"Parson" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I have never looked into. Maybe that is what is the matter with us all; it is the same as sentencing a man without a hearing. I believe I will investigate this thing a little. I'll go over and have a talk with Parson Jones; he is considered a very well educated and broad-minded man; perhaps Walter was right when he accused me of being unreasonable; it certainly cannot do any harm to investigate. If there is nothing in it, I ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... turning over and over the painful subject, one evening,—I mean, of course, in my mind, for I had not really broached this matter of legislative action. Luckily, "he" had brought in the new edition of George Herbert's Works. We were reading aloud, and "he" read the chapter of "The Parson in Sacraments." At the foot was an extract from "The Parish Register" of Crabbe, which he read, unconscious of the way in which I mentally applied it. Indeed, I think he scarcely thought of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... shrewdness, I rarely, if ever, saw his equal. He had traveled extensively over the United States, had observed everything, and remembered all he observed. Had he lived, the composition of this book would have been in abler hands than mine. In addition to this, he excelled, perhaps, even Parson Brownlow, in the fiery and scorching denunciation he could hurl on the head of an opponent. In action he was brave and cool; no danger could frighten him, no emergency find him ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... intimately national body of fiction in the modern world. Before the Civil War there was practically no deliberate and systematic study of local and racial idiosyncracies. Hosea Biglow was a mask, not a character, and Parson Wilbur was a literary device. Even Hawthorne thought primarily of the element of imagination in the romances—the universal, not the local, element. His leading characters are psychological creations, with ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... called the parson to marry them, But devil a bit would he— For they were but a pair of dandy prats ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the vicar. 'E says they 'adn't oughter be livin' in the house with Miss Anne, because of the talk there's been. So 'e says Kimber must choose between 'em. And Kimber, 'e says 'e'd have minded what parson said if it had a bin a church matter or such like, but parson or no parson, 'e says 'e's his own master an' 'e won't have no interferin' with him and his missus. So he's ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... father, had been knowing in horse-flesh, and would have looked askance on the Reverend Orme Leighton as a suitor had he not also been knowing in men. The truth was that in Leighton the man was bigger than the parson, and to the conceded fact that all the world loves a lover he added the prestige of the less-bandied truth that all the world loves a fighter. He, also, knew horse-flesh. He finally won Ann's father over on the day when Ike Sutherland learned to his cost that the Reverend Orme ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... was not deficient in this respect. If he had been he might not have steamed into the trap. The trouble was that von Spee had some wit, but not enough. It would have been better for him if he had been as guileless as a parson. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Miss Eve, that under the old plan, the people could not see; they were kept unnaturally down, if one can so express it, while nobody had a good look-out but the parson and the singers in the front row of the gallery. ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... definition nearer. The first part of Mr Masefield's poem, which describes the meet and the assembled persons one by one, recalls, not merely by the general cast of the subject, but by many actual turns of phrase, Chaucer's Prologue. Mr Masefield's parson has more than one point of resemblance to ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... eases one's mind when one's vexed. Everybody swears in this country. My boys all swear like Sam Hill; and I used to swear mighty big oaths till about a month ago, when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to a tarnation bad place; so I dropped some ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... school, an' Mis' Crapwell wouldn't hear to it—an' Abel kep' talkin' that he was goin' to hev a big church in the City some day, an' I guess that scairt Delia some, an' Jennie kep' frettin' an' houndin' her, one way an' another, an' a-callin' her 'parson's wife'—ain't it awful the power them pin-pricky things has if we let 'em? An' Delia wa'n't the kind to know how to do right by her own willin'. An' so all to once we woke up one mornin', an' she'd done what she'd done, an' no help ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... the home of the Reverend Mr. Davenport," Mr. Winthrop said; "the good parson wanted to examine him with respect to his religious opinions. But I trow they will be back soon, for they left quite ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... enacted a law that the right of suffrage should be limited to church members in good standing. Suppose we had such a law now, what a mighty revolution it would work either in exterminating fraud or in promoting piety! "Men and Brethren!" said the colored parson, "two ways are open before you, the broad and narrow way which leads to perdition, and the straight and crooked way which leads to damnation." [Laughter.] We have before us now the two ways of stuffed ballot-boxes and empty pews, and our problem is to ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He was to have exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse himself yesterday, being ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... you could get them quite right. Well, what about the greenhouse? You know I was telling the parson the other day about your plans about the ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... on that marble statue which only some weeks ago had so warmly pressed one's hand, his whole life flashed through one's thoughts. One remembered the young curate and the Saint's Tragedy; the chartist parson and Alton Locke; the happy poet and the Sands of Dee; the brilliant novel-writer and Hypatia and Westward-Ho; the Rector of Eversley and his Village Sermons; the beloved professor at Cambridge, the busy canon at Chester, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... not know what good conduct is; but I will gladly take the teacher's word as to which child has caused least inconvenience," he would probably be unfrocked, if not excommunicated. And yet no honest and intellectually capable doctor or parson can say more. Clearly it would not be wise of the doctor to say it, because optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession. And a clergyman ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... started in the warm sunshine for pretty West Ham Park, and had a leetle adwenture as ushal, for jest as I got there who shoud I meet but the rayther sillybrated Parson of the Parish—tho' judgin by aperiences I shoud have took him for the Bishop of ESSEX—and seeing me in my new Hat and my best black Coat, he werry naterally took me for a inquiring Wisitor, and told me all about the good deed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... though it was not in just the shape in which it left the factory. I remember that I asked him what he did for a living back in the States—those service uniforms were great levelers—and he said he was a parson. "But now you are a chauffeur," I objected. "Well, you see," he said, "when I first came over they asked me to fill out blanks indicating what I could do, and in that statement I admitted that I could run a car. I also said I could preach. They tried me out as ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... No, Precious, but the chattering over a few Words by a spruce Parson, in his fine Head o' Hair, which I took care to provide, and put into her Ladyship's ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... Sunday, on which day none of the ladies had gone to church. Mr. Emilius well understood the cause of their absence, and felt nothing of a parson's anger at it. He was to marry the couple on the Monday morning, and dined with the ladies on the Sunday. He was peculiarly gracious and smiling, and spoke of the Hymeneals as though they were even more than ordinarily joyful and ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... A parson was sent for with speed, For to baptize the child indeed; And after that, as I heard say, In mirth and joy they spent ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... sure apparatus of wealth and station. He had no doubt risen to an office of dignity in his own Church—he was a bishop. But to understand the position of a Scottish bishop in those days, one must figure Parson Adams, no richer than Fielding has described him, yet encumbered by a title ever associated with wealth and dignity, and only calculated, when allied with so much poverty and social humility, to deepen the incongruity of his lot, and throw him more than ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... clergyman, the New York parson was almost without power of any sort, and was at no time considered an authority in politics, sickness, witchcraft, or domestic affairs. Mrs. Grant was surprised at his lack of influence, and declared: "The ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... without doubts, but against doubts—how could all this co-exist with a faith which presents the whole sum of religion in the formulary, 'I am to believe without a doubt, and perform without hesitation. whatever my guide, Parson A. tells me?' Not that, even in that case (as has often been shown), the man would be relieved form the necessity of absolutely depending on the dreaded exercise of his private judgment; for he ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... accompaniment of one genuine tear. That wretch who is removing the lid of the coffin to gaze upon the corpse with a face which indicates a perfect negation of all goodness or womanhood—the hypocrite parson and his demure partner—all the fiendish group—to a thoughtful mind present a moral emblem more affecting than if the poor friendless carcass had been depicted as thrown out to the woods, where wolves had ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... with you! Go back to the rectory and read up, and by-and-by we'll send you to Oxford, and you shall be a parson, or ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... contrary, was pale and slender. He was very quiet and studious, and had such a love of honesty and truth, and such detestation of meanness and wrong, that we boys had dubbed him the 'Parson.' ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... in the very purple, and indubitably (despite his profession) one of the gentlest born of men, was, some seven years ago, a certain Mr. St. John Deloraine. He held the sacrosanct position of a squarson, being at once Squire and Parson of the parish of Little Wentley. At the head of the quaint old village street stands, mirrored in a moat, girdled by beautiful gardens, and shadowy with trees, the Manor House and Parsonage (for it is both in one) ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... high-toned proposal and any woman ought to be satisfied with it. The man that wrote that must have known an awful lot about women. Now you go ahead and learn that proposal and there you be all ready for the parson." ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special protection; and observing that my father was puckering up his brows critically, they rushed boldly forward in defence of The Sermon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skillful general, he renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... awkward, had she forgotten it. Mr Cheesacre sat on her right hand, and the clergyman on her left, and she hardly spoke a word to Bellfield. Her sweetest smiles were all given to Cheesacre. She was specially anxious to keep her neighbour, the parson, in good-humour, and therefore illuminated him once in every five minutes with a passing ray, but the full splendour of her light was poured out upon Cheesacre, as it never had before been poured. How she did flatter him, and with what a capacious gullet did he swallow her flatteries! ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... together in several pieces. He had not been bred an actor, but a soldier. He was in the 66th Regiment, and had fought in the Crimean War; been wounded, too—no carpet knight. His father was a clergyman, vicar of Winlaton, Northumberland—a charming type of the old-fashioned parson, a friendship with Sir Walter Scott in the background, and many little possessions of the great Sir Walter's in the foreground to remind one of ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... day, as I cursed a Jew, Do you know, my lad, that we call it a sin! I fear of you sailors there are but few, St. Peter, to heaven, will ever let in. Says I, Mr Parson, to tell you my mind, No sailors to knock were ever yet seen, Those who travel by land may steer 'gainst wind, But we shape a course for Fiddler's Green. For Fiddler's Green, where seamen true, When here they've done their duty, The bowl of ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... was buried in the churchyard, and Parson, who was always a hard man, he would have her laid away to the north side, where no sun gets to for the trees and the church, and where few folks like to be buried. But father, he said, 'No; lay her beside her mother, in the bit of ground I bought twenty years ago, where I mean to ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... taste. There was a shelf running round the room furnished with photographs, and a sofa covered with a guanaco rug. In one corner of the room stood a piano, and upon it was a copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern, with music, for Mrs. Chance had been a parson's daughter at home, and she used to play to Chance and sing very sweetly on ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... unsavory England of Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Parson Adams; of the "Rake's Progress" and "Marriage a la Mode;" of the lords and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole, be-powdered, be-patched, and be-rouged, flirting at masked balls, playing cards till ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Parson Elkin had occasionally preached in the neighborhood of the Lincolns in Kentucky. The young boy now put to use his knowledge of writing. He wrote a letter to the parson inviting him to come over and preach ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... The legend of Parson Rudall and the Botathen Ghost will be recognised by many Cornish people as a local remembrance of ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... not asked. You both seemed so wrapped up, I waited my time and opportunity. There's a new parson come to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles; 'and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson at chapel says.' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... wealthy mestizo, an acquaintance of theirs. About half-past ten I reached the latter's house, and sat down to table with the merry women of the family, who were just having their supper. Suddenly my friend the parson made his appearance from an inner room, where with a couple of Augustinian friars, he had been playing cards with the master of the house. He immediately began to compliment me upon my good fortune, "for had you been ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... and throwing the stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so many circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at length happily conducted his hero and heroine. Not a circumstance was then omitted, from the manly ardour of the bridegroom, and the modest blushes of the bride, to the parson's new surplice, and the silk tabinet mantua of the bridesmaid. But such descriptions are now discarded, for the same reason, I suppose, that public marriages are no longer fashionable, and that, instead of calling together their friends to a feast ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... throbbings of sundry hearts, since made happy in wedlock; it hath been the shibolath of sins that shall be nameless here. The reigning belles are all members (provided they belong to our first families) of the St. Cecilia, as is also the prettiest and most popular unmarried parson. And the parson being excellent material for scandal, Mother Rumor is sure to have a dash at him. Nor does this very busy old lady seem over-delicate about which of the belles she associates with the parson, so long ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... death's door since he saw her here, and must spend at least two winters more at Torquay. But I don't believe that he could stay here even if she were well. Bramshill has fallen into the hands of a Puseyite parson, who, besides that craze, which is so flagrant as to have made dear Mr. K—— forbid him his pulpit, is subject to fits of raving madness,—one of those most dangerous lunatics whom an age (in which there is a great deal of false humanity) never shuts up ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... he was considered the clever boy of the school; and when a solicitor named Dashwood applied to the master for a quick-witted boy to join him as pupil, Barnes was selected for the post. He worked with the village parson in his spare hours at classics and studied music under the organist. In 1818 he left Sturminster for the office of one Coombs at Dorchester, where he continued his evening education with another kindly clergyman. He also made great progress in the art of wood-engraving, and with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... like," answered Mr. Marks, fiercely, "and I'm not a-goin' to be ordered by you. You ain't the parson, as I've ever heerd of; ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... precaution would have been deemed entirely superfluous; indeed, the locking of the door would probably have been regarded by the villagers as equivalent to a reflection on their honesty, and should the passage of time ultimately bring to the ancient rectory a fresh parson, obsessed by conventional opinion concerning the uses of bolts and bars, it is probable that the inhabitants of Crailing will manifest their disapproval in the simple and direct fashion of the Devon rustic—by placidly boycotting the church of their fathers and betaking themselves to ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... gentlemen," he said slowly "ye've known me only a little; but ez ye've seen me both blind drunk and sober, I reckon ye've caught on to my gin'ral gait! Now I wanter put it to you, ez fair-minded men, ef you ever saw me strike a parson?" ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... in the way," answered Big Sam with a laugh. "If he doesn't take her off before I sail, that's his business. If I am obliged to leave port without his cash-box, I will marry his daughter and become his son-in-law—I don't doubt we can find a parson among all the rascals on board—then, perhaps, he will think it his duty to send me drafts to the different ports ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... eyes surveyed The pillow-case before him laid, Whose contents reaching to its hem, Might purchase endless joy for them. The maiden answers, "Let us wait; To borrow trouble where's the need?" Then, at the parson's squeaking gate Halted the more than ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... toune of Hutton belonging to sundry portioners. Saw Paxtoun and Edringtone, a part of Basses[575] lands, and given away to a brother, now belongs to my Lord Mordington. Saw Foulden, the Bastile, Nunlands, Ramsay—his grandsire was parson of Foulden. Saw Mordington and Nather Mordington. Saw the bound road[576] within my Lords park. Saw on the English syde of Tuede Ourde the Birkes wheir King Charles army ly, Norame Castle and Furde; the ladie wheirof inviegled King James the 4t when he went in to Flouden: they have ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Universities, the Press, religious opinion, and the army of conventional respectability. So strong was it in social influence that a man, openly professing to make a guide of his reason instead of his parson, was liable to be pushed outside ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... may remind the reader that the O. Egyptian "Rokh," or "Rukh," by some written "Rekhit," whose ideograph is a monstrous bird with one claw raised, also denotes pure wise Spirits, the Magi, &c. I know a man who derives from it our "rook" beak and parson. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... an audience for the fiddles this Saturday—there are two lady violinists now, both very good players—but we had only a short spell of music in the music room on account of a choir practise, for to-morrow; the parson came and took our musicians down to the dining-room to sing over hymns and psalms, verse by verse. I heard the wheeze of the harmonium, and got back to my own chest-lid (sailor term for my own business)—"Every man ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... believe that the real cause of the frequent epidemics and fevers in Haworth was such as could be cured by an effective system of subsoil drainage. It was cheaper and easier to lay the blame at the doors of Providence. So the parson preached in vain. Well might he preach, for his own house was in the thick ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... later he was relieved from command at New Orleans by General Banks, whose blunders served to endear him to President Lincoln, as did those of Villeroy to his master, the fourteenth Louis. When the good Scotch parson finished praying for all created beings and things, he requested his congregation to unite in asking a blessing for the "puir deil," who had no friends; and General Butler has been so universally ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... beauty of that happy ground; not in my very dreams of morning had I, in exile, seen it more beloved or more rare. Much also that I had forgotten now returned to me as I approached—a group of elms, a little turn of the parson's wall, a small paddock beyond the graveyard close, cherished by one man, with a low wall of very old stone guarding it all round. And all these things fulfilled and amplified my delight, till even the good vision ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... for father indeed, as there was another mouth to be fed then, a very serious problem for a poor parson to solve. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years and ten which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for grain;' and it is touching to see how men generally (knowing ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... smoke takes so important a place. Mr. Wilberforce retired now, and took a pipe to help him to consider. The study was a commodious room, with a line of chairs against the further wall, which the parish mostly took when the bumpkins had anything to say to the parson. A large writing-table, fitted with capacious drawers, stood in the middle of the room, of which one side was for parish business, the other magisterial: for the rector of Underwood was also a justice of the peace, and very active in that respect. He was a man who ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... quarter of the year, this is almost always a certain presage of a wedding, when all parties are agreed, and the parson in readiness; and then you must be sure to have money in readiness too, or your intended marriage may happen to prove a miscarriage. But those who are able to pay for tying the knot, when it is fairly tied, may go home to dinner and be merry; go to the tavern and be merry; go to supper and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... "time for me to knock out, or old Copas will be in bed. To go back to where we started from to-night—as soon as East and Harry Winburn get back we shall have some jolly doings at Englebourn. There'll be a wedding, I hope, and you'll come over and do parson ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... circuit of ground in which the souls under the care of one parson or vicar do inhabit. These are computed to be near ten thousand in number. How antient the division of parishes is, may at present be difficult to ascertain; for it seems to be agreed on all hands, that in the early ages of christianity in this island, parishes were unknown, or at least signified ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... parson's daughter—and is still for the matter of that!—and often in those days between her games of golf and hockey, or a good run on her feet with the hounds, she came up to Verdayne Place to write Lady Henrietta's ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... of the wit of Beaujeu's ordinary, than any word I have yet heard your lordship speak, and reason it is you should be answered. Touching my peers, it is but necessary to say, that Mistress Martha Trapbois will none of them, whether clerical or laic. The captain hath asked her, so hath the parson, but she will none of them—she looks higher than either, and is, to say truth, a woman of sense, and so forth, too profound, and of spirit something too high, to put up with greasy buff or rusty prunella. For ourselves, we need but hint that we have a consort in the land of the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... promised. There's a shot in the locker yet! I believe in that young chap; he's stuck to me like a man.... It'll be your birthday, on Tuesday, old girl, and you'll be twenty. Seventeen years since your father died. You've been a lot to me.... A parson came here today. That's a bad sign. Thought it his duty! Very civil of him! I wouldn't see him, though. If there's anything in what they tell you, I'm not going to sneak in at this time o' day. There's one thing that's rather badly on my mind. I took advantage ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure. What were you saying over, if ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... lucky if we found three or four in a unit—but of the ill-instructed fringe, and the totally ignorant multitudes. The horror and boredom of war, the personal insecurity, the difficulty of understanding the ways of God, made all friendly to the parson with whom hitherto they had never come into contact; and caused large numbers to think things out, and to hunger for an understanding of God. Religion became a common topic of discussion. The padres found themselves in a larger world, where old labels and divisions ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... Edward Waters College, an African Methodist Episcopal School, located on the north side of Kings Road in the western section of Jacksonville, has employed as watchman, Samuel Simeon Andrews (affectionately called "Parson"), a former slave of A.J. Lane of Georgia, Lewis Ripley of Beaufort, South Carolina, Ed Tillman of Dallas, Texas, and John Troy of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... between Sir ROGER and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable, because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that arise between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the 'squire, and the 'squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. The 'squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson instructs ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... mercy appears. While Jonathan's threaten'd with loss of his ears; For who would not think it a much better choice, By your knife to be mangled than rack'd with your voice. If truly you [would] be revenged on the parson, Command his attendance while you act your farce on; Instead of your maiming, your shooting, or banging, Bid Povey[2] secure him while you are haranguing. Had this been your method to torture him, long since, He had cut his own ears to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... as I was riding the line near a farm known as Parson Fog's, I heard that the family of a Mr. Wilkinson, of New Orleans, was "refugeeing" at a house near by. I rode up, inquired, and found two young girls of that name, who said they were the children of General Wilkinson, of Louisiana, and that their brother had been at the Military School ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... me, solemn like, and yet with a kind of satisfaction shining through him, more like a Methody parson when he has sold a neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and cleared twenty pounds by the job than anything I can think on—'Job, time's up, Job; but I never did expect to have to come and hunt you ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... discolored fingers. At seven o'clock I return to tea, at which repast we each tell the story of our day's work. For poor Miss Blunt, it is day after day the same story: a wearisome round of visits to the school, and to the houses of the mayor, the parson, the butcher, the baker, whose young ladies, of course, all receive instruction on the piano. But she doesn't complain, nor, indeed, does she look very weary. When she has put on a fresh calico dress for tea, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of those present, appreciated the order in which his schoolfellows had been named. Egerton—known as the Caterpillar—was the son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an obscure parson. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... would not be such an idiot, such a soft fool, as to go on with his purpose when he should learn that such a secret as this had been kept back from him. She had refused him, and taken up with this horrid, greasy, evil-eyed parson when she was rich; and then, when she was poor,—even before she had got rid of her other engagement, she had come back upon him, and, playing upon his pity, had secured him in her toils. Lady Ball felt well inclined to ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the impatience of his hearer's imagination,—'why, I was all of a tremble; it was as if I'd been a coat pulled by two tails, like; for I couldn't stop the parson, I couldn't take upon me to do that; and yet I said to myself, I says, "Suppose they shouldn't be fast married," 'cause the words are contrairy, and my head went working like a mill, for I was always uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round 'em; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... of Bayou La Farouche. Each of the gentlemen now acting upon my jury was alluded to. Colonel Plickaman read each passage in a pointed way, interjecting,—"Do you hear that, Billy Sangaree?" "How do you like yourself now, Major Licklickin?" "Here's something about your white cravat, Parson Butterfut." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... or seemed to supply the wants of the reading public, and the new competitor for public favor did not exhibit such superior ability as to attract any great attention or to diminish the subscription lists of its rivals. The Morning Herald had been started in 1780 by Parson Bate, who quarrelled with his colleagues of The Post. This journal, which is now the organ of mild and antiquated conservatism, was originally started upon liberal principles. Bate immediately ranged himself upon the side of the Prince of Wales and his party, and thus his fortunes were ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to see a parson. But before we start there's some business to fix up. Mr. West and I will need your help to fix up ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... parson monny minits to tee' em together for better an' for worse, an' then Burt took th' babby an' gave it to his bride, sayin', "Here's summat towards haase keepin' anyway." An' shoo tuk it an' kussed it as if ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Church of England. We live in the England of Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria—the England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War—as we follow Mark Lidderdale from boyhood to his ordination. The Altar Steps, it is known will be followed by a novel probably to be called The Parson's Progress. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie is bent upon a fictional study of the whole problem of the Church of England in relation to our times, and particularly the position of the Catholic party in ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... amusing parson of Meudon; but his characters are too fond of talking slang:—Voltaire; but he disheartens men by always bantering them:—Moliere; but he hinders one's laughter by making one think:—Lesage; let us stop at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Troy, and one fine day she ups an' tells her sorrowin' parents that she's agoin' to marry a leppard. 'Not ef we knows et,' says they; 'we forbids the banns'; and wi' that they went off to bed thinkin' as they'd settled et. 'But,' says Parson Lasky—" ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every feature with a hideous grin. 'Clever dogs! Clever dogs! Staunch to the last! Never told the old parson where they were. Never poached upon old Fagin! And why should they? It wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept the drop up, a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows! ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... himself accept the doctrine of eternal punishment, since it violated all sporting tenets, he was inclined to think that acceptation of the threat kept ignorant people straight and made them better members of society. He held that the parson and squire must combine in this matter and continue to claim and enforce, as far as possible, a beneficent autocracy in thorpe and hamlet; and he perceived that religion was the only remaining force which ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... so; I knew how it would be," I heard Grampus remark just as he happened to meet Tom, while I was passing. "Ill-luck has come to the ship, and ill-luck will stick to her, unless so be we gets a parson aboard and manages to heave him into the sea. That'll set things to rights ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the English people. It constitutes the standard of Middle English. Chaucer and Wiclif stood side by side. It is true that Chaucer himself accepted Wiclif's teaching, and some of the wise men think that the "parson" of whom he speaks so finely as one who taught the lore of Christ and His apostles twelve, but first followed it himself, was Wiclif. But the version had far more than literary influence; it had tremendous power in keeping alive in England ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... of her best and greatest sons, a patriot sternly resenting all dishonor to his country, a reformer who ventured his life for the purity of the Church and the freedom of the Bible—an earnest, faithful "parson of a country town," standing out conspicuously among the clergy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "and I must be confoundedly fond of you to roam the streets on such a night as this. One would think twice before sending even a parson out." ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Summer season) in his garden, trimming his shrubs, nursing his flowering-plants, growing magnificent roses, and in all ways acting utterly unlike a man of blood. Occasionally he played a game of chess with Parson Fisher, the jolly ex-clergyman, or smoked a pipe with the sadler-postmaster; he attended all the East Patten tea-parties, too, but he made himself so uniformly agreeable to all the ladies that the mothers in Israel agreed with many sighs, that the major ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... be met by some hoary member of his flock, whom perhaps he had borne particularly in mind, and to be greeted cheerfully with, "Capital sermon, Mr. Johns! those are the sort that do the business! I like those, parson!" The poor man, humiliated, would bow his thanks. He lacked the art (if it be an art) to press the matter home, when he met one of his parishioners thus. Indeed, his sense of the importance of his calling and his extreme conscientiousness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... bell rang for church," suggested Mr Gilham. "One of the fellows told me the parson has never been to sea before; so, my boy, of course, he doesn't know he's got to wait till the cap'en gives the order for service to be held. Those shore Johnnies have got a lot to be knocked into them! He doesn't know ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... excited the hatred and disgust of the orthodox by their overbearing determination to carry their Five Points. A broker in Rotterdam of the Contra-Remonstrant persuasion, being about to take a wife, swore he had rather be married by a pig than a parson. For this sparkling epigram he was punished by the Remonstrant magistracy with loss of his citizenship for a year and the right to practise his trade for life. A casuistical tinker, expressing himself violently in the same city against the Five Points, and disrespectfully ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wisdom—Pray to the Saints to make you a blockhead—Never send your boys to school—For Heaven knows, a poor man that will live honest, and die in his bed, ought to have no more scholarship than a parson, and no more brains ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... turnin' 'round an' facin' him square, says I: "Rector," says I, "why not baptize him where he is? I mean it. The waters o' Heaven are descendin' upon him where he sets, an' seems to me ef he's favo'bly situated for anything it is for baptism." Well, parson, he thess looked at me up an' down for a minute, like ez ef he s'picioned I was wanderin' in my mind, but he didn't faze me. I thess kep' up my argiment. Says I: "Parson," says I, speakin' thess ez ca'm ez I am this minute—"Parson," says I, "his little foot is mighty swole, an' ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... schools, I suppose, were educated mainly the boys whom the monks hoped would become monks, cleric or secular; mostly the poor, the Plowman's brother who was to be the Parson, not often the ploughman himself. Once, though, made a scholar and monk there, and sent by the Monastery to the University, the workman's, if not the ploughman's, son, might rule nobles and sit by kings, nay, beard them to their face. Thomas a Becket, himself the son of independent[[63a]] ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... depressed and tepid battle. I went about the constituency making three speeches that were soon threadbare, and an odd little collection of people worked for me; two solicitors, a cheap photographer, a democratic parson, a number of dissenting ministers, the Mayor of Kinghamstead, a Mrs. Bulger, the widow of an old Chartist who had grown rich through electric traction patents, Sir Roderick Newton, a Jew who had bought Calersham Castle, and old Sir ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... by their respective "vicars," who took them by the arm and would fain have persuaded them to go to church. They argued the question by field, stile, and church-gate; but not a Bucks peasant would consent to enter a pew till the parson had promised to preach a sermon to, and smoke a pipe with, them on the only Christmas ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... to make honest men and good women of its sinning derelicts. He wins the hearts of these rugged but misguided souls. Though at first they treat him rough, they learn to respect him, and they call him the fighting parson. Eventually he wins the hand in marriage of the youngest of the dance-hall denizens, a sweet young girl who despite her evil surroundings has remained as pure and good ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... exclaims: "The Church—a class institution—what does the Church do to help me and those like me? The Church supported by the wealthy, yes, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' The well-groomed parson, with his soft tones prophesying smooth things, well, I'm glad I'm not in ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... were of the simplest, raw ham and eggs forming the staple food. We bought a lamb once, but it only lasted one meal, as everyone developed an extraordinary appetite—the parson, Lazo our servant, and all ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... believe myself an honest woman; that I was your wife intentionally, though not in the eyes of the world, and that it was as effectual a marriage that had passed between us as is we had been publicly wedded by the parson of the parish. You know and cannot but remember that these have been your own words ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... first thing. I was always first thing to myself. Nice, clean boy, wasn't I? Wouldn't have known it was myself. Might have been a parson, almost. Here's another. Militia uniform, all that. Might have been a major, almost. Uh-hum! High school diploma here—very important. Eighteen—great God, was it so long ago as that? University diploma—Latin. Can't ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... said Coffin gravely, "how the devil looks; but they say he can put on the appearance of an angel of light, and I don't see why 'taint jist as easy for him to put on a black coat, and come the parson ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Will he add a new one onto Reuben,' I axed, 'when, as plain as logic will have it, it won't be a resurrection, but a creation, or will he start that leg a-trampin' by itself all the way from Manassas to jine the other at Old Church?' The parson had been holdin' pretty free all the mornin' with nobody daring to contradict him, and a man more taken aback by the power of logic my sight never lit on. 'Spare me, Mr. Doolittle,' was all he said, never a word mo'. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... said Sam, "I must say it's the entertainment I'd look to both with her and the parson, and neither the language nor the writing. Mrs. Mainwaring, will you allow me to propose a toast ma'am? It's for a fine creature, in her ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... from the toils of Calvinism. It is probable many of them would have laid down his life for his religion, and when they got on the track of a sinner, they pursued him as eagerly as ever an English parson did a fox, but it was to save, not to kill. In these hot pursuits, they did not stand on ceremony, and in my case, found a subject that would not run. My kith and kin had died at the stake, bearing testimony against popery ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... resolve against it, and determine to press my favourite scheme for cohabitation. But when I am with her, I am ready to say, to swear, and to do, whatever I think will be the most acceptable to her, and were a parson at hand, I should plunge at once, no doubt of it, into ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... I do think I was right, and I believe Parson Maltby would say the same. Well, now, there's another thing. Suppose one of you wants to borrow the legs a minute from the one that's got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... untrained, they found themselves for the time being Acting-Chaplains to Her Majesty's forces. Godly Methodists like Sergt.-Major Foote or Sergeant Oates, for instance, were not the men to be spoilt by such a position. Sergeant Oates tells how the men pointed him out as the 'Wesleyan Parson,' but he tells also that being provost-sergeant he had an empty cell under his charge and that there he used to go to be alone with God. From such communings he came out a strong man—strong to resist temptation ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... him. The setter puppies must be inspected. A match is being got up with the village eleven, who are boastful and confident in the possession of a bowling curate. To this the family hero rejoins that "he will crump the parson," a threat not so awful as it sounds. There is a wasps' nest which has been carefully preserved for this eventful hour, and which is to be besieged with boiling water, gunpowder, and other engines of warfare. Thus ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... ever been more singular than that of Laurence Sterne. Born in Clonmel Barracks, Ireland, on November 24, 1713, he was forty-six years of age before he discovered his genius. By calling he was a country parson in Yorkshire, yet more unconventional books than "Tristram Shandy" (see FICTION) and "A Sentimental Journey" never appeared. The fame of the former brought Sterne to London, where he became, says Walpole, "topsy-turvey with success." In the intervals of supplying an ever increasing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... saw her. Here's my Janet I've brought up for you, under my own eyes, out of the way of every damned soft-sawderer, safe and plump as a melon under a glass, and you fight shy of her, and go and engage yourself to a foreigner I don't know and never saw! By George, Harry, I'll call in a parson to settle you soon as ever we sight Riversley. I'll couple you, by George, I will! 'fore either of you know whether you're on your legs or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by signs I offered him to ride and tie: "never rode o' horseback but once, and then 'pon Parson Spinks his red mare at Bideford. Parson i' those days was courtin' the Widow Hambly, over to Torrington: an' I, that wanted to fare to Barnstaple, spent that mornin' an' better part o' th' afternoon, clawin' ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... for Robin Hays," muttered the shrewd yet ignorant cook; "for he would expoundiate, which signifies, make clear—why a parson must not meet a maid in the buttery.—But he is not a parson—Then he is a man—But not only a man, he must be something else, methinks. But why not Barbara go to the buttery? Just in time, here comes Robin; ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... tired of the title. At first it was rather amusing. Now it appears it is registered in Heaven's chancery and hedged about with divine ordinances. Only the other day an unknown parson requested me to open a church bazaar, and I gathered he had received his instructions ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Parson Adams, a simple-minded country clergyman of the eighteenth century. At the age of 50 he was provided with a handsome income of [pounds]23 a year (nearly [pounds]300 of our ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... The parson's voice runs like a river Over smooth rocks. I like this church: The pews are staid, they never shiver, They never bend or sway or lurch. "Prayer," says the kind voice, "is a chain That draws down Grace ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... call yourself Abbie if you choose," he used to say, "and 'tain't none o' my business, but I was in the meetin'-house and heard Zeke let drive, and b'gosh it sounded just like a buzz-saw strikin' the butt-end of a log. 'Abijah! Abijah! he hollered. Shet Parson Simmons up same's a steel trap. Gosh, but ...
— Abijah's Bubble - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... certainty, then even those who are under no mistake as to the proper meaning of the word, prefer expressing that meaning in some other way, and leave the original word to its fate. The word 'Squire, as standing for an owner of a landed estate; Parson, as denoting not the rector of the parish, but clergymen in general; Artist, to denote only a painter or sculptor; are cases in point. Such cases give a clear insight into the process of the degeneration of languages in periods of history when literary culture was suspended; ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... is few, and ravens scurser than they used to be,' as dear old Parson Miller used to answer. Now, Maud, bring on the citron;" and Polly began to put the cake together in what seemed a most careless and chaotic manner, while Tom and Maud watched with absorbing interest till it was safely in ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... an eye on her; I've got Engle and Barthman and Kelmer watching at the doors so Barbara can't light out for the Rancho Seco. She don't get away until tomorrow. Then she goes with me to the end of Sunset Trail. I've sent Shorty Mallo to Willow's Wells for the parson." ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw. When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whoo; To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Bosville," said I: "he beat himself. Had he not struck his hand against a tree, I shouldn't be here at the present moment." "Hear! hear!" said the landlord, "now that's just as it should be; I like a modest man, for, as the parson says, nothing sits better upon the young man than modesty. I remember, when I was young, fighting with Tom of Hopton, the best man that ever pulled off coat in England. I remember, too, that I won the battle; for I happened ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the man as loves the Squire, The Parson, and the Beak; And labours twelve good hours a day For ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris |
