"Profanation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Campanella's Sonnets, published by the Grolier Club, had been sold for three hundred dollars. This impressed the members greatly. It was a novel idea. A new work might thus be enshrined in a sort of holy of holies, which, if the collector so desired, could be forever sacred from the profanation of any vulgar or unappreciative eye. The possessor of such a treasure could enjoy it by the eye of imagination, having at the same time the exaltation of grasping what was for others the unattainable. The literary ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... honourable and trulie pious Lorde Francis Russel, Duke of Bedford, out of true zeal and care for ye keeping of this churchyard, and ye wardrobe of God's saints, whose bodies lay therein buried, from violating by swine and other profanation, so witnessed! William Walker, V., ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... N. misuse, misusage, misemployment[obs3], misapplication, misappropriation. abuse, profanation, prostitution, desecration; waste &c. 638. V. misuse, misemploy, misapply, misappropriate. desecrate, abuse, profane, prostitute: waste &c. 638; overtask, overtax, overwork: squander &c. 818. cut blocks with a razor, employ a steam engine to crack ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to laugh as we learn to reason. The society we have mentioned studied the harder the more they laughed, and they laughed the more the harder they studied. Each, of course, to be of use, must be in its own place. A laugh in the midst of the study would have been a profanation; a grave look in the midst of the merriment would have been an insult to the good ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... three of the worst characters in the colony, Luke Normington, John Colley, and William Osborne. It amounted nearly to a mockery and profanation of religion to administer an oath to such hardened and unprincipled wretches; yet their testimony could not be refused when called for by a prisoner who was standing under the weight of a capital charge; but of the credibility of such testimony it was always in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... no!" escaped from Marian, she hardly knew how, as if it was profanation to compare Mr. Faulkner to Edmund; and perhaps the strongest proof that Caroline's was not a real attachment, was that she let it pass. "But then," pursued she warmly, "I am sure he is attached to me—yes, very ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... extravagants of the emotional telegram. They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... over the mental conditions which could make him capable of such a profanation. Step by step he traced their development, in his own harsh experiences of life, as he followed his father's body to the grave. He traced them back indeed to that father himself, since it was from him that he had inherited the bitter and perilous self-confidence which ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... suitable demur on account of the Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These liveries at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped their hands and cried, "Guardi! Guardi!" When ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... his terror lest through his own fault, or that of his men, any violence or profanation should be offered to the holy oxen, that even then, tired as they were with the perils and fatigues of the day past, and unable to stir an oar, or use any exertion, and though night was fast coming on, he would have had them re-embark immediately, ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... guessed; her marriage would be something of an event. Heaven grant that he might read no journalistic description of the ceremony! Few things more disgusted him than the thought of a fashionable wedding; he could see nothing in it but profanation and indecency. That mattered little, to be sure, in the case of ordinary people, who were born, and lived, and died, in fashionable routine, anxious only to exhibit themselves at any given moment in the way held to be good form; but ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Haabunai, with Great Fern, had dug it and paved it a couple of days ago, and her husband had given the others a pig for their work, slaughtering it on the tomb of the Bishop of Uranopolis. No thought of profanation had entered their minds; it was convenient to lay the pig over the imposing monument, with a man on either side holding the beast and the butcher free-handed. The carcass had been denuded of hair in a pail ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... evidence to transfer the burden of the imputed wrong to the memory of the dead Aurelius. But should he commit this profanation of the grave—as he regarded it? The voice of brotherly love—for he had tenderly loved his erring brother—said, "No." Would any amount of proof satisfy the nervous, doubting man before him? He feared not. Therefore Marcus Wilkeson did an act of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Negroes might have been proceeded against in a most summary manner; that the Negro witnesses had been treated with too much consideration; that "the law requires no oath to be administered to them; and, indeed, it would be a profanation of it to administer it to a heathen in a legal form;" that "the monstrous ingratitude of this black tribe is what exceedingly aggravates their guilt;" that their condition as slaves was one of happiness and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... profaned. Those who dared resist were imprisoned or slain. Wine that had been offered to the gods was thrown into the public wells and fountains, and all the food that was sold in the markets was defiled in the same way. Two of his officers who complained of this profanation were put to death—not for their religion, Julian hastened to ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the walk a moment, then said, "Well, I don't know. A woman like Grace St. John shakes my faith in our old belief. It seems profanation to assert that ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... depended upon what was not, would of themselves have preserved the ancient franchises of this and other kindred mountain retirements from trespass; or (shall I dare to say?) would have secured scenes so consecrated from profanation. The lakes had now become celebrated; visitors flocked hither from all parts of England; the fancies of some were smitten so deeply, that they became settlers; and the Islands of Derwent-water and Winandermere, as they offered the strongest temptation, were the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... system, of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind. That sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric of states, but like a provident proprietor, to preserve the structure from profanation and ruin, as a sacred temple purged from all the impurities of fraud, and violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and for ever consecrated the commonwealth, and all that officiate in it. This consecration is made, that all who administer in the government of men, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... beauty, his instinctive hate became an active, though secret, hostility. She had come one evening with Sleeny to a spiritualist conference frequented by Offitt, and he had at once inferred that Sleeny and she were either engaged to be married or on the straight road toward it. It would be a profanation of the word to say that he loved her at first sight. But his scoundrel heart was completely captivated so far as was possible to a man of his sort. He was filled and fired with a keen cupidity of desire to possess and own such beauty and grace. He railed against marriage, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... Gregorian chant had become so overladen with mere embellishments as to make the prescribed church-form difficult of recognition in its borrowed garb, for it had become a mere jumble of sound. Musicians, indeed, carried their profanation so far as to take secular melodies as the themes for masses and motetts. These were often called by their profane titles. So the name of a love-sonnet or a drinking-song would sometimes be attached to a miserere. The council of Trent, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... which the people were reduced. The priests obstinately opposed every idea of peace. They represented the hostile conduct of the Spaniards to their nation ever since they first came into the country; their profanation of the temples and idols of their gods; their injurious treatment of the great Montezuma, and of all the other princes who had fallen under their power; the death of the two sons of Montezuma, the seizure of the royal treasures, and the destruction of the city. They reminded Guatimotzin ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the tide-bound party under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery, the suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;—determine whether an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the structure of any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet observe the same limitations of incident, and the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... to say, takes refuge at the altar; and there even a maddened mob dare not molest him. But the prize goes to a rising star, young Sophocles; and presently the Gods' Messenger is formally accused and tried for "Profanation of the Mysteries." ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... trust rose in my bosom. I speak it not profanely—[when a writer says this, be sure of it that, as in the present case, he goes deep as he can in profanation]—when I say that the idea of the yet unknown Saviour, a child among the Doctors of the Temple, occurred ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... in the new, unfamiliar atmosphere; and yet the boy had a strong sense that all was not right; that these were interlopers in the kind old Dean's house; that the talk about Baal was mere absurdity; and the profanation of the Cathedral would have been utterly shocking to his good father. His mind, however, worked slowly, and he would have had nothing to say even if he could have ventured to speak; but he was very anxious to get away; and ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Athenians to abide his trial. At first, as we before said, there were only some slight suspicions advanced against Alcibiades. But afterwards, in his absence, his enemies attacked him more violently, and confounded together the breaking the images with the profanation of the mysteries, as though both had been committed in pursuance of the same conspiracy for changing the government. The truth is, his accusers alleged nothing against him which could be positively proved. One of them, being asked how he knew the men who defaced ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... was something sacred, which belonged to her and to her alone. It would have seemed a profanation to reveal it to her unloved husband, and she found strength to shut it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the first laws that fall into our hands justice, and their practice and dispensation very often foolish and very unjust; and as those who scoff at and accuse it, do not, nevertheless, blame that noble virtue itself, but only condemn the abuse and profanation of that sacred title; so in physic I very much honour that glorious name, its propositions, its promises, so useful for the service of mankind; but the ordinances it foists upon us, betwixt ourselves, I neither honour ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day or the name of ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Turks in Europe, Asia and Africa, from the Thracian Bosporus to the sands of Egypt, and from the mountains of Caucasia to Venice. He spoke of the melancholy captivity of the Greek church, which was the mother of Russian Christianity; of the profanation of the holy sepulcher; of Nazareth, Bethlehem and Sinai, which had fallen under the domination of the Turk. He suggested, that the Turks, in possession of the Tauride—as the country upon the north shore of the Black Sea, bounded by the Dnieper and the Sea of Azof was then called—threatened the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... be feebler than this "Instalment," except in the strength of impudence with which the writer professes to scorn the prostitution of fair fame, the "profanation of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... incarnation.] The doctrine of the incarnation is of fundamental importance in Christianity. It seems almost profanation to compare it with the Hindu teaching regarding the Avataras, or descents of Vishnu. It is difficult to extract any meaning out of the three first manifestations, when the god became in succession a fish, a boar, and a tortoise. Of the great "descents" ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... tolerance by Irish Catholics, who only laugh to see them "hung with a number of trumpery glass and Brummagem metal trinkets about their persons, and generally indulging in an amount of fantastic and childish adornment which would turn the King of the Cannibal Islands green with envy." Their profanation of God's holy name and their sacrilegious oaths are regretted, but they will never do much harm in Ireland, where the people laugh at their "fantastic tomfoolery." A parallel column advises the public to join in the present pilgrimage to Saint Patrick's Purgatory, where the saint saw, by special ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... dress here pleases the eye, and their custom of going veiled to church, and always without a hat, which they consider as profanation of the temple as they call it, delights me much; it has an air of decency in the individuals, of general respect for the place, and of a resolution not to let external images intrude on devout thoughts. The hanging churches, and even public ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... word [Greek: iepeus], and means, "one who stands as a mediator between God and the people, and brings them to God by the virtue of certain ceremonial acts which he performs for them, and which they could not perform for themselves without profanation, because they are at a distance from God, and cannot, in their own persons, venture to approach towards him." In this sense of the word "priest," the term is not applied to the ministers of the Christian church, either by the Scripture, or by the authorized formularies of the Church of England; ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... 'Temple of Reason.' In June another festival was ordered—to the Supreme Being: the God of Philosophy. But the most superb exhibition was the 'general festival,' in honor of the republic. It was distinguished by a more audacious spirit of scoffing and profanation than the former. Robespierre acted the 'high-priest of Reason' on the day, and made himself conspicuous in blasphemy. He was then at the summit of ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... attachment of the people to these old rites even in the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era, that a murderous riot broke out at Alexandria, in which Bishop George and others were slain, on occasion of the profanation by Christians of a secret adytum in which the Mysteries of Mithra were celebrated.54 And when, a little later, the Emperor Valentinian had determined to suppress all nocturnal rites, he was induced to withdraw his resolution by Pretextatus, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... men whose looks are a profanation to any good woman. Ned Bannister, of the Shoshones, was one of them. He looked at his cousin, and his ribald eyes coasted back to bold scrutiny of this young woman's charming, buoyant youth. There was Something in his face that sent a flush of shame coursing through her rich ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... bit of it. The dowager could not bring her mind to suffer such profanation for the Lufton acres, and so she sold five thousand pounds out of the funds and sent the money to Lufton as a present;—sent it to him without saying a word, only hoping that it would suffice for his wants. I wish I had a ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... quickly; "no more do I, and that was what I was observing to this gentleman just now. I said I looked upon it as a sacrilegious profanation ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... assistants looking gravely on, until the squealing of the pig brought all gravity to an end. The king was not pleased; but the historian thinks the reason was, not any objection which he had to such a profanation, but to his not happening to be in a mood for it at ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the emblems of the Holy Verity; I saw the name of the Apostle Paul replaced by a convicted felon's cap. Sometimes I was actually present at the confabulations of the Section, where I heard amazing errors propounded. At last I quitted this place of profanation and went to live on the pension of a hundred pistoles allowed me by the Assembly in a stable that stood empty, the horses having been requisitioned for the service of the armies. There I sing Mass for a few of the faithful, who come to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... own reflections, that he did not for some moments perceive the fond and tearful eye which was fixed upon him on that brow and lip, thought seemed always so beautiful, so divine, that to disturb its repose was like a profanation of something holy; and though Emily came towards him with a light and hurried step, she paused involuntarily to gaze upon that noble countenance which realised her earliest visions of the beauty and majesty of love. He turned slowly, and perceived ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that I am one of the men whom women offend if they are not perfectly well-dressed. The miller's daughter was badly dressed; her magnificent figure was profaned by the wretchedly-made gown that she wore. I forgave the profanation. In spite of the protest of my own better taste, I resigned myself to her gown. Is it possible adequately to describe such infatuation as this? Quite possible! I have only to acknowledge that I took the rooms at the cottage—and there is the ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... will of your companion. And the flies drop softly like down. Then the silence becomes sacred. You whisper— although there is no reason for your whispering; you move cautiously, lest your reel scrape the gunwale. An inadvertent click of the paddle is a profanation. The only creatures in all God's world possessing the right to utter aloud a single syllable are the loon, far away, and the winter wren, near at hand. Even the trout fight grimly, without noise, their white bodies flashing far ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and desolation, as well as of political anarchy and social disorganization. Each new success of its unholy work, necessarily inflicted a new pang on the heart of the sorrowing Spouse of Christ. Day after day, she had to weep afresh over some new profanation of her sanctuaries, some new desertion of her faithless children, some aggravated treason against her God. Nor was it only the ravages of heresy that she had to lament, but perhaps still more, the disloyalty of too many among her still nominal adherents. ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... with the proposal was of course out of the question; and now high Brahmans and low Chumars—who are never seen in the same temple even though they worship the same gods, as the presence of a Chumar there would be deemed a profanation—may be seen packed in the same carriage in as close contact as two human beings can be. When they separate the Brahmans have recourse to lustrations, and satisfy themselves the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... the boldest of all things. It is true, the fault is not his, so much as theirs who have consented to this profanation, but that is the way of the world. But, I say, there's no small bit of people coming. Any one would say that nothing had changed since last year. The same distinguished persons, the same elegant costumes, the crowding at the door, the same excitement in the portico, the same throng ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... respect, not for themselves, but by reason of the usage for which they are chosen and set aside, thereby becoming consecrated, religious. We should respect them in a spiritual way as we respect in a human way all that belongs to those whom we hold dear. Irreverence or disrespect is a profanation, a sacrilege. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Emperor called it the Reunion, under the idea of uniting the order of the Golden Fleece of Spain with the order of the Golden Fleece of Austria. "Providence," said a Prussian diplomatist, "took care to frustrate the profanation." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... foreign bandits, creeping about our bay? For what have the persons of General Vallejo and Judge Leese been seized and imprisoned? Why does a strip of cotton, painted with a gaping bear, flaunt itself above Sonoma? Oh, abomination! Oh, execrable profanation! Mother of God, open thine ocean and suck them down! Smite them with pestilence if they put foot in our capital! Shrivel their fingers to the bone if they dethrone our Aztec Eagle and flourish their stars and stripes above our fort! O California! That thy sons and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... taken to bring the offenders to justice, and great rewards were offered to anyone, whether citizen, slave, or resident foreigner, who gave information concerning this or any similar crime. At first nothing was disclosed as to the mutilation of the Hermae, but other recent acts of profanation were brought to light, and among these was mentioned a derisive parody of the great Eleusinian Mysteries, alleged to have been performed in the house of Alcibiades, and elsewhere. The enemies of Alcibiades, who were both numerous and powerful, eagerly seized this handle against him; but when ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... and goodness. Consequently, an oath taken on either the calf or the cross was considered equally solemn and sacred by Jew or Nazarene, and the breaking of it a soul-staining perjury on themselves, and an insult and profanation directly offered to the Almighty. To render the oath more impressive and solemn, it was customary to slaughter a dedicated calf in the temple, when, the priests having divided the carcase into a certain number of parts, and with intervening spaces, arranged the severed ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... notorious courtier would have made no impression: the King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire, well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small remains of humanity ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... class the number among the ancients was small, and the Persian sovereigns employed their ministry in the solemn performance of divine sacrifices, and it was profanation to approach the altars, or to touch a victim before a Magus with solemn prayers had poured over it a preliminary libation. But becoming gradually more numerous they arrived at the dignity and reputation of a substantial race; ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... they know not the unlawfulness of so doing? Is it to be wondered that they steal when only in dread of the laws of the country, and are not deterred by the voice of conscience which only exists in a few. This accounts for their profanation of their Sabbath, their proneness to theft, etc. It is only surprising that so much goodness is to be found in their nature as is the case, for they are mild, polite, and obliging, and in most of their faces is an expression ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... imagined. At the present day this music is not interpreted at all, for dramatic singers, stage managers and conductors do not understand the relation existing between gesture and music, and the absolute ignorance regarding plastic expression which characterizes the lyric actors of our day is a real profanation of scenic musical art. Not only are singers allowed to walk and gesticulate on the stage without paying any attention to the time, but also no shade of expression, dynamic or motor, of the orchestra—crescendo, decrescendo, ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... sumptuous banquet. After the wine and rum had produced their wonted effects, females were introduced, and compelled to partake of the feast. These poor creatures, having no suspicion of the King's intentions, shrunk with terror from a profanation punishable with death. But their resistance was unavailing: they were not only constrained to sit down to the repast in company with the men, but even to eat pork; and thus, to the great astonishment of such guests as were not in the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgement of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is here declared, that thereby no Adoration is intended, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... out Douglas at the Dublin Theatre. The first two nights it had great success. The third night was as usual to be the author's. It had meanwhile got abroad that he was a clergyman. This play was considered a profanation, a faction was raised, and the third night did not pay its expenses. It was Whyte who suggested that, by way of consolation, Sheridan should give Home a gold medal. The inscription said that he presented it to him 'for having enriched the stage with a perfect tragedy.' Whyte ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... banks of the Tiber, held the defenceless woman, the worthy daughter of a brilliant line of kings, in a firm grasp, as if it required the exertion of all his strength to master this delicate embodiment of charming womanhood. True, the proud blood of the outwitted lioness urged her to resist this profanation, and Proculejus—an enviable honour—made her feel the superior strength of his arm. I am no prophet, but Dion, I repeat, this shameful struggle and the glances which flashed upon him will be remembered to his dying hour. Had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pleasant Chickering Saloon, that holds two hundred. Alas! we may be disappointed there. The Masonic Temple has been sold to the government for a United States Court-house. Think of the musical associations that haunt and consecrate the place, and think of the uses to which it may soon be put! What profanation! Hitherto the only chains that have surrounded that Temple have been chains of harmony, which one may wear and not be a slave! It has been a Temple of Concord;—may we hope that it will be in truth a Temple of Justice!—For virtuoso concerts, we shall have what the managers at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the apprentice with her spectacles, her sacred spectacles, perched on his nose, and the profanation had left a kind of religious ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... priests, ministers and rabbis, that is what they write. It is a belittling, a profanation, that, in spite of myself, I have separated and differentiated among them. For down there, in the bloody mud of the trenches, they are one body which lives together ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... assured that it was, he abjured his religion to avoid the agonies of fire, and was thereupon baptised under the name of Juan de Atahualpa. The name John was given to him because this baptism in extremis took place on St. John the Baptist's day. Rarely, if ever, has there been a more ghastly profanation of the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... (sense) contained therein is this, that by polygamical marriage in the Christian world, the marriage of the Lord and the Church is profaned; in like manner the marriage of good and truth; and still more the Word, and with the Word the church; and the profanation of those things is spiritual adultery. That the profanation of the good and truth of the church derived from the Word corresponds to adultery, and hence is spiritual adultery; and that the falsification of good and truth has alike correspondence, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the street, who was crying, "Here is Voltaire, the famous Prussian; here you see him, with a great bear-skin cap, to keep him from the cold! Here is the famous Prussian, for six sous!"—"What a profanation!" said she. To return to my story: M. de Chenevieres had shewn her some letters from Voltaire, and M. Marmontel had read an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that they are in perpetual possession of a divine species of the precious metals placed in their souls by the gods themselves, and therefore have no need of the earthly one; that in fact it would be profanation to pollute their spiritual riches by mixing them with the possession of mortal gold, because the world's coinage has been the cause of countless impieties, whereas theirs is undefiled: therefore to them, as distinguished from the rest of the people, it is forbidden to handle or touch gold and silver, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... profanation, mad Priest," said Locksley; "let us rather hear where you found this ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... what he considers the great defects of historical Christianity. It has exaggerated the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has wronged mankind by monopolizing all virtues for the Christian name. It is only by his holy thoughts that Jesus serves us. "To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul." The preachers do a wrong to Jesus by removing him from our human sympathies; they should not degrade his life and dialogues ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... remained inexorable. I am sure in her own mind she resented as a profanation her daughter's work about the church. She herself had never entered that familiar holy place since her daughter's disgrace. Sunday and holiday all these years she had trudged to Breagh, a long way round by the coast, for mass. All expostulations have been vain, ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... their cells. When Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this profanation. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... persons it is a profanation to make a stage spectacle out of religious things; and it has been urged that "Parsifal" is not only religious but specifically Christian; not only Christian but filled with parodies of elements which are partly liturgical, partly Biblical. In narrating the incidents ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... seventh year (31). The sword (32) comes into the world for the delay of justice, and for the perversion of justice, and on account of the offence of those who interpret the Torah, not according to its true sense (33). Noxious beasts come into the world for vain swearing (34), and for the profanation of the Divine Name (35). Captivity comes into the world on account of idolatry, immortality, bloodshed, and the neglect of the year of rest for the soil (31). 12. At four periods pestilence grows apace: in the fourth year, ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... our duty," or "We were bound in honor," they express the religious character of their patriotism. Which of us does not feel that patriotism is a sacred thing, and that a violation of national dignity is in a manner a profanation and ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Catholic system of measurable sins and merits, with rewards and punishments legally adjusted and controlled by priestly as well as by divine prerogative. Such a supernatural mechanism seems to an independent and uncowed nature a profanation and an imposture. Away, it says, with all intermediaries between the soul and God, with all meddlesome priestcraft and all mechanical salvation. Salvation shall be by faith alone, that is, by an ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Obed; "it is profanation, in the view of the arts, to liken the miserable handy-work of the dealers in wax to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... native author could equal the poorest that Scott put forth. The Continental opinion which at that time often reckoned the American novelist as equal, if not superior to his British contemporary, seemed to men here like a profanation. It was, indeed, so said in ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... apostles, with staff and scrip, so to speak, and having resisted the efforts of the cabman at the station to rob me, I started to walk up to the city alone. I understand they have a trolley line now,—just imagine the profanation of a trolley line in the ancient city of St. Francis!—but at the time of which I speak, the atmosphere of the Middle Ages still hung over the ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... almost thanked the rough voyageurs for their incessant melodies, which made conversation difficult for the time, and thus left her to her own sweet silent thoughts, which seemed almost too sacred for the profanation of words. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... which speaks of the one hundred and forty-four thousand elect who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and who sing a hymn which only virgins can sing.[1] This hymn was the Pater Noster. Married people, therefore, and consequently "the Believers," could not repeat it without profanation. But "the Perfected" were obliged to say it ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... upon it, however, and contrast it with the cathedrals of England, the total influence upon the mind of St. Peter's seems to me voluptuous rather than religious. It is a human palace of art more than a shrine of the Almighty. A prince might make love to a princess there without feeling guilty of profanation. St. Peter himself, sitting there in his chair, with his highly polished toe advanced, is a doll for us to play with. On one occasion I was in the church with my father, and the great nave was thronged with people and lined with soldiers, and down the midst went slowly a gorgeous procession, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... quarrelling, swearing, and every profaneness that might be expected from the dissolute manners of the people who composed them; and to this improper practice must undoubtedly be attributed most of the vices that existed in the colony, pilferings, garden-robberies, burglaries, profanation of the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... title may be conceded to you: but the moment your conduct is inconsistent with that character, those around you will not forget that you are no more than a hired servant, and but one degree above a menial. Here, Ralph," she continued, giving me the violated hand, "cleanse it from that fellow's profanation." I brought it to my mouth very gallantly, and covered ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... much concerned, or in a manner constrained, to punish any other sin as this. He is bound in honour and interest to vindicate His name from the abuse, His authority from the contempt, His holy ordinance from the profanation, which it doth infer. He is concerned to take care that His providence be not questioned, that the dread of His majesty be not voided, that all religion be not overthrown by the outrageous commission thereof ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... failings of those who are just emerging from heathenism in our own days. The First Epistle to the Corinthians administers rebukes for schism, fornication, idolatrous tendencies, misuse of spiritual gifts, profanation of the worship of God, and misbelief. And even the Saints at Ephesus, who are addressed as if they had made great advance in the understanding of the mysteries of the faith, are warned to abstain from lying, violent anger, stealing, foul speaking, and unkind behaviour (Eph. ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... 449] be followed by the outward one. The covenant-people which, inwardly, had submitted to the world, which, by its own guilt, had profaned itself, was, outwardly also, given up to the world, and was profaned in punishment. And this profanation, inflicted upon it as a punishment, again manifested itself just at that place, where the profanation by the guilt had chiefly manifested itself, viz., in the holy city, and in the holy temple. It is with a view to the former manifestation of the victory of the world ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... clothes and put on others to be inspected by witnesses. Fra Bonvicini made no objection, though the suspicion was humiliating; he changed shirt, dress, and cowl. Then, when the Franciscans observed that Savanarola was placing the tabernacle in his hands, they protested that it was profanation to expose the sacred host to the risk of burning, that this was not in the bond, and if Bonvicini would not give up this supernatural aid, they far their part would give up the trial altogether. Savonarola replied ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had my dagger. What could I do with that to defend her? Ramiro's plan would suffer no frustration through my discovery; when to-morrow the sacrilege was discovered the cold body of Lazzaro Biancomonte lying beside the desecrated bier would be but an item in the work of profanation they would find—an item that nowise would modify the conclusion to which I anticipated ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... significant than ever before. Almost without knowing it she murmured—"It's like a dream." Another long silence ensued; the tranquillity of the universe had such an August ampleness that the sounds remained on the lips as if checked by the fear of profanation. The sky was limpid like a diamond, and under the last gleams of sunset the night was spreading its veil over the earth. There was something precious and soothing in the beautifully serene end of that expiring day, of the day vibrating, glittering and ardent, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... The resemblance is great, it is striking—Hyperion to a satyr; Thersites to Hercules; mud to marble; dunghill to diamond; a singed cat to a Bengal tiger; a whining puppy to a roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis, forgive the almost profanation of that jocose satire!" ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... evidence, had provided another stroke for them. No sooner were they discharged from the civil power, but the Apparitor of the Archbishop of Paris seized them, and conveyed them to the Ecclesiastical Prison; and, in three days more, they were tried and convicted of a scandalous profanation, by assuming to themselves the names, characters, and appearances, of an holy apostle and a blessed angel, with an intent to deceive a pious and well-meaning woman, and to the scandal of religion. On this ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... which Ambrose had adopted remained equally clear and straight, whether before or after the promulgation of this edict. It was his duty to use all the means which Christ has given the Church to prevent the profanation of the Basilica. But soon a new question arose for his determination. An imperial message was brought to him to retire from the city at once, with any friends who chose to attend him. It is not certain ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the steps among them, without encountering an unfriendly glance. At the door stood two Cossack soldiers, specially placed there to prevent the worshippers from being insulted by curious Christians. (Those who have witnessed the wanton profanation of mosques in India by the English officers will please notice this fact.) If we had not put off our shoes before entering the hall of worship, the Cossacks would have performed that operation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... arm, dear; I am so tired. It's such a perfect night, that it seemed a shame to stay indoors. The Major has been admiring 'The Flowery Way.' It certainly looks its best to- night." She turned towards Major Humphreys with her light, cynical laugh. "My son declares that it is profanation to allow ordinary, commonplace mortals to walk up those steps! He always escorts my visitors round by another way. He is ungallant enough to say that he has never yet seen a girl whom he would care to watch ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... believer, and she had a reputation for piety in the place: she belonged to several confraternities, she was patron of several asylums, she frequently made presents to the images, and she was generally seen with the clergy; but this profanation she regarded with the greatest indifference. Religion was for her a thing of respectability, but her own pleasures and wishes seemed the thing to be most respected. After a few minutes the count cautiously rose, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... lighting up the fading gildings of the stately monuments, and tinting the varied hues of time-worn banners. The mellow notes of a deep organ filled the air, and seemed to attune the sense to all the awe and reverence of the place, where the very footfall, magnified by its many echoes, seemed half a profanation. I stood before an altar, beside me a young and lovely girl, whose bright brown tresses waved in loose masses upon a neck of snowy whiteness; her hand, cold and pale, rested within my own; we knelt together, not in prayer, but a feeling of deep reverence stole over my heart, as she repeated ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... wealth.[12] The family of the chief do not build tombs; and that now raised over the place where the late prince was buried is dedicated as a temple to Siva, and was made merely with a view to secure the place from all danger of profanation.[13] ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... us melt and make no noise, No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... that valley, who has been successively a student, clerk, lawyer, solicitor-general of a great railroad, its president, and later the head of an industry that is carrying electricity over the world, said to me not long ago that he was building a trolley-line in Rome. It seemed a profanation. But if the titular function of the official who holds the highest spiritual office there was once the care of bridges (Pontifex Maximus), will the higher utilization of those bridges not be some day made as poetic, as spiritual, as high a ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... royalty, were hammered away at the same time. The explanation of these facts is given by Herodotos. When Cambyses conquered Sais, Amasis had just been buried. The conqueror caused the body to be dragged out of the royal tomb, then flogged and otherwise insulted, and finally burnt, the maximum of profanation, from an Egyptian point of view. His name was erased from the monuments which bore it, as a natural consequence of the memoriae damnatio. This sphinx is the surviving testimonial of the eventful catastrophe. When, six or seven centuries later, a Roman governor of Egypt, or a ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... operating upon such a scale that entire classes may with truth be said to be its object, so that the Government is in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal hostility to whatever in the nation really lives and moves, and forms the mainspring of practical progress and improvement; it is the awful profanation of public religion, by its notorious alliance in the governing powers with the violation of every moral rule under the stimulants of fear and vengeance; it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial office which has made it, under veils only ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... worth knowing but his Barragouin: only for that point he hath been a long time at wars with Priscian for a northern province. He imagines that by sure excellency his profession only is learning, and that it is a profanation of the Temple to his Themis dedicated, if any of the liberal arts be there admitted to offer strange incense to her. For, indeed, he is all for money. Seven or eight years squires him out, some of his nation less standing; and ever since ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... left some charming lines in which he has placed the heroine's name as it were on a string of pearls; they occur in his exquisite ballad 'Dames du temps jadis,' and, as it would be profanation to try and translate, I give ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... spots was defended from profanation by the strictest edicts of the all-pervading 'taboo', which condemned to instant death the sacrilegious female who should enter or touch its sacred precincts, or even so much as press with her feet the ground made holy by the shadows that ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... early as John's reign, but unfortunately I have not been an observer of your motto, and know not now where to refer for such instances. I shall therefore feel obliged to any of your readers who will specify a few instances of the profanation of churchyards at different periods, or refer me to works where such may be found. Churchyards appear to have been used in special cases for sepulture from the year 750, but not commonly so used till the end of the fourteenth century. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... every bit of her was beautiful and desirable. And this feeling in its turn was overcome by a painful reflection: others besides himself would make a similar observation; she was about to show herself to a hundred other eyes: and this struck him as such an unbearable profanation, that he could have gone down on his knees to her, to implore her to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a matter of taste; and perhaps we have no right to dictate in such matters to persons who would think a week a long lease of life, and who, instead of seven days, may not have so many hours. As to the profanation, if your English scruples made you sensitive on such points, I can assure you that you might have seen some things much more calculated to excite your sensibilities. The display last night was simply the trial of a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... victuals for the provision of war. And Joacim and all the priests ministered unto the Lord in the Temple, and offered sacrifices and prayed that he would not give the children of Israel for a prey, their wives for a spoil, the cities of their inheritance to destruction, and the sanctuary to profanation. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... nothing of repellent haughtiness, or, what is worse, of evident condescension; but, though they are perfectly gentle and good-natured, we risk our little sallies and sarcasms with timidity, or at least diffidence; feeling especially that a commonplace compliment would be an inexcusable profanation. Our sword may be ready and keen enough against others, but before them we lower its point, as the robber did to Queen Margaret in the lonely wood. We are conscious of treading on ground where stronger, and wiser, and better men have knelt before us; and own that ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Decembrists had decided on the murder of General Changarnier and of Dupin, the President of the National Assembly, and had already settled upon the men to execute the decree. One can imagine the fright of Mr. Dupin. A parliamentary inquest over the "Society of December 10," i. e., the profanation of the Bonapartist secret world now seemed inevitable. Just before the reconvening of the National Assembly, Bonaparte circumspectly dissolved his Society, of course, on paper only. As late as the end of 1851, Police Prefect Carlier vainly ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... life and for earth," he said, solemnly, and I thought very truly. "In the resurrection we shall be one another's without it. I don't like to go through the form of such a sacrament idly; it seems like a profanation of its mystery." ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... at an earlier stage of this impression, when the thought of this profanation of the sacredness of life and the sanctity of love chills the life-blood of his heart, and then rushes burning through it like the shame of a personal insult, that he first stands before us in the palace of the King. In appearance nothing is changed. ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... often the cold reasoning of souls more busied with their own ease and peace than with the happiness of others, or with truth? And if sincere men are conscious of it, how much they must suffer by such profanation ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the ears of the Prior himself. This holy man, who hated Father Gebhardt on account of his intimacy with the most respectable houses, was shocked at the scandalousness of the affair, which he considered as a profanation of the holy sacrament; and, refusing to decide on such a weighty matter, he referred it to the Archbishop. The Archbishop, wisely concluding that whatever sinful man wishes or thinks by day he dreams of by night, denounced ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... flushed at his first words. To hear the name by which her father and mother and lover had called her on Andrew Cameron's lips seemed like profanation. But, she told herself, the time was past for squeamishness. If she could ask a favour of Andrew Cameron, she could bear lesser pangs. For Sylvia's sake she shook hands with him, for Sylvia's sake she sat down in the chair he offered. But for no living human being's sake could this determined ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fill many pages. According to Burke, "he was lawfully married in 1352 to the lady who passed during her entire life as his mistress, Maria de Padilla; he was certainly married to Blanche of Bourbon in 1353; and his seduction, or rather his violation, of Juana de Castro was accomplished by a third profanation of the sacrament, when the Bishops of Salamanca and Avila, both accessories to the king's scandalous bigamy, pronounced the blessing of the Church upon his brutal dishonor of a noble lady." Whether Pedro was ever married to Maria de Padilla is still an open ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... but of Antichrist. The horn cast down the Sanctuary to the ground, and so did not Antiochus; he left it standing. The Sanctuary and Host were trampled under foot 2300 days; and in Daniel's Prophecies days are put for years: but the profanation of the Temple in the reign of Antiochus did not last so many natural days. These were to last till the time of the end, till the last end of the indignation against the Jews; and this indignation is not yet ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... an illusion as to the distance. He almost gave way to an impulse to thrust his bayonet through the corpse; but a dead body, seen under the shadows of night, inspires a certain air of imposing solemnity, which repels profanation; and this, acting upon the spirit of the sentinel, hindered him ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... wheel, and with the pall throwing the derelict into more sombre relief, Dan caught more strongly than ever the utter contrast which her presence brought to this abandoned hulk. Whenever she had walked along the deck it had seemed a profanation to him that the uneven planking should know her tread; that she should be on the derelict at all was, he felt, a working of Fate against everything that was ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... Ancestors,—burial in Brandenburg not yet common for these new Kurfursts:—his skull, in an after-time, used to be shown there, laid on the lid of the tomb; skull marvellous for strength, and for "having no visible sutures," says Rentsch. Pious Brandenburg Officiality at length put an end to that profanation, and restored the skull to its place,—marvellous enough, with what had once dwelt in it, whether it had ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... miracle, such as was once heard of before in the church in the person of the holy Denis, was again wrought by divine providence to preserve the bodies of his saints from profanation. The trunk of Kieran rose from the ground, and selecting first his own head, and carrying it to a stream, and there carefully washing it, and afterwards performing the same sacred office for each of his companions, giving each body its own head, he dug graves for them and buried them, and ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... ancient world. This was intended to do honor to the loved and illustrious dead, and this it did as no grave or pyre could do. This was also intended to protect the lifeless form from ruthless robbery and reckless profanation, and it performed this task so well that for near two thousand years no human eye beheld the mortal part of Mausolus, and no human hand disturbed its rest. At a far earlier time, Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, while he illustrated this ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... and distorting his features pretty much in the style of a poor artisan on Saturday night, whom some fellow-workman is barberously razoring and scraping by the light of a cobbler's candle: furious was his wrath at this abuse and profanation of the title Last Will and Testament: and at one time, poor soul! he was near enough ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... waiting; but the fact is that I am so seldom honoured in this way in a morning, that I was hardly ready. Donnellan, there's the tea; don't mind waiting. These gentlemen will perhaps join us." And then he looked hard at Aby, as though he trusted in Providence that no such profanation would be ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... or unconscious, the free-will, our only absolute Self, is coextensive and co-present. But not now dare I longer discourse of this, waiting for a loftier mood, and a nobler subject, warned from within and from without, that it is profanation to speak of these mysteries tois maede phantasteisin, os kalon to taes dikaiosynaes kai sophrosynaes prosopon, kai oute hesperos oute eoos outo kala. To gar horon pros to horomenon syngenes kai homoion poiaesamenon ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... beautiful but sorrow-stricken sister of his bosom friend. Still there was a softness, a purity, a delicacy and tenderness in this new feeling, in which the influence of sex secretly though unacknowledgedly predominated; and even while sensible it would have been a profanation of every thing most sacred and delicate in nature to have admitted a thought of love within his breast at such a moment, he also felt he could have entertained a voluptuous joy in making any sacrifice, even to the surrender of life itself, provided ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... fields himself, where no one since his time has dared to use spade or mattock. If an islander was impious enough to cultivate the meadow of Paao, the people believe that a terrible punishment would be the inevitable consequence of that profanation. Disastrous rains, furious torrents, would surely ravage ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... home from this profanation of the Lord's day, and sat down and contemplated the old Aztec god, who had been deified for his wisdom, and could not but regret the change that had been imposed upon these imbecile Indians. The next Sabbath after this was the national anniversary of the miraculous apparition; ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the artist's profanation of his first attempt to approach Miss Francie by indulging at the end of another week in a second. He went about six o'clock, when he supposed she would have returned from her day's wanderings, and his prudence was rewarded by the sight of ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... bosom that had always heaved tumultuously at his coming was still under the silken kimono. He bent over her with ashen face and laid his hand gently on her breast, but the icy coldness struck into his own heart and his touch seemed a profanation. He drew back with a ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the destruction of those world-famous curiosities, the white and pink terraces, in the vicinity of Lake Rotomahana and the region of the famous geysers. The natives have a superstition that the eruption of the extinct Tarawera was caused by the profanation of foreign footsteps. It was to them a sacred place, and its crater a repository for their dead. The first earthquake occurred in this region. One side of the mountain fell in, and then the eruption began. The basin of the lake was broken up and disappeared, but again reappeared ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... is justified; but the reader will have remarked that the name of Allah is often taken in vain. Moslems, however, so far from holding this a profanation deem it an acknowledgment of the Omnipotence and Omnipresence. The Jews from whom the Christians have borrowed had an interest in concealing the name of their tribal divinity; and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton |
