"Sceptre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a perished civilization, now utterly unintelligible to the speaker; or some other note, which proclaims his language to be the remains of a dissipated inheritance, the rags and remnants of a robe which was a royal one once. The fragments of a broken sceptre are in his hand, a sceptre wherewith once he held dominion (he, that is, in his progenitors) over large kingdoms of thought, which now have escaped wholly from his sway. [Footnote: See on this matter Tylor, Early History of Mankind, pp. 150-190; and, still ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... 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 kind of usurpation which my friend ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the deep With dart, and plunge, and airy leap; And said, "Full sure a GOD doth reign King of this watery, wide domain, And rides in a car of cerulean hue O'er bounding billows of green and blue; And in one hand a three-pronged spear He holds, the sceptre of his fear, And with the other shakes the reins Of his steeds, with foamy, flowing manes, And coures o'er the brine; And when he lifts his trident mace, Broad Ocean crisps his darkling face, And mutters wrath divine; The big waves rush with hissing ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... reason; is part spiritual, by which he can unite himself to God; part material, by which he has it in his power to use and even enslave himself to creatures. Virtue is his purple garment, immortality his sceptre, and eternal glory his crown. His resemblance to his Creator consist in the soul only, that is, in its moral virtues and God's grace; which divine resemblance men most basely efface in themselves by sin. He speaks of the dignity and spiritual nature of the soul, and the future resurrection ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... as a knight would his lance, And said, "Here 's my sceptre, my baton, my spear, And there's my prime minister far in advance, Who serves me with truth for his food by the year." So I slept without care till the dawning of day, Then trimm'd up my woodbines and whistled amain; My minister heard as he bounded away, And we ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... of the high-priest, who at this instant entered the hall, "Hold your tongue, and be not so bold as to wag it against him who is our king, and wields the sceptre in this kingdom as the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in a straight and narrow robe, cut low beneath her breast. Her face was mild and beautiful, and in her right hand she held a looped sceptre. Her hair descended in many long plaits on to her shoulders. For head-dress she wore two horns, supporting between them a burnished disc of gold like to that of the moon ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... has been equally just to the Duc de Guines in his affair with Tort. It is a happy thing for a queen to be able to admire and esteem him who has admitted her to a participation of his throne; and as to you, I congratulate you upon your having to live under the sceptre of so virtuous ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... nature of the speakers) Strange indeed, seeing these town-people here. They seem like man and wife, And the lady seems to be holding something Like a cloth woven of feathers, While he has a staff or a wooden sceptre Beautifully ornate. Both of these things are strange; In any case, I ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... of toil, Let the grave sceptre slip his lazy hold; And, careless, saw his rule become the spoil Of a loose Female and her minion bold. But peace was on the cottage and the fold, From Court intrigue, from bickering faction far; Beneath the chestnut-tree Love's tale was ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... hieroglyphics[156:3] Ra was represented as a hawk-headed man, holding in one hand the symbol of life, and in the other the royal sceptre. ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... the Boss's topping supremacy. The great man was now master of the county committees of the metropolis and the greater cities; of the State Committee; of the Legislature, of the lieutenant-governor, and apparently of Shelby. The cartoons depicted the chief executive as a craven monarch yielding his sceptre to the leering power behind the throne; as a marionette twitched by obvious wires; as a muzzled dog, ticketed with ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... his own honour lay hidden, which he gave away with me. And I could have forgiven him for giving me away, but who could forgive the King who valued his own honour less than his own life? And to the King I was never more than a necessary ornament, a thing like a sceptre and a throne, and a mere piece of royal furniture: whereas I am more than the life of Narasinha, and ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... clasp. On her breast glittered the broad riband and the white enamel stag, whose antlers bore the diamond cross of the order of St. Hubertus. The little hat was strangely like a crown; the baton of the Landhofmeisterin's office, which she held in her hand, resembled a sceptre: it was of gold, and ablaze with precious stones. A travesty, no doubt, an absurdity, an insolence, but how fine it all looked! The Duke wore a white satin long-coat, embroidered with gold, and on his breast shone the St. Hubertus stag and cross. Truly the prince of some fable, seated beside ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... the highest manifestation of the divine rule and authority. There is no dominion like the dominion of the loving Christ, a kingdom based upon suffering and wielded in gentleness, a kingdom of which the crown is a wreath of thorns, and the sceptre a rod of reed; a dominion which is all exercised for the blessing of its subjects, and which, therefore, is an everlasting dominion. There is no rule like that; no height of divine authority towers so high as the authority of Him who rules us so absolutely because He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Tartar-begotten brethren on the Tsin throne (see Chapter X.). In 649 two dukes (one being the hereditary Duke of Shao, supposed to be descended from the same ancestor as the Earl reigning in the distant state of Yen) were sent to confer the formal patent and sceptre of investiture on Tsin. The rule was that imperial envoys passing through the vassal territory should be welcomed on the frontier, fed, and housed; but in 716 the fact that Wei attacked an imperial envoy on his way to Lu proves how low the ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... thy vengeance—yet came there the morrow, That shines out, at last, on the longest dark night, When the sceptre, that smote thee with slavery and sorrow, Was shivered at once, like ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... take me there, that I am no Roman patriot,—I! I, who am of the House of Austria, that House that wears the crown of the Caesars, those Caesars who swayed the very imperial sceptre, who trailed the very imperial purple of old Rome! I endure the cause because it is yours. I beseech you to be faithful to it; because I should despise you, if for any woman you swerved from an object that had previously been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... cloak of purple to the general, the cowl to the priest, the trumpet to the augur. Indeed the Cynic Diogenes, when he disputed with Alexander the Great, as to which of the two was the true king, boasted of his staff as the true sceptre. The unconquered Hercules himself, since you despise my instances as drawn from mere mendicancy, Hercules that roamed the whole world, exterminated monsters, and conquered races, god though he was, had but a skin for raiment and a staff for company in the days ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the shepherd has been in all nations the emblem of kingly power, of leadership of every sort. How often the fact has contradicted the symbol let history tell. But with Jesus the reality does not only contradict, but even transcends, the tender old comparison. He rules with a gentle sway. His sceptre is no rod of iron, but the shepherd's crook, and the inmost meaning of its use is that it may 'comfort' us, as David learned to feel. There gather round the metaphor all thoughts of merciful guidance, of tender care, of a helping arm when we are weak, of a loving bosom where we are carried when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a one should come from them. And the sceptre of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church, educated her in Thy fear. Yet for her good discipline was she wont to commend not so much her mother's diligence, as that of a certain decrepit ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... 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 threats, he spoke and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... me. My grief has leaped the channel. My thought is a silent mourner at my father's grave. Shall a King sink to the measure of a mound of turf for the tread of a peasant's foot? Where is now the ermine robe, the glistening crown, the harness of a fighting hour, the sceptre that marked the giddy office, the voice, the flashing eye that stirred a coward to bravery, the iron gauntlet shaking in the pallid face of France? All—all covered by a spadeful of country earth. Captain, has Calais fallen ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... the basis and foundation of their authority. An access of religious fervor gave the Persians of the third century after Christ the strength which enabled them to throw off the yoke of their Parthian lords and recover the sceptre of Western Asia. A strong—almost fanatical—religious spirit animated the greater number of the Sassanian monarchs. When the end of the kingdom came, the old faith was still flourishing; and, though its star paled before that of Mohammedanism, the faith ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Chancellor was received by one hundred Russian courtiers dressed in cloth of gold to the very ankles. The King sat aloft on a high throne, with a crown of gold on his head, holding in his hand a glittering sceptre studded with precious stones. The Englishman and his companions saluted the King, who received them graciously and read the letter from Edward VI. with interest. They did not know that the boy-king was dead, and that his sister ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... say, my lord, that my grandfather and my father, in their wisdom, debarred the nobles of this civilized land from travelling with such disorderly retinues; and think you, that because I wear a coif, their sceptre has in my hand been changed into a distaff? I tell you, no king in Christendom will less brook his court to be cumbered, his people oppressed, and his kingdom's peace disturbed, by the arrogance of overgrown power, than she who now speaks with you.—My ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... who carries the kingdom on his shoulders, the castle is a helmet, and the arms a crest,' said he, and demanded the hand of the princess. As he spoke, the sword in his hand became a sceptre, and the king, bowing low, with a reverence in which knelt the proud humility of the dethroned sovereign, said, 'Brave prince, we can only have what we earn. I have no power to say that what you have earned you shall not have. You have won it; Heaven grant you a long life to ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... the Star-Child in fair raiment and set a crown upon his head and a sceptre in his hand and he was the ruler of the city. He was wise and merciful to all, and to the Woodcutter and his family he sent many rich gifts. He would not suffer any one to be cruel to bird or beast, but taught love and loving kindness; and to the poor he gave ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... myself to your sceptre. That is what you want me to do, I suppose, dear countess?" asked the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... the first Act is over I say, "Wait for the end," and don't leave until the Curtain has descended on that gracious figure of the Queen of Egypt, attired in her regal robes, crowned with her diadem, holding her sceptre, but dead in her chair of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a world more sublime—twin monarchs, spouses from the bosom of eternity; he holding a sceptre with the head of a conchoupha, and I a sceptre with a lotus-flower, we stood with hands joined;—and the crash of empires did not ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... as active agents, and produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless slaves are wholly defenceless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought under subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such mysterious beings overpower others with the sceptre and the glory of a superior nature,—acting upon them at times like the torpedo which electrifies or paralyzes the fisherman, at other times like a dose of phosphorous which stimulates life and accelerates ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... a bewitching girl whom fairies love to please; She's always kept her magic sceptre to enforce decrees To make her people happy, for her heart is kind and true And to aid the needy and distressed is what she longs ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... sceptre to be sway'd, As to night the serenade, As for pudding is the pan, As to cool us is the fan, So man's for woman made, And woman ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... dead into the presence of the king of Hades. So you will see some pictures of him standing before the throne of the king of the Dead, and behind him a long procession of shuddering ghosts. He is nearly always pictured as holding in his hands a strange sceptre called the caduceus, a short staff about which two little serpents are coiled, and at the top of which is a tiny pair of wings. This is the golden rod referred to by the poet; when Hermes touched anybody with it, the soul of the person touched was obliged immediately to leave the body ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... as a solitary king. He was not the greatest of princes, simply because there was no other but himself. There were doubtless a few outlying rulers, of unknown names and titles upon the margins of his empire, there were tributary lieutenants and barbarous reguli, the obscure vassals of his sceptre, whose homage was offered on the lowest step of his throne, and scarcely known to him but as objects of disdain. But these feudatories could no more break the unity of his empire, which embraced the whole oichomeni;—the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... austerities of ancient monasticism. It seemed so grand to be out of and above the world, in solitary congregation, with hair shirt, hard diet, empty flesh pot, and full library, in the deep silence and keen air of the mountains. Here hands that had gripped the sword and the sceptre were turned to the spade and lifted only in prayer. There were not only the allurements of hardship, but also his parents' faith and his own early lessons tugging at his heart strings. He found means to go with his prior ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... what has been the controlling force holding this strange empire together. What is the electro-magnetism governing its furthest atom as though it were at your elbow? What is the magic sceptre that compels this diversity of peoples to act as one man? What is the master passion uniting these multifarious pulsations into ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... a 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 ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... the Duke of Saxony is to carry the sword; the Count Palatine, the globe; the Margrave of Brandenburg, the sceptre. In celebrating mass before the Emperor, the benedictions are to be pronounced by the senior spiritual ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... person officially employed it is difficult to know what would have happened. Even in China had an Englishman published or caused to be published—especially after the repeated statements Yuan Shih-kai had given out that any attempt to force the sceptre on him would cause him to leave the country and end his days abroad [Footnote: The most widely-quoted statement on this subject is the remarkable interview, published in the first week of July, 1915, throughout the metropolitan press, between President Yuan Shih-kai and General Feng Kuo-chang, ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke, And Broughton's wi' the slain, And I my ancient craft may try, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... King!" he said, gravely, with the calm which presages a storm; "our Royal person must be no butt for raillery. This sceptre appears light, my lords, but he who ridicules it shall be crushed thereby as with a block of iron. I believe that our holy father the Pope is somewhat indebted to us, so that we do not fear his displeasure at the step which we are about to take. Since the King of Spain ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Tiverton are cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, beside the brother ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... king's crown on his head, and hair falling in three waves over his shoulders, a very kingly face looking straight onward; a great jewelled collar falling heavily to his elbows: his right hand holding a heavy sceptre formed of many budding flowers, and his left just touching in front the folds of his raiment that falls heavily, very heavily to the ground over his feet. Saul, King of Israel.—A bending figure with ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... The sceptre passed as quietly from Louis XVIII. to Charles X. in France as from George IV. to William IV. in England. So far, indeed, as public disorder indicates public discontent, the English monarchy was in greater peril during the period between ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the crown falters on your shaking head, And slips the sceptre from your palsied hand, And Poland for her rightful heir cries out; When not only your stol'n monopoly Fails you of earthly power, but 'cross the grave The judgment-trumpet of another world Calls you to count for your abuse of this; Then, oh then, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... immeasurable stores, hitherto inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical lore which Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phoebus to that now imparted by Prometheus! The Titan had seen all, and been a part of all that he had seen. He had bowed beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had witnessed his fall, and marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He remembered hoary Saturn a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of Heaven, and devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and deadened intellect of the nation at that time; a numbness and darkness more without hope than that of the grave itself, holding and wearing yet the sceptre and the crown like the corpses of the Etruscan kings, ready to sink into ashes at the first unbarring of the door of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... was the crown of England, which he wore only on state occasions, four times yearly as a rule, at certain great festivals. One of these had just been held at Abingdon, and on this occasion, as we see, he again assumed it. The sceptre was borne beneath by a page who stood by ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... history. She was transported, at intervals, from castle to castle, and was intrusted sometimes to the charge of one nobleman, and sometimes to another; but for her the active scenes of life were past; the splendor and dignity of a throne were to be enjoyed no longer; the sceptre of her native country was never more to grace her hands; her will ceased to influence a nation; her voice did not travel beyond the walls that witnessed her confinement. She came into England at the age of twenty-five, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... fruitful land, and with the better blessing of the new heart (xxxvi.). Finally, He will wake the people, who are now as good as dead, to a new life, and unite the long sundered Israel and Judah under one sceptre for ever (xxxvii.). In the final assault which will be made against His people by the mysterious hordes of Gog from the north, He will preserve them from danger, and multitudes of the assailants will fall and be buried in the land of Israel (xxxviii., xxxix.). [Footnote: ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... 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 ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... being prepared. A massive wooden stand, with shelves and seats at various heights, was brought in. Signor Tomaso, coiling the lash of his whip and holding the heavy handle, with its loaded butt, as a sceptre, took his place on a somewhat raised seat at the centre of the frame. Hansen, with his pitchfork in one hand and a whip like Tomaso's in the other, drew nearer; and the audience, with a thrill, realized that something more than ordinarily dangerous was on the cards. The tiger came and stretched ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... you about? The spade and scythe will be your sceptre and crown, and your bride will wear a garland of rosemary, and a gown ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... of Malclos; Manuo, King of Mecca; Ibrahim, King of Seville; and Almanzor, King of Cordova. Then, marching to the city of Agen, he took it, and sent word to Charles he would give him sixty horse-load of gold, silver, and jewels, if he would acknowledge his right to the sceptre. But Charles returned this answer, "that he would acknowledge him no otherwise than by slaying him whenever it should be his chance ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... in times more ancient, made The grove's thick gloom her dwelling-place, And, queen-like, her proud sceptre swayed O'er a submiss and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... 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. There is one doorway in the great white house, and it stands ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... for the survival of the fittest is the proclaimed law of Heaven. There is power in land possession and there is power in number, and if these two factors maintain their force for one hundred years, then we infer of certainty that the sceptre of rule and destiny of the world will be in the hands of Israel, unless the laws of nature are reversed, and the promises of God fail. The Word of God cannot fail or return unto Him void; it must accomplish that whereunto He sent it and prosper in things designed, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... sir Ursine did succeed, And long the sceptre bear. Sir Valentine he stay'd in France, And ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... more heathen—when the whole world can read the will of God by direct intuition, as though it were written in letters of fire across the firmament—then, indeed, the ballot-box may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical museum. But even the robust optimism of the gottestrunken Mr. Wells can scarcely conceive this millennium to be at hand. So that in the meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of democracy, lest we thereby help the Powers, both here and elsewhere, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... company commencing, it was an indication that it was time for me to depart. All the more distinguished guests had been previously decorated with garlands of pink roses and white jasmine, and in addition they were given a kind of sceptre, made of the same sort of flowers tied to a short stick. The less remarkable people received an inferior garland and a single rose with a few leaves, made up like a button-hole; and a certain unimportant residuum did not ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... princes, (Shah Soojah and his brothers,) the scheme would have been executed; in which case, falling in with our own great Mahratta struggle under Lord Wellesley, such an inroad would have given a chance, worth valuing, that the sceptre might have passed from England—England at that time having neither steamers for the Indus, nor improved artillery against Affghan jezails, besides having her hands full of work. Between 1801 and 1838, it is true that things had altered; for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Villosa, the scape of it being hairy. I have not yet got rid of this absurd word 'scape,' meaning, in botanist's Latin, the flower-stalk of a flower growing out of a cluster of leaves on the ground. It is a bad corruption of 'sceptre,' and especially false and absurd, because a true sceptre is necessarily branched.[15] In 'Proserpina,' when it is spoken of distinctively, it is called 'virgula' (see vol. i., pp. 146, 147, 151, 152). The hairs on the virgula ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... on a small one in his petty, mercenary manner. It went to my heart when I saw him fidgeting about the machine, as if it were nothing more than a willow-pipe, and meanwhile the farm goes to ruin. Oh, gentlemen! you see me here a cripple, but if I still bore the sceptre, gentlemen, I would coin thousands of thalers out of the ground, no less than Vanderbilt, the American, whose life is written in this almanac in a very ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... and queenly presence of her Majesty would have rendered her conspicuous above the rest, even if her tiny golden crown and sceptre, tipped with a diamond that blazed like a meteor, had not indicated that she was a monarch; and the acclamations that rose on all sides attested the attachment her subjects felt for ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... 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 stars, and ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... the two thieves, the inscription, 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 could brandish ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... British sweat has rained on the country, British muscle has toiled in the country, British blood has flowed in streams over its face, and British bones are mixed with the shifting grains of its sand. It now remains for British sovereignty to wield its sceptre ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Nation has had the guidance of Providence; we may know that our form of government must ultimately prevail upon earth; but what guaranty have we that it shall be maintained here? What proof that some unlineal hand, some barbarism, without or within, shall not wrench the sceptre of democracy from our grasp? The rule of princes, the privilege of birth, has come down through the ages; the rule of the people has not yet marked a century and a half. There is no absolute proof, no positive ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... the assistance of Louis XI., but finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he abdicated in favour of his son John. When he returned to Portugal, however, he was compelled by his son to resume the sceptre, which he continued to wield for two years longer. After that he fell into a deep melancholy and retired into a monastery at Cintra, where he died in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... birthday of invention; weak at first, Dull in design, and clumsy to perform. Joint-stools were then created; on three legs Upborne they stood. Three legs upholding firm A massy 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 and mansions drear May still be seen, but perforated sore And drilled in holes the solid oak is found, By worms voracious ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... face of all France; it was the testimony that other lands besides France desired Bonaparte to be their sovereign. When all the minor offices in the new Cisalpine Constitution had been filled, the Italians learnt that the real object of the convocation was to place the sceptre in Bonaparte's hands. They accepted the part which they found themselves forced to play, and offered to the First Consul the presidency of the Cisalpine State (Jan. 25, 1802). Unlike the French Consulate, the chief magistracy in the new Cisalpine ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... serving mortals!" thought I, as, with a secret desire to play that fire- tending game, I contemplated the well-fed dame, amid iron pots and stewpans, standing there like an empress in the glory of the firelight, and with the fire-tongs sceptre rummaging about majestically in ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... proudly driving the old horse, and beaming at his little friend from the bower of flags and chestnut-boughs, where he sat in state, with a crown of daisies on his sailor-hat and a spray of blooming sweetbrier in his hand. Waving his rustic sceptre, he led off the shout of "Happy birthday, Marjorie!" which was set up as the wagon stopped at the gate, and the green boughs suddenly blossomed with familiar faces, all smiling on the little damsel, who stood in the lane quite ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... received the ancestral name of Henry. By his subsequent exploits he filled the world with his renown. He was the first of the Bourbon line who ascended the throne of France, and he swayed the sceptre of energetic rule over that wide-spread realm with a degree of power and grandeur which none of his descendants have ever rivaled. The name of Henry IV. is one of the most illustrious in the annals of France. The story of his struggles for the attainment of the throne of Charlemagne is full ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... bearing rows of squat gold chairs, while a canopy of deep-blue velvet, lined with light-blue sarcenet, dropped ponderous draperies, tied back with gold ropes, over the floor; on the canopy-front being Sword and Sceptre, the Royal Crown of Britain, and the Diadem of the Sea; the canopy table and the other looking like a short and a long wine- banquet of the Magi in Ophir: present being members of the British Royal House, Ambassadors to Britain and the Sea, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... kingdom to be the minister of God. For where the glory of God is not made the end of the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness. We are fully conscious to ourselves how very mean and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... is the death for a good prince incurr'd; Who wields the sceptre with benignant hand: Well may for him the noble bare his sword, Falling he earns the blessings ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... blasphemous titles as "Division of the Son of God," "Division of the Good Shepherd," "Division of the Holy Lancers of Death" and "Soldiers of the Blessed Heart of Mary." These are often placed under the sceptre of the Sacred Heart of ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... and the thousand natural pangs that flesh is heir to,' does get at the top of his profession, he can no longer bear a rival near the throne; to be second or only equal to another is to be nothing: he starts at the prospect of a successor, and retains the mimic sceptre with a convulsive grasp: perhaps as he is about to seize the first place which he has long had in his eye, an unsuspected competitor steps in before him, and carries off the prize, leaving him to commence his irksome toil ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... stringently and laboriously imposed by custom and police on Roman poetry stifled its very breath, Not without reason might Naevius declare the position of the poet under the sceptre of the Lagidae and Seleucidae enviable as compared with his position in free Rome.(23) The degree of success in individual instances was of course determined by the quality of the original which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and killed all of them who were wounded or young, or could not easily be carried with them. They took all the goods that were in the castle; went into the Cross church, and plundered it of all its ornaments. The priest Andres gave King Rettibur a silver-mounted gilt sceptre, and to his sister's son Dunimiz he gave a gold ring. They supposed from this that he was a man of great importance in the town, and held him in higher respect than the others. They took away with them the holy cross, and also the tables which stood before the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this and come ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... import on a diff'rent theme? 40 I deem him, whosoe'er he be, a man Worthy to prosper, and may Jove vouchsafe The full performance of his chief desire! He ended, and Telemachus rejoiced In that good omen. Ardent to begin, He sat not long, but, moving to the midst, Received the sceptre from Pisenor's hand, His prudent herald, and addressing, next, The hoary Chief AEgyptius, thus began. Not far remote, as thou shalt soon thyself 50 Perceive, oh venerable Chief! he stands, Who hath convened this council. I, am ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... to greet thee, King, and not to harm thee! What have I done that thou shouldst turn away? Sceptre and empire have no power to charm me— I go to seek a ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... is about to be celebrated, William and the Saracen princess are actually at the altar, when a messenger from Louis arrives claiming the champion's help against the traitors who already wish to wrest the sceptre from his hand. William asks the Pope what he is to do, and the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to acknowledge our banner, or rally to standards of their own; whether Mexico is to become ours by sudden conquest or gradual absorption; whether the British provinces, when they pass from beneath the sceptre of England, shall be incorporated with us, or retain an independent dominion;—are perhaps questions which a not distant future may decide. However they may be settled, the great fact will remain essentially ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... the frown o' the great— Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat— To thee the reed is as the oak; The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... forth of blossom on the yellow Keshra-sprays Dazzles like Kama's sceptre, whom all the world obeys; And Patal-buds fill drowsy bees from pink delicious bowls, As Kama's nectared goblet steeps in languor human souls; There he dances with the dancers, and of Radha thinketh none, All in the warm new Spring-tide, when ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... the people are clamoring! They would see their chief in the attire of the old caliphs—the crown and sceptre await to be borne anew by a branch of the ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... of life is that Reason has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and by mere identification it has achieved the crown and sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand the chasm which still divides the pretender Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and with feigned humility, ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... the date, 1644, carved just below the heavy lid, more than 200 years old, and as sound as ever. The sloping mirror over the chest of drawers was still supported by the four seasons, one at each corner. Above it was Queen Caroline, with the crown on her head, and the sceptre in her hand, seated in a magnificent Roman chariot, drawn by the lion and the unicorn. That team had tortured my young soul for years. I could never understand why that savage lion had not long ago devoured both the Queen ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... engage to turn out a dinner fit for Pharaoh of Egypt or Pharamond King of the Franks! Here, Queen, is a silver-breast phoenix—draw out the feathers—they are pure silver—fair and clean. (Queen plucks eagerly.) King, take your golden sceptre and stir ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief, shall hear savage hymns chaunted to some misshapen idol over ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... 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
... 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 series of outworks, and was thence conducted ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds |
