"Customs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil of confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were folded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage, the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray and zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... made great progress under Louis XV., a brilliant epoch for the literature of gastronomy: together with the fashions, customs, freedom of opinion, and taste for equipages and horses brought from Great Britain—some new dishes taken from the culinary code of this country, such as puddings and beef-steaks, were also introduced into France. Thanks to the increasing progress ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... them a credit, makes them referred to, and they become the objects of the attention of the company. They are not out in any part of polite conversation; they are acquainted with all the places, customs, courts, and families that are likely to be mentioned; they are, as Monsieur de Maupertuis justly observes, 'de tous les pays, comme les savans, sont de tous les tems'. You have, fortunately, both those advantages: the only remaining point is 'de savoir les faire valoir', for without ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... at sea, and a keen observer of landmarks. But he was not a discriminating chronicler of those things which we would now wish to understand—for example, the relationship and status of the various Indian tribes with which he came into contact. All manner of Indian customs are superficially described, particularly those which presented to the French the aspect of novelty, but we are left altogether uncertain as to whether the Indians at Stadacona in Cartier's time were of Huron or Iroquois or Algonquin stock. The navigator did not describe with sufficient clearness, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... compelled to worship what has been proved imperfect, or to evade important doctrines of their creeds for fear of losing faith in old traditions, their minds will not be receptive to changes in social conditions that require abandonment of established customs. Christians are imbued with a psychology derived from a completed revelation. The firmer their belief in Jesus, the greater their resistance to new ideas. Catholics are more reluctant to join progressive ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... Spanish society, its freedom from formality, the genuine pleasure and hospitality with which each guest is received, and the extreme simplicity of the entertainment. In speaking, however, of society in Madrid and other modern towns, it must be remembered that the old manners and customs are to a great extent being modified and assimilated with those of the other Continental cities. A great number of the Spanish nobility spend the season in Paris or in London as regularly as any of the fashionable people in France or England. There is no country life in Spain, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... these past manners and customs that some of us can remember so well—all these obsolete people, from the heavily whiskered swell to the policeman with the leather-bound chimney-pot hat, from good pater- and mater-familias who were actually looked up to and obeyed by their ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... much to the dishonour of the great Creator. The nature of man is far from being in itself evil: it abounds with benevolence, charity, and pity, coveting praise and honour, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs, debauch our nature, and drive it headlong as it were into vice. The governors of the world, and I am afraid the priesthood, are answerable for the badness of it. Instead of discouraging wickedness to the utmost of their power, both are too apt to ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... American genius and capital, and as the white American cannot stay there the year round to develop the same, what better agent to do this work than the Afro-American who has been schooled in American ideas and customs and usages. Is not this an opportunity given by Providence to commence business building? The race should cease pleading to be "The Wards of the Nation;" cease waiting for something to turn up, or have somebody to do something for them, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... older since her marriage. She wondered why it was that marriage did not make all women wicked,—openly and actively so. If ever there was an arrangement by which every evil instinct and every spark of the devil was likely to be aroused and infuriated, surely the customs and traditions that clustered round this estate constituted that dangerous combination! Hardship, difficulty, tragedy could be faced, but not the humiliating, the degrading, the contemptible. Hadria ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... believing that they were called upon to create, through their own ideas and wishes, a world entirely new. Thus, while promoting the interests of existing society, I was desirous of bringing back amongst us a sentiment of justice and sympathy for our early recollections and ancient customs; for that old French social system which had lived actively and gloriously for fifteen centuries, to accumulate the inheritance of civilization which we have gathered. It is a lamentable mistake, and a great indication of weakness, in a nation, to forget and despise ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... El Sabio intends to purchase Germany with her body as the price; you to get Sicily as her husband. Mort de Dieu! is a woman thus to be bought and sold like hog's flesh! We have other and cleaner customs, we of England." ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... the President, "by the ancient laws, customs, manners, and observances of the Duchy, no decree or law shall in any way whatsoever impair, alter, lessen, or derogate from the high rights, powers, and prerogatives of your Highness, whom may Heaven long preserve. Although, therefore, ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... distance from the settlement or market where these infidel Sangleys may dwell. His most reverend Lordship, considering these things from the point of view of a person who has known the Sangleys so many years, is acquainted with their language and customs, has been in that country of China for a long time, and has noticed that since the said rebellion and war which the said Sangleys set on foot and waged against us, some of the natives have made a settlement on a part ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... precede this, require explanation, but perhaps our knowledge is hardly sufficient to enable us to give it fully. There are allusions to customs,—to fashions rather,—common amongst the Israelites at the time, which we can now scarcely do more than guess at; but we may observe, that there was a general practice, which even God's own prophets were directed often to comply with, of enforcing what was said in word ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... did not object to officiate at the initiatory preliminaries of the great Netherland holocaust. His decent and dainty demeanor seems even more offensive than the jocularity of the real murderers. Conscious that no man knew the laws and customs of the Netherlands better than himself, he had the humble effrontery to observe that it was necessary for him at that moment silently to submit his own unskilfulness to the superior judgment and knowledge of others. Having at last been relieved from the stone of Sisyphus, which, as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unless there be successors to John Bull's Other Island, though he will have to keep abreast of the facts and fancies of modern life, including, to some extent, political matters. How he is to study the customs, usage and manners of polite society among the upper ten thousand it is hard to say. Not a few of us are weak on this point, and feel ill at ease when dealing with the nuances of the customs of Mayfair. The study of books on Savoir ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... surplus of wines, brandies, esculent oils, fruits and manufactures of all kinds, which we want. The governments have nothing to do, but not to hinder their merchants from making the exchange. The difference of language, laws and customs, will be some obstacle for a time; but the interest of the merchants will surmount them. A more serious obstacle is our debt to Great Britain. Yet, since the treaty between this country and that, I should not despair of seeing that debt paid, in part, with ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... out of your own age and to work for other times. It is equally incumbent on us to be good members of our own age as of our own state or country. If it is conceived to be unseemly and even unlawful for a man to segregate himself from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, it would be inconsistent not to see that it is equally his duty to grant a proper share of influence to the voice of his own epoch, to its taste and its requirements, in the operations ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... stones, only to assume their previous calmness and graze back on the same side of the trail from which our column had first started them. On another occasion I did this three times with a particular herd and laughed long and heartily at their stupid customs. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... merry voices. Later in the week there was a dinner at which the Cranstons and some fort friends appeared; there was a mistletoe bough that night and not a little coquetry and merriment, for Wells had invited the library girls and numerous young men to be present, and the customs of Old England were reproduced with characteristic American exaggeration. That mistletoe bough remained suspended from its chandelier, a reminder of the joys of the old year, even after '95 came knocking at the door, and in some odd ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... there not something that she could do? she asked herself. Jasper must be saved, and who else would take such a real heart interest in the matter as herself? She knew that a woman was not expected to undertake work of such a nature. But Lois Sinclair had very little respect for social customs if they stood ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... here used, was continued for many years, and became the chief support of the government. As the colony grew, however, and the need for greater revenues was felt, customs duties and other forms of taxation were resorted to. Large sums were raised by an export duty upon tobacco. At times tariffs were placed upon the importation of liquors, slaves and other articles. But these duties had to be used ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... clos'd." She spoke, and pointed to th' Avernian grove, Sacred to Proserpine; and shew'd a bough With gold refulgent; this she bade him tear From off its trunk. AEneaes her obeys, And sees the treasures of hell's awful king; His ancestors', and great Anchises' shades: Is taught the laws and customs of the dead; And what deep perils he in future wars Must face. As then the backward path he trode With weary'd step; the labor he beguil'd By grateful speech with his Cumaean guide. And, while through ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... had during my ten days' work, in which the dream of a life has at last begun its realization. Before, however, turning to the close of my report, which will embody scraps of history gathered about the place, remarks on the customs and arts of its former inhabitants, and general reflections, I must express my thanks here to a few gentlemen not yet named in this "personal narrative." Besides Mr. J. D. C. Thurston, who kindly ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... on the part of Miles Macdonell because large advances of money have been given to a number and he fears that they may desert. The expenses of assembling the settlers have been very heavy, and now opposition appears. Sir Alexander's party are doing their work. Mr. Reed, Collector of Customs at Stornoway, was married to a niece of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and as collector he throws every obstacle in the way of Macdonell. He has also taken pains to stir up discontent in the minds of the Colonists and to ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... plenitude of success as an actor, chiefly with the part of Rip Van Winkle, but also with the characters of Caleb Plummer, Bob Brierly, Dr. Pangloss, Dr. Ollapod, Mr. Golightly, and Hugh de Brass. The reason of that success cannot be found in conventional adherence to stage customs and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... How many people trouble themselves to eat politely, and act or talk from the highest motives? The Zulus follow traditional customs. If we did we would follow the refined court manners of our English and Dutch ancestors. Instead, we are in such haste to eat and get back to the business of making money, that we lose all the ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... of Gloucester, being the nearest male of the royal family capable of exercising the government, seemed entitled, by the customs of the realm, to the office of protector; and the council, not waiting for the consent of parliament, made no scruple of investing him with that high dignity. The general prejudice entertained by the nobility against the Queen and her kindred occasioned ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... been my aim to render the Legends, which form the second portion of the work, a picture, as it were, of old Greek life; its customs, its superstitions, and its princely hospitalities, for which reason they are given at somewhat greater length than is usual in works ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... There he became one of a "social club or circle," to which belonged J. Herman Merivale, Hodgson, Henry Drury, Denman (afterwards Lord Chief Justice), Charles Pepys (afterwards Lord Chancellor), Launcelot Shadwell (afterwards Vice-Chancellor), Walford (afterwards Solicitor to the Customs), and Paley, a son of the archdeacon. A good singer, an amusing companion, and a clever, impulsive, eccentric creature, he was nicknamed by his friends "Don Hyperbolo" for his humorous extravagances. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... matter how poor and scanty the clothing, they must have some kind of jewelry, even if it is only glass or brass bangles. They are anything but cleanly, as they are not taught in their own homes to be so; besides, some of their customs are considerably against cleanliness. For instance, they must not wash themselves at all for a certain length of time after the death of relatives. So it sometimes happens the children come to school in a very ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... king to the customs old, that I wanted for nought in the wage I gained, the meed of my might; he made me gifts, Healfdene's heir, for my own disposal. Now to thee, my prince, I proffer them all, gladly give them. Thy grace alone can find me favor. Few ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... Waiz, whose work on Anthropology has just reached this country: a writer as philosophic as Mr. Latham is disconnected; as pleasing and natural in style as the other is affected; as simply open to the true and good in all customs or superstitions of barbarous peoples as the Englishman is contemptuous of everything not modern and European. Waiz seems to us the most careful and truly scientific author in the field of Ethnology whom we have had since Prichard, and with the wider ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Wilmer has so minutely described, seems well attested, and corroborated by the above gentleman, yet I was informed by the late Mr. Adams, comptroller of the Customs at Pembroke, that the Oenanthe does not, that he could find, grow in that part of the country; but that what the above unfortunate French officers did actually eat was the wild Celery, which grows plentifully in all the wet places near that town. I take ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... the story hangs to some extent on the influence of the old feud between the British and Saxon Churches, which dated from the days of Augustine and his attempt to compel the adoption of Western customs by the followers of the Church which had its rise from the East. There is no doubt that the death of the wise and peacemaking Aldhelm of Sherborne let the smouldering enmity loose afresh, with the result of setting Gerent in motion against his powerful neighbour. Ina's victory was decisive, Gerent ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... badly to see Ginger. His stolid friendliness would be a support and a prop. She wished now that she had sent him a cable, so that he could have met her at the dock. It had been rather terrible at the dock. The echoing customs sheds had sapped her valour and she felt ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... not accept those terms as prescribed by the British Government. This act, passed in July, 1825, not communicated to the Government of the United States, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced, was nevertheless submitted to the consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... to the old people. When they were young they, too, had drunk and fought; they, too, had been beaten by their mothers and fathers. Life had always been like that. It flowed on monotonously and slowly somewhere down the muddy, turbid stream, year after year; and it was all bound up in strong ancient customs and habits that led them to do one and the same thing day in and day out. None of them, it seemed, had either the time or the desire to attempt to change this ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... worthless as it is as history, one may obtain side lights upon oriental life. Manners are portrayed in vivid colors, so that one may come to have a very accurate knowledge of them. Customs are depicted from which one may learn of the formality and regard for precedents which is a perspicuous trait of oriental character. The rigid etiquette of court and home may be remarked. From the view of morals here described, one may appreciate how far we have progressed in ethical ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... girl said plaintively, when the man had closed the door behind him, "I don't quite fathom your social customs out here. Is one supposed to know ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in the way of their business. The moral Magistrates of Bristol, some of whom were brewers and distillers, encouraged every species of drunkenness, and connived at every species of debauchery, so that their pockets were filled, and the customs and the excise were benefited; but they were alarmed and shocked at the monstrous crime of the freemen meeting once a week to subscribe their pence, to procure their freedoms, independent of every ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... tortures me," she said. "He uses roses as his weapons.... But what think you of this my friend? I shall bear his image into life! What matter laws and customs, and sins forbidden.... I shall be happy again when I hold my baby ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... part of the West-Indies principally affected; and to build sometimes for habitation towns and cities, sometimes for fame and memory monuments, pyramids, colosses, and the like. And if there happened to rise up any more civil wits; then would he found and erect some new laws, customs, and usages, such as now of late years, when the world was revolute almost to the like rudeness and obscurity, we see both in our own nation and abroad many examples of, as well in a number of tenures reserved upon men's lands, ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... this from his youth. He himself had endeavoured, but with only partial success, to keep up the old customs and manners. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... arrange a commercial treaty with Genoa, and from this time is noticeable a rapid development in his literary powers and the prominence of Italian literary influences. During the intervals between his different missions he filled various offices at home, chief of which was Comptroller of Customs at the port of London. An enormous amount of personal labor was involved; but Chaucer seems to have found time to follow his spirit into the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... my sole island; there I dwelt alone— No customs-house, collector nor collection, But a man came, who, in a pious tone Condoled with me that I had never known The manifest advantage ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... laws and customs touched upon in this tale are historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... find his child's garden-bed, that was only because in a fine June the corn had grown tall so quickly, through which he was presently led to it, with all its garish sweets undisturbed: and it was with the ancient growths of mind—customs, beliefs, mental preferences—as ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... house she had in her possession three of Penloe's books. One was "Macomber's Oriental Customs," another "Woman's Freedom in Tiestan" by Burnette, and the third ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... dead—perhaps the bread-winner of the family, fallen in the struggle—perhaps the last little comer, not strong enough to fight this earth's battle—must have lain there in plain view of that girl. Who was the most heartless? The family and friends who had gathered over that body, according to their customs, or the party who looked in on them and laughed?" Peter had forgotten where he was, or ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... whole race of people, from the first founder of the race to the present time? It was somewhat wonderful, and not to be foreseen by human sagacity or prudence, that a man's whole posterity should so nearly resemble him, and retain the same inclinations, the same habits, the same customs throughout all ages. The waters of the purest spring or fountain are soon changed and polluted in their course, and the farther still they flow, the more they are incorporated and lost in other waters. How have the modern Italians degenerated from the courage and virtues of the old ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... foresight, I found the two servants and your ex-policeman waiting for me on the platform at Charing Cross. As I only carried a handbag, I had no trouble with the Customs, and we walked straight out of the station. In less than five minutes we were standing outside the building which contained the invalid lady's flat. Your agent told me that, so far as he knew, there were no other persons in the place except the tenant and her two servants, an elderly ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... once and in every way assert their Separatism. They would pay no tithes; they called every church "a steeple-house"; and they regarded every parson as the hired performer in one of the steeple-houses. Then, in their own meetings for mutual edification and worship, all their customs were in accordance with their main principle. They had no fixed articles of congregational creed, no prescribed forms of prayer, no ordinance of baptism or of sacramental communion, no religious ceremony in ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... ought to be made conditional on the government proving the sincerity of their policy by immediately proceeding with their measure; that if life were in such danger in Ireland as was officially stated, and as he was bound to believe, no Corn or Customs' Bill could compete in urgency with the necessity of pressing forward a bill, the object of which was to arrest wholesale assassination. He was, therefore, for giving the government a hearty support, provided they proved they were in earnest in their determination to put down murder and outrage ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... the season was full of memories of those who used to take part in the happy festival, but were there no longer; for the children's sake, however, no difference was made in the old customs. ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... to write at your Magazin. I love always the modesty, or you shall have a letter of me very long time pass. But, never mind. I would well tell you, that I am come to this country to instruct me in the manners, the customs, the habits, the policies, and the other affairs general of Great Britain. And truly I think me good fortunate, being received in many families, so as I can to speak your language now with so much ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Polton has his hands full, it would be a good plan for you to drop in at Endsley Gardens—that is the address, I think—and if you can see Miss Gibson, try to get a confidential chat with her, and extend your knowledge of the manners and customs of the three Messieurs Hornby. Put on your best bedside manner and keep your weather eye lifting. Find out everything you can as to the characters and habits of those three gentlemen, regardless of all scruples of delicacy. Everything ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... the ship. "Attention passengers for Singhalut and other points on Cirgamesc! Kindly prepare your luggage for disembarkation. Customs at Singhalut are extremely thorough. Passengers are warned to take no weapons, drugs or explosives ashore. ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... Nobles began to ask what business a cobbler had at the King's table, and His Majesty ordered the palace records to be searched to find out if such a thing had ever taken place before. The cobbler was too wise to tell all he had lost with that doublet; but as by this time he knew the Court customs, he offered a reward of fifty gold pieces to anyone who would bring ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... remarked the peculiar character of European ethnology. It consists chiefly in the analysis of the component parts of particular populations; and this it investigates so exclusively as to leave no room for the description of manners, customs, physiognomy, and the like—paramount in importance as these matters are when we come to the other quarters of the world. There are two reasons for this difference. First—the peculiarities of the European nations are by no means ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... far away, and the Ceylonese so little known to civilized people, that we are apt to imagine them as half-clad barbarians. But they have adopted many modern customs which curiously intermingle with their native habits. A recent traveler thus ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... Lombards, who applauded such early prowess, requested his father, with unanimous acclamations, that the heroic youth, who had shared the dangers of the field, might be admitted to the feast of victory. "You are not unmindful," replied the inflexible Audoin, "of the wise customs of our ancestors. Whatever may be his merit, a prince is incapable of sitting at table with his father till he has received his arms from a foreign and royal hand." Alboin bowed with reverence to the institutions of his country, selected forty companions, and boldly visited the court ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of raising a revenue would be to impose a customs' duty on imports, to be levied on all supplies brought into the country, whether by Fraser ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... talking about old customs, I questioned Oo-koo-hoo as to how the Indians married before it was the custom to go to the Post to get the clergyman to perform that rite; and ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... of the most disliked, one of the most attractive, and one of the most disturbing men in South Africa. Gifted with brains and polish, he was yet, at present, marred by bigotry, narrowness of vision, and an unreasonable antipathy to the advance of English ways and customs. Furthermore, having obtained for himself a considerable following, he was, unfortunately, powerful. When genuine efforts were being made to bury the hatchet over the racial question, this man had more than once dug it up again; but it was not entirely clear at present whether he was ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... heretical doctrine. The truth of this principle many societies admit, and some, like the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's, have already put it into practice; the majority, however, wait for help to free themselves from the customs which have kept them listeners when they should be creators of vocal praise. The great obstacle to congregational singing has been that the range of tunes already familiar was very limited, while the providing a whole society with the paraphernalia ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to be mistaken for an inn, produces much harmless amusement. It is noteworthy that the first successful work of Goldsmith was his "Citizen of the World." Here the correspondence of a Chinaman in England with one of his friends in his own country, affords great scope for humour, the manners and customs of each nation being regarded according to the views of the other. The intention is to show absurdities on the same plan which led afterwards to the popularity of "Hadji Baba in England." Sometimes the faults pointed out seem ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... into the German customs union? Why should not Belgium make the best of her unfortunate situation, as became a practical and thrifty people? But be it a customs union or annexation that Germany plans, the steel had entered the hearts of all Belgians with red corpuscles; and King Albert and his "schipperkes" were ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... been the backbone of the nation—had relapsed into a semi-barbarous condition, or rather, while the rest of the world had progressed in civilization and refinement, they had remained in a state of stagnation, adhering obstinately to the customs of their palmy days: just as they had harried the Chaldaeans or Assyrians in the olden times, so now they harried the Persians; then, taking refuge in their rocky fastnesses, they lived on the proceeds of their forays, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... they are customs of long standing: the tinkling of bells is of little use, as the bees will generally settle near the hive; and as to dressing the hives, I by no means recommend it, as the bees like a clean new hive much better, for it does not give ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... seemingly floating on the midnight winds. "Down, down," he growled. "You are gone forever, under the black waters. Never to rise, and there's not a weak joint in my armor. I defy the very devil himself! With Heinrich's help I can evade all customs' search at Stettin; a few thalers will fix that. The whole New York lot are powerless; and as for Leah, poor devil, love will keep her faithful, fear will lock her tongue, even if she wished ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... restless Norseman, with no plan of establishing a racial dominion, but simply in the temporary enjoyment of his own warlike and robber instincts, engrafting himself upon a less gifted people, and then adopting its language and customs, letting himself be absorbed into the nationality he has helped to create, and becoming a Russian, with the same facility as Rollo and his sons at the very same ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... in the course of the journey; for the main part of which Master Knox was thoughtful and knit up in his own cogitations, and when from time to time he did enter into discourse with my grandfather, he spoke chiefly of certain usages and customs that he had observed in other lands, and of things of indifferent import; but nevertheless there was a flavour of holiness in all he said, and my grandfather treasured many of his sweet sentences as pearls ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... look forward with relief to having Kate well settled in life. Kate had been a hard one to manage. She had too much will of her own and a pretty way of always having it. She had no deep sense of reverence for old, staid manners and customs. Many a long lecture had Madam Schuyler delivered to Kate upon her unseemly ways. It did not please her to think of having to go through it all so soon again, therefore upon her usually complacent brow there came a look ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was born at Avila, in Castile, in the year 1515, at the close of the Middle Ages; but she really belonged to the Middle Ages, since all the habits, customs, and opinions of Spain at that time were mediaeval. The Reformation never gained a foothold in Spain. None of its doctrines penetrated that country, still less modified or changed its religious customs, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... pupils, and of their success in compositions. They said that sometimes very difficult subjects were given out. A week or two before, each had had to compose a letter purporting to be from Dante in exile to a friend in Florence, describing Paris as it was in his time, especially the manners and customs of its universities, ending by some allusion to the state of matters between the Guelphs ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... made an apologetic gesture. He had only been at Les Artaud a little while, he must follow the customs. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... trying to make close family allies of such a cantankerous pair as you and I! So much of one mind as we be, so alike in our ways of living, so close connected in our callings and principles, so matched in manners and customs! 'twould be a thousand pities ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... out. There will be no doubt nor question as to the right and wrong. There will be no vain excuses! nor any attempt to make them. There will be no more sophistry, no more considerations of expediency, no more pleading of the laws of men and the customs of society, no more talk about organic sins being converted into constructive righteousness, or collective and corporate frauds releasing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... about things of that sort. This piece has indeed turned out beyond all expectation, and it has given much pleasure to me and to others. It is no small undertaking to conjure up a work written almost two hundred years ago, for an entirely different clime, for a people of entirely different customs, religion, and culture, and to make it appear fresh and new to the eyes of a spectator. For nowhere is anything antiquated and without direct appeal more out of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... as not to judge disinterestedly even on those subjects, the very pleasure arising from which consists in its disinterestedness, namely, on subjects of taste and polite literature. Instead of deciding concerning their own modes and customs by any rule of reason, nothing appears rational, becoming, or beautiful to them, but what coincides with the peculiarities of their education. In this narrow circle, individuals may attain to exquisite discrimination, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... that did exist were kept constantly in the hands of relatives of the ducal house and under strong control. Political feudalism existed in Normandy in even greater perfection and in a more logical completeness, if we regard the forms alone, its practices and customs, than was usual in the feudal world of that age; but it existed not as the means by which the state was broken into fragments, but as the machinery by which it was governed by the duke. It formed the bond of connexion between him ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... fiercely, "for, as sure as you do, I'll have this knife," showing him a large, sharp-pointed one, which, in accordance with the customs of her class, hung by a black belt of strong leather from her side—"I'll have this customer here greased in your puddins, my buck, and, when the win's out o' you, see what you'll be worth—fit for Captain James's ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... them to be: and they have rarely indeed been admitted where other words could have been employed without a glaring anachronism, or a tedious periphrase. Would it indeed be possible, for instance, to convey a notion of the customs and manners of our Saxon forefathers without employing words so mixed up with their daily usages and modes of thinking as "weregeld" and "niddering"? Would any words from the modern vocabulary suggest the same idea, or embody ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... especially to Ajor. She now did nothing but ask questions whenever I would let her, which could not be all the time, as our preservation depended largely upon the rapidity with which I could gain knowledge of the geography and customs of Caspak, and accordingly I had to ask ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... resemble more or less that of the Cormons; for it is, in its way, an archetype of the burgher houses in that region of France, and it deserves a place in this history because it serves to explain manners and customs, and represents ideas. Who does not already feel that life must have been calm and monotonously regular in this old edifice? It contained a library; but that was placed below the level of the river. The books were well ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... for the doctor, and bad times for Mary too. She had declared that she could live without going to Greshamsbury; but she did not find it so easy. She had been going to Greshamsbury all her life, and it was as customary with her to be there as at home. Such old customs are not broken without pain. Had she left the place it would have been far different; but, as it was, she daily passed the gates, daily saw and spoke to some of the servants, who knew her as well as they did the young ladies of the family—was in hourly contact, as it were, with Greshamsbury. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... horses running at liberty without riders between the banks; traces of such a race run in an enclosed space may be found in the Corso dei Barberi, now practiced in the streets of Florence; {125} the Italians having in many instances preserved the original customs of the Romans. But the question must still hang in a balance whether the Raw Dykes were the scene of Roman ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... years among the Indians; not these tribes, indeed, but the southern Indians; does great justice to their religious aspiration. He is persuaded that they are Jews, and his main object is to identify their manifold ritual, and customs connected with it, with that of the Jews. His narrative contains much that is worthless, and is written in the most tedious manner of the folios. But his devotion to the records of ancient Jewry, has really given him power to discern congenial ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... were stopped by a guard of men who all wore white scarves on their arms, as well as green sprays in their hats. They stopped us, apparently, because their captain wished to exercise them in military customs. They were evidently raw to the use of arms. They handled their muskets like spades. "Be you for Monmouth, masters?" they asked us, grinning. When we said that we were, this very unmilitary guard told us to ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... a merry custom; it has gone, like the all-day picnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all vanished customs, the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not long go unserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window—or, it ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... close of my visit, my Hawaiian friends urged me strongly to publish my impressions and experiences, on the ground that the best books already existing, besides being old, treat chiefly of aboriginal customs and habits now extinct, and of the introduction of Christianity and subsequent historical events. They also represented that I had seen the islands more thoroughly than any foreign visitor, and the volcano of Mauna Loa under specially favourable circumstances, and that ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of divination from a young damsel which had brought much gain to her masters. Paul was as much a foreign emissary in the Roman colony of Philippi, as George Thompson was in America, and it was because he was a Jew and taught customs it was not lawful for them to receive or observe, being Romans, that ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... my cordial thanks to Captain Richard F. Burton, the well-known traveller and author, who has most kindly undertaken to give me the benefit of his great practical knowledge of the language and customs of the Arabs in revising the manuscript of ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... inhabitants of many of the islands in the East Indies has been remarked in Captain Cook's first voyage. Here the resemblance appeared stronger than has yet been noticed; particularly in their numerals. But besides the language I observed some customs among the people of Timor still more striking for their similarity. They practise the tooge-tooge* of the Friendly Islands which they call toombock: and the roomee of Otaheite which they call ramas. I likewise saw, ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... nearer, and draw into a lesser circle; there is no church whose every part so squares unto my conscience, whose articles, constitu- tions, and customs, seem so consonant unto reason, and, as it were, framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my belief—the Church of England; to whose faith I am a sworn subject, and therefore, in a double ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... felt that it wuz all right, that a fairer race had brought fairer customs and habits of thoughts, and the change wuz not a bad one. I guess she looked forward to the time when a still grander race should look down into her shinin' face, a race of free men, and free wimmen; sons and daughters of God, who should hold their birthright so grandly and nobly that ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... them from painting their skin, from making incisions on their chins, noses and cheeks; they may have destroyed among the great mass of the people superstitious ideas, mysteriously transmitted from father to son in certain families; but it has been easier for them to proscribe customs and efface remembrances, than to substitute new ideas in the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... day to give the Indians a feast, by way of conveying a favorable impression of my character and dignity; and a white dog is the dish which the customs of the Dakota prescribe for all occasions of formality and importance. I consulted Reynal; he soon discovered that an old woman in the next lodge was owner of the white dog. I took a gaudy cotton handkerchief, and laying ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... people, with shipping, weapons and ordnance. He was authorised to keep gold, silver, and other goods which he should bring back, the fifth part of the gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, with all customs due for any other goods, being truly paid to the Crown. Further, his Majesty, of his most special grace, constituted Ralegh sole commander, 'to punish, pardon, and rule according to such orders as he shall establish in cases capital, criminal, and civil, and to exercise martial law in ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... making others suffer in turn. The whole thing is wrong in principle, and engenders passions which should be stifled and not encouraged." Why free and enlightened England should tolerate, even then, such barbarous slavery cannot be understood and yet there are outrageous customs prevailing among college students of our day in every civilized land that should ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... there await a south wind. There seems to be a great demand for air at the equator just now. Well, let them have it," said he grimly, "but we are sure to get a regurgitation in our direction before many days. So down we go to study Russian habits and customs." ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... appended to this translation are not intended to supply the place of such reference to Dictionaries of Mythology, Antiquities and Geography, as is needful to the student of Pindar who is not already somewhat accomplished in knowledge of the customs, history and legendary traditions of Hellas. And although it may reasonably be supposed that the chief of these will be already known to most readers of Pindar, yet so profusely allusive is this poet that to understand his allusions will very often require knowledge which would ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... always "cum totius populi consensu." This was the important point; it was so far a popular office that the free consent of the people was always necessary to make valid the appointment of any incumbent. According to the ideas and customs of the eighth century, such a method of procedure would represent a fairly popular election; for we know well that in the times of the greatest freedom, the Teutonic idea of a popular vote never went beyond ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... or assign them. Such propositions seem radical and calculated to interfere greatly with proprietary rights and the freedom of contract. They are, however, but little more than statements of the customs that already exist on some of the best estates. Just as the government by the Irish Land Law Act (1881) took up the Ulster tenant-right customs, gave them the force of law, and extended them to all Ireland, it is proposed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... prince or a countess passed by. Their reverence for age itself, in anything but a horse, had often surprised me by its artlessness, and of all strange things in the world, I have heard them admire old customs and old families. It was strange to me to listen, when I had believed that their land was the only one where happily no person need worry to remember ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... thoughtful of both races in the North and in the South. The gravity of the Southern problem, as set before us, is little less than appalling. The colored race now looks back over a quarter of a century of freedom and recognized rights. The traditions and customs and conservative ties of slavery are broken with its chains. The ideas, aspirations and manly instincts of liberty have taken hold upon the colored people and are becoming controlling. The intellectual progress of the many, the political and national prominence of the few, the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... the second part and of the Elder Edda, and versions of several Runic poems. It was translated into English, in 1770, by Thomas Percy, the editor of the "Reliques," under the title, "Northern Antiquities; or a Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion, and Laws of the ancient Danes." A German translation had appeared a few years earlier and had inspired the Schleswig-Holsteiner, Heinrich Wilhem von Gerstenberg, to compose his "Gedicht eines Skalden," which introduced the old Icelandic mythology ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... beliefs in the practical conduct of life, the position is different. There are now good reasons why his attitude should be in some ways less inflexible. The society in which he is placed is a very ancient and composite growth. The people from whom he dissents have not come by their opinions, customs, and institutions by a process of mere haphazard. These opinions and customs all had their origin in a certain real or supposed fitness. They have a certain depth of root in the lives of a proportion of the existing generation. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... peculiarities of his legislation was compensation for crime,—seen alike in the Mosaic dispensation and in the old customs of the Germanic nations in their native forests. On conviction, the culprit was compelled to pay a sum of money to the relatives of the injured, and another sum to the community at large. This compensation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... Latrobe sentiment was not of the most refined kind. Local customs were pronounced and crude in outline; language was often highly coloured, and action was occasionally accentuated by a pistol shot. For the first few months of its life the place was honoured by the presence of neither wife, nor sister, nor mother. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Zebra, that I dare swear they'll want to make a vice-admiral of you straight away. But what do you say to serve under me? Just at the time when I called at the Admiralty they had received a pressing request from the Customs to find them an officer to take charge of a cutter—there she lies," pointing to the smart craft he had been inspecting; "and they gave me the offer, and I took it. And I'm on the look-out for a few smart hands, especially ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... been polluted. In a tract published in answer to that of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of the practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at the present day as a record of forgotten customs. He said that "no place had been more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of Christ's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it so long, than that he overthrew ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was sultry, and the succeeding morning opaque with an August fog. Rising early, I sat upon the upper gallery of the little Catskill inn, and watched the manners and customs of the street corners. An old, one-armed man, with a younger and more stalwart, appeared at a sort of chest counter, covered by a bower of green boughs, and drew out two tables, which were then placed at the edge of the pavement. The chest was unlocked, and forth came several bushels of potatoes, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... know that," replied Jim. "I'm ignorant of the customs of other countries. Would you rather I'd whoop from ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick |
