"Vocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... painter in his taste for harmony; the mason on his ability to cut the stone accurately; and the plasterer to produce a uniform surface. But the carpenter must, in order to be an expert, combine all these qualifications, in a greater or less degree, and his vocation may justly be called the King of Trades. Rightly, therefore, it should be cultivated in order to learn the essentials ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... wife, father of two boys and a girl, has the good taste to make no allusion to his past efforts. Eve had the sense to dissuade him from following his terrible vocation; for the inventor like Moses on Mount Horeb, is consumed by the burning bush. He cultivates literature by way of recreation, and leads a comfortable life of leisure, befitting the landowner who lives on his own estate. He has ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... inclinations of Harry and Hamilton, and was hailed by them as an additional reason for self-gratulation. As for Jacques, he cared little to what part of the world he chanced to be sent. To hunt, to toil in rain and in sunshine, in heat and in cold, at the paddle or on the snow-shoe, was his vocation, and it mattered little to the bold hunter whether he plied it upon the plains of the Saskatchewan or among the woods of Athabasca. Besides, the companions of his travels were young, active, bold, adventurous, and ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Wood. I have no vocation to it, Gervase: A man of sense is not made for marriage; 'tis a game, which none but dull plodding fellows can play at well; and 'tis as natural to them, as ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... not a Mnooth man [he means that he was not a student at Maynooth College]. When I was young I admired the older generation of priests that had been educated in Salamanca. So when I felt sure of my vocation I went to Salamanca. Then I walked from Salamanca to Rome, an sted in a monastery there for a year. My pilgrimage to Rome taught me that walking is a better way of travelling than the train; so I walked from Rome to the Sorbonne in Paris; and I wish I could have walked from ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... furniture and imitation jewelry, he will go to vulgar shows and read cheap and silly trash. He is unaware of what the best things are, and unable to spend his money in such a way as really to improve his mind, his health, or his happiness. Even in his vocation he could be helped by a background of culture; the college graduate outstrips the uneducated man who has had several years the start of him. And no one can tell how many an undeveloped genius there may be, now working at some humble and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... this narrative, nothing is known of Marquette, except what is said of him by Charlevoix. After returning from this last expedition, he took up his residence, and pursued the vocation of a missionary, among the Miamis in the neighborhood of Chicago.[139-27] While passing by water along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan towards Michillimackinac, he entered a small river, on the 18th of May, 1675.[139-28] Having landed, he constructed an altar, performed mass, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... be a question of property? Hardly; for I am far from a rich man, and the provisions of my will are known to me alone. Can it then be a question of private enmity or revenge? I think not. To the best of my belief I have no private enemies whatever. There remains only my vocation as an investigator in the fields of legal and criminal research. His interest in my death must, therefore, be connected with my professional activities. Now, I am at present conducting an exhumation which may lead to a charge ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... be regarded as the great interest of our people. Four-fifths of our active population are employed in the cultivation of the soil, and the rapid expansion of our settlements over new territory is daily adding to the number of those engaged in that vocation. Justice and sound policy, therefore, alike require that the Government should use all the means authorized by the Constitution to promote the interests and welfare of that important class of our fellow-citizens. And yet it is a singular fact that whilst the manufacturing and commercial interests ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... continually the pressure of obligation to write something, in order to contribute toward the support of the family—and yet, I can not write. Mother wants me to write children's books; Lizzy wants me to write a book of Natural Philosophy for schools. I wish I had a "vocation." Sabbath.—Stayed at home on account of the rain and read one of Tholuck's sermons to Julia. Wrote in my other journal some account of my thoughts and feelings. Burned up ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... existence; the leisure; the higher education attainable at a much earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition that makes of him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint of study and a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a match-all these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a man, possessed of such privileges from his youth up; they should stamp his character with that high self-respect, of which the least consequence is a nobleness ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Longfellow, who loaned him books from his own library. For a time he studied art under prominent masters, but his health failing, after a time of forced leisure he went into the mercantile business in Boston, which vocation he afterward followed. In 1851 he went to Illinois; finally, after his marriage, settling in Springfield. There he knew Mr. Lincoln, with whom he was ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... I'm fearful too, when I reflect Both who and what I am: lest my vocation Should prejudice me in your good opinion. My conduct I can ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... hath it pleased To shine on my contemptible estate: Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks, God's mother deigned to appear to me, And in a vision full of majesty Will'd me to leave my base vocation, And free my country from calamity: Her aid she promised and assured success: In complete glory she reveal'd herself; And, whereas I was black and swart before, With those clear rays which she infused on me That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see. ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... confession. The strongest objection he has to violate his sacred trust arises from the fear that such a revelation would break the heart of an exemplary old Goody Two-Shoes, for whom he has all his life long cherished a youthful love, the thought of which, and not his supernatural vocation, has sustained him, so I understood him to say, throughout his priestly career. All very pretty and "pale young Curatey," and theatrically sentimental, but don't put this man forward as the self-sacrificing hero of a Melodrama. No; the subject is best let alone. Mr. GRUNDY seems to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... not help feeling all the time that my vocation was one of peace, and that I had no business to be where I was. That is not a pleasant sensation. The great thing for a man to feel in time of danger is that he is at his post and doing his duty. As I was in for it, I determined to do my best to be of me, and to trust to the God of mercy ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... as in a panorama. The mind becomes entranced, and when sober reflection regains her command, we naturally inquire, Can all this have taken place in my heart? Then the armies of Diabolus, with his thousands of Election Doubters, and as many Vocation Doubters, and his troops of Blood-men—thousands slain, and yet thousands start into existence. And all this in one man! How numberless are our thoughts—how crafty the approaches of the enemy—how hopeless and helpless is the sinner, unless Immanuel undertakes his recovery. The Holy War is a most ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all hopes of success and devoted himself instead to literature. In this field he won the recognition for which he craved; his books were read everywhere, his name became famous, his income steadily increased, and he had the pleasant consciousness that he had found his vocation. Still, in spite of his success, he could not forget the bitter years of failure and disappointment which had gone before, and though his novels were full of genius they were pervaded by an undertone of sarcasm, so that people after reading them were more ready than before ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... live ten years longer, you will see, however, that it is not over with me—I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other—the times and fortune permitting—that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... suffer himself to be taken alive." Purcell's vocation was that of a broker, and he was given to the discrimination of chances and relative values. "Therefore he is as definitely caput lupinum as any outlaw of old. Nobody would be held accountable for cracking his 'wolf's head' off, in the effort to arrest him for the ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... retrospect, and gather into one focus the entire subsequent development. As to his aptitude for epic poetry opinions differ. Niebuhr expresses the view of many great critics when he says, "Virgil is a remarkable instance of a man mistaking his vocation; his real calling was lyric poetry; his small lyric poems show that he would have been a poet like Catullus if he had not been led away by his desire to write a great Graeco-Latin poem." And Mommsen, by speaking of "successes like that of the Aeneid" evidently ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... mostly of the opinion of the Duke of Gloucester, who said that the Lady Esclairmonde was so like Deborah, come out of a Mystery, that it seemed to be always Passion-tide where she was; and she, moreover, was always guarded in her manner towards them, keeping her vocation in the recollection of all by her gravely and coldly courteous demeanour, and the sober hues and fashion of her dress; but being aware of Malcolm's destination, perceiving his loneliness, and really attracted by his pensive gentleness, she admitted him to far more friendly ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... touched by the sufferings of the prisoner, which had just reached his ears, and then only through vague and confused reports, instantly took a firm resolution to do something to alleviate them. This excellent man, whose name I unwillingly suppress, believed he could in no way better fulfil his holy vocation than by bestowing his spiritual support and consolation upon a wretched being deprived of all other hopes ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the difficulty by transferring to the young lord's "candour" the praise he had so thanklessly bestowed on his morals in general; adding, that from the design Lord Byron had expressed in his preface of resigning the service of the Muses for a different vocation, he had "conceived him bent on pursuits which lead to the character of a legislator and statesman;—had imagined him at one of the universities, training himself to habits of reasoning and eloquence, and storing up a large fund of history and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... being at heart vexed with Marinier, and sorry he had brought him; while Don Clemente would have liked to say that Padre Salvati's words were very beautiful and holy, and not out of season, because it was right that each should labour according to his vocation, the intellectualist in one way, the Franciscan in another. He who called them would provide for the co-ordination of their actions. The different vocations might well be united in the League. He would have liked to say this, but he had not been prepared, and had let the ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... down to the primary class, was divided into two camps, the Oscarians and the Feklitusians. Oscar had on his side all the independent fellows, all the sons of well-to-do peasants, all the sons of mechanics who were to follow in their fathers' footsteps, and all those whose future vocation was decided on, from the coachman ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... quarrelled with his master, left him, and continued his training in London as a student at St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's. Gradually, however, during the months that followed, though he was an industrious and able medical student, Keats came to realize that poetry was his true vocation; and as soon as he was of age, in spite of the opposition of his guardian, he decided to abandon the medical profession and devote ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... the brother-in-law of the Hon. Mrs. Skewton. She had one daughter, Alice Marwood, who was first cousin to Edith (Mr. Dombey's second wife). Mrs. Brown lived in great poverty, her only known vocation being to "strip children of their clothes, which she sold or pawned."—C. Dickens, Dombey and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... a very noble line: not that young men should not pray, or old men not give counsel, but that every season of life has its proper duties. I have thought of retiring, and have talked of it to a friend; but I find my vocation is rather to active life.' I said, some young monks might be allowed, to shew that it is not age alone that can retire to pious solitude; but he thought this would only shew that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... of imagining a society of equals I do not intend to speak. The average man, who cannot understand equality of human dignity, equality before God, thinks nothing of demanding equality in externals, equality in responsibility and vocation. But this sham equality is the enemy of the true, for it does not fit man's burden to his strength, it creates overburdened, misused natures, driving the one to scamped work and hypocrisy, and the ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... course, some who will find that they have mistaken their vocation and that missionary work does not suit them; or, rather, that they are not adapted to it. Such people should make no delay in returning home and in seeking a more congenial ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... readily conceded that the habit of mastery is a desirable quality in every vocation and in every avocation. It is a very real asset on the farm, in the factory, in legislative halls, in the offices of lawyer and physician, in the study, in the shop, and in the home. When mastery becomes habitual with people in all these activities society will thrill with the pulsations of new ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... abduction, adduction, rotation, circumduction, pronation, supination, and the lateral movements. Be proud of those accomplishments, my dear, but beware of attempting to become a Masseuse. There are drawbacks in that vocation—and I am conscious of one of them at this moment." She lifted her hands to her nose. "Pah! my hands smell of other people's flesh. The delicious country air will blow it away—the luxury of purification!" ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... dove. His features, which to me denoted weakness of character, Selina asserted to be those of an honourable man struggling with adversity. It was to support an ailing wife, she felt sure, that he toiled at his uncongenial vocation. I should have liked to explain, though I knew it was useless, that our object in dealing with him was not to contribute to the support of his wife; that our success, indeed, might mean that the unhappy lady would be deprived for many a week to come of those little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... aristocrat, if he excels in his vocation: he is an aristocrat, if he turns a better or a straighter furrow than his neighbor. The poorest poet is an aristocrat, if he writes more feelingly, in a purer language, or with more euphonic jingle than his cotemporaries. The fisherman is an aristocrat, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... not so; I merely tell you both some ends fulfil— Priestly vows were my vocation, fast and vigil wait for me. You must work and face temptation. Never should the strong man flee, Though God wills the inclination with the soul at war to be. (Pauses.) In the strife 'twixt flesh and spirit, while you can the spirit aid. Should you ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... attend on, run about at our pleasures, like masterless men. Young Sixpence, the best page his master hath, plays a little, and retires. I warrant he will not be far out of the way when his master goes to dinner. Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to behave yourselves in your vocation: take not up your standings in a nut-tree, when you should be waiting on my lord's trencher. Shoot but a bit at butts; play but a span at points. Whatever you do, memento mori—remember to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the transition is easy to the reckless and vicious Bahrdt. This man stands among the first of those who have brought dishonor upon the sacred vocation. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German Protestantism. Whatever he touched was disgraced by the vileness of his heart and the satanic daring of his mind. He heard theological lectures. Thinking ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... some day," prophesied Brook as he put on an old overcoat that had hitherto survived the ravages of time; "you see all our comrades who have discovered that farming is not their vocation are hiving off into it, and many of them, being first-rate mechanics, they have taken to their trades, while those with mercantile tendencies have opened stores. You shall see that things will shake into their proper places, and right themselves in time, and this will become a flourishing colony, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... mountain began to blaze, I found myself an inhabitant of the devoted city; and, as Pliny the elder, thus addressed Bulwer, my supposed nephew:—'Our fate is accomplished, nephew! Hand me yonder volume! I shall die as a student in my vocation. Do thou hasten to take refuge on board the fleet at Misenum. Yonder cloud of hot ashes chides thy longer delay. Feel no alarm for me; I shall live in story. The author of Pelham will rescue my name from oblivion.' Pliny the younger made me a low bow, &c." We strongly suspect ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into other scribbling. In an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers accepted by first-class magazines, at three dollars the printed page, and, behold, his vocation was open to him. He would make his ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Carolina Colored Regiment. In this position it would be hard to overestimate the variety and value of his services, for he became for his soldiers at once a gallant fighter, an eloquent, convincing preacher, and a most indefatigable and successful school-teacher. Preaching had been his vocation before entering the army, and so it was but natural for him to continue in that work. At one time our regiment lay encamped near his in South Carolina, and I well remember how, on one Sabbath morning, the two commands formed a union service, all listening with deep, thrilling interest to the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... lady of unusual talent; evidently understands her vocation. She fully sustained her reputation acquired elsewhere, and has made many friends in this city—her professional worth and professional merit being recognized—who will be pleased with another opportunity of listening to her readings should she thus ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... a committee of safety, Joel?" demanded the miller, who had made far less progress in the arts of the demagogue than his friend, and who, in fact, had much less native fitness for the vocation; "I have heer'n tell of them regulations, but do not ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... countries appertaining unto the crown of England; the same, as is to be conjectured by infallible arguments of the world's end approaching, being now arrived unto the time of God prescribed of their vocation, if ever their calling unto the knowledge of God may be expected. Which also is very probable by the revolution and course of God's word and religion, which from the beginning hath moved from the east towards, and at last ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... come to have a meaning which must be challenged, but yet it can be used in a sense that is both high and sacred. If a gifted writer take literature as a great vocation and determine to use his talents faithfully and well, without reference to fee or reward; if prosperity cannot seduce him to the misuse of his genius, then we give him our high praise. Let it still not be forgotten that the labourer is worthy of his hire. But if the hire is not forthcoming, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... may still read, and read over again with pleasure, he has perhaps the least to say. His poems seem to bear testimony rather to the fashion of rhyming, which distinguished the age, than to any special vocation in the man himself. Some of them are drawing-room exercises, and the rest seem made by habit. Great writers are struck with something in nature or society, with which they become pregnant and longing; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mankind, or, more especially, womankind. When she accepted a situation, it was in the conscientious belief that the persons whom she undertook to serve were the indebted party; yet she was a faithful nurse and both understood and liked her vocation. In spite of her masculine bearing toward the rest of the world, she always treated her invalid charges with ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... received none; "O Susanna!" soon followed, and "imagine my delight," he writes, "in receiving one hundred dollars in cash! Though this song was not successful," he continues, "yet the two fifty-dollar bills I received for it had the effect of starting me on my present vocation of song-writer." In pursuance of this decision, he entered into arrangements with new publishers, chiefly with Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York, set himself to work, and began to pour out his productions with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... acquiring, not producing; working hard for his master and storing and strengthening his own mind. He assisted Mr. Brande in his lectures, and so quietly, skilfully, and modestly was his work done, that Mr. Brande's vocation at the time was pronounced 'lecturing on velvet.' In 1820 Faraday published a chemical paper 'on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and on a new compound of iodine, carbon, and hydrogen.' This paper was read ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... city to write an article in his favor, entitled "Abduction!" During a few days, the editor of the same filthy sheet repeated his scurrilous attacks on Catholicity, not forgetting to squirt a good deal of his dirt on the Rev. Dr. Ugo, whom he blamed for encouraging the girl's vocation, and thus depriving the hungry Presbyterian Calvin of a fair wife and ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... joined the army, I hated it; that sounds like high treason, doesn't it? However, I got used to things, and made art my hobby instead of my vocation. You won't mind if I confess that a view of this kind makes me long ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... acquaintance with him for the first time, one would select: The King's Tragedy—that poem so moving, so popularly dramatic, and lifelike. Notwithstanding this, his work, it must be conceded, certainly through no narrowness or egotism, but in the faithfulness of a true workman to a vocation so emphatic, was mainly of the esoteric order. But poetry, at all times, exercises two distinct functions: it may reveal, it may unveil to every eye, the ideal aspects of common things, after Gray's way (though ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... enlisting the interest of the laity and of forming them into a corporation. In theory the position of the Jain and Buddhist layman is the same. Both revere and support a religious order for which they have not a vocation, and are bound by minor vows less stringent than those of the monks. But among the Buddhists the members of the order came to be regarded more and more as the true church[291] and the laity tended to become (what they actually have become in China and Japan) pious persons who revere ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... somewhat heartened me. Here was a man (so ran my thought) but little my senior, yet he had already won a great name for daring and courage; he had been captured and imprisoned, but had escaped, and was now again active in his vocation. Other men as well as I had their mischances and surmounted them: why should not I? Thus it happened that when, a few days later, we arrived at the French port of St. Malo, and were handed over to the authorities of the prison there, I was not so ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... was—charitable, large-hearted, energetic, indomitable; in all respects a remarkable, in many ways, a really wise and great man. At whatever points he may fall short of our criteria, this much must be said of him, that he was fired throughout with the high spirit of his vocation, that he was punctual in the performance of duty as he understood it, that he was obedient to the most rigorous dictates of that Gospel which he had set himself to preach. In absolute, single-hearted, unflinching, and tireless devotion to the task ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... and they chase it. Some of them plod patiently along the highway of toil. Others are always leaping fences and trying to find short cuts to wealth. But they are alike in this: whatever they do by way of avocation, the real vocation of their life is to make money. If they fail, they are hard and bitter; if they succeed they are hard and proud. But they all bow down to the golden calf, and their motto is, "Lay up ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... as stated by the engineer, were briefly these: Frank was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling; and it was useless to waste time by keeping him any longer in an employment for which he had no vocation. This, after three years' trial, being the conviction on both sides, the master had thought it the most straightforward course for the pupil to go home and candidly place results before his father and his friends. In some other pursuit, for ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Bordeaux itself, could excel the wine that he would produce; and while the servants with messengers from the inn brought in packages, which seemed innumerable, from the carriage, the cook toiled in her vocation, the host and hostess bustled about to put all the rooms in order, Sir John Fenwick and Wilton Brown talked at the door of the inn, and Lady Laura retired to alter her dress, which had been somewhat deranged by the overthrow of ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... spending a louis, with which he had been entrusted, in a tavern. Afraid to return home, he wandered about the fields till hunger compelled him to steal a horse, which he sold. Sheep stealing was his next vocation, but in this he was caught and transferred to prison. He made his escape, however, the first night, and returned in a very business-like manner to receive two crowns which were due to him on account of the sheep he had stolen. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... vocation, advocate, irrevocable, vociferous, provoke, revoke, evoke, convoke; (2) vocable, vocabulary, avocation, equivocal, invoke, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Mr. Gladstone to this beautiful letter, which he has mournfully called 'the epitaph of our friendship,' is certainly a noble and a tender one. The very depth of feeling which he shows at his friend's refusal of what he considers 'the high vocation' before him, is, however, only a proof of that spiritual chasm which Mr. Hope more unflinchingly surveyed. After this date the correspondence soon flags, and at length sustains an interruption of years. It ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... of Ezra was organized as a municipality and a church, not as a nation. The centre of religious life was no longer the living prophetic word but the ordinances of the Pentateuch and the liturgical service of the sanctuary. The religious vocation of Israel was no longer national but ecclesiastical or municipal, and the historical continuity of the nation was vividly realized only within the walls of Jerusalem and the courts of the Temple, in the solemn assembly and stately ceremonial of a feast day. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... introduction to the German Consul, and the leading members of the German Society, and I soon became fully occupied in the exercise of my profession. Dr. X—— (now one of our most distinguished physicians) not only tolerated my vocation, but, with a magnanimity worthy of his genius and ability, gave me counsel and advice, and recommended me as highly as possible to his confreres and the public. Some few resident doctors threw cold ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... in her youth, and in the partial nudity in which innocence was limned in madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on the other three walls of the room, all hung with such careful intent for the exercise of their vocation that the apartment, in spots, extended indefinitely; the brilliant chandelier was thereby quadrupled, and the furniture and ornaments multiplied everywhere and most unexpectedly into twins and triplets, producing such sociabilities among them, and forcing such correspondences ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... and many strange stories are related of him, by the Mohammedans, in honour of their Prophet, or by the eastern Christians, in derision of the Impostor. He is said to have been a rich Greek priest, settled at Boszra, and to have predicted the prophetic vocation of Mohammed, whom he saw when a boy passing with a caravan from Mekka to Damascus. Abou el Feradj, one of the earliest Arabic historians, relates this anecdote. According to the traditions of the Christians, he was a confidential ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... when some men seek Christ, in the conventicles of heretics, and others, in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, Nolite exire,—Go not out. The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation, drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, if an heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad? And certainly it is little better, when atheists, and ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... that it was their vocation to cultivate a spirit of artless happiness in the school, the Mystic Seven set to work on Veronica. She did not respond to their efforts; on the contrary, she seemed to resent them. When they attempted to introduce ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... marks the higher and lower peaks of the same mountain-chain. All are epic and lyric, none in a proper sense dramatic. All are poets de pur sang, endowed by nature with the special qualities which cannot be confounded with those of a different order, and which forbid all doubt as to a true "vocation." Dante, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, differing as they do in intellectual greatness and imaginative power, have all, as a distinguishing characteristic, that magic mastery over the harmonies of language which renders them responsive to subtle thoughts and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... admire and celebrate the sculptor who works out that same image in enduring marble; but how insignificant are these achievements, though the highest and the fairest in all the departments of art, in comparison with the great vocation of human mothers! They work, not upon the canvas that shall perish, or the marble that shall crumble into dust, but upon mind, upon spirit, which is to last for ever, and which is to bear, for good or evil, throughout its duration, the impress of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of the old Scottish minister came out occasionally in the more private services of his vocation as well as in church. As the whole service, whether for baptisms or marriages, is supplied by the clergyman officiating, there is more scope for scenes between the parties present than at similar ministrations by a prescribed form. Thus, a ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... at Paris in 1840—the natal year of his friends Claude Monet and Zola—and in humble circumstances, not enjoying a liberal education, the young Rodin had to fight from the beginning, fight for bread as well as an art schooling. He was not even sure of a vocation. An accident determined it. He became a workman in the atelier of Carrier-Belleuse, the sculptor, but not until he had failed at the Beaux-Arts (which was a stroke of luck for his genius) and after he had enjoyed ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... at this moment an indescribable impression on Petrea. She wept from the sweet emotion excited by the description of a condition which was so perfect, and of endeavours which were so holy. It appeared to her as if she knew her own vocation, her own path through life; one which would release her soul from all trifles, all vanities, all disquiets, and which would speed her on to light and peace. Whilst these thoughts, or rather sentiments, swelled in her breast, she looked through her tears on her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... stepped in between Lord Lytton and his muse, he would have been a fine poet," he said half aloud;—"A pity he was not born obscurely and in poverty—he would have been wholly great, instead of as now, merely greatly gifted. He missed his true vocation. So many of us do likewise. I often wonder whether ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... MSS. in the Royal Library at Hanover, with a preface by Raspe's old college friend Kaestner (Goettingen, 1765). At once a courtier, an antiquary, and a philosopher, Raspe next sought to display his vocation for polite letters, by publishing an ambitious allegorical poem of the age of chivalry, entitled "Hermin and Gunilde," which was not only exceedingly well reviewed, but received the honour of a parody entitled "Harlequin ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the appropriate word. One cannot help thinking that so it must have struck the Prince; nor are we surprised that, on the next opportunity he had of exercising a sportsman's legitimate vocation, with the good qualities of patience, endurance, and skill, which it is calculated to call forth, emphatic mention is made of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the flock by bleating in meter. The Tennessee Fraysers were a practical folk—not practical in the popular sense of devotion to sordid pursuits, but having a robust contempt for any qualities unfitting a man for the wholesome vocation of politics. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... value of 700 dollars, which good luck, together with his beggar savings, enabled him to purchase a farm and to hire a few labourers to work it with. Whether from habit or from love of gain, Bunga never forsook his favourite vocation, but continued to bear his sorrows from door to door, as if they still ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... night I mused, Burthened with thought of that vocation vast. O'er-spent I sank asleep. In visions then, Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire. Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo! Thick-legioned demons o'er me dragged a rock, That falling, seemed a mountain. ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... hold to its integrity, without relapsing into its former state of blind indifference to its high vocation, the cultivation of the power of Thought will go on steadily and surely, and the mind will become constantly more and more clarified from all folly ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... however, hopelessly deficient in such knowledge. I should make a most unsatisfactory conjurer! Moreover, whatever you may have heard concerning me in Paris, you must remember I am in Paris no longer. I am a monk, as you see, devoted to my vocation; I am completely severed from the world, and my duties and occupations in the present are widely different to those which employed me in the past. Then I gave what aid I could to those who honestly needed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... you a little all the same," he said. "Monsieur Koupriane has told me that there is a deep mystery. It is my vocation to get to ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... strengthen those powers by which the boy or girl by special natural fitness promises to be especially efficient and happy. It has to be supplemented later by a wise and deliberate choice of such a vocation as brings these particular abilities most strongly to a focus. Yet this alone would mean a one-sidedness in which the equilibrium would be lost. More important, it would leave undeveloped that power which the youth especially needs to acquire by serious education, the power to master what ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... heathen land, recalling to my mind the early Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Lucas Caballero and Cipriano Baraza, who penetrated pathless forests and crossed unknown seas in conformity with the requirements of their sacred mission. Mr. Burns died in China in the earnest pursuit of his vocation. I own a copy of his life published in New York in 1870, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... deeply thankful, my son," he said kindly, "that you have been able to come to a decision. Of course I could have wished you to enter the Society; but God has not given you a vocation to that apparently. However, you can do great work for Him as a seminary priest; and I am exceedingly glad that you will be going to ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... pouring from them libations before creatures. Is not love profaned when it is lavished on men or women without one reference to God? Is not the intellect desecrated when its force is spent on finite objects of thought, and never a glance towards God? Is not the will prostituted from its high vocation when it is used to drive the wheels of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... daughter, far be it from me to throw any stumbling-block in the way of such praise-worthy intentions; but the strict rules of our order require that a postulant should remain in the convent twelve calendar months, to test her vocation, before she is suffered to bind herself by any vows," said the abbess, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... days later on he writes "I do not dislike teaching whether it is that I am more patient than I had imagined, or that I have not yet had time to grow tired of my new vocation. I find, also, what at first sight may appear paradoxical, that I read much more in consequence, and that the regularity of habits necessarily produced by a periodical employment which cannot be procrastinated ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... know that sweet woman had a husband I should say she was born with the vocation for a religious life. From the first moment I spoke to her, looked at her, I felt that, and the feeling grows upon me. Can't one ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... a little chafed, "you are a great deal worse than Mr. White; you have missed your vocation: you ought to have been a schoolmaster." Yet he goes home somewhat struck by what his friend has said, and turns it in his mind for some time to come, when he gets there. He is a sensible man at bottom, as well ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... cravat, diamond stud in his shirt-front in the old fashion, and a heavy gold chain with a spade guinea attached. His get-up and general appearance, though ancient, or at all events mid-Victorian, proclaimed him a person of considerable importance in his vocation. ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... this young man warmed and shamed me. He had more fire in his little toe than I had in my whole carcass; he was stuffed to bursting with the manly virtues; thrift and courage glowed in him; and even if his artistic vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not quite clear, who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature so full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual energy? So, when he proposed that I should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of criticism and protest, for, as she said, she could not set herself up as a censor of things that she must keep on doing as other people did. She could have renounced the world, as there are ways and means of doing here; but she had no vocation to the religious life, and she could not feign it without a sense of sacrilege. In fact, this generous and magnanimous and gifted woman was without that faith, that trust in God which comes to us from living ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... manufacturing, and all the sciences. So Dante entered the guild of the Doctors and Apothecaries—not because he knew anything about their professions—that was not necessary—but to give himself an apparent vocation when he came to assume some one of the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... spinning; but her mind constantly wandered away, and stirred and undulated with a thousand dim and unshaped thoughts and emotions, of which she vaguely questioned in her own mind. Why did Father Francesco warn her so solemnly against an earthly love? Did he not know her vocation? But still he was wisest and must know best; there must be danger, if he said so. But then, this knight had spoken so modestly, so humbly,—so differently from Giulietta's lovers!—for Giulietta had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... a monk yet," returned the Prior, calmly. "And it may not be your vocation to take the vows upon you. Now, do you see why you have been prevented from taking them hitherto? You may be called upon to act as a layman: to claim the estates, fight the battle with these Scotch heretics and come back to us a wealthy man! And in that ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... demi-jour so loved in France, in stuff for flattery ready pointed and feathered, in freedom of admiration, "and all in the way of business"—then is a lovable sitter to a love-like painter in "parlous" vicinity (as the new school would phrase it) to sweet heart-land! Pleasure in a vocation has no offset in political economy as honor has ("the more honor the less profit"), or portrait-painters would be ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... we were old enough to choose our respective paths in life. It appeared that Val, although he had never before breathed a word to me—whatever he may have done to Dad—had thoroughly determined to be a priest if he could. I had never felt the ghost of a vocation in that direction, so here came the parting of the ways. Val went to college, and I was ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... a somewhat sickly child, and his father sent him to the monastery to be taught, with a view to entering the Church. He was quick and bright in his parts, but as his health improved he grew restless, and at fifteen refused to follow the vocation marked out for him, and returned home; where, as I have heard, he took part in various daring forays across the border. When he was five-and-twenty, he was wounded well-nigh to death in one of these, and he took it as a judgment upon him, for deserting the Church; so he returned ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... remarked, for the writer in 1875 removed from the graves at Santa Barbara an entire skeleton which was discovered in a redwood canoe, but it is thought that the individual may have been a noted fisherman, particularly as the implements of his vocation—nets, fish-spears, &c.—were near him, and this burial was only an exemplification of the well-rooted belief common to all Indians, that the spirit in the next world makes use of the same articles as were employed in this one. It should be added that of the many hundreds ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... various details of service, it might be a good moment to speak of the unreasoning indignity cast upon the honorable vocation of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... dress, and managed her property herself, which was by no means a trifling thing to do. Liking to make good use of her time, she thought to do it by busying herself in the affairs of others. She had a real vocation for the profession of a consulting lawyer. Usually her advice was sensible and judicious—nothing better could be done than to follow it; only her clients complained that she pronounced her sentences with too little tenderness, without granting any appeal. She was good, charitable, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and Tackleton—for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business—Tackleton the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... between France and England would facilitate the execution of a project worthy of such mighty Kings: he had it so much at heart, that he thought himself destined to labour in it from his mother's womb[643]. "It is a vocation, says he to his brother, which God has given me.—I have many witnesses, he writes to Duraeus[644], who knew me in my native country, and can attest not only how much I have desired, but also how much I have laboured to lessen the disputes among Christians, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... most essential, in reality, of all—his constancy has been remarkable. He has remained true to his vocation. At the moment when his literary brethren, availing themselves of the opening we have noticed, were rushing into public life,—scholars and professors becoming ambassadors and ministers of state, poets and novelists ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... dramatic composition, and delighted at the effect which his public performance on the pianoforte had created at Vienna, Mozart forgot all the fears he had expressed previously to his journey to Paris; thought no more that teaching would interfere with the higher vocation of his muse; and was content to become the fashionable performer, teacher, and pianoforte composer of the day. This mode of life for a time had its temptations and its success; and he hoped that he might still better assist his father at Vienna than at Salzburg, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... population, there were laid, immediately after high mass, the first five stones. There had been chosen the name of the Purification, because this day was the anniversary of that on which MM. Olier and de la Dauversiere had caught the first glimpses of their vocation to work at the establishment of Ville-Marie, and because this festival had always remained in high honour among the Montrealers. The foundation was laid by M. de Courcelles, governor-general; the second stone had been reserved ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... friends and strangers, publishers in London and professors in Oxford, concurred in their applause, it surely seemed that he had found his vocation, and was well on the high-road to ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... ridiculous—seem poor-spirited, and a pettifogger. True, she set her hand to no grandiose tasks. She was not allowed to become a hospital nurse, for example, or an actress. The young lady of to-day, when she hears in herself a 'vocation' for tending the sick, would willingly, without an instant's preparation, assume responsibility for the lives of a whole ward at St. Thomas's. This responsibility is not, however, thrust on her. She has to submit to a long ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... it is not my trade or vocation to make orations or speeches. I see before me many faces that look to me as though they were once soldiers, and to them I feel competent to speak; to the others I may ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... came at the last. When we were leaving she took Louis' hand, pressed it to her heart, kissed it with respect, and cried out: 'You happy soul, oh, keep the grace of God in your heart, hold to your high vocation through any torment: to lose it, to destroy it, as I destroyed mine, is to open wide the soul to devils.' Wasn't that beautiful now? Then she asked him in the name of God to call on her the next day, and he promised. He may be here to-night to tell ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... mysterious singer for every song she sung. He even offered to give—himself—to me! And oh! I would have taken him as gladly as ever the lavender boy took the half-crown, had I been quite, quite sure of myself! A woman with a vocation ought to be still surer than other women that it is the very jewel of love she is setting in her heart, and not a sparkling imitation. I gave myself wholly, or believed that I gave myself wholly, to art, or what I ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and be happy. Her resources were of the obvious kind; but even if one had not the journalistic talent and a genius for guessing, as Henrietta said, what the public was going to want, one was not therefore to conclude that one had no vocation, no beneficent aptitude of any sort, and resign one's self to being frivolous and hollow. Isabel was stoutly determined not to be hollow. If one should wait with the right patience one would find some happy work to one's hand. Of course, among ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... another to second and third The request of their brother, and hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar, As many a time they had seen it before. So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store. And 'twas my vocation that thus I should sing. Because I was laureate to ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... do not drag the reader here merely to tell of savage sport and butchery. The Indian was only following his vocation—working ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... had himself been called. With my mother the son's gifts became a subject on which she never tired dilating, and naturally such flattery reconciled me to a calling far removed from all my old ambitions; but had it been intimated to me that I might become a plumber I should have accepted that vocation just as readily, provided that by following it I should go out of the valley, over the mountains, to Pittsburgh and the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... they benefited both by the spoils of the church and by the abolition of a privileged class. Luther stated that there was no difference between priest and layman; some men were called to preach, others to make shoes, but—and this is his own illustration—the one vocation is no more spiritual than the other. No longer necessary as a mediator and dispenser of sacramental grace, the Protestant clergyman sank inevitably to the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... day is portioned out. During the hours of work we tend the sick and visit the dying; we also are employed in other good undertakings, and we hope before long to establish fresh ones. So you see, my dear, that we work out our own salvation, though those who have a vocation to a purely religious life can enter our contemplative order, and devote themselves entirely to prayer and meditation. You will be able to judge by-and-by to which you would wish to belong, though you will, of course, be guided by the advice ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... rocky hillside overlooking the village was all that was left to the brother and sister; but it was more than the latter could enjoy alone, so she fled away and entered upon the vocation in which we found her engaged. Meantime her brother had risen in. rank, and at the close of the war had been transferred to the regular army as a reward of distinguished merit. Then his hereditary foe had laid siege to his weakened frame, and a brother officer ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... enduring inheritance in which the greater part of your life has been spent. Men like us, who write in sincerity, and with the desire of teaching others so to think, and to feel, as may be best for themselves and the community, are labouring as much in their vocation as if they were composing sermons, or delivering them from ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... greet her young friends, and Mr. Dillwyn obeyed orders. He hung up his wet hat and coat and sat down in the furthest corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. Lois and her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which was too small to prevent every word they spoke ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... while the saint was taking up the intended offering for those celestial twins, Indra pronounced his interdiction, saying, These Aswins both of them in my opinion have no right to receive an offering of the Soma juice.' They are the physicians of the celestials in heaven,—this vocation of theirs hath disentitled them (in the matter of Soma). Thereupon Chyavana said, 'These two are of mighty enterprise, possessed of mighty souls, and uncommonly endued with beauty and grace. And they, O Indra, have converted me into an eternally ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Ovid showed a natural taste and inclination for poetical composition, he was by no means encouraged to indulge in this pursuit. His father thought that the profession of law was much more apt to lead to distinction and political eminence than the vocation of a poet. He therefore dissuaded his son from writing poetry and urged him to devote himself to the legal profession. Compliance with his father's wishes led him to spend much time in the forum, and for a while poetry was abandoned. Upon attaining his majority, he held several minor offices ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... of the bones and the muscles, that they should either be used in some vocation, or called into action by some social ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... that had sheltered them under many vicissitudes. Besides which, it was a matter of doubt to Signora Mortera and her eldest son whether any worldly promotion could justify his deserting the priestly vocation to which he had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... work, Edouard, and I defended it against your mother's plans; but she replied that in every career a man is master of his own good or evil actions; and as I have no authority over you, and friendship only gives me the right to advise, I must give way. If this be your vocation, then ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is what most spirits do. I need not perhaps tell you"—here he smiled—"that freedom from the body does not confer upon any one, as our poor brothers and sisters upon earth seem to think, a heavenly vocation. Neither of course is the earthly fallacy about a mere absorption in worship a true one—only to a very few is that conceded. Still less is this a life of leisure. To be leisurely here is permitted only to the wearied, and to those childish ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mobile, smiling mouth of the picture, but his chin was deeper and squarer, dented with a dimple which, combined with a certain occasional whimsicality of opinion and glance, had caused Elder Trewin some qualms of doubt regarding the fitness of this young man for his high and holy vocation. The Rev. Jabez Strong had never indulged in dimples or jokes; but then, as Elder Trewin, being a just man, had to admit, the Rev. Jabez Strong had preached many a time and oft to more empty pews than full ones, while now the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the preceding, born at Sancerre in 1799, nephew of Maximilienne Hochon, born Lousteau, school-mate of Doctor Bianchon. Urged on by his desire for a literary vocation, he entered Paris without money, in 1819, made a beginning with poetry, was the literary partner of Victor Ducange in a melodrama played at the Gaite in 1821, undertook the editing of a small paper devoted to the stage, of which Andoche Finot was proprietor. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... to it afar off, but pleaded exemption. He admitted that waiting on the sick is obligatory on people who are fitted for it, and is very charming. Nothing was more beautiful to him than tender, filial care spending itself for a beloved object. But it was not his vocation. His nerves were more finely ordered than those of mankind generally, and the sight of disease and suffering distressed him too much. Everything was surrendered to him in the houses of his friends. If any ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... me very much, and I am pleased to know that my necklace had such a brilliant destiny. But do you not think that the son of that woman, that Henriette, was the victim of hereditary influence in the choice of his vocation?" ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... the sun rose early; welcome was its light to our traveller, who rode on, trusting soon to reach a monastic house in the neighbourhood of Banbury, where a few poor English monks, not yet dispossessed by the Norman intruders, served God in their vocation, according to their light, and offered hospitality to ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... card was. Besides asking for my name, address, nationality, vocation, and position, it requested that I state whom I was visiting in the Science Community, the purpose of my visit, the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a place to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked for all the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... act of worship), and, instead of serving religious objects, it strove for worldly aims, seeking to satisfy the demands of the crowd or of the powerful, i.e., the aims of recreation and amusement. This deviation of art from its true and high vocation took place everywhere, and ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... temporal as in spiritual things, is our counselor and guide. To him I must refer you, in the first instance. His wisdom will decide the serious question of receiving you into our Holy Church, and will discover, in due time, if you have a true vocation to a religious life. With the Father's sanction, you may be sure of my ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... philosophy, Daylight preempted for himself the position and vocation of a twentieth-century superman. He found, with rare and mythical exceptions, that there was no noblesse oblige among the business and financial supermen. As a clever traveler had announced in an after-dinner speech ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... afforded no small fund of entertainment to the contemplative observer. There were the dancers, all gaiety and good-humour; a little further off were the tables at which sat the card-players, some plying their vocation with deep and silent anxiety—for in those days gaming often ran very high in such places—and others disputing with all the vociferous pertinacity of undisguised ill-temper. There, again, were the sallow, blue-nosed, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his religion, trustful in his piety, and exemplary in the discharge of clerical duties. We can picture him going through the usual routine of canonical services in Frauenburg Cathedral, full of faith and prayer. With this vocation he coupled medical practice. He turned to good charitable account that proficiency in the healing art which he had acquired at Cracow, and visited the sick and the poor, bringing upon himself the blessing of those who were ready to perish. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... too," added my good-humoured manager, who was quite a philosopher in his vocation; "for it's a pretty theatre, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... vocation for it, and I lack the necessary patience to bother myself with German theatrical affairs. Altogether I think it more appropriate and easier to risk my first dramatic work on the Italian stage (which probably may happen in the spring of next ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... infected districts, and assist in removing the sick from the houses in which they were dying without help. One scene of this kind, witnessed by a merchant who was hurrying past with camphored handkerchief pressed to his mouth, affords us a vivid glimpse of this heroic man engaged in his sublime vocation. A carriage, rapidly driven by a black man, broke the silence of the deserted and grass-grown street. It stopped before a frame house, and the driver, first having bound a handkerchief over his mouth, opened the door of the carriage, and quickly ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... who had chosen that vocation, they were utterly incapable of filling it either to their own credit or the advantage of those they taught. While perfectly capable of imparting the knowledge they had obtained from books, and of making any number of rules to be followed ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Father Tom; "I don't know whether the gentleman has a profession or not; but from the tone and spirit in which he spoke, I think that if he has taken up any other than that of his church, he has missed his vocation. My dear parson, he talks of the light of our countenances—a light that is lit by hospitality on the one hand, and moderate social enjoyment on the other. It is a light, however, that neither of us would exchange for a pale face and an eye that seems to have ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... what the vocation of Noah bad been before his call to prepare for the flood we do not know. But after the flood, perhaps compelled by necessity, he became an husbandman. He had probably settled on the slopes or in the valleys of Ararat ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... is the true vocation of the Golden Gardener. It is annoying that it can give us but little or no assistance in ridding us of another plague of the kitchen-garden: the snail. The slime of the snail is offensive to the beetle; it is safe from the latter unless ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... Aramis, in the prince's ear, who, close beside him, listened without losing a syllable, "since you are placed here, monseigneur, in order to learn your vocation of a king, listen to a piece of infamy—of a nature truly royal. You are about to be a witness of one of those scenes which the foul fiend alone conceives and executes. Listen attentively,—you will find your advantage ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... should be a lull in the political tumult, the least leisure of the public for a return to purer and blander literature, Milton should make some sign of resuming his garland, so as to remind those about him of his original vocation. But, precisely in the year 1045, when Naseby had assured the victory of Parliament, there did come, for the first time since the war had begun, or indeed since the Long Parliament had met, such a lull of the polemical tumult. The statistics of the English book- trade, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... suffering or misfortune, as we can see from the legends about King Olaf and Frederick Barbarossa. But Israel always looked upon herself as in a special way a theocratic kingdom, a chosen of God. At its best this idea was a fine one, one, it led to the thought of a special spiritual vocation for the sake of the other nations of the earth; at its worst it meant the assertion of national privilege and contempt for everything which was not Jewish. After the great captivity in Babylon the Jews were never without a foreign master, and the northern ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford. I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession, in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... there was no one, except on the opposite seat, where sat a man about fifty years old, with a most winning face and an elegant eye—a beautiful eye; and I took him from his dress to be a master mechanic, a man who had a vocation. He had with him a very fine little child of about four or five years. I was watching the affection which existed between those two. I judged he was the grandfather, perhaps. It was really a pretty child, and I was admiring her, and as soon as he saw I was admiring her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his own experience under the rod of this talker, he suggests the way in which he should exercise himself in his vocation:— ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... time that Henrietta cherished the bizarre illusion that it was her vocation to cultivate the acquaintance of the honest but homely peasantry living around, in whose lowly circles a widowed protestant pastor's wife and a worn-out old miner were the principal personages. Her husband laughed good-humouredly at her vagaries, as he called them: "She is only a child," ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... foundation of general information. The mind and hand are both trained and prepared to do good work, and then the choice of occupation is made and the special education begins. But one who has chosen some kind of manual labor as his vocation very often takes up literary or other professional work in addition, and everybody has some kind of study on hand, by which the mind is kept employed. There is no uneducated class ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan |
