"Ceremonial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intimacy, to carry them a step forward in this short and curious friendship which was now, surely, very close to its end. They did not speak as they danced. Maddalena's face was very solemn, like the face of one taking part in an important ceremonial. And Maurice, too, felt serious, even sad. The darkness and heat of the room, the melancholy with which all the tunes of a grinding organ seem impregnated, the complicated sounds from the fair outside, from which ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... yet to be over-weak for the Public Marriage, which we to have later; when, truly, the Millions made us a Guard of Honour eight miles high, from the top unto the bottom of the Mighty Pyramid. But this to have been later, as I do tell, and did be a Ceremonial of the Peoples, because that they not to be denied that ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... of January, 1535, was fixed upon for the awful ceremonial. The superstitious fears and bigoted hatred of the whole nation had been roused. Paris was thronged with the multitudes that from all the surrounding country crowded her streets. The day was to be ushered in by a vast and imposing procession. "The houses along the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... consecrated himself in loyalty to his God, and that the God consecrated himself in faithfulness to his worshippers as their guardian and protector. Here is given the central significance of sacrifices that have made so large a part of the religious ceremonial ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... hare it with any; so they gathered the booty and abode in their own homes. Meanwhile the remains of the beaten force ceased not flying till they reached the city of Shiras and there lifted up the voice of weeping and began the ceremonial lamentations for those of them that had been slain. Now King Khirad Shah had a brother Siran the Sorcerer highs, than whom there was no greater wizard in his day, and he lived apart from his brother in a certain stronghold, called the Fortalice of Fruits,[FN68] in a place ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... asked him what he thought of Polly's playing, an unbidden contrast leaped to his mind. Mary's music reminded him of church. It was cold and bare as a Methodist meeting house. But Polly's was like the mad and lawless ceremonial of some heathen temple where incense arose and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... to no law but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel. Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and in blood for the outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... good-bye in a special session; but his eyes were now on brighter matters and the vocalizing Gertrudes and Adeles were dim. He got out of it. Besides, the affair might come to involve something like ceremony; and he was always desirous of avoiding (save in the arts) the ceremonial side of life. When he came back from his first sojourn on the Continent he was a young man of mark, as things went in our particular town and time; or, rather, he might have been such, had he but chosen. The family fortunes were then merely at the stage of worry and still far from that ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... is a necessity in a joss house. It is lighted on ceremonial days and paper representing cloth, gold and silver is burned, the ashes of the materials being, in their minds, useful in spirit land. Private families send to their relatives and friends whatever ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... which met weekly, where a paper was read, and a free discussion followed. Up to this time Hugh's religion had been of a purely orthodox and sensuous description. He had grown up in an ecclesiastical atmosphere, and the ritual of Church Services, the music, the ceremonial, had been all attractive to him. As for the dogmatic side, he had believed it unquestioningly, just as he had believed in the history or the science that had been taught him. But in this society he met young men—and older men too, for several of the Dons were members—who ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... drew up to the steps, and presently three ladies and a brusque gentleman passed into the hall-way, admitted by powdered footmen. The incident had a manner, an air, which struck Gaston, he knew not why. Perhaps it was the easy finesse of ceremonial. He looked at Brillon. He had seen him sit arms folded like that, looking from the top of a bluff down on an Indian village or a herd of buffaloes. There was wonder, but no shyness or agitation, on his face; rather the naive, naked look ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... simony, and for intrusion into the papacy [g]. These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been a practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected to a higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second was a pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then officiated, and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the church, especially those who lay at a distance, were excusable for making their applications to him. Stigand's ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... piety and a regard to decency had introduced the custom of never sacrificing to Him, whence all blessings emanated, any but the soundest, the most healthy, fat and beautiful animals; which were always examined with the closest and most exact attention. This ceremonial, which doubtless had its origin in gratitude, or in some ideas of fitness and propriety, at length, degenerated into trifling niceties and superstitious ceremonies. And it having been once imagined that no favour was to be looked for from the gods, when the victim was ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... practices have been. Perhaps it might be said that all down the centuries of Christian Church history, opinion has often been in advance of worship and the social code, that social and religious conventionalities have lagged behind belief. If so, it is the marked conservatism in ceremonial that is noteworthy in India. While Hindu beliefs are dissolving or dropping out of the mind, Hindu practices are successfully resisting the solvent influences or only slowly ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... members only; but it was an idea that presently began to be more absorbing and satisfactory than even the shack itself. The outward manifestations of it might have been observed in the increased solemnity and preoccupation of the Caucasian members and in a few ceremonial observances exposed to the public eye. As an instance of these latter, Mrs. Williams, happening to glance from a rearward window, about four o'clock one afternoon, found her attention arrested by what seemed ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... some important person—a priest most likely—protected from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... which I had brought with me to sleep in, and for which our landlord had conceived a very great liking: matters were at length amicably adjusted, and he mounted his horse and led the way. He was one of those Negroes who, together with the ceremonial part of the Mahomedan religion, retain all their ancient superstitions, and even drink strong liquors. They are called Johars, or Jowers, and in this kingdom form a very numerous and powerful tribe. We had no sooner got into a dark and lonely part of the first wood, than he made a sign for us ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... presence of the Earl of Kildare, the chancellor, and other State officers. The crown used for the purpose was taken off the head of a statue of The Virgin in St. Mary's Abbey, and—a quainter piece of ceremonial still—the youthful monarch was, after the ceremony, hoisted upon the shoulders of the tallest man in Ireland, "Great Darcy of Flatten," and, in this position, promenaded through the streets of Dublin so as to be seen by the ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... microcosm, ourselves including both extremes, and being, perhaps, the most stupendous miracle of all, we cannot deny to this amazing frame of things the tribute of an unutterable awe. If that be religion, I profess myself as religious as Mr. Wells. I am even willing to join him in some outward, ceremonial expression of that sentiment, if he can suggest one that shall not be ridiculously inadequate. What about kneeling through the C Minor Symphony? That seems to me about as near as we can get. Or I will go with him to Primrose Hill some fine morning (like the Persian Ambassador ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... By seven o'clock the ceremonial was fairly over, and Christie dropped into a chair quite tired out with frequent pacings to and fro. In the kitchen she found the table spread for one, and Hepsey busy ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... local circumstances or climate, that little doubt can be entertained that all have originally sprung from the same stock. The principal points of difference, observable between various tribes, appear to consist chiefly in some of their ceremonial observances, and in the variations of dialect in the language they speak; the latter are, indeed, frequently so great, that even to a person thoroughly acquainted with any one dialect, there is not the slightest clue by which he can ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... its celestial beauty of a future reign of happiness, based on love, justice, liberty, and universal peace. This was precisely what Prophetism did. Therefore, he would be greatly mistaken, who would suppose, in the expressions used by the Prophets, any intention of slight towards the ceremonial laws, and those biblical prescriptions, which are specially intended for the chosen people. True, these are to be regarded as means calculated to a superior end; but they remain in full force and validity until that end (which is in store in the Eternal Mind) shall have ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... away imaginary flies, are all herculean negroes whose countenances are wrinkled into fierce smiles; they are all old men, and their gray or white beards contrast with the blackness of their features. This ceremonial of a bygone age harmonizes with the wailing music, and could not suit better the huge walls around us, which rear their crumbling ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... not the case, for settled melancholy took possession of him. On the 22nd of October he appeared at the Duddera, a high ceremonial, went among his troops and, in the evening, received his chiefs and the representatives from the great rajahs but, three days later, he threw himself from a terrace in front of his palace, broke two of his limbs, and so seriously injured himself that ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... ceremonial dress, were received by Li-Yuan-hung in the main hall and made three bows to the new president, which were returned by the latter. The same ceremony will take place at two o'clock, when all the high military officials will assemble at the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... was opposed by radicalism, and the invectives of both were bitter in the extreme. The system and ceremonial of a gorgeous worship restored by Laud, and accused by its opposers of formalism and idolatry, were attacked by a spirit of excess, which, to religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... and not here! O, how that word doth play With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves, Both one; and yet divided, as opposed! I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place Doubly presents the two lets of our love, Local and ceremonial height, and lowness: Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low, Our minds are even yet; O, why should our bodies, That are their slaves, be so without their rule? I'll cast myself down to thee; if I die, I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth, Of place, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... gone to Rome to perform certain ceremonial rites, and Fulvius being left in charge of the Roman army in Etruria, the Etruscans, to see whether they could not circumvent the new commander, planting an ambush not far from the Roman camp, sent forward soldiers disguised as shepherds driving large flocks of sheep so as to pass in sight of the ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... funeral of herself and her son,—he, who was not only no relative, but a foreigner in blood, and in religion an alien; but it was a privilege which he valued very highly, and which he would not have resigned to have held the chief place in the most pompous ceremonial upon earth. ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... at any rate, a derived one. At the same time there is no doubt that the real power of the State was in his hands while the de jure ruler lived in the capital in complete seclusion surrounded by all the appanages and ceremonial of royalty. ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... Wesleyan missionaries have nearly made a clean sweep of all heathen ceremonial in Fiji. 'But in one corner of Fiji, the island of Nbengga, a curious observance of mythological origin has escaped the general destruction, probably because the worthy iconoclasts had never heard of it.' The myth tells how the ancestor of the clan received the gift of fire-walking from a god, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... education completely rabbinical, and its nature must be comprehended, or the term of education would be misunderstood. The Israelites in Poland and Germany live with all the restrictions of their ceremonial law in an insulated state, and are not always instructed in the language of the country of their birth. They employ for their common intercourse a barbarous or patois Hebrew; while the sole studies of the young rabbins are strictly confined to the Talmud, of which the fundamental ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the development of the family, sociology has next to describe and explain the rise and development of political organisation; the evolution of the ecclesiastical structures and functions; the control embodied in ceremonial observances; and the relations between the regulative and ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... formulary and the old Christian life in spite of himself. He is almost fanatical in his attachment to the mediaeval times,—to the ancient worship, its ceremonial, music, and architecture, its monastic government, its saints and martyrs. And the reason, as he shows in the "Past and Present," is, that all this array of devotion, this pomp and ceremony, this music and painting, this gorgeous and sublime architecture, this fasting and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... expected to partake of those ceremonial repasts on the first and second nights of this Passover, but had been unavoidably kept away from the city. Kaplan had resented it, and even now, as he spoke of the next year's seder, there was ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... about the life of the peasants beyond that small part of it which concerned directly his own interests and those of his employer. Of the communal organisation, domestic life, religious beliefs, ceremonial practices, and nomadic habits of his humble neighbours, he knew little, and the little he happened to know was far from accurate. In order to gain a knowledge of these matters it would be better, I perceived, to consult the priest, or, better still, the peasants ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... deal with him in my critical jacket, I have to put on, for ceremonial purposes, something of a white sheet, and to hold a candle of repentance in my hand. I have never said very much about the younger Dumas anywhere, and I am not conscious of any positive injustice in what I have said;[349] but I do suspect a certain ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a considerable throng, and I was glad to accept a seat which was offered me in the agreeable vicinity of the lady mayoress, so that I might see what would be interesting to me of the ceremonial. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the scruples that had been worrying him as to whether or not he was justified in being present at the impending function; for he felt that, having come to the above resolution, he was justified in being present, otherwise how could he offer any suggestions as to a change in the ceremonial? ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the instrument, nor its marvellous aptitude for training the mind to precision of expression. The logical bent of the French mind, its love of rule, the elaborateness of its conventions in literature, its ceremonial observances dating from by-gone times, the custom of giving account of everything, of letting no nuance pass unchallenged or uncommented, have given it a power of expression and definiteness which holds together as a complete ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Mother Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and drinking, were the only places in which business was done; the public sentiment put universal shutters up, but the public appetite insisted upon excepting the means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity those fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round them, important and significant, and nobody was ever known to forget that they were up, and go on a fool's errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness for the young countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... prevalent. Sir James Melville relates in his memoirs how he was present when Robert Dudley was made "Earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh; which was done at Westminster with great solemnity, the Queen herself helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting upon his knees before her with a great gravity. But she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him, the French Ambassadour and I standing by. Then she turned, asking at me, 'how ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... calculated to place a dignified gentleman in a ridiculous light. Mrs. Reid's name and cultivation will doubtless enable her to support a monotonous role with grace; but, in consideration of British proficiency in matters ceremonial, their money will not be called upon to add a jot to the dignity of their reception. Their early departure has not prevented the opening of their country place, Ophir Hall, in the vicinity of White Plains, while their neighbor, Colonel Astor, ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... aught more than a ceremonial law of the Jews, no longer binding upon Christians?" ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... his spirit and aspirations to spend a few years in the quiet cells of the cloister for the completion of his theological studies, especially since he was exempt from the duty of wasting time in empty ceremonial rites. But after this end was attained, it was easy to foresee that he would again wish ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... lustrous orb, pendant over the Hudson, was not plainer to every sight that evening than was to every consciousness the fact that this gathering was a sort of ceremonial salute before a duel. The storm was soon to break; we all felt it in the air. There was a subdued, almost stiff, politeness in the tone and manner when Dutchman met Englishman, when Whig met Tory, which spoke more eloquently than words. Beneath the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... dinner-set, of Lowestoft which had belonged to Alexander Chiltern, reserved, for great occasions only: occasions that Starling knew by heart; their dates, and the guests the Lowestoft had honoured. His air was ceremonial as he laid, reverently, the sample pieces on the table before her, but it seemed to Honora that he spoke as one who recalls departed glories, who held a conviction that the Lowestoft would never ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... transferred to a district on the banks of the Padma. On his way through Calcutta he bought his son a little go-cart. He bought him also a yellow satin waistcoat, a gold-laced cap, and some gold bracelets and anklets. Raicharan was wont to take these out, and put them on his little charge with ceremonial pride, whenever they went for ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... for the first six counts. Is the Hindoo mystic a worse or a better man for holding them? Are they on the whole right or wrong? Is not disinterested love nobler than a mercenary religion? Is it not right to protest against ceremonial prescriptions, and to say, with the later prophets and psalmists of the Jews: "Thinkest thou that He will eat bull's flesh, and drink the blood of goats. Sacrifice and burnt-offering Thou wouldst not . . . I come to do thy will, O God!" What is, even, if he will look calmly into it, the "pantheistic ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... visitors had trailed down the long stairway, shouting back their pleasure and gratitude, the wonderful dinner the hamper contained was prepared, and what a delightful ceremonial that was! Did ever any such tantalizing aroma drift upon the air as ascended from the browning turkey? Or did ever potatoes so fill their jackets to bursting? As for the celery—it was like ivory; and the cranberry jelly as transparent and glowing as a huge ruby. And, oh, the ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... honest kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of his thought owes nothing to any ceremonial garb of words, but to the manly movement that comes of settled purpose and an energy of reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades striving to underbid him in demagogism, to be found in the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... July that followed Donna Maria's tragic death, with all the circumstances and pomp of state ceremonial, Lucrezia de' Medici was married to Alfonso II., Duke of Ferrara, the same prince who had been affianced ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... The harsh ceremonial served as a sort of setting of the pace, or a metaphorical shaking of a bony fist in the face of the day, as much as to say, 'If I admit you here you'll have to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... revolt from superstition and idolatry with the keenest interest. He was in danger, like so many pioneers and so many reformers, of being carried away by his own vehemence. He saw the idolatry of the Mass, but he was losing sight of the worship which underlay that weight of ceremonial and observance. Like the people who witnessed the office, the mass of symbolism and the confusion of it blinded his eyes to the truth and beauty of the underlying reality. He was a devout believer in all primitive truth; he had been, and in a sense still ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the minister [Mr. Pelham] that is no peer, and consequently applying to the other ministers, in a manner, for their orders; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... she was a civilized person. The quality of savagery, barbarism, or civilization in a tribe may be tested by the relations it characteristically maintains with domestic animals; and tribes that eat dogs are often inferior to those inclined to ceremonial cannibalism. Likewise, the civilization, barbarism, or savagery of an individual may be estimated by the same test, which sometimes gives us evidence of sporadic reversions to mud. Such reversions are the stomach priests: whatever ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... habit made him inexpert in the art of easy transitions, and his inability to bridge over awkward gaps had often put him at a disadvantage with his wife and her friends. He had not yet learned the importance of observing the forms which made up the daily ceremonial of their lives, and at present there was just enough soreness between himself and Bessy to make such observances ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... adhere with reason to forms and ceremonies. If men wish to give unlimited power to their fellow-man, they must keep him separated from ordinary humanity; they must surround him with a continual worship, and, by a constant ceremonial, keep up for him the superhuman part they have granted him. Our masters cannot remain absolute, except on condition of being ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... lateness of her personal welcome, by reminding them that there were then present in Martindale Castle that day, persons whom recent happy events had converted from enemies into friends, but on whom the latter character was so recently imposed, that she dared not neglect with them any point of ceremonial. But those whom she now addressed, were the best, the dearest the most faithful friends of her husband's house, to whom and to their valour Peveril had not only owed those successes, which had given ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... sheer intellectual eminence, like that of Tennyson and Kelvin. He had a sense of humour, a quality of which Head and Durham were devoid. He was amused when he was not bored by the pomp attending his position. 'The worst part of the thing to me, individually, is the ceremonial,' he writes. 'The bore of this is unspeakable. Fancy having to stand for an hour and a half bowing, and then to sit with one's cocked hat on, receiving addresses.' In person Thomson was small, slight, elegant, fragile-looking, ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... formerly served as small coin, as similar mats are still used on other islands, and they still represent a value of about one shilling; but in daily life they have been quite replaced by European coin, and only appear on such ceremonial occasions. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... was accompanied by the Empress, his wife, and this was their first ceremonial visit to any of the crowned heads of Europe. Why did the German Kaiser select Abdul Hamid for this ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... as they called it, meant, especially to a man of high caste, whether of the right or left hand section, the total loss to him of all that was worth living for. He could never be received in intercourse again with his own people, and so strong are the caste ideas of ceremonial uncleanness that it would be defilement to his friends and relations even to offer to him sustenance of any kind, and he was in point of fact excommunicated and avoided. Happily this dread of caste defilement has now, ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... to say against the marriage. If any false statement of his, however base or cruel, could have invalidated the ceremonial, he would have spared no pains to devise such a falsehood. If he had been a citizen of the Southern States, he might have suborned witnesses to prove that there was black blood in the veins of Valentine Hawkehurst. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... doves on the home altar, and immediately thereafter, set the example of violating every clause in the Decalogue. Mark you, paganism drew fine lines in morals, long anterior to the era of monotheism and of Moses, and furnished immortal types of all the virtues; yet the excess of its religious ceremonial, robbed it of vital fructifying energies. The frequency and publicity of sacerdotal service, usurped the place of daily individual piety. The tendency of all outward symbolical observances, unduly multiplied, is to substitute ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... unfortunate, that, words of ancient origin are not more carefully used, and that, we should attach so many different meanings to the same word. The terms "ceremony" and "ceremonial" are nothing more nor less than, what that eminent critic, John Ruskin, would designate as "bastards of ignoble origin," which, somehow or another, have usurped the places of "rite" and "ritual." The word "rite" has descended to ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... two girls of your own age to bear you company, at any rate. I have asked dear old Horton to be present; and he, Fraeulein, and Maulevrier will complete the party. It will not be a brilliant wedding, Mary, or a costly ceremonial, except ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... irritation as he replied: "All reports satisfactory. We shall have our little fireworks promptly on the second." Then to Mona: "Sorry I cannot invite you aboard my ship; but I shall be so occupied with the ceremonial end of this, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... with workmanship in marble that causes them to be mentioned in a class by themselves with the highest renown. To their great excellence and the wisdom of their conception they owe their place of esteem in the ceremonial worship of the gods. First there is the temple of Diana at Ephesus, in the Ionic style, undertaken by Chersiphron of Gnosus and his son Metagenes, and said to have been finished later by Demetrius, who was himself a slave of Diana, and by Paeonius ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... at the hands of the "restorers" of the nineteenth, or the Puritans of the seventeenth, or the spoliators of an earlier century, so that we may observe all those details which characterise an ancient church. In spite of all the vandalism which has taken place, in spite of the changes in ceremonial and forms of worship, our beautiful old churches still retain relics of the past which ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... of the public, the ceremonial character of the proceedings, and the conviction that the invisible powers were on the side of truth and justice that gave the trial by ordeal and the trial by battle a significance that neither the duello nor any other form of private vengeance ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... at home. They came to New York always on important business, which could not be transacted by any one else, four times a year; and, on those occasions, paid state visits to old Van Quintem, who reciprocated the civility by calling on them, in a ceremonial way, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... eager expectation, and in the meantime he set himself to smooth away the hostility of his countrymen by delivering courses of popular lectures on literature and archaeology. He devoted much time and attention to the ceremonial details of his princely office. His knowledge of rubric and ritual, and of the symbolical significations of vestments, has rarely been equalled, and he took a profound delight in the ordering and the performance of elaborate processions. During one of these functions, an unexpected difficulty ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... cause of sin, but man, who turns the divine power to good or evil. He who denies himself to live God is a Christian, whether he knows and confesses the Gospel or not. Faith does not consist in assent, but in inner transformation. The historical element in Christianity and its ceremonial observances are only the external form and garb (its "figure"), have merely a symbolic significance as media of communication, as forms of revelation for the eternal truth, proclaimed but not founded by Christ; the Bible is merely the shadow ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... plaiting, and perfuming them with sweet-scented leaves steeped in oil. Her personal appearance is well understood to be a matter of real moment, and rich dress and ornaments are highly prized. Fortunately they never go out of fashion, and once owned are permanent possessions, unless parted with as ceremonial gifts on some great ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... most ancient festival. You stand forth in the midst of the nations of the earth clothed in rich verdure. You retain intact the splendour of your ancestral ritual. You boast of your rigid adherence to its outward ceremonial, the punctilious observance of your fasts and feasts. But I have found that it is but 'a name to live.' You sinfully ignore 'the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, and mercy!' You call out as you tread that gorgeous fane—'The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord! ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... and the better to assure our orderly conduct during its continuance we were kept asunder in the procession that then was formed—the object of which procession, as my knowledge of the Aztec customs led me rightly to infer, was that the ceremonial of triumph might be ended by leading us thrice around the sacrificial stone. And in truth I dreaded less the fate which this leading us about the altar of sacrifice implied was in store for us than I did the close association, made necessary by the ceremony, with the direful ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... sly and shy and ceremonial in her bearing, but under it there lurked the privileged audacity of the old servant, and (as poor Majendie perceived) the secret, terrifying gaiety of the hymeneal devotee. The faint sound of giggling on the staircase penetrated to the room. It was evident that Nanna ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... is of course the first part of the charge to M.A.s, goes back to the very beginnings of University ceremonial; the latter part of the charge to M.A.s is modern, and takes the place of the more elaborate oaths of the Laudian and of still earlier statutes. By these a candidate bound himself not to recognize any other place in England except ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely versed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could distinguish in the most delicate questions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakespeare's time, did not signify, at least did not only signify verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy, but according ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Senate is in reality an important factor in legislation. As is well known in recent years, government in Great Britain is virtually that of the House of Commons, in large measure through a cabinet practically of its own appointment. The King is little more than a ceremonial figure-head, and the House of Lords is almost in a death struggle for existence. The end would probably come by serious attempt upon its part to thwart the popular will as expressed through the House of Commons. The power of Edward the Seventh is but a shadow of that exercised almost without let ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Shrine, was compelled to visit Pittsburgh in connection with his official duties. Clayton carried Alfred with him as protection. Alfred, in his haste, forgot his dress suit. Arriving in Pittsburgh only a few moments before the ceremonial session, Bill insisted Alfred wear one of his (Bill's) dress suits; that it was the rule of the Temple that all must wear dress suits to gain admission. Bill is wider than Alfred, "thicker through," but not ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... that a wedding is a ceremonial affair, where all the grand formalities must be observed?" asked Nellie. "You wouldn't have us scuffle through it in old shoes and ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... several subfields. Chief of state includes the name and title of the titular leader of the country who represents the state at official and ceremonial functions but may not be involved with the day-to-day activities of the government. Head of government includes the name and title of the top administrative leader who is designated to manage the day-to-day activities of the government. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and through him they expected nature to give them whatever was necessary to their existence—above all, rain. Jahveh is the god of Israel, and consequently the god of justice: this is the logic of every race that has power in its hands and a good conscience in the use of it. In the religious ceremonial of the Jews both aspects of this self-approval stand revealed. The nation is grateful for the high destiny that has enabled it to obtain dominion; it is grateful for the benign procession of the ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... second charter, when the Earl added four other churches and more lands to the same abbey, and again in a charter of King Alexander.[5] Twenty-five or thirty years later the Church of S. Patrick was the scene of a somewhat significant ceremonial. Earl Robert, Gilbert's son, had evidently offended against the powers spiritual, and sought, or was brought to seek, a reconciliation. A charter of his time records that Earl Robert, son of the aforesaid Gilbert, in presence of Abraham, Bishop of Dunblane, Gilbert, the archdeacon, and other notable ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... the utmost ceremony, treating him as a god and bringing him a profusion of gifts of various kinds. With Indian guides, the English hunted and slew the deer with which the region abounded and shared the wigwams of the redskins in ceremonial gatherings. When they finally took their departure the savages made bitter lamentation and stood on the hilltops waving their farewells until the sails of Drake's little ship had sunk beneath ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... laboring under oppression; for a Hamerton to return to her would therefore have been quite in accordance with those romantic sentiments about distant ancestors which were at that time very strong in me. Besides this, I had all the feeling for the august ceremonial of the Catholic Church which is found in the writer who most influenced me, Sir Walter Scott; and there was already a certain consciousness of artistic necessities and congruities which made me dimly aware that if ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... extinguished. Every house must also at that moment have been newly swept and washed. Enmities are forgotten. If a person under sentence for a crime can steal in unobserved and appear among the worshippers when their exercises begin, his crime is no more remembered. The first ceremonial is to light the new fire of the year. A square board is brought, with a small circular hollow in the center. It receives the dust of a forest tree, or of dry leaves. Five chiefs take turns to whirl the stick, until the friction produces a flame. From this sticks are lighted and conveyed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... priesthood, virgins to whom certain magical powers were supposed to be attached; it was, I think, a popular performance, like one or two others which are also outside the limit of the Fasti,[106] and was embodied in a more complicated ceremonial long after that calendar had been drawn up. In the ritual authorised by the State, with public objects in view, i.e. for the benefit of society as a whole, there is hardly a trace of anything that we can call genuine ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... wraps had had to assume the costumes as a punishment, because they had allowed women to outwit or out-hunt them in the joint pursuit of the same animal. Whenever a man and a woman, during one of these ceremonial hunts, chase the same rabbit, and the woman succeeds in slaying it, then her male competitor must exchange his dress for that of the successful woman, who in turn proudly, amidst applause and jeerings, assumes the garb of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... arriving about this time at Paris to negotiate with the Court of France, great difficulties arose with regard to the ceremonial. The Pope's Nuncios, Mazarin, and Bolognetti, and the other Ambassadors, would not visit him because they could not agree about the manner in which he should receive them: the English and Swedish Ambassadors did not even send their Coaches ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... Magnificence and Solemnity in the Equipage of the Relict, and an Air [of [1]] Release from Servitude in the Pomp of a Son who has lost a wealthy Father. This Fashion of Sorrow is now become a generous Part of the Ceremonial between Princes and Sovereigns, who in the Language of all Nations are stiled Brothers to each other, and put on the Purple upon the Death of any Potentate with whom they live in Amity. Courtiers, and all who wish themselves such, are immediately ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... read throughout Christendom. He writes so much that he is often short of paper. He has not tablets enough to put down his notes. He asks Romanianus to give him some. His beautiful tablets, the ivory ones, are used up; he has used the last one for a ceremonial letter, and he asks his friend's pardon for writing to him on ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... carcase, an incantation being pronounced over the burning beast. The remainder of the herd became well, and their recovery was attributed by the farmer and his simple-minded neighbours, not to the skill of the veterinary surgeon, but to the success of the weird ceremonial prescribed by the fortune-teller. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... neighbors and went with them on the warpath against the Iroquois, the French held to the policy of making friends with the Indians. No pains were spared to win them to the cause of France. They were flattered, petted, treated with ceremonial respect, and became the companions, as the women often became the wives, of the Frenchmen. Much was expected of this mingling of races. It was supposed that the Indian would be won over to civilization and Christianity. But the Frenchmen were won over to the ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... is the titular leader of the country who represents the state at official and ceremonial functions but is not involved with the day- to-day activities of the government. The head of government is the administrative leader who manages the day-to-day activities of the government. In the UK, the monarch is the chief of state, and the Prime Minister is ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... With ceremonial as grave as that which is at work within the thresher itself, the tasks have been divided. At the root of all things, pitchforking from the stack, stands—the farmer, moustached, and always upright was he not in the Yeomanry?—dignified in a hard black hat, no waistcoat, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... primitive ceremonial, begun by King Orry early in the tenth century, is observed to this day. On Midsummer-day of this year of grace a ceremony similar in all its essentials will be observed by the present Governor, his Keys, clergy, deemsters, coroners, and people, on or near the same spot. It is the ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... ignorance, self-seeking and hatred, etc., etc. The savage who believes that his medicine man's antics, paint and feathers will bring rain and fertile soil has his counterpart in the civilized man who believes that this or that ceremonial and professed belief insures salvation. Faith is beautiful in the abstract, but in the concrete it is often the origin of superstition and amazing folly.[1] However crudely intelligence and honest scientific ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... or Shorne; but all these were found to be closed; and the desire of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester to lay him in their Cathedral had been entertained, when the Dean of Westminster's request, and the considerate kindness of his generous assurance that there should be only such ceremonial as would strictly obey all injunctions of privacy, made it a grateful duty to accept that offer. The spot already had been chosen by the Dean; and before mid-day on the following morning, Tuesday the 14th ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... wait for the sincere aspirant towards life. The first is the terrible danger of becoming that most odious and least supportable of persons—a prig. Now a prig is a pert fellow who gives himself airs of superior wisdom. A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour. A prig is a tedious individual who, having made a discovery, is so impressed by his discovery that he is capable of ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... and the unity of impression from the service is much more undisturbed. The music, too, descriptive of that era which promised peace on earth, good-will to men, was very sweet, and the pastorale particularly soothed the heart amid the crowd, and pompous ceremonial. But here, too, the sweet had its bitter, in the vulgar vanity of the leader of the orchestra, a trait too common in such, who, not content with marking the time for the musicians, made his stick heard in the remotest nook of the church; so that what ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... for a while, either, unless—well, unless something pretty radical happens. I think these chaps have settled down for a good long stay in their happy hunting-ground, after the fight and the big feast. It's sort of a notion I've got, that this place, here, is some ancient, ceremonial ground of theirs." ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... where the printed text is quite clear, remain unsolved. I venture to trouble you with the only words which embarrass me in a rather long and complete narrative of the burial of Abd el Mejied and the ceremonial of installing his brother as his successor. If you can translate the line or ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... credible—those which deal with the most monstrous and astounding follies of a strange people. Their ceremony of marriage by decapitation; their custom of facing to the rear when riding on horseback; their practice of walking on their hands in all ceremonial processions; their selection of the blind for military command; their pig-worship—these and many other comparatively natural particulars of their religious, political, intellectual and social life I reserve for treatment in the great work for which I shall soon ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... ceremonial of depositing the stone as imposing as circumstances would permit, we enveloped it in the 'star-spangled banner' of our country, and it was borne to its resting place in the arms of the descendants of four revolutionary patriots and soldiers—SAMUEL LEWIS, son of George Lewis, a captain ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... by the Alcayde and the other dignitaries with the same stately and formal courtesy that he had every where remarked. In fact, there was so much form and ceremonial, that it seemed difficult to get at any thing social or substantial. Nothing but bows, and compliments, and old-fashioned courtesies. The Alcayde and his courtiers resembled, in face and form, those ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the tale—the surrender of the estate during the owner's lifetime. This is a well-marked feature of early custom, and Du Chaillu has preserved something like the survival of the ritual observances connected with it in his account of the Scandinavian practice. On a visit to Husum he witnessed the ceremonial which attended the immemorial custom of the farm coming into possession of the eldest son, the father still being alive. The following is Mr. Du Chaillu's description, and the details are important: "The dinner being ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the gorgeous pomp and ceremonial of the court-pageant had passed away, and in a dim light the treacherous balcony at Cumnor Place was visible. In the hush that pervaded the theatre, the minister heard the ticking of his watch, and Mrs. Laurance the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... [1] A ceremonial title applied to deceased persons, analogous to our "the late." "Justified" is not an exact rendering, but it ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... Esq., about the 10th inst., a Spanish Negro Fellow, named John, of middle stature, about 30 years of age: Had on when he went away, only a shirt and trowsers, a cotton cap, a pair of old shoes; he is a cunning fellow and subject to make game at the ceremonial part of all religious worship except that of the papists; he is proud, and dislikes to be called a negroe, HAS FORMERLY BEEN A PRIVATEERING, and talks much (with a seeming pleasure) of the cruelties he then committed. Whoever takes up said Negroe, and takes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began a ceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently purchased from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—that is, alone and in full view of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... only the topmost layers of which are subject to change and control, and have been somewhat modified by human philosophy, ethics, and religion, or by other acts of intelligent reflection. We are told of savages that "It is difficult to exhaust the customs and small ceremonial usages of a savage people. Custom regulates the whole of a man's actions,—his bathing, washing, cutting his hair, eating, drinking, and fasting. From his cradle to his grave he is the slave of ancient usage. In his life there is nothing free, nothing original, nothing spontaneous, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... precious scroll of the Moral Law. Hitherto Judaism had been a dead letter to her. Of Portuguese descent, her family had always been members of the oldest and most orthodox congregation of New York, where strict adherence to custom and ceremonial was the watchword of faith; but it was only during her childhood and earliest years that she attended the synagogue, and conformed to the prescribed rites and usages which she had now long since abandoned as obsolete and having no bearing on modern life. Nor had she any great enthusiasm ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... however, is left in our power, and that is the most important of all, namely, the direction which revision shall take—that of conservative and recuperative addition, or that of further evisceration, ceremonial or devotional." [5] ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... who studies this ceremonial of Roman marriage, in the light of the ideas which it indicates and reflects, can avoid the conclusion that the position of the married woman must have been one of substantial dignity, calling for and calling out a corresponding type of character. Beyond doubt the ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... discerning the necessity of taking under their special patronage those passive virtues which man least loved, and found it must difficult to cultivate; and of exhibiting, in their preference of the spiritual to the ceremonial, and their treatment of many of the most delicate questions of practical ethics and casuistry, a justness and elevation of sentiment as alien as possible from the superstition and fanaticism of their predecessors who ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... are used by the Indians only in their sacred and ceremonial dances. In them is placed a small quantity of meal; they are then borne in the hands of the women, who, during the dance, take a small quantity of the meal, just as much as they can hold between the tips of the ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... out of a room after their visit is really over? They want to be off, and you want to have them off, but they don't know how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your parlour or study, and were waiting to be launched. I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such visitors, which being lubricated with certain smooth phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speaking, stern-foremost, into their "native element," the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes |
