"Superstitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neglected the doctrinal and moral elements of the faith which it professes. This peculiarity greatly facilitated the spread of its influence among a people accustomed to pagan rites and magical incantations, but it had the pernicious effect of confirming in the new converts their superstitious belief in the virtue of mere ceremonies. Thus the Russians became zealous Christians in all matters of external observance, without knowing much about the spiritual meaning of the rites which they practised. They looked upon the rites and sacraments as mysterious charms ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... to comply with their wishes, but feared a revolt among her subjects and allies, who were strongly attached to the customs of their fathers. The priests, by numerous artifices, worked so powerfully upon the superstitious fears of the people, that they were prepared to hail Zhinga's return to the Catholic ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... also a schoolmaster, just as all clergymen were before division of labor forced itself upon us. This worthy clergyman was twice married, his first wife bearing him three children, the second ten. Samuel was the last of the brood—the thirteenth—but his parents were not superstitious. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... shortly committing himself to the protection of his ancestors and the voracity of the unbounded Bitter Waters; and with brightness and gold it will doubtless reach you in the course of twelve or eighteen moons. The superstitious here, this person may describe, when they wish to send messages from one to another, inscribe upon the outer cover a written representation of the one whose habitation they require, and after affixing a small paper talisman, drop it into a hole in ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... The almost superstitious fancy of his Majesty the Emperor in regard to coincidences in dates and anniversaries was strengthened still more by the victory of Friedland, which was gained on June 14, 1807, seven years to the very day after the battle of Marengo. The severity of the winter, the difficulty in furnishing ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... bent his way, determin'd there To rest at noon, and entr'd soon the shade High rooft and walks beneath, and alleys brown That open'd in the midst a woody Scene, Natures own work it seem'd (Nature taught Art) And to a Superstitious eye the haunt Of Wood-Gods and Wood-Nymphs; he view'd it round, When suddenly a man before him stood, Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad, As one in City, or Court, or Palace bred, 300 And with fair speech these words to him address'd. With granted leave officious I return, But much ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... middle of the belly with a little lamp-black and oil taken from the under part of the lamp. What benefit was expected from this preparatory ceremony we could not learn, but it was done with a degree of superstitious care and seriousness, that bespoke its indispensable importance. The boys came eagerly into the hut as usual, and held out their foreheads for the old woman to stick the charms upon them; and it was not ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... good to think a few days' visit in the country will harm you," Wilford replied; "besides that, neither Mrs. Mills, nor the Beverleys, nor Lincolns, are church people, and cannot, of course, sympathize in this superstitious fancy." ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... certain place above the vein of coal and began to strike with my sledge hammer, when I received a presentiment to remove my wedges from that place to another. Now I would not have the reader believe that I was in any manner superstitious, but I was so influenced by that presentiment that I withdrew my wedges and set them in another place; then I proceeded to strike them a second time with the sledge hammer, when, unexpectedly, the vein broke and the coal fell just opposite to where my ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... me with him, passed me off among his subalterns as the supervising engineer, and insisted on what he called 'the gallantry' of paying for my breakfast in a roadside wine-shop. On the whole, he was a man of great weather-wisdom, some spirits, and a social temper. But I am afraid he was superstitious. When he was nine years old, he had seen one night a company of bourgeois et dames qui faisaient la manege avec des chaises, and concluded that he was in the presence of a witches' Sabbath. I suppose, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... barely a dozen in all, were Nolan, Shiner, George Graham, and a few of the more intelligent, the Americans, among the miners. There, possibly a hundred yards away, and to the number of at least three hundred, a throng of human brutes, utterly ignorant, superstitious, credulous, craftily inspired, were now surging slowly forward up the heights. Two minutes would bring them about the little party in overwhelming strength. Flight anywhere downhill was impossible. The one refuge in ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... of an unpleasant subject is the superstitious feeling that mentioning a thing will bring it to pass. Or, again, if a misfortune has happened, many people feel that it only makes it worse to talk about it. While everybody avoids speaking on the subject, we can half pretend to ourselves ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... exert my authority to keep them silent, it is not in my power; and these images of their disturbed imagination, instead of being frivolously looked upon as in the days of our happiness, are on the contrary considered as warnings and sure prognostics of our future fate. I am not a superstitious man, but since our misfortunes, I am grown more timid, and less disposed to treat the doctrine of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... superstitious talk, Dailey," broke in Mart impatiently. "He's a shark, and a big one; pirate or not, if I can't get to him I'll put a bullet through that ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... three men while hunting have been killed by bears in the same vicinity as Ignati's brother, two instantly, and one living but a short time. I think it is from these accidents that the natives in this region have a superstitious dread of a "long-tailed bear" which they declare roams the hills between Eagle Harbor and ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... relieve oneself of the need to reason properly. One will thus overlook the fact that if this [56] argument contrary to the practice of reason were valid, it would always hold good, whether the consideration were easy or not. This laziness is to some extent the source of the superstitious practices of fortune-tellers, which meet with just such credulity as men show towards the philosopher's stone, because they would fain have short cuts to the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... captain said we should find it. The mountains that serve to guide one toward Avatcha Bay were exactly in the direction marked on our chart. To all appearances we were not a furlong from our estimated position. How easily may the navigator's art appear like magic to the ignorant and superstitious. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... passage to the loom-rooms. There was a crowd of porters and firemen there, as usual, and he thought one of them hastily passed him in the dark passage, hiding behind an engine. As the shadow fell on him, his teeth chattered with a chilly shudder. He smiled, thinking how superstitious people would say that some one trod on his grave just then, or that Death looked at him, and went on. Afterwards he thought of it. Going through the office, the fat old book-keeper, Huff, stopped him with a story he had been keeping ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... his simplicity, had raised himself to a purer belief than that of the sensuous Roman or the superstitious Gaul. He believed in a single, supreme, almighty God, All-Vater or All-father. This Divinity was too sublime to be incarnated or imaged, too infinite to be enclosed in temples built with hands. Such is the Roman's testimony to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... often deleterious and poisonous, supposed to secure for the person administering it the love of the person to whom it was administered; these love potions were popular in the declining days of Greece and Rome, throughout mediaeval Europe, and continue to be compounded to this day in the superstitious East. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the mutability of fortune, on money expended, and on the duties of love and friendship: A strange incident, shewing the propensity of man to superstitious terrors: ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... under the name of Secrets du Petit Albert are not by Albertus Magnus; a statement which favours the belief that the work mentioned by your correspondent "JARLZBERG" is one of that vulgar class (like our old Moore's Almanack, &c.) got up for sale among the superstitious and the ignorant, and palmed on the world under the mask of a celebrated name. According to Bayle, Albertus Magnus has, by some, been termed Le Petit Albert, owing, it is said, to the diminutiveness of his stature, which was on so small a scale, that when he, on one occasion, paid ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... themselves into bodies, clapping on their heads and dancing a skeleton dance round the Ghost of Attila! The people of Cologne, in the time of the ecclesiastical Electorate, had the reputation of being extremely superstitious, and no doubt there were many who implicitly believe this pious tale; indeed, who could refuse their assent to its authenticity, on beholding the proof positive ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... circumstance without horror — I should have lost my best friend, my father and protector, but for the resolution and activity of his servant Humphry Clinker, whom Providence really seems to have placed near him for the necessity of this occasion. — I would not be thought superstitious; but surely he acted from a stronger impulse than common fidelity. Was it not the voice of nature that loudly called upon him to save the life of his own father? for, 0 Letty, it was discovered that Humphry Clinker was ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... first visit to Rome throws a piece of money into the Fontana Trevi to be sure that he will see the eternal city again. We need not bind ourselves to Paris by such little superstitious practices. Its mysterious spell obtains the pledge without any intervention, and lures and draws the absent one so that he cannot rest until he returns. But why attribute this spell to Paris alone? Every place where we have been young, dreamed, ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... appear to be governed by fixed and solid principles of religion, such as the Christian faith, produced by conviction or reason. They have a superstitious reverence for certain ceremonies, rights, and ancient customs, which have prevailed for ages; and these serve, in many respects, to cover various vices and habits which are prevalent. They seem, however, to believe in a Supreme Being, called the Great Joss, or Yook-Chee, represented only ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... historical survey, then, we must recollect that in the festivities of Christmastide there is a mingling of the Divine with the human elements of society—the establishment and development of a Christian festival on pagan soil and in the midst of superstitious surroundings. Unless this be borne in mind it is impossible to understand some customs connected with the celebration of Christmas. For while the festival commemorates the Nativity of Christ, it also illustrates ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... life and needs, Mrs Jo went on pointing to the various pictures which illustrated it, and when she looked up was surprised to see how struck and interested he seemed to be. Like all people of his temperament he was very impressionable, and his life among hunters and Indians had made him superstitious; he believed in dreams, liked weird tales, and whatever appealed to the eye or mind, vividly impressed him more than the wisest words. The story of poor, tormented Sintram came back clearly as he looked and listened, symbolizing his ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... neighbourhood where he resided. The following anecdote, which would have delighted him, I had from an old inhabitant of Burnley, to whom it had been handed down by his grandfather:—In the days of Webster's fanaticism, during the usurpation, he is stated, in the zealous crusade then so common against superstitious relics, to have headed a party by whom the three venerable crosses, now set up in the churchyard of Whalley, commonly called the Crosses of Paulinus, and supposed to be coeval with the first preaching of Christianity in the North ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... the events that were to take place in that siege. The marques demanded when and how Malaga was to be taken. He replied that he knew full well, but he was forbidden to reveal those important secrets except to the king and queen. The good marques was not more given to superstitious fancies than other commanders of his time, yet there seemed something singular and mysterious about this man; he might have some important intelligence to communicate; so he was persuaded to send him to the king and queen. He was conducted to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... so superstitious they will not sail in a ship with a black cat; and this rogue of a cousin was going to send puss off on a voyage, unknown to any one but the friend who took him, and when the trip was safely over, he was to be produced as a triumphant ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... certainly to detect the thief; and added, that after it had thus moved, it would pursue the offender, and follow him until it would break his head. He then performed certain ceremonies calculated to awaken superstitious feelings in the minds of the people, and laid the cocoa-nut down at a little distance from him. To the great amazement of all present, it began to move towards the priest, and continued to move until it reached his feet. This being done, he told the people, that they might ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... his bamboo pole, he cast a furtive glance at the poor, misshapen being, and caught a touch of Silvey's superstitious fear. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... believe I am getting superstitious about anything connected with the Harringtons or the Wackers. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... matter-of-fact woman, I really admire the vein of superstitious fervour that gives coloring ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship, which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice of seeing them govern; when ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rude seats of stone, hewn out of the solid rock. Near to the spot on which the court was held was the sanctuary of the Furies, the avenging deities of Grecian mythology, whose presence gave additional solemnity to the scene. The place and the court were regarded by the people with superstitious reverence. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... needs not here, for whether we compare That impious, idle, superstitious ware Of rites, lustrations, offerings, which before, In various ages, various countries bore, With Christian faith and virtues, we shall find 130 None answering the great ends of human kind, But this one rule of life, that shows us best How God may be appeased, and mortals blest. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the commander-in-chief to expedite his departure; but a sufficient number of transports, owing to some blunder in the contractors, had not yet arrived. The troops expressed an eager impatience to signalize themselves against the enemies of the liberties of Europe; but the superstitious drew unfavourable presages from the dilatoriness of the embarkation. At last the transports arrived, the troops were put on board with all expedition, and the fleet got under sail on the eighth day of September, attended with the prayers of every man ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... heart-stirring and eye-dazzling descriptions of war and of tournaments, were among his chief favourites; and from those of Brantome and De la Noue he learned to compare the wild and loose, yet superstitious, character of the nobles of the League with the stern, rigid, and sometimes turbulent disposition of the Huguenot party. The Spanish had contributed to his stock of chivalrous and romantic lore. The earlier literature of the northern nations did ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... reminder of the harsh sentence which my poem has received from the lips of a woman who bears the same name as my heroine. There were many white blossoms, baroness, but you broke off unconsciously the deep purple-red. Poets are superstitious above all things. Let me keep this as a token that my work may yet find favor in your eyes, when you learn to know it. You do not ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... idolatry in the higher sense, of a religious imagination that enables the artist to bring the people nearer to their gods, or even the gods nearer to the heart of the people, has passed away, and in its place we find either a superstitious clinging to the magic power of the early objects of worship, or a mere acceptance, as conventional symbols, of forms that bear no direct relation to anything that is ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... for throwing up the job uncompromisingly on the spot, but this proposal met with obstacles. His fellow workman, who was of stiffer courage, rejected it with scorn, as savouring too much of the superstitious. Pierre had a large family to support, he argued. He spoke frankly. They could not afford to throw away the opportunities of Providence. To his friend and co-labourer, the burden of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of Bedford's most serious grievance against Charles was that he was accompanied by the Maid and Friar Richard. "You cause the ignorant folk to be seduced and deceived," he said, "for you are supported by superstitious and reprobate persons, such as this woman of ill fame and disorderly life, wearing man's attire and dissolute in manners, and likewise by that apostate and seditious mendicant friar, they both alike being, according to Holy Scripture, abominable ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... been inside the house one of those sudden changes in the face of nature of which his superstitious soul always made note, had taken place. A shower from a passing cloud had filled the depressions in the uneven pavement, where before only sunshine lay, with little pools of water, and had left the trees "weeping," as he fancifully described them ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... weapons from the deck, and that we should then make a rush together, and secure the companion-way before any opposition could be offered. I objected to this, because I could not believe that the mate (who was a cunning fellow in all matters which did not affect his superstitious prejudices) would suffer himself to be so easily entrapped. The very fact of there being a watch on deck at all was sufficient proof that he was upon the alert,—it not being usual except in vessels where discipline is most rigidly enforced, to station a watch on deck when ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was ten days' sail from Ithaca. In the Isle of Aeolus Odysseus abode for a month, and then received from the king a bag in which all the winds were bound, except that which was to waft the hero to his home. This sort of bag was probably not unfamiliar to superstitious Greek sailors who had dealings with witches, like the modern wise women of the Lapps. The companions of the hero opened the bag when Ithaca was in sight, the winds rushed out, the ships were borne back to the Aeolian Isle, and thence the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... in spite of all your cleverness, and I was a fool to imagine that you would prove more intelligent in the long run than the rest of your conventional and superstitious sex." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... tickets and in the letter enclosed a small scarf pin which he said was sure to bring me luck. He had done quite a little running in his time and said it had never failed him and urged me to be sure and put it in my tie the day of the Harvard-Princeton game. I am not superstitious, but I did stick it in my tie when I dressed that Saturday morning and it surely had a charm. It was in the first half that I got away for my run, and as we came out of the field house at the start of the second half, whom should ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... ought to be kicked for being so ridiculously superstitious. There, let's have a wash in the spring, and then get to our meal. Back directly, Melchior," he said aloud, quite in his usual voice, as he passed close by the guide, who was ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... burned, foretold all kinds of happiness or misery for themselves. The nuts that burned brightly prophesied prosperity to their owners, but those that crackled or burned black denoted misfortune. In olden times, when people were more superstitious than they are now, they attached great importance to these omens and customs, but happily the young people of our times have ceased to believe in magic and foolish customs, and country girls strive to attract their swains by other charms than those ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... or below ground, white enough to mark, worthily, in my calender, the fifth day of last June. I hereby abjure, for evermore, any superstitious prejudice against the ill luck of Fridays. Late in the afternoon, I was pacing to and fro in the narrow exercise-ground, speculating idly as to the delay of my dinner, which was overdue—not that I felt ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber's communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family, that they object to the resolution I have taken; ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... thought her brain was giving way, and sank on her knees to pray for help. But the figure remained; it stood motionless, with folded arms, silently gazing at her! Then she thought of witchcraft, of evil demons, and superstitious as every one was in those days, she kissed a crucifix which hung from her neck, and fell fainting on the ground. With one spring the phantom crossed the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... that in my own case—(he told my fortune four times),—his predictions were fulfilled in such wise that I became afraid of them. You may disbelieve in fortune-telling,— intellectually scorn it; but something of inherited superstitious tendency lurks within most of us; and a few strange experiences can so appeal to that inheritance as to induce the most unreasoning hope or fear of the good or bad luck promised you by some diviner. Really to see ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the comparative fewness of their foes, they began to rally and make head against their assailants. No sooner was this the case than the note of a horn was heard, and as if by magic their assailants instantly darted away into the night, leaving the superstitious Danes in some doubt whether the whole attack upon them had not been ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... public torpor here, which, without being superstitious, one may regard as a visitation from heaven. The people in general think the declaration of independence as a thing of course, and do not seem to feel themselves at all interested in the vast consequences, which that event must inevitably draw after it. The Ministry have by ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... historically being the National Covenant of 1638, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. It was to these that Quentin referred, and to these that he and the great majority of the Scottish people clung with intense, almost superstitious veneration; and well they might, for these Covenants—which some enthusiasts had signed with their blood—contained nearly all the principles which lend stability and dignity to a people— such as a determination to loyally stand by and "defend the King," and "the ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... interest. She had never had a flirtation with a man of this character, therefore there was all the zest of novelty. Had she been less fearless, she would have shrunk from it, however, with something of the superstitious dread that many have of jesting in a church, or a graveyard. But there was a trace of hardihood in her present course that just took her fancy. From lack of familiarity with the class, she had a vague impression that ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... been possible for her, during her own lifetime, absolutely to prohibit preaching, thinking, independent writing,—investigation or inquiry of any sort—in her churches. But after her death, when that compelling hand is withdrawn, either the church must renew itself from among the ignorant and superstitious, as Mormonism has done, or it must permit its members to use their minds. Those who use their minds will discover that Christian Science is only one method of applying a general truth, and that it is a method which is hampered ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from which were darting continual flashes of lightning, was reflected clearly on the smooth surface of the Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific world of Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the mass of superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm. The theatres were closed and the churches were opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the bells. Maddened by terror, the Neapolitan ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... increased, and the darkness became intense. The house-servants, timid and superstitious, had all congregated in Aunt Amy's cabin. Amidst their grief, sincere and profound, was yet a subject of indignation, which acted as a sort of safety-valve ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... about an entirely different series of associations, and therefore results in a different type of explanation. A sudden explosion will associate itself in his mind, perhaps, with the tales he has heard in regard to the mythical history of the world, and consequently will be accompanied by superstitious fear. When we recognize that neither among civilized men nor among primitive men the average individual carries to completion the attempt at causal explanation of phenomena, but carries it only so ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... relieving herself by confession, she might have found solace and set her feet in safer ways. But among the three men she was virtually alone, guarding her secret with that most stubborn of all silences, a girl's in the first wakening of sex. She had a superstitious hope that she could regain peace and self-respect by an act of reparation, and at such moments turned with expiatory passion to the thought of David. She would go to California, live as her father had wished, marry her betrothed, and be as good a wife ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... will—I do not know what it was—I am certain only that, although I had not recognized her voice, I had suddenly known who it was that would come to me out of the fog. And she, too, had known! I felt again, with an almost superstitious thrill, that feeling of helplessness which had come over me that day of the fishing excursion when she rode through the bushes to my side. It was as if she and I were puppets in the hands of some Power which was amusing itself at our expense ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of the ship's dog. The poor animal, whether he was merely sick at heart to be separated from his friends, or whether he indeed recognised some peril in the labouring of the ship, raised his cries, like minute-guns, above the roar of wave and weather; and the more superstitious of the men heard, in these sounds, the knell of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... country is not unknown to Mr. Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American camp- meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the other, has had its origin in the United States, which we cannot more than parallel by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts the rabbit-breeder, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... himself singled out from childhood for some great work; and he had some peculiar marks on his person, which, joined to his great mental precocity, were enough to occasion, among his youthful companions, a superstitious faith in his gifts and destiny. He had great mechanical ingenuity also, experimentalized very early in making paper, gunpowder, pottery, and in other arts which in later life he was found thoroughly to understand. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... whence they came, Bonga rejoined, "Why do you come from my enemy to me? You have brought witchcraft medicine to kill me." In vain they protested that they did not belong to the country; they were strangers, and had come from afar with an Englishman. The superstitious savage put them all to death. "We do not grieve," said their companions, "for the thirty victims of the smallpox, who were taken away by Morimo (God); but our hearts are sore for the six youths who ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... difficulty, as his union with Jacqueline was, in the eyes of the Church, no marriage at all. The new Duchess of Gloucester being aware that if the king should die her husband would be next in order of succession to the throne, was anxious to hasten that event. It was a superstitious age, and the Duchess consulted an astrologer as to the time of the king's death, and employed a reputed witch to make a waxen image of the king under the belief that as the wax melted before the fire the king's life would waste ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... to be one of the patronesses of the next winter's dances. The list was about to be printed. Max hesitated. "It would be a little premature to put her down as Mrs. Riatt, wouldn't it?" he objected. Mrs. Lane thought this was merely superstitious, and ordered the cards so ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... scene not calculated to encourage superstitious fancies, it may be, but still not likely to enliven any man's spirits—a quiet, dull, gray, listless, dispiriting morning, and, being country-bred, I felt ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... sought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won—won prodigiously; won incredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... undoubtedly a true lover of the past would. Albeit the grass plats and the gravel walks, to the eye of sense, are undoubtedly much more agreeable and convenient. Scott says in his Demonology, that he never came any where near to being overcome with a superstitious feeling, except twice in his life, and one was on the night when he slept in Glamis Castle. The poetical and the practical elements in Scott's mind ran together, side by side, without mixing, as evidently as the waters of the Alleghany and Monongahela at Pittsburg. Scarcely ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... exclaim,—"Why are not these idle people sent off to the colonies?" As for the notions of humanity, virtue and religion, adopted by all nations, she said, they were only the inventions of their rulers, to serve political purposes. Then, flying all at once to the other extreme, she abandoned herself to superstitious terrors, which filled her with mortal fears. She would then give abundant alms to the wealthy ecclesiastics who governed her, beseeching them to appease the wrath of God by the sacrifice of her fortune,—as if the offering to Him of the wealth she had withheld from the miserable could please ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... revelations of its prophet; and if he find these beyond his comprehension or violative of his reason, they dismiss him with a gentle reminder that "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God." He retorts by accusing his critics either of superstitious ignorance or rank dishonesty, so honors are easy. He is told that if he doesn't perform the impossible—work a miracle by altering the construction of his own mind—he will be damned, and is touched up semi-occasionally by the pulpiteers as an emissary of the devil. Being thus put on the defensive, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... world is progressing in enlightenment; I suppose it is—inch by inch. But it is not easy to name an age that has cherished more delusions than ours, or been more superstitious, or more credulous, more eager to run after quackery. Especially is this true in regard to remedies for diseases, and the faith in healers and quacks outside of the regular, educated professors of the medical art. Is this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that she was very superstitious, as shown by her belief in the Captain's ring; it occurred to me that I might take advantage of that trait of her character to draw her secrets out. Why could I not introduce a fortune-teller to her, and thus learn all I wished to know? The idea seemed to me to be admirably adapted ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... derision. His mind is pleased with toys that would amuse a child: at the conclusion of an almost incredibly trivial Show of the Seven Deadly Sins he exclaims, 'O, how this sight doth delight my soul!' His practical jokes are unworthy of a court jester. The congealing of his blood agitates his superstitious mind far more than the terrible frankness of Mephistophilis. Miserably mean-spirited, he seeks to propitiate the wrath of the fiend by invoking his torments upon an old man whose disinterested appeal momentarily quickened his conscience into revolt. Finally, when we recall ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Sayings of certain learned men came out of Judea into the land of lost hope. They told of the king of promise—that he would bring to men the gift of immortal life, that the heavens would declare his authority. Superstitious to the blood and bone, not a few were thrilled by ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... in the family; and several having grown to maturity and flown, there were thirteen at the table when little Ben first sat in the high chair. But the Franklins were not superstitious, and if little Ben ever prayed that another would be born, just for luck, we know nothing of it. His mother loved him very much and indulged him in many ways, for he was always her baby boy, but the father thought that because he was good-natured ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... produce this gross and vigorous life, so in its turn this gross and vigorous life will always produce creed and mythology. If we ever get the English back on to the English land they will become again a religious people, if all goes well, a superstitious people. The absence from modern life of both the higher and lower forms of faith is largely due to a divorce from nature and the trees and clouds. If we have no more turnip ghosts it is chiefly from the ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... charge that Cyrus left with his children, that neither they, nor any other, should either see or touch his body after the soul was departed from it,—[Xenophon, Cyropedia, viii. 7.]—I attribute to some superstitious devotion of his; for both his historian and himself, amongst their great qualities, marked the whole course of their lives with a singular respect and reverence ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of that sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... an attempt to chronicle facts as they happened on board the Titanic, it must be recorded that there were among the passengers and such of the crew as were heard to speak on the matter, the direst misgivings at the incident we had just witnessed. Sailors are proverbially superstitious; far too many people are prone to follow their lead, or, indeed, the lead of any one who asserts a statement with an air of conviction and the opportunity of constant repetition; the sense of mystery that shrouds a prophetic utterance, particularly if it ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... the Ancient of Days, about whom holy men have written and spoken. He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and over-righteous of mankind. But I will tell you this, that Jesus, our Elder Brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the fish in the waters purely Basque. Bucalaos is the Basque name for codfish, and the Basques called the whole coast Bucalaos land, or codfish land, because of the multitudes of codfish along the coast. And up to this day, underlying the thin veneer of saint this and saint that, which superstitious piety has given to every bay and cape and natural object in gulf and on river, you find the old Basque names of places and things—the solid oak beneath the tawdry coating applied by priestly brush for churchly purposes. There is Basque harbor, Basque island, and old Basque fort, and a place known ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... about eleven o'clock when they first began to drag. Albert had a sort of vague looking for something, a superstitious feeling that by some sort of a miracle Katy would yet be found alive. It is the hardest work the imagination has to do—this realizing that one who has lived by us will never more be with us. It is hard to project a future for ourselves, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... valuable than England's Koh-i-noor, and more important to the country and the crown that possess it. The legend runs, does it not? that Mauravania falls when the Rainbow Pearl passes into alien hands. An absurd belief, to be sure, but who can argue with a superstitious people or hammer wisdom into the minds of babies? And that has been lost, that gem so dear to Mauravania's people, so ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... unmathematically divided between the sequestrators and creditors, who (not being able to ballance the account where there appeare so many numbers, and much troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... a most kind fashion, I think," said Anne Dorset, who had a superstitious regard for other people's feelings, "and Mr. Copperhead is quite right, I never say no to a cup ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Croix de par Dieu. The Christs-crosse-row; or, the hornebooke wherein a child learnes it. Cotgrave. The alphabet was called the Christ-cross-row, some say because a cross was prefixed to the alphabet in the old primers; but as probably from a superstitious custom of writing the alphabet in the form of a cross, by way of charm. This was even solemnly practised by the bishop in the consecration of a church. See Picart's Religious Ceremonies, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... into the infra-red. The heat ray! Both monsters were changing color as he marched them through the door and into the open. But now they glowed with a visible red that rapidly intensified to the dazzling whiteness of intense heat. Cadorna babbled in superstitious terror. Then, in an instant, both mechanisms were reduced to shapeless blobs of molten metal. Lina ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... It would, perhaps, be superstitious to believe that strong and courageous truth-telling calls down from Heaven, new, unexpected, and vivid examples to support it. But, really, the events of the last few years would almost incline one to that ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... scattered in the porticos or on the pavements of churches in Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and elsewhere. From the first period of the desecration of the catacombs, the engraved tablets that had closed the graves were almost as much an object of the greed of pious or superstitious marauders as the more immediate relics of the saints. Hence came their dispersion through Italy, and hence, too, it has happened that many very important and interesting inscriptions belonging to Rome are now found scattered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... little incident illustrative of the superstitious dread these Indians entertain of violating the priestly commands. We found it very difficult to persuade an old Zuni guide, who had visited the sacred salt lake, the mountain of the war gods, and other places of interest with us (to these he had gone by special permission of the High Priest), to ...
— The Religious Life of the Zuni Child - Bureau of American Ethnology • (Mrs.) Tilly E. (Matilda Coxe Evans) Stevenson
... felt as if I had never known it before. It is so wonderful that God and the Holy Spirit have written a Book and we have it! and, what is stranger still, that we dare to neglect it. One would suppose that a superstitious fear would make people read it, if nothing else. I believe that the Lord himself sent that solemn realisation to me; it has seemed a different Book to me ever since. If an angel should come down and bring me ever so short a letter from the Lord, with some expressions ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... ignorant of the facts which within a very short time have set a final seal of horror upon this old, historic dwelling, then you will be glad to read what has made and will continue to make the Moore house in Washington one to be pointed at in daylight and shunned after dark, not only by superstitious colored folk, but by all who are susceptible to the most ordinary emotions ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... America, in throwing down all barriers to political and social advancement, has been the chief instrument of lifting the great mass of humanity to a position of power in the spirit world; still there are crowds of beings, ignorant and superstitious, who enter the spirit world, and their intellects can only be unfolded by the labor and guidance of some ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... greedily swallowed the Poison he was administring. She passed whole Days and Nights in Prayer, and the Austerities of a false Devotion, according to the Instructions of her infamous Director. Nor was it long, before she attain'd the Height of that superstitious Chastity which he required of her, and, imagining there was no stopping in a Course which was to end so gloriously, she formed a Resolution, in order to devote herself with the greater Fervour and Purity to the heavenly Bridegroom which ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon |
