"Sceptre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us the dress and appearance of each character. 'Racine abhorre la realite,' says Auguste Vacquerie somewhere; 'il ne daigne pas s'occuper de son costume. Si l'on s'en rapportait aux indications du poete, Agamemnon serait vetu d'un sceptre et Achille d'une epee.' But with Shakespeare it is very different. He gives us directions about the costumes of Perdita, Florizel, Autolycus, the Witches in Macbeth, and the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, several elaborate descriptions of his fat knight, and a detailed account ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... Englishman all things are conceded!" said the Abbe satirically, "Even the right to enter the sanctum of the most exclusive lady in Europe! Is it not a curious thing that the good Britannia appears to stick her helmet on the head, and put her sceptre in the hand of every one of her sons who condescends to soil his boots by walking on foreign soil? With the helmet he defies the gemdarme,—with the sceptre he breaks open every door,—we prostrate ourselves before his face and curse him behind his back,—c'est drole!—yet we are ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... with infinite allure. "It is so little that is asked of thee—only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to reign an undisputed king in two ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... the garment vanish. Utter again thy command, let the garment appear. He spake with his mouth, vanished the garment; Again he commanded, and the garment appeared. When the gods, his fathers, saw thus his word fulfilled, Joyful were they and did homage: Marduk is king. On him conferred sceptre and throne.... Gave him invincible arms to crush them that hate him. Now go and cut short the life of Tiamat, May the winds into a secret place carry her blood. The ruler of the gods they made him, the gods, his fathers, Wished him success and glory in the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... recognised chief was soon felt by the Crusaders, and Godfrey de Bouillon, less ambitious than Bohemund or Raymond of Toulouse, gave his cold consent to wield a sceptre which the latter chiefs would have clutched with eagerness. He was hardly invested with the royal mantle before the Saracens menaced his capital. With much vigour and judgment he exerted himself to follow up the advantages he had gained, and marching out to meet the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... had not scrupled to make away with the royal treasure, was scarcely likely to be very conscientious in regard to the duty of laying down a sceptre, the pleasantness of which she had only just begun to taste. She was already at variance with her Council, who, in despair of any order being established, had invited Albany, then in France, to come over and take up the reins of government. As early as April 1514, a Bill for his recall had ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... say, "look at the opportunity that man had! He might have been commander of the Egyptian army, he might have been on the throne, swaying the sceptre over the whole world, if he hadn't identified himself with those poor, miserable Hebrews! Think what an opportunity he has lost, and what a privilege ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... virtuous prince, seeing you will have it so, Although the place be far unfit for me, I am content your grace shall have your mind. Thus, like an ass attired in costly robes, Or like a ring thrust in a foul sow's snout, So do these robes and sceptre fit mine age. But for I am judge, Philarchus, stand thou forth, And know, as there is nothing so good, but it hath some inconvenience, So there is no man whatsoever without some fault: Yet this is no argument to maintain thy wilful disobedience. As ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... the quarrel, whatever it may have been, in this wise. He held out an awl, a hatchet, and an axe, presenting them to Kieranus: 'These things,' said he, 'and other things of this kind, with which thy father used to practise carpentry, hast thou abjured for the love of God. But Columba renounced the sceptre of Ireland, for which he might have hoped from his ancestral right and the power of his clan, before he made offering.'" The same tale is told in Manus O'Donnell's Life (ed. O'Kelleher, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... her diplomacy, the exit of the enraged Bruno, was at once achieved. He had already handed his spear in a lordly style, like a sceptre, to the piteous Parkinson, and was about to assume one of the cushioned seats like a throne. But at this open appeal to his rival there glowed in his opal eyeballs all the sensitive insolence of the slave; ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to usurp as many of Scoutbush's honours as I can till he comes. I must lay down the sceptre in a fortnight, you know, so I shall make as much use of it as I ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... successive season sway'd The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why Should melancholy cloud my early years? Religion spurns earth's visionary scene, Philosophy revolts at misery's chain: Just Heaven recall'd it's own, the pilgrim call'd From human woes, from sorrow's ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... peasant, with whom bred Are sons of kings, of an immortal race. Their garb to their condition they debase, Eat of his fare, make on his straw their bed, Conversing, use his homely dialect, (Giving the words some meaning of their own,) Till, half forgetting purple, sceptre, throne, Themselves his children mere they nigh suspect. And when, divinely moved, one goes away, His royal right and glory to resume, Loss of his rags appears his life's decay, He weeps, and his companions mourn his doom. Yet doth a voice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... V was to be celebrated at Aix-la-Chapelle the Marchese di Pescara was appointed ambassador to represent the House of Aragon on this brilliant occasion, when the new emperor was to be invested with the crown and the sceptre of Charlemagne. Charles had decided to journey by sea and to visit Henry VIII on the way, an arrangement of which Cardinal Wolsey was aware, although he had kept Henry in ignorance of it, according to those curious mental processes of his mind where ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... the man who invented goads! Blessed the innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicholas, who introduced me to their use! This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a sceptre when he put it in my hands. Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and she passed the most inviting stable-door. A prick, and she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said; and we took four hours to cover ten ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... harmony And the silent deeds of thought, And obedient to his sceptre All the planets chime ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... who came in later days To play at Emperor: in the dead of night Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light In sudden purple. The dawn's straggling rays Showed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze, With red hands at her throat—a piteous sight. Then the new Caesar, stricken with affright At his own daring, shrunk ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the Passions," relates the following pleasing anecdote of Robert, one of the greatest monarchs that ever swayed the sceptre of France. Having once surprised a rogue who had cut away the half of his mantle, he took no other notice of the offence than by saying mildly to him, "Save thyself, sinner, and leave the rest for another who may have need ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... is as wide as the world, and as far-reaching as all the generations, over which fashion hath extended her sceptre. For thousands of years she hath sat queen over all the earth, and the revolutions that rock down all other thrones have not in the slighest affected her domination. Other constitutions have been torn, and other laws trampled; but to her decrees conquerors have ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... initials which were used in 'The Coronation Prayer-Book of King Edward VII.,' issued from the celebrated Oxford University Press. There were forty initials or headings, embodying the coronation regalia, including the crown, sceptre, rose, thistle, shamrock, etc. The magnificent cover for the book was also ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... folded the county paper and came around to our side of the stove. There he struck his favorite attitude, which was always made most effective by the endless operation of putting his spectacles in their case—pulling them out—waving them—ad infinitum. For in our valley spectacles are the sceptre of ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... to smite the rock with his rod, no water would ever have flowed therefrom. His rod represents rod of the mouth whereof Isaiah speaks (ch. 11, 4): "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." "A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom." ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... the degraded condition of Rome. He knew the infamous vices of her rulers; he retained an unconquerable love for liberty and for his own race. Desire to avenge his own wrongs was mingled with loftier motives in his breast. He knew that the sceptre was in the gift of the Batavian soldiery. Galba had been murdered, Otho had destroyed himself, and Vitellius, whose weekly gluttony cost the empire more gold than would have fed the whole Batavian population ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I cried, "this is too bad!" he was delivering himself so grandly. "Why you yourself have been amongst us, as the balance, and sceptre, and sword of law, for nigh upon a twelvemonth; and have you abated the nuisance, or even cared to do it, until they ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in Simon's Town, and, indeed, the greater part of the town itself, belongs to an Englishman of the name of Osbond, who, however, is more generally known by the dignified title of 'King John.' He was carpenter on board the sixty-gun ship Sceptre, which was wrecked off this coast some yearn ago. Like Juan, he escaped the sea, and like Juan he found a Haidee. Being well-favoured and sharp-witted, he won the heart and the hand of a wealthy Dutch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... qualities of the poetic tribe, but his claim to the songs—such as the 'Gaberlunzie Man'—which go under his name, is exceedingly doubtful. James VI. was a pedant, without being a scholar—a rhymester, not a poet. Of the rest we need not speak. Seldom has the sceptre become an Aaron's rod, and flourished with the buds and blossoms of song. In our annals there has been one, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... once a year through the streets of London on her milk-white courser, to hear the nightingales sing in the Tower. For when she came to the throne the Tower was full of prisoners, but with a stroke of her sceptre she changed them all into song-birds. Every year she releases fifty; and that is why they sing so rapturously, because each one hopes his turn ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is still ticking the moments away; 'Tis but a short time ere the old King must lay His sceptre, his crown, and his burdens aside, That the new King may come with ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine
... and the nails that had been used. They were identified by miracle. A true relic-worship set in. The superstition of the old Greek times reappeared; the times when the tools with which the Trojan horse was made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of Pelops at Chaeroneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of Memnon at Nicomedia, when the Tegeates could show the hide of the Calydonian boar and very many cities boasted their possession of the true palladium of Troy; when there were statues of Minerva that ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... broken at her great loss. And well might she mourn. The sceptre which the great Wizard of the North had so long held was broken, and no successor has yet risen to uphold the fame of Auld Scotia. Nor will a successor arise. No hand like his will ever touch the harp of his native land; no strains ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... had rolled the ivory chariots of Marius and Caesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled fasces—the golden eagles—the shouting legions—the captives and the pictured cities—were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. The sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the dominion of her ancient ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Let the world without go as it may, let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The armchair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainly snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... to despise the blood royal because it humbled itself to service and so was doubly royal. The Far Away Princess came laden with great gifts, and to her the King's gift was the wage of a slave and a broken heart. Cast your crown and sceptre in the dust, ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... eyes with avarice and glutted her brain with greed. She has starved her intellect and gorged her ambition. She has bartered her birthright of nobility and sold her soul to crawling sycophants. She has prostituted her sceptre of power to trusts for tinsel and cowers under the lash of corporations because they bind her brow with a cap of bells that tinkle an empty song of "Freedom." In the mad rush for gain, America has forgotten its greatness, and in their blind struggle for gold Americans forget ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... hence it emits laws and statutes, and sends out commands to the soul and whole man. Man chose at first to hearken to the counsel of his senses, that said, it was pleasant and good to eat of the forbidden fruit; but that counsel is now turned into a command. Sin hath gotten a sceptre there, to rule over the spirit which was born a free prince. Sin hath conquered all our strength, or we have given up unto it all our strength. Any truth that is in the conscience; any knowledge of God, or religion, all this is incarcerated, detained in a prison of unrighteous ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... itself at first but feebly and imperfectly: it is repressed and kept back by a crowd of the most discouraging prejudices: like an infant prince, who, though born to reign, yet holds an idle sceptre, which he has not power to use, but is obliged to see with the eyes, and hear through ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... sceptre over so numerous a population as this fell destroyer, in his unseen lurking places, "drinking up the very fountains of human life." But when will the sons of men learn to think? with all the blight of death around, cutting ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... In the afternoon there are sports; and in the evening continuous dancing in a large marquee. One of the chief sports of the afternoon is "Shooting at the Eagle" with a cross-bow, and trying to knock off the crown or sceptre from the effigy of a bird, crowned with an eagle and holding a sceptre, stuck up on the top of a high pole. The crown or the sceptre represents a high prize, and each feather struck off represents a prize ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... middle of the sixteenth century there were living in Ferrara (it was at that time flourishing under the sceptre of its magnificent archdukes, the patrons of the arts and poetry) two young men, named Fabio and Muzzio. They were of the same age, and of near kinship, and were scarcely ever apart; the warmest affection had united them from early childhood ... the similarity of their positions ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... gentle Sister of Sighs! Do thou take him now to thy heart, and season him for our dreadful sister. And thou"—turning to the Mater Tenebrarum, she said—"wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do thou take him from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head. Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his darkness. Banish the frailties of hope—wither the relentings of love—scorch the fountains of tears: curse him as only thou canst curse. So shall he be accomplished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Understand!" He who holds the sceptre of the king may rule right royally. There is solace for the tired traveller within the cloister of that other heart, and the pitiful chains which some call marriage would rust and decay at the entrance to that ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... of the tree; already the sentence had gone forth, "cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?" Already the hand of the destroyer was upon the city; the Roman eagle glittered amid the halls of Zion, and the once glorious sceptre had departed from Judah. Over such a city Jesus wept. And what of the future? The end came soon. Quickly the Jews filled up the measure, of their sins. Little thought they, as they watched with jibe and insult the agonies of God's Son, that those streets of ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... in their cells and vaults obscene, Present a sacrifice unclean; From whence unsavoury vapours rose, Offensive to thy nicer nose. Ah! who, in our degenerate days, As nature prompts, his offering pays? Here nature never difference made Between the sceptre and the spade. Ye great ones, why will ye disdain To pay your tribute on the plain? Why will you place in lazy pride Your altars near your couches' side: When from the homeliest earthen ware Are sent up offerings more sincere, Than where the haughty ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... King his iron sceptre bear— His only praise attends the pious Heir; He, in whose soul the virtues all conspire, The best good son, from the worst wicked sire." —DR. LOWTH: Union ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... when these imperial figure- heads were elected by the three archbishops and their four colleagues, was a nonentity, who made no attempt to govern a turbulent land that so many were willing to govern for him. His majesty left sword and sceptre to those who cared for such baubles, and employed himself in banding together the most notable company of meistersingers that Germany had ever listened to. But although harmony reigned in Frankfort, the capital, there was much lack of it along ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... A messy slab, in fashion square or round. On such a stool immortal Alfred sat, And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms: And such in ancient halls may still ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... their aid to accomplish the ruin of our country. It appeals to their ambition, their avarice, their fears, their hatred of free institutions and of constitutional government. It summons them to these English shores, it unsheathes the imperial sceptre in the House of Commons, denounces the Ministry of England, and dictates the vote of Parliament on the most momentous question in the history of the world. Why, when these sentiments were uttered, I almost expected to see the shades of Burke and Fox, and Pitt and Chatham, and Peel and Wellington, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... naiads, or reclined Leans on a broom-clad bank to watch the sports Of some far-distant chamois silken haired, The chaste Pyrene, drying up her tears, Finds, with your children, refuge: yonder, Rhine Lays his imperial sceptre at your feet." ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... Emperor woke up, he felt a terrible weight on his chest. He opened his eyes, and there was Death, sitting on his heart. Death had put on the Emperor's gold crown, and he had the gold sceptre in one hand, and the silken banner in the other; and he looked at the Emperor with his great hollow eyes. The room was full of shadows, and the shadows were full of faces. Everywhere the Emperor looked, there were faces. ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... that his desk was clean, as clean as General Pershing's or Major Murphy's in Paris, or President Wilson's in Washington. Then it came to us that the king's job, after all, is a desk job. The king who used to go around ruling with a sceptre has given place to a gentleman in a business suit who probably rings for his stenographer and dictates in part as follows: "Yours of even date received and contents noted; in reply will say!" We carried away an impression that the lot of royalty, like the policeman's lot, "is not ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... possible the final triumph of the Allied armies, for, had the command of the ocean slipped from our hands those armies would have languished and been beaten back for lack of support in men and material. Had the sceptre of the seas passed to our foes, our own black boys would never have inscribed on their banner the imperishable name of Chateau-Thierry, The Argonne, and Hill 304. The one essential and indisputable element of victory was the supremacy ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... She heard it through the noise in the far distance; it came slowly nearer, up to the door without,—passed it, going down the echoing plank walk. The girl sat quietly, looking out at the dead brick wall. The slow step fell on her brain like the sceptre of her master; if Knowles had looked in her face then, he would have seen bared the secret of her life. Holmes had gone by, unconscious of who was within the door. She had not seen him; it was nothing but a step she heard. Yet a power, the power of the girl's ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... spare men from the plough and the sword for the cultivation of art and letters. The civilisations of Britain, France, Germany, Spain, North Africa, and Italy were ushered into the calendar of mankind, and were ready to bear the burden when the mighty city on the Tiber let the sceptre fall from ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... is a thing that commands in a king, Be his sceptre ne'er so fair: Where the beard bears the sway the people obey, And are ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... with force, and of returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... like that; your similes are always too self-deprecatory. You seem to me more and more like a young queen who has just come to the throne, but who is shy about picking up her sceptre. She prefers long-stemmed roses, and every now and then she catches up her train and runs down from her dais and out-of-doors, until some shocked courtier rushes after her ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... the people were over-awed by the pomp and splendour of royal power. The symbols of greatness, a throne, a sceptre, a purple robe, a crown, a fillet, these were sacred in their sight. These symbols, and the respect which they inspired, led them to reverence the venerable man whom they beheld adorned with them; without soldiers and without ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... us in our task, Keep pure and clean our rule, Silence the honeyed words which mask The wisdom of the fool; The pillars of the world are Thine, Pour down Thy bounteous grace, And make illustrious and divine The sceptre of our race. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... a great place in history. He was a great moving power of the day of change, a great statesman, a brilliant soldier, and a splendid ruler of the mightiest dominion that had existed under one sceptre, since the days of Charlemagne. He was a man of vast projects, vast means, and vast opportunities. But he had no greatness of mind; he had but one purpose, personal aggrandizement; and for that purpose, he adopted every vice of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... used as a cover to his real designs in life. Influential in the local politics of Harrisville he had experienced the keen pleasure of wielding the silver sceptre of power, and he longed not only to be the "power behind the throne," but to sit on the throne itself and guide the Ship ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... or one here and one there, on this side and that; {137} but it is always twisting, in its own inner mind and force; hence it is especially proper to use the word 'stem' of it—[Greek: stemma], a twined wreath; properly, twined round a staff, or sceptre: therefore, learn at once by heart these lines in the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... proportions, is most satisfying to the eye. It was a happy selection to place the Goddess of Agriculture between the Food Products Palace and the Palace of Agriculture. Ceres strikes the keynote of this delightfully beautiful court. With corn sceptre and cereal wreath, Ceres is poised on the globe, the winds of the Golden Gate blowing thru her drapery. Below on the die of the fountain are graceful figures in relief suggesting the decorations of a Greek vase. Eight joyous, happy creatures trip past you, some with tambourines, others with pipes ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... in your hands," I called back. "Tell us if it is hard and cold, with jewels atop. For that will be a King's Sceptre." ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... that, in my judgment, Sir Robert Peel in all his measures, since his last appointment has shown a wise moderation and conciliatory spirit, and an anxious desire for the true welfare of the vast Empire beneath the sway of Her Majesty's sceptre. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... led him into one of the great halls, in which, by his preordinance, were two chests closed under lock and key, and, not a few others being present, said to him:—"Messer Ruggieri, one these chests contains my crown, sceptre and orb, with many a fine girdle, buckle, ring, and whatever else of jewellery I possess; the other is full of earth: choose then, and whichever you shall choose, be it yours; thereby you will discover whether 'tis due to me or to your ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... regard to whom it is an ancient tradition, and commonly received all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but was changed by magic art into a raven, and that in process of time he is to return to reign and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which reason it cannot be proved that from that time to this any Englishman ever killed a raven? Well, then, in the time of this good king that famous order of chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table was instituted, and the amour of Don Lancelot ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Mingrelia, or Colchis as the latter calls it. Chardin refers this title to the Persian Dad, "equity." To a portrait of "Alexander, King of Iberia," or Georgia Proper, Castelli attaches the following inscription, giving apparently his official style: "With the sceptre of David, Crowned by Heaven, First King of the Orient and of the World, King of Israel," adding, "They say that he has on his shoulder a small mark of a cross, 'Factus est principatus super humerum ejus,' and they add that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Rosa; and I remember seeing her seated at the porch of her master's house, when a number of her black subjects who were passing knelt before her, and kissing her hand in a true loyal fashion, asked her blessing. Her mistress had given her a silver sceptre, and the young ladies of the family would lend her jewels, artificial flowers, and other ornaments; bedecked in which, on certain days, she would be carried off by her subjects in great state, her sceptre borne before her, to the house of the Confradia, where a throne was prepared to receive ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... most earnest desire to insure the happiness of all classes of the subjects whom divine Providence has placed under my imperial sceptre; and since my accession to the throne I have not ceased to direct all my efforts to the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... firmly established as a parliamentary government; and the most marked of all the physical changes of the century was the rapid expansion of her power under this new form of rule. She grew to be really "mistress of the seas," extended her sceptre over distant lands, ceased to be an island, and became a world-wide empire. Her trade increased enormously; her manufactures developed. By his invention of the "spinning-jenny," Arkwright placed England's cotton manufacture among the most giant industries of the world.[2] The land grew ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to Oxford, intending that my brother George and I should kill a buck with Sir Simon Harcourt, which he had promised me; and there at Oxford, in the said Jones's chamber, I did see certain stillatories, alembics, and other instruments of glass, and also a sceptre and other things, which he said did appertain to the conjuration of the four kings; and also an image of white metal; and in a box, a serpent's skin, as he said, and divers books and things, whereof one was a book which he said was my Lord Cardinal's, having pictures in it like angels. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... is ours; Ours thy fearless, golden bow; And our shining arrows go From thy bright untaken towers. Thou art what we will to be, Sceptre, star, and winged cloud; We are blood and brawn of thee, Glowing up through sod and stone, Burning through thy rended shroud, Moving with thee, chainless, on, Till the world, a quickened whole, Truth-delivered, naked, free, Once again hath found ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... of the parentage, we must look to the time. In the thirteenth century, the popedom was at the summit of mortal dominion; it was independent of all kingdoms; it ruled with a rank of influence never before or since possessed by a human sceptre; it was the acknowledged sovereign of body and soul; to all earthly intents its power was immeasurable for good or evil. It might have spread literature, peace, freedom, and christianity to the ends of Europe, or the world. But its nature was hostile; its fuller triumph ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... royal habit dressed, With starry diadem upon his head, And o'er his shoulders an imperial vest Worn upon holidays.—The king displayed A sceptre, pastoral shape, with hooked crest: In a rich jacket too was he arrayed, Given by the inhabitants of Sericane, And Ganymede held up his ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... established their residence. This is the place which, if boldness may be allowed to my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40] of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... that you wield a sceptre, foretells that you will be chosen by friends to positions of trust, and you will not disappoint their ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... am not Griselda, and she will explain how it would certainly all go wrong with me. But what's the good when I know it all beforehand? Have I not desired King Cophetua to take himself and sceptre elsewhere?" And then she started, having first said another word or two about the Crawley children, and obtained a promise of Puck and the pony-carriage for the afternoon. It was also almost agreed that Puck on his return to Framley should ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... some pocket of your brain A care for me; wherefore my gratitude For your attention is commensurate With your concern. Yes, Burr, we are two kings; We are as royal as two ditch-diggers; But owe me not your sceptre. These are the days When first a few seem all; but if we live, We may again be seen to be the few That we have always been. These are the days When men forget the ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... relations between husband and wife that Mrs. Chater carved; her husband dealt the sweets. The carving knife is the domestic sceptre of authority: when it is wielded by the woman, the man, you will find, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... conceded right of conquest. It was therefore constantly paramount in the conqueror's mind. [88] The Pope could depose and give away the realm of any sovereign prince "si vel paulum deflexerit." The Monarch held his sceptre under the sordid condition of vassalage; hence Philip II., for the security of his Crown, could not have disobeyed the will of the Pontiff, whatever his personal inclinations might have been regarding the spread of Christianity. [89] If he desired it, he served his ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... do you do it? That Georgian's cue, it, Compared with your sceptre, is just a mere withy. You quietly front in with that calm "Voluntas," (Expressed for our guidance in epigrams pithy) You hint you can rule us, and guide us, and school us, "All off your own bat," without Clergy or Minister, Giving ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... reward him for his services by conferring a peerage on him, but this honor Walpole steadily declined. One of his biographers says that his refusal "at first appears extraordinary." It ought not to appear extraordinary at first or at last. Walpole knew that the sceptre of government in England had passed to the House of Commons. He would have been unwise and inconsistent indeed if at his time of life he had consented to renounce the influence and the power which a seat in that House gave him for ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... of this great Icelandic poet, that owing to his treachery the free island of Iceland came beneath the Norwegian sceptre. For this reason he could never appear in Iceland without a strong guard, and therefore visited the Allthing under the protection of a small army of 600 men. Being at length surprised by his enemies in his house at Reikiadal, he fell beneath their blows, after ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... all the royal ornaments to augment the pomp of the deceased. There was a bier all of gold, embroidered with precious stones, and a purple bed of various contexture, with the dead body upon it, covered with purple; and a diadem was put upon his head, and a crown of gold above it, and a sceptre in his right hand; and near to the bier were Herod's sons, and a multitude of his kindred; next to which came his guards, and the regiment of Thracians, the Germans also and Gauls, all accounted as if they were going to war; but the rest of the army went foremost, armed, and ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... free. I will have none of that freedom. If, therefore, the standard of moderation be sought for, I will seek for it. Where? Not in their fancies, nor in my own: I will seek for it where I know it is to be found—in the Constitution I actually enjoy. Here it says to an encroaching prerogative—"Your sceptre has its length; you cannot add a hair to your head, or a gem to your crown, but what an eternal law has given to it." Here it says to an overweening peerage—"Your pride finds banks that it cannot overflow;" here ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... the Solymi, descried Ulysses ploughing the waves, his domain. The sight of the man he so much hated for Polyphemus's sake, his son, whose eye Ulysses had put out, set the god's heart on fire; and snatching into his hand his horrid sea-sceptre, the trident of his power, he smote the air and the sea, and conjured up all his black storms, calling down night from the cope of heaven, and taking the earth into the sea, as it seemed, with clouds, through the darkness and indistinctness which prevailed, the billows ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... adjusted around Hal's broad shoulders. It was trimmed with white fur, and was caught up on one shoulder, toga fashion, with a spray of holly. A massive gilt pasteboard crown she put on his head, and gave him a long wand or sceptre covered with gilt paper and topped with a ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... of the Demon of Famine. To indicate the sterility of the domain over which he reigned, he was represented by the figure of a lean and haggard man, with a crown of thorns upon his head; a reed cut from the river's bank was placed in his hands, as his unreal sceptre; and, considering the inhabitants of Judea as the most slavish and mean-spirited race in their knowledge, they placarded this figure with the inscription: "This is the King of the Jews." Thus, to the ancient Egyptians, this sign of the cross was blessed or accursed ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... becomes its contrary. Too much caution may become a positive menace to safety; too much orderliness may result in individual incapacity for sell-control; just as liberty rots into license, and demos descends to a crown and sceptre and tyranny. I am merely calling attention to this great law of national development, that the exaggeration of even fine qualities is the road to the punishment of our faults, in Germany, as in every ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... time, before the faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods, Before King Oberon's bright diadem, Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem, Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, The ever-smitten Hermes empty left His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft: From high Olympus had he stolen light, ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... often been perverted to justify the most cruel punishments inflicted on helpless children. The word translated 'a rod,' is derived from the Hebrew verb 'to govern,' and, as a noun, signifies a sceptre, a pen, or a staff, the emblems of government. Brutal punishments, as practised in our army, navy, and schools, are not only inhuman and indecent, but have one direct tendency, that of hardening the mind and instilling a vindictive ferocious disposition. After bringing up a very large ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... is to be seen in use upon drapery. It is taken entirely over the exterior surface of the cloak, and upon the crown, sceptre, and model of the church. The lines expressing the folds of drapery are in this case shown by the couching at these places being taken in a different direction. Fine gold passing is used for the couched thread, much finer than can possibly be shown ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... of a sacred hope Warriors of Peace in hosts assemble; They battle not with sceptre or with crown; They fight to break the age of barriers down That sever man from man. With these they cope, And now the ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 4 • Various
... Antonius or Octavius. To the pursuit of fame he sacrificed many interests and friendships. He was not less jealous of a rival in his chosen career than any of the leaders of party and candidates for popular favor. He could not endure competition for the throne of eloquence and the sceptre of persuasion. It was on this account perhaps that he sought his associates among the young, from whose rivalry he had nothing to fear, rather than from his own contemporaries, the candidates for the same prize of public ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the supernatural machinery of this romance, it is Cabalistical and correct. From the Spirits of the Tombs to the sceptre of Solomon, authority may be found in the traditions of the Hebrews for the introduction of all these ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians, who wield the sceptre of wisdom—schoolmasters, that is—would be the most wretched of all people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good of schoolmasters, also ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... reaches you the sceptre; more, he will obey you in all points. I should have been a dog to ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... They draped Him in the torn red cloak of a Bedouin for royal purple, they plucked thorns from a hedge in the neighbouring garden, wove them into a crown, and set it on His head. They broke off a dry reed and put it into His hand as a sceptre. They anointed His cheek with spittle. And then they bowed down to the ground before Him, and sang in a shrill voice: "Hail to Thee, O anointed Messiah-King!" and put ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... for Cumberland to the crown of England; but Malcolm refused compliance, on pretence that he owed homage to those princes only who inherited that kingdom by right of blood. Canute was not of a temper to bear this insult; and the King of Scotland soon found that the sceptre was in very different hands from those of the feeble and irresolute Ethelred. Upon Canute's appearing on the frontiers with a formidable army, Malcolm agreed that his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in possession of Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... loses the print of the nail; He never forgets Calvary and the blood; He never spends one hour without stooping to do the most menial work of cleansing filthy souls. And it is because of this humility He sits on the Throne and wields the sceptre ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... of great officials who have laid down their dignities before death, or have had the philosophic mind to review themselves while still wielding the deputy sceptre, teaches them that in the exercise of authority over men an eccentric behaviour in trifles has most exposed them to hostile criticism and gone farthest to jeopardize their popularity. It is their Achilles' heel; the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who wears the crown, and they are things, be well assured, that leave little leisure for happiness. [13] And you, Cambyses, you know of yourself, without words from me, that your kingdom is not guarded by this golden sceptre, but by faithful friends; their loyalty is your true staff, a sceptre which shall not fail. But never think that loyal hearts grow up by nature as the grass grows in the field: if that were so, the same men would be loyal ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... (which is here indomitable) should attain this result, they will be in pretty much the same position there that Pharaoh occupied over their race in Egypt in olden time, and, if reports speak true, will wield the sceptre of authority over their captives in a somewhat similar style. Avarice is the besetting sin of the Israelite, and here his slaves are taxed beyond endurance. To exact the utmost from his labour is the constant aim, and I was informed that many ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... attention to the number of Irish prisoners who had been transported for participation in rebellious movements at home, and to their implacable hatred of Great Britain. "The Irish, kept under by an iron sceptre, are quiet to-day; but if ever the Government of our country, alarmed by the rapidly increasing power of that colony, formed the project of taking or destroying it, at the very name of the French the Irish would rise. We had ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... most was the robe he was to wear at his coronation, the robe of tissued gold, and the ruby-studded crown, and the sceptre with its rows and rings of pearls. Indeed, it was of this that he was thinking to-night, as he lay back on his luxurious couch, watching the great pinewood log that was burning itself out on the open hearth. The designs, which were from the hands of the most famous artists of the ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... entering the portals where none are worthy to follow, shalt make obeisance alone to all the elder Kings of Zarkandhu, whose bones are seated upon golden thrones grasping their sceptres still. Therein thou shalt go with robes and sceptre through the marble porch, but thou shalt leave behind thee thy gleaming crown that others may wear it, and as the times go by come in to swell the number of the thirty Kings that sit in the great white house on golden thrones. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... realized—will loyalty and its concomitant instinct of reverence disappear forever? We transfer our allegiance from one master to another, without being unfaithful to either; from being subjects of a ruler that wields the temporal sceptre we become servants of the monarch who sits enthroned in the penetralia of our heart. A few years ago a very stupid controversy, started by the misguided disciples of Spencer, made havoc among the reading class of Japan. In their zeal to uphold the claim of the throne to undivided ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... accustomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,—meaning, I suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... will not be on the stony heights around Jerusalem: it will be in the Plain of Sharon, in the outgoings of Mount Ephraim, in the green pastures of Gilead, in the lovely region of "Galilee of the Gentiles." It will not be by the sword of Gideon nor by the sceptre of Solomon, but by the sign of peace on earth ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... the words CAROLO MAGNO, indicating the spot where the tomb of Charlemagne was located. It was probably a little chapel above ground. It was opened in 1165, and the body was found sitting on a throne, clothed in imperial robes, a sceptre in the hand, and a copy of the Gospels on the knee. The crown was on the bony brow, and his sword and other articles near him. All these relics were subsequently used at the coronation of the emperors, but are now kept at Vienna, except the throne, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... commanded, and waved the sceptre in a fine manner. So we followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle awed. Elsbeth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path, made by the girl's dear feet, guided our ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... grow Rather more interesting. What do you mean? A crown and sceptre and a thousand ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... ever they meddled with their master. For where God begins justly to strike by his lawful lieutenants, it is not in the devil's power to defraud or bereave him of the office or effect of his powerful and revenging sceptre.' Thus I am safe; and I shall take care to go armed with a proper warrant, which I shall obtain from a magistrate, my honoured friend and singular good client, Master Roger Newell. This will obtain me such assistance as I may require, and for due observance ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in thine eyes that our King doth offer thee mercy, and that after so many provocations? Yea, he still holdeth out his golden sceptre to thee, and will not yet suffer his gate to be shut against thee: wilt thou provoke him to do it? If so, consider of what I say; to thee it is opened no more for ever. If thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... had a high opinion of the power of the Church; but not because he considered it dangerous to Governments, particularly to his own. Napoleon never could have conceived how it was possible that a sovereign wearing a crown and a sword could have the meanness to kneel to a Pope, or to humble his sceptre before the keys of St. Peter. His spirit was too great to admit of such a thought. On the contrary, he regarded the alliance between the Church and his power as a happy means of influencing the opinions of the people, and as an additional tie which was to attach them to a ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the Spaniards, and invited them to go on board his canoe. "He was seated under a silk parasol which covered him entirely. In front of him were placed one of his sons who carried the royal sceptre, two men who had each a golden vase full of water for washing the king's hands, and two others holding small gilt boxes filled with betel." Then the Spaniards made the king come on board the vessels, where they showed him much respect, at the same ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... trains, crowns, ball, and sceptre were put together in the corner of the dell, and then the king and the queen were ready for a good game of play with ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various |
