"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supposed to have been paid by the Duke of Orleans—whether for the gratification of malice or ambition, time must develope.—But, whatever were the motives, the result was an iniquitous combination of the worst of a set of men, before selected from all that was bad in the nation, to profane the name of justice—to sacrifice an unfortunate, but not a guilty Prince—and to fix an indelible stain ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... said Father Johannes, "that in my profane and worldly days I tried that experiment on a dog, and the poor brute died in five minutes. Ah, brother," he added, observing that his obese companion was now thoroughly roused, "you see before you the chief of sinners! Judas was nothing to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... Christians, unless they submitted to the outward sign of being Jews. Paul points a scathing finger at them when he bids the Philippians 'beware,' and he permits himself a bitter retort when he lays hold of the Jewish contemptuous word for Gentiles which stigmatised them as 'dogs,' that is profane and unclean, and hurls it back at the givers. But he is not indulging in mere bitter retorts when he brings against these teachers the definite charge that they are 'evil workers.' People who believed that an outward observance was the condition of salvation would ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... mistaken. To evince her repentance, she on the very next day attended her mother-in-law to church, who was highly edified by the sudden and religious turn of her daughter, and did not fail to ascribe to the efficacious interference of one of her favourite saints this conversion of a profane sinner. But Napoleon was not the dupe of this church-going mummery of his wife, whom he ordered his spies to watch; these were unfortunate enough to discover that she went to the Mass more to fill her appointments with her lovers than to pray to her Saviour; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... pious efforts for their own and others' spiritual improvement, disputes and quarrels had given way to the most edifying concord. The servants, moved by their example, performed their duties with exemplary zeal, frequented the churches and the sacraments, and abstained from profane or idle words. They accordingly entreated their mother to give up her fruitless attempts, and allow the two young women liberty to follow the rule of life they had adopted; and thus put an end to the kindly meant but trying persecution they had ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... is certain he had very little of it before he was confined, so it is not very likely that he should make any great proficiency while he remained there. He was careless, indeed, under his misfortunes, but did not give himself up to any loose or profane expressions, but on the contrary attended at Chapel with decency at least, if ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... even before his marriage, been perfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own confessions, or from the railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in his life. One bad habit he contracted, that of using profane language; but he tells us that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never offended again. The worst that can be laid to his charge is that he had a great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in themselves, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... appeared who, grasping the horse's bridle and heeding me no whit, led us into the stable yard. And here I found Mr. Shrig leaning upon his knotted stick and lost in contemplation of a dusty chaise beneath which lay a perspiring and profane postboy busied with divers tools ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... that Mr. Bristow, who seems to be a man of humanity, did so effectually interpose, that they should no longer depend for the safety of their honor on the bludgeons of the sepoys, by which alone it seems they were defended from the profane view of the vulgar, and which we must state as a matter of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Christendom, which took visible shape in the decrees of the Tridentine Council, was actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets. The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the box-hedge when Danvers Carmichael gave us a taste of his nature and had his say with us in language free and skirting the profane. ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... I would profane the aura of her by my abhorred presence?" cried the lover. "Ah, God of Love, I would die sooner! I feel, indeed, my Daemon at work. Let me sit upon this bench—my tablets, ha!" He sat. Finely disordered verse, rime sciolte, resulted; ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... doubtless derived from it. Nay, it was conferred on the Deity; and "Fair Father Jesu Christ" was by no means an uncommon title used in prayer. In like manner, Saint Louis, when he prayed, said, "Sire Dieu," the title of knighthood. Quaint and almost profane as this usage sounds to modern ears, I think their instinct was right: they addressed God in the highest and ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... fasten an impression in the minds of the villagers, that God inhabits the space of grass inside the fence, and does not extend His presence to the common beyond it: and that the daisies and violets on one side of the railing are holy,—on the other, profane. But, instead of a wooden fence, build a wall, pave the interior space; roof it over, so as to make it comparatively dark;—and you may persuade the villagers with ease that you have built a house which Deity inhabits, ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... earth, and of the dew of Heaven from above." Each had the same, the richness of golden harvests, the abundance of fruit, and the soft dews and rains in their season. But there was a notable difference, adapted to the characters of the two brothers. Esau was a profane man, he disregarded divine things. He was ready to sell his birthright, his privilege to be the forefather of Messiah, for a mess of pottage. He cared not for God, neither was God in all his thoughts. It was ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... a rock, took a restrained drink from his canteen, and said everything he knew or could invent that was profane and condemnatory of his luck, of the unseen assassin, of the country and his present predicament. He got up, looked all around him, sniffed unavailingly for some tang of smoke in the thin, crisp air, reseated himself and said everything ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... pleased. The Jesuit persisted in his opinion. "Beware of a profane taste in your theological style. What says Augustine on this subject: 'SEVERUS SIT ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... first, entering by the side doors. (There is an emergency exit—a hole in the roof which is used by the wise ones.) You wiggle your body in with more or less grace, and then you stand up. Then, if it is the first time, you are usually profane. For you have banged your head most unmercifully against the steel roof and you learn, once and for all, that it is impossible to stand upright in a tank. Each one of us received our baptism in this way. Seven of us, crouched in uncomfortable positions, ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... said, in a tense whisper, "God!" It was the first time that the word, upon his lips, was neither mocking nor profane. ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... I wonder where she learnt all those profane songs? From some liberal folk in the old country, no doubt; they ill become a puritan. If she were a little slower in her speech, what an angel she would be! As it is, she is a very ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... all distraught, ranting "Euhoe," with tossing of heads "Euhoe." Some with womanish hands shook thyrsi with wreath-covered points; some tossed limbs of a rended steer; some engirt themselves with writhed snakes; some enacted obscure orgies with deep chests, orgies of which the profane vainly crave a hearing; others beat the tambours with outstretched palms, or from the burnished brass provoked shrill tinklings, blew raucous-sounding blasts from many horns, and the barbarous ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the professor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his expressions as indecent, if not profane[161]. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... been ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... altar far off (and which had now become quite gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly another part of the service; then the nuns warbled once more overhead; and it was curious to hear, in the intervals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went off with some extremely cheerful military or profane air. At one time was a march, at another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began again, and so sung ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Readings in the History of Education; Mediaeval Universities, pp. 59-75, gives an extract from a text (Gratian) and "gloss" by various writers, on the question—"Shall Priests be Acquainted with Profane Literature, or No?" which see for a good example of mediaeval university instruction and the manner in which a small amount of knowledge was spun out by means of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... deity who was called Shushinak (the Susian), Dimesh or Samesh, Dagbag, As-siga, Adaene, and possibly Khumba and AEmman, whom the Chaldaens identified with their god Ninip; his statue was concealed in a sanctuary inaccessible to the profane, but it was dragged from thence by Assurbanipal of Nineveh in the VIIth century B.C.* This deity was associated with six others of the first rank, who were divided into two triads—Shumudu, Lagamaru, Partikira; Ammankasibar, Uduran, and Sapak: ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is incapable of representation. For a man to act the Supreme Being would be as revolting in idea as profane in practice. One may in words portray the divine character, give utterance to the divine will. This every preacher does. But to what is the effect owing? Not to proprieties of attitude or arrangement of muscle, but to the spirit of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... girl's transparent calmness. That calmness really drew its dead ivory hue from the suppression of them: something as much he guessed; and he was not sure either of his temper or his policy if he should hear her repeat her profane request. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I feel myself unhappy at this thought; I can and will not see the Holy brought down to my level, and to that of every-day life. It lies in my nature that I commit a sin if I think otherwise than I have learned and than my heart allows me. It is profane, and if you speak longer of religion in this strain ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... be they perpetrated by boy or girl. But two wrongs never yet made a right, and because a girl is discourteous is no reason why you should put yourself on the same footing with her, and fail to observe towards her "the deference due" all women. If you are in a car with a profane drunkard, you do not copy his actions, or, if obliged to address him, adopt ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... here and now declare that I will abstain from the use of all low or profane language; from the taking of the name of God in vain; and from all impurity, or from taking part in any unclean conversation, or the reading of any obscene book or paper at any time, in any ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... devoting too much attention to individual instances. The profane boy. Case described. Confession of the boys. Success. The untidy desk. Measures in consequence. Interesting the scholars in the good order of the school. Securing a majority. Example. Reports about ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... in the dark, Growling some profane remark, Would not know which way to go While you're rushing ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... extrinsic and chief cause of devotion is God, of Whom Ambrose, commenting on Luke 9:55, says that "God calls whom He deigns to call, and whom He wills He makes religious: the profane Samaritans, had He so willed, He would have made devout." But the intrinsic cause on our part must needs be meditation or contemplation. For it was stated above (A. 1) that devotion is an act of the will to the effect that man surrenders ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... door get red hot, but it wasn't half as hot as Dennis. He hammered it with the coal pick and burned his hands and swore, and Dennis was an artist in profanity. He stepped up into the cab wiping his face on his sleeve, and ripping the English and profane languages into tatters; but he stopped short in the middle of an oath and looked ashamed, glanced at me, crossed himself and went back to his work quietly. When he came back into the cab, I asked him ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Her mother gave her twenty francs a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her, mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director, called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled all her faculties ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... to Aurelia's visits to Mr. Belamour on Sunday evenings, but he respected her scruples against indulgence in profane literature, and encouraged her to repeat passages of Scripture, beginning to taste the beauty of the grand cadences falling from her soft measured voice. Thus had she come to the Sermon on the Mount, and found herself repeating the expansion of ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... demand to let them first of all put to death the untrustworthy citizens of Utica en masse, and chose to let the last stronghold of the republicans fall into the hands of the monarch without resistance rather than to profane the last moments of the republic by such a massacre. After he had— partly by his authority, partly by liberal largesses—checked so far as he could the fury of the soldiery against the unfortunate Uticans; after he had with touching ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... crucifix which Fra Domenico wanted to carry into the fire and must not be allowed to profane in that manner. After some little resistance Savonarola gave way to this objection, and thus had the advantage of making one more concession; but he immediately placed in Fra Domenico's hands the vessel containing the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and laziness. But with what an extraordinary combination of gestures, with what attitudes in the management of the long-stringed guitar, with what acrobatic swingings of the body do they accompany their singing of their legends and poetry which could not be more profane. The instinct of the old actor was awakened in Caterna. He could not keep still; it was too much ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen, were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed with arquebus, javelin, pike and broadsword. For what purpose were these gatherings? Only to hear sermons and to sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites. This was the first great popular phase of the Netherland rebellion. Notwithstanding the edicts and the inquisition with their daily hecatombs, notwithstanding the special publication at this time throughout the country by the Duchess ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... resembled herself than an old woman resembles her portrait as a girl. The ardent expression of her eyes declared the despotic empire exercised by a devout will over a body reduced to what religion requires it to be. In this woman the soul dragged the flesh as the Achilles of profane story dragged Hector; for fifteen years she dragged it victoriously along the stony paths of life around the celestial Jerusalem she hoped to enter, not by a vile deception, but with acclamation. No solitary that ever lived in the dry and arid ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... is both right and wrong, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God. These contradictions no person can harmonize who does not understand the true way of salvation. Under the papacy we were told to toil until the feeling of guilt had left us. But the authors of this deranged idea were frequently driven to despair in ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... know your science comes next to the miracles of Holy Church for mystery. But there, you see, is the pity of it,"—here Nello fell into a tone of regretful sympathy—"your high science is sealed from the profane and the vulgar, and so you become an object of envy and slander. I grieve to say it, but there are low fellows in this city—mere sgherri, who go about in nightcaps and long beards, and make it their business to sprinkle gall in every man's broth who is ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... shoal, and we had bright visions of alluring that monarch of the deep. But the parr disdained our baits, and for months I dreamed of what it would have been to capture him, and often thought of him in church. In a moment of profane confidence my younger brother once asked me: "What do you do in sermon time? I," said he in a whisper—"mind you don't tell—I tell stories to myself about catching trout." To which I added similar ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... duly reported and printed, removed the last let to aristocratic favor; fast young bloods of the highest nobility did not acorn to shake off their perfumes and air their profane vocabulary in the green-room, offering snuff and the incense of flattery together to the Tamerlane, the Romeo, or the Lord ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... word so scored on brain, It rang through air to sky, and rocked a world That danced down shades the scarlet dance profane; Most women! see! by the man's view dustward hurled, Impenitent, submissive, torn in two. They sink upon their nature, the unnamed, And sops of nourishment may get some few, In place of understanding, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and modern, sacred and profane, no flower figures so conspicuously as the rose. To the Romans it was most significant when placed over the door of a public or private banquet hall. Each who passed beneath it bound himself thereby not to disclose anything said or done ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Silent, mysterious, hopeless and dreary, the prospect appalled even their stout hearts. How they yearned for the sight of some living thing there upon those high peaks. Silence supreme and dreadful, in which even their voices, hushed and tremulous, sounded profane, cowed them by its unending solemnity and the relentless grip. Gray and nude save for their pall of dust the mountains rose into the sky, eternal in their ghostly majesty. And the dark valleys between with their gray lips of death looked like the gaping ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... horses, the stables, the surrounding country, and the human underlings); when he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a hostler, 15 that hostler was happy for the day; when he uttered his one jest—old as the hills, coarse, profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience, in that same language, every time his coach drove up there—the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best thing they'd 20 ever heard in all their lives. And ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been comely, and ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... peace; that day she had read in many ancient books, as well profane as of the Fathers of the Church, and she had many things to say, and they were near her lips and warm in her heart. She was much minded to have good news to give the King against his coming on the morrow; the great ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... and cherished in the midst of the monarchical system—ready materials for a conflagration far more formidable than their authors had anticipated, should a burning spark unhappily light upon them. Others had already taken care to profane the religion of the people; and what remains sacred to the people when ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... more and more from disclosing his plans to his fiancee. Had she been one of the country girls of the neighbourhood, a daughter of the sturdy backwoods pioneers, bred to hard work in field and barnyard, he would have hesitated less. But she was sprung from gentler stock. It seemed almost profane to think of her in the lonely life of a homesteader on the bleak, unsettled plains—to see her in the monotony and drudgery of the pioneer life. He had been steeling himself for the ordeal; schooling himself with arguments; fortressing his resolve, unconsciously, perhaps, with the picture ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... in expressing the grief and veneration which followed him. A circumstance more characteristic, in the record of those observances which attested the public feeling, is this— that he who at that time had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in his house, was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man. Finally, to do him honor not by testimonies of men's opinions in his favor, but by facts of his own life and conduct, one memorable trophy there is amongst the moral distinctions ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... a cable man in particular! For after all those heroic struggles the first test showed a fault, and, cruel fate, at the far end of Panguil Bay at that! The silence which greeted the reception of this terrible news was as profane as words, and the Powers-that-Be decided on the spot that enough work had been spent on that calamitous cable for the time being, and decided to proceed with the laying of the main lines, leaving the Lintogup stretch until ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... had it all out of doors, but when I tried my eloquence on Mrs. Ogden I found her firmly persuaded not only that her own ill health and the sickness in the hamlet were "the will of the Lord," but in her religious fatalism, that it was absolutely profane to think that cleansing and drainage would amend them; and she adduced texts which poor uninstructed I was unable to answer, even while I knew they were a perversion; and, provoked as I was, I felt that her meek patience and resignation ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like the painter, who, having completed a real work of art, refuses to exhibit it to the public, on the ground that it is a profane thing to exhibit it to the gaze of ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... is scarcely any branch of knowledge in which I am so deficient as history, both ecclesiastical and profane. I have never been much interested facts, considered simply as facts, and that is about all that is to be found in most historical works. The relations of facts to each other and of all to reason, in other words, the philosophy of history, are not often ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... deceive yourself," she said. "I am fashioned for love as thoroughly as are you—for love sacred or profane. But who am I to dare put on my crown of womanhood? Let me first know myself—let me know what I am, and if I truly have even a right to the very name I wear. Let me see my own mother face to face—hold ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... time, in all ranks and classes, from the palace to the prison. He shows large acquaintance with books; with the Bible, most of all; with patristic divinity and school divinity; and history, sacred and profane: but if this had been all, he would not have been the Latimer of the Reformation, and the Church of England would not, perhaps, have been here to-day. Like the physician, to whom a year of practical experience in a hospital teaches more ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... creature wants to turn back and die in his bed, like a Christian, even if he isn't one," thought Mary, as she called and called, Leander still emitting the most inhuman of cries, like the sounds made by deaf mutes in distress. Presently Mrs. Yellett drew up, and asked in the name of many profane things what was the matter with ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... physicians, lawyers, ministers, mechanics and farmers. We want such, however, and only such as will make good neighbors. If any who think of coming to live with us, are gamblers, drunkards, Sabbath-breakers, profane swearers, or the like, we hope that when they leave their old country, they ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... and reminds one of very olden time, there is in it an originality, a something unlike anything else; the Breton and Welsh airs alone resemble it in some degree, and in both those countries they pretend that they are of Celtic origin. Music is of very ancient origin in France: in 554 profane singing was forbidden on holy days; in 757, King Pepin received a present of an organ, from Constantin VI; a tremendous quarrel occurred between the Roman and Gallic musicians, in the time of Charlemagne, and two professors are cited, named Benedict and Theodore, who were pupils of St. Gregory; ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Harold," he commanded sternly. "I shall not allow profane jesting about sacred things ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... we should watch and correct him on the point. We were able to assure him that he was beyond correction. His vocabulary is apt and ample to an extraordinary degree. God knows where he collected it, but by some instinct or some accident he has avoided all profane or gross expressions. "Obliged," "stabbed," "gnaw," "lodge," "power," "company," "slender," "smooth," and "wonderful," are a few of the unexpected words that enrich his dialect. Perhaps what pleased him most was to hear about saluting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nightingales sing in all the thickets, and the sages and the lovers smile like children; and the laughter passes naturally into the divine beauty of Mozart's religion, which is solemn because laughter and pity are reconciled in it, not rejected as profane. ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... friend in the world as Mr. Walton has in you." With these words he sprung from the fence on the orchard side, and made his way to the hill behind the Walton residence, leaving the old man mumbling and muttering in a very profane manner. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... saplings bend! Anon, the vessel ships a weighty sea, Then all below is dread and misery; While the salt water pours in torrents down, As if inclined the Emigrants to drown! Some women shriek, and children cry aloud, While men toward the hatchways quickly crowd, Not now inclined to utter oaths profane, Or break a jest a meed of praise to gain. Some, on their knees, implore the "Virgin's" aid; And some true prayer is to the Savior made. The wind abates, but still the surges roar, Hearts fearful beat, and consciences feel sore. Ere long, the calm begins to be perceived ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... a Vanity Fair, in which enthusiasm is out of place. But if the true humourist also sees himself presiding, in the sacred name of duty, over a booth in Vanity Fair, he may yet reach perfection. What Father Faber opposed so strenuously were, not the vanities of the profane, of the openly and cheerfully unregenerate; but the vanities of a devout and fashionable congregation, making especial terms—by virtue of its exalted station—with Providence. These were the people whom he regarded all his priestly life with ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... the childish games were interrupted by the screaming and the swearing of the people in the insane-apartment. The timid children would cry out and tremble, but those who were older often tried to repeat the profane language. All these things, like many others, made deep impressions upon the sensitive nature of Edwin, and although he was not afraid, he often pondered them in his heart. Sometimes seated in a secluded corner he would watch the poor demented creatures with a pitying gaze, wondering ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... to have accepted an unsworn statement from the prisoner; but the coroner always administered oaths when prisoners were willing to take them. The repetition of that jargon with a profane conclusion (for so it seemed, in the slipshod way that it was said), which the coroner called an oath, was a positive pleasure to that official. As Marcus desired to take the oath, the coroner rattled off the unintelligible something, and handed him a Bible, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... wurks, isn't they, old man. I immejitly looked up ter whare the wax works was, and my blud biles as I think of the site which then met my Gase. I hope two be dodrabbertid (Dod-rabit is an American euphemism for a profane expression which is quite as common in this country as on the other side of the Atlantic.) if them afoursed raskals hadent gone and put a old kaved in hat onter George Washington's hed and shuved a short black klay pipe inter his mouth. His noze thay had painted red and his trowsis legs ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... they might show their powers of painting. The distinction is enormous, the difference incalculable as irreconcilable. And thus, the more skilful the artist, the less his subject was regarded; and the hearts of men hardened as their handling softened, until they reached a point when sacred, profane, or sensual subjects were employed, with absolute indifference, for the display of color and execution; and gradually the mind of Europe congealed into that state of utter apathy,—inconceivable, unless it had been witnessed, and unpardonable, unless by us, who ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... passed, and now are not,— Because in some remoter day Your sacred dust from doubtful spot Was blown of ancient airs away,— Because you perished,—must men say Your deeds were naught, and so profane Your lives with that cold burden? Nay, The deeds you wrought are ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... fear, my sweet friend, though I will not say that I much regard, the contempt with which the profane will be likely to assail us. For you do not understand the nature of their complaint, and you fancy that they rush into impiety only from a ...
— Laws • Plato
... they did wrong thee foully—they who mocked Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn; Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, And grew profane, and swore, in bitter scorn, That men might to thy inner caves retire, And there, unsinged, abide ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... act of bathing in the sea, rightly considered, is a sacred act, and is so recognised in many parts of the world. It should not be made as commonplace as a mere hygienic tubbing, nor be carried out by a crowd of clothed persons in muddy water. No profane unfriendly eye should be near, the sun must be bright, the air soft, the green transparent sea should ripple smoothly over the rocks, as I see it below me now, welling rhythmically into rock-basins and plashing out with a charge of bubbling air and a delicious murmur of satisfied ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... is a nursery for thieves and villains; modest women are every day insulted by them and their strumpets; and such children who run about the streets, or those servants who go on errands, do but too frequently bring home some scraps of their beastly profane wit; insomuch, that the conversation of our lower rank of people runs only upon bawdy and blasphemy, notwithstanding our societies for reformation, and our laws in force against profaneness; for this lazy life gets them many proselytes, their numbers ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... surrounded by the lodges, where the ceremonies were to take place. But as the noisy and impertinent guests showed disposition to undue merriment, the chief shut them all in his wigwam, lest their gentile eyes should profane the mysteries. Here, immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelpings, and lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the tragedy seems to be one of those daring, even profane assaults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse. Coming with a shock upon the classic days of German ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... death-shriek dost rejoice; The rule of the tempestuous main is thine, Outstretched and lone; thou utterest thy voice, Like solemn thunders: These wild waves are mine; Mine their dread empire; nor shall man profane The eternal secrets ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... indeed return to our party, but his obedience was purchased at a heavy price. Some days after the disgrace of the duc de Choiseul, I received a letter from M. de Voltaire. This writer, who carped at and attacked all subjects, whether sacred or profane, and from whose satires neither great nor small were exempt, had continual need of some powerful friend at court. When his protector, M. de Choiseul, was dismissed, he saw clearly enough that the only person on whom he could henceforward depend to aid and support ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... said Albert's uncle; 'well, shall we permit the eye of the Maidstone Antiquities to profane these sacred solitudes, and the foot of the Field Club to kick up ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... ancient of profane historians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they elevated an old cimeter upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this cimeter they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... of Francis' former queen, Claude, had been reared with rigid strictness, although provided with various preceptors who had made her more or less proficient in the profane letters, as they were then called, Latin, Greek, theology and philosophy. The fame of her beauty had gone abroad; her hand had been often sought, but the obdurate king had steadfastly refused to sanction ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and with vacant, unsatisfied eyes that I watched the slow coming and the gliding away of the waters. I tell myself now, as a profane fact, that I did stand by that river (Methley gathered some seeds from the bushes that grew there), but since that I am away from his banks, “divine Scamander” has recovered the proper mystery belonging to him as ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... still choir with hideous laugh they move, 30 (Fiends yell below, and angels weep above!) Their impious march to God's high altar bend, With feet impure the sacred steps ascend; With wine unbless'd the holy chalice stain, Assume the mitre, and the cope profane; 35 To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw, And to the cross with horrid mummery bow; Adjure by mimic rites the powers above, And plite ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... nothing is by dreams concealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical signification and secret evidence of things to come, either for our own prosperous or unlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous success of another. The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane histories assure us of it, in both which are exposed to our view a thousand several kinds of strange adventures, which have befallen pat according to the nature of the dream, and that as well to the party ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... death; "My lord," said she, "I am ready to undergo the sentence passed against me by the commander of the believers; you need only make it known to me." "Madam," answered Jaaffier, falling also down till she had raised herself, "God forbid any man should presume to lay profane hands on you. I do not intend to offer you the least harm. I have no farther orders, than to intreat you will be pleased to go with me to the palace, and to conduct you thither, with the merchant that lives in this house." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... wife really interested me; she had in the midst of one cheek, toward the corner of the mouth, a small hollow, a kind of little dimple, charming in the profane sense of the word, and giving a special expression to her face. Her tiny white teeth glittered like pearls when she opened her mouth to relate her pious inquietudes; she shed around, besides, a perfume almost as sweet as that of our altars, although of a different kind, and I breathed this perfume ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... did not withhold the profane word of surprise. "... So he's asked you, then? Wal, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... habitually brimming With water from the Heliconian fount? Then remember the hubristic, the profane and pugilistic Are the only kinds of poetry that count. So select a tragic argument, ensuring The maximum expenditure of gore, And the epithets arresting, unalluring, Elemental, will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... thing visibly perfect in its kind; where, in short, in spite of the general tendency of the "devouring element" to spread, the rest of his spiritual furniture, modest, scattered, and tended with unconscious care, escaped the consumption that in so many cases proceeds from the undue keeping-up of profane altar-fires. Adam Verver had in other words learnt the lesson of the senses, to the end of his own little book, without having, for a day, raised the smallest scandal in his economy at large; being in this particular not unlike those fortunate bachelors, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... was the space outside of the sanctuary occupied by the congregation while the worship within was conducted by the priests. John was told to leave this out and measure it not; for it was given to the Gentiles to tread under foot, or profane, for the space of forty and two months, or twelve hundred and sixty days. In the estimation of a Jew, the Gentiles were all idolaters and outside of God's covenant favor. As a symbol, then, we are to understand that the great body of worshipers thus brought to view are not the true children of ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... only be done in places solemnly dedicated to heaven. Thus, also, the whole world is a temple of the immortal gods, and, indeed, the only one worthy of their greatness and splendour, and yet there is a distinction between things sacred and profane; all things which it is lawful to do under the sky and the stars are not lawful to do within consecrated walls. The sacrilegious man cannot do God any harm, for He is placed beyond his reach by His divine nature; yet he is punished ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... quarter. Dusk falls there early, and oil-lanterns twinkle in the merchants' niches while the clear African daylight still lies on the gardens of upper Fez. This twilight adds to the mystery of the souks, making them, in spite of profane noise and crowding and filth, an impressive ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... sudden, terminates! For the stupidity of men, especially of men congregated in masses round an object, is extreme. What illuminations and conflagrations have kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns had risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels, and terrestrial locks of straw! Profane princesses cried out, "One God; one Farinelli!"[53]—and whither now have they and Farinelli danced? In literature, too, there have been seen popularities greater even than Scott's, and nothing perennial in the interior of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... printed in a beautiful red. Gentlemen, if I had less of a conscience, I should not wish you to bid high for this lot—I have a longing for it myself. What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?—it hinders profane language, and attaches a man to the society of refined females. This ingenious article itself, without the elegant domino-box, card-basket, &c., ought alone to give a high price to the lot. Carried in the pocket it might make an individual ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Frenchman," he observed, "the ideas promulgated in France at the present day are distinctly profane and pernicious. There is a lack of principle—a want of rectitude in— er—the French Press, for example, that ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... a sort of twilight; immeasurable clouds, passing slowly overhead, darkened the whole country at broad noon. The wind blew constantly with the sound of a great cathedral organ at a distance, but playing profane, despairing dirges; at other times the noise came close to the door, like the howling ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... had nothing else to do. In the store he sat and smoked and twirled his thumbs—not half a dozen customers came in, in the course of the day. If he were once properly occupied again, with work that he liked, he would not be tempted to put his gifts to such a profane use. Thus she primed herself for speaking. For now was the time. Richard was declaring that trade had gone to the dogs, his takings dropped to a quarter of what they had formerly been. This headed just where she wished. But Polly would not have been Polly, had she not glanced aside for a moment, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... with the club ready for another blow. And in that dizzy moment I had a vision. I saw that club descending many times upon my head; I saw myself, bloody and battered and hard-looking, in a police-court; I heard a charge of disorderly conduct, profane language, resisting an officer, and a few other things, read by a clerk; and I saw myself across in Blackwell's Island. Oh, I knew the game. I lost all interest in explanations. I didn't stop to ...
— The Road • Jack London
... Boston and the vicinity, both well known to local fame, gave in their testimony to the value of the instruments thus presented to them; an unusually moderate proportion, when it is remembered that to the common motives of which I have spoken was added the seduction of a gift for which the profane public was expected to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done, for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid a profane word came with it, though I ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... the same comparison might be employed to the ensemble of the effect produced by these idioms upon foreigners. Many words occur in Polish which imitate the sound of the thing designated by them. The frequent repetition of CH, (h aspirated,) of SZ, (CH in French,) of RZ, of CZ, so frightful to a profane eye, have however nothing barbaric in their sounds, being pronounced nearly like GEAI, and TCHE, and greatly facilitate imitations of the sense by the sound. The word DZWIEK, (read DZWIINQUE,) meaning sound, offers a characteristic ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... excommunication was pronounced against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens, even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned, as profane and dangerous. He was refused the protection of law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus, the bands of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume |
