"Parson" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under your bed-tie? 'Tis a bit nubbly till the sleeper gets used to it, but it benefits the man if he's anyway given to lumbago, an' for the 'taties themselves 'tis salvation. I tried it through the hard winter of the year 'five by the advice o' Parson Buller, and a better Christian never missed the point of a joke. 'Well, Israel,' says he that January, 'how be the potatoes getting along?' 'Your honour,' says I, 'like the Apostles themselves, thirteen to the dozen; ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... attempt that Marx makes here toward answering the theory of Malthus is to declare that most of the population theory teachers were merely Protestant parsons.—"Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his pupil the Arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of the lesser reverend scribblers in this line." The great pioneer of "scientific" Socialism then proceeds to berate parsons as philosophers and economists, using this method ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... a new preacher kum to a place to take charge of a church. A member uf the church called tu pay his respeks an' afore he left he said, confidential like: 'Parson, ye preach yer first sermon Sunday. Now I want to tell ye this fer yer own good: We hev a good many members thet plays ole sledge, ten cents a corner. Thar our best payin' members an' I wouldn't, ef I wus ye, say anythin' 'bout ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... solemn like, and yet with a kind of satisfaction shining through him, more like a Methody parson when he has sold a neighbour a marked horse for a sound one and cleared twenty pounds by the job than anything I can think on—'Job, time's up, Job; but I never did expect to have to come and hunt ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... on which day none of the ladies had gone to church. Mr. Emilius well understood the cause of their absence, and felt nothing of a parson's anger at it. He was to marry the couple on the Monday morning, and dined with the ladies on the Sunday. He was peculiarly gracious and smiling, and spoke of the Hymeneals as though they were even more than ordinarily joyful and happy in their promise. To Lizzie he was almost affectionate, and ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... afterwards, there was alive a Son of this Muller's; an innocent Country Parson, not wanting in sense, and with much simplicity and veracity; who was fished out by Nicolai, and set to recalling what his Father used to say of this adventure, much the grandest of his life. In Muller Junior's Letter of Reminiscences to Nicolai we find some details, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... more than sixty feet wide; marriages solemnized by justices of the peace, before the separation, were to be valid, and in future justices of the peace were empowered to marry persons not living within eighteen miles of a parson of the Church of England, the form of the Church of England to be followed; the times and places of holding Courts of Quarter Sessions were fixed; the further introduction of slaves was prevented, and the term of contracts for servitude limited; a Court ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... know—a year after they left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny, except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by the name of Belcher, got round the widow—she was a desperate fool—and, by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her money, but Johnny's too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... emotions; a nature to be easily possessed of an exalted enthusiasm for popular rights and for celebrating the virtues of the industrious poor. This enthusiasm in the case of Patrick Henry was intensified by his own eloquence, which had been so effectively exhibited in the famous Parson's Cause, and in opposition to the shady scheme which the old leaders in the House of Burgesses had contrived to protect John Robinson, the Treasurer, from being exposed to a charge of embezzlement. Such courageous exploits, widely noised abroad, had won for the young man great ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... with a statement, dated 22nd August, 1390, by MORANDUS DE CAROVELLIS, parson of St. Apollinaris and Chancellor of the Doge's Aula, that the original document having been lost, he, under authority of the Doge and Councils, had formally renewed it from the copy recorded ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... slightest heed to the approaching horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was so different from the old-time custom that I marveled. Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that menaced us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed in black, who might have been a lawyer or a parson or an undertaker, trotting peaceably along the road by ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the mention of his failure in the schools. News comes with all colour strained and filtered out of it through the columns of 'Galignani.' The neologian heresy, the debate in Convocation which would have stirred the heart of the parson at home, fall flat in the shape of a brown and aged 'Times.' There are no "evenings out." The first sign of eve is the signal for dispersion homewards, and it is only from the safe shelter of his own room that the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... have to be a long engagement. Robin was in a provincial bank, he had his way to make. Then, a year later, Prissy wrote and told them that Robin had got a post in Parson's Bank in the City. He didn't know a soul in London. Would they be kind to him and let him come to them sometimes, on ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... is not on your side, Felix. It is not all folly, I hope; but I had thought you would have been a better parson ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... life he dined at a friend's house in London with Thomas Paine, when one of the toasts given was the "memory of Joshua,"—in allusion to the Hebrew leader's conquest of the kings of Canaan, and execution of them. Paine observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. "I 'm of the Scotch parson's opinion," he said, "when he prayed against Louis XIV.—'Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don't let him drop!'" Paine then gave as his toast, "The Republic of the World,"—which Samuel Rogers, aged twenty-nine, noted as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... could not have done five years ago. Mingling with men more solemn than himself he observed the inconvenience of solemnity. He really wants to be a conductor of the little currents of energy that make men think and act in small groups. Some good parson years ago should have encouraged him ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... value of "example" may excuse this lower viewpoint. "The silent influence of the example of one sincere life ... has benefited society more than all the projects devised for its salvation." He has little patience for the unpracticing preacher. "In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd dog but is far from being a good shepherd." It would have been interesting to have seen him handle the speculating parson, who takes a good ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... are you dreaming about? Come with me to sup at Mr Barrett's and meet my brother Alexander, the parson. I'll warrant you have got some more bits of history for him to put into his big book. Come, come, don't look so glum, and we'll take a glass at the tavern in ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... remember all about that. Well—I shall go home and tell Mrs. Stoutenburgh that you're as pretty as a posie, and then she won't care what else is the matter," he said, getting up again. "Mrs. Somers, I see the parson durstn't say a word ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... managed the affairs of this rising settlement, with as much impartiality as could be expected. They were not indeed without their own secret predilections; for the lawyer and the soldier privately inclined to the party of the Squire, while the parson, Mr. Meredith, and Mr. Winterblossom, were more devoted to the interests of Lady Penelope; so that Doctor Quackleben alone, who probably recollected that the gentlemen were as liable to stomach complaints, as the ladies to nervous disorders, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Jackson clapped his we-toe on the hull o' the banks, kersock. Wall, yeou see, I got broke all tew flinders. My ole hoss died, the sun and rain beat up my wagon, I sold eout my notions tew a feller that paid me all in ceounter-fit money, and then he dug eout, as Parson Dodge ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... two of the crew for to witness, and were spliced in our own house; and the parson prayed a good bit, I must say—but not so long as some—and shook hands with the ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good. Do not try to cross me, Clara. No one else can deal with this pack of rascals. Your brother has not been bred to it, and is a parson besides, and there's not a soul that I can trust. I'll go. What! d'ye think I can live on him and on you, when there is a competence of my own out there, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it's the way I feel. Old Parson Jones used to say that people were marbled good and bad pretty even, but that in everybody there were one or two streaks just pure wicked. I guess Lou Carroll is my wicked streak. I haven't seen or heard of her for years—ever ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... best of my belief, To Flora Gilbert fell upon his knees, But somehow matters seemed extremely brief, He rose, I fancy, somewhat ill at ease, Then cursed his stars and hers for their decrees (I wouldn't swear I'm telling you the truth), And so the clerk and parson lost their fees, Decidedly their stars were most uncouth, For Flora was as gunpowder ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... parson's child," continued the woman. "Give me your hand." She bent, muttering over it: "No, no, not the parson's child— you belong to dark people, for all so white and ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... arms for greed; The hireling parson goads the train— In that foul crop from, bigot seed, Old "Praise God Barebones" howls again! We welcome them to "Southern lands," We welcome them to "Southern slaves," We welcome them "with bloody hands To hospitable ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... meanly and inflict mean suffering upon others. In the ruined castle of her youth, and the falling in of banqueting hall and bower, the dungeon and torture-chamber appeared to have been left, or, to use her own metaphor, she had querulously complained to the parson that, "Accordin' to some folks, she mout hev bin the barren fig-tree ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... want of success with his evening party he had accepted in as philosophic a mood as he was capable of; but there had been enthusiasm enough left in him one day at Sherton Abbas market to purchase this old mare, which had belonged to a neighboring parson with several daughters, and was offered him to carry either a gentleman or a lady, and to do odd jobs of carting and agriculture at a pinch. This obliging quadruped seemed to furnish Giles with a means of reinstating himself in Melbury's good opinion as a man of considerateness by throwing ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... how as a young man groping about for some clew to the mystery of the world in which he found himself, he tried one great writer after another—Mill, Buckle, Carlyle, Emerson—all to no purpose, for he was not ready for them. At this period he read with great profit the "Recreations of a Country Parson," which, as he says, "gave me precisely the grade and shade of platitude I required." But more important were the weekly sermons of Henry Ward Beecher. ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... "I'll give that parson a dozen if he does that again," he remarked, unmoved by the crash of a shot which struck us right under our turret. Then he took a cigar and spoke between his teeth when he had ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... complacently, "but I kin fill them silk stockin's plumb up." Her face grew brooding with a wistful regret in the sudden droop of the tender red lips. "I 'low I jest orter 'a' swung onto thet-thar neck o' his'n an' hollered fer Parson, and got spliced 'fore he went." She shook her head disconsolately. "Why, if he don't come back, I'll be worse nor the widders. Humph, I knows 'em—cats. They'll say: 'Tiny Siddon didn't never have no chance to git married—her disperzition an' her looks wa'n't compellin' ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the trouble in the world comes from women shoving in where they're not wanted. It's a pleasure to talk to you, Lawrence, after lying here to be slobbered over by a pack of old women. I always exclude you, my dear," he nodded to Laura, "but the parson twaddles on till he makes me sick, and Val's not much better. What's a woman want with courage? Teach her to buy decent clothes and put 'em on properly, and she's learning something useful. I'll guarantee Isabel only got in the way. But you, Lawrence," he measured his cousin ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... who are under no mistake as to the proper meaning of the word, prefer expressing that meaning in some other way, and leave the original word to its fate. The word 'Squire, as standing for an owner of a landed estate; Parson, as denoting not the rector of the parish, but clergymen in general; Artist, to denote only a painter or sculptor; are cases in point. Such cases give a clear insight into the process of the degeneration of languages in periods ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Goodall,[2] "the Culdees continued near a hundred years longer than at Dunkeld. Cormac Malpol, their prior, with Michael, parson of Mothil, and Macbeath, his chaplain, are witnesses to a confirmation by William, bishop of Dunblane (1210 ——), of a gift of the Church of Kincardine to the monks of Cambuskenneth, to be seen in their chartulary, fol. 80; and Malpol, the prior, ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... enough to ruin the best children in the world. That little Cilly is the most arrant little flirt I ever came across; it is like a comedy to see the absurd little puss going on with the curate, ay, and with every parson that comes to Wrapworth; and she sees nothing else. Impressions! All she wants is to be safe shut up with a good governess, and other children. It would do her a dozen times more good than all his stories of good children ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the parson, 'Be content; Pay your tithes due, pay your rent; They that earthly things despise Shall have mansions in the skies, Though your back with toil be bent,' Said the parson, ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... Solomon Levi, and a nice young Jew Old Pork Chop. One fellow who was particularly slow was called Speedy William, and another who always spoke in a quick, jerky voice answered to the hail of 'Slow-up Peter.' One cowboy who was as rough as anybody in the command was christened The Parson, and a fine, high-toned, well-educated college boy had to answer to the name of Jimmy the Tramp. Some of the boys could sing, and they organized the Rough Rider Quartette; and others could play, and they gave us music on the mouth harmonicas and other ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... yourself Abbie if you choose," he used to say, "and 'tain't none o' my business, but I was in the meetin'-house and heard Zeke let drive, and b'gosh it sounded just like a buzz-saw strikin' the butt-end of a log. 'Abijah! Abijah! he hollered. Shet Parson Simmons up same's a steel trap. Gosh, but ...
— Abijah's Bubble - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... their souls, and swiftly send a sixth! She wears a hat large as a targe or buckler, brings the artillery of her eyes to bear on the young Squire, and jokes him about his sweetheart. Beside her is a worthy Parson, who delivers faithfully the message of his Master. Although he is poor, he gives away the half of his tithes in charity. His parish is waste and wide, yet if sickness or misfortune should befall one of his flock, he rides, in spite of wind, or rain, or thunder, to administer consolation. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... not keep any longer in his kitchen a prophetess with the archbishop's imprimatur upon her; and as soon as the girl was sufficiently recovered from her illness to leave her bed, he caused her to sit at his own mess with his mistress and the parson.[314] The story spread rapidly through the country; inquisitive foolish people came about her to try her skill with questions; and her illness, as she subsequently confessed, having then left her, and as only her reputation was remaining, she bethought herself ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... mother—Polly was getting so that she could do the plain parts on the coats and jackets, which filled her with pride at the very thought—"now," said Mrs. Pepper, "you needn't help me this morning, Polly: I'm getting on pretty smart; but you may just run down to the parson's, ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... want to see what dat ole parson'll say," he averred, though the truth was, Dolf had been so indiscreet in his protestations to Victoria that he was a little fearful of consequences if that high-spirited damsel learned the news without ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... been no place for a parson's son," he grinned, "but it a dam-fine place for a parson. What ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... exclaims: "The Church—a class institution—what does the Church do to help me and those like me? The Church supported by the wealthy, yes, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' The well-groomed parson, with his soft tones prophesying smooth things, well, I'm glad I'm ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... boreal position! In the midst of his popularity, an attack was made upon him and his favourite remedy, the salve; which, however, did little or nothing to diminish the belief in its efficacy. One "Parson Foster" wrote a pamphlet, entitled "Hyplocrisma Spongus; or, a Spunge to wipe away the Weapon-Salve ;" in which he declared, that it was as bad as witchcraft to use or recommend such an unguent; ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... gain a hearing. England was still in the main an agricultural country: and the agricultural labourer was fairly prosperous till the end of the century, while his ignorance and isolation made him indifferent to politics. There might be a bad squire or parson, as there might be a bad season; but squire and parson were as much parts of the natural order of things as the weather. The farmer or yeoman was not much less stolid; and his politics meant at most a choice between allegiance to one or other of the county families. If in the towns which were ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... with a masque or play, and a Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I'd made 'em in my girlhood, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... like foam-flakes, the flames wave and flap like sails, and the wail of the chimney sings a second shipwreck. As the tiny scintillations gleam and scatter and vanish in the soot of the chimney-wall, instead of "There goes the parson, and there goes the clerk," it must be the captain and the crew we watch. A drift-wood fire should always have children to tend it; for there is something childlike about it, unlike the steadier glow of walnut logs. It has a coaxing, infantine way of playing with the oddly shaped bits ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... helper by day, this aproned lad with sooty face dreamed dreams. Evenings he studied Greek with the village parson. They ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... just been arranged between Warren and Pepperrell that the {220} former should attack by sea while the latter assaulted by land, when on June 16 the French capitulated. How the New England enthusiasts ran rampant through the abandoned French fort need not be told. How Parson Moody, famous for his long prayers, hewed down images in the Catholic chapel till he was breathless and then came to the officers' state dinner so exhausted that when asked to pronounce blessing he could only mutter, "Good Lord, we have so much to thank Thee for, time ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Philip and Henry and Mr. Trenchard senior, to derision. They did not like the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had all the layman's distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why Katherine asked the parson to stay, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... to say that experience taught him quickly all that he had need to learn; and that whereas he was more than a week late with his cabled account of the first engagement of the war he was frequently more than a week early afterwards. Indeed the battle of Parson's Nose, so realistically described in his last telegram, is still waiting to be fought. It is to be hoped that it will be in time for his aptly-named book, With the Mexicans in Mexico, which is coming out ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... parson, the Reverend William Emerson, that we owe one of the most valuable Revolutionary documents that have come down to us. Soon after the young minister came to the old Manse (which was then the New Manse), he had occasion to make in his almanac this ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... length a grave-looking member, in a plain suit of gray, and wearing an unpowdered wig, arose. So plain was his appearance that Bishop White, who was present, afterward telling of the circumstances, said he 'felt a regret that a seeming country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the theatre for their display.' However, he soon changed his mind as the plain-looking man began to speak; his words were so eloquent, his sentiments so logical, his voice was so musical, that the whole House was electrified, while from lip ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... but the state took the same resolution, and the members of the Parliament, who were minded to distinguish themselves by a little more stubbornness, adopted the same course twenty-four hours afterwards. All this was done gently, without violence or disorder. There is only a parson named Chambrun, patriarch of the district, who persists in refusing to listen to reason; for the president, who did aspire to the honor of martyrdom, would, as well as the rest of the Parliament, have turned Mohammedan, if I had desired it. You would not believe ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... durance vile. From not very far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad's journeys, and the birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson's paradise—nor the center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as of spices. But it has its charms, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... to our parson's pig, which after a short skirmish was caught by Brigitte and her carrotty assistant; and notwithstanding his cries, his grunts, his gestures of despair and supplication, the inhuman cook, seizing his head, opened a large vein in his throat, and relieved him of two pounds of blood; ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... mushroom vanities, our speculations, Our well-set theories and calculations, Our workman's jacket or our monarch's crown! To him alike the country and the town, Barbaric hordes or civilized nations, Men of all names and ranks and occupations, Squire, parson, lawyer, Jones, or Smith, or Brown! He stops the carter: the uplifted whip Falls dreamily among the horses' straw; He stops the helmsman, and the gallant ship Holdeth to westward by another law; No one will ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... I'll apologize and walk out of here after you have explained to me why you have faked up into a parson one Dennis Burke, late of the state prison, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... was the outcome of long, close observation of large numbers of clergymen, but not of one particular parson. Why, then, was it so exactly like individual clergymen that I received excited or enthusiastic letters from the parishioners of I dare not say how many parishes, affirming that their vicar (whom ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... Continent—of course with a companion. But I have been clawed backwards and forwards on the Continent for years by Aunt Grizel, and have had enough. I chose Africa, because it sounds so nice and racy in novels, doesn't it? Fortunately papa's greatest friend, a parson and also an archaeologist, has a daughter out there. She paints, and lives on a farm somewhere on the veld in the Cape Colony, so I am allowed to go and stay with her ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... of the Bible by heart. When he was ten years of age, the greatest calamity of his life occurred; his mother, always frail and delicate, passed from earth. Abraham Lincoln never recovered from the shock. The rude casket was placed in a grave near the cabin. Nine months after that sad day, Parson Elkins, whom the family had known in Kentucky, answered the repeated appeal of Abraham to come one hundred miles on horseback to preach a funeral sermon at ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... "Amelia": "And to speak my opinion plainly, such are the laws and such the method of proceeding that one would almost think our laws were made for the protection of rogues, rather than for the punishment of them." The laws bore hardly upon the poor and spared the rich. "The parson," complained Defoe in the "Poor Man's Plea," "preaches a thundering sermon against drunkenness, and the justice of the peace sets my poor neighbor in the stocks, and I am like to be much the better for either, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... defy it, Reverend Batson," I said, when he asked if anybody knew 'just cause'; and the people fluttered like a flock of geese, and parson made answer: ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... thing to happen in a quiet household! The poor man did not know what to do. So he sent for all his relations, and they advised him to try what the parson could do. ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... of a regular wit has long ceased to be a part of the economy of a Morning Paper. Editors find their own jokes, or do as well without them. Parson Este, and Topham, brought up the set custom of "witty paragraphs," first in the "World." Boaden was a reigning paragraphist in his day, and succeeded poor Allen in the Oracle. But, as we said, the fashion of jokes passes away; and it would be difficult to discover ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... They had fought as crusaders, for to many of them Catholic Louisbourg was a stronghold of Satan. Whitfield, the great English evangelist, then in New England, had given them a motto—Nil desperandum Christo duce. There is a story that one of the English chaplains, old Parson Moody, a man of about seventy, had brought with him from Boston an axe and was soon found using it to hew down the altar and images in the church at Louisbourg. If the story is true, it does something to explain the belief of the French in the savagery ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... to make of that odd leg on the Day of Jedgment? Will he add a new one onto Reuben,' I axed, 'when, as plain as logic will have it, it won't be a resurrection, but a creation, or will he start that leg a-trampin' by itself all the way from Manassas to jine the other at Old Church?' The parson had been holdin' pretty free all the mornin' with nobody daring to contradict him, and a man more taken aback by the power of logic my sight never lit on. 'Spare me, Mr. Doolittle,' was all he said, never a word mo'. 'Spare ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... December 17, 1874 in the Baptist church. Glasco Wilson was the preacher married me. My wife died here in dis house nine years ago. We had ten children but jes two livin now. My girl married a preacher and live at Hope. Arkansas. My son preaches in Parson, Kansas. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a mother to the sick, nursing ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... life to which this has been but the gray dawn before the sunrise. You have been so kind to me, so frank and affectionate! and all the time you knew-oh! you must have known-what was in my heart. Yes; and, if it had not been for this meddling parson's visit"— ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... Oh, ay!" Suddenly his brows knit ominously as he faced her. "An' wassist tha doin' drest oop in this foinery? Wheer gettist thee that goawn? Thissen, or thy maester? Nowt even a napron, fit for thy wark as maaid at serviss; an' parson a gettin' tha plaace at Hall! So thou'lt be high and moity will tha! thou'lt not walk wi' maaids, but traipse by thissen like a slut in ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... "A parson! Does he know anything about his subject? Is he an expert?—a trained relief worker? Does he know Willoughby? And Smathers? ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... you don't think that they would wish to make a parson or a lawyer of me surely?" exclaimed Tom, in ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... quite too sad to contemplate. In fact the Mintonvillians positively would not contemplate them. Give them their devil and they could safely straddle between the horns of their dilemma. Remove their devil and they were undone. But Parson Gilham asserted that there was no devil. Mintonville had consequently to choose between their devil and their parson. The world could furnish more parsons but it couldn't furnish more devils. It was the parson and the devil ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of the wheels prevented me from hearing it distinctly. I could see the dandies, however, exchange expressive looks with one another; and at one time the more forward of the two whispered something to his companion, in which the words 'Methodist parson' alone were audible. ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... gentleman adventurer upon this expedition. Upon this our rogue of a buccaneer captain burst out a-laughing, and fetching Master Harry a great thump upon the back, swore roundly that he would make a man of him, and that it was a pity to make a parson out of so ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... if you were already married or even if you weren't and he thought you were I could save you from dangers, the extent of which even I do not know. And there was a man named Homo, a crook. He had been a parson and had all the manner and style of his profession. So I got a special licence in ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... pew—to watch during sermon-time the blue sky, the clouds, the rooks at their business in the churchyard elms. He has even recorded (in an essay on 'Visions' read before the Tregantick Literary and Scientific Society in the winter session of 1856) that once, awaking with a start in the middle of Parson Grylls's sermon, he distinctly saw suspended in these same elm-tops the image of an abnormally long pilot-fish (naucretes ductor) he had received from a fishing-boat overnight and left at home in his surgery mounted upon an apparatus of his own invention, ready to be ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... cut leads to a stile at the edge of a bit of wood (the Parson's Shave, they call it, because it belongs to him). The wood has not been shaved for some time, and it has grown out beyond the stile and here, among the hazels and chestnuts and young dogwood bushes, we saw something white. We felt it was our duty to investigate, even ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... lines from Mr. Warder as to the confusion in my house, and some other matters. He got for me a pass to come in and attend to these things. I stayed three days with Mrs. Peniston and Darthea. While here the second day I was bid to sup at Parson Duche's, and though I hated the lot of them, I had had no news nor so much as a game of cards for an age, and so I went. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... be here by the coach," says Magdalen. "Let us ask a little party to meet him." And so we did, and so they came: my father and mother, old Crutty in his best wig, and the parson who was to marry us the next day. The coach was to come in at six. And there was the tea-table, and there was the punch-bowl, and everybody ready and smiling to receive our ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... taken higher honours my dear old governor would never have rested satisfied unless I had devoted myself either to study of the law or politics, both of which I hate, instead of permitting me, at some future time, to become a quiet country parson.—But what extraordinary light is that?" he exclaimed, on perceiving a narrow stream of fire, apparently at no great distance, shoot up above the brow of a low hill just ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... one of her best and greatest sons, a patriot sternly resenting all dishonor to his country, a reformer who ventured his life for the purity of the Church and the freedom of the Bible—an earnest, faithful "parson of a country town," standing out conspicuously among the clergy of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... its direct deduction from "conciseness of expression," recalls the lady patroness who chose her incumbents for being fast over prayers. She said she could always pick out a parson who read service daily by his ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... growing in the middle classes were those which had already made America, and were remaking France. The fiercest Jacobins, such as Danton, were deep in the liberal literature of England. The people had no religion to fight for, as in Russia or La Vendee. The parson was no longer a priest, and had long been a small squire. Already that one great blank in our land had made snobbishness the only religion of South England; and turned rich men into a mythology. The effect can be well summed up in that decorous abbreviation by which our ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... they had made for religious purposes was the penny dropped on the plate on Sunday, so the appeal to make a sacrifice to secure stated ordinances, was to them a novelty. An Englishman asked, 'When had the King become unable to pay the parson?' His visits also made him aware that there were many children unbaptised and that not one of those who told him they were church members had received the communion since they had left the Old Country. His resolution was taken—he would ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... "that depends, little gal. There's three p'ints I'd like to consider in this connection and as touchin' this matter, as old parson used to say. First, is Miss Fidely good-lookin' and agreeable to see? Second, does she anyways want to see me? Third, how far off does she live? It's gettin' on towards sundown, and hossy and me have a good ways to go ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... he was known, replied very composedly, B, a, m, p, f, y, l, d, e, M, o, o, r, e, C, a, r, e, w. This occasioned a good deal of mirth; and Mr. Carew asking what scabby sheep had infected the whole flock? was told, Parson Bryant was the man who had discovered him, none of the other gentlemen knowing him under his disguise: upon which, turning to the parson, he asked him if he had forgotten good king Charles's rules? Mr. Pleydell, of St. Andrew's, Milbourn, expressed a pleasure at seeing the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... Dawlish, fronted by villas and flower-gardens, and having to the southward strange pinnacles of red rock rising from the edge of the sea, two of them forming a fanciful resemblance to the human figure, being named the Parson and the Clerk. A storm recently knocked off a considerable part of the Parson's head. Upon their sides, piercing through tunnel after tunnel, runs the railway almost over the water's edge. Soon the cliffs are ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... then, that I said a word about it: but the whole parish talks of it," answered Tom, who was surprised at this fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva put in their parson. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Harry and Katie showed no resentment whatever at his intrusion, but caught at his suggestion. Russell alluded with clumsy and rather vulgar playfulness to their tender relations, and offered, as guardian, to give Katie away the moment they should find a parson. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... the nicest hen I have ever seen. She is finer than our parson's hen. I should like to have her. A hen can always pick up something; she can almost keep herself. I think it would be a good exchange if I got her for the goose. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... Victoria. Better than this is the lot of our restless countrymen, whose modern instinct bids them tend always towards "fresh woods and pastures new." Rather than such monotony of sluggish ages, loitering on a village-green, toiling in hereditary fields, listening to the parson's drone lengthened through centuries in the gray Norman church, let us welcome whatever change may come,—change of place, social customs, political institutions, modes of worship,—trusting, that, if all present things shall vanish, they will but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... gains would be A pretty sight, indeed, to see,) Is that the days are made so many In which we cannot earn a penny— The sorest ill the poor man feels: They tread upon each other's heels, Those idle days of holy saints! And though the year is shingled o'er, The parson keeps a-finding more!'[2] With smiles provoked by these complaints, Replied the lordly financier, 'I'll give you better cause to sing. These hundred pounds I hand you here Will make you happy as a king. Go, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... drunk towards evening, and made themselves beasts. He says, the second is a butcher's daughter, and sometimes brings a quarter of mutton from the slaughter-house overnight against a market-day, and once buried a bit of beef in the ground, as a known receipt to cure warts on her hands. The parson affirms, that the third sells gingerbread, which, to please the children, she is forced to stamp with images before it is baked; and if it burns their guts, it is because they eat too much, or do not drink ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... be fixed. He ought to have told 'em that everything was all right and to go home and go to bed. Your father would have told 'em that. That's good politics. But you and I know Stewart from the ground up! He is about as much a politician as I am parson—and I'd wreck a well-established parish in less than five minutes by the clock. He's taking a little more time as a wrecker in his line—but he's making a thorough job ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... start some vigorous community work—have agricultural meetings and boys' clubs, and lots of things like that—but Mr. Nash says it is no part of a minister's work: that it cheapens religion. He says that when a parson—Mr. Nash always calls him parson, and I just LOATHE that name—has preached, and prayed, and visited the sick, that's enough ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... nice gal down in Troy, and one fine day she ups an' tells her sorrowin' parents that she's agoin' to marry a leppard. 'Not ef we knows et,' says they; 'we forbids the banns'; and wi' that they went off to bed thinkin' as they'd settled et. 'But,' says Parson Lasky—" ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on Ulysses' shoulder. He even began to go to Sunday School—the Methodist this year because they had given the largest cornucopias in town the Christmas before. And he talked nothing but Golden Texts till Mr. Budlong began to fear that he would one day be the father of a parson. ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... his enterprise, after having been within gunshot of the town that he had hoped to capture. As for the good people of Kirkaldy, they were convinced that their escape from the daring seamen was wholly due to the personal influence of their pastor with the Deity; and the worthy parson lived long afterward, ever held in the most mighty veneration by ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... life on the wild North Sea,—the hero being a parson's son who is appreciated on board a Lowestoft fishing lugger. The lad has to suffer many buffets from his shipmates, while the storms and dangers which he braved on board the "North Star" are set forth with minute knowledge and intense power. The wreck of the "Golden Fleece" ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... of me!" he cried. "I could not bring the parson here, for they think you my wife already. I must change my plan materially by taking you to the parsonage. We can go from here directly to the station. I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes with a conveyance. Remember, I warn you to make no outcry for protection in the meantime. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the party saw a little church in an almost inaccessible situation, and observed that it was a most inconvenient site for a church, for surely no congregation could attend it. "It is on that account the more convenient to the parson," replied Bonaparte, "who may preach what stuff he pleases without fear ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... William Russell, called Jourdan's, in the parish of Giles Chalfont, in the county of Bucks; that which was wanting to their accommodation was a place of harbour, for assistance wherein recourse was had to Parson Philips, none being so ready, none so willing, none so able ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood |
