"Hymenean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believe, in general, novelty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. A striking instance of this might be adduced, in the revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into stupid prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest, I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... possessed herself of clues of much value which could be readily followed up in connection with the projected journey. But a fortnight or more had elapsed without his hearing anything from her, and he had come to the conclusion that hymeneal joys must have driven all thoughts of business out of her ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... was a bachelor, which is a matter Of import both to virgin and to bride, The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter; And (should she not hold fast by Love or Pride) 'T is also of some moment to the latter: A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side, Requires decorum, and is apt to double The horrid sin—and what's still worse, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the bride and her attendants; and the couple were then led to the altar, and united in the holy bands of wedlock, by the Protopope, or Chief of the Clergy. The ceremony resembles that of the Catholic church, except that, towards the close, the priest places a hymeneal crown on the heads of the man and woman, and they walk three times round a table, where lie the cross and the Bible. This part of the proceeding is regarded as alternately binding them in strict allegiance ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... an equal flame. The flame she felt, and ill could she conceal What every look and action would reveal. With boldness then, which seldom fails to move, He pleads the cause of marriage and of love; The course of hymeneal joys he rounds, The fair one's eyes dance pleasure at the sounds. Naught now remain'd but "Noes"—how little meant— And the sweet coyness that endears consent. The youth upon his knees enraptured fell:— The strange misfortune, oh! what words can tell? Tell! ye neglected sylphs! who lap-dogs guard, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... stage-box. Omit not to punctuate with stag vacations long periods of domestic felicity. When Solomon declared that all was vanity and vexation of spirit I suspect that he had been more than unusually intemperate in frequenting the hymeneal altar. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... consent of all mankind and womankind to an innocent, sweet apostasy from the ranks of both. The value of living—which is loving; the sacredest wonders of life; all that is fairest and of best delight in thought, in feeling, yea, in substance,—all are apprehended under the floral crown and hymeneal veil. So, when at length one day Mrs. Richling said, "Madame Zenobie, don't you think I might sit up?" it would have been absurd to doubt the quadroon's willingness to assist her in dressing. True, here was neither wreath nor veil, but here ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... pressing, pleading so eloquently the violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time to obtain his father's consent and the necessary papers from Amsterdam—all of which he doubted not he should most satisfactorily procure by the kind aid of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... course,—was employed by the parents to negotiate terms and arrange the preliminaries; and when horoscopes had been compared and the stars found all right, with a little consequential chaffering, the hymeneal instruments were "executed." There was no trouble on the score of caste, both families being soodra; otherwise, the sensitive social balance would have had to be adjusted by the payment of a sum of money. When the skirts of the bride and bridegroom had been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... came, girt round with mirth, And garlanded with youth, and crown'd with flowers "Awake! arise! ye sons of the new birth, And move to the quick measure of the hours! Summer is coming—go ye forth to meet her, With sweetest hymeneal songs to greet her." ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... 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 was preparing some horrid and ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... at command, Forever at thy stamp, To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land, When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter, Tho' princes sought her, And lead her in procession hymeneal, Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal! Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf, Envelop'd in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs? Why, but because thou art some puny Dwarf, Some hopeless Imp, like Biquet with the Tuft, Fearing, for all thy ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... winds, that Huncamunca's mine! Echoes repeat, that Huncamunca's mine! The dreadful bus'ness of the war is o'er, And beauty, heav'nly beauty! crowns my toils! I've thrown the bloody garment now aside And hymeneal sweets invite ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... jester watched her draw near and ever nearer, their common trysting spot, her favorite garden nook. A handsome bride, forsooth, as Jacqueline had suggested. All in white was she now; a glittering white, with silver adornment; ravishingly hymeneal. A bride for a duke—or a king—more stately than the queen; handsomer than the favorite of favorites who ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... implicitly trusted for advice in such a matter,—and that his friend had told him that he was bound to give up the marriage let the consequences to himself or to others be what they might. "Although the skies should fall on me, I cannot stand at the hymeneal altar with a lie in my mouth," said Mr. Gibson immediately upon his rising from his prostrate condition on the floor. In such a position as this a mother's fury would surely be very great! But Mrs. French was hardly furious. She cried, and begged ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... procession was to pass had been strewn with fine yellow sand. Brazen tripods, disposed along the way at regular intervals, sent up to heaven the odorous smoke of cinnamon and spikenard. These vapours, moreover, alone clouded the purity of the azure above. The clouds of a hymeneal day ought, indeed, to be formed only by the burning of perfumes. Myrtle and rose-laurel branches were strewn upon the ground, and from the walls of the palaces were suspended by little rings of bronze rich tapestries, whereon the needles of industrious captives—intermingling wool, silver, and gold—had ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... solved. This afternoon, at four o'clock, the Hymeneal Blacksmith, of Gretna Green, celebrated the marriage between George Granby Silvertop, Esq., a Lieutenant in the 150th Hussars, third son of General John Silvertop, of Silvertop Hall, Yorkshire, and Lady Emily Silvertop, daughter ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the bride to her father-in-law's house and witness the religious ceremony by which the hymeneal tie is indissolubly knitted. It is essential that the omen bird should be favorable on the trip to the bridegroom's house, otherwise the party must return. Usually the parting injunction of the bride's father to his cofather-in-law warns him to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... business. Mr. Terry, desiring his company to excuse him for a few minutes, quitted the room. One hour elapsed—no bridegroom; two hours—he did not appear;—three—four—he was not returned: the bride's mind misgave her, and the hymeneal guests were quite alarmed: the servants declared that they had seen their master and the gentleman walk into the garden, from whence they were not returned. Now, a high brick wall, in which there was no outlet, and over which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... for the want of better information. Not because there is any want of valuable publications, for in the present age they abound; but rather because they contain such a variety of superfluous articles, and are too indiscriminate to become generally useful. A young female, just returned from the hymeneal altar, is ready to exclaim on the first perusal, as the philosopher did who visited the metropolis, 'How many things are here which I do not want!' The volume when purchased is often found to contain what is only or chiefly ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was frequently attended by these hymeneal solicitors, with whose importunity I was sometimes diverted, and sometimes perplexed; for they contended for me as vultures for a carcase; each employing all his eloquence, and all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the success of which he was to receive ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... painting and repairing began upon the very day of the young gentlemen's departure, and now behold! the wedding morning was come, and Cornelia, in a new pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to the hymeneal altar. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... wrathful Katy waiting for him, bearing the chalice that held the dregs of his joy. He might play pool at McCloskey's with his roistering friends until Aurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose. The hymeneal strings that had curbed him always when the Frogmore flats had palled upon him were ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— A thin wherein we feel there ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... hymeneal projects, and with the applause and consent of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the matter personally to her husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek John Sedley at his house of call in the City, the Tapioca Coffee-house, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pointed to the paragraph, and Helen saw it was certainly Paris—there could be no mistake. Here was a full account of the marriage, and a list of all "the fashionables who attended the fair bride to the hymeneal altar. Her father ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... all events, he never strayed From those hymeneal vows he made When their two loves combined; A matron more discreet than she Or husband more devote than he It would ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... imaginative element dying out, while the sexual element retains or perhaps even exaggerates its force, love will degenerate into lust. These three results depict the real union subsisting between three classes of husbands and wives, when the hymeneal glow has passed, and fixed realities assert their sway. The first is a hideous association of enemies, a yoked animosity; the second, a lukewarm connection of colleagues, an external partnership; the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... should be hand and glove with such a one as Lord Hampstead, that even a Crocker could raise a laugh against him! What would the world say when it should have become known that he intended to lead Lady Frances to the "hymeneal altar?" As he repeated the words to himself there was something ridiculous even to himself in the idea that the hymeneal altar should ever be mentioned in reference to the adventures of such a person as George ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... transitory scene, had become a personage as bulky as the widow herself, and the bed had been made unusually wide; the widow still retained the bed for her own use, for there was no knowing whether she might not again be induced to enter the hymeneal state. It occupied more than one half of the room, and the dog had gained a position from which it was not easy for two women to dislodge him; and, as the dog snarled and growled under the bed, so ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... call a perfect sample of the gay and careless sport," says I. "How does it happen that he's escaped the hymeneal ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... tell you that I felt that I should never care again, as my clothes began to bag about me, except to go down to the bottom and be quiet, but for the blessed thought of standing up some day, at the 'hymeneal altar,' as great people call it, with a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is certain that, upon the marine's return to the kitchen, one of the grooms, who ventured to banter him, received such a sound thrashing from Ben that it put an end to all further joking. As Ben had taken up the affair so seriously, it was presumed that if there had been anticipation of the hymeneal rites he was himself the party who had been hasty; and that now he was married, he was resolved to resent any impertinent remarks upon his conduct. At all events, the question now became one of less interest, as the scandal was of less importance; and as Ben ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... wittily remarked that "perhaps the most ardent admirer of hymeneal rites would cheerfully admit that he could not conceive St. Paul or St. John starting on a nuptial tour, accompanied by the latest fashions from Athens or Ephesus, and the graceful brides whom they ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers will contrive that the brave and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... importance in writing that one's statements command the confidence of the reader. If a reporter writes that the wreck he has just visited was the greatest in the history of railroading, or the bride the most beautiful ever joined in the bonds of holy wedlock before a hymeneal altar, or the flames the most lurid that ever lit a midnight sky, the reader merely snickers and turns to a story he can believe. The value of understatement cannot be overestimated. Probably the majority of the people of the United States are suspicious anyway of the truth of what ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... registrar's attendant, and offered to show him the way; but seeing himself now within range of his desire, he distanced the old chap up the four flights of stairs, and arrived wholly out of breath before the brass railing which guarded the hymeneal documents. A clerk as slow of intellect as the first, and even more somnolent, approached and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... as soon as you can, Miss Barrington," counseled David; "that is, if any hymeneal ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... does such absurd things! I thought, perhaps—these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous! Mrs. Doria had an idea that it might have been concerted between the two young gentlemen, Richard and Ralph, that the former should present this token of hymeneal devotion from the latter to the young lady of his love; but a moment's reflection exonerated boys even ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it real, What I saw as in a vision, When to marches hymeneal In the land of the Ideal Moved my thought o'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint— (Where did he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the Hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life (He's got ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... concern, addressing the assembled mourners, that she believed the heirs were trying to get rid of their incumbrances after the good old Borgia fashion, and that she would never again have the courage to eat a mouthful of food so long as she stood between her husband and a hymeneal fortune. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... until she had made them angry, when she would begin to cry herself, and kiss them violently one after the other, and coax them back into good-humour. Simple Harry Warrington, meanwhile, knew nothing of all the jokes, the tears, quarrels, reconciliations, hymeneal plans, and so forth, of which he was the innocent occasion. A hundred allusions to the Prussians and Persians were shot at him, and those Parthian arrows did not penetrate his hide at all. A Shaw? A Sophy? Very likely he thought a Sophy was a lady, and would have deemed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to make things secure, I penned a little paragraph for the county paper to this effect:—"Marriage in High Life. We understand that Ensign Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, and son of Thomas Stubbs, of Sloffemsquiggle, Esquire, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar the lovely and accomplished daughter of Solomon Crutty, Esquire, of the same place. A fortune of twenty thousand pounds is, we hear, the lady's portion. 'None but the brave ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tale, 'tis this. Once there lived a wicked knight, who wooed a maiden fair. But when that her heart was all his own, his love grew cold, and, turning from her, he refused to fulfil his plighted troth and lead her to the hymeneal altar. In fact, he loved and he rode away, leaving her as dismally disconsolate ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... muse of Love and hymeneal songs, wears a wreath of laurel, and is striking the chords ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... nuptial rites. Antonyms: celibacy, divorce, bachelorhood, maidenhood. Associated Words: misogamy, misogamist, affiance, affianced, affinity, intermarriage, conjugality, misalliance, agamist, benedict, betroth, betrothal, desponsory, ante-nuptial, sponsal, hymeneal, schatchen, connubial, connubiality, fiance, Hymen, fiancee, troth, plight, nuptial, nuptiality, postnuptial, morganatic, banns, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the marriage-tables nor the sound of many voices in hymeneal song, such as the bride's girl-mates are wont to sing at eventide with merry minstrelsy: but lo, she had longing for things otherwhere, even as many before and after. For a tribe there is most foolish among men, of such as scorn the things of home, and ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... no one knew how (probably from the servants) that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French officer, was shortly to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal altar; and that report very quickly found its way into the London papers: from the London papers it spread to the provincial—it reached the eyes of Sidney in his now gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he read it ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... QUEER QUERIES.—HYMENEAL.—I have been asked to attend the wedding of a friend, and respond to the toast of "The Ladies." I have never done such a thing before, and feel rather nervous about it. My friend says that I must "try and be very comic." I have thought of one humorous remark—about the "weaker ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... another opportunity may never occur again, for you foreign ladies are so difficult of access! Let me, then, seize this happy moment, here, beneath the hymeneal oaks, to offer you this faithful hand and this willing heart. Of fortune you will have enough for both, and I say nothing about the miserable dross. Reflect, Miss Eve, how happy we might be, protecting and soothing the old age of your father, and in going down the hill of life ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... husband, endeavoured to get hold of her hand. She snatched it away vixenishly. Hectic spots formed on his cheeks, and perspiration stood in great drops on his brow. This was clearly the first ruffle he had experienced on the hymeneal sea. He got out of the carriage at Cannes, and hung about the buffet till the extreme moment, hoping to betray her into tokens of uneasiness lest he should miss the train. As it was, at the final moment he swung himself into another carriage. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... of natural selection is that the female should choose her mate, but the difficulty along this line of argument is that she may choose where her choice is unwelcome and irresponsive. Manella was a splendid type of primitive womanhood,—healthy, warm-blooded and full of hymeneal passion,—as a wife she would have been devoted,—as a mother superb in her tenderness; but, measured by modern standards of advanced and restless femininity she was a mere drudge, without the ability to think for ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... I could give you a short narrative of my former prospects for happiness, since you have acknowledged to be an unchangeable confidant—the richest of all other blessings. Oh, ye names forever glorious, ye celebrated scenes, ye renowned spot of my hymeneal moments; how replete is your chart with sublime reflections! How many profound vows, decorated with immaculate deeds, are written upon the surface of that precious spot of earth where I yielded up ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... frigid looking allumeur, when Philip Custer came to the end of his letter. He hesitated for an instant, wrote "Your——," then crossed that out and substituted "Sincerely." No, decidedly the first ending, with its, as is, or, rather, as ordinarily is, the case in hymeneal epistles, somewhat possessive sense, would no longer suffice. "Yours truly"—perhaps; "sincerely"—better; but certainly not "Your husband." He was done, thank God, ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... as well as I do that it is against the law to hit a man that wears glasses. We'll call it quits if you'll promise that in the days to come you'll let me hang around your hymeneal ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... certain species of gas produced in the soils above which they hover; and that the notes of the death-watch, so far from being presages of death, are ascertained to be the notes of love and presages of hymeneal intercourse ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... and dipped in scented water, were scattered about the marriage-altar in love-knots and many fanciful and ingenious devices. A bride-cup rested upon it, in which lay a sprig of gilded rosemary—a relic or semblance of the ancient hymeneal torch. Huge tables, groaning with garniture for the approaching feast, were laid round the apartment—room being left in the central floor for all who chose to mingle in the games and dances ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... at last, bright and spring-like, with a sun that shone as gaily as if it had been lighting the happiest union that was ever recorded in the hymeneal register. There were the first rare primroses gleaming star-like amidst the early greenery of high grassy banks in solitary lanes about Crosber, and here and there the tender blue of a violet. It would have seemed a very fair morning upon which to begin the first page in the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... who has been fifteen years mourning for her first husband. Clive Newcome, "the first young man," if we may so call him, of the novel which I shall mention just now, is carried so far beyond his matrimonial elysium that we are allowed to see too plainly how far from true may be those promises of hymeneal happiness forever after. The cares of married life have settled down heavily upon his young head before we leave him. He not only marries, but loses his wife, and is left a melancholy widower with his son. Esmond ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... was alone with him, he embraced him and said more tenderly than usual: "You know how easy it will be for me to depart from life; but it would be easier still if I could leave you behind without anxiety, and that would happen if the hymeneal hymns at your marriage to Daphne preceded the dirges which will soon resound above my coffin. Yesterday I first became sure that she loves you, and, much good as you have in your nature, you owe the best ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... occasion, her hymeneal flame burned with so much warmth and purity, that she shared it with a linen-draper, and the circumstance became almost immediately known to the husband! This was a happy presage of future connubial felicity! The very day before this domestic exposure, and the happy vigil of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... comparative safety from her in a crowd. Bachelors and maidens who mingle by hundreds may remain bachelors and maidens. But pair them off in lonely places and see if the result is not amazingly hymeneal. A fellow who has run the gauntlet of seven years of parties in New York will marry the first agreeable girl whom he meets in Alaska. There is such a thing as leaving the haunts of men and repairing to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... originality and pretend to pity them? Never mind about the lies at the altar, the blasphemy against the godlike name of love, the sordid surrender, the smiling dishonour. What the deuce does a mariage de convenance mean but all this, and are not such sober Hymeneal torches more satisfactory often than the most brilliant love matches that ever flamed and burnt out? Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is laughing: let us pity the agonised duchess when her daughter, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "I go this day month. I march out of this house, and never come back—no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the hymeneal altar." ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... the church; and she and Lady Harriet went into a pew near the door to wait for the bride, in whose train they were to proceed to the altar. The earl drove on alone to fetch her from her own house, not a quarter of a mile distant. It was pleasant to her to be led to the hymeneal altar by a belted earl, and pleasant to have his daughter as a volunteered bridesmaid. Mrs. Kirkpatrick in this flush of small gratifications, and on the brink of matrimony with a man whom she liked, and who would be bound to support her without any exertion of her own, looked ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with the correspondence, it may be apropos to quote the last amorous letter he penned to his Marie before a cyclonic storm from the nor'east struck the Hymeneal ship, and carried away her masts and rigging, leaving a pair of plunging, leaky bulk-heads on the weary waste of the censorious world's waters. The envelope of this letter is indorsed in a female hand—evidently the forlorn hand of Marie: "Last ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... his; but it was not so fine as the Whitman one, and Henry would have regarded its removal with a jaundiced eye. His wife's silver, however, was quite a bit more handsome than the family silver, and he relinquished the latter with a gesture so graceful that any further donation of property to the hymeneal happiness seemed almost fulsome. Still he did make a further contribution—a costly ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... as benignly as a sheep of a drooping and flaccid wool by the farmer, who is reminded by the poor beast's appearance of a strange dog that worried the flock. Even Captain Benjamin, as you have seen, was unable to withstand the demand on him. The hymeneal pair are licensed freebooters levying blackmail on us; survivors of an uncivilized period. But in taking without mercy, I venture to trust that the manners of a happier era instruct them not to scorn ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... creative power revealed, Two stately cities filled with life the shield. Here nuptials—solemn rites—and throngs of gay Assembled guests; forth issuing filled the way. Bright blazed the torches as they swept along Through streets that rung with hymeneal song; And while gay youths, swift circling round and round, Danced to the pipe and harp's harmonious sound, The women thronged, and wondering as they viewed, Stood in each portal and the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... foregone conclusion fought like a tiger gala attire goes without saying hard-earned coin head over heels hotly contested hurled into eternity incontrovertible fact large and enthusiastic audience last sad rites last but not least led to the hymeneal altar madly in love marriage was consummated mooted question much interest was manifested one of the most unique popular citizen present incumbent presided at the punch bowl psychological moment put in his appearance received ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the rural districts the hymeneal torch diffusing only pale and somber rays, or, transformed into the flambeaux of furies, the hideous skeleton of superstition seated even on the nuptial couch, placed between nature and the wedded, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... days, the Marriage Act had not been passed, and there was no convenient hymeneal registrar in England to change a vagabond runaway couple into a respectable man and wife at a moment's notice. The trouble and expense of taking Mrs. Baggs with us, I encountered, of course, solely out of regard for Alicia's natural prejudices. She had led precisely ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... say that he had shown it parentally while the tragedy was threatening, or at least there was danger of a precipitate descent from the levels of comedy. The parents of hymeneal men and women he was indisposed to consider as dramatis personae. Nor did he mention certain sympathetic regrets he entertained in contemplation of the health of Mr. Dale, for whom, poor gentleman, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... takes Elaria by the Hand; Charmante, Bellemante; two of the Singers in white being Priests, they lead 'em to the Altar, the whole Company dividing on either side. Where, while a Hymeneal Song is sung, the Priest joins their Hands: The Song ended, and they marry'd, they come forth; but before they come forward, two Chariots descend one on one side above, and the other on the other side; in which ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... not altogether an hymeneal month, but it was not till November that Lady Mary Palliser became the wife of Frank Tregear. It was postponed a little, perhaps, in order that the Silverbridges,—as they were now called,—might be present. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... most abhorred they hymeneal rites, And boasted oft the freedom of their fate: Nor 'vailed, as they opined, its best delights Those ills to balance that on wedlock wait; And often would they tell of henpecked fool Snubbed by the hard behest of sour-eyed dame. And vowed no tongue-armed woman's freakish ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission. Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... delighted father, doubly blest, Resigned his daughter to his glorious guest, The people shared the gladness which it gave, The union of the beauteous and the brave. To grace their nuptial day—both old and young, The hymeneal gratulations sung: "May this young moon bring happiness and joy, And every source of enmity destroy." The marriage-bower received the happy pair, And love and transport shower'd ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... he sculptured two fair cities of articulate-speaking men. In one of these were wedding-festivals; and, with a blaze of torchlight, the brides were conducted from their chambers along the streets; while the hymeneal song was loud, and the youths whirled round and round in the giddy dance, to the music of flute and harp; while the women stood at their doors, watching and admiring. In that city he also fashioned ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... I was now to choose a wife. I chose her by the numeration table: Units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I was content, in the language of the newspapers, to lead to the Hymeneal altar any fashionable fair one whose fortune came under the sixth place of figures. No sooner were my dispositions known than the friends of a young heiress, who wanted to purchase a coronet, settled a match between us. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn to disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches: the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites of the church, Theodora ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Fifty beautiful youths, in silken robes, carried a basin in each hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value. Attalus, so long the sport of fortune and of the Goths, was appointed to lead the chorus of the hymeneal song; and the degraded Emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph; and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... him; but should any capricious artist take the sickle out of the hand of old Time, and in its place put Hymen's torch, the picture might be thought very unnatural, yet would represent a proper hymeneal Cupid to attend Mr Morgan to ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... which may once have been striking and effective, or witty and felicitous, but which have become worn out by oft-repeated use, should be avoided. The following hackneyed phrases will serve to illustrate: "The staff of life," "gave up the ship," "counterfeit presentment," "the hymeneal altar," "bold as a lion," "throw cold water upon," "the rose upon the cheek," "lords of creation," "the weaker sex," "the better half," "the rising generation," "tripping the light fantastic toe," "the cup that ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel |
