"Vespers" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his favorite chair. The thrushes were singing vespers. The pure air was faintly and ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... the sister? would she have led a revolt against authority within the church as she did without? Are there any such fierce, tumultuous natures as hers to-day kneeling on stony cloister floors? Can matins and vespers, the odors of incense, and the sacred ceremonial of the church fill up for an ardent nature all that the service of the world supplies? We shall never know; for the real history of a faithful daughter of the church ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the Convent invited all who were there present to be their guests, giving a right solemn feast to all; and the chief persons dined with the Convent in the Refectory. And that same day in the evening, after vespers, when it was about four o'clock, the workmen had removed the stone lions, and placed the tomb upon them, and laid the lid of the tomb hard by, and made all ready to fasten it down, so soon as the holy body ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... The vespers had already begun, and the monks were singing the service in the choir, when two boys rushed up the nave, announcing, more by their terrified gestures than by their words, that the soldiers were bursting into the palace and monastery. Instantly the service ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Walls. The same afternoon, through all the city, on either side the bridges, shouts of fear arose—"Save yourselves! fly, the enemy are come in, all is lost!" The cries were heard even inside the Churches, where pious folks were singing Vespers. These came flying out in terror and ran to their houses to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... one of the lateral altars. Solemn mass was sung at eight o'clock by the Rev. Mr. Rheaume, of the Seminary, the musical portion being rendered in a most impressive manner by the reverend mothers, to organ accompaniment. In the afternoon, at two o'clock, solemn vespers were chanted by the community, after which an eloquent and impressive sermon was preached by Rev. Father Lepinto, S.J., followed by the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which was given, by Rev. Mr. Fraser, of the Seminary, who had previously ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... was a virtual Prisoner, free only in name. And the vigilance of the Terrorists obsessed her. She found a day gone, and no plan made. She had come here to think, and consecutive thought was impossible. She went to vespers at the church, and sat huddled in a corner. She suspected every eye that turned on her in frank curiosity. When, during the "Salve Regina," the fathers, followed by their pupils, went slowly down the aisle, in reverent procession between rows of Pilgrims, she saw in their habits only a grim reminder ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his ways forthwith, and about vespers happened on Amis, and they greeted each the other. And Amis said to the pilgrim, had he seen or heard tidings in any land of Amile, son of the Count of Alverne. And the pilgrim answered him all marvelling: "Who art thou, Knight, who thus mockest a pilgrim? Thou seemest to me that Amile ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen's lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,—Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter's to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen glasses for the Queen's table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for the same when they did come, which is a price to make the hair stand on end)—well, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... closing in as they climbed among the boulders and withered bracken on the mountainside, and at last reached the entrance of a cavern hollowed in the rock and fringed with ivy. This was the hermitage. The Abbot hung his bell on a thick ivy-bough in the mouth of the cave; and they knelt and recited vespers and compline; and thrice the Abbot struck the bell to scare away the evil spirits of the night; and they entered ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... he arrived at Upper Ashton Falls the afternoon had waned so far towards evening that the first robins were singing their vespers from the leafless choirs of the maples before the hotel. He indulged the landlord in his natural supposition that he had come up to make a timely engagement for summer board; after supper he even asked what the price of such rooms as his would be by the week in July, while ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Adone does?" said Clelia Alba, one dusky and stormy eve after vespers. "At nightfall out he goes; and never a word to me, only 'Your blessing, mother,' he says, as if he might lose his life where he goes. I thought at first it was some love matter, for he is young; but it cannot be that, for ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... not, indeed, until nearly eight o'clock in the evening, that the expedition started. At the hour of vespers, the doge, Pisani, and the other leaders of the expedition, attended mass in the church of Saint Mark, and then proceeded to their galleys, where ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... seated under a thick-leaved sycamore, a few paces from the church-porch. Vespers were just ended; the low chant had reached my ears, and I missed the soothing undertone. The women, in their high white caps, and the men, in their blue blouses, were sauntering slowly homeward. The children were playing all down the village street, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... raised his face to the old Prior and confessed to him how he had wandered out in the early morning into the cloister-gardens, how he had fallen asleep in the forest, and had not wakened till the bell for vespers sounded. ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... orisons to God. Before mid-day had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a bourdon, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with white-robed chanting acolyths, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... robe of black damask, which stood as if it were cast of bronze in heavy, austere folds, a velvet cloak decorated with the old lace known as rose point d'Espagne; and on her head a massive imperial diadem, and a golden aureole. Seven candles burned before her; and at vespers, when the church was nearly dark, they threw a cold, sharp light upon her countenance. Her eyes were in deep shadow, strangely mysterious, and they made the face, so small beneath the pompous crown, horribly life-like: you could not see the tears, ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... wharf will go forward at once ... I have been sent money by the Government, and those looking for a job should see me before vespers. If you want this money to stay in the parish instead of being sent back to Quebec you had better lose no time ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... very strong upon him—and he breathed a sigh of intense relief when he heard the soft melody of the organ once more, and saw the oaken doors of the grotto swing wide open to admit a flood of cheerful light from the outer passage. The vespers were over,—the monks rose and paced forth two by two, not with bent heads and downcast eyes as though affecting an abased humility, but with the free and stately bearing of kings returning from some high conquest. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... meantime has come forward, seizes a rope hanging from the bell tower, and begins to ring vespers). If your worship be seriously meant, I'll say ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... before Mr. Henson and before Byron. What he thought in the Colosseum I know not, but I know that the great project of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire took shape in his mind one eventful evening as he "sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter." Yet I suppose Gibbon's fifteenth chapter is scarcely to Mr. Henson's taste. Had I "been there" with Mr. Henson, I too might have had my reflections, and I might have thrown this Freethought douche on his Christian ardor. "Yes, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... June evening. Through the windows she could see the lawn surrounded by elms, limes, and walnut trees. The sun was slanting low behind them, throwing long blue shadows on the grass. A thrush sang in one of the elm trees, a brown songster carolling his vespers ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... modesty becomes thee mightily. But we must lose no time. Attend vespers this afternoon, there thou shalt find my conscientious valet, who will give thee proper directions and assistance to effect thy escape, and ample means to pass the remainder of thy precious life in some distant city of Spain, free from the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... hurriedly, her face pale and haggard, "this meeting is not chance. Ask for me tomorrow at vespers at the shop of Barou the armourer in the Rue Tire Boudin. If you do not do this you will never cease to regret it. Fail not!" And she made as if ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... in Rome, in the pontificate of Zacharias (ob. 752 A.D.) point in this direction. In the Spanish Church particularly the very ancient custom of praying at the hour when the evening lamps were lighted had developed into the regular office of the lucernarium, as distinct from Vespers. The Mozarabic Breviary (seventh century) contains the prayers and responses for this service, and the Rule of St. Isidore runs: "In the evening offices, first the lucernarium, then two psalms, one responsory and lauds, a hymn and prayer are to be ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... the person in question. You have already heard that you must help me, Luis. Did you see the Emperor yesterday after vespers?" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... strength, and an anodyne for those who require soothing, and a febrifuge for those who want their blood cooled; a filling up for minds pumped dry, a breviary for the superstitious with endless matins and vespers, and to the Christian an apocalyptic vision where the morning sun gilds the waters, and there is spread before him "a sea of glass mingled with fire." "Thy way, O God, is in the sea, and thy path in the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the neighbouring wives, Who ne'er shrove in their lives,— Such wickedness Sathanas whispers!— Said the black-cloaked prior By the miller's log fire, Oft tarried too late for vespers! ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... I wrote you as above. To-day, which is Easter evening, I rode with Monsignor Farnese to the papal palace to vespers, and before his Eminence entered the chapel I called at the house S. Maria in Portico to see Madonna Giulia. She had just finished washing her hair when I entered; she was sitting by the fire with Madonna Lucretia, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her: the hours passed like minutes in this high converse; and when the tinkling of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly in like one in a dream, and the world seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... victim of Prussian cruelty, but ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences. (There were others like him—Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian, Wuerttembergisch—or the German occupation of Belgium might have ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... to me (and in a tone of ill-humor—mind that!) 'Ma foi! Sire, give me rather regiments to conduct than birds and dogs. I am sure that people would laugh at you and me if they knew how we occupy ourselves.' And on the eighth—wait, yes, on the eighth—while we were singing vespers together in my chambers, you threw your book angrily into the fire, which was an impiety; and afterward you told me that you had let it drop—a sin, a mortal sin. See, I have written below, lie, underlined. People never deceive ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... mournfully at eve's sweet hour The bell for vespers chimes its holiest note, When the soft twilight lends its soothing power And on the air a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... beginning of the seventeenth century. Events are described as taking place in the time of Philip II., under the title of Le Mariage de Vengeance, which happened three hundred years before, at the time of the Sicilian Vespers, 1283. Gil Blas, after his release from the tower of Segovia, tells his patron, Alonzo de Leyva, that four months before he held an important office under the Spanish crown; while he tells Philip IV. that he was six months in prison at Segovia. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... of St. Innocent, and cast them, with small canes or quills to write with, into the necks of the daintiest gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church; for he never seated himself above in the choir, but always in the body of the church amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... ears, and a gentle breeze, that blew from the environing hills, fanned them, and never a fly annoyed them, reposefully and joyously they supped. The tables removed, they roved a while about the pleasant vale, and then, the sun being still high, for 'twas but half vespers, the queen gave the word, and they wended their way back to their wonted abode, and going slowly, and beguiling the way with quips and quirks without number upon divers matters, nor those alone of which they had that day discoursed, they arrived, hard upon nightfall, at ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... more, making up the seven times a day of Psalm cxix. 164. During this growth of daily services there is sometimes a {7} doubt whether the night Service is included in the reckoning: but eventually we find for the daytime Mattin-lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... declared her friend. "Soon you will abandon needlework and be sent out nursing. I heard the Mother Superior talking about it with Sister Lilian after vespers last night. Now that Sister Hannah has gone back to Paris we are one nurse short, and you are to ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... morning service on Sunday was the only one that was of much importance, to which the whole parish came. That in the afternoon was attended only by the village people, and did not count for much. The rector would not have said in so many words, like a French cure, that vespers was pas obligatoire, but he had the same feeling. Both he and his wife felt kindly to the people who came, as if it were a personal compliment. It is needless to say that things ecclesiastical have very, very ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the island in the Seine, where now stands the statue of Henry IV, between the King's garden on one side and the convent of the Augustinian monks on the other, the two pyres were raised—two out of the four had shrunk back into their ignoble confessions. It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned; they were tied each to the stake. The flames kindled dully and heavily; the wood, hastily piled up, was green or wet; or in cruel mercy the tardiness was designed that the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sat whispering side by side, Nor ceased the low murmur at eventide; So breathe in whispers The zephyrs through lindens at twilight vespers. ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... with an affair in which I was not a little interested. During the year there were several grand fetes, at which the King went to High Mass and vespers. On these occasions a lady of the Court, named by the Queen, or when there was none, by the Dauphiness, made a collection for the poor. The house of Lorraine, always anxious to increase its importance, shirked impudently this duty, in order thereby to give itself a new distinction, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... interrupted from without. I only felt all the force of my attachment for her when she was out of my sight. So long as I could see her I was merely happy and satisfied, but my disquiet in her absence went so far as to be painful. I shall never forget how one holiday, while she was at vespers, I went for a walk outside the town, my heart full of her image and of an eager desire to pass all my days by her side. I had sense enough to see that for the present this was impossible, and that the bliss which I relished so keenly must be ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... vespers our good General arrived, with fifty foot-soldiers very much fatigued. As soon as I learned that he was coming, I ran home and put on a new soutain, the best which I had, and a surplice, and, going out with a crucifix in my hand, I went forward to receive him; and he, a gentleman ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Spaniards with amazement, and in some cases with apprehension. There was no going back then, however; there was nothing to do but advance. At the hour when the bells of Holy Church in their home land were ringing vespers, in a cold driving rain mingled with sleet, the little cortege entered the city, which they found as the French found Moscow, deserted of its inhabitants. With the ready instinct of a soldier, Pizarro led his force to the public square, or Plaza, which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... on the eve of the Sicilian Vespers; on the eve of St. Bartholomew; at the time when Castracaro, when ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... of All Saints' day (Nov. 1) was a memorable one, for the quantity of falling fire-stones, sand, and ashes increased, gradually diminishing again towards November 15. Then, on that night, after vespers, great noises were heard. A long melancholy sound dinned in one's ears; volumes of black smoke rose; an infinite number of stones fell, and great waves proceeded from the lake, beating the shores with appalling fury. This ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the church-bell ringing for vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct decorations for a festival. And Anton!—how to present him to you as he deserves to be presented? His truthful, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... was a Saturday, the day dedicated to Her, which, that year, was a fast day by reason of the Ember week. By another coincidence, this Saturday was the eve of the Festival of Our Lady of Seven Dolours, and the first vespers were being chanted when Mary appeared as from a shell of glory ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... vespers' call, Wearily, wearily; I looking up on the darkening wall, Wearily, wearily; The chime so sweet to the boat at sea, Listless and ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... wholly unsuspicious, it never struck him that any one could be dogging his footsteps whenever he went out of his hotel. In the evening he went out very little and then generally in a carriage. Two or three times, on a Sunday, he walked over to Saint Peter's and listened to the music at Vespers, as many foreigners used to do. Stefanone followed him into the church and watched him from a distance. Once the peasant saw Donna Francesca, whom he knew by sight as a member of the Braccio family, sitting within the great gate ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to behold. The serious study of literature and history was almost unknown. The memory work consisted in many schools in learning Mangnall's Questions and Brewer's Guide to Science—fearful books. The first was miscellaneous: What is lightning? How is sago made? What were the Sicilian Vespers, the properties of the atmosphere, the length of the Mississippi, and the Pelagian heresy? These are, I believe, actual specimens of the questions; and the answers were committed to memory. About twenty-five ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... men and women, With peaceful men and women, that send onwards. Kisses and welcomings upon the air, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. From all the towers rings out the merry peal, The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, O fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, The faithful tender arms with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in all ordinary cases of administration, though not without considering what Father Eustace would have said of the matter. He scorned, therefore, to give a hint to the Sub-Prior of the bold stroke by which he had dispatched Brother Philip to Glendearg; but when the vespers came without his reappearance he became a little uneasy, the more as other matters weighed upon his mind. The feud with the warder or keeper of the bridge threatened to be attended with bad consequences, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... to her relatives also, and so he had them all watching her. She was never trusted out alone. Every Sunday George went to spend the day with his little "family," so that his coming became almost a matter of tradition. He interested her in church affairs—mass and vespers were her regular occasions for excursions. George rented two seats, and the grandmother went with her to the services. The simple people were proud to see their name engraved upon the brass plate of ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... and I went to hear vespers at Notre Dame. How I love the old gothic cathedrals, that seem to remove one at once from this work-day world—the fanes wherein the very air seems redolent of devotion, and peopled with phantoms of the past! 'Spite of all disparagement, there is something grand ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... vespers in the Cathedral," said Marcos. "It is dusk by that time. They cross the Calle de la Dormitaleria and go through the two patios into the cloisters and enter the Cathedral by the cloister door. If Juanita ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... gone the deep drum—a hollow instrument of wood shaped like a fish—was beaten, and the priests gathered to vespers, dressed in many-coloured garments of silk; and, as evening fell, they intoned a sweet and ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... out, delighting to grow there; it is like Paradise this morning; it is like the Garden of Eden. He is a little fanciful in his language: smilingly observing of Madame Loyal, when she is absent at vespers, that she is 'gone to her salvation' - allee a son salut. He has a great enjoyment of tobacco, but nothing would induce him to continue smoking face to face with a lady. His short black pipe immediately goes into his breast pocket, scorches ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... King: "Sire, I give you my word that my lord of Savoy wishes to give you a page who rides his chestnut better than any boy I ever saw, and he cannot be more than fourteen, although his horsemanship is as good as that of a man of thirty. If it pleases you to go and hear vespers at Ainay you will have your pastime in the fields there afterwards." "By my faith," cried the King, "I do wish it!" and he heard the whole story of this wonderful boy from ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... have no power on his child. Thou art mine, my beloved!—mine with thy mother's blessing; and mine thou shalt be—no earthly power shall part us. Death, death alone can break the links that bind us, and must be of God, though man may seem the cause. Be comforted, sweet love. Hark! they are chiming vespers; I must be gone for the solemn vigil of to-night, and to-morrow thou shalt arm thine own true knight, mine Agnes, and deck me with that blue scarf, more precious even than the jewelled sword my sovereign brother gives. Farewell, for a brief, brief while; I go to watch and pray. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... face of her mother, she heard the song she sang; And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 75 It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Often, at vespers, in the dim twilight of the chapel, she flung back her cape and hood, with the tears raining from her eyes and her voice gushing and throbbing with the melancholy music, while the nuns paused in their singing, appalled by the religious ecstasy of Sulpizia. She was so sweet and gentle in her daily ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bit of paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by the stove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-minded people weigh and ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... a week, and during the fine weather, that the three districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevard planted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the new quarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand'-Porte and taking the Avenue du Mail ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... back to the high-road, and he asked us if we should like to see the church. It was about three o'clock, and in the low porch the cure was ringing the bell for vespers. We pushed open the inner doors and went in. The church was without aisles, and down the nave stood four rows of wooden cots with brown blankets. In almost every one lay a soldier—the doctor's "worst cases"—few of them wounded, the greater number stricken with fever, bronchitis, frost-bite, pleurisy, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... shadowy vine-wreathed trees, Grave parent-birds were twittering good-night songs, To still their restless brood. Across the way A noisy little brook made pleasant Music on the summer air, And farther on, the sweet, faint sound Of Whippoorwill Falls rose on the air, and fell Like some sweet chant at vespers. The air is heavy With the scent of mignonette and rose, And from the beds of flowers the tall White lilies point like angel fingers upward, Casting on the air an incense sweet, That brings to mind the old, old story Of the alabaster ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... not return to us at dinner, or at recreation, or at chapel (when another chaplain said vespers), or even at nine o'clock, when we went to bed. But next morning, almost as soon as the Mother of the Novices had left the dormitory, she ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... in Sorrento, under the blue sky. These peasants, who are fooled by the mountebank and attracted by the piles of adamantine gingerbread, do not forget to crowd the church of the saint at vespers, and kneel there in humble faith, while the choir sings the Agnus Dei, and the priests drone the service. Are they so different, then, from other people? They have an idea on Capri that England is such another island, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... He was but a poor companion for his fellow-prisoners, being deprived of the means to exercise his social qualities. He went through the same course of suffering that Manuel did; but, whether from inclination or necessity, bore it with more Christian fortitude, chanting vespers every morning, and reading the Latin service every evening. The lesson which Manuel taught Daley proved of great service to Paul, who gave Daley the jail-ration which it was impossible for him to eat, and was saved from his pilfering propensities. Thus, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Eginhard's arrival began the series of wonderful events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had chosen ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... pictures on the ceiling are far from contemptible; but I cannot praise that of the altar-piece, where Our Lady is covering with her cloak the Queen Dona Maria, and all the royal family, on their arrival in Brazil. The choir is served in a manner that would not disgrace Italy. I attended at vespers, and have seldom been more gratified with the music of the evening service. This the chapel owes to the residence of the royal family, whose passion and talent for music are hereditary. Adjoining to this ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... face, and looked towards the half opened window, as she caught the sound of chimes. Across the Loire came the deep-toned voice of a cathedral bell, ringing for vespers. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... suppressed excitement in the hush of the throng; almost, one might have said, an atmosphere of prayer. For the great bell of San Nicolo—the bell with that wonderful voice of melody—was ringing softly, as for vespers; continuously, as if the people had not answered to the call. Yet many a low-voiced "Ave" responded to the chime as now and again some toil-worn hand lifted the rosary that hung from a girdle, or ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Church of St. Mary Overy, in 1337, restrained one of them to the limits of his own parish. On December 7, 1229, the day after St. Nicholas' Day, a boy bishop in the chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, said vespers before Edward I. on his way to Scotland, who made a considerable present to him, and the other boys who sang with him. In the reign of King Edward III, a boy bishop received a present of nineteen shillings and sixpence for ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... gate, a lay-brother received me on his knees; and in a low and whispering voice informed me they were at vespers. The stillness and gloom of the building—the last rays of the sun scarcely penetrating through its windows—the deep tones of the monks chanting the responses, which occasionally broke the silence, filled me with reverential emotions ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... country, and further it must be happily situated. Small though it be, it will make many mistakes, because it will be composed of men. Discord will reign there as in a monastery; but there will be no St. Bartholomew, no Irish massacres, no Sicilian vespers, no inquisition, no condemnation to the galleys for having taken some water from the sea without paying for it, unless one supposes this republic composed of devils in a corner ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... At dawn upon the silvery battlement, Re-echo through the deep And bid the sons of God to rise from sleep, And with a shout to hail The sunrise on the city of the Grail: The music that proud Lucifer in Hell Missed more than all the joys that he forwent. You hear the solemn bell At vespers, when the oriflammes are furled; And then you know that somewhere in the world, That shines far-off beneath you like a gem, They think of you, and when you think of them You know that they will wipe away their tears, And cast aside their fears; That ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... year, and is truly an excellent time for commencing my journal. In this castle there will be no want of leisure. We have already said our morning prayers, and I will finish my spiritual reading during vespers. It has just struck ten, and I am dressed for the day, including the arrangement of my hair. I have consequently two spare hours before dinner. I will note down to-day my reflections upon myself: I will speak of my family, of our house, of the republic, and will in future detail ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... woodman, the baker, the keeper of the church, the servants of the Infirmary, the servant at the Eleemosynary, and the stableman, to each of them one florin in every year. Item, any monks who leave the monastery before vespers when it is not a fast, shall lose one quarter of a pound of cheese even though they return to the monastery after vespers but if it is a fast day, they are to lose nothing. Item, the pittancer is to ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Peter his own Latin poems set to music. "He often went to the church of St. Denis, clad in his royal robes and with his crown on his head; and he there conducted the singing at matins, mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks and himself calling upon them to sing. When he sat in the consistory, he voluntarily styled himself the bishops' client." Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues of the saint are not incompatible with the qualities of the king; but the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... somewhat out of it while the talk about degrees and latitudes has been going on, here strikes in again; he will use his influence. Perhaps the good man, living up here among the pine trees and the sea winds, and involved in the monotonous round of Prime, Lauds, Nones, Vespers, has a regretful thought or two of the time when he moved in the splendid intricacy of Court life; at any rate he is not sorry to have an opportunity of recalling himself to the attention of Her Majesty, for the spiritual safety of whose soul ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... in the shadow of the Pic de Bergonz and within ear-shot of a mountain's torrent; and the moonlight plays all sorts of fantastic tricks, throwing strange shadows, until it is not difficult to fancy that unearthly forms are near.... At the hour of vespers, there are as many as two hundred women in the church, [their heads always covered with their brown or scarlet capulets,] and its ancient, sombre interior appears filled with hooded figures, such as have ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... athlete, this despot of bar-rooms and public-houses—performed simply and courageously, in these lowly rooms in the suburbs, the sublime duties of a sister of charity. This intrepid oarsman had never made a longer voyage than to conduct his mother to mass or vespers every Sunday. This billiard expert knew only how to play bezique. This trainer of bull-dogs was the submissive slave of a poodle. This ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... well I did so, for just afterwards Cheri's matins and vespers waxed fainter and fainter, and finally ceased altogether. In great anxiety I called in the highest medical science, which announced that he was only shedding his feathers. This opinion was corroborated by numerous little angelic soft fine feathers scattered about in localities that ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... world-renowned masterpiece of the thirteenth century, which all Florence turned out in procession to honor when it left the painter's hands; and which even Charles of Anjou, dripping in blood, and stalking through the scenes of that great tragedy whose catastrophe was the Sicilian vespers, paused ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... gone to church; but the sermons in large city churches are not generally elementary, and I did not understand those that I heard at all. Occasionally I went with the nurse to Vespers, and that I thought delightful. I was enraptured with the pictures, the music, the rich clothes of the priests; if it had not been for the bad odor of the neighboring worshippers, I think I might have rushed into the bosom of the Church of Rome. But that ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... stricken with paralysis from overwork in 1845. He never recovered. Besides more than threescore of operas, Donizetti composed seven masses, twelve string quartets, and a host of songs, cantatas and vespers, as well as ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Carnival races in Rome, and as the only difference was, that the course, besides being over hard slippery stones, was also up a steep hill-street, and the race therefore somewhat more cruel, I did not wait to see the end, but wandered up the valley to hear the vespers at the convent of the Santo Speco. I should have been sorry to have missed the service. Through a number of winding passages, up flights of narrow steps, and by terrace-ledges cut from the rock, over which I passed, and overhanging the river-side, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... hard to his own hearing. Was It speaking the same mute language to her It had spoken to him since first he came to the Holy Cross? The violet shadows of twilight slowly filled with a primrose mist, with a rapt hush as of the day's vespers. The great quiet of the mountain world wrapped them round as in an invisible ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... she was, and warned him to look away; but promised to take him to the castle if he could. At Vespers, next day, Caponsacchi heard from Conti that the husband had seen that gaze. He would not signify, but ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... another Mr. Wright's; going to four of the name between Dover and London, Cooper concluded with an apology that "it was literally all Wright on this road." The visit to Canterbury cathedral was made during "morning vespers in the choir. It sounded odd to hear our own beautiful service in our own tongue, in such a place, after the Latin chants of canons; and we stood listening with reverence without the screen." London met them "several miles in the suburbs down the river," but they suddenly burst ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... my lord. If my father loved thee, and thou didst love him, take me to thy castle and let me be thy page. There are no chivalrous exercises here, no tilt yard, only the bell which booms all day long; matins and lauds; prime, terce and sext; vespers and compline; and masses ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Vespers are ringing, through roseate air Nebulous floating of tone-sacrifices, Twilight in churches now broadens and rises, Incense and word fill the evening with prayer. Over the Sabines the flame-belt is knotted, Shepherds' lights through the Campagna are dotted, Rome ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the good brothers was a great temptation to men in our situation, pressed by toil and hunger. But we felt that we possibly might compromise the Abbot and the brethren, and determined on not making ourselves known. We entered the beautiful chapel of the Abbey, and ascended the gallery while vespers were sung. We were alone on the gallery, and had an opportunity of changing our stockings and wiping the blood from our feet. We remained upwards of an hour, and then set out, but little refreshed. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... called to see Eileen, but she wouldn't come down, saying her nose was too pink. Drina entertained Boots, and then Selwyn returned and talked army talk with him until tea was served. Drina poured tea very prettily; Nina had driven Austin to vespers. The family dined at seven so Drina could sit up; special treat on account of Boots's presence at table. Gerald was expected, but ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... both, And their congenial powers, that, while they join In breaking up a long-continued frost, 40 Bring with them vernal promises, the hope Of active days urged on by flying hours,— Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high, Matins and vespers ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... hour of vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into conversation with them. But something in the behaviour of one ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and, like the priesthood, he abstained from marriage, to enjoy the more a debauched and licentious life. The Sunday after the death of queen Mary, he was revelling with one of his concubines, before vespers; he then went to church, administered baptism, and in his return to his lascivious pastime, he was smitten by the hand of God. Without a moment given for repentance, he fell to the ground, and a groan was the only articulation permitted him. In him ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... spirits. The mere mechanism of his throat is a little tender, for he wears, both with his singing-robe and with his ordinary dress, a large black scarf of strong close-woven silk, slung loosely round his neck. But his composure is so noticeable, that Mr. Crisparkle speaks of it as they come out from Vespers. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... nine feet across and about the same height, and by the time that pleasant work was done the brothers were back, and the little bell on the chapel, where it hung in a stone cote, rang for their vespers. ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... at Tahiti, in 1769, after performing Divine service on Sunday, witnessed "Vespers of a very different kind. A young man, near six feet high, performed the rites of Venus with a little girl about eleven or twelve years of age, before several of our people and a great number of the natives, without the least sense of its being indecent or improper, but, as it appeared, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sovranty, I say that unto each be attributed the burden and the honour for one day. Let who is to be our first chief be at the election of us all. For who shall follow, be it he or she whom it shall please the governor of the day to appoint, whenas the hour of vespers draweth near, and let each in turn, at his or her discretion, order and dispose of the place and manner wherein we are to live, for such time as his or her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... then ask for what he wants by a sign, but he may not go further unless he have been commanded by the abbat. When Collation is over it is his duty to close the press, and during the period of labour, of sleep, and of meals, and while vespers are being ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... there were, and abbey windows, dim and dimly seen—as Moorish temples of the Hindoos," that exercised even princely power both in Lorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey |
