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Nun   Listen
noun
nun  n.  
1.
A woman devoted to a religious life, who lives in a convent, under the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. "They holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration."
2.
(Zool.)
(a)
A white variety of domestic pigeons having a veil of feathers covering the head.
(b)
The smew.
(c)
The European blue titmouse.
Gray nuns (R. C. Ch.), the members of a religious order established in Montreal in 1745, whence branches were introduced into the United States in 1853; so called from the color or their robe, and known in religion as Sisters of Charity of Montreal.
Nun buoy. See under Buoy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nun" Quotes from Famous Books



... skeptron, to men oupote phulla kai ozous] [Greek: Phusei, epeide prota tomen en oressi leloipen,] [Greek: Oud' anathelesei; peri gar rha he chalkos elepse] [Greek: Phulla te kai phloion; nun aute min huies Achaion] [Greek: En palameis phoreousi dikaspoloi, hoi te themistas] ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... been out about an hour, spying into the garden, looking down on a great part of the courts and buildings, and carefully hiding behind chimneys whenever we saw a black-veiled nun, who might have raised her head and seen us in the clouds, when we asked ourselves how we should get back. The arrangement of the roofs had allowed us to step or jump down. Going up was not so easy. I think it would have been impossible without a ladder. We scarcely knew where ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child,—undone Before God fashioned star or sun! God, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways, And bargain for his love, and stand, Paying a ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... be present at another. Mr. B. was singled out by a bold Nun, who talked Italian to him with such free airs, that I did not much like it, though I knew not what she said; for I thought the dear gentleman no more kept to his Spanish gravity, than she to the requisites of the habit she wore: ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... those towers—the Southern one— Sister Margaret Bourgeoys, that sainted nun, Sat patiently teaching, day after day, How to find to Jesus the blessed way, 'Mid the daughters swarth of the forest dell, Who first from her lips of a God heard tell, And learned the virtues that woman should grace, Whatever might be her rank ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... gone, Dionysius, fearful that Plato would give him a bad reputation in Athens—somewhat after the manner and habit of the "escaped nun"—sent a fast-rowing galley after him. Plato was arrested and sold into slavery on ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... then, when her life was at its brightest and gayest—when she was a beautiful and brilliant young woman—she had had a great and bitter sorrow, which had changed her for ever. From that time she had never left the house in which she had been born, and had lived the life of a nun in everything but being enclosed in convent walls. At first she had had her parents to take care of, but when they died she had been left entirely alone in the great chateau, and devoted herself to prayer and works of charity among the villagers ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... were star o' t' pleace, For awd an' young observers; 'Twad meade a nun fra t' convent run An' ne'er again ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... He was a great rival of Wolsey, and retired from the court until the fall of the cardinal. In the disputes of the time he embraced the side of the old religion, and gave some countenance to Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent. The last part of his life was devoted to the cares of his diocese and to letters, which he cultivated diligently. He was a personal friend of Erasmus, whom he induced to visit England. His tomb remains in ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... at me! The fire, the pulley, the rack, the wheel, the water—there's no devilment they ha'n't tried on this poor carcase o' mine and all by reason of a Spanish nun as bore away ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... determined to retain the difference as profit for his trouble. King Boy then went to the mouth of the river with Richard Lander, John being left at Brass-town. The English brig Thomas, commanded by Captain Lake, was then lying at anchor in the Nun, and Richard Lander went on board, in the hope that Lake would advance the sum, which was sure to be repaid by the British Government. He, however, had no sympathy towards his distressed countrymen, and peremptorily refused ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... sweet Prince; She that hath snow enough about her heart, To take the wanton spring of ten such lines off, May be a Nun without probation. Sir, you have in such neat poetry, gathered a kiss, That if I had but five lines of that number, Such pretty begging blanks, I should commend Your fore-head, or your cheeks, and ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... the most eminent of all its citizens in wealth and rank. But his mother St. Silvia, a woman of fervent piety, had educated him with great care. He turned from the secular to the religious life, following perhaps her example, since on the death of his father she became a nun. He was a monk on the Coelian hill when Pope Benedict in the year 577 named him seventh deacon of the Roman Church. Pope Pelagius II. sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, an office equally difficult and honourable. The emperor Tiberius was then reigning, with whom he became ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... employed to indicate the lapse of time, either the verb indicating the action is repeated, as, "he walked, and walked, and walked," a proceeding not unknown to our own stories, or such expressions as the following are used: Cuntu 'un porta tempu, or lu cuntu 'un metti tempu, or 'Ntra li cunti nun cc'e tempu, which are all equivalent to, "The story takes no note of time." These Sicilian expressions are replaced in Tuscany by the similar one: Il tempo delle novelle passa presto ("Time passes quickly in stories"). Sometimes ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... all go to Venice: Captain Weisspriess follows us. We are to have endless Balls, an opera, a Court there—with whom am I to dance, pray, when I am out of mourning? Am I to sit and govern my feet under a chair, and gaze like an imbecile nun? It is too preposterous. I am betrothed to you; I wish, I wish to behave like a betrothed. The archduchess herself will laugh to see me chained to a chair. I shall have to reply a thousand times to 'Where is he?' What can I answer? 'Wouldn't come,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... as carrying old-maidism to an extreme length. For some time afterward she was rather discountenanced. In reality, I think what some said was true: it was simply that she was emotional, as old maids are apt to be. She once said that many women have the nun's instinct largely developed, and sigh for the peace of ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... faithful personal ally in the person of the Procureur-Syndic, the most important national functionary in the city. This man, Couplet, called Beaucourt, was a disreputable and apostate ex-monk who had married an ex-nun. His position, of course, gave him a great influence over the least respectable part of the population, and with Marat and Danton at his back in Paris he cared nothing for the mayor and the municipal authorities. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... but among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham, were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton, which, from the shape of the niche, and position of the figure, seemed to be that of an immured nun.'—SCOTT. ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... see her?" said Mistress Nutter; "a very beautiful woman with flashing eyes: they move so quickly, that I can scarce discern her features; but she is habited like a nun." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... spoil all indeed. Bless us! if you should take a vagary and make a rash resolution on your wedding night, to die a maid, as she did; all were ruined, all my hopes lost. My heart would break, and my estate would be left to the wide world, he? I hope you are a better Christian than to think of living a nun, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... ruler. He then started upon a course of unbridled profligacy. He compelled the widow of his murdered brother to marry him—then a beautiful Greek nun who had been captured from Byzantium—then a Bulgarian and a Bohemian wife, until finally his household was numbered by hundreds. But this sensual barbarian began to be conscious of a soul. He was troubled, and revived the worship of the Slav ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... the Author, and very dear to Him To D—— To Caroline To Caroline [second poem] To Emma Fragments of School Exercises: From the "Prometheus Vinctus" of AEschylus Lines written in "Letters of an Italian Nun and an English Gentleman, by J.J. Rousseau: Founded on Facts" Answer to the Foregoing, Addressed to Miss—— On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School Epitaph on a Beloved Friend Adrian's Address to his Soul ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... convalescent's crutch. The swish of a nurse's starched dress. The strangled grunt of a man as the dressing is removed from his wound. The hiss of coal in the fireplace at the end of the ward. Perhaps a priest beside a bed, or a nun. Over all, the heavy odour of drugs and disinfectants. Brisk nurses go about, cheery surgeons, but there is no real cheer. The ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Arabic for Tien Tzu) was freed by Kublai from the (ancient Kotan) indignity of surrendering with a rope round his neck, leading a sheep, and he received the title of Duke: In 1288 he went to Tibet to study Buddhism, and in 1296 he and his mother, Ts'iuen T'ai How, became a bonze and a nun, and were allowed to hold 360 k'ing (say 5000 acres) of land free of taxes under the then existing laws." (E. H. Parker, China Review, February, March ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... himself, you will believe and come. Nothing can be better. As soon as the lectures are over, let the trunks be packed. Only my wife and my blessed sister dear—Elizabeth Hoar, betrothed in better times to my brother Charles,—my wife and this lovely nun do say that Mrs. Carlyle must come hither also; that it will make her strong, and lengthen her days on the earth, and cheer theirs also. Come, and make a home with me; and let us make a truth that is better than dreams. From this farm-house of mine you shall sally forth as God shall invite ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... is no longer the widow of Patricius: she is already Saint Monnica. Living like a nun, she fasted, prayed, mortified her body. By long meditating on the Scriptures, she had developed within her the sense of spiritual realities, so that before long she astonished Augustin himself. She had visions; perhaps ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... and folly dressed in so many different fashions, that I can find no difficulty in detecting them under any disguise; but your unpractised eyes are almost as easily deceived as when you were five years old, and when you could not believe that your pasteboard nun was the same person in her various ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... earthly passion eddy continually. I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony. If I were a Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become a nun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for love for my species could never fill my heart to the utter exclusion of love for individuals. Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not; ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... monk and nun as their slaves, and mock at the honourable title of priest and minister, even as at the mean name of slave, gives testimony that they despise the ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin

... was such a love of amusement, and so little earnestness in Erasmus, that he could laugh on both sides of the question, with the Reformers and against them. When the monks told him that Luther had married a nun, and that the offspring of such an unholy alliance must needs be Antichrist, he merely replied: "Already are there many Antichrists!" Writing to a zealous Catholic in London, he says "that he grudges the heretics their due, because that, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... and the ugly, who requested a little money for the good of our souls and their bodies. To solicitations thus expressed it was impossible to turn a deaf ear, and the consequence was, that we soon discovered it to be quite as expensive an amusement to flirt with a nun, as with any other belle ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... Longfellow's "Building of the Ship," which he learned from no Heimskringla, but from the dockyards of Portland, where he played as a boy. We are willing, however, to pardon the parts which we find somewhat ineffectual, in favor of the "Nun of Nidaros," which concludes, and in its gracious piety ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... band, ornamented with red threads. Her hair, which was plaited and brought over her forehead, formed a sort of coronet. Her companion, who was dressed in a similar way, wore, in addition, a long scarf, which was fixed to her head, and fell round her like a nun's cloak. ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... possessed by the mediaeval genius, was it easy to Christianise the story in any other way. It is perhaps almost surprising that, so far as I know or remember, no version exists representing Cassandra as a holy and injured nun, making Our Lady play the part of Venus to AEneas, and even punishing the sacrilegious Diomed for wounding her. But I do not think I have heard of such a version (though Sir Walter has gone near to representing ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... very sad tale, Clarice," answered Heliet, in a low tone. "He loves her, and would cherish her dearly if she would let him. But there is not any love in her. When she was a young maid, almost a child, she set her heart on being a nun, and I think she has never forgiven her baron for being the innocent means of preventing her. I scarcely know which of them is the more ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... more powerful making use of it precisely as if it were private property. For example, in the Chronica Farfensis[40] appears a case judged by Hildeprandus, dux of Spoleto, in the year 787. A certain nun named Alerona, for having married a man named Rabennonus, "secundum legem omnis substantia ipsius ad Publicum devoluta est"; a little later Rabennonus, for having killed a man, "medietas omnis illius ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams

... lace, table-linen, India muslin, or stockings, so that no one could tell where the hole or rent had been. Though a good Protestant, and never missing Guy Faux day at church, she was as skilful at fine work as any nun in a Papist convent. She would take a piece of French cambric, and by drawing out some threads, and working in others, it became delicate lace in a very few hours. She did the same by Hollands cloth, and made coarse strong lace, with which ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... be a girl," she said afterward, "and I mean her to be a nun. The land shall not be cut up. Matteo shall be a rich man and pile up a fortune. He shall be the richest man in Monte Compatri, and a girl shall not ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... up the velvety pathway—his cottage was sunsteeped and still; Vines honeysuckled the window; softly he peeped o'er the sill. The lilies dropped from his fingers; devils were choking his breath; Rigid with horror, he stiffened; ghastly his face was as death. Like a nun whose faith in the Virgin is met with a prurient jibe, He shrank—'twas the wife of his bosom in the arms of ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... a skin from which the freshness and bloom had long, long ago departed; but there was fire in her old eyes still, tired though they looked; there was sweetness and firmness about her lined mouth. Heaven knows who had dressed her. She wore a skimpy tweed skirt and a cheap nun's veiling blouse, and on her iron-grey hair was perched rakishly a forlorn broken picture-hat of faded green, chiffon with a knot of bright red ribbon to give the bizarre touch of colour she had learned ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... my Father did not attempt to question. But they were all of them wrong, incorrect; and no matter how holy their lives, how self-sacrificing their actions, they would have to suffer for their inexactitude through aeons of undefined torment. He would speak with a solemn complacency of the aged nun, who, after a long life of renunciation and devotion, died at last, 'only to discover ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... covers but a day, and sorrow out of sight is out of mind. Of all the troop whom the sinking sun left within sight of the lofty towers and vine-clad hills of Vendome, three only wore faces attuned to the cruel August week just ending; three only, like dark beads strung far apart on a gay nun's rosary, rode, brooding and silent, in their places. The Countess was one—the others were the two men whose thoughts she filled, and whose eyes now and again sought her, La Tribe's with sombre fire in their depths, Count Hannibal's ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... Henry the Second, and was so beautiful that it is said in some histories of England that the queen was jealous of her, and obliged her to take poison; but this story is now supposed to be untrue, as there is reason to believe that Fair Rosamond became a nun and died in a convent. The De Cliffords held the Barony of Clifford in Herefordshire, and the extensive manor of Skipton in Yorkshire, when the grandson of Rosamond's father married a rich heiress, who brought him the Barony ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Maria ardently desired to become a nun, but her mother persuaded her to go to England. Here she came under the influence of Angelica Kauffman, and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... Sudden a motley Mixture fills the Place, And Footmen shine as lordly as his Grace; To see the sad Effect and Power of Change, Ladies turn'd Men, in Breeches freely range: Young smooth-chin'd Beaux turn Priests and Fryars, And Nun's chaste Habits hide our Country 'Squires. Belles, Beaux, and Sharpers here together play, And Wives throw their good Spouses Wealth away; And when their Cash runs low, and Fate runs cross, They then Cornute ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous

... she would no doubt have had the championship of the two New Mennonite members of the Board. But her apostasy had lost her even that defense, for she no longer wore her nun-like garb. After her suspension from meeting and her election to William Penn, she had gradually drifted into the conviction that colors other than gray, black, or brown were probably pleasing to the Creator, and that what really mattered was not what she wore, but what she was. It was without ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... reliquaires and the corpo santo that was sent to her by the Pope. We were then carried into the public room of each class. In the first, the young ladies, who were playing at chess, were ordered to sing to us the choruses of Athaliah; in another, they danced minuets and country dances, while a nun, not quite so able as St. Cecilia, played on a violin. In the others, they acted before us the proverbs or conversations written by Madame de Maintenon for their instruction; for she was not only their foundress but their ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... men say that he was not the sonne Of mortal sire or other living wighte, But wondrously begotten and begoune By false illusion of a guileful sprite On a faire ladye nun." ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... alone in its magnificence. This neglected apartment had probably excited more envy in the female mind than any at Crompton, although there were drawing-rooms galore there, as well as one or two such exquisite boudoirs as might have tempted a nun from her convent. It was a burning shame, said the matrons of Breakneckshire, that the finest room in the county should not have a lawful mistress to grace it; and it was not their fault (as has been hinted) that that deficiency ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... breast, cold as the cloyster'd nun, Whose frost to chrystal might congeal the sun, So glar'd the stream, that pilots, there afloat, Thought they might safely land without a boat; July had seen the Thames in ice involv'd, Had it not been by her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various

... monastery grounds. Again he was scourged and banished. But he could not be subdued. By means of a large and active correspondence he continued an incessant and powerful agitation against the iconoclasts of the day. Nor would he come to terms with Michael II., who had married a nun, and who allowed the use of eikons only outside the capital. So Theodore retired, apparently a defeated man, to the monastery of Acritas[53]; and there, 'on Sunday, 11 November 826, and about noon, feeling his strength fail, he bade them light candles ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... Ryer had married a "queezel," as the Dutch call either a nun, or a maid who is no longer young. At this date, when our story begins, he had four blooming, but old-fashioned children, with good appetites. They could eat cabbage and potatoes, rye bread and cheese, by the half peck, and drink buttermilk by the quart. In addition, Ryer owned ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... tower he wedded a Nun, To St. Edmond's his bride he bore, On this eve her noviciate here was begun, And a Monk's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the Duke repaired to Lisbon. There he was put in better heart by a nun, who said Our Lady had sent her to promise him success. Every part of the service was new to him. He was a fussy, anxious little man; set himself to inquire into everything, to meddle with things which he could not understand and had better ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... to twelve years in the gallies, or, as it is in Cuba, the chain-gang. His efforts to see Clara, in order to disabuse her mind of the belief of my death, was abortive; and she, after finishing her year as a novice, took the veil—and she is now a nun in the Ursuline Convent at Matanzas, while her noble brother is a slave, with felons, laboring with the cursed chain-gang in the same city to which we are bound. Now, boys, do you wonder that when I found myself under orders ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... nun," observed Saint Patrick. "It's a mighty pleasant sort of life to those who don't like work, and are fond of being ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... most scrupulous love of purity ... neither would he speak to any woman, not even to his pious aunt, or sisters, or any nun, but in sight of at least two persons, and in ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and made her swallow a few drops of wine. The pretty lady moved, opened her eyes, smiled and declared in a dying voice that she felt better. However, to prevent a recurrence of the fainting, the Nun obliged her to drink a full cup of claret, and she added:—"It is just hunger, ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... affectation of austere simplicity. She wore a high-necked dress of a dark color, made full enough to conceal the light elegance of her figure. Her bands of jet-black hair were hardly visible beneath the flat border of a starched white cap, very much resembling the head-dress of a nun. Yet, in spite of this unornamental costume, Florine's pale countenance was ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... women endowed with the gifts of heaven, and raised by the spirit of God to a height of Christian perfection which confounds our lukewarmness in His service. One of these was Sister Juana de Jesus, a native of the village of Binangonan de Lampon, [142] an oblate nun of our order, who elevated herself with the steps of a giant, even to the greatest and most complete purification of her spirit, by her abstraction from worldly affairs, by her heroic practice of all the virtues, by her fervent ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... great, greater than it had ever been before, she would take good care that no piety of hers should ever drive him away from her again; she felt almost penitent and apologetic for having done what she had known to be right—the woman in her had at last outgrown the nun. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... Charlestown, near Boston, led to the burning of the building by a drunken mob. The Titus Oates of the American no-popery panic, in 1836, was an infamous woman named Maria Monk, whose monstrous stories of secret horrors perpetrated in a convent in Montreal, in which she claimed to have lived as a nun, were published by a respectable house and had immense currency. A New York pastor of good standing, Dr. Brownlee, made himself sponsor for her character and her stories; and when these had been thoroughly exposed, by Protestant ministers and laymen, for ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... that the race should be continued without dividing with women and men the allegiance the individual owes to God within him. This raises the practical problem of how we are to secure the spiritual freedom and integrity of the priest and the nun without their barrenness and uncompleted experience. Luther the priest did not solve the problem by marrying a nun: he only testified in the most convincing and practical way to the fact that celibacy was a worse failure ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... all the girls who come to us to study. Yes, we teach it in French, but what does that matter? We can express the Canadian spirit just as well in that language." So said a very vivid and practical little nun to me, and she was anxious that England should realize how dear they ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... himself to monastic life, and {3} Kentigerna retired to an island in Loch Lomond to live as an anchoress. Here in her solitary cell, on the hilly, wooded isle which is now called in memory of her Innis na Caillich (the Nun's Island), she spent many years of the remainder of her life. The island became the seat of the old parish church of Buchanan, which was dedicated to her, and in the graveyard, which is still in use, are many tombs of the chiefs and illustrious men of the clan ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... in his Dialogues, gives a striking example of the facility with which devils insinuate themselves into women. He tells how a nun, being in the garden, saw a lettuce which she thought looked tender. She plucked it, and, neglecting to bless it by making the sign of the cross, she ate of it and straightway fell possessed. A man of God having drawn near unto her, the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... day and dance every night till twelve. She was beginning to find that there was something to live for besides consulting one's own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her life, she said, assuming such a sober nun-like air, that no one who saw her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance with her ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... many goods besides. The sons of Gellir were Thorkell and Thorgils, and a son of Thorgils was Ari the "Deep-in-lore." The son of Ari was named Thorgils, and his son was Ari the Strong. Now Gudrun began to grow very old, and lived in such sorrow and grief as has lately been told. She was the first nun and recluse in Iceland, and by all folk it is said that Gudrun was the noblest of women of equal birth with her in this land. It is told how once upon a time Bolli came to Holyfell, for Gudrun was always very pleased when he came to see her, and ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... flower, enamoured of the sun, At his departure hangs her head and weeps, And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps Sad vigils, like a cloistered nun, Till his reviving ray appears, Waking her beauty as ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... arrived in Philadelphia. Broken in spirit then, but not less sweet of nature for the suffering that she had known, she who had been named for the angels became a minister of mercy, and in the black robe of a nun went about with comforts to the sick and poor. A pestilence was sweeping through the city, and those who had no friends nor attendants were taken to the almshouse, whither, as her way was, Evangeline ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... own choice turned on Catharine von Bora, a former nun. Sprung from an ancient, though poor family of noble blood, she had been brought up from childhood in the convent of Nimtzch near Grimma. We find her there as early as 1509; she was born on January 29, 1499, and was consecrated as a nun at the age of sixteen. When the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... appearance, by at last resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made known, and ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... The nun went away. A minute later, Charles, the man-servant, came in for his orders. The baron had woke ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... young girl, as beautiful as she is today. She was a nun in the convent of the Benedictines of Templemar. A young priest, with a simple and trustful heart, performed the duties of the church of that convent. She undertook his seduction, and succeeded; she ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the day; but Mme. Ricard wore no hoops; she went with ease and silence where others went with a rustle and a warning to clear the way. The back of her head was covered with a little cap as plain as a nun's cap; and I never saw an ornament about her. Yet criticism never touched Mme. Ricard. Not even the criticism of a set of school-girls; and I had soon to learn that ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... exactly the nature of my grandfather’s will; and the terms of it were not in the least creditable to me. Sister Theresa and her niece were doubtless calmly awaiting my failure to remain at Glenarm House during the disciplinary year,—Sister Theresa, a Protestant nun, and the niece who probably taught drawing in the school for her keep! I was sure it was drawing; nothing else would, I felt, have brought the woman within the pale ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... Nun verlass' ich diese Huette, Meiner Liebsten Aufenthalt; Wandle mit verhuelltem Schritte Durch den oeden, finstern Wald. Luna bricht durch Busch und Eichen, Zephyr meldet ihren Lauf; Und die Birken streun mit Neigen Ihr ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... being as warped as a busy city man's is liable to become. His work had become an engrained habit, and, being a bachelor, he had hardly an interest in life to draw him away from it, so that his soul was being gradually bricked up like the body of a mediaeval nun. But at last there came this kindly illness, and Nature hustled James Stephens out of his groove, and sent him into the broad world far away from roaring Manchester and his shelves full of calf-skin authorities. At first ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... very frequently gives rise to great religio-sexual enthusiasm. The circumcised foreskin of Christ, where it was and what had become of it, was a source of continual worriment to the nun Blanbekin; in an ecstacy of ungratified libido, St. Catherine of Genoa would frequently cast herself on the hard floor of her cell, crying: "Love! love! I can endure it no longer;" St. Armelle and St. Elizabeth were troubled with libido for the child Jesus;[95] an old prayer is quite significant: ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... modest and sanctimonious is thy bearing, that it is easy to see thou art preparing thyself to become a black-wimpled nun. And if it be so, as I presume it to be, I now offer of my own accord to dispose of thy entry into the cloisters without any dowry, on the condition that thou dost give me something that thou hast on thy head, and which then will not be necessary ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... Dorothea came as she was asked, there lay my serpent on the bed in her nun's robes, groaning and moaning as if her last hour had come; and scarcely had the sub-prioress taken a seat near her, when my cat crept forth from under the bed, in his little red hose, mewing and rubbing himself up against the robe ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... orders who make the most stringent vows of poverty have found it necessary to relax the rule a little in favor of the human heart made unhappy by reduction to too disinterested terms. The monk must have his books: the nun must have her little garden, and the images ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... "O altitudines!" of religious speculation, but soon descended to occupy himself with the exactitudes of science. Jeremy Taylor, who half a century earlier would have been Fletcher's rival, compels his clipped fancy to the conventional discipline of prose, (Maid Marian turned nun,) and waters his poetic wine with doctrinal eloquence. Milton is saved from making total shipwreck of his large-utteranced genius on the desolate Noman's Land of a religious epic only by the lucky help of Satan and his colleagues, with whom, as foiled rebels and republicans, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... Mrs. Cromwell talked reminded me much of the way in which a nun would represent her individual relation to Christ. I can best show what I mean by giving a conversation I had with her one day when she was recovering, which she did with wonderful rapidity up to a certain point. I confess ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... within an Arab's tent, Pitched for the night beneath a palm, Or when was heard the vesper psalm, With the pale nun in worship bent: ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... itself—the love she trembled and palpitated at the mere thought of—spoken of openly as an experience which fell to all; to hear it mocked at with dainty or biting quips; to learn that women of all ages played with, enjoyed, or lost themselves for it—it was with her as if a nun had been withdrawn from her cloister and plunged into the ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... cupboards, like half-barrels, and at the back of each is a plate of tin, perforated like the top of a nutmeg-grater. The nuns of this convent are celebrated for making sweet confectionary, which people purchase. There is a bell which the purchaser applies to, and a nun peeps through the perforated tin; she then lays the dish on a shelf of the revolving cupboard, and turns it inside out; the dish is taken, the price laid in its place, and it is turned in. While we stood there, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... to him in the days of his poverty, and out of gratitude Haydn gave music-lessons to his daughters. One of them, the youngest, was very pretty, and Haydn fell in love with her. But she became a nun; and the father then prevailed upon Haydn to marry the elder one, who was three years older than he—a sour-tempered, bigoted, and abominably selfish woman, who contributed little to the happiness of his life, and was always bringing priests and friars to the house and worrying her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... the chime of the church-bells and the roll of the stately organ, or wafted to devout multitudes the savor of holy incense. Here were congregated the soldiers, merchants, artisans of old France; on these high walls paced the solemn sentry; in these streets the nun stole past in her modest hood; or the romantic damsel pressed her cheek to the latticed window, as the young officer rode by and, martial music filled the avenues with its inspiring strains; in yonder bay floated the great war-ships of Louis; and around the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... of the figure two additional characters, C D, also undoubtedly of Latin form, are there inscribed, proving the European origin of this drawing, which resembles exactly those paintings of the middle ages, representing some holy monk or nun in their habilaments, of a coarse, brown cloth, the hands, and still more so the feet in that, position which painters of religious subjects have rendered us so familiar with on the old church windows, and other paintings of those times. The practice of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... Francis, Frances; Jesse, Jessie; bachelor, maid; beau, belle; monk, nun; gander, goose; administrator, administratrix; baron, baroness; count, countess; czar, czarina; don, donna; boy, girl; drake, duck; lord, lady; nephew, niece; landlord, landlady; gentleman, gentlewoman; ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... mesmerism, occultism, and abnormal psychology fill the minds of such men as the Romantic philosopher Schubert, and of the physicians Carus and Passavant. Justinus Kerner wrote of the Seeress of Prevorst, and Clemens Brentano watched for years at the bedside of a stigmatized nun. On the other hand, from nature comes a love for home and country, and this love serves as a bridge to the patriotism which was the vital force in the Wars of Liberation and which, by well-marked gradations, destroyed the cosmopolitanism engendered by the French ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... either, for I've never worn it here. The folks at home all said it was too severe for me—and so it is. Nothing suits me but the fluffy, chuffy things with a tilt to them. Gil—er—I mean—well, yes, Gilbert always declared that dress made me look like a cross between an unwilling nun and a ballet girl, so I took a dislike to it. But it's as lovely as a dream. Oh, when you see it your eyes will stick out. You must wear it tonight. It's just your style, and I'm sure it will fit you, for our ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... had glass eyes, which stuck out in a lobster-ish fashion), were sent for in a hurry and brought down by their nurse, a beautiful doll dressed as a French bonne, and Maggie. Algernon wore the costume of a sailor boy, and Angelina was no other than a nun in a black robe! But never mind, they did very well to fill up, and sat smirking at the ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow

... the weight of their vengeance must be Nun, an aged Hebrew, rich in herds, loved and esteemed by many an Egyptian whom he had benefitted—but when hate and revenge speak, gratitude ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... pin, and rained sturdy blows upon his head and shoulders. He raised a yell that brought me to the spot just in time to see a funny sight. Just as George was about to beat a retreat, his squaw came running up and began to belabor him from the rear, while the nun continued the assault. There he was with part of his body in the house and part of it out, crying out in a manner most unseemly for an Indian brave. When the women desisted, he was both sober ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... long years ago, in some ancient convent, by a saintly nun. Holy, pious tears dropped on it as she wrought. She pricked out brave bright flowers with her needle, though her own life was pale and sad. I cover this sacred work with housewifely care; but it makes our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... a peaceful, sweet-faced nun in her simple white gown, that fell in long straight folds to her feet; not another sign of color ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... we saw before us the slim towers of the noble cathedral of Antwerp soaring in the rosy sunshine. Lankin and I had agreed to go to the "Grand Laboureur," or the Place de Meir. They give you a particular kind of jam-tarts there—called Nun's tarts, I think—that I remember, these twenty years, as the very best tarts—as good as the tarts which we ate when we were boys. The "Laboureur" is a dear old quiet comfortable hotel; and there is no man in England who likes a good dinner better ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the Princesse de Lamballe ascribe the King's not sanctioning the decrees against the clergy to the influence of his aunt, the Carmelite nun, Madame Louise. During the life of her father, Louis XV., she nearly engrossed all the Church benefices by her intrigues. She had her regular conclaves of all orders of the Church. From the Bishop to the sexton, all depended on her for preferment; and, till the Revolution, she maintained ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... intramural existence of the self-constituted nun appeared likely to continue for an indefinite time. She had learned that there was one possibility in which her formerly imagined position might become real, and only one; that her husband's absence should continue long ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... of him. So when he let the convent gate close behind us with a loud click and said, "Now, you are a goner," I scanned his face apprehensively, but seeing nothing very alarming, silently followed him through the massive door which was in charge of a white-robed nun of the Dominican order. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... esteem with the King), who told us many merry stories: one, how he wrote a letter three or four days ago to the Princess Royal, about a Queen Dowager of Judaea and Palestine, that was at the Hague incognita, that made love to the King, &c., which was Mr. Cary (a courtier's) wife that had been a nun, who are all married to Jesus. At supper the three Drs. of Physic again at my cabin; where I put Dr. Scarborough in mind of what I heard him say about the use of the eyes, which he owned, that children do, in every day's experience, look several ways with both ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... flowered Apron, a lac'd Neck-Handkerchief, one Clog, and almost another, and some few Books: as, A full Answer to a plain and true Account, &c. The Whole Duty of Man, with only the Duty to one's Neighbour, torn out. The Third Volume of the Atalantis. Venus in the Cloyster: Or, the Nun in her Smock. God's Dealings with Mr. Whitefield. Orfus and Eurydice. Some Sermon-Books; and two or three Plays, with their Titles, and Part of the first Act ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber

... and so these adventures were carried out. Then Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe, representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth, gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow falls, there bury poor Robin ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... some horrible outbreaking of stifling passion and terrible ante-Protestantism. Over this path, on which, in earlier ages, the mitre and rosary and violet robe and confessional, and doctrines of celibacy and monkery and nun-nism, and bell and consecrated taper, and still deeper dogmas or doctrines, wandered from the East into the Church, came also heresies, terrible as Knights Templars', which in due time warred against the Church, and cleft it in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... lofty ceiling, in a little oasis of light made by two candles in a desert of dusk, I sat at a little table to worry and ink myself all over till the task of my preparation was done. The table of my toil faced a tall white door, which was kept closed; now and then it would come ajar and a nun in a white coif would squeeze herself through the crack, glide across the room, and disappear. There were two of these noiseless nursing nuns. Their voices were seldom heard. For, indeed, what could they have had ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... as "nun-cupative." Nun-cupative wills are employed only when through accident, or sudden seizure by a fatal disease, the time necessary to write and sign a will ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun

... and was just putting a cherry into his mouth as Coloma entered the room. He remained absorbed in thought, trifling with the cherry without eating it, which Don Carlos set down as a proof of guilt: The three brothers were at once put in a coach, together with their sister, a nun of the age of twenty, and conveyed to the head-quarters of Fuentes, who lay before Le Catelet, but six leagues ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... ich die schoenste Heimath hab' In deutschen Gau'n besessen, Das macht, dass ich sie bis zum Grab Nun ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... Moreover, I don't admit that beauty can do without adorning. There's Minnie Lathrop: she's a beauty, but she wouldn't improve herself by leaving off flowers and ribbons and laces, and dressing herself like a nun. Dear me! she does have the loveliest things! Mine are so shabby beside them. I'm about the tag-end of our set, anyhow, in matters of dress. I think, Susie, you might give me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... of stories occur to me. 1. For my Arabian tales, founded on the story of the Minyas Treasure-House at Orchomenus. 2. Another of an abbess, who was such by dispensation, but had been married; her accomplished son succeeds in carrying off a nun. She labours for the discovery and punishment of the unknown criminal, till she learns who he is; then parting from him for ever in the early dawn, she, sacrificing to a love that for her was to produce only hatred and the total ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Saturn bore; His daughter she; in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain: Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypres lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn: Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... (born 1343) was probably a Benedictine nun of Carrow, near Norwich, but lived for the greater part of her life in an anchorage in the churchyard of St. Julian at Norwich. There is a copy of her Revelations in the British Museum. Editions by Cressy, 1670; reprint issued 1843; by Collins, 1877. See, further, in the Dictionary of National ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... showed them into the waiting-room, where they spent over an hour. They were greatly puzzled. What did the intervention of that nun mean? What part was she playing in ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... usually made of challis, nun's veiling, cashmere, or other light woolen materials which can be readily washed. They are very serviceable to wear over the baby's thin slips and on cool nights they may be used over the nightdress. They should be simply made, containing no heavy seams, and at the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... medicines. Hers, however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore, that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not interfere with her reading and brewing of juleps, and was in no way a tyrant, as of being the slave of a given situation from which he could not set her free. The total lack of ready money was felt by her ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... the Stoical, and the third the Christian standard. The sympathies of the author are plainly with the champion of hedonism, who maintains that pleasure is the supreme good in life, or rather the only good, that the prostitute is better than the nun, for the one makes men happy, the other is dedicated to a painful and shameful celibacy; that the law against adultery is a sort of sacrilege; that women should be common and should go naked; and that it is irrational ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... says; delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as tender and reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,—that is; of a new influx of truth or beauty,—as a nun over her missal. In short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn, in the shape ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... seem like something holy," said Mrs. Clifford, "'the nun-like evenings, telling dew-beads as ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May

... What is that to speak of as compared with mine? I have six miracles: The beam in the church, the crystal chalice, the Nun's corpse— ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg

... now I'm laid on the shelf, To give you a sketch—ay, a sketch of myself. 'Tis a pitiful subject, I frankly confess, And one it would puzzle a painter to dress; But, however, here goes, and as sure as a gun, I'll tell all my faults like a penitent nun; For I know, for my Fanny, before I address her, She wont ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... and then laughs at the silly gowks. I've twa worthless sons-in-law the noo, are here an' anither a stage-driver. Aye, they 're capital husbands for Donald McLeod's lassies, are they no? Afore I let Esther marry the first scamp that comes simperin' aroond here, I'll put her in a convent, an' mak' a nun o' the bairn. I gave the ither lassies their way, an' look at the reward. I tell ye I'm goin' to bar the door on the last one, an' the man that marries her will be worthy o' her. He winna be a vaquero frae Las ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... an only child. She became a nun, and died when she was still young. The old man's gardener comes round from time to time to see if the place is all right. It is a pity he is not here; he could ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... before I chanced upon its retreat, and then I was following a line of bees. I lost the bees, but I got the gentians. How curious this flower looks with its deep blue petals folded together so tightly,—a bud and yet a blossom! It is the nun among our wild flowers,—a form closely veiled and cloaked. The buccaneer bumblebee sometimes tries to rifle it of its sweets. I have seen the blossom with the bee entombed in it. He had forced his way into the virgin corolla as if determined to know its secret, but he had never returned ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... left, among the fern and heather, leads to a well, famed for its healing properties—it is called the Nun's Well; even now, the peasants believe that its waters are a cure for diseases of the eye; the path is steep and dangerous, and it is far pleasanter to walk round the brow of the hill and overlook the dense wood which ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... motto is also added, "Plesance. M [mil]. en vn." The personage in question was Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and wife of Thomas of Woodstock, who ended her days as a nun in the convent at Barking in 1399. Is any other instance known of the use of this motto? Before I conclude these brief remarks, I may mention a fifth copy of the Ancren Riwle, which has escaped the notice of Mr. Morton. It is buried in the enormous folio ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... was ended for her, she had devoted herself wholly to the cause, and self-repression had given to her face the gentleness and consecration of a nun. ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... cold and white, a nun's cell. If you counted the window-place it was shaped like a cross. The door at the foot, the window at the head, bookshelves at the end of each arm. A kitchen lamp with a tin reflector, on a table, stood in the breast of the cross. Its flame was so ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... I were a violet I'd think it a shame To be always so simple and modest and tame, To be hidden away like a hermit or nun While the hare-brained pink roses can dance in the sun! But consider the naughty wild ways of the rose— There must be ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar

... wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one So long escaping from lips starved and blue, That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun Stretches her length; her foot comes through The straw she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... dirtiest mood, and cannot be, of course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What would they say in Baker Street to some sights with which our new friends favoured us? What would your ladyship have said if you had seen the interesting Greek nun combing her hair over the cabin— combing it with the natural fingers, and, averse to slaughter, flinging the delicate little intruders, which she found in the course of her investigation, gently into the great cabin? Our attention was a good deal occupied in watching the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... call upon you to excise from the Book of GOD'S Law, Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy: those passages only excepted which are prophetical,—as the xxxiiird of Deuteronomy. Joshua must go of course: for if the son of Nun did not write the Book which goes under his name,—(as the wise men in Germany say, or used to say, he did not[394],)—of course the narrative is not authentic; and if he did, you say that it ought not to be regarded as inspired. Judges and Ruth cannot hope to stand; for they ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... circlets, as bright as silver; as if for the gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful little plates, for them to eat off; presently it is in towers which they might be imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells, where they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever hear of them more; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn; here, some in drifts, like snow; here, some in rays, like stars: and, though these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the mineral takes in other places, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... there, shrieking and crying out as if they were pursued. Their terror, however, was imaginary, for, savage as the image-breakers might have appeared, they had but one object in view, and not a nun or monk was in the slightest degree injured. In the prison of the Barefooted Monastery they found an unhappy monk who had been shut up for twelve years for his heretical opinions, and with loud shouts of joy they liberated him ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... religious basis, but heaven is not likely, I think, to be seriously affronted if one smiles a little at these aquatic sports. Legend has it that the little kneeling group on the right is Gentile's own family, and the kneeling lady on the left, with a nun behind her, is ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, a nun of some standing in the ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... old bird," said he, "you're going the wrong way about it. I know another case just the same. Chap out Wimbledon way. His people kept a girl—topper she was, too—dark. He was always messing round just like you are, and she was stand-offish as a nun. One night he came home early, a bit screwed—people out—girl in. Met her in the drawing-room. Almost been afraid to speak to her before. Had a bit of fizz on board him now—you know; didn't care a rip for anybody. Gave her a smacking great kiss, and, by Gad!—well, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... who had hitherto guided Frank, spoke in a loud whisper, "Dougal man! hae ye forgotten Ha nun Gregarach?" ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... nun, to be a nun!" he repeated. "You do not know, my child, the life, the misery, which is hidden behind the walls of the convent. You do not know it! I prefer a thousand times to see you unhappy in the world than to see you unhappy ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... his chief poetic works being "Why come ye not to Courte," a satire against Wolsey; the "Book of Colin Clout," against the corruption of the Church; and the "Book of Phyllyp Sparrow," the grief of a nun for the death of her sparrow; Erasmus calls him "the glory and light of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... as quiet as a Nun's daughter. But I was burning hot all the same, and so surprised at the way Martha spoke, so serious and unlike the way she usually speaks when mad, that I had to go on the back porch and make snowballs and throw hard at something before I ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher

... hither and thither by sweet winds, while all around danced flowers and streams and queer little Japanese cherry-trees in pots! They were followed by jovial Pan with green hair and jewelled sandals, and by his side—I could scarcely believe my eyes!—walked a modest nun counting her beads. At a little distance were seen three dancers arm-in-arm, a lean, starved platitude, a rosy, dimpled joke, and a steel-ribbed sermon on predestination. Close upon them came a whole string of Nights with wind-blown hair and Days with faggots ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... claim to guide our opinions read Scott at all? Do they know the scene of the hidden and revealed forces in the Trossach glen—the carriage of the Fiery Cross—the sentence on the erring nun —the last fight of her betrayer? Do they know the story of Jeannie Deans? But it is useless to ask these questions or to multiply these instances. Scott is placed. Master of laughter, master of tears, giant of swiftness; crowned king, without ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... dead, and strangers lived in the old house. But Anthony was destined to see it again. His rich employer sent him on commercial journeys, and his duty led him into his native town of Eisenach. The old Wartburg stood unchanged on the mountain, with "the monk and the nun" hewn out in stone. The great oaks gave to the scene the outlines it had possessed in his childish days. The Venus Mount glimmered grey and naked over the valley. He would have been glad to cry, "Lady Holle, Lady Holle, unlock the door, and I ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... whom I lived. The religious ideas of the people were not touched; the congregations came together again, and the nuns of the old orders, converted into schoolmistresses, imparted to women the same education as before. Thus my sister's first mistress was an old Ursuline nun, who was very fond of her, and who made her learn by heart the psalms which are chanted in church. After a year or two the worthy old lady had reached the end of her tether, and was conscientious enough to come and tell my mother so. She said, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... to these congregations of devout women, who indeed were to a large extent the backbone of the mystical movement, and it is impossible not to see that the devotional treatises of the school are strongly coloured by feminine sentiment. A curious poem, written by a Dominican nun of this period, celebrates the merits of three preachers, the third of whom is a Master Eckhart, "who speaks to us about Nothingness. He who understands him not, in him has never shone the light divine." These nuns seem to have been fed with the ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... generally look upon Saint Athanasius,[362] Saint Theresa, and the rest, as crowned with glory, and acting towards us as gods. Now that time has cleared up things, it does so appear. But at the time when he was persecuted, this great saint was a man called Athanasius; and Saint Theresa was a nun. "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are," says Saint James, to disabuse Christians of that false idea which makes us reject the example of the saints, as disproportioned to our state. "They were saints," say we, "they are not like us." What then ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... was occasioned by an act of superstitious rigor. An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sentenced by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue. Euphemius appealed to the reason and policy of the Saracens of Africa; and soon returned with the Imperial purple, a fleet of one hundred ships, and an army of seven hundred horse and ten thousand foot. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... the twilight of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and exchange her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun's veil. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... from my parents, as it must be during some time from the rest of the world; he desired that the Princes Lubomirski should be our only witnesses and our only confidants; but I opposed this project with all my strength; I even threatened him with becoming a nun rather than play so guilty a part toward my parents. He finally yielded: he is so kind to me. It was then decided that I should write to my parents, and that he would add a postscript ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... her wildness there is nothing cold or savage; her elevation is soft and warm. Never have we seen natural religion more beautifully expressed; never so well discerned the influence of the natural nun, who needs no veil or cloister to guard from profanation the beauty she has dedicated to God, and which only attracts human love to hallow it into ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... his sister-in-law; in the third, he fights a duel with a rival, and kills him: whereupon the mistress of his victim takes poison, and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth act, Don Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying off a nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one of the ladies whom he has previously victimized, and made to behold the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... urge the subtle arguments furnished by internal evidence of Dante's works, as to the reality of Beatrice Portinari as the beloved of our poet is offered first by Boccaccio who was acquainted with Dante's daughter Beatrice, a nun who lived near enough to the poet to get information from the Portinari family. Certainly Boccaccio did not hesitate when chosen in 1373 by the Florentines to lecture on Dante, to make the very positive ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... then visits one of Mr. Champagne Wright's masquerades, where he falls in love with a fresco nun. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... earth, and ocean combine for the delight of the beholders puts them in a mood which crowns the landscape with a religious halo. That the time is holy they all feel; and now, to make its tranquillity appreciable by filling the heart with it, the poet adds—"is quiet as a nun breathless with adoration." By this master-stroke of poetic power the atmospheric earthly calm is vivified with, is changed into, super-earthly calm. By a fresh burst of spiritual light the mind is ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... mood, leading by gradual allurement to cloisters of shadowy lanes and cells which were forest bowers. The new faith gave open sanction to evasion of the banquet, and thus fortified and increased those who loved not the ceremonial day. The spirit of solitude, no more a maenad, but a nun, sheltered earth's children in the folds of her robe, and ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith



Words linked to "Nun" :   Teresa, Hebrew alphabet, alphabetic character, Mother Theresa, religious, Mother Teresa, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, nun buoy, conical buoy, letter, sister



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