when I told him what had happened. Hell, he wanted to throw a banquet and sixteen speeches in my honor. I was a holy Idol all over again. ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer

... becomes livid, at the stupidity of the world, for reviling her idol on his later work, especially the bust of Balzac, which the critics said showed deterioration," Beth told him, "As if Rodin did not know the mystic ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... darkened, and the moon refused her light. I knew "that jealous God" who claimed the supreme love of his creatures, was scourging me for making an idol and bowing down before it—for loving my husband. I knew it was all just and clung to the Almighty arm, with the old cry, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." To my husband I clung with like tenacity, and could not admit ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... modest, for he (on Matth. xxvi.), by an explanation very preposterous, or rather, an inept and stupid tautology, takes hell in the creed to mean the tomb. Of the Anglican sectaries, some are wont to adhere to their idol, Calvin, others to their great master, Bucer; some also murmur in an undertone against this article, wishing that it may be quietly removed altogether from the Creed, that it may give no more trouble. Nay, this was actually tried in ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... magnificently as at table, though with less appetite; and possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human being. The real power lay entirely with Major James, the white superintendent, who had been brought up among the Maroons by his father (and predecessor), and who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil hour, the Government removed him, and put a certain unpopular Capt. Craskell in his place; and as there happened to be, about the same time, a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons, ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... coming from heaven above the stars, who was born of the Virgin Mary. Yea, they have told me to my face, that I have used conjuration, and witchcraft, because what I preached was according to the scriptures. I was also told to my face, that I preached up an idol, because I said, that the Son of Mary was in heaven, with the same body that was crucified on the cross; And many other things have they blasphemously vented against the Lord of life and glory, and his precious gospel. The Lord reward them according ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... numbers hand in hand. I join'd them fairly with a ring; Nor can our parson blame the thing. And though no marriage words are spoke, They part not till the ring is broke: Yet hypocrite fanatics cry, I'm but an idol raised on high; And once a weaver in our town, A damn'd Cromwellian, knock'd me down. I lay a prisoner twenty years, And then the jovial cavaliers To their old post restored all three— I mean the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... and Sixty-Seventh; our Levity, in your Hundred and Twenty-Eighth; our Love of Coxcombs, in your Hundred and Fifty-Fourth, and Hundred and Fifty-Seventh; our Tyranny over the Henpeckt, in your Hundred and Seventy-Sixth. You have described the Pict in your Forty-first; the Idol, in your Seventy-Third; the Demurrer, in your Eighty-Ninth; the Salamander, in your Hundred and Ninety-Eighth. You have likewise taken to pieces our Dress, and represented to us the Extravagancies we are often guilty of in that Particular. You have fallen ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... very odd. It was very dirty too, but perhaps it is not polite to say that. There was a sort of sideboard at one end of the room, with an embroidered dirty cloth on it, and on the cloth a bluey-white crockery image over a foot high. It was very fat and army and leggy, and I think it was an idol. The minute we got inside the young man lighted little brown sticks, and set them to burn in front of it. I suppose it was incense. There was a sort of long, wide, low sofa, without any arms or legs, and a table that was like a box, with another box in front ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... lives, I can't have another eldest. He looks like living;—don't he, Alice?" Then were perpetrated various mysterious ceremonies of feminine idolatry which were continued till there came a grandly dressed old lady, who called herself the nurse, and who took the idol away. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... figure he was a rival for the great dandies of the day. Coralie, like all zealots, loved to adorn her idol. She ruined herself to give her beloved poet the accoutrements which had so stirred his envy in the Garden of the Tuileries. Lucien had wonderful canes, and a charming eyeglass; he had diamond studs, and scarf-rings, and signet-rings, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... playing the high part of cold and subtle hypocrisy! She knew Sibyl, and could follow the workings of her mind: a woman incapable of love, or of the passion which simulates it; worshipping herself, offering luxuries to her cold flesh as to an idol; scornful of the possibility that she might ever come to lack what she desired; and, at the critical moment, prompt to secure herself against such danger by the smiling, cynical acceptance of whatsoever shame. Alma had no small gift of intuition; proved ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... without being sure of that. Men's eyes were wet, and women sobbed unrestrainedly. He had been so beautiful and so merry and cheerful always, said the wet-eyed women; the men praised him for having been such a swordsman, horseman, shot. Everyone spoke of him as the life and soul of the garrison, the idol of his brother-officers, and worshipped by the men under his command. Everyone had something to tell of dead Beauvayse ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... at once started on his feet, and retreated. "What's that?" he said, and his face flushed up and then turned pale; "what's that? it's the thing itself!" and he made a snatch at it. "Take it away, Mr. Reding; it's an idol; I cannot endure it; ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... speaking of his wife with much respect and affection, as an illustrious lady, distinguished for her qualities of heart and understanding; saying that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. Mr. Moore seems at times to be somewhat puzzled by these contradictory statements of his idol, and speculates not a little on what could be Lord Byron's object in using such language in public; mentally comparing it, we suppose, with the free handling which he gave to the same subject in his ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... or deliberately planned great deeds, and thus won themselves fame. He loved Mistress Dorothy, and he felt that, if she would only love him, he could be brave and noble; yet he hated the easy-going, simple-hearted Johnnie Morgan, who had made himself a popular idol, and was marked out by the gossips as the fittest and properest husband for pretty Mistress Dawe. Master Windybank could not help but admire the valiant admiral, and he remembered how he had flushed with pleasure when Drake had taken him by the hand on the occasion of their introduction. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... her with the deepest solicitude on her return, and he felt rather than saw the change that had taken place in his idol. She had pleaded fatigue, and retired early. In the morning she was again conscious of his half-questioning scrutiny, and when he went to his study she followed, and told him what had occurred. He grew very pale, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... William's Parliament, the Parliament which assembled after the Revolution, amongst other causes of complaint (many of them sufficiently just) complains of the repeal by their predecessors of Poynings's law,—no absolute idol with the Parliament ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... a reminiscence from college days, which grows more significant to me the longer I live. One Saturday morning at our Missionary Society there came, at our invitation, to talk to us about our future life, the professor who was the idol of the students and reputed the most severely scientific of the whole staff. We used to think him keen, too, and cynical; and what we expected was perhaps a scathing exposure of the weaknesses of ministers or ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... son of Jotham; was very unlike him. "From first to last he was a sinner." (39) He abolished the true worship of God, forbade the study of the Torah, set up an idol in the upper room of the Temple, and disregarded the Jewish laws of marriage. (40) His transgressions are the less pardonable, because he sinned against God knowing His grandeur and power, as appears from his reply to the prophet. Isaiah said ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... idol of the people, their passion, the ruler of their souls, the stimulator of their enthusiasm. He promises them bread and money, and their cries rise like the rushing of a storm, widening and deepening in every direction: 'Long live Pancratius! Hurrah! Bread and money! Bread for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the words. Job thought again of the aged saint. He thought of Yankee Sam and that wild night when he died; of Tim, poor Irish Tim; and then of that sweet face in the plain wooden casket in the strange California city—his boyhood's idol—and the tears started to ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... Mr. Clare was considered by them as something more than mortal. The equanimity of his behaviour, his unassuming carriage, his exuberant benevolence and goodness of heart, joined with his talents, his inoffensive wit, and the comprehensiveness of his intelligence, made him the idol of all that knew him. In the scene of his rural retreat, at least, he had no enemy. All mourned the danger that now threatened him. He appeared to have had the prospect of long life, and of going down to his grave full of years and of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... the bed, my eyes full of tears, looking at the man in silent, awe-stricken wonder. His grief unnerved him, and made him a weak, passive child. I did not dream that his rugged nature could be so moved. I shall never forget those solemn moments—genius and greatness weeping over love's idol lost. There is a grandeur as well as a simplicity about the picture that will never fade. With me it is immortal—I really believe that I shall carry it with me across the ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... would have been chosen. He was the largest landed proprietor, and was of the highest rank—with the exception of Rochejaquelein, who had, although the idol of the army, scarcely experience and ballast enough to take so responsible a position. Lescure himself, however, proposed that Cathelineau should be chosen. His influence was great, his talents unquestionable, and the simple ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia] [T: beatified] Both Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr. Warburton have followed Theobald, but I am in doubt whether beautified, though, as Polonius calls it, a vile phrase, be not the proper word. Beautified seems to be a vile phrase, for the ambiguity of ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... intended journey, but making herself very agreeable to her son. She brought to him all the flattering things said of them. She studied every little whim, wish, or caprice. She put him on a pedestal and made an idol of him. She was all that was gay, amiable, pleasant and kind. She made herself not only his friend and companion, but everything else in the world to him. She was gay, amiable, gracious, witty. With her still beautiful face and fine figure, she made ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... they are not hurt if you go away without seeming to see it. Gustatory harmony, too, is very delicious. Yet there is no hush during dinner; they do not insist upon a persistent gnawing in honour of the feast. But these musical people! their god is their piano. They set up an idol in their salon, and command all the world to bow down to it. They found a priestcraft of pianists, and an Inquisition of fiddlers. When I came away they were all crowded round a violin, the women especially. They could ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... briefly, alienated, and over what they had, however durably, gained. They had preserved and consecrated, and she now—her part of it was shameless—appropriated and enjoyed. Palazzo Leporelli held its history still in its great lap, even like a painted idol, a solemn puppet hung about with decorations. Hung about with pictures and relics, the rich Venetian past, the ineffaceable character, was here the presence revered and served: which brings us back to our truth of a moment ago—the fact that, more than ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... the year following this marriage, Caesar went to take up his great command in the Gauls, but Pompey remained in Rome, where every day his influence and popularity were failing while the astonishing successes of Caesar made him the idol of the populace. In 55 B.C. Pompey was consul for the second time with Crassus. He received as his provinces the two Spains, but he governed them by his legates and remained in the neighbourhood ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... which he ingratiates himself with the understanding, and makes a sect in a commonwealth, his followers will sacrifice themselves for him, and nobody will be pardoned that dares to attack him, justly or unjustly, because that truth, real or imaginary, which he maintained, is now become an idol. Time will do nothing for the extinction of this hatred; it will be propagated from age to age; and there is no hope that Aristophanes will ever be treated with tenderness by the disciples of Plato, who made ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... too, won't you?" asked Drina, jealous lest Boots, her idol, miss his due share of piscatorial glory. "If you'll wait until I finish my French I'll come ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... idol of the tourist, and enemy of navigation. B. discovered a method of crossing the English Channel without ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... mentally apportioned her to Somerled, as spoil of battle. His vicious wall-eyes regard with distrust and hatred other male creatures who dare to contend for the prize. If he could arrange an accident to the Dragon without injuring it (an idol only second in his heart to Somerled) or any one under its wing, except me and himself, I feel sure he would risk his own bones for the sake of cracking mine. As for my sister, he does not approve of her. In ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the king's elephants used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that made up the city looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness; the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides. The monkeys called the place ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... supplicant; cormorant &c. 957. [Object of desire] desideratum; want &c. (requirement) 630; "a consummation devoutly to be wished "; attraction, magnet, allurement, fancy, temptation, seduction, fascination, prestige, height of one's ambition, idol; whim, whimsy, whimsey[obs3]; maggot; hobby, hobby-horse. Fortunatus's cap; wishing cap, wishing stone, wishing well. care for, affect, like, list; take to, cling to, take a fancy to; fancy; prefer &c. (choose) 609. have an ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... hierogliphicall figures. A briefe of the golden calf (the world's idol). The golden ass well managed, and Midas restored to reason. Written by J. Rod, Glauber, and Jehior, the three principles or originall of all things. Published by W.C., Esquire, 8vo. Lond. Printed for William Cooper, at the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various

... Asia Minor, traversing Asia, Africa, and Europe, to Iceland, Greenland, and the poles of the earth, suffering all things, enduring all things, hoping all things, raising men everywhere from the ignorance of idol worship to the knowledge of the true God, and everywhere bringing life and immortality to light through the Gospel, have only been acting in obedience to the Divine instruction; they were commanded to go forth, and they have gone forth, and they still go forth. They have sought, and they still ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... terminates but in a Goal, which befel this learned Person, being long imprisoned at Yarmouth: where living in a lingering Condition, and having small hopes of coming out, he composed an Address to that Idol at White-Hall, Oliver Cromwell, written with such Tow'ring Language, and so much gallant Reason, as looked bigger than his Highness, shrinking before the Majesty of his Pen, as Felix trembled before Paul. So obtaining his Liberty, not by a servile Submission, but rather a constrained ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... to take some man—some utterly commonplace man, perhaps—perhaps, only an idle poseur such as you are, Felix—and to set him up on a pedestal, and to bow down and worship him; and to protest loudly, both to the world and to herself, that in spite of all appearances her idol really hasn't feet of clay, or that, at any rate, it is the very nicest clay in the world. For a time she deceives herself, Felix. Then the idol topples from the pedestal and is broken, and she sees that it is all clay, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... police would allow. The religious element in Socialism had found in him its high priest. His eloquence, his magnetism, his daring, his aggressive and radical instinct for leadership made him at once their idol. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... right at least to say that to the sweetheart of his boyhood, and the chosen idol of his young manhood's heart. 'I have seen your father, dear, and whatever there might have been, it's all over. Good-bye, and—God bless you, always. ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray

... Corneille and Racine are obliged to defend themselves against the critics and public. Here at least I plainly saw that no man knew what he wanted; that a piece like the "Cid," which had produced the noblest effect, was to be condemned at the command of an all-powerful cardinal; that Racine, the idol of the French living in my day, who had now also become my idol (for I had got intimately acquainted with him when Schoeff Von Olenschlager made us children act "Britannicus," in which the part of Nero fell to me),—that Racine, I say, even in his own day, was not able to get on with the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... weigh so very much with others. He had been lavish in his worship of Pompey, thinking that Pompey, whom he had believed in his youth to be the best of citizens, would of all men be the truest to the Republic. Pompey had deceived him, but he could not suddenly give up his idol. Gradually we see that there fell upon him a dread that the great Roman Republic was not the perfect institution which he had fancied. In his early days Chrysogonus had been base, and Verres, and Oppianicus, and Catiline; ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... hope of such a consummation must be deferred until it may be shown that their instinct is a blind guide, and its oracles are false. Hence the necessity of a close study and of a clear analysis of the nature and conditions of civil liberty, in order to a distinct delineation of the great idol, which all men are so ready to worship, but which so few are willing to take the pains to understand. In the prosecution of such an inquiry, we intend to consult neither the pecuniary interests of the South nor ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... disadvantages. Where birth is respected, unactive, spiritless minds remain in haughty indolence, and dream of nothing but pedigrees and genealogies: the generous and ambitious seek honour and authority, and reputation and favour. Where riches are the chief idol, corruption, venality, rapine prevail: arts, manufactures, commerce, agriculture flourish. The former prejudice, being favourable to military virtue, is more suited to monarchies. The latter, being the chief spur to industry, agrees better with a republican government. And we accordingly find ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... voyage now is overpast, And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude, Draws nigh that common haven where at last, Of every action, be it evil or good, Must due account be rendered. Well I know How vain will then appear that favored art, Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart; For all is vain that man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... the violinist led Mildred to a seat at the entrance of the stage. His appearance was the signal for prolonged and enthusiastic greeting from the enormous audience present. He clearly was the idol of ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... it not," said Simon. "He is one who makes an idol of woman, after the manner of those crazy knight errants. But Sir Robert is a true soldier and hath ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... considerable size, built in a semicircular shape, having in its centre a structure of considerable architectural pretensions in a barbaric sort of way, which structure we conjectured— from the presence of a hideous idol in front of it—must be a sort of temple. Looking about us still further, we noticed that the remainder of the prisoners were being bound to trees like ourselves. There was a peculiarity about the disposition of the prisoners which I certainly did not like; there might be no motive ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... My Father, puzzled for an instant as to the meaning of this accident, since Mrs. Goodyer was the gentlest and most inoffensive of our church members, decided that it must be because she had made an idol of her husband, and he reduced the poor thing to tears by standing at her bed-side and imploring the Holy Spirit to bring this sin ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... with him?" she thought. "I love the other man, but if I cannot win him, I shall gratify my ambition by marrying Haughton Hall, and in petting my idol gratify myself; and so to pet my old love ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... away. For several days troops of women and young girls, with their heads dishevelled or shorn, their garments in rags, their faces torn with their nails, their breasts and arms scarified with knives, went about over hill and dale in search of their idol, giving utterance to cries of despair, and to endless appeals: "Ah, Lord! Ah, Lord! what is become of thy beauty." Once having found the image, they brought it to the feet of the goddess, washed it while displaying its wound, anointed it with sweet-smelling ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... was justifiable then is not so to-day. Rodrigo now is our sole support, the hope and the idol [lit. love] of a people that worships him! The prop of Castile and the terror of the Moor! The King himself recognizes [lit. is in agreement with] this truth, that thy father in him alone sees himself recalled to life: and if, in fine, thou wishest that I should ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... watched the space between myself and death diminish day by day, for six months past. I have known that I should die before the year was out. It is true that I die in sorrow and with a miserable sense of failure, for you have been my best-beloved, my idol, and I leave you terribly placed in life and with little hope of betterment. But for you I have no reproach. You have given me love for love, and duty for duty. Life has treated you brutally; what has come now was, I suppose, inevitable. Human nature when it is strong enough is ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... the idol whom they worship—rule of thumb—has been the source of the past prosperity, and will suffice for the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinion that science is speculative rubbish; that theory and practice have ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... daring and vanity than from any other impulse,—he had taken such pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him, to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the form of love, which he so often conjured up, for its substance, he now degenerated into the wholly opposite and perverse error of depreciating and making light of what, intrinsically, he valued, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... that I should impress upon your mind once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... merely in their private entertainments, but also in their religious ceremonies. Daniel's account of their instruments occurs casually in his mention of Nebuchadnezzar's dedication of a colossal idol of gold. The worshippers were to prostrate themselves before the idol as soon as they heard the music commence, and were probably to continue in the attitude of worship until ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on destruction; her lives live only by murder. The cruel images of the pagan are truer delineations of Nature than the figures which typify the impotent charity of Christendom—an exotic in the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... History of Prisons, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely abandoned by the people, though they had ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... friend, and Rosamund presently went up to her own room. She had said good-night to the rest of the party, and wondered what she should feel like when she entered her room with no Jane to keep her company. Not that she was anything like as attached to Jane as Jane was to her; for she was Jane's idol, her ideal of all that was noble and princess-like and beautiful. Jane, to Rosamund, was an ordinary good-tempered girl, with whom she could put up, and on whom she could ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... has been regarded as an adornment. Because God has conferred upon her the charm of a beauty not elsewhere found in earth, the world has vainly imagined she was made to glory in its exhibition. Hence woman is too often a vain, idle, useless thing. She stoops to be the plaything of man, the idol of his vanity, the victim of his lust. In stooping, she lays off her womanhood to pander to the low aims of a sensual life. In every country and in all ages woman has been thus abased. The history of the world is all darkened by the awful shadow of woman's debasement. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... of his time were accustomed to introduce in the mythology of their court-adulation; that marvelous Faith of the 18th century, which will one day, and that not far off, be known for a thing more truly disgraceful to human nature than the Polynesian's dance round his feather idol, or Egyptian's worship of the food he fattened on. From Salvator and Domenichino it is possible to turn in a proud indignation, knowing that theirs are no fair examples of the human mind; but it is with humbled and woful anger that we must trace the degradation of the intellect ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... the smallest tribe I yet had seen; Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien. 'Great idol of mankind! we neither claim The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame; But safe in deserts from the applause of men, 360 Would die unheard of, as we lived unseen; 'Tis all we beg thee, to conceal from sight Those acts of goodness which themselves requite. Oh let us still the secret joy partake, To ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al



Words linked to "Idol" :   star, god, gold standard, juggernaut, lead, ideal, golden calf, simulacrum, principal, effigy, image, heartthrob, idol worship, joss



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