"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aspects of his thighs, brought on by the friction of his breechcloth in running. He said that he had run constantly when not in sight from our camp, had traveled a long way since morning, and was very tired. It seems to be the custom with the akáninilis to walk slowly when near camp and to run when out of sight, probably to follow the mythic examples of ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... It has been the custom, of recent years, for the Abbey Theatre to begin its Dublin season In October and to continue it on until May, when the company goes to London for a month. In the earlier years, before the company had a home at the Abbey, and even for a year or two after that, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... 1855, by Dr. Horatius Bonar. James Bonar, brother of the poet-preacher, just after the communion for that month, asked him to furnish a hymn for the communion record. It was the church custom to print a memorandum of each service at the Lord's table, with an appropriate hymn attached, and an original one would be thrice welcome. Horatius in a day or two sent ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... a very common custom for beginners to make camp furniture, posts, and fences of white birch. This is due to the fact that the wood is easily worked and gives us very pretty effects. Birch however is not at all durable and if we expect to use our camp ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... failing and the shore is nearing. Life-belts are taken off, the destroyers have disappeared. We are on the quay, kindly welcomed by an officer from G.H.Q. who passes our bags rapidly through the Custom House, and carries us off to a neighbouring hotel for the night, it being too late for the long drive to G.H.Q. We are in France again!—and the great presence of the army is all about us. The quay ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast—not however, like them, in order to purify the body, and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination—but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. He kept vigils, likewise, night ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... head with a little hopeless sigh. "You do not know Vienna; you do not know the iron strength of caste, and custom and stiff-necked pride. I am dead in Vienna. And the dead ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... man is better with no wife at all than with three. But why do you talk about such matters with me, an unbeliever, a Christian, who, in the words of your prophet, 'shall swallow down nothing but fire into my belly, and shall broil in raging flames' when I die? Surely it is contrary to the custom of your co-religionists; and how can you expect an infidel Frank ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... It was Boone's custom to go out some miles from camp every morning, returning at the close of the day with as much game as he could carry, and often leaving a quantity at a particular spot to be sent for with a packhorse. One afternoon Boone was making his way toward the salt works after a day of successful ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank
... authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things, since the very doctrine of catholic doctors derives its authority from the Church. Hence we ought to abide by the authority of the Church rather than by that of an Augustine or a Jerome or of any doctor whatever. Now it was never the custom of the Church to baptize the children of the Jews against the will of their parents, although at times past there have been many very powerful catholic princes like Constantine and Theodosius, with whom most holy bishops have been on most friendly terms, as Sylvester ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... suicide, and the object was found in his hut. The date was 1831. M. Tscherepanoff could not believe his eyes, and searched in vain for an iron wire, or other mechanism, but could find nothing of the sort. This anecdote, if it does not prove a miracle, illustrates a custom. {51} ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... that one of them should come to Madrid to confer with him. Such matters, he said, could be better treated by word of mouth. He might thus receive sufficient information to enable him to form a decision, for, said he in conclusion, it was not his custom to aggrieve any of his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... incoming aircraft would bring a cargo of precious cases, each almost worth its weight in silver or maybe the skipper would carry a small packet in his pocket that might contain a duke's ransom in diamonds that would never pay custom ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... assistant told of both Pierre and Paul having spent most of the night away from their room. Contrary to custom, Pierre went out first. A few minutes afterward, Paul left, starting in an opposite direction from that taken by his father. Puzzled at this change in Lanier habits, and fearing some new flight, the assistant followed, but soon losing ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... The custom must have been still rare at the end of the eighteenth century, for, as we are informed by Moore in a note to his Fudge Family ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... advantage of his mother's absence, who, according to her usual custom, was gone to gossip with some of her neighbors, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Josephine, he hastened over fields and hedges, to the ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... alle Terme—that magnificent temple, unrivalled even at Rome in interest and grandeur, which now stands as it stood when it formed the Pinacotheca of the Thermae of Dioclesian. There, accompanied by much funeral pomp, the body of Salvator lay in state; the head and face, according to the Italian custom, being exposed to view. All Rome poured into the vast circumference of the church, to take a last view of the painter of the Roman people—the "Nostro Signor Salvatore" of the Pantheon; and the popular feelings ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... come out therefrom?' And to this question the answer was ever negative. Outside Rehoboth dwelt the alien. In course of years the prejudice towards the intruder submitted itself to the force of custom, and less suspicious became the looks, and less harsh the tongues. Even then, however, the old Rehobothite remained a Hebrew of Hebrews; while the others, at the best, were but proselytes of the gate. It was the first brunt ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... dictated it aloud to Georgette, as is her custom, I knew the contents of the letter; and I have written ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... originally may be assign'd. We are to consider him as a Writer, of whom no authentic Manuscript was extant; as a Writer, whose Pieces were dispersedly perform'd on the several Stages then in Being. And it was the Custom of those Days for the Poets to take a Price of the Players for the Pieces They from time to time furnish'd; and thereupon it was suppos'd, they had no farther Right to print them without the Consent of the Players. As it was the Interest of the Companies to keep their Plays unpublish'd, ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... is the youngest Miss Harper, as we should explain to our kind friends here—whom I hope we are not boring very much with our family reminiscences. And Eulalie, contrary to the usual custom of the Harpers, is actually going to be married. To a clergyman, is he not, N. L.?—late Curate of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... he closed his door, and locked himself in; double locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... and never stain without first trying the effect on the back of the easel-plate with pure gamboge, and if you wish for a very clear orange-stain, mix with the gamboge a little ordinary red ink. It is too much the custom to "pick out" every bit of silver "canopy" work with dottings and stripings of yellow. A little sometimes warms up pleasantly what would be too cold—and the old men used it with effect: but the modern tendency, as is the case in all things merely imitative, is to overdo ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Danville street stood the house where Daisy Templeton had found a temporary home. A number of ladies, wives of the Judge and various lawyers, had assembled here to dine, a custom prevalent upon public occasions. The group were deeply engrossed in needle-work and cheerful conversation, when suddenly the crowds on the square began surging and clamoring as though the turbulence of an angry sea had been turned loose upon a peaceful plain, Shouts rose higher ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... every here and there they found traces of animals, of whose presence they would otherwise have been ignorant. Skene was the first to notice footprints, snuffling loudly and growling, and setting up his fur about his neck, according to his custom when he smelt an enemy; and upon these tracks being examined, they proved to be similar to those which would be made by a dog with thick claws and ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... weather-beaten into the most delicious hues; the pavement is enchantingly encumbered with peddlers and stalls and all kinds of trades going on in the open air, in that bright, merry, beautiful Italian custom which, alas, alas! is being driven away by new-fangled laws which deem it better for the people to be stuffed up in close, stewing rooms without air, and would fain do away with all the good-tempered politics and the sensible philosophies ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... married woman to do? Though of course'—(she removed her spectacles as if they hindered her from thinking, and hid them under the timepiece till she should go on reading)—'of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them. I am sure I would not have sent it to a man for ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... members of his church there was one young man, a little older than himself, with whom he had long lived in such close friendship that it was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to call them David and Jonathan. The real name of the friend was William Dane, and he, too, was regarded as a shining instance of youthful piety, though somewhat given to over-severity towards ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... season, by him and all his clients, and on the 16th of that month he went to Gonda, where the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, was encamped with his force, to take leave preparatory to his going to bathe at Ajoodheea, on the last day of the month of Kartick, as was his invariable custom. He was accompanied by the Rajah of Bulrampoor, and they encamped separately in two mango-groves near to each other, and about a mile and a half from the Nazim's camp. About nine at night the Nazim sent two messengers, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... custom of riding into a hall while the lord and his guests sat at meat might be illustrated by numerous passages of ancient romance and history. But a quotation from Chaucer's beautiful and half-told tale ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... noble ladies are not suffered to see those to whom they are to be wedded, Signora, if that is what your eccellenza means, and, to me, the custom has always seemed unjust, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the ground floors of all inhabited buildings by raising them off the ground some 4 ft. The aspect of the buildings will usually be arranged so as to catch the prevailing wind, and the mode of construction varies greatly according to the custom and resources of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... princes at large, but in process of time the choice was made over to nine princes, called electors. After 1438, all emperors of Germany were of the house of Hapsburg, the royal family of Austria. This was not law, but custom. In the days of Napoleon I. the old German Empire was broken up. The title of Emperor of Germany was discontinued, though he who would have borne it still held an imperial title as Emperor of Austria. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... our brackets,—the guest is calling to the waiter, "Garcon! et le bain de pieds!" Waiter! and the foot-bath!—The little glass stands in a small tin saucer or shallow dish, and the custom is to more than fill the glass, so that some extra brandy rung over into this tin saucer or cup-plate, to the manifest gain of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... manuscript, however, was composed many years before this. Its author says that his grandfather, the king Hun Yg, and his father, Balam, both died in 1521, and his own marriage took place in 1522. As it was the custom of his nation to marry young, he was probably, at the time, not over ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... field. The cook and his scullions came to and fro through the door of the kitchen with anxious faces, for they feared lest the meats should be overdone, but as yet King Arthur would not sit to dinner. For it was his custom never to go to meat on that day until he had heard or seen some ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... noble boy! It was a great trial to me to part with him three years ago. He is much older than Beulah, and loves her as well as if she were his sister," said the matron, more hastily than was her custom, when ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... became a great favourite of the king on the following occasion. It was the custom, when the king went through the lobbies of the palace, for those who preceded him to cry out, 'Sharp, sharp, look sharp!' in order to clear the way. Mr. Sharp, who was waiting in a room just by (preparing some colours), hearing his name repeated so urgently, ran out in great haste, and came up with ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the custom of all the Templars, Lohengrin sprang into the boat, and was rapidly borne away, to the ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... it was now his custom to go to his room and there, shut in, to read. He read no books on the war, and even the quarter column entitled Salient Points of the Day's War News hardly received ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... other simply cousins, after the good old German custom," said the grand duke gayly; "ceremony is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... custom, had risen with the dawn, and was now alone in the lower hall, standing opposite the window which overlooked the high road. He was occupied in fixing an iron lance upon a wooden rod, at ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... their footsteps without swerving either to the right hand or the left; but, to do him justice, he was stimulated to activity in his vocation by a better motive than that which arises either from custom or an estimate of hereditary right—he was at heart, as well as in word, a Christian, and the promises contained in, together with the prospects held out by, the book he perused so eagerly, had been, from the moment when reason dawned, the ruling principle by which his ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... power that man acquires who masters it. He who can lead himself, or others, into a habit can do anything. Even Religion is, in fact, nothing else. "Religion," said the reviewer of "The Evolution of the Idea of God," by GRANT ALLEN, "he defines as Custom or Practice—not theory, not theology, not ethics, not spiritual aspirations, but a certain set of more or less similar observances: propitiation, prayer, praise, offerings, the request for Divine favors, the deprecation of Divine anger, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... politely acknowledged the salutation of Mrs. Edwards, and in as few words as possible he stated his errand. With painful embarrassment of manner, Mrs. Edwards informed him that she could not tell him anything about her husband's movements, as, contrary to his usual custom, he had not informed her of the route he intended to take when he left home. Not a word or a hint was given of the trouble that was preying upon her heart, of the harsh, unfeeling treatment to which she had been subjected, or of the brutal ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... picturing and practical logic are the distinction of exceptionally strong natures; but society is chiefly made up of human beings whose daily acts are all performed either in unreflecting obedience to custom and routine or from immediate promptings of thought or feeling to execute an immediate purpose. They pay their poor-rates, give their vote in affairs political or parochial, wear a certain amount of starch, hinder boys from tormenting the helpless, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... wilderness, eating in such a primitive manner. She thought of her old home in Connecticut, and how carefully her mother had trained her. She remembered how when a child she had been rebuked because she had taken a piece of meat in her fingers. But it was the custom here in the wild, and she rather enjoyed it. And as she ate, the two Indians watched her with much interest. Such a novelty did she seem to them, that she could not ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... universe of misery. For was not the world full of men and women who groaned, not merely under poverty and cruelty, weakness and sickness, but under dullness and stupidity, hugged in the paralyzing arms of that devil-fish, The Commonplace, or held fast to the rocks by the crab Custom, while the tide of moral indifference was fast rising to choke them? Was there no prophet, no redemption, no mediator for such as these? Were there not thousands of women, born with a trembling impulse towards the true and lovely, in whom ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... its nail in the kitchen. Then, whistling cheerily below his breath, he set about laying the fire. The kettles were already filled. Mrs. Peck always saw to that before retiring. There was milk in the pantry, brandy in the cupboard. According to invariable custom, all was in readiness for any possible emergency, and having satisfied himself that this was the case, he thrust his bare feet into boots and ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... said the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, should she disappear with M'sieu's watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not be able to leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her. Yes, it is the custom here. A neat ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian had been saying to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... going on at a dismal rate. An Arab dhow was seen on the lake, but it kept well out of the way. Dr. Livingstone was informed by Colonel Rigdy, late British Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000 slaves from this Nyassa region alone passed annually through the custom-house there. This was besides those landed at Portuguese slave ports. In addition to those captured, thousands were killed or died of their wounds or of famine, or perished in other ways, so that not one-fifth of the victims became ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... his eyes sent the blood in a crimson wave over his tanned cheeks and caused him to draw back with a start. It was inconsistent that he should have been so completely abashed at sight of a fully-dressed sleeping girl who was placidly unconscious of his gaze, when it was his custom to regularly occupy the stalls and enjoy the choruses and ballets composed of young ladies very wide awake, and wearing only as much covering as compelled by the law; but where ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... rode over to the Field of Mars—a huge piece of ground on the Lake front—for the evening parade of the Cuirassiers of the Guard. This was their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and on every one of them it had been the unbroken custom for the then governor of Dornlitz to be present and pass the Regiment in Review—saving, of course, in war-time, when it chanced to be in ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... exciting book, written by Captain Joshua Slocum, and entitled, "Sailing Alone Round the World," there is a part wherein the adventurous American seaman relates how he protected himself from night attacks by the savages by a simple, but efficient precaution. It was his custom, when he anchored for the night off the snow-clad and inhospitable shores of Tierra del Fuego, to profusely sprinkle his cutter's deck with sharp tacks, and then calmly turn in and sleep the sleep of the just; for even the horny ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... of the assizes to be found in modern Greek, and the dukes of Athens, princes of Thebes, and other lords of that region, who appear in Shakspeare's comedies, applied this system of law, and perhaps many an obscure custom referred to in those plays might be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... morning, at which time the chances are ten to one that, awakening refreshed and strengthened, he commences to stray back along the way he came, or in some other direction; accordingly, it is a common custom, about eight or nine o'clock, to yard one's team, and turn them out with the first daylight for another three or four hours' feed. Yarding bullocks is, however, a bad plan. They do their day's work of from fifteen to twenty miles, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... engaged for the second country dance, but promised me the third, and assured me, with the most agreeable freedom, that she was very fond of waltzing. "It is the custom here," she said, "for the previous partners to waltz together; but my partner is an indifferent waltzer, and will feel delighted if I save him the trouble. Your partner is not allowed to waltz, and, indeed, is equally incapable: but I observed during the country dance ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Every social custom has a foundation established by usage as a recognition of social needs, and intended to prevent rudeness and confusion; intended also to make polite society polite. We must conform, according to our circle, to social conventions as thus established, since they are the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... torrent, as it' rushed to the river below, which was seething with the tumult of the cataract. De Saussure recommended the inspection of Alpine dangers, with the view of making them familiar to the eye before they are encountered; and it is a wholesome custom in places of difficulty to put the possibility of an accident clearly before the mind, and to decide beforehand what ought to be done should the accident occur. Thus wound up in the present instance, I entered the water. Even where it was not more than knee-deep, its ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... attracted the majority of this business to him. He had houses and lands, was a deacon in the local Baptist Church and a counselor in matters political, social and religious, whose advice was seldom rejected. Every Fourth of July during these years it was his custom to collect all the children of the town in front of his store and treat them to ice-cream. Every Christmas Eve he traveled about the streets in a wagon, which carried half a dozen barrels of candy and nuts, which he would ladle out to the merry shouting ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... sides, but likewise separates the parallel ranges. The uniformity of the colouring gives an extreme quietness to the view;—the whitish grey of the quartz rock, and the light brown of the withered grass of the plain, being unrelieved by any brighter tint. From custom one expects to see in the neighbourhood of a lofty and bold mountain a broken country strewed over with huge fragments. Here Nature shows that the last movement before the bed of the sea is changed ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... custom in these country places at that time, there was a long pause after the sermon was over. The coffin was opened, and one after another went up and looked on the face of the dead, and it seemed to David that they would never be done with it, and ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... go on board at all events. The blue Peter was flying at the masthead, besides which there was a board announcing that she would sail with the morning's tide. It was the custom, in those days especially, for merchantmen to sail on a Sunday. The stages leading on board had been removed, with the exception of a single plank to the gangway. My longing to go on board increasing, I indulged it. None of the crew were moving about aft. ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... to what, by your messenger, you have signified to us, whether we will accept of your mercy, or fall by your justice, we are bound by the law and custom of this place, and can give you no positive answer; for it is against the law, government, and the prerogative royal of our king, to make either peace or war without him. But this we will do,—we will petition that ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... slow to comprehend, and slower to forget. Some one had nicknamed Juan Quereno the "Mule" when he was at school, and Spain, like Italy and parts of Provence, is a country where men have two names—the baptismal, and the so-called. Indeed, the custom is so universal, that official records must needs take cognizance of it, and grave Government papers are made out in the name of so-and-so, "named ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... and now it is all coming true. A night will come when I shall have to yield myself to a marriage which I detest, for Jove has taken from me all hope of happiness. This further grief, moreover, cuts me to the very heart. You suitors are not wooing me after the custom of my country. When men are courting a woman who they think will be a good wife to them and who is of noble birth, and when they are each trying to win her for himself, they usually bring oxen and sheep to feast the friends of the lady, and they make her magnificent presents, ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... it would seem that the prophet Martineau had declared that in this New Age that was presently to dawn for mankind, jealousy was to be disciplined even as we had disciplined lust and anger; instead of ruling our law it was to be ruled by law and custom. No longer were the jealousy of strange peoples, the jealousy of ownership and the jealousy of sex to determine the framework of human life. There was to be one peace and law throughout the world, one economic ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... tradesman, smiling. Then, seeing an opportunity, he added, "You are leaving Harrow, Mr. Beaumont-Greene, but I trust, sir, you will not take your custom with you. We have always ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... speculation of other lands, and to shape the intellectual world of the Emperor's subjects into that precise form which tradition prescribed as suitable for the members of a well-regulated State. In poetry, the works of Lord Byron were excluded from circulation, where custom-house officers and market-inspectors chose to enforce the law; in history and political literature, the leading writers of modern times lay under the same ban. Native production was much more effectively controlled. Whoever wrote in ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... climate of the islands, except in the mountains and uplands, is rarely so cold as to make it necessary to gather about a fire seems to argue that the custom of practising this dance about a fireplace must have originated in some land of climate more ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... order, has adopted the usual tone in regard to the men of 1640 throughout his otherwise valuable annotations: and somewhere or other (in the Life of Hammond, according to my remembrance) he has made a statement to this effect—That the custom prevalent among children in that age of asking their parents' blessing was probably first brought into disuse by the Puritans. Is it possible to imagine a perversity of prejudice more unreasonable? The unamiable side of ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... to witness such scenes was the daily lot of a sick pauper, who knew also that when dead he would have little better than the burial of a dog, since it was the common custom in many workhouses to bury corpses naked, with no covering but a few shavings thrown over the body. Little wonder was it that the poor, when overtaken by age or disease, shrank from the thought of entering a place which to them seemed worse than a prison, choosing rather ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... defiled, and rendered incapable of visiting the Temple to perform his devotions, till after the evening of the day on which the defilement took place], therefore all the four Gospels which all contain, this story, must have been written by Gentiles ignorant of the custom which ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... and your Highnesses (the States-General) must without long delay conclude an alliance offensive and defensive. In regard to England, which perhaps might look askance at this matter, he told me it would be invited also by his Majesty into the same alliance; but if, according to custom, it shilly-shallied, and without coming to deeds or to succour should put him off with words, he should in that case proceed with our alliance without England, not doubting that many other potentates in Italy and Germany would join ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... want to foller the Japans I could tell you a custom of theirn, and I would give ten cents willin'ly ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... of the living. It was the one devoted to the principal meals of the day; a strange choice, but convenience had dictated its adoption by those with whom this part of the ceremonial had originated, and long custom had rendered its usage, for this purpose, almost prescriptive. This room, which was of some size, had originally formed part of the great hall, from which it was divided by a thick screen of black, lustrously ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fellow-helpers in spite of adverse resolutions. It is probable that no speculative or theological hatred would be ultimately strong enough to resist the persuasive power of convenience: that a latitudinarian baker, whose bread was honourably free from alum, would command the custom of any dyspeptic Puseyite; that an Arminian with the toothache would prefer a skilful Calvinistic dentist to a bungler stanch against the doctrines of Election and Final Perseverance, who would be likely to break the tooth in his head; and that a Plymouth Brother, who had a well furnished grocery ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... though a close observer might have noted long intervals in which he took no heed of the book, but stared dreamily into space. He saw Edith at the table, and in the evenings, and occasionally at afternoon tea—a pleasant custom which she and Madame never failed to observe,—but she seemed to make it a point not to trespass upon his ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... is well known to be a barren desert to the bees during a greater portion of the year. Hence the judicious practice of shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of the season, and the custom of other nations in this ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... go on supplying good stuff, and trade would be sure to come back to them. For their former partner had done them much harm by systematic adulteration, and a little way down the street a new establishment, with painted tiles and brass lamps, had been opened, and was attracting all the custom of the neighbourhood. She was more anxious than William to know what loss the books showed; she was jealous of the profits of his turf account, and when he laughed at her she said, "But you're never here in the daytime, you do not have these empty ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... grace of God, can make the Christian proof against these evils. O imitate the Saviour. Mark out for yourselves a definite line of conduct, consistent with your Christian profession, and adhere to it firmly, in spite of custom or contempt, and in the prospect ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... upon the breast and cried? for should I now so do for food suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at and reproved. What I then did was worthy reproof; but since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he prunes, wittingly casts away what is good. Or was it then good, even for a while, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... continued till the time of the Assizes that the Witch came to be tried, and was there upon her crutches; the Court asked her, That at the time she was taken with this lameness, if it were with her according to the custom of women? Her answer was, that it was so, and that she never had any stoppages of those things, but when she was with child. This is the substance of her ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... As was their custom now, the boys were outside passing the telescope from one to the other for a final look round, while the ladies clustered by the open door, loth to leave it for the closeness of their room, when the captain came round from the back and gave orders ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... (Turns to the rest.) You all know the old custom, that when a woman is sentenced to death for a capital offence, as she is, her life will be saved and she will be free if an irreproachable man comes forth and upholds her innocence and declares himself ready and willing to marry her. That custom ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... more. Following the usual, most correct method in such procedures, he went abroad. After a week of irritating meditations, furtive, all but unconquerable desires, after he had passed the day on which it had been his custom for months to call upon her, after he had learned how to discipline the hours he had used to spend riding with her in the Row, he felt as a convalescent after some exhausting malady—quiescent, dulled, possessed ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... were generally chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order. In addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the Consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lot—one of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its environs, the other taking the command in the more distant provinces. This expedient must, no ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... both receive the Satisfaction you want, and gain Money likewise; for the first Charge is all you will be put to, which will be but three Guinea's, and Ten Shillings to the Attendants, who by the Services they will do you, will very well deserve it: Then she enquir'd of the Bawd what the Custom of the House were, and how she must manage herself in that Affair? And then she cou'd the better tell her whether she cou'd order Matters so as to ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... striking nine as, according to his custom of late, Geoffrey Ravenslee trundled his barrow blithely along Thirty-eighth Street, halting now and then at the shrill, imperious summons of some small customer, or by reason of the congestion of early traffic, or to swear whole-heartedly and be sworn at by some indignant ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... partem traheretur oratio. Cicero, De Oratore. Aristotle was the most eminent of Plato's scholars: he retired to a gymnasium, or place of exercise, in the neighbourhood of Athens, called the Lyceum, where, from a custom, which he and his followers observed, of discussing points of philosophy, as they walked in the porticos of the place, they obtained the name of Peripatetics, or the walking philosophers. See Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. ii. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... to swear unto a sin, But greater sin to keep a sinful oath. Who can be bound by any solemn vow To do a murtherous deed, to rob a man, To force a spotless virgin's chastity, To reave the orphan of his patrimony, To wring the widow from her custom'd right, And have no other reason for this wrong But that he was bound by a ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... purchase, the wife being bought by the husband from her father's family. A relic of this custom perhaps still survives in the modern ceremony, when the father gives the bride in marriage to the bridegroom. Polygamy was not unknown; and it was usual for men to marry their father's widows. The wives, being part of the father's property, naturally became part ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... the college, a society made up of all the best scholars. Charles was chosen a member of that society. It was the custom to choose some one of the society to deliver a public address every year. This honor was conferred on Charles; and he had studied so diligently, and read so much, that he delivered an address which was very interesting ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... experience the objective or even cosmical character of my enterprises. They have a momentum which makes me their instrument rather than their perpetrator. A paradoxical relation between religion and morality has always interested observers of custom and history. Religion is apparently as capable of the most fiendish malevolence as of the most saintly gentleness. Fielding ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... see you; we must get this horrid thing, which can only have come here by mistake, into the house. The man says we'll have to take off the door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined by the Vestry or Custom House or something for leaving ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sped up the work in the sewing room. It was lunch time, and though we were all hungry we dreaded going to the silence and the food in that gray dining room with the vile odors. We were counted again as we filed out, carrying our heavy chairs with us as is the workhouse custom. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... Areopagite. A strong case has been made out for believing the real author to be a Syrian mystic, named Stephen bar Sudaili, who lived late in the fifth century. If this theory is correct, the date of Dionysius will have to be moved somewhat later than it has been the custom to fix it. The book of the holy Hierotheus on "the hidden mysteries of the Divinity" has been but recently discovered, and only a summary of it has as yet been made public. But it is of great interest and importance for our subject, because the author has no ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... old women had a meeting, with many politenesses and ceremonious bowings, and because the thing appeared to them reasonable and most suitable, they settled the marriage. Had Patricius ever seen the girl that he was going to take, according to custom, so as to have a child-bearer and housewife? It is quite likely he had not. Was she pretty, rich, or poor? He considered such matters as secondary, since the marriage was not a love-match but a traditional duty to fulfil. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... wandering mendicant, beholding those great Rishis, approach them, and accosted them all by touching their hand according to the custom. Conversing then with each other about the difficulty of obtaining sustenance in that forest and the consequent necessity of bearing the pangs of hunger, all of them left that spot. Indeed, they wandered through that wilderness, all bent upon a common purpose, viz., the plucking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... question Cockburn herself; but nothing more was to be learned than what he had already told, that the packet from Lady Davenant had come by express to his master after Lady Cecilia had driven out, as it had been her custom of late, almost every day, to Kensington, to see her child. Nothing could be more natural, Mrs. Pennant thought, and she only wondered at Esther's unconvinced look of suspicion. "Nothing, surely, can be more natural, my dear Esther." To which Esther ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... morning, as was his custom. There was something in his look which, could I but have read it, was exceedingly descriptive of the workings of his heart. It was painful to see him. He endeavoured to smile and for a moment to talk triflingly, but could not. He was in a tremor; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... visited them, two hundred years ago; and also that similar treeless plains exist in South America and Central Africa, and have so existed ever since those countries were known. We are told by travellers in those regions, that the natives have the same custom of annually burning the dry grass and herbage for the same reason that our Indians did it, and that the early white settlers kept up the custom,—namely, to promote the growth of young and tender feed for the wild animals which the former hunted and the cattle which the latter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the older son and treated accordingly. There were certain privileges which by custom were given to oldest sons at their fathers' deaths, and these things constituted what was called a birthright. In addition to being treated as the older son Esau was also the favorite son of ...
— The Farmer Boy; the Story of Jacob • J. H. Willard
... with unusual satisfaction the arguments for Beards in Dr. Marcy's Theory and Practice of Medicine and the pleasant essays in the same behalf which John Waters has printed in the Knickerbocker. Our conservatism yields before these reformers, who would bring custom ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... cats slept at his feet and three more lay under the bed; despite all madame could do to remove them, these five out of the fourteen persisted in returning again and again to the familiar habitat which custom or attachment had made necessary. Their brown tigery sides rose and fell peacefully in the sound slumber induced by the plentiful fare of Clairville, but no sleep came to their master. Occasionally he would ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... at six. Took a car with my companion, Mr. K——, of Liverpool, and went down to the Great Western for our luggage. We met with great civility from the Custom-house officers. They would not allow luggage to pass after sunset the previous evening. After breakfast we heard service at Dr. Spring's Chapel, a Presbyterian: a beautiful chapel, and a respectable congregation, ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... of the trophy so hardly won. The Cup itself was safely stowed in the ship's strong chest, but the old man had let us have custody of the flag. Big Jones had particular charge of it; and it had been a custom while in 'Frisco to exhibit it on the Saturday nights to admiring and envious friends from other ships. This custom we continued when at sea. True, there were no visitors to set us up and swear what lusty chaps we ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of this time and greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no company or person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern, ale-house, or coffee-house to drink after nine of the clock in the evening, according to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the penalties ordained in ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... by far the most difficult sound to focus and should never be used for initial practice. Much valuable time has been lost by the custom of using this sound at first. It ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... pealed imperiously, and Tudor looked up from his book. It was his custom to read far into the night, for he was a poor sleeper and preferred a cosy fireside to his bed. But that night he was even later than usual. Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, he saw that it was a quarter to two. With a shrug of the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... consecrated corner to bear me away, I humbly returned to my hotel in the Place de Mer, and soothed myself with some terrestrial harmony; till, my eyes growing heavy, I fell fast asleep, and entered the empire of dreams, according to custom, by its ivory portal. What passed in those shadowy realms is too thin and unsubstantial to be committed to paper. The very breath of waking mortals would dissipate all the train, and drive them eternally away; give me leave, therefore, to omit the relation of my visionary ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... of custom and statute, largely criminal law; rudimentary civil code in effect since 1 January 1987; new legal codes in effect since 1 January 1980; continuing efforts are being made to improve civil, administrative, criminal, and ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... belief, in both sexes, of the mysterious influence of the steps of a woman on the vegetable and in sect creation, is found in an ancient custom, which was related to me, respecting corn-planting. It was the practice of the hunter's wife, when the field of corn had been planted, to choose the first dark or overclouded evening to perform a secret ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... on board, bearing Sir Edgar Desmond's name upon them, and these I had had carefully stowed away by themselves. This had been a busy day for me; for there were the articles to be signed, the ship to clear at the Custom House, bills to pay, and a hundred other little matters to attend to—among them the giving up of my lodgings, and the removal of my mother and myself with our dunnage to the ship—but when I turned in that night, in my own ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... timid Miss Tag-rag scarcely touched with the tip of her finger, as she walked beside him to dinner. He soon got tolerably composed and cheerful at dinner, (which, contrary to their usual custom—which was to have a cheerless cold dinner on the Sabbath—consisted of a little piece of nice roast beef, with plenty of horse-radish, Yorkshire pudding, a boiled fowl, a plum-pudding made by Mrs. Tag-rag, and custards which had been superintended ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... known as Cape Honduras. Here, on Sunday the 14th of August, the Adelantado landed with the captains of the caravels and many of the seamen, to attend mass, which was performed under the trees on the sea-shore, according to the pious custom of the admiral, whenever circumstances would permit. On the 17th, the Adelantado again landed at a river about fifteen miles from the point, on the bank of which he displayed the banners of Castile, taking possession of the country in the name of their Catholic Majesties; from which ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... that mysterious and mighty sentiment, the love of country. It rested in part on the recognition of material benefits. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, the tides of commerce flowed free, unvexed by a single custom-house. The Mississippi with its traffic united the Northern prairies and the Louisiana delta like a great artery. Safety to person and property under the laws, protection by an authority strong enough to curb riot or faction at home, and with a shielding arm that reached wherever an American ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam |
