"Desecrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pick a lock, take the long way, round, when it's the short way across, run away at the right time, or fight when it's wise—all in one afternoon." Rolf set out for the north carrying a bombastic (meant to be reassuring) message from Hampton that he would annihilate any enemy who dared to desecrate ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... never stirred—sleeps like a stone. If he does not wake to-day we shall understand what kind of a sleep it is, and his body will then be borne to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for the rest of us—well, it is agreed that if any one of us ever escapes alive from this place, he will write the fact here, and loyally hide this Manuscript with The Boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... old companion, who had taken his stand on the very site which they proposed to cover with a marble floor, shook his head and frowned; and the young man and the Lily deemed it almost enough to blight the spot, and desecrate it for their airy Temple, that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there. He pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had now relapsed into ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... demon tempts me. But to what? What nameless deed shall desecrate this hand? It must not be: the royal blood of twice two thousand years, it must not die, die like a dream. Oh! my heart is full of care, and my soul is ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... devoutly breathed the general. "It is regrettable that you used this means when a word to me would have served the purpose, for—it is no trivial matter to desecrate a Mexican graveyard. My country, too, has a government. An officer of the State of Texas, under arms, has crossed the Rio ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... both firm in refusing admission to his garrisons. Brisac was in his hands already, and her fortifications held by mercenaries, but an order to the citizens to work, one and all, upon the defences, produced a sudden disturbance with very serious results. It was at Eastertide, and the command to desecrate a hallowed festival, one especially cherished in the Rhinelands, proved the final provocation ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... surpass the old in splendor, you never dream that the shadow of death is hanging over your halls. Forgetful of the tomb, you lay the foundation of your palaces. In your mad pursuit of pleasure you rob the sea of its beach and desecrate hallowed ground. More even than this, in your wickedness you destroy the peaceful homes of your clients! Without a touch of remorse you drive the father from his land, clasping to his bosom his household gods and his ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... favorite with Landor, and one day, years after the story was published, he burst out with a tremendous emphasis, and declared the one mistake of his life was that he had not purchased the house in Bath, and then and there burned it to the ground, so that no meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and absentee,—This is Christmas-day 1815 with us; what it may be with you I don't know, the 12th of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... necessary that there should be Wisdom to conceive, Strength to support, and Beauty to adorn, all great and important undertakings." "Know ye not," says the Apostle Paul, "that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man desecrate the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... in 1753 when it offered its sanctuary to the worshipers in King's Chapel, after that edifice was burned, for them to hold their Christmas services. It was with the implicit understanding that there was to be no spruce, holly, or other greens used on that occasion to desecrate their meeting-house. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... chair—an empty box. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and the hands dropped limp. He was smoking, too, I could barely see his pipe, and but for the odor of very strong tobacco, would not have known he had a pipe. Why does the master of the house permit his servants so to desecrate this beautiful ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... the Ka'aba itself, and began winging erratic courses all about the Forbidden City. Men, birds, and animals alike, all shared the terror of this unheard-of outrage when—according to ancient prophesy—the Great Devils of Feringistan should desecrate ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... is. No, that will not do. The intention must decide. If any one bakes bread on the Sabbath, I should say to him: 'Is it for your own good or for gain?' In the first case you are acting rightly, in the last you desecrate the Sabbath." ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... of the premises was by a short, narrow lane, very dirty and very little used, because, whatever might have been in old times, it led now from nowhere to nowhere. Meadows received by this entrance one or two persons whom he never allowed to desecrate his knocker. At the head of these furtive visitors was Peter Crawley, attorney-at-law, a gentleman who every New Year's Eve used to say to himself with a look of gratified amazement—"Another year gone, and I not struck off ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... it had been given? We know how terrible was the judgment which came upon a heathen monarch who dared to use the vessels which had belonged to the Jewish Temple, and we may believe that a still more terrible judgment is prepared for those who desecrate Christian churches, and that it will be none the less sure, because, under the new dispensation of mercy, it comes ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... N. misuse, misusage, misemployment^, misapplication, misappropriation. abuse, profanation, prostitution, desecration; waste &c 638. V. misuse, misemploy, misapply, misappropriate. desecrate, abuse, profane, prostitute: waste &c 638; overtask, overtax, overwork: squander &c 818. cut blocks with a razor, employ a steam engine to crack a nut; catch at a straw. Adj. misused &c v.. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... restitution of his property is made to the dead, and odd articles, such as brass bowls or a gun or a shield or sword, are placed in a sacred cave, which none dare desecrate by entering to remove anything. These caves are high up on the mountain-sides, and are said to be full of sacred offerings, which have accumulated ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... desecrate, O labour-wounded feet and hands, O blood poured forth in pledge to fate Of nameless lives in divers lands, O slain and spent and sacrificed People, the ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... as it was meant, but always perverted and misunderstood. While this spirit lasts, there can be no hope of the achievement of high things, for men will not open the secrets of their hearts to us, if we intend to desecrate the holy, or to broil themselves upon a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... with her daughters in a day or two! And good gracious, he would be left alone in the house! to do as he pleased! to keep bachelor's hall! to bring that girl there as his housekeeper, perhaps, and so desecrate his sacred, patrimonial home! No, that must never be! She must invite and urge her son to accompany herself and his sisters to Washington. But if he should decline the invitation and persist in his declination, what then? Why, as a last resort, she would give up the Washington ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... not afraid to desecrate such a place with your horrid vices—I mean the iron things—and furnace and litter?" asked Mary. She had sunk down upon an anvil, on which lay a newspaper, the first seat that she could find, and thence surveyed the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... of awakening, when your mind is free, you can so direct your attention as to receive joy instead of gloom, love instead of hate. You can exclude the thought of evil or you can yield and allow the tempter to desecrate your shrine. Whichever choice you make, these first moments of your day's living will color the whole course of the coming hours. The feeling first accepted and welcomed will more or less continue and form a background to all your ideas and determine your ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... shrines o'erthrown, His altars desecrate, His priests the victims of a pagan hate,— ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... intolerable weariness and disappointment usurped its place. Since her acquaintance with Dr. Grey, he had been her sole Melek Taous, adored with Yezidi fervor; but to-day she overturned, and strove to revile and desecrate the idol, to whose vacant pedestal she lifted a colossal vanity. Her bruised, numb heart, seemed incapable of loving any one, or anything, and a hatred and contempt of her ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... each other, and discussing what they read. Even their Sundays were often wickedly devoted to such intellectual pastime on the banks of the Schuylkill, whither they strolled, instead of visiting the house of God—all except Watson, who had too much religious principle thus to desecrate ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... sad old companion, who had taken his stand on the very site which they proposed to cover with a marble floor, shook his head and frowned, and the young man and the Lily deemed it almost enough to blight the spot and desecrate it for their airy temple that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there. He pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them in the daytime, so on Sunday morning when they were dancing and did not want to stop you would see them filling up the cracks with old rags. The idea was that it would not be Sunday inside if they kept the sun out, and thus they would not desecrate the Sabbath; and these things continued until the freedom of ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... issued to voters, warning them against the chicane of unpatriotic demagogues. As a counter-blast, "All Good Democrats" were summoned to hold mass-meetings in the several counties on the Fourth of July. "We select the Fourth of July," read this pronunciamento, "not to desecrate it with unhallowed shouts ... but in cool and calm devotion to our country, to renew upon the altars of its liberties, a sacred oath of fidelity to ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... they will then like it naturally, just as they now like their follies and sins. Or those who are much engaged in worldly business, who confess they do not give that attention to religion which they ought to give; who neglect the ordinances of the Church; who desecrate the Lord's day; who give little or no time to the study of God's word; who allow themselves in various small transgressions of their conscience, and resolutely harden themselves against the remorse which such transgressions are calculated to cause ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... hope for peaceful deliverance of the millions who are clanking their chains on our blood-red soil. Yet I know that God reigns, and that the slave system contains within itself the elements of destruction. But how long it is to curse the earth, and desecrate his image, he alone foresees. It is frightful to think of the capacity of a nation like this to commit sin, before the measure of its iniquities be filled, and the exterminating judgments of God overtake it. For what is left us but "a fearful looking ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... Terrorists and Anarchists of France, M. L'Abbe.... The Committee of Public Safety who pillage and murder, outrage women, and desecrate religion.... Is that ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was the repugnance felt for the slayer of a Brahmana that to even talk with him was regarded a sin. To instruct such a man in the truths of the Vedas and of morality was to desecrate religion itself. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... father and his brother. Others who knew the secret are now silent in death. The reasons for the secrecy were that it was feared that, if the burial place was known at the time, there might have been an inclination on the part of the enemies of those men to desecrate their bodies and graves. There is not now, and probably has not been for years, any danger of such desecration, and the only reason I can see for still keeping it a secret is the natural disinclination on the part of the family to talk ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... people, and not of a section, or a party. His administration was truly national in its scope, its objects, and its results. His views of the sacred nature of the trust imposed upon him by his fellow-citizens were too exalted to allow him to desecrate the power with which it clothed him to the promotion of party or personal interests. Although not unmindful of the party which elevated him to the presidency, nor forgetful of the claims of those ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... had insisted on its choice as a voluntary. Those who had heard the tune before and half remembered it decided that it must come from the "Mikado"; and one stern dowager went so far as to protest to the rector for permitting such a tune to desecrate the sacred edifice. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... and as the king marched through the main aisle with his splendid retinue, every eye was bent upon him and every whisper hushed. Proceeding straight up to the high altar, he bent his knee before the God whose name he was now so soon to desecrate. Then the archbishop raised from the altar a crown of gold glittering with precious jewels, and placed it reverently upon the monarch's brow. The sacred rite of consecration over, the monarch rose and turning was met by a herald of Charles ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... thrill of song half deified, I bind them proudly on my locks of snow. There shall they bide, till he who follows next, Of whom I cannot even guess the name, Shall by Court favour, or some vain pretext Of fancied merit, desecrate the same,— And think, perchance, he wears them quite as well As the sole bard who sang ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... niggers, or the cheerful sway-away-my-boys expression of the Jack Tar, but with sour, cameronean-lookin' faces, that seem as if they were dreadfully disappointed they were not persecuted any longer—had no churches and altars to desecrate, and no bishops to anoint with the oil of hill-side maledictions as of old), while others are emerging from the fiery furnaces beneath for fresh air, and wipe a hot dirty face with a still dirtier shirt sleeve, and in return for the nauseous exudation, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to be even with the tutor, and threatened to desecrate his grave. When he heard of the threat, in order to prevent its execution he built this strange monument, and instead of being buried beneath it he was said to have been buried near the summit; but the woman was not to be out-done, for after ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... changes of fortune and the frowns of the world. Here his perplexed spirit finds inspirations of strength, and space for rest. There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a Home. ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... about it methodically," the orator continued. "To-day is Friday, and in an hour it will be ended. If we begin on Saturday, we may be tempted to desecrate the Sabbath; therefore, as good citizens, I pray that you will first consider your duty to your God, and not forget to keep holy His day. The soldiers will be here on Monday. Let us begin our work then, and finish it before the ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... Art; you want to desecrate a great, important Art! It takes long years of preparation, hard labour, infinite patience, aching disappointment; it takes brain, and passion, and intelligence to make an actor. Now where ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... her face would become peaked and pitiful, she would seem like a child of ten. Sometimes Thyrsis could laugh her out of such a mood by telling her of her "beady black eyes"; and she did not like to desecrate her eyes. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... signs of intellectual barrenness and the vicious pandering to lower appetites, consequent upon the trading spirit of literature, we note with regret the growing tendency to desecrate beautiful subjects by using them as materials for burlesque. We have had a Comic History of England—one of the dreariest and least excusable of jokes, and capable of for ever vulgarizing in the young mind the great deeds and noble life of our forefathers—and we have ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... Corilla!" mockingly exclaimed the pope. "Shall a Corilla desecrate the spot hallowed by the feet of Tasso and Petrarch? No, I say, no; when art becomes the plaything of a courtesan, then may the sacred Muses veil their heads and mourn in silence, but they must not degrade themselves ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that when these lands were given to my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse upon any who should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the three Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of a fever—poisoned, you understand, by the soil—and the last got himself crazy of aguardiente. ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... improver of Beethoven— Tricksy professor of charlatanerie— Inventor of musical artillery— Barbarous rain and thunder maker— Unconscionable money taker— Travelling about both near and far, Toll to exact at every bar— What brings thee here again, To desecrate old Drury's fane? Egregious attitudiniser! Antic fifer! com'st to advise her 'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls? To raze her benches, That Gallic wenches Might play their brazen antics at masked ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... molded into general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and the laws; and then our country shall continue to improve, and our nation, revering his name, and permitting no hostile foot to pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be the first to hear the last trump that ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... be the truth of humanity—its own truth that sets it free—not binds, and lops, and mutilates it! who see God to be the father of every human soul—the ideal Father, not an inventor of schemes, or the upholder of a court etiquette for whose use he has chosen to desecrate the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... fright, men, women, and children fled to St. Sophia, leaving their homes and goods to be plundered. A hundred thousand persons rushed in and locked and barred all the church doors behind them. They trusted that the conqueror would not dare to desecrate so holy a place. Abashed before the holiness of God, he would bow down in the dust and leave them in peace. And according to a prophecy the angel of God would descend from heaven in the hour of need and rescue ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... vulnerable, he hurt her. Oh, where she was delivered over to him, in her very soft femaleness, he seemed to lacerate her and desecrate her. She pressed her hands over her womb in anguish, whilst the tears ran down her face. And why, and why? Why was ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Emperor be placed in the temples of the people who inhabited the outlying parts of the Roman domains. This was a mere formality and it did not have any deep significance. But to the Jews such a thing seemed highly sacrilegious and they would not desecrate their Holiest of Holies by the carven image of ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... in this view, it was melancholy to see him so utterly engrossed in his pursuits and plans. He did not take time to look about him and enjoy. The Sabbath to him was a dull, wearisome, restless day. He had too much respect for it to desecrate it by even a private attention to his affairs, and he had very little idea of any spiritual wants. He was active in erecting a church and securing a good preacher, on whose ministrations he attended regularly with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hold in disrespect &c (despise) 930; misprize, disregard, slight, trifle with, set at naught, pass by, push aside, overlook, turn one's back upon, laugh in one's sleeve; be disrespectful &c adj., be discourteous &c 895; treat with disrespect &c n.; set down, put down, browbeat. dishonor, desecrate; insult, affront, outrage. speak slightingly of; disparage &c (dispraise) 932; vilipend^, vilify, call names; throw dirt, fling dirt; drag through the mud, point at, indulge in personalities; make mouths, make faces; bite the thumb; take by the beard; pluck by the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... produce of the land brought to the central storehouse. The new settlers showed a measureless cunning and industry in reclaiming worthless soil; and so eager were they for land at last, that the Cistercians were even said to desecrate churchyards, and to encroach on the borders of royal forests. They grew famous for the breeding of horses according to the exacting taste of the day, learned in the various species of palfreys and sumpter horses and knight's chargers and horses for ambling or for trotting. They thanked ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... "Love!—do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what it means. I do—and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman—tender and restrained and true—I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... adorned the walls of Plymouth church with their private paintings. Their object, of course, in doing so was not to honor God, but their pastor. But if the portraits of men were no desecration to that church, how can the portraits of Saints desecrate ours?(279) And what can be more appropriate than to surround the Sanctuary of Jesus Christ with the portraits of the Saints, especially of Mary and of the Apostles, who, in their life, ministered to His sacred ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... I told you that I'd rather starve than desecrate the home of my ancestors—that I'd sooner end my days in a London garret than level a single wall for my own benefit—what then? Would you put me down as a madman for ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of emotions: it worships, yet it will not stop at sacrilege; it will build about its object a temple of adoration, then desecrate the fane; it will give all, yet ruthlessly seize everything; it delights in pleasing, yet it sometimes wittingly wounds; its ineffable tenderness often merges into an inclemency extraordinary; —symbol of universal duality, it is ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... abolition of worship, while, in other communes, we will get rid of this authoritatively through our missionary representatives. We will close the churches, demolish the steeples, melt down the bells, send all sacred vessels to the Mint, smash the images of the saints, desecrate relics, prohibit religious burials, impose the civil burial, prescribe rest during the decadi[2133] and labor on Sundays. No exception whatever. Since all positive religions deal in error, we will outlaw them all: we will exact ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... vent his rage—it suddenly occurred to him to visit Mrs Allcraft, and to worry her with his complaints. He hurried to her house, and forced himself into her presence. We will not follow him, for grief is sacred; and who that had the heart of man, would desecrate the hearth hallowed by affliction, deep and terrible as that of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... the fortress in 1814, he did not desecrate or despoil the place: it was left for the Germans to do that, just a century later in the progress of civilization! My blood grew hot as I heard from our two men the story of what the new Vandals had done. Just for a moment I almost forgot the secret burning in my heart. The proud pile of ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Mr. Quinn exclaimed. "Damn it, Henry, he'd desecrate it! He'd tear up my cornfields and meadows and put factories and mills in their place! That's what he'd do!" He turned sideways and leant against the lintel of the window so that he was looking at his son. "There was a fellow came to see me once," he said, "from London. A speculatin' chap, an' ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... ease; Albeit men mock thee with their similes, And prate of being "happy as a clam!" What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off,—as foemen take their spoil,— Far from thy friends and family to roam; Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home, To meet destruction in a foreign broil! Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard Declares, O clam! ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... are introduced to the interior of the cabin and the contents of wash-hand basins. The solemn hero of tragedy plays Scrub in the farce. This is "very tolerable and not to be endured." The Noble Lord is almost the only writer who has prostituted his talents in this way. He hallows in order to desecrate; takes a pleasure in defacing the images of beauty his hands have wrought; and raises our hopes and our belief in goodness to Heaven only to dash them to the earth again, and break them in pieces the more effectually from the very height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... very fine and open that year. A golden sunshine from October passed on into November and Lady Harman spent many of these days amidst the pretty things the builder from Aleham had been too hurried to desecrate, dump, burn upon, and flatten into indistinguishable mire, after the established custom of builders in gardens since the world began. She would sit in the rockery where she had sat with Mr. Brumley and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of his foe, He will not speak to her in hate; My boy will never stoop so low As motherhood to desecrate. But she shall know what once I knew— Eyes that are glorious to see, The light of manhood shining through— ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... enough," said Dalton, rising slowly, and drawing a small riding-whip, "to know now that this person is no duke, but either a charlatan or a devil. In either case, since he has intruded here, to desecrate and degrade, I find it proper to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... with eyes That shot forth fire, and a heavy brow, Portentous as the lowering front of heaven, When the reverberant, sullen thunder rolls Among the echoing clouds. Thus she denounced Her ancient, fickle worshippers, who left Her altars desecrate, her fires unfed, Her name forgotten. "But I reign, I reign!" She would shrill forth, triumphant; "yea, I reign. Men name me not, but worship me unnamed, Beauty and Love within their heart of hearts; Not with bent knees and empty breath of words, But ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... conclusion of this recital, he again rubbed the stone for a while, and gave vent to some nonsensical utterances, after which he surrendered it to Chia Cheng. "This object," he said, "has already resumed its efficacy; but you shouldn't do anything to desecrate it. Hang it on the post of the door in his bed-room, and with the exception of his own relatives, you must not let any outside female pollute it. After the expiry of thirty-three days, he will, I can guarantee, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... from need or indifference, make the game of love their profession, they still retain a natural and charming glamour and play the sorry game with a certain grace and conviction as a poor homage to the lofty secret which they must needs desecrate. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... that only at that moment sprung up in his mind? If it was real it came from the street parallel with the one he was in. Who could be driving out at this time? What other buggy than his own could be found to desecrate this Christian Sabbath? An irresistible thought impelled him at the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the corner as Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang from his buggy, throwing the reins over ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... remarked Mr. Cutting, "I do not intend upon this floor to answer the remark which the gentleman from Kentucky has thought proper to employ. It belongs to a different region. It is not ere that I will desecrate my lips with undertaking to retort ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... allusion to his father would have. A slight tinge of shame was in his face; but I saw that he had not sufficient moral courage to resent the shameful desecration of a parent's name. How should he, when he was himself the first to desecrate that name? ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... says Love, "all that I ask, Is just thy hand clasp. Could I brush thy cheek As zephyrs brush a rose leaf, words are weak To tell the bliss in which my soul would bask. There is no language but would desecrate A joy so great." ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... generations. They, however, have no influence on the course of worldly events. They are known only to silent eye-witnesses, and soon fall into oblivion. But hypocrisy, illusion, and bigotry stalk abroad undaunted; they desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to the unholy purposes of selfishness; which hurries along every good feeling in the false excitement of the age. Thus it was in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... freethinkers, uniting with nobody and letting their children grow up in the same way. In brief, there are Germans here, and probably the most of them, who despise God's Word and all good outward order, blaspheme and frightfully and publicly desecrate the Sacraments. Spiritus enim errorum et sectarum asylum sibi hic constituit (For the spirit of errors and sects has here established his asylum). And the chief fault and cause of this is the lack of provision for an external visible church-communion. For since, as ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... this final dream That paints the past so wonderfully fair; No rising sun shall desecrate that gleam Of fragile colour hanging on the air. Enshrined in sunset are all things that seem Happy and beautiful; and Thou ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... Spaniards had the grace to respect these, as they had been previously enjoined by the Inca; but they required that the plates which garnished the walls should be all removed. The Peruvians most reluctantly acquiesced in the commands of their sovereign to desecrate the national temple, which every inhabitant of the city regarded with peculiar pride and veneration. With less reluctance they assisted the Conquerors in stripping the ornaments from some of the other edifices, where the gold, however, being ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... brought it with me, thinking you might need it—hoping you might, I mean;" and he smiled. "I have kept it always near me; partly because I wanted the comfort of it, partly because I was afraid some one else might find it, and desecrate our ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... Mitchell's opinion about the best manner of giving my readings; for, as I do it for money, I shall do it in the way most likely to be profitable. At the same time, I shall certainly use my best endeavor to have the business so arranged as to desecrate as little as possible the great works of the master, in the exposition and illustration of which I look for infinite pleasure and profit of the highest order, whatever my meaner gain ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... on a Friday. Joshua knew it would pain the people deeply to be compelled to desecrate the holy Sabbath day. Besides, he noticed that the heathen were using sorcery to make the heavenly hosts intercede for them in the fight against the Israelites. He, therefore, pronounced the Name of the Lord, and the sun, moon and stars stood ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... cell to be picked by my industrious fingers had all been removed the previous evening, lest I should desecrate the sacred day by pursuing my ordinary avocation. My apartment was therefore clean and tidy, and by the aid of a bit of dubbin I managed to give an air of newness to my well-worn shoes. The attendants had, however, omitted to provide me with a Sunday suit, so I was obliged to don my working clothes, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... answered. "Oh, do not desecrate 'the eternal God-word, love!' There is little enough of that in the business that goes by its name now-a-days. I am a lady—I cannot use the right word. But it is none the less the thing I mean because it calls blasphemously on God Almighty to help ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... taste and the unfeeling ignorance of restorers have been employed, as so often in Italy, to spoil and desecrate the memorials of the past; and the munificence of Pius, Munificentia Pii IX., is placarded on the inner walls. One is too frequently reminded at Rome of the old and new lamps in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Betrayed the secret places of my soul? Teaching him that his lips, Uttering their native earthquake and eclipse, Could never so avail To rend from hem to hem the ultimate veil Of this most desolate Spirit, and leave it stripped and desecrate, - Nay, never so have wrung From eyes and speech weakness unmanned, unmeet; As when his terrible dotage to repeat Its little lesson learneth at your feet; As when he sits among His sepulchres, to play With broken toys your hand has ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... arranged themselves, with black wands, in solemn Undertakers' order of procession on either side of the funeral vehicles. Those clumsy pomps of feathers and velvet, of strutting horses and marching mutes, which are still permitted among us to desecrate with grotesquely-shocking fiction the solemn fact of death, fluttered out in their blackest state grandeur and showed their most woeful state paces, as the procession started magnificently with its meager offering of one dead body more to the bare ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... them again. Father, you shall take me to my mother's grave. One prayer there—one word with Estelle—and then I will go to Paris; it is the resort of every criminal, and thence it sends forth its crime-blackened ruffians to desecrate this fair earth with horror. Come, father, come—my mother's ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... convincing me that she had, in a great degree, taken leave of hope. We conversed some time longer, returning toward the cottage; but there was nothing further to communicate, that it is necessary to record. Neither of us thought of self, and I would as soon have attempted to desecrate a church, as attempt to obtain any influence over Lucy, in my own behalf, at such a moment. All my feelings reverted to my poor sister again, and I was dying with impatience to return to the sloop, whither, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... will be with us too, for I promised to have luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert her into an evening wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which "Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... built a temple to Venus, probably on the spot now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Eusebius, writing about A.D. 325, speaks of Constantine's church built on the site of this temple. It is claimed that Hadrian's heathen temple was erected to desecrate the place of Christ's entombment, and that Constantine's church, being erected on the site of the temple, and regarded as the place called Calvary, fixes this as the true site; but whether the church and temple were on the same site or not, the present church ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... throttling you. It's reform—reform! You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back into Sunday-School, where you can make love to the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, and desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... prison and the silent little church and convent of St. Elizabeth. He looked up to where in the central tower a small grated window lighted from within showed the place where the last of the Bourbons was being taught to desecrate the traditions of his race, at the bidding of a mender of shoes—a naval officer cashiered for ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... The wave of reform passed even across the frontier and was borne into the Assyrian province of Samaria; the temple and image which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel were reduced to ashes, and human bones were burnt upon the altar to desecrate it beyond possibility ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... her in her own sanctuary "which she had delighted in." 1635 added to 645 make 2280, a date not to be disputed. Now if a successful Elamite invasion in 2280 found in Chaldea famous sanctuaries to desecrate, the religion to which these sanctuaries belonged, that of the Cushite, or Semitic colonists, must have been established in the country already for several, if not many, centuries. Indeed, quite recent discoveries show that it had been so considerably over a thousand years, so that we cannot possibly ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... papier-mache blotter embellished with a view of York Minster by moonlight, a brass ink-stand, which would have been insulted by the touch of ink, and a penholder with a cornelian handle which had never known a nib. Not the most daring of visitors had ever been known to desecrate that shrine. When the mistress of the house wished to write a letter, she spread a newspaper over the dining- room table, and a sheet of blotting-paper over that, and carefully unlocked the desk which had been a present from Cousin Mary Evans ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and embue them with the earnest desire to impart freely what is so freely given. Look upon your son, your pride and joy. A few years hence may find him living side by side with one of those unfortunate boys who knew no better than to desecrate the holy day with gambling. Will he be able to withstand the influences which will surround him in such society? That, under God, depends on your prayers and efforts. Ask earnestly for grace to prepare him to do the blessed work, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... incidentally, the destruction of a corrupt and unworthy structure claiming the title of the law. In this strange, swift panorama there is all the story of the social system, all the picture of the building of that temple of the law which, as Americans, we now revere, or, at times, still despise and desecrate. ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... Wheatman," he said. "You must meet them to-morrow. The young rascal cries out whenever I desecrate him with my touch. It would have served him right to have ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Margaret," he said approaching the litter, "to have been able to save you from the power of these villains. Fortunately, word came to me that the outlaws in the forest were about to carry you off, and that they would not hesitate even to desecrate the walls of the convent. Assembling my men-at-arms, I at once rode to your rescue, and am doubly happy to have saved you, first, as a gentleman, secondly, as being the man to whom our gracious prince has assigned you as a wife. I am ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... particulars as to the burial customs of various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her husband burnt to ashes, and these ashes reduced to powder, of which she mixed some with all the water she ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... were to lead a nameless, disreputable, and obscure existence. I will sooner die of starvation as a Princess Dowager von Reuss than live in opulence as Marianne Meier. This is my last word; and now, sir, begone! Do not desecrate this room by your cold and egotistic thoughts, and by your heartless calculations! Honor the repose of the dead and the grief ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... now in mourning, but tomorrow, covered with laurels, she will have extinguished the last of the tyrants who now desecrate her soil. Then she will invite you to a single association, so that our motto may be 'Unity in South America.' All Americans should have ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... lost your office, your income, your rank, and you are banished from Berlin! that is all. The king, as you see, has been gracious; he could have had you executed, or sent to Spandau for life, but he would not desecrate his new reign with your blood. For this reason was ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... but he was not able. It appeared as if some powerful spell held it firmly together; and it has remained unopened down to the present time. May it remain so until the last awful day, and may the impious hand of avarice or curiosity never desecrate these ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... if he is ever made prisoner and is not shot for the murders and cruelties he and his subjects have committed on British men and women at sea and on land, of deporting the Kaiser to St. Helena to desecrate the ground made sacred for all time because of the great Emperor who was an exile there. Force of circumstances made Louis Philippe declare the truth to the world's new generations (doubtless to save his own precious ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the camp knew of the Annunciation, of that fair, sacred day when the birds will not even build their nests lest their labour desecrate its holiness." ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... heard the hammering and did not understand it. The place had been covered with an artificial lake, if only because the whole truth had to be covered with an artificial legend. But don't you see that it is exactly what those pagan nobles would have done, to desecrate it with a sort of heathen goddess, as the Roman Emperor built a temple to Venus on the Holy Sepulchre. But the truth could still be traced out, by any scholarly man determined to trace it. And this man was ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... of the Christian doctrine concerning it, v. 312. endeavors of the French Constituent Assembly to desecrate it, v. 312. ends for which it was instituted, vii. 131. restraints upon it in the reign of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a home.—CHAPIN. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... The next day, Thursday the 11th, we left for Springfield. The meeting was held in the evening, at the Town Hall, as some of the Parish committee objected to its being held in the church, fearing it would desecrate the place. The Hall was crowded, and many could not gain admittance. Dr. Osgood opened the meeting with prayer, took several of the Mendians to his own house, and manifested a deep interest on their behalf, as did many of the other inhabitants. ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... they did not see any use for certain buildings, and so they knocked them down. But they were not such fools as to encumber their march with the fragments of the edifice they had themselves spoilt. They were at least superior to the modern American mode of reasoning. They did not desecrate the stones ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... yoke upon thy neck! I see new Religions without end calling out their truths upon the banks of Sihor, and summoning thy people to their worship! I see thy temples—thy holy temples—crumbling in the dust: a wonder to the sight of men unborn, who shall peer into thy tombs and desecrate the great ones of thy glory! I see thy mysteries a mockery to the unlearned, and thy wisdom wasted like waters on the desert sands! I see the Roman Eagles stoop and perish, their beaks yet red with the blood of men, and the long lights ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... read the prayers and the service for the dead. Three volleys were fired over the graves after the slain men had been laid in them. Bugler Swanson blew "taps," after which the graves were carefully filled and the tops sodded so that roving Moros would not afterwards find and desecrate these graves, sacred to the American people. All in good time the American military authorities would send and exhume these remains, transferring them to marked ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... I sped onward, paying brief visits to the Palais de Justice, the Hotel de Ville, and spending a cool half hour in Notre Dame. I love to sit in these majestic fanes, abstracting them from the superstition which does but desecrate them, and gaze upward to their lofty, vaulted arches, to drink in the impression of architectual sublimity, which I can neither analyze nor express. Cathedrals do not seem to me to have been built. They seem, rather, stupendous growths of nature, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the devil fleeing from holy water, were not perhaps quite so benighted as our superior modern culture has led us to suppose. For that "hatred of goodness exaggerated to the point of paroxysm," that impulse to desecrate and defile which forms the basis of black magic and has manifested itself in successive phases of the world-revolution, springs from fear. So by their very hatred the powers of darkness proclaim the existence of the powers of light and their own impotence. ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... taken in the synagogue of Antichrist,—I mean in that forge and manufactory of all evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of 1789. Those monsters employed the same or greater industry to desecrate and degrade that state, which other legislators have used to render it holy and honorable. By a strange, uncalled-for declaration, they pronounced that marriage was no better than a common civil contract. It was one of their ordinary tricks, to put their sentiments into the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with the clasp set before. He is Saul, ye remember in glory—ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though 215 much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing—one arm round the tent-prop, to 220 raise His bent head, and the other hung slack—till I touched ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... This will be something to which I can look forward. All this has been in my mind always—ever since I first met you. I feel now as though every thought, every hour, every event of the last five months has been a preparation for this moment. On one point, however, I have never wavered. We can't desecrate our love by some odious law-suit. If this life were all, it would be different. But it isn't all. It seems as though we are not to be everything to each other. Yet we can be more than everything—we can be one existence even if we cannot be ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... The music consists of masses, and other sacred airs, varied with selections from popular operas. The performers are famous throughout the country for their musical skill, and the audiences are large and fashionable. No one seems to think it sinful thus to desecrate the Lord's Day; and it must be confessed that these concerts are the least objectionable Sunday amusements known to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe |
