"Coffin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heads, and we have suffered much inconvenience in consequence. The ones we are wearing now are not real ones—wax, you know; quite good of their kind, but not what we have been used to. If you would be good enough to look around for those heads, put them in a coffin with our bodies and have our whole outfit decently buried, we should feel much relieved. By the way, our old trunks are somewhere about the premises still, down in the cellar; your great-grandfather was always keen on cold-storage—a collector should be." ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... important town; and thence he seems to have gone to Karna, to visit the tomb of the prophet Esdras; then he entered Persia and sojourned at Chuzestan, a large town, partly in ruins, which the river Tigris divides into two parts, one rich the other poor, joined by a bridge, over which hangs the coffin of Daniel the prophet. He went to Amaria, which is the boundary of Media, where he says the impostor David-el-roi appeared, the worker of false miracles, who is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ, but called among ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... burial without any difficulty. In the newspaper "The Other A" Theo Tontod provided a short obituary. And the Club Clou sent a wreath. Ilka Leipke had herself taken to observe the body before the burial. The coffin was opened quickly. In it Kohn lay somewhat askew, because of the hump. The features of his face were distorted in a grimace. His hands were rolled up lumps. Dried blood stuck to his nose and hung over ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... which he has written, he has had troops of imitators, and in not one of them an equal. Writing not from books, but from nature, his descriptions, incidents, and characters, are as fresh as the fields of his triumphs. His Harvey Birch, Leather Stocking, Long Tom Coffin, and other heroes, rise before the mind, each in his clearly defined and peculiar lineaments, as striking original creations, as actual persons. His infinitely varied descriptions of the ocean, ships gliding like beings of the air upon its surface, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... heart when the winds blow; and come back soon to your own chickabiddy, and then Kissmuss'll be here. S'umber on, baby dear. Kriss is coming with such a booful tree; then wont you be s'prised? She went to the hatter's to get him a coffin, and when she come back he ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... litany recurred again and again, with endless iteration. Kitty's sensuous, excitable nature was stirred with delight. Then, suddenly, she remembered her child, and the little face she had seen for the last time in the coffin. She began to cry softly, hiding her face in her black veil. An unbearable longing possessed her. "I shall never have another child," she thought. "That's ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... remember some of the other special adjuncts of an old-fashioned church, as it had been handed down little altered from the time of our great-grandfathers? There were the half-obliterated escutcheons, scarcely less dismal in aspect than the coffin plates with which the columns of the Welsh churches were so profusely decorated. No wonder Blair introduces into his poem on 'The Grave' a ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... thrown by the insurgents from the heights of Pere-Lachaise. He thought that had he died then, Micheline would have wept for him. Then, as in a nightmare, it seemed to him that this hypothesis was realized. He saw the church hung with black, he heard the funeral chants. A catafalque contained his coffin, and slowly his betrothed came, with a trembling hand, to throw holy water on the cloth which covered the bier. And a voice ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... moment is upon you now, and I say unto you, men of both parties, you will have driven the last nail in the coffin of this amendment and banished all hope of carrying it at the ballot-box if you do not incorporate woman suffrage in your platforms. I know what the party managers will say, I have talked with and heard from many of them. I read Mr. Morrill's ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of circuits and dodges finding always the same obstacle in ambush, the same crowd, some fragment of the black defile perceived for a moment at the branching of a street, unfolding itself in the rain to the sound of muffled drums—a dull and heavy sound, like that of earth falling on a coffin-lid. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... in very hollow voice: "Splendid!" He put the basket on a chair; sat on it; gave Bill an answering, "What ho!" that was cheerful as rap upon a coffin lid. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... of Damocles. Nelson himself seems to have been possessed already by vague premonitions of the coming end, which deepened and darkened around him as he went forward to his fate. The story told of his saying to the upholsterer, who had in charge the coffin made from the mast of the "Orient," that a certificate of its identity should be engraved on the lid, because he thought it highly probable that he might want it on his return, is, indeed, but a commonplace, light-hearted remark, which derives what ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... when he had reached his home on Sunday, towards evening, he he had lain down on the bed never to rise again. Without any one knowing it, he had passed away; for he was already stiff when Rico had found him. On the following Sunday the burial took place. Rico was the only mourner to follow the coffin. Several kind neighbors joined in, and thus the little procession went on to Sils. In the church, Rico heard the pastor when he read out, "The deceased was called Henrico Trevillo, and was a native of Peschiera on the Lake ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... burial as no poet had ever before received. The funeral procession moved slowly and sorrowfully along the streets, the greater part of the cortege being women in deep mourning who prayed for the repose of the poet's soul. Eight of the most beautiful among them carried the coffin, which was covered with ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... kettle off," said the good lady, speaking quite cheerfully, "when a little coffin that jumped out of the fire—just as plain as plain—a little small thing that were. And that means, for sure, that Mrs. Milsom's eighth is gone. I did hear as how that were wonderful sickly, and no doubt but ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... knew the hour, and most were still asleep when the coffin was carried down the street, followed only by Hermione, and by Gaspare in a black, ready-made suit that had been bought in the village of Cattaro. Hermione would not allow any one else to follow her dead, and as Maurice had been a Protestant there was no service. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... whisper it to the Mayor—he shall send a committee to England; They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault—haste! Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his bones for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... and beloved daughter!" The words sung themselves in and out of her brain, to the murmur of the sea. How he must have loved the child! She could almost see him with the little one in his arms, or watching over her bed, or standing beside her small coffin. Three years and a half old! Then he must have been married a good while—long and long after she had gone on thinking of him as no righteous woman ever can go on thinking of ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... should walk in their several classes, but in one body, and the archdeacon, the moderator, and the vicar-general, as representatives of the three endowed churches, abreast. The Anglican clergy evaded this plan by stepping up before the coffin. When, however, the bearers were in motion, the catholic priests, by a rapid evolution, shot a-head of the procession. An ornamented Gothic tomb was erected in St. David's burial-ground to the memory of Sir ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... voice ceased, and the fatherless lad stooped to get a last view of the flower-covered coffin. Then, with a heart lonelier than he had ever known ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... founder's, having a semicircular top, and six large rings of 3-1/4 inches diameter attached to the outsides. At a little distance from the two small chests, there was also found the remains of an ecclesiastic, buried without any coffin, but lying upon a bed of coarse gravel within a hollow space formed by large flat stones. His hands were in a position indicating that they had been joined together in the attitude of prayer over his breast, as usual. ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... Mrs. Lawrence, the British and Italian ambassadors, the papal delegate, and a host of friends and priests were there—yet the inexorable shears had cut through all these threads that Monsignor had gathered into his hands. To Amory it was a haunting grief to see him lying in his coffin, with closed hands upon his purple vestments. His face had not changed, and, as he never knew he was dying, it showed no pain or fear. It was Amory's dear old friend, his and the others'—for the church was full ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in the midst of them," and "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." There are similar windows, but without coloured glass, in all four faces of the tower. At the north-west angle of the tower is a staircase turret. Within the south door, against the west wall, is an old stone coffin, with broken lid, ornamented with an incised floriated cross; this was discovered at the ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... which they were painted, consisting generally of sky blue or green mixed with gold: and what appeared to us singular enough, the articles for sale that made the greatest show were coffins for the dead. The most splendid of our coffin furniture would make but a poor figure if placed beside that intended for a wealthy Chinese. These machines are seldom less than three inches thick, and twice the bulk of ours. Next to those our notice was attracted by the brilliant appearance ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown; A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O! where Sad true-love never find my grave, To ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... borne; troubles gather thick over his head; he is neglected and even misrepresented. You can help him with a smile or a few kind words; but, no, you pass him by. Now he is brought to the grave. As the cold clods fall upon his plain coffin, you say, "Well, he was a good man, after all." Why did you not tell him that when he was living? It would have buoyed up his spirit then; it would have made him feel that life was not all in vain and that yet he might do a little good. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... door. All the road was deserted, for the villagers were still asleep, as the little procession wound its way along: wrapped in the same silence in which Annette's own young life had been passed. A cart with a plain coffin in it, was drawn by the old horse that had carried Annette to the harbour the night before, and who stepped as though he knew what burden he was bringing: Paul led the horse; and beside the cart, with his head bowed on his ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... customs may be mentioned that of carrying a garland of flowers and sweet herbs before a maiden's coffin, and afterwards suspending it in the church. Nichols, in his "History of Lancashire" (vol. ii. pt. i. 382), speaking of Waltham in Framland Hundred, says: "In this church under every arch a garland is suspended, one of which is ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... love. The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bedstead with which he began housekeeping; this bedstead he had made out of the wooden frame which had borne only a short time before the coffin of the deceased Count Trampe, as he lay in state, and the remnants of the black cloth on the wood work kept ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... the Convention went to absurd lengths. In the popular passion for equality, every one was to be called "Citizen" rather than "Monsieur." The official record of the expense of Marie Antoinette's funeral was the simple entry, "Five francs for a coffin for the widow of Citizen Capet." Ornate clothing disappeared with titles of nobility, and the silk stockings and knee breeches (culottes), which had distinguished the privileged classes and the gentlemen, were universally supplanted by the long trousers which had hitherto been worn only by the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... died, that family, or had something dreadful happen to them. Jane Nettles said there was a curse upon them, and Beth never thought of them without a shudder. That boy's sisters both died, and one had something dreadful happen to her, for they dug her up again, and when they opened the coffin the corpse was all in a jelly, and every colour of the rainbow, according to Jane Nettles. Beth believed she had been present upon the occasion, in a grass-grown graveyard, by the wall of an old church, beneath which steps led down into a vault. The stones of the steps were mossy, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... longer satisfies the intelligence of this county; a religion that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. It is a religion that gives hope only to a few; a religion that puts a shadow upon the cradle; a religion that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. It is a religion that I am going to do what little I can while I live to destroy; and in its place I want humanity, I want good-fellowship, I want a brain without a chain, I want a religion ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... wind-swept archway, The pavement is cold and hard Better the workhouse coffin, Softer ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... sword of freedom in the day of battle." And think of this, not in a Fourth of July oration, but in a private letter to an intimate acquaintance! The bones of Daniel Webster might be supposed to have moved in their coffin at the thought that this miserable trash—so regretted and so amply atoned for—should have ever seen the light; but it is from such youthful follies that we measure the vigor of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... first catching sight of the object, was that it was a Roman relic of some sort, - relic of WHAT I do not know, possibly of a coffin. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... himself in the relief of the suffering poor, and fell a victim—one of the last—to the pestilence which had carried off so many. Two days later he lay in his coffin. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... of mind and person, had the same warm heart and strong affection for her family. During the month of July, 1811, a short time before the death of the Duke of Devonshire (the husband of the duchess), Sir Nathaniel Wraxall visited the vault of All Saints' Church. As he stood admiring the coffin in which the remains of the once lovely Georgiana lay mouldering, the woman who had accompanied him showed him the shreds of a bouquet which lay on the coffin. Like the mortal coil of that frame within, the bouquet was now reduced almost to dust. "That nosegay," said ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... remember—it must have been a little more than a year after that—seeing the professor in his coffin in the front hall; that he looked taller than he did before, but still imposing; that he had his best coat on—the one, I think, in which he preached; and that he was the first dead person I had ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... 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. King ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... ye murd'ring winds, To move a wave; But if with troubled minds You seek his grave; Know 'tis as various as yourselves, Now in the deep, then on the shelves, His coffin toss'd by fish and surges fell, Whilst Willy weeps and bids ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... property, reputation, and everything within the scope of our earthly existence. All henceforth and forever yielded up to God, no more to be ours, as really and as perfectly as though we were breathing our last upon our death-bed, and then in due time we were laid into our coffin, the lid fastened down, and lowered into the grave, the grave filled up and nothing left but a mound to mark where our earthly remains lie. Or, to view the subject from another standpoint, this ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... who, on June 2, 1854, decided that Burns was a fugitive and must be sent back to slavery. Boston showed its feelings on the day that the Negro was removed from jail to be sent South. Stores were closed and draped in black, bells tolled, and across State Street a coffin was suspended bearing the legend THE DEATH OF LIBERTY. The streets were crowded and a large military force, with a field piece in front, furnished escort for the lone black. Hisses and cries of " shame" came from the crowd as the procession passed. Burns was soon released from bondage, Boston ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Parliament refrain altogether from weighing individually the opposing arguments in the several questions, and trust implicitly to their leaders. This, however, is merely another nail in the coffin of the debating system. The theory of independent and intelligent consideration, by each member, of every measure that comes up, is the one most favourable to the present plan, while, even on that theory, its efficiency breaks down under a ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... his talents and his fame, approach, and behold him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements. No fascinated throng weep—and melt—and tremble at his eloquence!—Amazing change. A shroud! a coffin! a narrow subterraneous cabin! This is all that now remains of Hamilton! And is this all that remains of him?—During a life so transitory, what lasting monument then ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he communed with himself, saying: "One by one they have gone away and left me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold me I have paid a thousand ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... forgotten: love of passion so exquisite, of devotion so pure, born of the youth of the heart and belonging to an existence and personality lost for ever. A man may wed again, and (some say) love again, but between the boards of the coffin of his first wife—if he has loved her—lie secrets of tenderness, and sweetness, and delight, which, like the spring flowers, may not ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... nothing for me. I did not care to live, because there was no assurance of existence beyond. By the strangest of processes, I neglected the world, because I had so short a time to be in it. It is with absolute horror now that I look back upon those days, when I lay as if alive in a coffin of lead. All passions and pursuits were nullified by the ever-abiding sense of mortality. For years this mood endured, and I was near being brought down to the ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... eternal resignation and eternal loneliness? Is it not horrible to see us, and ought not God Himself to pity us, if from the splendor of His starry heavens He should look down for a moment into our gloomy breasts? I bear in it a cold, frozen heart, and you a coffin. Oh, sir, do not laugh at me because you see tears in my eyes—it is only Fanny Itzig who is weeping; Baroness von Arnstein will receive your guests to-night in your saloons with a smiling face, and no one will believe that her eyes also know how to weep. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... been for the last twelve years in preparation to receive the Imperial coffin, but which, according to Chinese custom, may not be completed until death has actually taken place, will witness the last scene in the career of an unfortunate young man who could never have been an object of envy even to the meanest of his people, and who has ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... right on: "Are all the longings of all these years, dating from the birth of CHARLEMAGNE and extending through GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS to FREDERICK the Great and WILLIAM the First, by his father on his maternal grandmother's side, who lies in the iron coffin of the domkirche at Potsdam, whence we derive the consolidated grandeur of HOHENZOLLERN mingling its rich ancestral dyes with the dark woof of fate to dispel the expanding ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... evening, when Binny had been in the hospital about a week, two orderlies came to his bed with a stretcher. They told him they were going to carry him down to the mortuary and put him into his coffin. Binny, of course, thought they were making some new kind of joke, and laughed. But the orderlies were perfectly serious. They said his name was on the list of those who had died during the day and they had ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... possession. In less than forty-eight hours after I told her that she could not live, she passed into eternity. Would that I could show you that mournful countenance, which continued long after the last spark of life had become extinct; yes, even up to the moment when the lid of her coffin for ever hid it from our view. Never, never shall I forget it. It was a sad ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... good to her after they got married. He took her to a show every night—jes swell; and she had given him a swell funeral—you bet she did. The coffin had cost eighty-five dollars—white with real silver handles; and the floral piece she bought—"Gee! What's your name?... Connie, you oughtta seen that floral piece!" and Mame laid off work altogether to use her hands the better. It was shaped so, and in the middle was a clock made out ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... dwelling-place of his soul. But tell me candidly, what joy has the departed, and, perhaps, suffering soul, in the fine music of the choir, even should the choir be composed of the best singers in the country? What consolation does the poor suffering soul find in the superb coffin, in the splendid funeral? What pleasure does the soul derive from the costly marble monument, from all the honors that are so freely lavished on the body? All this may satisfy, or at least seem to satisfy, the living, but it is of no avail whatever ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... to be one of the four selected for the job. It was just like sending a fellow to the undertakers to order his own coffin. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... gazed at the marble coffin that held the mortal remains of him whom, when he lived, all people loved, and the memory of whom, now that he has passed from our material vision, all people revere. A few branches of cypress lay upon it, and at its base a ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... brushed her aside and passed in among the friendly neighbors who had hurried out on my arrival. I felt, but scarcely saw them as I said: 'I want my mother.' Then some one burst in tears and pointed to the open parlor door. Merciless heaven! resting upon two chairs stood a long, brown box; a coffin. I gave one shriek, so wild, so full of agony that not one who heard it stayed to offer the hollow mockery of comfort. 'Merciful ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the grave of the Rev. Charles and let his eyes wander over the little white gravestones that ran almost into the dark wall of St. Dreot Woods as though they were trying to hide themselves. "Wish the frost 'ud break—ground'll be as hard as nails." The soil fell, thump, thump upon the coffin. Rooks cawed in the trees; the bell tolled its cracked note. The Rev. Charles was crammed down with the soil by the eager spades of the sexton and his friend, who were cold and wanted ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Either from a regard for this superstition, or from the mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long as possible, the Persians entombed their kings in the following way. The body was placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a close-fitting lid, and deposited either in a massive building erected to serve at once as a tomb and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some great mass of solid rock, at a considerable elevation above its base. In either case, the entrance into the tomb was carefully ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... machinery works, and stove factories; the city has had an important part in the development of the iron and steel industries in this part of the South. There are also flour mills, tanneries (United States Leather Co.), patent medicine, furniture, coffin, woodenware and wagon factories, knitting and spinning mills, planing mills, and sash, door and blind factories—the lumber being obtained from logs floated down the river and by rail. The value of the city's factory products increased from $10,517,886 in 1900 to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... afterwards saw a letter which he wrote to the governor, urging him to withhold a pardon. Now you have the key to his hatred; now you understand why he wrote you nothing concerning us. Not even Aunt Amy's coffin could shut in his hate. Irene, I must go home now, for they will wonder what has become of me. I will see you ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Funerals it is considered a mark of respect for friends to become pall-bearers. In the funerals of young persons, the pall should be borne by their companions, wearing white gloves. It is a pretty and an affecting sight to see the pall over the coffin of a young lady borne by six of her female friends. Flowers may be placed, upon the coffin, and strewed in and over ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... prepared for the purpose; that the time of departure could be arranged so that he should reach London Bridge at dusk, and proceed through the City after the day had closed in; that people would be ready at his journey's end to place the coffin in a vault without a minute's delay; that officious inquirers in the streets would be easily repelled by the tale that he was carrying for interment the corpse of one who had died of the plague; and in short showed him every ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... allowed, if possible, a little longer to fit himself to meet his Creator. From his cell he could hear the striking of the great clock in the prison hall. And as every hour struck it seemed "a nail driven in his coffin." ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... resembled the duke, having been taken prisoner, and knowing death to be inevitable, received a proposition to represent the duke with as much joy as if life had been offered him; and hearing this, that a great lady, having bribed those who could open his coffin, and having looked at the form, cried, 'Ah, that is not the Duke of Monmouth.'" Furthermore, Sainte-Foix, who sought to prove that the Iron Mask was no other than the Duke of Monmouth, cited a passage of another English work by Pyms, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... it the Confessor's coffin, still stands in the centre of this royal chapel of St. Edward—a battered wreck, yet bearing traces of its former beauty—and round it is a circle of royal tombs, drawn as by a magnet to the proximity of the royal saint. ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... enough event! Girls like Meryl usually do become brides, and later on they wear shrouds, and have a nice little coffin all to themselves. There ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... occasion referred to, the funeral procession having entered the churchyard, and my informant and the officiating clergyman having taken their places at the head of the grave, the undertaker and his assistants having removed the coffin from the hearse, and the mourners, of whom there was a large crowd, having gathered into a circular audience, the Reverend Doctor —— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... only a few were aware of his dread presence—and took away the youth whose sole occupation seemed to have been the watching of the ever-increasing distance from that home which he was destined never again to see. It was inexpressibly sad to those left behind when his coffin was committed to the deep amid the solemn silence that once again ensued on the stoppage of the engines, while the low voice of a pastor prayed for those who wept his departure; but it was not sad for him who had been taken—he had reached the "better home," and, sitting ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... at once the suit of mail, Rude coffin of an absent bulk, Cleaving the silence with a wail, Falls in its chair, a ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss. And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. "Ah, what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin he could neither ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... days after the death of Philip Beaufort—for the surgeon arrived only to confirm the judgment of the groom: in the drawing-room of the cottage, the windows closed, lay the body, in its coffin, the lid not yet nailed down. There, prostrate on the floor, tearless, speechless, was the miserable Catherine; poor Sidney, too young to comprehend all his loss, sobbing at her side; while Philip apart, seated beside the coffin, gazed ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the hearse with his corpse passed through the Thuringian country, all the bells in city and hamlet tolled, and the people crowded sobbing about his bier. A large portion of the German national strength went into the coffin with this one man. And Philip Melanchthon spoke in the castle church at Wittenberg over his body: "Any one who knew him well, must bear witness to this—that he was a very kind man, gracious, friendly, and affectionate in all conversation, and by ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... yonder—look, Biber, the Duke of Pomerania's quarters in the Green Shield are still lighted. I'll wager that they are yet at the gaming table. A plague upon it! I would be there, too, if my purse allowed. I feel as if yonder dead man and his coffin were burdening my soul. If it was really good fortune in love that snatched the zecchins from my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a sturdy Englishman and a distinguished orator, who regarded the conditions of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House of Commons, that, if King William could know the terms of that treaty, he would turn in his coffin! Let me commend this saying of Mr. Windham, in all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of this Union over the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... applied to irons, fetters, or handcuffs, because wearing scours them. He will scour the darbies; he will be in fetters. To scour the cramp ring; to wear bolts or fetters, from which, as well as from coffin hinges, rings supposed to prevent the cramp ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... stone in your mouth and a twig of the witch-hazel in your hands, and go into the marshes without fear. Speak no word, for fear of your lives, but keep straight on till ye come to a spot where ye'll see a coffin with a cross and a candle on it. That's where ye'll find your Moon, I'm thinking, ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... died in hospital, and we had chosen a picturesque burial-place above the river, near the old church, and beside a little nameless cemetery, used by generations of slaves. It was a regular military funeral, the coffin being draped with the American flag, the escort marching behind, and three volleys fired over the grave. During the services there was singing, the chaplain deaconing out the hymn in their favorite way. This ended, he announced his text,—"This poor man cried, and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... friendship's ministry. Too many wait until those they love are dead, and then bring their alabaster boxes of affection and break them. They keep silent about their love when words would mean so much, would give such cheer, encouragement, and hope, and then, when the friend lies in the coffin, their lips are unsealed, and speak out their glowing tribute on ears that heed not ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... vultures; but the spirit of his wish was by no means cynical. "When Chwangtse was about to die," he writes (anticipating things pleasantly), "his disciples expressed a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But he said: 'With heaven and earth for my coffin and shell, and the sun, moon, and stars for my burial regalia; with all creation to escort me to the grave— is ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... whispered Hitty to her child, as Keery's peaceful, shrouded face was hidden under the coffin-lid and carried away to Greenfield Hill. Pitiful whisper! happily all-unmeaning to the child, but full of desolation to the mother, floating with but one tiny plank amid the wild wrecks of a midnight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard, And let his spirit, like a demon-mole, Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard, To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole; Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd, And filling it once more with human soul? Ah! this is holiday to what was felt When Isabella by ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... south of Prince. In one of these he died in 1804, aged seventy-six years. Dr. Dick attended John Harper in his last illness and was paid sixty-five dollars by the executors for this service. Wine for the funeral was eleven dollars, the coffin and case cost twenty-six dollars, and the bellman received one dollar for crying property to be sold. Captain John Harper lies buried in the cemetery of the old Presbyterian meetinghouse near two of his daughters, Mrs. John C. Vowell and ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... their credulous neighbors. An attendant at the funeral of one of these sisters, who when living was about as unsubstantial as Ossian's ghost, through which the stars were visible, told me that her coffin was so heavy that four stout men ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Douglas made a coffin into which the remains were tenderly placed, and it was put upon a high platform near the house, out of reach of animals, there to rest until the spring, when the snow would be gone and it ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Continent for that purpose. She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor Benedictine of the convent, observing her filial piety, took notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin was become threadbare-and so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... discovered that this hair-cloth was "boiling over" with lice. That this species of sanctity is still highly approved and commended to the imitation of the faithful we may suppose from the fact that Pius IX. in 1850 beatified the Blessed Marianna, because she was wont to sleep in a coffin or on a cross, and on Fridays hung herself for two hours on a cross attached to it by her hair and by ropes. On broiling hot days she denied herself a drop of water to quench an almost intolerable thirst. Verily Manichaeism has eaten ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of coffin-nails," said Snell, as he produced several packages of cigarettes. "Help yourselves, gentlemen. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... lowered blinds. Isak and Inger were sent for, and came to the burial. Eleseus acted as host, and served out refreshments to the guests; ay, and when the body was carried out, and they had sung a hymn, Eleseus actually said a few suitable words over the coffin, and his mother was so proud and touched that she had to use her handkerchief. ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... joy, and kisses the ground upon which He treads. Children strew flowers along His path and sing to Him, 'Hosanna!' It is He, it is Himself, they say to each other, it must be He, it can be none other but He! He pauses at the portal of the old cathedral, just as a wee white coffin is carried in, with tears and great lamentations. The lid is off, and in the coffin lies the body of a fair-child, seven years old, the only child of an eminent citizen of the city. The little corpse lies buried in flowers. ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... digestive organs." What causes indigestion? Over-eating, or eating food difficult of digestion. Now I submit that if Brothers Benson, Homan, et al, are trying to save the people of this land from premature graves and bear the stock of the coffin trust, they should direct their crusade against indigestible food,—reduce the people of this Nation by means of statutory law to a diet of cornbread and buttermilk. Let them bring all their ballistae and battering-rams to bear upon the toothsome mince pie, the railway sandwich, ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... long he's likely to live," she thought, glancing at him covertly, out of the tail of her eye. "His evil temper must have driven more than one nail in his coffin. I wonder, if I refuse to housekeep, whether I 'll get—a better offer. I wonder if I could manage him if I got him! I'd rather like to sit in the Baxter pew at the Orthodox meeting-house after the way some of the Baptist ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he went on, in cold, sinister accents, "let him take but a small pinch of this, and no one need fear his tyranny again in this world. No one is much afraid of a man who lies some six feet under ground, shut up in a strong oak coffin, with a finely carved gravestone over ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... atonement, and regeneration, and sanctification, and providence, and grace, have done for it, and with what accumulated love the Father of Spirits, and Redeemer, and Sanctifier, must regard it. And now do we suppose that the shroud, and coffin, and the funeral, and the narrow house, and the darkness, and the solitude and corruption, and the whole dreary and terrible train of death and the grave, are symbols of its reception into heaven, the proper pageantry of its ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... old person who piloted me among those wonderful kings' graves in Cracow was personally not uninteresting, indeed a fine study, and his rigmaroles brought up infallibly upon three words which I could not fail to notice: these were "silberner Sarg vergoldet" (silver coffin, gilded). It had an odd fascination for me this phrase, as I stood always waiting for it; why, I wondered, should anybody want to gild a good ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... Mack. That's all. I haint no good at weepin', never was, wish I cud somehow, it might ease off a feller a little, but tell you what, Ranald, I haint felt so queer since I was a boy lookin at my mother in her coffin. There was nothin mean about Mack. He was good to the heart. He wud do his work slick and never a growl or a groan, and when you wanted a feller to your back, Mack was there. I know there aint no use goin on like this. All I say is, ther's a purty big hole in the world for ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... of those felicitous efforts which have the enviable distinction of carrying its own text and commentary. Below this vast mural monument, is a vault, containing the body of the Marshal. I descended into it, and found it well ventilated and dry. The coffin is immediately obvious: it contains the body of the chieftain enclosed in two cases—of which the first is silver, and the second copper. The heart ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Her face was covered with a thick black veil—not so thick, though, but I could see a white handkerchief all the time beneath; and I saw her slight figure tremble. I was not near enough to hear her sobs, when they commenced throwing down the earth upon the coffin. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... shall live here together all our lives, and die here," thought Barnabas, as he went up the hill. "I shall lie in my coffin in the north room, and it will all be over," but his heart leaped with joy. He stepped out proudly like a soldier in a battalion, he threw back his ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... tied over thickly with a great muffler of cloth, lest the sound might come into the chamber; and then, awful stillness. On a morning later, all the windows are suddenly thrown open, and strange men bring a red coffin into the house, which, after a day or two, goes out borne by different people, who tread uneasily and awkwardly under the weight, but very softly; and after this a weary, weary loneliness. All which drifting over the mind of Reuben, and stirring his sensibilities with a quick rush ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... of us was eager to lend his assistance. Within five minutes Priest was galloping up the north bank of the river to intercept the wagon at the ferry, a well-filled purse in his pocket with which to secure a coffin at Fort Laramie. Flood and Campbell selected a burial place, and with our wagon spade a grave was being dug on a near-by grassy mound, where there were two ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... for the abolition of slavery in the United States. The names of these apostolic men it is well to keep in mind. They are William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Robert B. Hall, Arnold Buffum, William J. Snelling, John E. Fuller, Moses Thatcher, Joshua Coffin, Stillman B. Newcomb, Benjamin C. Bacon, Isaac Knapp, and Henry K. Stockton. The band of reformers, their work done, had risen to pass out of the low, rude room into the dark night. The storm was still raging. They themselves ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... The solemn service open; through long hours I seemed to stand and listen, while each word Fell on my ear as falls the sound of clay Upon the coffin of the worshipped dead. The stately father gave the bride away: The bridegroom circled with a golden band The taper finger of her dainty hand. The last imposing, binding words were said - "What God has joined let no man put asunder" - And all my strife ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... they had often heard of the circumstance of the running in such cases, and had even seen it, they imagined it to be a trick of the corpse-bearers. The mate therefore desired two of the sailors to take up the coffin, and carry it to the grave. The sailors, who were all of the same opinion, readily obeyed; but they had scarcely raised it to their shoulders, before they began to run furiously about, quite unable to direct themselves, till, at last, without intention, they came to the hut of him who had poisoned ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... some party in Memphis, adding that in his barn was another belonging to the same party. They went to the barn, and there found a handsome city hearse, with pall and plumes. The farmer said they had had a big funeral out of Memphis, but when it reached his house, the coffin was found to contain a fine assortment of medicines for the use of Van Dorn's army. Thus under the pretense of a first-class funeral, they had carried through our guards the very things we had tried to prevent. It was a good trick, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Paul Larocque's spade struck sharply on a box. Indians sleep their last sleep in the skins of the chase. Nor was I in the least amazed when that same spade pried up the lid of cached provisions instead of a coffin. Then I had ocular proof of what I knew before, that Louis in word and conduct—but chiefly in conduct, which is the way of the expert had—lied outrageously ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... everywhere but at Charing Cross, no matter what hardship to royalty it involves. Neither has any other station a modern copy of a Queen Eleanor's Cross, but this is doubtless because no other station was the last of these points where her coffin was set down on its way from Lincoln to its final restingplace in Westminster. You cannot altogether regret their lack after you have seen such an original cross as that of Northampton, for though the Victorian piety which replaced the monument at Charing ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... miasm, palpable as the chlorine used to destroy it, tenacious so as in some cases almost to defy extirpation, deadly in some institutions as the plague; which has killed women in a private hospital of London so fast that they were buried two in one coffin to conceal its horrors; which enabled Tonnelle to record two hundred and twenty- two autopsies at the Maternite of Paris; which has led Dr. Lee to express his deliberate conviction that the loss of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... ground beneath your feet the mouldering rags of your shrouds—and he, seated on the verge of the abyss, on the steep and slippery declivity; he, robed in the royal purple of power, will not survive your Resurrection—but must himself descend into the coffin! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... for he was in all ways a model employer. He had insisted, however, upon efficiency in the work, and had, therefore, paid off certain drunken and idle employees who were members of the all-powerful society. Coffin notices hung outside his door had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he found ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... On the coffin of Miles Trevelyan, the son and heir, I saw a wreath of flowers. I asked several times who had brought it, but no one seemed ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... was dead any any other woman come near my coffin de undertaker would have to do his job all over—cause I'd git right up and walk off. Furthermore, Miss Daisy, ma'am, also m'am, which would you ruther be a lark a flying or a dove a settin'—ma'am ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... the Strad? Let's have it out," says Sally. For Mr. Bradshaw possessed a Strad. He brought it out of its coffin with something of the solicitude Petrarch might have shown to the remains of Laura, and when he had rough-sketched its condition of discord and corrected the drawing, danced a Hungarian dance on it, and apologized for his presumption in doing so. He played so very ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... queen, Elizabeth Woodville, it was thought, slept beside him; but when the royal tomb was opened in 1789, and the two coffins within it examined, the smaller one was found empty. The queen's body was subsequently discovered in a stone coffin by the workmen employed in excavating the vault for George the Third. Edward's coffin was seven feet long, and contained a perfect skeleton. On the opposite aisle, near the choir door, as already mentioned, rests the ill-fated Henry the Sixth, beneath an arch sumptuously embellished by Henry ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that Apollo was but a later comer there. There, under his later reign, hard by the golden image of Apollo himself, near the sacred tripod on which the Pythia sat to prophesy, was to be seen a strange object—a sort [20] of coffin or cinerary urn with the inscription, "Here lieth the body of Dionysus, the son of Semele." The pediment of the great temple was divided between them—Apollo with the nine Muses on that side, Dionysus, with perhaps three times three Graces, on this. A third ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... I replied. "So narrow was it that they had my coffin all ready built for me. I have managed to weather upon Yellow Jack this time, however, thank God; and now, if I could only get to sea again, I believe I should soon pull round ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... neighboring chiefs, princes and kings came in with their retainers, when the body was brought out into the shade of a grove, so that all might behold it. Then the procession took up its line of march, while the thirty wives of the Mongo followed the coffin, clad in rags, their heads shaven, their bodies lacerated with burning iron, and filling the air with yells and shrieks until the senseless clay ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... was dark as the grave; whereupon they affixed a weight to the end of a long rope and lowered it down. At a very great depth it seemed to strike against something dull and solid like lead: they supposed it might be a coffin; perhaps it was, but ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... first time, the grim procession pass along the lines carrying a condemned deserter, to be shot to death before his former comrades. His hands were tied across his breast with rough knotted rope and he was seated on his coffin. ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... made one realize more vividly than ever how "all the world's akin." A young mother had died who could have been saved if her folk had realized the danger in time and sent for the doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in the bare kitchen. As space was at a premium the casket had been placed on the top of the long box which serves as a residence for the family rooster and chickens. They kept popping their heads, with their round, quick eyes out through the slats, and ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... dressed well—Auntie always dressed well; but her highest adornment was that of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. When she died, you all gathered lovingly about her; and as you carried her out to rest, the Sunday-school class almost covered the coffin with japonicas; and the poor people stood at the end of the alley, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing bitterly; and the man of the world said, with Solomon, "Her price was above rubies;" and ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... are completely shut, They sleep limply. And others read again And look slowly through long lids, As though they had sucked everything dry. Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide And tell jokes. For my part, I smile courteously. Ah, I hide Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin, The terrible, repressed, wise complaints About the fact that we are forced into this existence, Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped As though in jail, and we wear chains, Confusing, hard, that we do not understand. And the fact that ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... The strife is done, This life's fierce conflicts and its woes are ended: There is no more—eternity begun, Faith merged in sight—hope with fruition blended. Peace, troubled soul! The Warrior rests upon his bier, Within his coffin calmly sleeping. His requiem the cannon peals, And heroes of a hundred fields Their last sad watch are ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... inferior panelling and shields of arms, and surmounted by the figures of Sir Thomas and Lady (Eleanor) Markenfield; and adjoining this tomb (which formerly stood within the aisle) is the lid of a thirteenth century stone coffin on the floor. In the aisle stands another altar-tomb, which has the sides panelled and adorned with shields of arms and bears the figure of an earlier Sir Thomas Markenfield, clad in armour of the period between Poitiers and Agincourt, and wearing a very curious collar of park palings ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... in the distance the twin lighthouses of Thatcher's Island, with Railcut Hill to the north-east, and, stretching to the north, the low, marshy level through which Squam River meanders to the sea by the sands of Coffin's Beach. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... borne by a little group of friends through the silent and deserted streets of Weimar, and lowered into a vault in the churchyard of St. James. There it remained until 1826, when the remains were exhumed and, after some curious vicissitudes, were placed in an oaken coffin and deposited in the ducal mausoleum, where they now rest near those of Goethe ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... farmer can profitably grow wheat, and such a price must be maintained—by bounty, if necessary. It never can be too often urged on politicians and electorate that they, who thwart a policy which makes wheat-growing firm and profitable, are knocking nails in the coffin of their country. We are no longer, and never shall again be, an island. The air is henceforth as simple an avenue of approach as Piccadilly is to Leicester Square. If we are ever attacked there will be no time to get our ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... were at some distance from the dwellings. The graves were generally dug by the old women, as the young people abhorred this kind of work. If they had a coffin, it was placed in the grave empty. Then the corpse was carried out, lying upon a linen cloth, full in view, that the finery and ornaments, with all the effects left by the deceased, might appear to advantage. The funeral ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... quartering. The quantity of black cloth used for covering the floor of, and the roof over, amounted to more than 10,000 yards. I understand that, after the interment, it becomes the perquisite of the clergy of the chapel, as do, also, many of the decorative ornaments placed on, and suspended over, the coffin. You will, perhaps, recollect what some people would willingly have you forget—I mean the squabbling which occurred respecting the velvet cushion upon which the coronet of the late Princess Charlotte ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... she now late at evening hour, But the light still burns, light of virgin wax; On the table stands the coffin newly made; In the coffin new lies ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... mask was removed I saw her face. Not as I remember it in the pride of her youth and beauty—not even as I remember her on her sick-bed—but as I remember her in her coffin." ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... yielding to his persuasion. I was set down at Woolwich towne end, and walked through the towne in the darke, it being now night. But in the streete did overtake and almost run upon two women crying and carrying a man's coffin between them. I suppose the husband of one of them, which, methinks, is a sad thing. Being come to Shelden's, I find my people in the darke in the dining room, merry and laughing, and, I thought, sporting one with another, which, God helpe ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the Chancellor replied, "Sir, that is no proof," till at last the solicitor losing patience exclaimed: "Really, my lord, it is very hard and it is not right that you should not believe me. I knew the man well: I saw the man dead in his coffin. My lord, the man was my client." "Good G—d, sir! why didn't you tell me that sooner? I should not have doubted the fact one moment; for I think nothing can be so likely to kill a man as to have you for ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the end of all hurly-burly and confusion. It is quite possible that under the high, still light in the round church, with its four niche-like chapels, you may see, draped in black, that thing which no one ever mistakes for anything else; and round about the coffin a dozen tall wax candles may be burning with a steady yellow flame. Possibly, at the sound of the leathern curtain slapping the stone door-posts, as it falls behind you, a sad-looking sacristan may shuffle out of a dark corner to see who has come in; ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... more wine he drank, the less inclination did he feel to keep up his hardy outdoor habits of riding and shooting; and, consequently, the more moody and plethoric he became. At length he nearly quarrelled with Dr. Rollinson because the latter told him plainly that the bottle would be his coffin; and a few days later he did quarrel, and very violently too, with the Honorable Richard Pennroyal. This gentleman, it seems, had ridden over to Malmaison and stayed to dinner; and at dessert the conversation got round to the present ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... who several years since lost by death a beautiful daughter. The mother was a Christian woman, and her child was also a Christian, dying in sweet hope. Yet never since that coffin was closed has the mother lifted up her eyes toward God in submission and hope. She visits the cemetery on Sundays, but never the church. She goes with downcast look about her home, weeping whenever her daughter's name ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... kind it makes it hurt all the more when he's off. Oh dear!" She gave a long sigh, pitifully unyouthful in its depth of misery. "I was 'most glad when ma got through with it all, and could rest and look so sort of peaceful in her coffin. But I dunno. She kept more offen me than I knew of, I guess, and it's growin' worse ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... covered with wreck; and the Arabs found employment for many days in burning on the beach the fragments which were cast up, for the sake of the iron. Part of the ORIENT's main-mast was picked up by the SWIFTSURE. Captain Hallowell ordered his carpenter to make a coffin of it; the iron, as well as the wood, was taken from the wreck of the same ship; it was finished as well and handsomely as the workman's skill and materials would permit; and Hallowell then sent it to the admiral with the following letter:—"Sir, I ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... from the feeling of despair and, taking the best boards left from the wreck, constructed a neat coffin. He dug the grave at the white stone as she had directed and laid her to rest. No one but God listened to him as he read the solemn and impressive burial service, according to the established church. No one but God saw those tears flow ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... had seen enough. The plain, dark coffin just before the altar railing told him that another human soul had left its earthly body ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... Innocent VIII feared lest the orthodox faith should suffer by this new cult of a heathen corpse. Julia was buried secretly and at night by his direction, and naught remained in the Capitol but her empty marble coffin. The tale, as told by Infessura, is repeated in Matarazzo and in Nantiporto with slight variations. One says that the girl's hair was yellow, another that it was of the glossiest black. What foundation for the legend may really have ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... had knelt at her feet a passionate lover. The sunlight flashed upon the blue waters below, and the seabirds flew screaming around our heads. It was all just as it had been in the old days; the same for me, but never more for her. The long black coffin was lowered into the grave, and reverently Count Hirsfeld stepped forward and covered it with armfuls of exquisite white flowers, whose perfume made faint the odorous air. And I had no flowers to throw, nothing but the tribute of a passionate grief, and a heart ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pigeon is said to have been taught to come and peck some grains of rice out of Mahomet's ear, to induce people to think that he then received by the ministry of an angel the several articles of the Koran.] The other is that after his death he was buried at Medina, and his coffin suspended, by divine agency or magnetic power, between the ceiling and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... parents' bodies from their temporary resting-place before the high altar to the chapel intended to receive them. Affonso V. himself dying was laid in a temporary tomb of wood in the chapter-house, as were his wife and his grandson, the only child of Dom Joao II.; while a coffin of wood in one of the side chapels ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... Pelham had provided for the Queen's attendance might speak to her of nothing that occurred without the gates of Pevensey, and she saw no other persons save her confessor, a triple-chinned Dominican; had men already lain Jehane within the massive and gilded coffin of a queen the outer world would have made as great ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... said: "You know well The salt was spilt,—to me it fell; And then to add loss unto loss, The knife and fork were laid across. On Friday evening, 'tis too true, Bounce in my lap a coffin flew. Some dire misfortune it portends: I tremble for my ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... that you should see her in death, the coffin will be kept open until the last moment. The medical man in attendance has kindly given me a copy of his certificate, which I inclose. You will see that the remains are identified by the description of a small silver plate on the right parietal bone ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... ancient men of might! Crusader! errant squire, and knight! Our coats and customs soften,— To rise would only make ye weep— Sleep on, in rusty iron sleep, As in a safety-coffin! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... I sent the simple King to hell, Without or coffin, shroud, or passing bell: To me what are divine and human laws? I court no sanction but my own applause! Rapes, robberies, treasons, yield my soul delight, And human carnage gratifies my sight: I drag the parent by the hoary hair, And toss the ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... usual. There were five "quick-tubs" of pine hooped with bamboo in the larger room, containing the remains of coolies, and a few oblong pine chests in the small rooms containing those of middle-class people. At 8 p.m. each "coffin" is placed on the stone trestles, the faggots are lighted underneath, the fires are replenished during the night, and by 6 a.m. that which was a human being is a small heap of ashes, which is placed ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... unpleasant age. Captain Semmes captured the Ariel once, and it is to be deeply regretted that that thrifty buccaneer hadn't made mince-meat of her, because she is a miserable tub at best, and hasn't much more right to be afloat than a second- hand coffin has. I do not know her proprietor, Mr. C. Vanderbilt. But I know of several excellent mill privileges in the State of Maine, and not one of them is so thoroughly "Dam'd" as he was all the way from ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... substance they are based on the traditions of the older American landscape school. There has been much achievement, and there is still greater promise in such landscapists as Tryon, Platt, Murphy, Dearth, Crane, Dewey, Coffin, Horatio Walker, Jonas Lie. Among those who favor the so-called impressionistic view are Weir, Twachtman, and Robinson,[27] three landscape-painters of undeniable power. In marines Gedney Bunce has portrayed many Venetian ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... No coffin had been provided. They found, however, an old wooden chest, made to contain arrows, lying in one of the apartments of the tower, which they used instead. They first laid the decapitated trunk within it, and then adjusted the dissevered ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... gold ring on one of the fingers, which he permitted a noble of the Dolfin family to remove; and a quaint and delightful story was further invented of this ring, which I shall not repeat here, as it is now as well known as any tale of the Arabian Nights. But the fast and the discovery of the coffin, by whatever means effected, are facts; and they are recorded in one of the best-preserved mosaics of the north transept, executed very certainly not long after the event had taken place, closely resembling in its treatment that of the Bayeux tapestry, and showing, ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... her, that only he and I are Christians in this place. I have to go to his house. I rather die than not go. In about twenty days he die. We sent for the Christian friends, from different parts—some thirty to fifty miles away—some nearer. So we bury him the Christian way. The men carry the coffin. They charge four dollars to bury him, because he is Christian. The others they charge only two dollars. We also hire music for the funeral—different from the heathen funeral. Several hundred people were standing on the way, watching us pass by. Some say: "How ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... place on the fourth day after her death. In the morning of that day, from strong affection—having known her from an infant—I begged permission to see the corpse. She was in her coffin; snowdrops and crocuses were laid upon her innocent bosom, and roses, of that sort which the season allowed, over her person. These and other lovely symbols of youth, of springtime, and of resurrection, caught my eye for the first moment; but in the next it fell upon her ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... cases. But the old pencil habit is too strong and a weekly hunt has to be instituted on the French docks for odd cases containing valuable consignments of machine tools. Vexatious delays result. It is just one more nail that the heedless American manufacturer drives into the coffin ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... subjects,—translated these letters into German. But every one agrees that Chopin's end was serene; indeed it is one of the musical death-beds of history, another was Mozart's. His face was beautiful and young in the flower-covered coffin, says Liszt. He was buried from the Madeleine, October 30, with the ceremony befitting a man of genius. The B flat minor Funeral march, orchestrated by Henri Reber, was given, and during the ceremony Lefebure-Wely ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... spoke, 100 But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. Bear with me; 105 My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... big lies told in my life," said Robert Wood, "but I think Abel Coffin, yer know him, Professor, old Jonathan Coffin's son, the one that goes carpenterin', he lives over in Montrose, yer know, can beat anybody we've got in this town, not exceptin' you, Stiles;" and he gave the latter a nudge with his elbow that nearly knocked ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin |
