"Demigod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ventured to describe the original formation of the world but they all spoke of a universal deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown Woesackootchacht, a kind of demigod with whom they had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft he embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had continued for some time he ordered several waterfowl to dive to the bottom; they were all drowned but a muskrat, having been despatched ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... active life a long time before, but he had a greater reputation in his idleness than many others in their activity. All Paris sought the honor of being admitted to his magnificent, high-windowed apartment. As the demigod never went out in the evening, his friends were always sure of finding him at home. At one time or another all sorts of social sets rubbed elbows at his great soirees. The most brilliant singers and the most famous virtuosi ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... was overpowered. This demigod had brought HER a gift. He had thought about her—insignificant her! True, she had talked with him, had even taken walks with him, but those things had not been significant. It had seemed he merely condescended to the daughter of a martyr to his cause. He had been paying a tribute ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... of a few hours, a few years or several centuries. It is therefore possible—for, in these matters, we must go straight to extremes or else leave them alone—it is therefore possible that a seer mightier than any of to-day, some god, demigod or demon, some unknown, universal or vagrant intelligence, saw that procession a million years ago, at a time when nothing existed of that which composes and surrounds it and when the very earth on which it moves had not yet risen from the ocean depths. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... published in London two volumes of "Personal Adventures" in the Hungarian war. She is herself a Hungarian, and she saw her husband fall while cheering his men to defend a barricade at Vienna. In this book Kossuth is her hero, her prophet, her demigod; and she sacrifices all other celebrities without compunction at the altar of his greatness. Dembinsky she treats with manifest injustice; Georgey comes out on her pages as a very Mephistopheles. Klapka himself does not escape ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... looked on Davidge in his swivel-chair as a kind of despondent demigod, a Titan weary of the eternal strife. She tried to rise beyond a poetical height to the clouds ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... leadership of Hannibal, threatened to wrest from the queen of the Seven Hills the rule of the world. Now its streets are covered with grass; the wild scream of the bird of solitude and the moanings of the night-owl mingle with the sobs of a fallen demigod who once made the earth shake ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... meant was that I should probably marry some rich nobody for the sake of his wealth. It would be quite in my line. I should arrange him, form him, bring him into Society, even against Society's will! There is a certain excitement in the adventure. As for Maurice, he is no doubt in your eyes a demigod—in mine," with infinite ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... descry the dim and mighty outline of the HEROIC AGE. The careful and skeptical Thucydides has left us, in the commencement of his immortal history, a masterly portraiture of the manners of those times in which individual prowess elevates the possessor to the rank of a demigod; times of unsettled law and indistinct control;—of adventure—of excitement;—of daring qualities and lofty crime. We recognise in the picture features familiar to the North: the roving warriors and the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... here A-strolling through this sordid city, And piping to the civic ear The prelude of some pastoral ditty! The demigod had crossed the seas,— From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, And Syracusan times,—to these Far shores ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... turning upon her suddenly, with a full smile; 'but is not this good advice? I have consulted God and demigod; the nymph of the river, and what I far more admire and trust, my blue- eyed Minerva. Both have said the same. My own heart was telling it already. Action, then, be mine; and into the deep sea with all this paralysing casuistry. I am happy ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like to have a talk with him about trees!" I mentioned how much any one must be struck with the majestic beauty of Goethe's countenance (the noblest certainly by far that I have ever yet seen): "Well," said he, "the grandest demigod I ever saw was Dr. Carlyle, minister of Musselburgh, commonly called Jupiter Carlyle, from having sat more than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin Hamilton—and a shrewd, clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more a poet ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... and with a terrible blaze of fighting-talent in him; full of obedience, of endurance, and yet of unsubduable "silent rage" (which has brooked even the vocal rage of Friedrich, on occasion); a really curious old Hussar General. He is now a kind of mythical or demigod personage among the Prussians; and was then (1779), and ever after the Seven-Years War, regarded popularly as their Ajax (with a dash of the Ulysses superadded),—Seidlitz, another Horse General, being the Achilles ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... German Ocean, in the Channel, throughout the Indies, but now they were to measure strength with the ancient enemy in this most conspicuous theatre, and before the eyes of Christendom. It was on this famous spot that the ancient demigod had torn asunder by main strength the continents of Europe and Africa. There stood the opposite fragments of the riven mountain-chain, Calpe and Abyla, gazing at each other, in eternal separation, across the gulf, emblems of those two antagonistic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... collection of cuneiform tablets disinterred at Amarna in 1887 was found the curious story of Adapa. The demigod Adapa, the son of Ea, fishing in the sea for the family of his lord, is overwhelmed by the stormy south wind and cast under the waves. In anger he breaks the wings of the wind, that it may no longer rage in the storm. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be a risk of your not being able to suppress some fraudulent banker or some rather over-extortionate tax-collector! For as to the Greeks, they will think, as they behold the innocence of your life, that one of the heroes of their history, or a demigod from heaven, has come down into the province. And this I say, not to induce you to act thus, but to make you glad that you are acting or have acted so. It is a splendid thing to have been three years in supreme power in Asia ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... who, old, and cold, and vain, At Weimar sat, a demigod, And bowed with Jove's imperial nod His ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... exactly tell what he was like, he was so awful nice. Through the sentences Elsie Cameron could make out a picture of him: big, handsome, honest, whole-hearted, and as tender as a woman with his shy little sweetheart; but in Miss Arabella's worshiping eyes he was a very demigod. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything becomes—what? ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... ascertain where his guest had come from, and what was his previous history, but as Zeppa always met such inquiries with one of his sweetest smiles, and with no verbal reply whatever, the chief felt unusually perplexed, dropped the subject, and began to regard the madman as a species of demigod. Of course no one else dared to question him, so that ever afterwards he remained in the eyes of his entertainers ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Von Wetten's satisfaction, that demigod dropped one or more of his small packages into it, and arranged them snugly with the iron rod. While he did so, Herr Haase eased himself upright, wiped the sweat from his brow, and gazed across at the other two. He saw the young man dipping a brush in a bottle, which he ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of the twelfth century, the old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin and Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balder, yet was he defeated and fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took heart of grace ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... that a Pope had been elected who would deserve the execration of succeeding centuries. In Roderigo Borgia the people only saw, as yet, a man accomplished at all points, of handsome person, royal carriage, majestic presence, affable address. He was a brilliant orator, a passionate lover, a demigod of court pageantry and ecclesiastic parade—qualities which, though they do not suit our notions of a churchman, imposed upon the taste of the Renaissance. As he rode in triumph toward the Lateran, voices were loud in his praise. 'He sits upon a snow-white ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... neighbours, attending freely their immoral games and dances, and sharing in the sins connected with them. Thus Arianism had many affinities with heathenism, in its philosophical idea of the Supreme, in its worship of a demigod of the vulgar type, in its rhetorical methods, and in its generally lower moral tone. Heathen influences therefore strongly ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... the individual for a moment, who smiled and smirked to himself applause, and then I turned my eyes upon the hearse proceeding slowly up the almost endless street. This man, this Byron, had for many years past been the demigod of England, and his verses the daily food of those who read, from the peer to the draper's assistant; all were admirers, or rather worshippers, of Byron, and all doated on his verses; and then I thought of those who, with genius as high as ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of Barclay, author of "The Argenis," considered herself as the wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death; for Cardinal Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she demolished his monument, brought home his bust, and declared ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... written with intent either to make the man a demigod or else to damn him as a rogue who has hoodwinked the world. Of the first-mentioned class, Weems' "Life of Washington" must ever stand as the true type. The author is so fearful that he will not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... clung to your art merely to attract your attention. Did Heaven create a man like you to let you make a clown of yourself night after night? Are you not ashamed of boasting of it? You see that I am willing to overlook your being an artist. What wouldn't one overlook in a demigod like you? And if you were a convict, Oscar, I could not feel differently toward you. I have lost all control over myself! I should still lie in the dust before you as I am doing now! I should still implore your mercy as I am doing now! My ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... rest, was there, but for scarce ten minutes, and, as usual, received little more than a distant salutation, coldly and gravely returned, from Gertrude Chattesworth, to whom Mr. Beauchamp, whom she remembered at the Stafford's dinner, addicted himself a good deal. That demigod appeared in a white surtout, with a crimson cape, a French waistcoat, his hair en papillote, a feather in his hat, a couteau de chasse by his side, with a small cane hanging to his button, and a pair of Italian greyhounds at his heels; and he must have impressed ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... who first conquered Britain, whether or no he was the detached demigod of "Caesar and Cleopatra," was certainly a Latin of the Latins, and described these islands when he found them with all the curt positivism of his pen of steel. But even Julius Caesar's brief account of the Britons leaves ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... was moved by the little man's childlike and absolute faith and his reverence for Jimmy Grayson as a demigod. It was not without pathos, and Harley at once took him into the next car and introduced him to Grayson, who received him with the natural cordiality that never deserted him. Plover, the little man said was his name—William Plover, of Kalapoosa, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... speedily destroy the remnant of your mistress's former beauty by the exhaustion of sleepless nights—I know better. It was not love which drew Antony after me, not love that trampled in the dust the radiant image of reckless courage, not love that constrained the demigod to follow the pitiful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... all hid; an old infant play. Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the heyday of life, when existence is full of delight and home affection, to refuse a man who could make them happy, because they don't quite like the shape of his nose, or because he is a little untidy in his dress, or simply because they are waiting for some impossible demigod to whom alone they could surrender their independence. But could we not mildly point out that darker days must come, when life will not be all enjoyment, and that a lonely old age, with only too possible penury to be encountered, must be taken ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... condemned criminal would be invested with the brief and fatal sovereignty. In the sequel we shall find other examples of a dying criminal representing a dying god. For we must not forget that, as the case of the Shilluk kings clearly shows, the king is slain in his character of a god or a demigod, his death and resurrection, as the only means of perpetuating the divine life unimpaired, being deemed necessary for the salvation of his people ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... indecent expression, had particularly animated the zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his operations. The great height of the demigod—for he stood a fathom and half in his stocking-feet—offered a preliminary obstacle to this attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while he was still living. There must have been something very grand in his immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... front were unharmed, there would come a period of happy reaction; the little society would be wildly gay, especially if one or more young heroes from the front had come home with a slight wound,—just enough to make a demigod ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... poise of his handsome head upon those broad shoulders, and the fire of life and intelligence in those fine, clear eyes, he might readily have typified some demigod of a wild and warlike bygone people of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the human, but of the brute creation, which are all, if tamable, participators in the sentiment of praise and emulation. What renown would be given to a king who thus extended his empire! I should be deemed a demigod." Thinking of that, the other fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which, no doubt, we Christians firmly believe in, but never take into consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... understand and translate the surviving tragedies of Aeschylus, one feels inclined to repeat the words used by a powerful critic about one of the greatest of modern poets—"For man, it is a weary way to God, but a wearier far to any demigod." We shall not discover the full sequel of Aeschylus' mighty dramatic conception: we "know in part, and we prophesy in part." The Introduction (pp. xvi.-xviii.) prefixed by Mr. A. O. Prickard to his edition of the Prometheus is full of persuasive grace, on this topic: to him, and to ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... that he did. Before leaving, moreover, Hume would have time to introduce his friend to the famous men of Paris itself, and to initiate him into those literary and fashionable circles in which he had moved like a demigod for the preceding two years. The philosophe was then king in Paris, and Hume was king of the philosophes, and everything that was great in court or salon fell down and did him obeisance. "Here," he tells Robertson, "I feed on ambrosia, drink ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... least embarrassed by his superfluity of parents. He adjusted himself to the circumstances with tact and a sympathetic consideration which would scarcely have been expected of him. He managed the two fathers with consummate skill, divided his attentions honorably between them, and played the role of demigod to perfection. When Livinius and Eudemius were together, he was circumspect, careful lest he arouse parental jealousy on either side; but when he and Eudemius were alone, he cast aside restraint and called him "father" to Eudemius's heart's content. More and more the two came ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... absolutism took its most offensive form in Nicholas's attitude toward Europe. He was the very incarnation of reaction against revolution, and he became the demigod of that horde of petty despots who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... for her own folly suddenly seized upon her with such overmastering power that she looked away from the sovereign toward the singers, who were summoning the whole world to pay homage to yonder broken-down man, as though he were a demigod. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... scornfully. "Two-legged creatures like those that run about everywhere, a crowing, clucking crowd! And then one of them crows himself up in the big barnyard to the position of a demigod! Lord, how the fellow must be bored with the rest of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... but he hunted them down, secured one or more chiefs as hostages, or by some common-sense method recovered the absentees. At some of the islands Cook was extremely popular with the inhabitants, and was regarded as a superior being, even a demigod, in many of them. When he was compelled to resort to extreme severity, he did not begin with cannon, loaded with grape, but trusted first to the loud report, terrific to the savages, fired over their heads, or had the muskets loaded with small shot which would hurt, but did not kill. No slaughter ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... (whence they would derive the name of their nation), galliard, pleasant, and pliable to all company; the Spaniard quite contrary retired, austere, rigid, proud. And indeed their are something of truth in it; for who knows not the pride of the Castilian: if a Castilian then a Demigod. He thinks himselfe ex meliore luto natus then the rest of the ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder |
